Civilization IV Opening Strategy Walkthrough #2

[tks2103]

I've decided to continue this series with another playthrough!

I heard all of your suggestions about continuing the last playthrough, and I think I might do that. However, I'd like to focus our strategy discussion on the early turns first. We can return to the mid-game strategy later, hopefully in another series!

Please post comments and criticism! I'd like to get better at the game and better at providing videos. THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK!

This playthrough looks like it will be very strong =P!

Link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=58F1065F62DB2C9F

 

[slobberinbear]

some quibbles, really a matter of personal style:

1. You could have easily gotten that second hut to Timbuktu's west without messing up your exploration plan.

2. I would have roaded the corn while waiting for AH to come in, then pastured and roaded the cows. This saves worker turns later, so you don't have to run back and road them.

3. With stone nearby, I would make a move on the Great Wall and start roading towards the west and get going on a settler ASAP for that purpose.

4. I have no issue with beelining writing (especially with chariots and possibly the Great Wall), but with this start I would consider trying for Judaism/Monotheism to get a great early civic and a religion.

 

[Navarre]

Hi, I liked the first walkthrough, can't wait to see how this one gonna turn. I'd really like to see a complete game, to see how you use these first turns in the rest of the game. Playing below your level, a 3 cities start just feels horrible, and yet you're happy with it, so I'd like to see how it turns.

I agree with your approach on Spiritual, it's vastly underrated. I used to not like it either, but it's really good to changes civics as you need them, as often as you need it. Regenerating the gold start felt a little bit heretic, but you've got quite a great start here too. Can't wait to see how it turns this time.

BTW, did you consider playing with the BUG Mod ? Lots of people play with it, and it would give more tools to illustrate your plans, like the strategy layer to make dots maps.

 

[Loki Strikes]

@sloberrinthebear I am not a big fan of early wonders on pangea, land goes fastttt, however its only emperor so probably less of an issue, in this case I think the mine is probably a good move instead of the roads as an extra improved tile imo is more important than an extra health in the early game, early religion I rarely do, and on pangea again it seems to be sacrificing expansion when expansion is the most important, and you know for sure buddha and hindu will be nearby and it will be hard and expensive hammerwise to compete

@tks Writing move is good (0% science after getting it I assume to wait for library), not too sure on going through pottery first in this case as in your capital I don't see cottages in immediate future and in city site 2 I expect you will build a worker/have a couple tiles to improve, I am katakid1 on yt btw

 

[tks2103]

@slobberinbear: I think I agree with your road estimation. I forgot I had The Wheel.
@Navarre: I prefer not to use mods. I try to steer clear of anything above my preferred level of micromanagement, and I feel like BUG would have me stressing over WHEOORN too much. However, it might be the right choice for these videos.

 

[Negator_UK]

I prefer not to use mods.

Me too.

 

[Shurdus]

A tip: always check where the AI scouts are coming from. Try to not end your turn when you met an AI unless you spotted the unit that made you meet the AI.

You do not comment on where the units come from and what that means for your expansion although I think it is a big deal.

EDIT: you met the american pretty soon, so settling the riverside corn to the south may be a big issue here. The land seems very solid there as well so you can really demonstrate some early financial riverside cottages. If you feel like not being in the Roosevelt diplomatic club you can always settle on the hill next to the river. From a devensive POV that city will be safe with 2 or 3 skirmishers and a bit of chariot scouting for stacks from your side.

The west might also be contested with Justinian there. I am not a big fan of moving the warrior back once you started him in a direction - in your case you made him go east after exploring west first. Right now you do not know where either AI is. The east might have been scouted with your filler-warrior that you produced in the capitol as well.

 

[Udey1]

Good videos, you are really doing a service for everyone. Thanks for your effort.

I have one thing to add: In this current video you might want to mention the scroll-over trick to reveal freshwater.

When you regen'd and tried to figure out whether that lake was freshwater, I know you couldn't tell because there was a river there, but you may want to mention that you can scroll over tiles to check freshwater or not (which sometimes can give away an inland lake) since this is a walkthrough.

A minor note, Good job again.

About BUG, you might want to use it actually. With all of its help you can actually speed up your speed of play. And lessen your micro! I know you are probably not thinking so but:

1. you can see the hammer overflow/gold conversion rates when you whip (before you whip) I saw you repeatedly guessing and checking cities for the whip in your first video. BUG could have taken care of alot of that checking by giving you a warning.

2. Also on whipping Bug will tell you when the city will regain its happiness, or when cities are about to go unhappy.

3. Easy to keep track of GPP value and timing without going to each city and guessing

4. Those are just the things I saw that would have helped you in just the 1st 100 turns, I am sure it would help you even more than that.

All the above do not really add to any micro you already were having the hassle of doing. I would consider it.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

@Navarre: I prefer not to use mods. I try to steer clear of anything above my preferred level of micromanagement, and I feel like BUG would have me stressing over WHEOORN too much. However, it might be the right choice for these videos.

BUG mod is quite useful, but it does eat up LOTS of processing power. You can really tell the difference when it is running in the background vs when it is not.

