The far corn looks like it's on the corner of a river end. Doesn't that count as wet corn?
Slightly OT, but I always thought Sitting Bull/NA to be a strange civ. You get extra powerful archers via protective and the totem pole, but you don't start with mysticism or hunting so if you want them you have to do a lot of research first. OTOH you get these strange axemen that are useless for rushing because they're weak against archers, but great on defense against melee units. WTH? I'm never sure what to do with this civ. It'll be fun seeing you play this out.
The far corn looks like it's on the corner of a river end. Doesn't that count as wet corn?
Slightly OT, but I always thought Sitting Bull/NA to be a strange civ. You get extra powerful archers via protective and the totem pole, but you don't start with mysticism or hunting so if you want them you have to do a lot of research first. OTOH you get these strange axemen that are useless for rushing because they're weak against archers, but great on defense against melee units. WTH? I'm never sure what to do with this civ. It'll be fun seeing you play this out.
This is deity and the AI will be attacking him like a hammer if there is any warmongers nearby. Sb is perfect in many ways for deity. Strong defensive and lots of great people to help keep up the tech race. Sure you dont get some of the basic techs but the rest outweigh that.
I've enjoyed this series and have been lurking for quite some time.
Just so you know, this save is Immortal, not Deity. I was shadowing and noticed that the annimals disappeared too slowly. Just wanted to avoid others wasting some time before discovering it. . .
I've enjoyed this series and have been lurking for quite some time.
Just so you know, this save is Immortal, not Deity. I was shadowing and noticed that the annimals disappeared too slowly. Just wanted to avoid others wasting some time before discovering it. . .
Hmmm. . . Sorry for the misdirection, kossin. Mine is Immortal, and I just opened the save straight from my desktop. Obviously some weirdness going on here.
As I had drawn out, I settled Cahokia 1S, on the banana tile.
Spoiler:
Growth, should I start on a warrior, would take 6 turns until size 2, from where I'd gain a mere 1/turn towards worker production. Nowadays, the worker was only 12 turns thanks to the 3 food city tile.
I started research on Mining with the Gems as a priority after the 2 corns.
After the border pop on t5, we get a better look at the surroundings.
Spoiler:
No lost seafood, but Ivory to the east is a nice bonus... this gives me an early 7/6 happy cap which is huge.
My initial warrior started exploration northwest before heading to the east. It looked more brownish with a hint of desert westward which is bad for survival. It didn't take too long, as is usual on Deity non-isolation, to meet the first neighbor.
Spoiler:
It looks as if she came in from the north by the scout's heading. Settling those cows can't be delayed too much as she REXes really fast and is an annoyance with her Creative trait.
The very same turn, I continued to move east and met the next AI. Another Creative pest.
Spoiler:
His scout has been healing from an attack so he might be a bit closer than it looks. He came from the east making exploration of that region a priority. You want to know how much expansion room you have in the AI's direction. It gives you a hint of how much barbs you'll get and how long you can delay cities. At this point I believe I am the most western civilization on this continent so exploration to the west can wait a bit.
A while later, from the east again, comes the next neighbor.
Spoiler:
We also get the WE bug telling us Hatty is in the game.
t17 means he's pretty far off, I probably won't border him culturally for a long time.
After mining, I went for Bronze Working. Slavery with dual-corns will boost production, allow some chops and more importantly, give me Dog Soldiers for barb defense. Seeing as the AIs are quite far up until now, there's bound to be plenty of barbarians heading my way.
The next two techs were Hunting (Ivory) and AH (cow for city #3) and to reveal horses.
By t30, I added another worker (whipped into a Dog Soldier) and I'm working on a second Dog for barbarian defense. By the looks of it, I'll need around 4 of them to deal with barbarians. However, I also need to start expanding fast or I'll lose some prime real estate. Here's the known part of the world so far. I've sent my first Dog exploring west/north (where is Cathy?) and workers are putting up mines for citizens #4&5.
I think I've done a bit better on exploration so far but the jury's still out on that one.
Spoiler:
The flood plains area looks yummy but I don't think I can get a settler there soon enough. I do need to protect the land that's close to me first.
On t33, barbs start entering my borders and are being a nuisance. It happens with border-side improvements, the barbs will enter a bit earlier to pillage and may then decide to keep going.
Spoiler:
On t40 I meet another AI. This one has got to be pretty far... again to the east. Is this some kind of Pangea Fractal map?
Spoiler:
I finally spot Catherine across the desert. The desert there is good, Cathy won't likely prioritize that area too much for settling and go east instead. It also looks like a good spot for gifting her a city in a crappy location to help my diplomacy.
Spoiler:
My second city comes on t44. It's pretty late but I had to deal with barbs, and there's still lots of exploration to do!
