[BTS] Couple of maps for you all to try, seeking insight

[Fool's Gold]

(New here, not sure if this should've gone into the Awesome Starts thread from 2021 or if it was better to start a new one.)

I picked up Civ 4 a couple of years ago and have been trying to finish games since then, but my traits (Perfectionist, Distractible) are probably a bad combination for any kind of victory condition - and when I did make a serious try, my game kept crashing around the 1000s (possibly due to the memory leak issue). So I figured I'd post these two starts and ask you all to give them a try at your leisure - but I have some specific (spoilered) questions that you might be able to answer after you've played around a little. And I understand the answers may differ at higher difficulty levels (feel free to edit in WB and play on different difficulties if needed), but I'm hoping to get some insight into players' thought processes even if I'm not really trying to improve... otherwise I suppose the answer to all my questions would be "Praetorian spam" unless "Warrior rush" was available.

Both games were played on BTS 3.19 / BUFFY 3.19.005 and the following Quickstart settings (so random events and huts are enabled). Mapfinder was used (please don't ask "why don't you just Worldbuilder everything" - it's personal).

Map 1 is where most of my questions lie:

Spoiler Map 1 :

I imagine the easiest method would be simply to settle 1st city to secure Copper / Marble, 2nd city Ivory / Iron, then grow all along the coastline, try to get GLH (if the crazy capital commerce wasn't enough), and take out everybody with Praetorians. But I wanted to try for a Cultural Victory with the benefit of hindsight, so I have the following questions:

1. This is a very high-commerce start with 5(!) mining resources (3 Gold, 2 Gems) in the capital's BFC, but only 2 Clams for food. There is just enough forest on Noble to support Pop 7. Would you still prioritise Bronze Working to get the Work Boats out early, since you won't grow quickly enough to work all 7 tiles?
   1. If you prioritise Bronze Working, when would you switch to Slavery? Is it worth skipping it if nearby locations have no food and you can get Caste System early?
      1. Is it worth building a Library in the capital if you can run Scientists through Caste early?
2. There's a Marble resource NW of your starting location. Would you settle your 2nd city to secure it, and where? (The answer to this question will probably vary depending on how early you got Bronze Working.)
3. Your neighbours are Boudica and Willem van Oranje, meaning odds are good that they'll found Buddhism and Hinduism early. You should have enough space for at least 7 cities (and at least a couple will have better food than your cap), and can probably found Confucianism and Taoism. I suspect this screams Cultural Victory, and if so, would you make any detours from the Liberalism beeline (aside from the obligatory Music grab for the Sistine Chapel)?
   1. Since Marble is easily accessible, is this worth a Civil Service slingshot?
   2. How do you keep Boudica happy if you need to switch to a different religion for Pacifism?

In the end, I ended up doing the following in various playthrough(s):

1. Got BW and chopped out the WBs, but skipped Slavery;
2. After getting Wheel, beelined Myst-Med-PH-CoL, grabbed Masonry for Marble, and Oracled CS;
3. Switched to Bureaucracy and Caste and ran scientists for an early Academy, bypassing the Library;
4. Researched Alphabet and backtraded for worker techs (later picking up IW and Monarchy while debating whether to switch from Caste to Slavery when adopting HR);
5. Debated whether to get MC (for happy cap / Barb galleys), Currency and the order in which to research Phil / Music;
6. Got tired waiting for Boudica and WvO to spread their religions to me, dealing with Barb galleys, and trying to build the Sistine Chapel / Parthenon.

The second map is an oddity, and is included more for your amusement than anything:

Spoiler Map 2 :

I remember reading about how Pangaea maps are generated, but I wasn't expecting the offshore "island" to be larger than the primary land mass. It's effectively a small Terra map. (The answer for me was, indeed, to Praetorian spam after Warrior rushing Charlemagne and Hannibal and expanding to 6 cities, but I'm wondering if you guys would approach it differently.)

 

[sampsa]

I imagine the easiest method would be simply to settle 1st city to secure Copper / Marble, 2nd city Ivory / Iron, then grow all along the coastline, try to get GLH (if the crazy capital commerce wasn't enough), and take out everybody with Praetorians

Well, the easiest method certainly doesn't involve any wonders. All towards units on low levels!

