Gazing at the stars from the thick jungle

[Fractal Spiral]

Thanks a lot for this write-up and the very helpful strategy explanations and screenshots. I've just made an account with Civfanatics this week so that I can submit Hall of Fame games and test myself versus the times in the Hall of Fame. This is my first time posting here but I've learned so much from reading and watching a lot of Civ 4 over the last few years, it really makes a difference. I had first gotten Civilization 4 some years ago but at first I just played it super casually, I just goofed around and had fun. Then when I got onto Civfanatics forums you all inspired me to try higher level strategy and understand the principles of winning. Now I have fun and try to win

 

[Seraiel]

Thanks a lot for this write-up and the very helpful strategy explanations and screenshots. I've just made an account with Civfanatics this week so that I can submit Hall of Fame games and test myself versus the times in the Hall of Fame. This is my first time posting here but I've learned so much from reading and watching a lot of Civ 4 over the last few years, it really makes a difference. I had first gotten Civilization 4 some years ago but at first I just played it super casually, I just goofed around and had fun. Then when I got onto Civfanatics forums you all inspired me to try higher level strategy and understand the principles of winning. Now I have fun and try to win

Welcome

@ pangaea: Nice cities. Only very little errors in Worker-management, some cities have 1-2 improved tiles they're not working, while others lack 1-2 improved tiles.

What I don't understand though is the extremely high maintenance. You must have been playing a flat map, because the others aren't allowed in HoF. 9 / turn with a Courthouse is sick, and that only because the cities are a little further away and because they're quite large?

Would also have wished, that you post at least 1 screen with 100% research, it'd be very interesting to see, how much that amazing empire makes at 1 AD . I'd also be interested in why you researched Machinery. It's not on the way to Lib but even disturbs things like bulbing Lib i. e., and AIs tend to research it always early. I'd have probably switched to Education and skipped Machinery, which would also have allowed to create 2 further Scientists for 2 bulbs.

I'd also be interested in the reasoning, why you 1. build the HGs before the Pyramids, and 2. why you didn't build them in Washington or any other city that's not polluted with other points. It's risky from my experience to not create a 100% GE, so on low difficulty, I'd always try to divert 1 city to only gather GP-points. I'd probably even not build the NE in that city because of pollution and would have delayed GSs if I would have noticed, that the GE doesn't come in time for Mining.

And at last, I wonder why you didn't conquest more with Catapults + Chariots. It would have been very easy to whip out something like 5 Catapults and conquer more territory, or were you already close to domination?

Thx for the writeup, very interesting.

 

[Pangaea]

Welcome

@ pangaea: Nice cities. Only very little errors in Worker-management, some cities have 1-2 improved tiles they're not working, while others lack 1-2 improved tiles.

Thanks. Was actually a little surprised when going through the cities, that they weren't working more unimproved tiles, but overall it's 'only' five (assuming I counted right), if counting the unimproved iron and 2x spices, across 13 cities, which probably isn't too bad.

What I don't understand though is the extremely high maintenance. You must have been playing a flat map, because the others aren't allowed in HoF. 9 / turn with a Courthouse is sick, and that only because the cities are a little further away and because they're quite large?

Very expensive indeed. It's a Flat map because it's the only allowed, and I'm probably 'punished' by having the capital more or less in the NE corner, close to the edge, and cities in former Egypt are very far away. It took some whip overflow due to lack of but later on I built the Forbidden Palace in Thebes (or thereabouts) to help battle the high maintenance.

Would also have wished, that you post at least 1 screen with 100% research, it'd be very interesting to see, how much that amazing empire makes at 1 AD . I'd also be interested in why you researched Machinery. It's not on the way to Lib but even disturbs things like bulbing Lib i. e., and AIs tend to research it always early. I'd have probably switched to Education and skipped Machinery, which would also have allowed to create 2 further Scientists for 2 bulbs.

