CFP Series No. IV

[ChienFou]

ChienFou Prince Series No.4

I'm now playing on Prince all the time; Warlords 2.08, Epic speed, fractal, std settings. (Santa has promised me BtS). I'm still only winning about 25% of my games.

I'm convinced I still don't have a sufficient Plan. ... but I am definitely micro-managing better. So, with your co-operation hopefully I can make something of this randomly drawn Toku start.

4000BC

Playing toku suggests I need to go for domination via war. As obsolete would say "ATTACK ATTACK". We start with fishing and roads and I've got a seafood tile if I build in place. At this stage I only have a script - it seems hard to have a plan.
Script:
Build Workboat, Worker;
Research Hunting, AH to get the piggies in. I have time to fit in one other research before the worker is ready - which?
I seem to be North of the equator; so send the warrior N then West, to see if I'm in the top right corner of my landmass and then do a circuit.

Is this the right approach for my start?.


Gamefile start

TIA guys, I hope this is a sensible use of your time; I really appreciate it. CF

 

[madscientist]

Looks like a good toku starting position.

I would settle in place.

Build a workboat and work one of the grassland/forrest tiles.

See if you have resources to the west. If you have corn/rice/wheat tech agriculture, then AH. If not grain, hunting/AH would be my preference.

After the WB is finished I would build a worker.

After AH, go archery. Toku is protective so take advantage of that. After that then the mining/BW combo.

I am also a fan of waiting until the capital pop reaches the happy limit then build a settler.

Good luck

 

[absimiliard]

Your script sounds pretty reasonable.

I might modify your tech path a bit though. All those forests beg for BW for chopping, and you may be low-production since we only see one hill. Additionally Fish gives you excellent food potential at the start. So I might put off hunting>AH in favor of mining>BW so I could chop out some early production.

I'm thinking your long-term planning should include your capitol being highly cottaged and using CS to maximize it's commerce. This probably means you should consider trying for a production city as one of your first cities.

Always tough to go much beyond that sort of planning at this stage. Go out and scout some, when you know you land and neighbors you can plan more. Actually, I guess you can plan on one more thing. As Tokugawa you should definitely plan on using that Pro/Agg combo for some early warring.

-abs

 

[Zanttu]

I would go Agriculture instead of Hunting on the way to AH since you have some time before your worker is finished. You won't need hunting(->Archery) for long time if you don't have its recources and you find some other things to defend you with, copper or horses. Agriculture is a tech you should research soon in any case (note I'm a SE player, that probably explains my love for Agriculture.) So I would go Agriculture->AH->Mining->BW->(now Hunting->Archery if you don't see any horses or copper nearby.)

 

[ChienFou]

I might modify your tech path a bit though. All those forests beg for BW for chopping, and you may be low-production since we only see one hill. Additionally Fish gives you excellent food potential at the start. So I might put off hunting>AH in favor of mining>BW so I could chop out some early production.

This seems to kinda work. I can develop the hill chop until I can do the piggies then do some cottaging. That would suggest Mining>BW>Hunting/Agr>AH>Pottery and this gives me time to decide on Agr or Hunting to give me AH. Pottery comes cheaper via Agr. - is this what you have in mind? Already you've made me think

...a bit later ...

Settle in place is overwhelming. So, I settled in place, leaving my warrior his first move still available.

Argghh! another decision! There's a goody hut 5 moves to the South of the warrior. It's on the second border pop. Do I go fetch it now (going SW, then SE) or take a larger circuit, risking losing it to another civ? I'm for going for it now, and then restarting the circuit from the South.

 

[r_rolo1]

Do not pop the hut ASAP... it is far more important to know the countryside.

I would not go chopcrazy.... the city seems limited in terms of prod ( altough I bet there is a metal in the plains hill ( not forested ) ) so I would only chop the riverside forests. This said, I would go Mining -> BW as well and would build WB -> ( maybe warrior to let city grow a little more ) -> worker

 

[mystyfly]

havent you blown up eighter you thread title or your leaders name?

