No front is currently in danger though that could easily change especially with bad RNG.
To the S we have seen units, but no attacks.
To the S we have seen units, but no attacks.
GOMAW 28 AWM wheel
- Thread starter ThERat
- Start date
I've got the save - I had looked at the pre-Greebley save, and it just looks like we haven't done a good enough job on the basic nuts and bolts stuff that have nothing to do with AW to keep up with the AI (or to get ahead, which is crucial to AW). But I'll do my best.
ThERat
Deity
Well, first of all, Civ4 is a much tougher game if played as SG due to far too many possible directions a game can be played.
Would we have liked a free religion? Or do we go the wonder route? Or expand as fast as possible? Or get the military techs?
There are just too many possibilities and here we have 6 minds all working in a different direction. It's not the fault of any player. It's just that we need to have a strategic masterplan before we even start and then follow that plan.
Having a masterplan requires strong knowledge of the map and game mechanics for that particular map.
It worked out for the hub game on prince, but might just not work out on monarch for a wheel map.
I do not like that people get blamed too much for their turnsets, because I don't think anyone of us here plays
stuff. We simply do not know what to expect from this type of game.Examples:
we chose China which isn't creative and thus do not get border expansions, yet we did not go for a religion and thus needed to waste hammers on obelisks.
we headed the wonder road and now get pressured a lot from AI units.
there are more examples and I can't pin that to any one player. I think irrigating so much grass is pretty weedy, but that was done by several players (I do not see the corn getting more food now that the irrigation is connected to it, maybe I am missing sth here).
Overall, I think we have played so far to the best we could and if we go down, then it wasn't the fault of anyone alone
It's just the blocking and tackling. I think I listed some examples before, but its basically crucial in CivIV, and especially at epic speed, to get food bonuses worked. This lets you get up to the happy limit quickly, and also makes whipping feasible, which we really could have used with our lack of hammers.
You basically get one, preferably two food bonuses, then whip a granary, then you can trade food for hammers one for one if you manage it well. There's a decent discussion of slavery in the Learning to Walk thread. Lacking granaries, when the gold was hooked, we were looking at six-ten turns in each city to gain each extra population, even with a full growth citizen configuration. Usually in my single games I can gain pop in 3-4 turns max whenever I need it.
As for my set, I started out taking decent notes, but things are pretty grim, so I'll just sum up. Pisae bizarrely held, after going 27-6 in the first 4 turns, which cleared out all but two units in the garrison, with 8 more units waiting to take it. I proceeded to whip a unit every turn which died but held the city. It should fall this turn. Had I sent reinforcements, we might have held it longer, but Rome has started bringing the Praets in force so it was just a matter of time. The city has so much unhappiness now it's not worth much anyway.
I cleaned up the first western wave, but another couple are on the way, and the gold was unhooked. There are workers on the gold now to rehook it, but the western floodgates have opened.
The south held without losses, killing two stacks of 4-6. Another couple waves are visible.
"Overall, I think we have played so far to the best we could"
This is just not true, and I don't know how to improve without acknowledging it. The happiness ceiling was tough, and in retrospect we probably should have settled the gold much earlier than we did, especially with cheap forges. But we did not make very good use of the resources we had.
You basically get one, preferably two food bonuses, then whip a granary, then you can trade food for hammers one for one if you manage it well. There's a decent discussion of slavery in the Learning to Walk thread. Lacking granaries, when the gold was hooked, we were looking at six-ten turns in each city to gain each extra population, even with a full growth citizen configuration. Usually in my single games I can gain pop in 3-4 turns max whenever I need it.
As for my set, I started out taking decent notes, but things are pretty grim, so I'll just sum up. Pisae bizarrely held, after going 27-6 in the first 4 turns, which cleared out all but two units in the garrison, with 8 more units waiting to take it. I proceeded to whip a unit every turn which died but held the city. It should fall this turn. Had I sent reinforcements, we might have held it longer, but Rome has started bringing the Praets in force so it was just a matter of time. The city has so much unhappiness now it's not worth much anyway.