Spoiler:
It borrows the second corn tile to start growing faster.
As predicted, Catherine is sending settlers east for now, you can see her culture just above, on the wine tile.
I researched TW>Pottery next with Writing as the next likely stop. I played 6 more turns until the next settler is in position by the cow-silk site.
Here are the barbs that I had to deal with so far:
Spoiler:
Luckily, I didn't lose any units myself.
A look at diplomacy, with the Ai-to-Ai peaceweights included.
Spoiler:
Thanks to Hatty, the AI should have a good punching bag other than me
Finally, here's a not resized 1680x1050 overview of the known land.
Spoiler:
You can see my settler in position SW of the cow tile. Cahokia will start on another settler after its current Dog to send east. With Cathy and Willem in that area, I have to hurry up or those yummy spots will vanish pretty soon under their culture. The western area looks easy to block with 1 or 2 cities but again, those can't be delayed too long.
The land is very good and barbs should be under control to allow me to concentrate on settlers and workers.
A barbarian city spawned to your S-E border, I guess it's a good thing
It somewhat restricts your settling possibilities but this doesn't look like it is an area to prioritize. It will be a good city to capture.
I tried the map and got killed by barbarians XD Now I get the "grow first and build military" logic...
Anyways,
You talk about exploration... I think it is crucial to know whether you have good land secured to your west (thanks to that 3rd city + desert area) or not. If you do, it would open some possibilities. Otherwise, you'll want to get some more land to the east, first.
Less of a hurry, but a concern if you go Writing --> Sailing, next, would be to open the coastal routes (do people research for Sailing on Deity ?).
Also, do you plan on self-researching IW ?
*Not sure how reasonable it is :* If you stop settling for now (assumes quality land westwards), you could tech faster to Alphabet/Aesth/Monarch/CoL to trade for IW.
The floodplains+cows+marble is attractive, but Willem is probably the man in charge, there. Maybe you could get the Marble, though ? How much of an economic investment would that be ?
If feasable, it looks like the best next location, as there is plenty of land to its south and it isn't lost in the heart of darkness.
1. Is revealing horses really that important? If you hadn't had dog soldiers as UU, would you still have aimed for it? I ask this because the barbs that ruin most of my games are spearmen, as I got used, from prince, to relying on horses for defence in the absence of metals, but on monarch, spears show a lot more frequently, so I'm finding AH to be of less priority now.
2. How do you tilt the map, as in the last screenshot?
It actually allows showing more of this particular map, since it's a long strip, and tilting the map ensures that this long strip is on the diagonal. We'd have a bit less detail if the map weren't tilted.
War is looking like a better option as more of the map is revealed. The desert and jungle combined will work to slow down your expansion, as will the lack of additional food sources outside the vicinity of your capital.
Thankfully, you have the mighty power of the SB's traits/UU/UB, as well as that of Ivory.
1. Is revealing horses really that important? If you hadn't had dog soldiers as UU, would you still have aimed for it? I ask this because the barbs that ruin most of my games are spearmen, as I got used, from prince, to relying on horses for defence in the absence of metals, but on monarch, spears show a lot more frequently, so I'm finding AH to be of less priority now.
2. How do you tilt the map, as in the last screenshot?
1. Is revealing horses really that important? If you hadn't had dog soldiers as UU, would you still have aimed for it? I ask this because the barbs that ruin most of my games are spearmen, as I got used, from prince, to relying on horses for defence in the absence of metals, but on monarch, spears show a lot more frequently, so I'm finding AH to be of less priority now.
Expansion/exploration happens so quick on deity (mostly by the AI) that barbs are only a threat at the animal, warrior, sometimes archer and galley level. So at lower levels you might consider Great Wall (free spy!), or more fog busters.
Expansion/exploration happens so quick on deity (mostly by the AI) that barbs are only a threat at the animal, warrior, sometimes archer and galley level. So at lower levels you might consider Great Wall (free spy!), or more fog busters.
It actually allows showing more of this particular map, since it's a long strip, and tilting the map ensures that this long strip is on the diagonal. We'd have a bit less detail if the map weren't tilted.
I fear I may be consigned to the coastal region of the land. Next thing to do is rush settlers and plant them in location, but not necessary settle right away, it'll kill the economy. West backfill will have to wait a bit but I don't think it's too threatened right now.
A barbarian city spawned to your S-E border, I guess it's a good thing
It somewhat restricts your settling possibilities but this doesn't look like it is an area to prioritize. It will be a good city to capture.
I tried the map and got killed by barbarians XD Now I get the "grow first and build military" logic...