But I wanted to try for a Cultural Victory

I would advise against culture victories. Learn the easy/normal way to win (military) first.

The second map is an oddity

Hope you settled on marble as it's the best play by a massive margin.

I would answer your other questions, but there is not enough information to answer them. "It depends". Some screenshots would help!

 

[Fool's Gold]

Thanks! In reverse order:

I would answer your other questions, but there is not enough information to answer them. "It depends". Some screenshots would help!

As requested, see below - but unfortunately, I deleted my saves for Map 1 (I'll re-upload some of them along with required questions once I get around to playing it again), so I might have to talk about Map 2 first...

Hope you settled on marble as it's the best play by a massive margin.

Rookie mistake, I didn't. SIP and worked it while spamming Warriors for the Warrior rush, but now that you've pointed it out, starting on a 3tile is definitely a huge starting advantage (and it would've saved me the time of building a Quarry to hook up the Marble, if I was going for wonders anyway).

Aside from that...

I would advise against culture victories. Learn the easy/normal way to win (military) first.

Well, the easiest method certainly doesn't involve any wonders. All towards units on low levels!

Sorry for not elaborating. I have actually won a couple of games on Noble in the distant past - the problem was that they were all on Conquest and Pangaea (pick a Civ with a good early UU e.g. War Chariots / Immortals, spam, wipe out everyone on the map before my economy went into Strike, probably tech towards Writing / Alphabet / Currency if I ever got that far).

I tried to do that for Map 2 based on what I've read from these forums regarding "essential buildings" - obligatory Granary, Lighthouse if seafood resource, Forge (since Industrious), and Barracks. Although I confess that I cherry-picked this start to indulge in wonder-spamming (the proximity of the neighbours was unintended).

So in the end, a rough breakdown of events was:

Spoiler Map 2 :

• Warrior rushed Charlemagne and Hannibal by 2880 BC;
  
• Expanded to 6 cities by 1760 BC;
  
• Tech order was definitely terrible (see previous point about indulging in wonder-spamming):
  • Agriculture -> Wheel (because Warrior rush, needed something for captured workers to do) -> AH -> BW -> (detour to Myst -> Masonry because Quarries) -> (detour to IW because AI doesn't usually get IW at Noble until after 1000 BC) -> (detour to Poly -> PH because Noble) -> Pottery -> (Oracle MC) -> (detour to Sailing) -> Writing -> Math (Victoria traded Alphabet to me around that point, but there wasn't much left worth trading for.) -> Currency, and then it was messing around from that point.
  • Things I could've skipped: Poly / PH / Oracle MC (problem was that Industrious Forges and Gold + Gems were too tempting), possibly Sailing (not sure if the coastal cities needed the Lighthouse boost). Without all the detours, Pottery and Granaries could have come into play much earlier.
• Build order in new cities was (with slight variations):
  • Worker (skipped in conquered cities because I usually captured a couple of Workers during the war) -> Granary -> Forge -> Barracks -> Praetorians (repeat as required). Whipped Libraries and Forums in cities which had grown too quickly and where Praetorians had become 1-Pop whips.
  • If you're wondering what I built in the capital... uh, let's not go there.
• Spammed Praetorians until the end of the game at 1AD.
  

Like I said, the map was bizarre for a Pangaea map.

I probably could have improved my end date by a few hundred years if I'd stuck to the core worker techs, for sure, and I know I didn't make good enough use of my workers. But the other problem I had was that if the game had carried on much longer - and a regular Pangaea game probably would've taken a fair bit longer due to landmass size - I might've just given up halfway due to the repetitiveness of unit spam and excessive micromanagement involved in whip timing! That's why I wanted to try for a different kind of win condition... but from the looks of things, it seems that I might just not be cut out for long-running 4X games in general.

 

[sampsa]

Played a bit to be able to understand your questions better.

T58

Spoiler :

An event destroyed the iron mine and I lost my appetite. Anyway, I think this would be the most straightforward way to win the map.

Your questions

Spoiler :

Would you still prioritise Bronze Working to get the Work Boats out early, since you won't grow quickly enough to work all 7 tiles?

It's a slow start ( - and expansion-wise) so you need to make it up somehow. Also BW-IW with a super high -start with Rome is a very natural line.

