English Fishing Strategy

[Julian Delphiki]

On what difficultly? When on prince, i might do it if i have enough fogbusters to clear the way. Good luck pulling that on constantly with BtS random varyan barb spawn event . (Which i actually like very much .. i once got defeated on around 3450 with Asoka when i had got BW from hut..).

 

[Artichoker]

I'm willing to try the different approaches...I'll report my results when I'm done.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna to try to post the save file for 4000 BC for this particular start.

 

[CivCorpse]

Ok, I have read the other posts and thought it is about time I weighed in. I play with Elizabeth about 1/3 of the time. She is my most bestest leader. First to clear up some things.
A. Research times for the human player are determined by game speed not difficulty level.
B. Elizabeth with her financial trait combined with seafood resources starts much faster than Churchill. Later in the game his protective/charasmatic traits make awesome Redcoats. But even Liz's generic redcoats are awesome since she gets them way sooner with her finacial trait for research and her Philo trait for for academies/settled Gs and bulbing.
C. the great lighthouse is only good if you plan on a lot of coastal cities.

Now to the mega Liz seafood strat.

step one. Research BW while building a workboat. On epic speed it takes 23 turns to tech BW and 12 turns to build a workboat working a forested plains hill.
On turn 12 launch boat and work the clams/crabs and start building a warrior. as soon as you reach population2 switch to a worker. working the seafood and the forested plains hills
Turn 20 you discover BW(sooner because of the 3 from the clams/crabs and switch to slavery. Start researching hunting.
On turn 27 start researching archery.
On turn 30 whip your worker out. Move him to a forest while you finish building the warrior.
On turn 33 start building a barracks.
On turn 35 move your worker to a new forest. and start chopping...this is before the first forest is completed.
On Turn 36 switch build to an archer and start researching the wheel to connect any copper you may be headed to get.
Turn 39 you are pop2 again and switch to building a settler. Working the seafood and the plains hills.
Turn41 finish chopping then move back to the first forest.
On turn 43 you finish chopping and move to a third forest. And start researching mysticism for the first cities border pop
Turn 48 whip your settler. Leave him in the city.
Turn 50 you complete the third chop and you have your archer.
Move your archer and settler to the new city of your choice. You have 4 turns until mysticism and are 6 turns from pop2 again.

Ok, in 50 turns we have a warrior/archerworker and a workboat built. And the following techs. BW-hunting-archery-the wheel and 4 turns from Myst.

By your method on turn 50 you have your second city founded for 6 turns but are 3 turns from completing the wheel, 3 turns from pop2 and have no military. Assuming a lion didn't eat your settler. You are behind one full tech and 2 units. Plus you wasted one more forest than I did. And still haven't switched to slavery. With Liz my tech lead will continue to grow. And it's even scarier if there are two seafood resources in my BFC. i switch the first worker for a workboat and am way ahead of you. The archer finishes on turn 55 and i am done myst and 4 turns from masonry.

If the seafood is a coastal fish. Get the settler on turn 42 and have only used TWO forests. I can use warrior #1 to escort him

 

[vicawoo]

Haven't read through civcorpse's build, but let me mention that workers turns have an early value of +2 for the rest of the game (if there are mines) or +20 hammers over 4 turns, normal speed, or 5 hammers/turn. Workboat is faster, so you save however many turns of +2 to 3 food production, but then you start to fall behind.

Workboats have the advantage of commerce and short term boosts. Settlers and workers, long term boost. If you have grains and hills, there's not a huge incentive to build a workboat.

If you start with mining and no corn, then I would advocate worker, start settler, 2 turns of working mined hill, chop workboat, grow to 2, whip settler.
Will read civcorpse's post now.

 

[vicawoo]

Ok so worker chop workboat settler, with various optimizations, will have about the same speed as civcorpse's (slightly faster if you have an unforested plain/hill), and you have a mine set up. On the other hand, if you don't have a rivered special resource/flood plains, you lose about 16 turns of financial commerce.

If you don't have a plains/forested/hill, the workboat first build loses 2 turns, but then saves 3 turns of the first growth. Actually, if you do have a forested plain/hills, you should spend the first 7 turns on the forested/plain hill, then on the 8th turn switch to a 2/1 tile, at least on normal speed. On epic, 45 hammers means 10 turns on forested plain/hills, 1 turn on 2-1, 1 turn on 1-2, and you'll be at 3 food initially.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A. Research times for the human player are determined by game speed not difficulty level.

That will probably come as quite a surprise to the guys who implemented CvHandicapInfo.getResearchPercent, CvTeam.getResearchCost, CvTeam.setResearchProgress, and so forth.

