Going Native: Or Learning to do better.

[TechRat]

Hello Everyone:

This is my second thread (The first was "Live Long and Prosper" in the Civ II story section, which died from various Real Time Issues. ) Hopefully, I can do better this time.

Let's see if I can do a screen shot right


It worked!
Hopefully, I won't lose the screen-shots like I did in the last one.

Now, for the game itself: Beyond the Sword, patched.
Playing as Native Americans, because I find them interesting; Plus to honor them for Thanksgiving. The Canadian version is not quite over for me yet. Getting more free food from my sister on Friday.

The settings might be changed, depending on the advice I get.
The civilizations shown were the ones who had the most influence, IMO; good or bad. The other two are completely random.
I might include the Dutch (who bought Manhattan), and the Vikings (which were easily kicked out, due to limited effort to colonize North America. )

Would be nice set this on a "Real" Earth Map with historical locations.

Thank you for reading.

 

[TechRat]

With some minor changes in the Custom Game setup, I launched my first game, and letting it loose on the world

I upped the level from Warlord to Noble; considering I might make use of your advice from you kind people.

I left England a random leader, because I couldn't decide on Beth or Vicky . Plus I added the Dutch and the Vikings, along with another random civ.




Looks good, but what do I know?

Here is the save game: Advice would be nice; but try not to spoil things for others if you play ahead.

 

[CCRunner]

Not a great start. No food resources and 3 calender things. I'd probably settle in place although I have a sneaking suspicion there are horses 2N2W. Moving would lose freshwater though and your borders would probably have expanded enough to grab the suspected horses by the time you're able to use them well.

 

[TechRat]

Thank you.
I instantly considered just settling in place with all those dyes. But then I looked in the Civilopedia and found out how long I have to wait to make good use of them.

I might build another Warrior to speed up exploration, then build a Worker while researching Bronze Working.

 

[BakingTheArt]

You have at least one food resource, somewhere. I'd say move warrior 1 NW, and if nothing appears from the fog, better to settle in place than risk losing the food.

 

[TechRat]

4000 BC: Cahokia was founded, and started building a band of warriors.
While Mining is being researched, the original warriors explore the north.

3840 BC: Borders expand.

3760 BC: Mining discovered. Moving onto Bronze Working.
A couple of turns earlier, Warriors were built and sent south-west. Workers being built to take advantage of the upcoming tech.



The warrior in the north is one space south-east of a village.
The warrior in the south will take a closer at the shoreline near the pigs. A city might be founded there, but I don't like settling on top of a resource. Afraid I might lose the use of it.

 

[Sian]

explore more before people can say where to build cities

though i have an idea about a few places (but not sure since there's not explored enough)
SE of pigs
just N of the two 'phants (grabbing both Phants and cows)
NE of the lake ('phants, rice and spice)
NW of gems (on hill 1n4w from capital)

now i can't remember which techs Sitting Bull starts with ... but Workers should start with Corn and after that mine the gems for tons of early commence

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

Get a worker out ASAP so you can mine those grassland gems in your BFC. Early gems (or gold or silver) are great for getting fast research.

It looks like your start is not bad. Make your capitol into a science/trade city.

NPM

 

[kazapp]

You have at least one food resource, somewhere.

Quoted for (obvious) truth!

Corn rocks! (Actually, it flakes, but anyway)

 

[Killroyan]

About the food resource, not always true. I have had starts with 0 resources in my BFC and I do mean 0,00000 resources and even a peak to boot.

From what I can see, you have nice land. Lots of grassland, 2 immediate happy resources and enough health resources. The proposals for city placement by Sian is pretty good. I would not forget about pig/gem city. Although you might think but that will cause overlap, who cares. It is low maintenance, high food/commerce. You can´t go wrong with that city. Especially if 1E of the pigs is coastal.

 

[JTMacc99]

Well, no reason to worry about cities 2-4 yet. Those decisions are highly impacted by things you can't see yet, ESPECIALLY metal and your new neighbors.


I would build the worker, irrigate the corn, mine the gems, and then...I don't know. I'd probably farm the grassland square 1S of the city, which would be the only farm in that most excellent commerce city. I'd then probably mine the grassland hills (the two next to the rivers first, then the other two. Since they are ALL wooded tiles, you'll be getting lots of chopped hammers while you do it. That should speed up the worker/settler production a little bit.

So, you'll probably be working the corn (what's that 5 food?), the Gems (what's that two food and a hammer?) while you build a couple warriors. Then you'll probably work the farm (three food) while you grow the city to 5 and start working the farmed grassland hills (3H1F) when you start cranking out the workers and settlers.