I posted that in the short 1AD overview post that I wasn't able to complete due to leaving, but here is the relevant screenshot:


Reasonably pleased with that, and it could probably be a bit higher if I went through cities to top up

Education is already researched btw, and since Peter didn't want to trade Philo I was a little unsure what to queue up next, but for the time being have Machinery at 0%. I tend to not bulb Lib, and wouldn't really want to do that in this game as I'd want to Lib something decent, and would like to have Machinery before that time I reckon. Getting out GSs was slow, which is why I simply self-teched Education instead when I could afford it. Could of course have changed to Caste and pumped out some, but Slavery was more sensible I figured, and I didn't want anarchy anyway, which is also why I hadn't yet changed to HR. But then we didn't need the happiness either due to Calendar resources.

I'd also be interested in the reasoning, why you 1. build the HGs before the Pyramids, and 2. why you didn't build them in Washington or any other city that's not polluted with other points. It's risky from my experience to not create a 100% GE, so on low difficulty, I'd always try to divert 1 city to only gather GP-points. I'd probably even not build the NE in that city because of pollution and would have delayed GSs if I would have noticed, that the GE doesn't come in time for Mining.

Should perhaps have done Pyramids first, but I noticed in some other game(s) that HG was built first, so I tried the same. Improving health early was useful, and earlier population boost too I reckon. Snowballing and all that. Wouldn't be able to run many specialists at this stage anyway, so don't think losing out on earlier Rep hurt me too much.

The reason I built them in Aksum is that I wanted to double up on GE points from HG and Mids. Could have built both elsewhere, but didn't have many strong hammer cities and needed to get started early due to no stone, so Aksum felt like the best choice.

And at last, I wonder why you didn't conquest more with Catapults + Chariots. It would have been very easy to whip out something like 5 Catapults and conquer more territory, or were you already close to domination?

Didn't post this screenshot, but so far we were already up to 27% of land, and I figured that after backfilling it all, we would be pretty close to domination (which turned out to be more or less correct). Could have easily wiped Mansa, but I wanted to try to peace vassal him. Shaka isn't fun to wage war on when I don't want to spam military, and Peter was far away, which would have been terrible for maintenance. So at this point I sat back and REXed instead.

Thx for the writeup, very interesting.

Thanks, and also thanks to Fractal Spiral Great to see that others are learning something from it, and comments are inspiring to continue to put the work into such Writeups.

 

[Seraiel]

@ pangaea: Bulbing Lib doesn't complete the tech, so you can bulb it, then research Machinery and Lib something decent. I know you went Cottage-economy, but on Rainforrest, I'd always think about more Specialists, because there's just so many Food on the map. Bulbs also have a very high efficiency, especially the smaller the map. I'd probably have built the Mids before the HGs, though I understand the reasoning for HGs first fully, but I'd have run 2 Scientists in every city that had a Library. Would be interesting what other players think about this.

 

[Pangaea]

From 1AD: More REXing

The next manual save post-1AD wasn't until 300AD. At that point I have founded 3 more cities, including this very nice National Park spot:



6 possible food sources, plus marble and copper for hammers. If Jungles spread, it can get 12 forest preserves for 12 free specialists. Not bad.




The Worker count is a bit better now too, with 21 workers for 16 cities. Naturally, more is needed as we keep expanding, and cutting down the jungle becomes more urgent.




Here I've made a custom screen that shows the most important information. You can see that I'm in pretty solid REX mode, with four settlers in production. With more cottages maturing in the bigger cities, we're still breaking even at roughly 40% , so there is no reason to slow down on the REX. We need to fill the map with cities, and the sooner the better.


400AD: The first Golden Age

Originally the idea was to keep research turned off until Oxford was built, but I changed my mind due to changing circumstances. Instead of teching Machinery, Mansa opted for Feudalism. This means I can get it soon, and maybe also peace vassal him. Mansa is usually the best candidate for a good tech partner, because he techs really well, even with few cities.

More importantly, the Pyramids is built in Aksum in 400AD, so we need to change into Representation. We also need some more civic changes. Therefore I quickly research Music for the free Great Artist, and he goes up in smoke launching our first Golden Age.





Then it's time for a triple civics change: Representation - Caste System and Organised Religion.

