I don't know. I haven't played Civ 4 for years and just when i wanted to take a look at this i realized that the game isn't installed anymore and worse that i have no idea where my BTS disk is
It seems as though everyone is kinda making their comeback to Civ 4~ I am very happy to see this trend, as I myself have recently returned from my hiatus too!
So i need to find a new one and then i'll take a look. I didn't build oracle much back in the days and overall i think Mids (with stone) is a much better bet as it's benefits last until liberalism/constitution. Oracle can give you a jump start towards early war but that's always a bit iffy on higher levels and without early war the effects tend to peter out over time as everyone is trading. I'm quite sure btw i'll lose your ultimate map as things are now
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Understood. Oracle's benefits is just that one-time free tech deal, so obviously Pyramids' benefits are clearly more ever lasting.... for three games in a row, I had built the Oracle for different reasons, and it is always a gamble to get it built because if you go for it and miss out on it, no amount of fail gold makes you feel any better.
Oh you should try the "Evil" map. It should be a good warm up for you. Either that or the "Winnable" map. Lately I've been taking too much of a liking with cooking maps!
Also you may be able to trade MC+priesthood for alpha+poly. Alpha+poly is 400
, and MC+priesthood is 510
400/510 is ~.78, and I know the deity trade limit ratio is .7.
I think you should trade it. Unless you are planning on going for the Colossus during your wonder spamming, you can use it as trade bait. It should help you instantly catch up on tech, as long as you trade it away to most of the AI's and not let the AI's trade it to other AI's.
Colossus doesn't seem to be useful for me right now, as I have higher priorities. So I think it is perfectly okay to trade Metal Casting away, and I absolutely agree with your assessment that I should trade it away to everyone so that AIs can't broker it among themselves. I was also thinking Alpha and Poly as well. Once I get Buddhism into my lands, Organized Religion and even Theocracy looks very attractive right now!
The only way to truly compare the oracle vs the mids is to test it. Although it's a moot point for Gwaja, since she got both. Gwaja, you seem to be lucky in this series getting wonders sometimes fairly late.
I don't want that luck as a trend and let me ride the wave throughout my games. The events that unfolded with Stonehenge delayed the Oracle a lot. Even though the next game after this one is with Bismarck, I am gonna try not to build the Oracle again unless there is a really good reason to do so.
Maybe with enough shadows on either side of the camp, the comparisons can be made. Both the marble and the stone were kinda awkwardly positioned, so even if we can say that I had the stone, I literally had to settle my 3rd city on that awkward spot to get it. Not sure if Dirk would have done the same just to grab it....
I think the best tech path (in part because of IMP) would be Ag->Bronze->Wheel->AH->Myst, so I don't think avoiding AH for a bit implied you would skip it entirely. The worker would first farm the corn, then mine 1W of corn, then head to the tile 1SW of Rome, where it could road while the settler gets 2-whipped, and then chop the forest into a second worker. This worker could then pasture the pig while the first worker mines the gold for the second city.
Sounds solid to me. Of course, I wasn't planning on entirely skipping AH... but I just put it aside in favor of the Oracle prerequisite techs... then I realized a bit later that I wanted it regardless. It was that, and the fact that I wanted to work the tiles that gave me at least 1 commerce rather than nothing at all, so all that honky dory changed my opening quite drastically. I will go back and revisit the beginning and play out this way and see how it plays.
Personally I think dealing with barbs is the most difficult part of the early game. I'm impressed that you managed to build just warriors for so long and still manage the barbs okay, because they always want to pillage me to death so I feel like I have to connect copper/horses immediately for better units. I think I'm just not very good at fogbusting.
I got desperate because I was getting overwhelmed, and it seems like a major waste of hammers and turns replenishing your lost warriors to barbarians. You can fogbust, sure, but you can only do it for so much, and given the situation that I was putting up 3 wonders in this turnset, I didn't do as well as I normally could with fogbusting. The jungles are problematic.... at least they become useful after you clear them, but until then.... it is barbarian heaven!
I don't understand why you wanted fail gold from Stonehenge. It's a strong wonder because you finished it, which saved a lot of time on a critical border pop on your second city and will probably help with other cities also. If some AI had beaten you to Stonehenge I don't think the fail gold would have been much help compared to the extra warriors, settlers, or workers you could get by not attempting it at all.
You are probably right, now that I think about it. Everyone else seems to agree as well. I surely could have used extra warriors and settlers/workers and whatnot...
In retrospect I'm pretty sure that my advice about putting beakers into Alpha was wrong. I have a bad habit of trying to make all my trades "fair" even when it involves sacrificing on my part and sometimes missing out on a good trade that I should have made.
Bah... the AIs don't trade fair at all... NEVER. I think one of the hardest thing that I have had to learn the hard way was... THIS, as I moved up in difficulty level. I am reckoning it is even worse in Deity.... gone are those days where I was freely trading Agriculture for Mysticism and etc... ^_^
Umm..he has 2 of my favorite traits, will that do?