WAIT! I changed my mind. Since you're playing at a moderate difficulty level and you are Native American, after you get the corn and gems improved, start building a 2nd worker while you mine the first grassland hill. The chop should speed it along a little After that, have that worker chop the forrest in the tile below the city, have the other worker mine the second riverside grassland hill while you are building Stonehenge. It makes your UB three times better.

 

[Quotey]

Erm, perhaps you should research Agriculture for the worker?

 

[TechRat]

Thank you all for posting.

explore more before people can say where to build cities

though i have an idea about a few places (but not sure since there's not explored enough)
SE of pigs
just N of the two 'phants (grabbing both Phants and cows)
NE of the lake ('phants, rice and spice)
NW of gems (on hill 1n4w from capital)

now i can't remember which techs Sitting Bull starts with ... but Workers should start with Corn and after that mine the gems for tons of early commence

Sitting Bull starts with Fishing and Agriculture. Workers are being constructed as we post.

I like your suggestions of locations, but just have to push back the dark fog a bit further first.

Get a worker out ASAP so you can mine those grassland gems in your BFC. Early gems (or gold or silver) are great for getting fast research.

It looks like your start is not bad. Make your capitol into a science/trade city.

NPM

Worker is being built along with researching Bronze Working; they are due approximately the same time.

Quoted for (obvious) truth!

Corn rocks! (Actually, it flakes, but anyway)

About the food resource, not always true. I have had starts with 0 resources in my BFC and I do mean 0,00000 resources and even a peak to boot.

From what I can see, you have nice land. Lots of grassland, 2 immediate happy resources and enough health resources. The proposals for city placement by Sian is pretty good. I would not forget about pig/gem city. Although you might think but that will cause overlap, who cares. It is low maintenance, high food/commerce. You can´t go wrong with that city. Especially if 1E of the pigs is coastal.

Oh, now that is a bad start! What's BFC?
I'm not too concerned about overlapping, if only one or two spots are shared.

 

[JTMacc99]

Big Fat Cross (I think, heh). I do know for a fact that even if I got the acronym incorrect that it refers to the 21 tiles that your city can work for resources and commerce. It is perfectly illustrated in your screen shot above of your capital city after it's first border pop. Your cultural borders are also the city's BFC.

By the way, I would research Mysticism after Bronze Working, because now I'm all worked up about the idea of building Stonehenge. That will give you +3 experience for every protective archer and longbow you build in every city all the way up to astronomy with only a couple forrests and a few early turns sacraficed! No additional hammers or turns will be needed to build totems in any city after this.

Not to mention, you also get the border pops at the earliest possible time in each new city, plus, you are philosophical so you'll be gettig a very nice head start on your first great person.

Think about the protective archers for a minute. Let's say after a while you've got a barracks in your production cities. That means you'll build an archer that either starts with CG3/D1, CG1/D3, or maybe even something like CG1/D1/Medic2 (I think medic is open to D1 in the latest patch) or CG1/D2/Formation or CG1/D2/Cover. Given that your Axeman is resource free, and that you can build highly promoted archers to go with them (D2/formation archers should do a nice job protecting against chariots) you could build a scary early rush stack if need be.

Once Theocracy and Vassalage are in play, you are talking about longbows starting with D4, which makes them an unusually powerful and multi-purpose unit.

 

[TechRat]

The Warrior exploring the north enters a village and we get 47 gold.

The Warrior in the south reveals a decent city spot. Grassland one space east of the Pigs.



Big Fat Cross: If I was more awake, I might have figured it out sooner.

 

[Sian]

i'd still say SE of Pigs ... less overlap with Capital ... might not be as 'good' but i doubt you'll notice a diffence before lategame (the gems is taken by another city)

 

[Monsterzuma]

Settle 1 east of the pigs so you can work the western gems once Cahokia's border pops. Overlap with the capital is partly a good thing because it allows you to mature cottages to be worked by the capital, which will have it's commerce output greatly magnified by bureaucracy + acadamy later on.

 

[Sian]

... can also work the gems from a city on the hill at them (which is coastal as well)

 

[LuCiver]

This is the perfect opportunity to farm on top of your riverside dye to make some use of that +1 commerce while waiting for calendar. Your capital is food-poor so you will likely need to build at least one grassland farm anyways. Once calendar is in, you can always plantation over the farm if you really need that third dye for trading. Farms, unlike cottages, don't mature with time so they are relatively painless to transform.

 

[TechRat]

the Lion Sleeps Tonight. =The Tokens

It will be more then sleeping if/when my warrior can get him first.




Thanks for all the advice, folks
Will make use of them as soon as my first worker is built.

I'm considering building a Dog Solder for extra hitting power, then a Settler for my second city.
After researching BW, I'm going for Mysticism, Wheels, and Pottery.
Of course, that all those plans depend on the prevailing situation.