I cleaned up the first western wave, but another couple are on the way, and the gold was unhooked. There are workers on the gold now to rehook it, but the western floodgates have opened.
The south held without losses, killing two stacks of 4-6. Another couple waves are visible.
"Overall, I think we have played so far to the best we could"
This is just not true, and I don't know how to improve without acknowledging it. The happiness ceiling was tough, and in retrospect we probably should have settled the gold much earlier than we did, especially with cheap forges. But we did not make very good use of the resources we had.
ThERat
Deity
I agree that in hindsight, we could and should have chosen a different approach. This is where the learning comes from, looking at the game from a different angle in retrospect.
But, while each of us were playing their turnsets, everyone played to their best they could.
Of course, we always know afterwards what could have done better...but for this game it's too late.
I personally think a game on this type of map at monarch difficulty with a Civ with a mid-game UU is very tough to crack.
I vaguely remember having this conversation before. 
I'm not talking about approaches, I'm talking basic nuts-and-bolts stuff that you'd want to do to be successful in any game. I think you are correct that AWM on this map with this civ is difficult, which puts a premium on minding the p's and q's, and we didn't do that. Nothing seriously weedy, but not the level of play required by the situation.
I'm not mad, and I'm not pointing fingers - I'm aware of several people, T McC included, who are better at that stuff than I - just calling a spade a spade.
I'm not talking about approaches, I'm talking basic nuts-and-bolts stuff that you'd want to do to be successful in any game. I think you are correct that AWM on this map with this civ is difficult, which puts a premium on minding the p's and q's, and we didn't do that. Nothing seriously weedy, but not the level of play required by the situation.
I'm not mad, and I'm not pointing fingers - I'm aware of several people, T McC included, who are better at that stuff than I - just calling a spade a spade.
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2001
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lurker's comment:
Watching these recent posts tells me it isn't just the LK series that suffers from serious problems with team coordination. This game definitely has one of the best collection of warmongers from the Civ3 days, yet even this team is struggling.
I do have to agree with Bezhukov that food is king this game. Food bonus are IMHO *more* powerful in Civ4 then Civ3. As I play this game more, I am becoming convinced food is king. Even the more recent LK series games saw me sacrifice the very valueable religion just to get food sooner...
Watching these recent posts tells me it isn't just the LK series that suffers from serious problems with team coordination. This game definitely has one of the best collection of warmongers from the Civ3 days, yet even this team is struggling.
I do have to agree with Bezhukov that food is king this game. Food bonus are IMHO *more* powerful in Civ4 then Civ3. As I play this game more, I am becoming convinced food is king. Even the more recent LK series games saw me sacrifice the very valueable religion just to get food sooner...
romeothemonk
Order of the Engineer
Hmm, some thoughts on the post mortem.
#1) The 2 width on the wheel was tough. You can make the rim 1 tile wide and the spoke 2. This simple manuever allows me to stay alive until the industrial timeset on Monarch, normal speed.
#2) On Epic speed, worker actions are more important. I used a little crack on some actions earlyon.
#3) You don't have to beeline to Bronze. By going for agriculture and/or hunting first, the food bonus is much more important.
#4) I am not sold on Creative, as I still think Qin is the bomb for AW. Although that is just my play style.
#5) I am not sold on whipping at all. However, if we are to whip, granaries are a must have.
#6) Pop is power. Always has been in civ, prolly always will be.
If you will have me for a rematch, I would like to try.
#1) The 2 width on the wheel was tough. You can make the rim 1 tile wide and the spoke 2. This simple manuever allows me to stay alive until the industrial timeset on Monarch, normal speed.
#2) On Epic speed, worker actions are more important. I used a little crack on some actions earlyon.
#3) You don't have to beeline to Bronze. By going for agriculture and/or hunting first, the food bonus is much more important.
#4) I am not sold on Creative, as I still think Qin is the bomb for AW. Although that is just my play style.
#5) I am not sold on whipping at all. However, if we are to whip, granaries are a must have.
#6) Pop is power. Always has been in civ, prolly always will be.
If you will have me for a rematch, I would like to try.