We haven't built the National Epic yet - I was still thinking about putting it in the newly settled NP city. However, Aksum could use a boost when building a University, the last needed to qualify for Oxford, and of course Oxford itself. Some cities have also got up some lousy workshops. But launch a GA and change into Caste, and suddenly the terrible workshops turn into green hills, which aren't bad to work at all. MoM is also built, so we get 12 turns of increased hammers, commerce and GP production.

Before launching the GA in 400AD, the Empire is making 440 at 100%, and breaking even at 50%.

 

[sinimusta]

Nice thread with lots of pics! Especially the late game part of space race is a bit unfamiliar to me, I've done it a couple of times but not very optimized.

What really makes me wonder, is your capital micro. And also the fact no one commented on it. Sure getting chariots out paid off really nice. But let's see, the T42 screenie. Why not grow over happy cap and whip the population to workers and settlers later? You could have had the same hammers with just using pig instead of fp. And there was need for workers as in the pic there was still unimproved gems and chariots would mean cities to be connected.

Later T69 your cap doesn't work the pigs, what about helper city on the banana to work it and grow cottage tiles for cap? Also those southern cottages would have benefitted from a helper city.

 

[Seraiel]

Nice thread with lots of pics! Especially the late game part of space race is a bit unfamiliar to me, I've done it a couple of times but not very optimized.

What really makes me wonder, is your capital micro. And also the fact no one commented on it. Sure getting chariots out paid off really nice. But let's see, the T42 screenie. Why not grow over happy cap and whip the population to workers and settlers later? You could have had the same hammers with just using pig instead of fp. And there was need for workers as in the pic there was still unimproved gems and chariots would mean cities to be connected.

Later T69 your cap doesn't work the pigs, what about helper city on the banana to work it and grow cottage tiles for cap? Also those southern cottages would have benefitted from a helper city.

I actually wanted to comment on that, but I then forgot. Not working the Food for 1 additiona is actually a horrible tradeoff. I also would have worked the Pigs in T69 but I understand that pangaea didn't want to gamble more tha needed with Oracle.

I once read the rule "always work the Food" , and I try to stick to it except if I calculate that working a tile will yield greater benefit (i. e. when building a Granary) , but that is not often.

 

[Pangaea]

Back in T42 it was to produce chariots faster. Sure, I could have grown into and whipped workers, settlers or something else later when I got slavery, but instead I chose to keep it at happy cap and get out chariots as fast as possible. Which in fairness helped me capture 3 AI capitals by 1200BC. By working the FP, I also got 1 more commerce than the pig. Lousy trade-off you may say, but that's what I did.

In the T69 screenshot I wanted to put what hammers I could towards finishing the Oracle ASAP. Faster Buro is important, and at the time I figured that was more important than growing faster.

Helper cities could have got up earlier, that is true. Instead I settled cities that grabbed better resources. The capital grew pretty fast though, so don't think it mattered much. When I got up a helper city it didn't do much for capital tiles anyway, as the capital was big enough to work most of them at a fairly early stage. Size 14 at 1AD and size 17 at 400AD.

Certainly a bit of an unusual approach, as normally you want to work the food at all times if possible. Worked out well enough in this game, however, albeit the normal approach may have been just as good (or better).

 

[Pangaea]

400AD Golden Age action

12-turn Golden Ages are great. But first, what are some cities up to?



As I mentioned in the above post, Aksum is already pretty big at size 17, so doesn't have all that much use for helper cities at this point. All its worked tiles are improved, and two workers are building a workshop on the last grassland tile. The city could use some more hammers. Banana is still mined.




This is perhaps another questionable move. Instead of working reasonably well-developed cottages, Gondar is running 6 scientists. That means that despite researching at 0%, Rep-boosted specialists will finish Machinery in 6 turns.