 

[Benford's Law]

~Slightly off-topic~
@CivCorpse -
Yes, there is a difficulty modifier for the number of beakers ("flasks") required to discover a tech. Fishing has a base cost of 40 beakers, and I think the multiplier Civ uses at Monarch level is 1.15.....1.2 at Emperor (lower and higher difficulties use a lower and higher modifier, respectively). Map size and game speed are also taken into account. Even the number of civs you meet that know the tech you are researching can affect your cost. If you've discovered all of the *optional* prerequisites for a tech, you can literally get a nice little bonus on your beakers earned to the next tech on the tree....not a big bonus, but something worth knowing...
EXAMPLE - According to the XML files Fishing has a base cost of 40. If I'm playing Emperor/Huge Map/Marathon it would cost me 216 beakers.
I tested Requies' article from the War Academy once by pulling out the right files from my Beyond the Sword directory....and the research formulas he described still appear to be true with BTS v3.13, even though it is a pretty old article.

~Benford's Law

 

[kakitadairu]

My contribution:

My pefered build order on Deity, assuming two or three seafood:

Workboat, Workboat, Workboat, Worker [whipped], Great Wall [chopped], Lighthouse [whipped], Great Lighthouse [chopped], Settler

The last workboat is used to explore up and down the coast to find neighbors to trade with to get the GLH trade routes going ASAP.

Great Wall is essential because Barbs are murderous that early on Deity.

After Great Lighthouse number one option is Settler spam, or else go for the Pyramids.

Cheers,

Dai

 

[CivCorpse]

That will probably come as quite a surprise to the guys who implemented CvHandicapInfo.getResearchPercent, CvTeam.getResearchCost, CvTeam.setResearchProgress, and so forth.

Wow, I always thought the AI got a discount rather than the human paying more. My previous post was based on Prince difficulty so the numbers are accurate for the situation the OP suggested.

 

[Winston Hughes]

My pefered build order on Deity, assuming two or three seafood:

Workboat, Workboat, Workboat, Worker [whipped], Great Wall [chopped], Lighthouse [whipped], Great Lighthouse [chopped], Settler

Very interesting.

I have a few questions, if you don't mind giving away some more of your secrets...

1) Would this be the same for any leader who starts with fishing? Or do you have a specific leader(s) in mind?

2) What would your tech-path be?

3) How would you change things for a leader who didn't start with fishing?

4) What types/sizes of map do you play on (and use this approach on)?

5) What do you do if there are few/no forests available for chopping?

6) Do you go for these wonders on Deity, or is it only with starts like this?

 

[Artichoker]

Ok, I have read the other posts and thought it is about time I weighed in. I play with Elizabeth about 1/3 of the time. She is my most bestest leader. First to clear up some things.
A. Research times for the human player are determined by game speed not difficulty level.
B. Elizabeth with her financial trait combined with seafood resources starts much faster than Churchill. Later in the game his protective/charasmatic traits make awesome Redcoats. But even Liz's generic redcoats are awesome since she gets them way sooner with her finacial trait for research and her Philo trait for for academies/settled Gs and bulbing.
C. the great lighthouse is only good if you plan on a lot of coastal cities.

Now to the mega Liz seafood strat.

step one. Research BW while building a workboat. On epic speed it takes 23 turns to tech BW and 12 turns to build a workboat working a forested plains hill.
On turn 12 launch boat and work the clams/crabs and start building a warrior. as soon as you reach population2 switch to a worker. working the seafood and the forested plains hills
Turn 20 you discover BW(sooner because of the 3 from the clams/crabs and switch to slavery. Start researching hunting.
On turn 27 start researching archery.
On turn 30 whip your worker out. Move him to a forest while you finish building the warrior.
On turn 33 start building a barracks.
On turn 35 move your worker to a new forest. and start chopping...this is before the first forest is completed.
On Turn 36 switch build to an archer and start researching the wheel to connect any copper you may be headed to get.
Turn 39 you are pop2 again and switch to building a settler. Working the seafood and the plains hills.
Turn41 finish chopping then move back to the first forest.
On turn 43 you finish chopping and move to a third forest. And start researching mysticism for the first cities border pop
Turn 48 whip your settler. Leave him in the city.
Turn 50 you complete the third chop and you have your archer.
Move your archer and settler to the new city of your choice. You have 4 turns until mysticism and are 6 turns from pop2 again.

Ok, in 50 turns we have a warrior/archerworker and a workboat built. And the following techs. BW-hunting-archery-the wheel and 4 turns from Myst.

By your method on turn 50 you have your second city founded for 6 turns but are 3 turns from completing the wheel, 3 turns from pop2 and have no military. Assuming a lion didn't eat your settler. You are behind one full tech and 2 units. Plus you wasted one more forest than I did. And still haven't switched to slavery. With Liz my tech lead will continue to grow. And it's even scarier if there are two seafood resources in my BFC. i switch the first worker for a workboat and am way ahead of you. The archer finishes on turn 55 and i am done myst and 4 turns from masonry.

If the seafood is a coastal fish. Get the settler on turn 42 and have only used TWO forests. I can use warrior #1 to escort him

Churchill is a lot poorer than Elizabeth, for sure...but my point is that having Protective as a trait is best used when the enemy civs are attacking your own units. This will be more likely to happen if you build cities that are rather close to opponents' cities, and that you make sure your cities grow in Culture fast enough to edge out enemy cities.

This is also more attainable by having a Great Lighthouse, with its culture bonus. Ideally, it should be placed near a rival civ's city, so that the Culture bonus can exert its greatest benefit.