If you prioritise Bronze Working, when would you switch to Slavery? Is it worth skipping it if nearby locations have no food and you can get Caste System early?

I did not switch to slavery, because whipping with so poor is iffy. Caste isn't great without pacifism and even with that it's rarely a long-term solution.

Is it worth building a Library in the capital if you can run Scientists through Caste early?

With this capital, library is pretty good just for the -bonus.

There's a Marble resource NW of your starting location. Would you settle your 2nd city to secure it, and where?

No. There is no rush to claim it even if you choose a peaceful strategy.

Your neighbours are Boudica and Willem van Oranje, meaning odds are good that they'll found Buddhism and Hinduism early. You should have enough space for at least 7 cities (and at least a couple will have better food than your cap), and can probably found Confucianism and Taoism. I suspect this screams Cultural Victory, and if so, would you make any detours from the Liberalism beeline (aside from the obligatory Music grab for the Sistine Chapel)?

Rome and high never screams cultural victory, it screams for praets, even on deity. Cultural victory is what you can try to do if everything else seems hard to pull off.

1. Since Marble is easily accessible, is this worth a Civil Service slingshot?
2. How do you keep Boudica happy if you need to switch to a different religion for Pacifism

Yes, if peaceful, you should make a play at the oracle and CS is a good target. Either adopt her religion (road to her asap) or gift a city (very cheap with IMP).

1. Got BW and chopped out the WBs, but skipped Slavery;
2. After getting Wheel, beelined Myst-Med-PH-CoL, grabbed Masonry for Marble, and Oracled CS;
3. Switched to Bureaucracy and Caste and ran scientists for an early Academy, bypassing the Library;
4. Researched Alphabet and backtraded for worker techs (later picking up IW and Monarchy while debating whether to switch from Caste to Slavery when adopting HR);
5. Debated whether to get MC (for happy cap / Barb galleys), Currency and the order in which to research Phil / Music;
6. Got tired waiting for Boudica and WvO to spread their religions to me, dealing with Barb galleys, and trying to build the Sistine Chapel / Parthenon.

For a peaceful strategy I think it's fine, though the library is certainly worth it. 90 for 25% is a LOT better than 1 for 50%. are very valuable for bulbing, trade missions and golden ages.

 

[sampsa]

I probably could have improved my end date by a few hundred years if I'd stuck to the core worker techs, for sure, and I know I didn't make good enough use of my workers. But the other problem I had was that if the game had carried on much longer - and a regular Pangaea game probably would've taken a fair bit longer due to landmass size - I might've just given up halfway due to the repetitiveness of unit spam and excessive micromanagement involved in whip timing! That's why I wanted to try for a different kind of win condition... but from the looks of things, it seems that I might just not be cut out for long-running 4X games in general.

I mean 1AD win is not bad, but of course it could be improved a lot with optimal play. If the games are too long, play smaller maps! Also, noble is way way too easy for you.

 

[Fool's Gold]

Thanks for giving the other map a try! (Sorry about the iron mine. That's what I get for using the Quickplay default settings.) I know Noble might seem too easy given what I've posted, but these are cooked starts and a lot of reloading was involved - I'm really just trying to play casually (and yes, I also realised that leaving random events on is the worst way to do so).

Spoiler Map 1 :

You're reaching Construction at 1560 BC without bulbing? I assume your tech path was BW-Wheel-IW-Pottery-Writing-Mathematics-Construction, you built a Granary + Library in the capital, and you're aiming for a 3-city Praet-Catapult war on Boudica?

Addendum: I did have a question about city optimisation (or lack thereof) in my Map 2 game.

Spoiler because of city name :

This city was whip fodder for most of the game and would eventually get Granary / Lighthouse / Forge / Barracks. My understanding is that below size 6, one should whip off everything except worked resources and grassland hills (unless one has a good reason to do so), but that left a lot of flat grassland unworked. This city was growing too quickly even for 2-Pop Praetorian whips every 2-3 turns, and a 4-2 whip (with regrowth onto the grassland hill) meant that any grassland farmed probably wouldn't have been worked at all. So I left most of the grassland unimproved in the end and sent my worker to another city to chop out more Praets.