He's better than Nappy, and with Louis it just depends on what you prefer they are both good.
I don't like playing Industrious leaders.... not because I think the trait sucks, but it is because of the fact that I like building wonders a bit too much, and industrious only encourages me to do just that. It is more for my benefit actually. And I think Napoleon is great. I love both of his traits.
Other topic..i always thought a few beakers into techs you want helps with making trades cheaper, but maybe that always was an illusion.
Of course. But just how much of turns are we talking about into Alpha? Sometimes AIs are not willing to cough it up even if you are 2 or 3 turns away from finishing it youself. By that point, you might as well just self tech it completely, and I don't want to take that chance. It'd be probably better if Lizzy had Alpha as well, but considering that 2 AIs seem to be missing on this continent, plus 2 others without Alpha, price would be rather expensive. These AIs never trade fair... UGH!
If land is food rich, then it lends itself better to Pyramids. If not, then Oracle tends to be more practical as you get an extra settler (and a half) and those hammers compound...
Welcome kossin! ^_^
City 1 of the coast is absolutely fine. In a usual game you don't grow to 20 anyhow but simply need something like 4-10 good tiles to work in a city.
I think even up to Civ 3, overlapping city tiles and settling 1 off the coast was even bigger of an absolute "must not do" stuff... I like how Civ 4's game design makes it so that sometimes you have to be more flexible and weigh the pros and cons of early benefits vs long term benefits when settling cities.
I'd think about settling the next city on the Horses. It's a 2
tile and the spot reaches Pigs + Corn. I think it also had at least 1 green hill, so it could probably be used as a GP-Farm or to run Specialists in general while have an ok production or even good production via the whip.
I was hoping someone would suggest that. I thought about maybe settling closer to the river and all, but that just seems a bit pointless. Since that area is a gateway to Lincoln's land, I would prefer to have a city with good hammer production. And I just love 2-hammer city tiles!
Building SH because forgetting to stop it
. You're not alone with such things
Gwaja, trust me... (Read the current SGOTM if you want
) .
I guess I am not the only goofy player around here... that's good to know! ^_^
I didn't btw. get why Priesthood against Hunting would be a mistake. For me its no good trade but there's also nothing wrong about it.
Well.... because I don't need Hunting nor Archery in this game.... unless I can claim the jumbos but that seems like a pipe dream, considering their locations. Eventually I might need Hunting, but right now, no... so why trade for it and have it put against "WFYABTA" BS tech count? ^_^
However: I think that you're definately in a strong position now with your game. If I were you, I'd evaluate on PS + Forges to get extremely cheap Praets or REP + PS to have good Research and probably the possibility for 2pop-whips.
Since with Police State + Forge, Praetorians will always be a 1-pop whip if I wanted to whip it out directly, so I am thinking probably some sort of overflow trick into putting hammers into Praets after whipping out something else may be better? We are talking exactly one half of the cost of a worker here, which is gonna be dirt cheap. Too bad the AIs aren't placed ideally for early conquest.... too much land in between, especially jungles!
I wouldn't think about settling any further city except the Horses one.
Pretty realistic at this point. Other sites would probably be claimed very soon anyway. I'd need to see if I can get a decent trade to get Iron Working from somebody.... hopefully Alpha + IW for MC and something else?
Btw, what would you do with the Great Prophet?
I liked btw. how you planned for the Mids with 2pop-whipping the Forge in them and having Forrests pre-chopped. To get this right, there's nothing wrong about the Mids, also not Oracle + Mids. Wrong was somone, or something different. Maybe still is, I don't know.
I am a strong believer in pre-chopping forests. It makes rushing wonders a breeze at times if you plan it right. I believe I whipped out both the granary and the forge and applied the overflow into the 'Mids. The forge was a no brainer since both it and the Pyramids would get hammer bonus either way from direct whip and the overflow, unlike most situations where you only get bonus for one or the other. I'd reckon it would be the same story for Bismarck with granaries and harbors? I can't wait to play him.
I got the game running again, maybe i'll post some more about this game or i'll do a shadow as i haven't had more info right now then that there's stone and apparently no marble nearby.
I realized later on that we're playing an industrious leader here so my earlier remark about the hammer math was wrong. It's 30 H for 1 oracle forest (no marble) and 50 H for 1 mids forest (with stone), sorry for the confusion.
Well, marble is also nearby... but you have had to move your settler to claim it at the very start of the game. It basically required 2 border pops from the capital to claim it. The general consensus was that waiting for the marble to be hooked up to apply it to the Oracle was gonna waste too much time, hence why marble was passed early on. You will see if you attempt a shadow. I went out of my ways to settle near the stone to claim it, but quite frankly, even that could have been passed for other sites as well.
And gratz on getting the game and being able to run it again! I hope to hear more from you about the game and anything else in general. ^_^
Didn't realize who you were immediately when i reacted to your post but i have a good idea now 
.