 

[Artichoker]

Ok so worker chop workboat settler, with various optimizations, will have about the same speed as civcorpse's (slightly faster if you have an unforested plain/hill), and you have a mine set up. On the other hand, if you don't have a rivered special resource/flood plains, you lose about 16 turns of financial commerce.

If you don't have a plains/forested/hill, the workboat first build loses 2 turns, but then saves 3 turns of the first growth. Actually, if you do have a forested plain/hills, you should spend the first 7 turns on the forested/plain hill, then on the 8th turn switch to a 2/1 tile, at least on normal speed. On epic, 45 hammers means 10 turns on forested plain/hills, 1 turn on 2-1, 1 turn on 1-2, and you'll be at 3 food initially.

I'm willing to do the Work Boat 2nd as a modification to my strat--after all, I expected people on the board to think that my Work Boat 3rd strat was an early build for the Work Boat!

However, building a Settler early has its merits, especially for military-oriented leader like Churchill, because it will lead to conflict with other civs. This is especially true if you develop city culture with buildings like the Monument and the Great Lighthouse.

 

[vicawoo]

If you have corn or are willing to wait for animal husbandry, I have few qualms about delaying work boats. However, turns spent growing should be minimized, so if you have no other food I'd get seafood. Instead of 6 settler production per turn from a 1 pop city working a mine.

 

[Airefuego]

Artichoker, remember that you build settlers and workers using food well as hammers. An improved seafood tile will massively boost your worker production speed.

Hence - boat first, worker second.

Kakitadairu's gambiat (many boats, then whip and chop workers and wonders) is defintely interesting and original

 

[Artichoker]

Artichoker, remember that you build settlers and workers using food well as hammers. An improved seafood tile will massively boost your worker production speed.

Hence - boat first, worker second.

Kakitadairu's gambiat (many boats, then whip and chop workers and wonders) is defintely interesting and original

However, an improved Land tile can massively boost Work Boat production speed, and the 1st worker is also boosted in production by the excess food (which can be from a 3-food tile, by the way, even if it's an unboosted Land tile).

 

[vicawoo]

New cities also massively increase worker production speed. If you ignore maintenance issues, a new city is +4 worker production, +5 if you have a worker build a mine, +7 if it grows and works 2 4 production tiles, and so on. Clams/crabs only increase worker production by 1 (from 3 to 4), whereas workers potentially increase it by 1 every 4 turns.

 

[Artichoker]

Well, haven't had time to try the various build orders for English.

However, I have been able to compare using the Mongols, with Kublai Khan as the leader. Even though they start with only Hunting and the Wheel (and thus both Mining and Fishing still need to be researched), a decent start can be made by finding cattle (or another good growth resource), with a settler and a pop-2 capital by the year 2880 BC. In this case, Animal Husbandry would be the 1st tech researched, and the build order would be Worker, Warrior, Settler. Although the worker can't chop trees, the settler still comes out rather quickly.

So, looks like Kublai Khan (or Genghis Khan) may be better suited for my style of play. Given the relatively long game time of Civ 4, I'll come back to the English fish strategy after I've tried some of the other civs.

 

[kakitadairu]

Very interesting.

I have a few questions, if you don't mind giving away some more of your secrets...

1) Would this be the same for any leader who starts with fishing? Or do you have a specific leader(s) in mind?

With a coastal start and seafood, and a leader/civ that isn’t especially suited for an Axe Rush like Joao, Praets like Julius, or other special cases i.e. religious starts.

2) What would your tech-path be?

Masonry for Great Wall
Bronze Working
Sailing
Wheel
Pottery
Writing
Maths

Great Lighthouse is pointless until you get writing so it's a definite beeline. This is also why you delay your second city, to get to Writing faster. After Maths either Compass or Music route.

3) How would you change things for a leader who didn't start with fishing?

You can’t start out with workboats, but I would still go for Great Lighthouse with a coastal start and Mining. You’d start with a Worker and focus on chopping the Great Wall, followed by a Workboat.

4) What types/sizes of map do you play on (and use this approach on)?

Big/ Small, second largest size, with eleven other civs, either No Tech Brokering or No Tech Trading.

5) What do you do if there are few/no forests available for chopping?

Few forests, no change because I find both wonders to be crucial. I don’t think I’ve ever had a start with no Forests. You would need to get out the Worker and start building mines ASAP and try to get the wonders with whipping overflow. Maybe skip Great Wall since you’ll be building Warriors to overflow. You can’t even Axe rush without Forests. I’d probably spam out Warriors, nab any available workers and pillage my weakest neighbor to the stone age.

6) Do you go for these wonders on Deity, or is it only with starts like this?

This strategy is for Deity.

Great Wall isn’t crucial on Immortal but Great Lighthouse is still very nice best ancient wonder imo. On Immortal Obsolete’s strategy is one of the best, or just a simple Axe rush will win you the game. On Immortal a good strategy is to expand to three cities early so you have enough different resources to use/ trade with. Immortal is no challenge for me anymore but I’m still learning on Deity.

Cheers,

Dai