 

[ChienFou]

Yeah, it's the 4th game I've tried to publish, but I advance my leader by one when I win, so I've got 5 Prince wins now (out of about 20 games)

Well, I decided to grab the goody hut, and run the warrior round the circuit from the South. The Goody hut popped for 28 Gold. I reckoned I'd be in 2700 before I got to the goody hut otherwise.

and then I started the clockwise circuit; noting a choke point in the South. popping Hunting from a hut

and allowed the workboat to finish at the same time as reaching size 3, before starting the worker. It cost me 3 turns but I figured the worker would finish quicker with the extra size of the city and I'd get the time back.

My warrior ate a couple of lions and I promoted him to Woodsman 1, healed and then popped a third goody hut for another warrior. He set off South to look at the choke point and explore past it while I finished the circuit with the original warrior.

Bronze working arrived in 3070BC; there is copper but not too convenient. and since Hunting had been popped I set straight into AH. This will allow the mine then the piggies fairly comfortably, then some chopping while I do Agr and Pottery.

I stopped when the worker arrived in 2860. I've set to build a Scout, but that can be changed. Here's the landmass top to bottom with Southern Warrior about to explore the isthmus and Northern Warrior finishing his circuit.

So what do we do now? I guess I should have a shot at the GE wonders (GW, Pyr, HGoB) so I can lightbulb machinery while bee-lining CS, but I'm worried we haven't met anyone yet .... and in the meantime I'll need another worker for the chopping, so I think I'll build another, then with the piggies in, grow to happiness cap, chopping settlers and building barracks. I take the point about only chopping riverside trees.

I've got a little more time to explore South before I decide where to Build 2nd and 3rd city and AH hasn't yet shown up the geegees. One more worker I think and then I can try a dotmap.

 

[Charou]

I guess I should have a shot at the GE wonders (GW, Pyr, HGoB) .

It´s a shame that the stone is in a crapy spot.
On top of that there are not so many ressources.

 

[Zanttu]

... My god that land is crappy ! Almost no resources, 3 average lenght rivers (2 of them starting from desert...EDIT: In fact ALL of them start from desert!!), pretty big desert area... 5 peaks next to the western rice makes that spot even worse... The stone is in middle of a desert...Only 3-resource city spot is far away from your capital... The best area seems to be to the south, but you need to clear the jungle first... Well, there's of course unrevealed area to the north of you, but I wouldn't except more than 1-2 decent city spots there.. Sometimes it seems the better your capital is, the worse the area around you will be, but this time your capital is just decent. 2 resources and low production. This is probably the worst land I've ever seen! Well, more challenge then...

 

[Killroyan]

There better be iron and horses nearby otherwise I have to agree that this is some of the crappiest land I have seen. But even with these two resources it will be hard to get anything going. Better scout south quickly. The only viable spot I see is the sheep, deer, copper site. Good luck.

 

[ChienFou]

2860-1960

Well, we're isolated. Toku doesn't function isolated in my opinion, but there are 2 islands to the South, so maybe we can go island hopping. I had bad luck with bears who ate Northern Warrior, and a scout I built to replace him, but I've just about finished exploring. I built the 2nd worker, and AH showed geegees in the BFC too, so my workers have plenty to do. After AH I went for Pottery, so I could cottage the riverside tiles, and I used the chops to produce a settler while I was growing a warrior. One good piece of luck was popping metal casting from the last hut I found in 2020BC

I switched to slavery while the settler was cautiously going North. I delay this switch until I've built the settler but not yet founded the 2nd city - I think that must be right.

The capital reached its happiness cap, so I started working the first cottage and started to build a granary; WHIP; WHIP; WHIP

I figured the crab piggy rice site would give me another city I can use for CE, so I planted it next to the piggies; I'm going to have to tech like crazy I think. After Pottery I started Agr, and that's almost complete; the warrior is fogbusting the route to the 2nd city. Here's the map:

I need to pop the 2nd city - Mysticism for Stonehenge makes sense if I want the stone wonders, and that places 3rd city too. Otherwise I have to tech to writing and build a library; which feels very slow. I can get a 3rd city onto the stone fairly quickly by comparison, though it's going to be a c**p city wherever it goes.

As for the islands I also need to research sailing to build a galley to get there, and that'll give me lighthouses for more research.

So, to summarise (*) items popped: We went (Fish) > (Wheel) > Min > BW > Huntg* > AH > Pottery > MC* > Agr and I propose Myst > Masonry > Sail

City 1 to build a granary; whip a settler; chop a worker
City 2 get the piggies in so it'll grow hence the granary, then a couple of chariots
Found a 3rd city next to the stone and try to get Stonehenge built - probably in stone city

It's not a good start, but what else could I have done?