I am not even sure the nuts and bolts stuff is fully clear yet.
For example, is building food bonuses and whipping better than building cottages? I get the impression from Bezhukov that he feels it is, yet I feel starting the cottages right away is better to keep up/ahead in tech. (note I agree food resources are king - I am talking about all the other squares here).
I also feel we didn't expand quick enough, but am I right? I would have liked to have filled the area we were given before my previous turn. Would 3-4 more towns and a narrow front have helped? I think yes. This is the other reason I like cottages at the start you can expand faster. I would rather have this than to whip be able to cities.
But as has been commented in this thread, the worst we can do is if one person builds up cottages and then the next player doesn't utilize them to go for food and whip and then the next player does something very different, etc. Both strategies I mention have their strengths, but not a mix.
And I agree with Rat that a religion instead of Obilisks would have helped us.
OTOH, I think the "nuts and bolts" that ARE obvious probably can be improved as Bez states.
If this game is dead or going to die maybe we should try the same game on prince? We can work on the communication bit and try to decide a strategy so we are on the same page.
I would rather try prince than drop the wheel rim down to size 1. Blocking the way with a single town doesn't feel like a wheel game to me.
For example, is building food bonuses and whipping better than building cottages? I get the impression from Bezhukov that he feels it is, yet I feel starting the cottages right away is better to keep up/ahead in tech. (note I agree food resources are king - I am talking about all the other squares here).
I also feel we didn't expand quick enough, but am I right? I would have liked to have filled the area we were given before my previous turn. Would 3-4 more towns and a narrow front have helped? I think yes. This is the other reason I like cottages at the start you can expand faster. I would rather have this than to whip be able to cities.
But as has been commented in this thread, the worst we can do is if one person builds up cottages and then the next player doesn't utilize them to go for food and whip and then the next player does something very different, etc. Both strategies I mention have their strengths, but not a mix.
And I agree with Rat that a religion instead of Obilisks would have helped us.
OTOH, I think the "nuts and bolts" that ARE obvious probably can be improved as Bez states.
If this game is dead or going to die maybe we should try the same game on prince? We can work on the communication bit and try to decide a strategy so we are on the same page.
I would rather try prince than drop the wheel rim down to size 1. Blocking the way with a single town doesn't feel like a wheel game to me.
"I am not even sure the nuts and bolts stuff is fully clear yet."
That's sorta my point. But we won't even have the conversation to get it clearer if the take away is "we did the best we could."
[EDIT] I see that was sorta your point too.
I also agree with Greebley that we needed more expansion for tactical purposes, but I think if we'd managed the early growth better, the expansion rate would have "felt" about the same as the one we pursued, it just would have unfolded about 500 years sooner.
I'm up for trying this same game again, with a capital one west. I like Qin too, and this is really a decent start resource-wise. Maybe we can go for the Civil Service slingshot Brad Feanor advocates in that Learning to Walk thread, as it involves also picking up a religion (Confucianism) along the way. He also likes early cottages, and if we start with the wheat, we should have a better chance to get some going, and getting access to that plains hill should also help get settlers out quicker. We didn't get pottery til pretty late in this game either.
As for whipping, I never whip my capital, and rarely in my first couple cities, unless they happen to be really food-rich/hammer-poor. Later cities really benefit from the speeded-up getting with the program that whipping allows. If you have around 5-6 happies, you can continue to whip down to just food-bonus citizens for max growth, then let the unhappiness wear off as it grows back, repeating until basic infra is completed. I guess in general I find granaries to be really essential for flexibility, especially on epic, and judicious use of whipping makes the hammers necessary to build them much less as issue, because there are mad hammers available via whipping if you do the math.
That's sorta my point. But we won't even have the conversation to get it clearer if the take away is "we did the best we could."
[EDIT] I see that was sorta your point too.
I also agree with Greebley that we needed more expansion for tactical purposes, but I think if we'd managed the early growth better, the expansion rate would have "felt" about the same as the one we pursued, it just would have unfolded about 500 years sooner.