If the game had carried on for longer, it would probably have made a good GP farm due to having lots of irrigated grassland and 2 seafood resources; alternatively, I could have cottaged it all. But I've also seen the following mentioned on these forums:

• Dedicated GP farms are no longer advocated (as of 2023) because it's easier to just generate s during a GA (under Caste / Pacifism);
• Non-Rep specialists are also pretty mediocre for research;
• But at the same time cottaging non-riverside grassland doesn't give you great returns; and
• Workshops aren't worth it until you get at least 2 out of 3 bonuses from Caste / Guilds / Chemistry.
• (Oh, and that plains are meh and remain so until Biology.)

So what do you do with regular grassland in the early game? ("Whatever the city or your Civ needs at that point" and "see if your worker turns can't be better used elsewhere"?) And would you assign specialists (e.g. in this case, to the eventual Library / Forge) just to slow the growth rate down until you can sustain a larger population?

 

[sampsa]

Map1

Spoiler :

You're reaching Construction at 1560 BC without bulbing? I assume your tech path was BW-Wheel-IW-Pottery-Writing-Mathematics-Construction, you built a Granary + Library in the capital, and you're aiming for a 3-city Praet-Catapult war on Boudica?

BW-IW-(agri hut)-wheel-pot-writ-math-mas-constr, only barracks in capital. Granary is useless because the city will stagnate soon, no library because the grand strategy demands you to go to war asap. Barracks because of timing, would've rather started to pump out praets asap. No need to build a 3rd city, going to war with 3 praets which is probably an overkill against noble AI. Then some cats for the next wars. No tech is really useful after construction, I mean maybe feud to take vassals or engi for faster movement, but especially engi is quite far -wise and my strategy does not emphasize.

I'm sure from that you will get a feel of what strategy means in this game. While statements like "granary is the best building by far", "library is good with that capital" or "you should not self tech IW" are in general true, things depend on what you are actually trying to achieve and your every decision should try to fulfill your strategy in the most efficient possible manner.

Map2

Spoiler :

Carthage: the optimal builds in this city in my opinion are granary-(barracks)-praets, always whipping asap size 4. Lighthouse is a bad build, because it's more important to just set the city up asap to produce troops. Even barracks is debatable, because 0xp praets are very strong and putting 50 to rax delays the units. I wouldn't build even IND forge, it's just too late and doesn't pay back. I guess you can even argue against the granary, just 1-pop whipping size 2 to get the war machine rolling as fast as you can.

• Dedicated GP farms are no longer advocated (as of 2023) because it's easier to just generate s during a GA (under Caste / Pacifism);
• Non-Rep specialists are also pretty mediocre for research;
• But at the same time cottaging non-riverside grassland doesn't give you great returns; and
• Workshops aren't worth it until you get at least 2 out of 3 bonuses from Caste / Guilds / Chemistry.
• (Oh, and that plains are meh and remain so until Biology.)

I think it's been well known for close to 10 years that a single -farm is not great or that specialists are trash, good only for generating -points. I think cottaging non-river green is usually better than everything else, because it allows you to grow. Pop can be later whipped into units or used to run specialist during GA. Workshops indeed require all the boosts to be decent and they are excellent in state property.

So what do you do with regular grassland in the early game? ("Whatever the city or your Civ needs at that point" and "see if your worker turns can't be better used elsewhere"?) And would you assign specialists (e.g. in this case, to the eventual Library / Forge) just to slow the growth rate down until you can sustain a larger population?

In general, either ignore it if you can't work it or build cottage/farm. If that city is not getting the next out, I run specialist(s) only if there is nothing else you can do with that pop. Usually you have a spot to settle, so whip a settler for example.

 

[Fool's Gold]

Appreciate the insight, especially the point about grand strategy!

Spoiler Map 1 :

Slept on it thinking that Antium was also positioned to eventually work the two Gems in spite of a lack of , so stagnating Rome at 5 wasn't a concern... but then woke up to your comment and realised that even if that was the case, working those Gems is probably only going to be a factor much later (since you've already researched what you need to for the most part and the city isn't going to grow fast if you're working that plains Iron) and the main point was getting Iron hooked up quickly.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

the main point was getting Iron hooked up quickly.

Yes. For me it was between 1N of iron or ON iron. I'm still unsure which one is better, but I thought I could afford to spend the worker turns to actually improve the iron.