Anyways,
You talk about exploration... I think it is crucial to know whether you have good land secured to your west (thanks to that 3rd city + desert area) or not. If you do, it would open some possibilities. Otherwise, you'll want to get some more land to the east, first.
Less of a hurry, but a concern if you go Writing --> Sailing, next, would be to open the coastal routes (do people research for Sailing on Deity ?).
Also, do you plan on self-researching IW ?
*Not sure how reasonable it is :* If you stop settling for now (assumes quality land westwards), you could tech faster to Alphabet/Aesth/Monarch/CoL to trade for IW.
The floodplains+cows+marble is attractive, but Willem is probably the man in charge, there. Maybe you could get the Marble, though ? How much of an economic investment would that be ?
If feasable, it looks like the best next location, as there is plenty of land to its south and it isn't lost in the heart of darkness.
Actually, the third city will be so close to Catherine that a road to her will take care of foreign trade. Sailing is also important because it will be hard to put roads everywhere needed for new cities as I'll be low on workers for a while to grab as much land as possible.
For the moment, I don't plan on researching IW. Yes there's a gem tile to the west but from what I've seen of the east, there's not that much that requires IW right now. Aesthetics won't take much longer to research and I'll get Alphabet and possibly Mathematics at the same time as well as IW.
The barb city is excellent work for me. The only thing is Dogs aren't that great at capturing barb cities and delaying IW means no sword, at least not soon enough.
I'll probably have a Dog look out the western part this set.
1. Is revealing horses really that important? If you hadn't had dog soldiers as UU, would you still have aimed for it? I ask this because the barbs that ruin most of my games are spearmen, as I got used, from prince, to relying on horses for defence in the absence of metals, but on monarch, spears show a lot more frequently, so I'm finding AH to be of less priority now.
2. How do you tilt the map, as in the last screenshot?
1. Revealing horses is not that important but it might help production and city placement. Spearmen aren't frequent on Imm+ from barbs since cities are usually up by that time and very few barbs spawn after that. They are common on Emperor and rare below. It's seldom however that you won't have metals hooked up by the time they show up on those levels. Chariots are pretty poor city defenders, actually warriors are better than them against spears in cities
If you fogbust with chariots however, you'll rarely see any spears.
Settlers can go unaccompanied most of the time if you have a unit scouting ahead (once animals are gone) so chariots aren't that important there again.
Finally, I would have gone straight to Archery if I wasn't playing SB for guaranteed defenders @ BW. The odds of popping copper in the BFC were very very low and it meant most likely at least 6 worker turns to hook it up and then at least 2~3 more turns to produce the first Axe... That's assuming there was BFC copper however. It's too much of a risk and there was too much land to protect. Given 1~2 directions from where barbs can come, you can try to deal with them with warriors but here it wasn't the case.
2. Flying Camera.
First you need to enable it in C:\[...]\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword look for the file called CivilizationIV.ini and open it with Notepad (or w/e).
Look for this passage:
Second, go into any savegame and hit Ctrl+Alt+F, you are now in flying camera mode. It's controlled by the mouse and wheel but it's pretty awkward to get the right shot (at least to me).
Sorry.
It usually takes me a good 2 minutes to get that shot as I'm not good at controlling the Flying camera but I'll see if I can find a middle ground.
It actually allows showing more of this particular map, since it's a long strip, and tilting the map ensures that this long strip is on the diagonal. We'd have a bit less detail if the map weren't tilted.
War is looking like a better option as more of the map is revealed. The desert and jungle combined will work to slow down your expansion, as will the lack of additional food sources outside the vicinity of your capital.
Thankfully, you have the mighty power of the SB's traits/UU/UB, as well as that of Ivory.
I don't think I can pull a Elepult war on Deity, at least I haven't managed it yet. I tried 2 days ago with SB against Lincoln in semi-isolation but just couldn't get the job done. The production here is abysmal with virtually no forests but only jungle so at the very most, I'll have good defenders. Also, war would probably mean an AI would grow larger than otherwise with the land left alone. As it stands, I think Willem and Catherine can get 10+ cities each and any AI over that city count is trouble down the lane.
I think I have to bite hard and slow the economy while REXing but I'd love for someone to showcase a elepult war on this map. (Might be easier on a slower speed).
Expansion/exploration happens so quick on deity (mostly by the AI) that barbs are only a threat at the animal, warrior, sometimes archer and galley level. So at lower levels you might consider Great Wall (free spy!), or more fog busters.
I quite agree with this. While barbs are a bigger nuisance when they start entering borders than on Immortal, you don't see much of them after that first wave. They'll be stuck in cities waiting to be captured to fill your coffers.
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/turn towards worker production. Nowadays, the worker was only 12 turns thanks to the 3 food city tile.
We'd have a bit less detail if the map weren't tilted.