This screenshot is to show the Caste-GA workshops. Normally they'd give 1 1, but here they perform like green hills. After the GA they'll be back to useless filth, but for the time being they are worth working, particularly as hammers isn't that easy to come by at this stage. I thought this was a pretty neet move, but maybe the experts disagree




This was a little frustrating. I planned to settle on the tile the settler occupies right now, but NE of the copper is a Zulu settler, which settled where he is in between turns. Therefore I settle on the riverside green hill 2W of the sugar instead, with the intention of trying to grab that copper tile. Culture pressure works better in straight lines. Another riverside city doesn't hurt either, and it can borrow the pig from further west.


Mansa Musa request



Finally the reward for not killing off Mansa 1000 years ago I gave him Civil Service for Feudalism this turn, and he instantly wanted to peace vassal. I "only" have 1.43 his power, but it was enough. First, however, I needed to bribe Shaka off Mansa (or the other way around, I forget), so there wouldn't be an auto-war on Shaka. Neither had got anywhere for some time, but they were still at war.

Since Peter still isn't keen on trading away Philo, I set Mansa to work on that. I need it for Lib, and Pacifism is of course great to have for later Golden Ages.


20 cities and counting

We found two cities this turn, in 520AD, and are up to 20. One more settler is en route to a spot, and 3 more are queued up.



Oxford finally queued up in the capital. Due to low resolution for taking these screenshots, all 20 cities don't show, but the 7 newest cities are still busy with a granary, so not very interesting viewing. We're in the process of generating some failgold from Marble-Wonders, although I want to complete the Great Library and Hagia Sophia.




Elsewhere, Mansa's newest city is in serious culture problems. We have 90% culture on the city tile, so that city can't possibly last very long.

Also worth pointing out that we got a Great Prophet from 50/50 Great Engineer chances in capital Aksum. A GE would have been good already for Mining purposes, but a GProphet is actually more useful in the here and now, and I send him towards New York to Shrine Confucianism. Would like to spread it to more of our cities, and since both Shaka and Mansa are Confucian too, they will hopefully spread it in theirs.


Shrine



The Great Prophet arrives in New York and builds the Confucian Shrine there. It only yields +7 for the time being, but that will increase. Assuming the Great People fall in place, this will later become the Wall Street and Corporations HQ city.




Another annoying barb city spawned at the edge of the map, and it naturally needs to die. I want to settle the city elsewhere, to grab pig and silver.


End of the Golden Age

All good things come to an end, including Golden Ages in Civ 4.



Don't have Philosophy yet, so Pacifism isn't an option either inside or outside of GAs -- but then I'd want to run OR right now anyway. The only civic change I make at the end of the GA is to change back to Slavery. It means the workshops are temporarily useless, but slavery is very good for getting the newly settled cities up to speed a bit faster.

This is our research when the Golden Age has come to an end, i.e. the turn after it ended, so this is 'natural' research in 660AD.

​

We're breaking even at only 30% now, so it has dropped from 50% due to the pretty heavy REXing. We're up to 24 cities now, from 13 at 1AD. At 100% research the Empire makes 735 .

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -​

Any comments or questions?

 

[Seraiel]

Working Specialists instead of Villages during a GA isn't questionable at all. I'd have even gone further, and would have microed the biggest cities to all work Specialists, to create a bunch of them during the GA and later. I found that strategy when playing Replay #4, it's awesome. Great People are extremely strong, just imagine you could bulb Chemistry to make Workshops good tiles, or if you got a Great Merchant that you can send on a Trade Mission, fueling your deficit research for 1-2 techs. Maybe you want to keep this in mind, having multiple GP-Farms is something good, Great Persons just kick in faster than working Cottages.

 

[Pangaea]

Working Specialists instead of Villages during a GA isn't questionable at all. I'd have even gone further, and would have microed the biggest cities to all work Specialists, to create a bunch of them during the GA and later. I found that strategy when playing Replay #4, it's awesome. Great People are extremely strong, just imagine you could bulb Chemistry to make Workshops good tiles, or if you got a Great Merchant that you can send on a Trade Mission, fueling your deficit research for 1-2 techs. Maybe you want to keep this in mind, having multiple GP-Farms is something good, Great Persons just kick in faster than working Cottages.

