Hello all! I am starting this thread to serve as a comprehensive play-through of Chieftain difficulty for newbie players. I'm not that great of a player so I'll be learning at the same time you do. The important thing is that my write ups will be thorough so that everyone here knows exactly what I am doing at all times. I'd like to get the advice of both newbies and veterans as I go through the game. However, if you grab a save and play it ahead of where I am, don't spoil it for anyone please. Also, keep in mind that we aren't focused on perfect play - we are focused more on fun and some learning mixed in.
Without further adieu, let's get started! I created the game with the following settings:
Game Edition: Beyond The Sword v3.17
Map Type: Pangaea
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: Medium
World Size: Small
Shoreline: Random
Civilization: Random
Difficulty: Chieftain
Game Speed: Normal
And the intro screen:
It looks as though the computer has decided we are playing as Hannibal of Carthage. Let's look at Hannibal's leader traits (which I got from this page):
FINANCIAL
CHARISMATIC
For those of you who don't know, commerce is the little coin icon on a tile when you double click a city (there are bread slices, hammers, and coins). Commerce is turned into either research (beakers) or wealth (gold in upper left). So it looks like our cities will be both happier and wealthier than normal, our empire will produce research faster, and our troops will upgrade faster, but we don't get any buildings at half cost. I always find that happiness is a bigger limiting factor in my games as opposed to health, but that may be because I sometimes go a little crazy sacrificing population to rush builds with slavery. The song "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads is playing in my head right now for some reason...
Anyway, let's take a look at the unique unit for Carthage, the Numidian Cavalry which replaces the Horse Archer. It has the following statistics (which I found from this page), of which the changed items are bolded in red for penalties and blue for bonuses:
NUMIDIAN CAVALRY
Quick tangent, the page I linked to above has outdated material for the regular Horse Archer. It's missing a couple of things (like the withdrawal chance). I double checked with the civilopedia in game. I think it wasn't updated after BtS came out. Who do I contact about that so that it can be updated?
OK, back to our game... So our replacement for the Horse Archer unfortunately has 1 less strength than a regular horse archer (which is strength 6), but against Melee units it is actually better with the special bonus, ranking at a 7.5 (strength 5 * 150% vs melee = 7.5). I guess that means it's a bit weaker fighting Mounted and Archery units (which are the only two other types we'll experience while our unique unit is useful before upgrading). Let's hope we're the only ones with horses and our enemies build a lot of melee. It also gets a free promotion - Flanking I. Now, what the crap does Flanking I do? I have no idea, so it's a good thing this page exists!
FLANKING I
Ok that's kind of cool... I guess? I don't intend to throw my units at anything I probably won't win, so having a 30% withdrawal chance (20% base + 10% from Flanking I) isn't that important to me. Maybe it's more useful at higher difficulties? I dunno...
Moving on, let's take a look at our unique building, the Cothon which replaces the Harbor. It has the following stats (which I found from this page), again with the bolding scheme I used before:
COTHON
OK so our unique building gives us an extra trade route for our cities, but they have to be coastal cities. I won't lie, I don't have the foggiest clue how powerful trade routes are (or even really how they work), but I suppose this is a good thing since we're Financial too. I guess this would be the perfect game for me to force myself to learn about trade routes then. Let's hope we have some coastal cities.
Finally, let's do a quick review of our starting technologies - Fishing and Mining. I used this page to get the info:
FISHING
MINING
So it looks like our civilization would be really good near water. Coastal tiles give 2 base commerce without any improvements or modifiers, which means with our Financial trait that would be 3 commerce from the get go. We can already work coastal tiles from turn 1 because we start with fishing. And we want coastal cities even more because then we can make good use of our unique building.
Now that we've reviewed our leader and civilization traits, let's take a peak at our starting position:
YAY! Coastal city! We'll get to try out Hannibal's unique building and take advantage of his starting tech & coastal commerce boost for faster research. We have 3 clams too - that's a good start! We'll grow fast. But now I notice something else... WE HAVE 2 FISH RIGHT ABOVE THEM!!! I didn't see the little splashy splashy animation of the fishies immediately, but notice that 2 of the farther ocean tiles have 2 food instead of 1. So even if we settle in place, that's FIVE (count 'em, FIVE!) seafood resources right there!! NICE! We have a bunch of grasslands with forests as well, and one plains hill, one grasslands hill, and one oasis. We'll be able to work the hills as soon as we get a worker because we start with mining, but we'll need bronze working to improve any other tile since we'd have to chop the forest first. At least we can build farms in almost all of those tiles immediately since the oasis provides fresh water. There are no land resources that we can see from here, but the fog of war might be hiding stuff tot he south. I think it might be a hill 2 south of my settler based on the curve of the tree line just entering the fog (I zoomed in real close to see). We'll be even luckier if horses are near our starting position to make use of our unique unit! Overall, a great starting location I think!
As far as initial city placement, what do you guys think? The AI is telling us to settle one east, or we can settle in place. We should probably move the warrior first before we make a decision. And with that, here is the save file:
http://georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/saves/Civ 4 Dummies - Game 1 - Hannibal Chieftain - BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
Without further adieu, let's get started! I created the game with the following settings:
Game Edition: Beyond The Sword v3.17
Map Type: Pangaea
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: Medium
World Size: Small
Shoreline: Random
Civilization: Random
Difficulty: Chieftain
Game Speed: Normal
And the intro screen:
It looks as though the computer has decided we are playing as Hannibal of Carthage. Let's look at Hannibal's leader traits (which I got from this page):
FINANCIAL
- +1 commerce on plots with at least 2 commerce.