I'm up for trying this same game again, with a capital one west. I like Qin too, and this is really a decent start resource-wise. Maybe we can go for the Civil Service slingshot Brad Feanor advocates in that Learning to Walk thread, as it involves also picking up a religion (Confucianism) along the way. He also likes early cottages, and if we start with the wheat, we should have a better chance to get some going, and getting access to that plains hill should also help get settlers out quicker. We didn't get pottery til pretty late in this game either.
As for whipping, I never whip my capital, and rarely in my first couple cities, unless they happen to be really food-rich/hammer-poor. Later cities really benefit from the speeded-up getting with the program that whipping allows. If you have around 5-6 happies, you can continue to whip down to just food-bonus citizens for max growth, then let the unhappiness wear off as it grows back, repeating until basic infra is completed. I guess in general I find granaries to be really essential for flexibility, especially on epic, and judicious use of whipping makes the hammers necessary to build them much less as issue, because there are mad hammers available via whipping if you do the math.
romeothemonk
Order of the Engineer
I really don't like to replay any starts, as we "know" what there is going to be.
The diverse opinions kinda hurt the team structure, but from this we can hopefully develop an optimum team member order.
I would say ThERat is a great opener, follow him up with Greebley. Knupp does fairly well following greebley.
Bez and T_McC are more consolidators, whereas I am a pure warmonger. I would have the order go as follows
Rat
Greebley
Knupp
T_McC
Romeo
Bez
This way Bez can pick up after me from my FIRE, Ready, Aim moments, and I can take the brunt of the constructive criticism.
One thing that could help is posting the start before play actually begins, allowing for mass kibitzing, or doing the time tested everyone play 30-50 turns and write up why your start should be taken.
The diverse opinions kinda hurt the team structure, but from this we can hopefully develop an optimum team member order.
I would say ThERat is a great opener, follow him up with Greebley. Knupp does fairly well following greebley.
Bez and T_McC are more consolidators, whereas I am a pure warmonger. I would have the order go as follows
Rat
Greebley
Knupp
T_McC
Romeo
Bez
This way Bez can pick up after me from my FIRE, Ready, Aim moments, and I can take the brunt of the constructive criticism.
One thing that could help is posting the start before play actually begins, allowing for mass kibitzing, or doing the time tested everyone play 30-50 turns and write up why your start should be taken.
I would rather play the same kind of map rather than the same map. When you can use foreknowledge it isn't quite the same.
So new random opponents in random locations and random placements of resources we don't see right off.
I know that I for one can play slower and more carefully and that it will improve my game at least to a certain extent. MM'ing cities more often for example.
Edit: order looks fine to me...
So new random opponents in random locations and random placements of resources we don't see right off.
I know that I for one can play slower and more carefully and that it will improve my game at least to a certain extent. MM'ing cities more often for example.
Edit: order looks fine to me...
I'm up for another try, but on a new map.
I think we got hurt badly by essentially not having a food bonus at the capital. Plains Cows look good, but ... when that's the only bonus food tile you just grow unacceptably slowly. Worth settling the capital a turn or two later if we are put in the same situation again.
Chasing a religion sounds good ... but even if you do get a religion you still have to spend 50 hammers on a Missionary, and either 90 hammers on the Monastery (when you may not have real choice where to build it) or research Monotheism to run Org Rel. And if you don't get one of Hinduism/Buddhism/Judaism, you are really behind in useful research. Obelisks are otherwise useless, but all they require is founding cities in places you can chop a forest. Then you are trading the forest for the border expansion and any production while chopping carries over to the next project, so you're effectively working on something else from the time the city is founded.
We got around this problem in the Hub game by building Stonehenge. For an Industrious Civ it basically costs 2 forests. I am happy to play as Qin again, but the danger of Industrious is not to get too wonder happy. I guess we just need to discuss whether/when we want to build a wonder.
We can't have too specific a strategy before we see the map, but I think we got fooled by the pace of the game this time around. It took the AI a long time to finally decide to attack us so maybe we can be a little less unit-heavy in the early turns and focus more on growth (or trade) than production.