Interesting you should mention Chemistry, because that is one of my first goals once research is turned back on. Didn't work specialists all over the place, however. The cities had infrastructure I wanted to build (especially the capital with Uni/Oxford, and Washington with GLib/NE). Another reason I didn't work loads of specialists all over the place is that we still don't have Philosophy. Plenty of time later to pump out great people anyhow. The plan was to use most of them for golden ages, though, and not for bulbing. Bulbing value goes down quite a lot post-Edu/Lib/maybe PP. But I do want a GE and GM for Mining Inc and Cereal.

 

[Pangaea]

Oxford and Fun

Time for another update, with some fun stuff ahead. But first... that didn't take long:





Bit of a useless city, that's losing us gold, but I keep it. For the time being.


660AD: National Epic



This probably took way too long to get built, but we got there in the end, and can finally get some proper GP production in a city. Washington has the Great Library too, so it made sense to put the National Epic there.


700AD: Oxford

Two turns later, and we get Oxford in 700AD.



In the top left corner you'll see that I've saved up a good stash of 5000 . Time to turn research back on. With all that gold, we can run deficit research for around 20 turns.


And then we finally get Philosophy from Mansa:



That was very late, which was thanks to Peter being a douche. Could of course have bulbed it myself, but that would be a waste of a perfectly good GS when others have already founded the religion and I wasn't in desperate need of Philosophy/Pacifism.


Time for some FUN

First, however, some news of reasonable importance.



Hannibal builds the Apostolic Palace, which means it is Buddhist. Sucks for me, but I couldn't be bothered to go for it, like I did in an earlier game with the same settings. Only one city have Buddhism: Yeha.




Always a pleasure when you get that first Great Engineer. Now you can relax if the idea is to found Mining Inc. He had 45% or thereabouts. If you run an Engineer for a long, long time, I find you'll usually get a GE somewhere, particularly if those cities don't run anything else, so many GE points builds up, before you perhaps run two scientists to spit out that Great Person a bit quicker.


Gao is doing very little for us. Despite sending a pack of workers to cut down jungle and improve the food, I decide to hand it back to Mansa. He needs it more than we do.




Not least due to this:



51% land is a lot. But not enough. We can get another 10% without triggering domination. And look at the Russian lands just beyond the mountains...



That is some seriously juicy real estate; particularly all those rice fields that Cereal will turn into heaps of in every city in the Empire later. Definitely looks like they're able to put food on the plates in Novgorod and Rostov

The Stone in the distance is also very tempting. Building Hanging Gardens, Pyramids and Oxford without it was a pain in the arse, and it could come in handy for Kremlin at least.



Peeeteeeeeeeeeer!!

We pay an ever so friendly-intentioned visit to Russia, and holler for Peter.




Always such a shame when diplomacy fails




Some protective measures never hurt anybody.



Particularly when that somebody is Shaka the Blood-thirsty. Bribing after you have declared war yourself is cheaper -- if I remember correctly, he couldn't even be bribed before, because he was worried. This deal, however, is pretty good, with basically outdated techs.




Not the most impressive military numbers, and some chariots are needed for military police.




This force isn't going to put the Fear of Cthulu in the Russians, but there are a few Knights approaching the frontlines too. Here's hoping...

 

[Pangaea]

Liberalism

With Oxford and research turned back on, we move ahead much faster. Before you know it, a familiar screen pops up:



Biology is more expensive, but Communism makes most sense. State Property will cut maintenance down a great deal, and workshops will be much better, particularly when swapping back to Caste System.



As can be seen fairly clearly above, research humped along pretty quickly with almost 1000 a turn (without a GA), and techs came online every 1-3 turns. There is a handful of Great People born too, and I use a GS and the Economics GM to start the 2nd Golden Age. One can run countless Merchants during Caste, so I am confident of getting another GM for Cereal. It's the GE that can be tricky.