NPM

 

[learner gamer]

Good videos, you are really doing a service for everyone. Thanks for your effort.

Completely endorse this point...hopefully you receive some good advice in return to help your game too.

A tip: always check where the AI scouts are coming from. Try to not end your turn when you met an AI unless you spotted the unit that made you meet the AI. You do not comment on where the units come from and what that means for your expansion although I think it is a big deal.

Agreed - it's worthwhile mentioning the direction scouts come from IMHO since it can help identify (i) areas worth further exploration (ii) target(s) for a rush (especially on lower levels) and (iii) areas worth settling for blocking value.

I agree with your approach on Spiritual, it's vastly underrated.

Agreed, was thinking exactly that when you mentioned it.

1. You could have easily gotten that second hut to Timbuktu's west without messing up your exploration plan. 2. I would have roaded the corn while waiting for AH to come in, then pastured and roaded the cows.

Great points. @tks2103: was the reason you scouted the land (even though you could see it was tundra) because you believe the value of revealing tiles exceeds popping a hut (eg. because the villagers may be hostile) or simply to avoid popping another tech?

Re: tech. Out of curio, why go pottery > writing, rather than say writing > bronze working? Are you planning on building cottages or a granary?

Most important point you made IMHO: "hindsight is 20/20...can't beat ourselves up too much about that". So true.

 

[Shurdus]

Re: tech. Out of curio, why go pottery > writing, rather than say writing > bronze working? Are you planning on building cottages or a granary?

MM is financial so early cottages are a big deal, especially when riverside. Also pottery is a worker tech and a prereq for writing. As such, researching pottery first makes it so that writing becomes cheaper.

Not only that, but there were not that many forrests for chopping and he already had horses. this makes it so that revealing copper is not a huge issue just yet. All this speaks in favor of pottery and writing rather than BW imo.

 

[learner gamer]

@Shurdus, thanks...was aware of the merits, just agreed with Loki Strikes I guess. Perhaps it explains why I'm still stuck on monarch. It's always interesting / valuable to see how the better gamers play the same map.

 

[Kingjester1]

MM is financial so early cottages are a big deal, especially when riverside. Also pottery is a worker tech and a prereq for writing. As such, researching pottery first makes it so that writing becomes cheaper.

Not only that, but there were not that many forrests for chopping and he already had horses. this makes it so that revealing copper is not a huge issue just yet. All this speaks in favor of pottery and writing rather than BW imo.

I think that since MM is spiritual, it might have been an interesting choice to take bronze working early to utilize slavery and use civic changing to avoid the slavery uprising events when needed.

 

[Shurdus]

I think that since MM is spiritual, it might have been an interesting choice to take bronze working early to utilize slavery and use civic changing to avoid the slavery uprising events when needed.

The start is not exactly heavy on the food, reducing the use of slavery. Also you need to wait 5 turns in order to switch civics. This makes it so that he needs to be in slavery 5 turns for a whip before he can switch back again. It is not very effective to play like that - although granted, it is very possible, but this is not really where spiritual shines.

 

[sherbz]

One thing i noticed on your first videos is that you didnt build monuments for the culture pop. You used libraries instead. Is this what you always do or was its just a circumstantial type of thing. I usually tech mysticism if not creative for the added culture. A monument only requires 1 population, and usually you have at least one food resource per city so whipping is quite easy. This is usually quite important for culture wars later IMO. Unless you get a wonder (which is hard on emperor without a strategic resource\without the industrioyus trait) then culture can bve a significant problem, especially from a creative civ. If you think about it, a monument adds 50% of culture to your city (assuming you build libraries). On a pangea map you are bound to have border problems with another civ who is your ally, so culture is the only way of combatting them.

I think roading would have been a better option than mining the hill. Seeming as you have no rivers (or very few), and roosevelt came from the east, you will need to expand in that direction neways, so roading to that effect would make sense. Also, like i said in the comments section on youtube (flobbing donkey), the health bonus is not important for your capital, but it can be VERY important for your second, third or fourth city (of which location you do not know at this point). If that city is slap bang in the middle of a jungle then it needs the +2 health in order to not have unhealthiness and produce a unit/worker quicker.

Im not too sure about the value of an early wonder. I spose the great wall is a possibility. But in my experience of pangea on emperor is that you dont often need it because the AI expands very quickly and kills off the chances of barbs spawning. Also, a great spy is probably the worst early great person you can pop, unless you are going for an espionage based economy/tech strategy, but this is usually quite ineffective IMO, and highly circumstantial.

As for BUG, i think you should use it. It doesnt really aid you in any great way, it just allows you to not do things like check on cities/foreign advisor for curcial information. Its not so important in your early walkthroughs, but for your mid to late game ones id definately reccommend. It would allow you to talk/show more of the game without doing pointless crap like check to see when you can whip.

Great series though. Im really enjoying them. Kepp it up.

 

[roberteriksson]

Yeah just got to add to the chorus; great work, like watching these.

 

[gspchamp999]

Are the rest of the 100 turns posted yet?