CHARISMATIC
- +1 happiness per city.
- -25% XP needed for unit promotions.
- +1 happiness from Monument and Broadcast Tower.
For those of you who don't know, commerce is the little coin icon on a tile when you double click a city (there are bread slices, hammers, and coins). Commerce is turned into either research (beakers) or wealth (gold in upper left). So it looks like our cities will be both happier and wealthier than normal, our empire will produce research faster, and our troops will upgrade faster, but we don't get any buildings at half cost. I always find that happiness is a bigger limiting factor in my games as opposed to health, but that may be because I sometimes go a little crazy sacrificing population to rush builds with slavery. The song "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads is playing in my head right now for some reason...
Anyway, let's take a look at the unique unit for Carthage, the Numidian Cavalry which replaces the Horse Archer. It has the following statistics (which I found from this page), of which the changed items are bolded in red for penalties and blue for bonuses:
NUMIDIAN CAVALRY
- Strength: 5
- Movement: 2
- Cost: 50
- Tech Requirements: Archery, Horseback Riding
- Resource Requirements: Horse
- Immune to first strikes
- Doesn't receive defensive bonuses
- Can withdraw from combat (20% chance)
- Flank attack against Catapults and Trebuchets
- Starts with Flanking I
- +50% attack vs. Catapults and Trebuchets
- +50% vs. Melee Units
Quick tangent, the page I linked to above has outdated material for the regular Horse Archer. It's missing a couple of things (like the withdrawal chance). I double checked with the civilopedia in game. I think it wasn't updated after BtS came out. Who do I contact about that so that it can be updated?
OK, back to our game... So our replacement for the Horse Archer unfortunately has 1 less strength than a regular horse archer (which is strength 6), but against Melee units it is actually better with the special bonus, ranking at a 7.5 (strength 5 * 150% vs melee = 7.5). I guess that means it's a bit weaker fighting Mounted and Archery units (which are the only two other types we'll experience while our unique unit is useful before upgrading). Let's hope we're the only ones with horses and our enemies build a lot of melee. It also gets a free promotion - Flanking I. Now, what the crap does Flanking I do? I have no idea, so it's a good thing this page exists!
FLANKING I
- +10% Withdrawal Chance
Ok that's kind of cool... I guess? I don't intend to throw my units at anything I probably won't win, so having a 30% withdrawal chance (20% base + 10% from Flanking I) isn't that important to me. Maybe it's more useful at higher difficulties? I dunno...
Moving on, let's take a look at our unique building, the Cothon which replaces the Harbor. It has the following stats (which I found from this page), again with the bolding scheme I used before:
COTHON
- Can only be built in a coastal city
- +1 trade route
- +1 health from Fish, Crab, Clams
- +50% commerce from trade routes
OK so our unique building gives us an extra trade route for our cities, but they have to be coastal cities. I won't lie, I don't have the foggiest clue how powerful trade routes are (or even really how they work), but I suppose this is a good thing since we're Financial too. I guess this would be the perfect game for me to force myself to learn about trade routes then. Let's hope we have some coastal cities.
Finally, let's do a quick review of our starting technologies - Fishing and Mining. I used this page to get the info:
FISHING
- Can work water tiles
- Can create Fishing Boats
MINING
- Can build mines
So it looks like our civilization would be really good near water. Coastal tiles give 2 base commerce without any improvements or modifiers, which means with our Financial trait that would be 3 commerce from the get go. We can already work coastal tiles from turn 1 because we start with fishing. And we want coastal cities even more because then we can make good use of our unique building.
Now that we've reviewed our leader and civilization traits, let's take a peak at our starting position:
YAY! Coastal city! We'll get to try out Hannibal's unique building and take advantage of his starting tech & coastal commerce boost for faster research. We have 3 clams too - that's a good start! We'll grow fast. But now I notice something else... WE HAVE 2 FISH RIGHT ABOVE THEM!!! I didn't see the little splashy splashy animation of the fishies immediately, but notice that 2 of the farther ocean tiles have 2 food instead of 1. So even if we settle in place, that's FIVE (count 'em, FIVE!) seafood resources right there!! NICE! We have a bunch of grasslands with forests as well, and one plains hill, one grasslands hill, and one oasis. We'll be able to work the hills as soon as we get a worker because we start with mining, but we'll need bronze working to improve any other tile since we'd have to chop the forest first. At least we can build farms in almost all of those tiles immediately since the oasis provides fresh water. There are no land resources that we can see from here, but the fog of war might be hiding stuff tot he south. I think it might be a hill 2 south of my settler based on the curve of the tree line just entering the fog (I zoomed in real close to see). We'll be even luckier if horses are near our starting position to make use of our unique unit! Overall, a great starting location I think!
As far as initial city placement, what do you guys think? The AI is telling us to settle one east, or we can settle in place. We should probably move the warrior first before we make a decision. And with that, here is the save file:
http://georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/saves/Civ 4 Dummies - Game 1 - Hannibal Chieftain - BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
3
oasis or the 3
hill to start. I would recommend the oasis, growth is a luxury you will appreciate when we get to building the workers and settlers. Then an improved Clam for 4
.
. Does oasis count as 1/2 resource? Seafood surely does. He's already got 2.5-3 resources here though, so I'm not so sure we're going to see iron or copper in this BFC, though I guess it can't be ruled out. Would you avoid settling on that to see if you get the resource dave?