With a new Golden Age, it's time for some civic changes again. Rep and Buro is a no-brainer. State Property too really. I'll run SP until we can found corporations. The slashing of maintenance costs comes in real handy with such a big Empire, and on top you get extra and from workshops/watermills and all cities, respectively. It's a fantastic civic. During GAs it's great to run Pacifism to pump out more GPs (and I've spread Confucianism to quite a few cities by now), and Caste makes good sense in general, and particularly during GAs so you can run umpteen GSs and GMs, plus whatever else you fancy.



GP-pumping Cities during the Golden Age

I'm not going to starve every city with max specialists, but four cities have been chosen for the task, while others keep on building infrastructure and Wealth (plus a few more units), in addition to a few specialists in most cities. All cities can't get a GP anyway, so if you run them everywhere, a lot of will be wasted. Therefore I prefer to run lots of specialists in a few spots, which will actually be able to provide GPs in the short to medium term.


Washington



First up is Washington, the NE city. The Great Library got obsoleted with Scientific Method, but it's still a solid GP Farm. It'll get the next GP in 3 turns. It's running 8 Merchants, hoping for a lucky GM.


Aksum



Next up is capital Aksum. It's been running a few specialists for a long time, and should be able to get out the next GP after Washington. Screen says 5 turns, but that will be more due to Washington popping the first one, and Aksum therefore needs more next. Pretty decent chance for another GE.


Massawa



Massawa is up next, possibly at the end of the GA, if not NE-boosted Washington strikes back first. It has lots of food, so is a good supportive GP Farm during GAs. Running mostly scientists here, as I could use more of those for launching later GAs.


Adwa



One more city where I'm running Merchants. I have not cut down the jungle here because it will become the National Park city. It won't generate a GP during the GA, but it will at some later point. Once Forest Preserves and the NP is up, this city will become a beast. The first preserves will be constructed next to the 'empty' tiles, to increase the chance for jungle spread onto them.



To Russia with love?

So what's up at the front? In the tech screenshot you could see that Rostov fell in 920AD, after a turn of bombarding away the walls and cultural defence. Novgorod is next.



Not the most impressive attack bearing down on it, but I'm going slow and steady here rather than pumping units from everywhere, splitting stacks and overwhelming the AI from several directions, like is more common in Conquest or Domination games. The cities should build as little military as needed, and focus on more important tasks for Space and the long haul. Besides, with a defence like that, it's not like he'll stand much of a chance.



It falls the next turn, with minimal losses.


Gah!



The hated AP strikes again, and cuts off trade ties with Shaka. I voted No, but really should have defied it. I probably brain-farted there, as I figured 5 in all cities would have been a real problem, but of course, it would just have been in Buddhist cities, and we barely had any of those. Silly stuff, and not the first time...

Amazingly, Shaka refused to talk to me for the rest of the game. He doesn't half-hold a grudge




Fast forward a few more turns, and St. Petersburg is conquered in 1070AD.




...before Moscow falls in 1100AD. A pretty good spot it is too.




Again the bloody AP strikes with vengeance, and in my stupidity I don't Defy this time either



My thinking was that I had already got the cities I wanted, so perhaps it didn't matter too much, although I did of course want to raze that former barb city in the south, to remove most of the culture pressure.

*ding-ding* Round 1 is over, and a pretty woman walks around the ring with a sign.


The Golden Age also comes to an end, and I change a few civics.



I go from Caste System to Slavery, and from Pacifism to Organised Religion. The reason is that soon we have Assembly Line and access to Factories and Coal Plants. Confucianism is spread to most cities, especially in the core, and I want effective whips to get them up ASAP. It's a game-changer, and after Factories and Power, you don't really need Slavery. But first they must get built, and that isn't cheap or fast -- hence whip till your hands bleed. Whip, I say! WHIP!!!

 

[Seraiel]

Great war, though imo, it's 1000y late .

I didn't understand, why you gifted back Gao, it's a fine city, 2 sources of Food, nice riverside Grasslands... I'm sure it wouldn't have been a drain on economy for long.

NE city shows, what I suspected again. If one builds the GL, the NE gets delayed greatly, and the NE is at least on par with the GL, which obsoletes fast in a Spacerace.
City btw. imo should have been completely farmed, but maybe you built those Cottages before deciding it should become the GP-Farm.