 

[Zanttu]

Well, at least there was 1 good city site in the fog. You now have 2 pretty good cities, thanks to those horses popping in your capitals BFC. I wouldn't go for the stone, because it's in so crappy spot. Best spot for a city grabbing it would be 1N, 1NW, but that would be 1 tile off coast and really limited food. Next city I think should be placed 1SE of the southern rice. Then one city up to the north, on the sheep/copper/deer spot. One to the south on the plains square grabbing horses+pig while being coastal. 2 cities to the west, one on the grass hill just north of those 5 peaks (rice, fresh water and coastal) and another one to the river area to your SW. (Really low priority city, no resources and only 2 grassland farms post-biology.) Last city to the north grabbing whales+crabs.

P.S. Sorry, I'm just too lazy for making dotmaps, I hope it's not too hard to understand what I mean

 

[absimiliard]

I really, Really, REALLY, don't like your land.

I'd restart. Even if you win, are you going to enjoy the game?

I should caveat this advice with the warning that I rarely play beyond the Classical Age. I generally find the early game most interesting. Once my REX/Early-war is over and I've rebuilt my economy the rest starts to feel too much like just pushing "next turn" if being peaceful or never doing anything other than war if I'm not. Basically, I'm lazy and easily bored.

That said, I'd be bored w. this map at this point.

Maybe you should be too.

-abs

 

[Zanttu]

I should caveat this advice with the warning that I rarely play beyond the Classical Age. I generally find the early game most interesting. Once my REX/Early-war is over and I've rebuilt my economy the rest starts to feel too much like just pushing "next turn" if being peaceful or never doing anything other than war if I'm not. Basically, I'm lazy and easily bored.

I rarely finish my games either. At some point the game becomes boring for some reason. Sometimes it's isolation, sometimes it's the fact that I know I've won already, sometimes I know I'll lose, etc. The Classical age indeed is the most interesting part of the game IMHO.

 

[ChienFou]

I will play on; there are 2 islands to look at; and I can try a CE to keep up to tech speed. However, like those who've just posted; I'm a bit dis-satisfied with this start, because nothing will happen till I get dogpiled and by then samurai will be out of date. this map is NOT a good toku map. I'll report back when I've put in a couple of hours on it and unless things look up will probably abandon it. that seems best; you don't want to be advising on a game that's going nowhere, and I don't want to put the effort into producing the screens and writing a thoughtful treatise. Watch out for CFP No. 5; let's just hope I've got to ChienFou VII by then

 

[ChienFou]

Well, I did play on ... I needn't have bothered. I went the writing and libraries route for border pops, so i could get scientists running. I whipped everything I could and worked very hard at the micromanagement. Got to about 5 cities (Southern Rice, NW Copper and sheep and I did found the stone city. I managed to keep the research slider at about 60%. I did get the GW; and a couple of other wonders, like HGoB, but by the time I'd got CoL and sorted out my economy time had marched on. I then beelined Optics and won the circumnavigation bonus, but before I'd even finished Astronomy, everyone else had it; and I was so far behind in the tech race it was painful.

Shall I try again? Roll the RNG again and try ChienFou VI again in CFP Series No. 5?

Thanks guys for all your help, whatever you decide. CF

 

[Charou]

That said, I'd be bored w. this map at this point.

Maybe you should be too.

oh come on !


what about the challenge ?
there's always something to learn from a subpar game.

EDIT: ( to chienfou )good job on not quiting in the ancient area. Better luck on the next roll !

 

[absimiliard]

You probably have a good point Charou.

I've just played so damn many games out that I'm generally done before the Renaissance, sometimes I'm done when the Classical era ends. It's not so much that I quit when I'm challenged, I'll quit if I'm way ahead, even, or behind. I'm just not terribly interested in the late-game.

(This is probably my real-world schooling kicking in. My bachelor's was in archaeology and in while I love ancient history anything with a CE [or AD] in it's date tends to bore me to tears unless it's pre-Columbian American. So my lack of interest in late-game Civ is probably a combo of my awareness of how critical the early period is and my lack of interest in modern history, where I define modern as anything post-Roman.)

-abs