You also gave me an idea, which I'd like to have more info on, which is "whipping the Factories and the Coal Plants" . My intuition would tell me, that whips in size 10+ cities aren't too efficient, so I'd have probably slow-built them and would have remained in Caste + PAC. Not sure, if you made the right decision there. I somehow find, that with having Mining, whipping becomes obsolete as everything is already built very fast, but WastinTime probably has better info.

 

[Pangaea]

Great war, though imo, it's 1000y late .

I didn't understand, why you gifted back Gao, it's a fine city, 2 sources of Food, nice riverside Grasslands... I'm sure it wouldn't have been a drain on economy for long.

That could be, though it would have been really far away and very expensive cities to capture. Remember that some cities already cost 9-10 with a courthouse. If I had managed to do it, however, I would have been better off as they were stellar locations. Would have missed the Buddhist Shrine, but that wasn't of massive importance anyway.

Could be I should have kept Gao, but I would have had to hand back something at some point anyway, and by giving it back early I didn't need to put in the worker turns to improve it. I also hoped Mansa could become more useful with another city, and help me a little more with directed research. Apart from small techs like Drama, Optics and Compass, that didn't really materialise, but it was worth a shot I guess.

NE city shows, what I suspected again. If one builds the GL, the NE gets delayed greatly, and the NE is at least on par with the GL, which obsoletes fast in a Spacerace.
City btw. imo should have been completely farmed, but maybe you built those Cottages before deciding it should become the GP-Farm.

True, it was delayed a little bit due to GLib, and it didn't really last all that long either since I built it so late. Perhaps it was a minor mistake. I cottaged those tiles much earlier than when deciding to make it the NE spot, and when they were already villages/towns I didn't tear them down. Farmed much else with time, though.

You also gave me an idea, which I'd like to have more info on, which is "whipping the Factories and the Coal Plants" . My intuition would tell me, that whips in size 10+ cities aren't too efficient, so I'd have probably slow-built them and would have remained in Caste + PAC. Not sure, if you made the right decision there. I somehow find, that with having Mining, whipping becomes obsolete as everything is already built very fast, but WastinTime probably has better info.

I didn't have Mining yet, but Zara gets cheap factories so those didn't really have to be whipped. Whipped them a few places to get overflow into the coal plants, but most cities 1-2-turned the factories anyway, or would just 1-pop whip them (which I hate). Debatable whether I should have gone for Mining before AL/Factories, but this way I got more mileage out of SP, and with Power in cities, it was very easy to 1-turn executives.

When looking closer at the game now, from comments and checking out so many saves when doing the Writeup, I see potential for improvement, but don't think I've made massive howlers. Comparing with other games I'm too slow with spaceparts, but I'll get to that point later in the Writeup, and am not sure what I should have done different there anyway, apart from some better city micro.

 

[Seraiel]

When looking closer at the game now, from comments and checking out so many saves when doing the Writeup, I see potential for improvement, but don't think I've made massive howlers. Comparing with other games I'm too slow with spaceparts, but I'll get to that point later in the Writeup, and am not sure what I should have done different there anyway, apart from some better city micro.

Well, 1. running OR and 2. not using GPs for bulbs imo are major howlers. Your game is still very good, and it's great to see, how much you have learned, but OR is one of the most expensive Civics, and the 25% benefit on buildings is nothing against +100% which also come without any maintenance!
Also: A GP in your game should have been about 2.5k of , that's being 2 turns faster at your current moment. Compare to the others that played the Gauntlet, and you know, that if you only would have been able to create about 2-3 extra GSs, you'd have had great chances for 2nd place!

In my own games, I almost run Pacifism all the time, once it's become available, just because it doesn't cost any maintenance . But don't worry, I also only found that out because Tachywaxon made me aware of it. It's the same reason, why running Nationalism can be better than running Bureacracy. Ofc, Buro gives the best BPT, but Nationalism doesn't cost anything, so with huge empires, it's a little less on BPT but sometimes hundreds of Golds cheaper, and ofc, being able to draft is great. If having a lot of Towns, even running Free Speech can be best, though it seldomly is, but kovacsflo, who favours Cottages very much in Spaceraces uses it with great success!

 

[Pangaea]

I wouldn't call running OR for a limited time for strategic reasons a howler, and I wanted the GPs I got for GAs anyway. Maybe that's a small mistake, but not playing 100% perfect all the time doesn't necessarily make it a gigantic howler. I'm improving, though, and that's the main thing really. 1560AD isn't exactly a crap date

The main thing I could have done differently with GP, at least early, is to postpone self-teching Education and wait for the 2nd GS to part-bulb it. That would have taken quite a long time, however, so would have postponed Education (which is why I eventually self-teched it), with the probable consequence of postponing Oxford, which of course has its own negatives.

Will post a pack of city pictures next, as they are more developed now, but pre-empting that, Empire-wide I spammed workshosp this time, instead of many watermills like in earlier attempts. I'm not sure if that was a mistake or not, but as the goal here was corporations rather than SP, perhaps it was the right move? Didn't run SP for that long, so the extra food from workshops and watermills wasn't as huge a deal as if I had run it for the entire game. And later on there is plenty of food from Cereal.

Looks like I'll stay home tonight instead of getting drunk beyond recognition, so will try to get up another update with city screens.

 

[Seraiel]

I wouldn't call running OR for a limited time for strategic reasons a howler, and I wanted the GPs I got for GAs anyway. Maybe that's a small mistake, but not playing 100% perfect all the time doesn't necessarily make it a gigantic howler. I'm improving, though, and that's the main thing really. 1560AD isn't exactly a crap date

What is a major howler, depends on a person's view. From my perspective, you didn't focus GPs enough, and disregarded GPs benefits. There are lots of techs one can bulb, Chemistry, Physics, Electricity, even some modern ones. I agree, that GAs are very powerful, but a 5-persons GA imho cannot be justifyed anymore because 5 bulbs would be better.

GPs are the best way to make a game faster. 1560 AD definately is no crap, but if you just had focussed more on GPs and run Caste instead of unneeded Slavery, you maybe even could have beaten Kaitzilla! For that, the Peter war imo would have needed to come earlier aswell, and Kaitzilla also is known, to always have great luck, I'm just making you aware of the very few errors you made!

 

[drizzt.titan]

Judging from some of your posts in other threads it seems you are debating not continuing this replay / write up; I hope you do continue it, however; I personally apologize for not providing any feedback but I am nowhere near your level of play and have nothing of importance to add. Seeing others critique your replay as well as the writeup itself was educational. I think mainly those of us who read these sorts of things and follow them without commenting it is because we feel our ignorant comments would only detract from the writeup as well as earn ourselves the village idiot label.

Anyway, I for one am hoping for more.

 

[Pangaea]

Judging from some of your posts in other threads it seems you are debating not continuing this replay / write up; I hope you do continue it, however; I personally apologize for not providing any feedback but I am nowhere near your level of play and have nothing of importance to add. Seeing others critique your replay as well as the writeup itself was educational. I think mainly those of us who read these sorts of things and follow them without commenting it is because we feel our ignorant comments would only detract from the writeup as well as earn ourselves the village idiot label.

Anyway, I for one am hoping for more.

That is a fair comment to be honest, as I recall writing some comments in Seraiel's Replays and some other threads, and being worried I'd look like a right mug. But it's perhaps also understandable that when people put in rather many hours to go through a lot of saves, take many pictures, edit said pictures for content and size, and write a long update along with the whole thing, and they get almost no feedback, it's easy to get discouraged. It basically feels like a waste of time.

That said, I'll try to finish it since I've already started it and written about the majority of the turns. I'm less sure if I'll do another one, however. Perhaps it was a mistake to post it here; the two other main Civ 4 forums are of course frequented by more people, so more people would see it and hopefully learn something, and more people would perhaps offer feedback and questions too.

Took pictures of the cities about a week ago. Big work to go through it all and edit and so forth, but will try to get another post done today or tomorrow.