The other thing that hurt us was not settling a river site outside the capital. I think we need to be able to settle cities that are dedicated to commerce and be able to accept the slower growth/lousy production that goes along with it. We didn't have that sort of site on this map and ended up with most cities trying to do a little bit of everything. I think ideally 2 of our first 4 cities will be commerce specialists. The capital could be one, since it should be able to maintain good commerce almost regardless of the terrain.
I think we got hurt badly by essentially not having a food bonus at the capital. Plains Cows look good, but ... when that's the only bonus food tile you just grow unacceptably slowly. Worth settling the capital a turn or two later if we are put in the same situation again.
Chasing a religion sounds good ... but even if you do get a religion you still have to spend 50 hammers on a Missionary, and either 90 hammers on the Monastery (when you may not have real choice where to build it) or research Monotheism to run Org Rel. And if you don't get one of Hinduism/Buddhism/Judaism, you are really behind in useful research. Obelisks are otherwise useless, but all they require is founding cities in places you can chop a forest. Then you are trading the forest for the border expansion and any production while chopping carries over to the next project, so you're effectively working on something else from the time the city is founded.
We got around this problem in the Hub game by building Stonehenge. For an Industrious Civ it basically costs 2 forests. I am happy to play as Qin again, but the danger of Industrious is not to get too wonder happy. I guess we just need to discuss whether/when we want to build a wonder.
We can't have too specific a strategy before we see the map, but I think we got fooled by the pace of the game this time around. It took the AI a long time to finally decide to attack us so maybe we can be a little less unit-heavy in the early turns and focus more on growth (or trade) than production.
The other thing that hurt us was not settling a river site outside the capital. I think we need to be able to settle cities that are dedicated to commerce and be able to accept the slower growth/lousy production that goes along with it. We didn't have that sort of site on this map and ended up with most cities trying to do a little bit of everything. I think ideally 2 of our first 4 cities will be commerce specialists. The capital could be one, since it should be able to maintain good commerce almost regardless of the terrain.
BTW, I also happened to botch the warfighting that last turn, turning a 10% chance into a .1% chance of victory. So as the game goes on, the constructive criticism will be aimed more often this direction, I can assure you. The order looks fine to me, but my blood pressure would probably benefit from a switch with Romeo. 
As for specializing, if you get the infra set and can manage a couple spare farms for quick growth, you can spend the majority of turns at zero growth or even slightly starving, which allows each city to work a food bonus or two and the rest cottages/mines. This requires making sure you have enough workers (a good way to do this is to open with a second chopped worker, then chop a worker at each new city), and making use of slavery to get a granary whipped then using the granary to quickly recover the pop.
I think the early henge would be a good idea as well, as the prophet can be used to grab CoL, then if we can swing Oracle you can get Civil Service for Bureaucracy.
As for specializing, if you get the infra set and can manage a couple spare farms for quick growth, you can spend the majority of turns at zero growth or even slightly starving, which allows each city to work a food bonus or two and the rest cottages/mines. This requires making sure you have enough workers (a good way to do this is to open with a second chopped worker, then chop a worker at each new city), and making use of slavery to get a granary whipped then using the granary to quickly recover the pop.
I think the early henge would be a good idea as well, as the prophet can be used to grab CoL, then if we can swing Oracle you can get Civil Service for Bureaucracy.
ThERat
Deity
ok, I like this discussion, I am also guilty of not posting the start and simply playing 40 turns.
I would post the start if we all agree on the difficulty. Am I right that you guys want monarch again?
We can then decide the strategy, techs we go for etc etc. I could do this now once I know we play monarch.
I would post the start if we all agree on the difficulty. Am I right that you guys want monarch again?
We can then decide the strategy, techs we go for etc etc. I could do this now once I know we play monarch.
romeothemonk
Order of the Engineer
I have taken the liberty of playing a ~ 50 turn start and think I have a winner.
Despite atrocious RNG resulting in 2 warriors kicking the bucket, this one is very promising.
2nd city on sheep and corn, third on copper. Lots of resources. We have the wheel, Bronze, are in slavery, working on granaries, are on a river, and all sorts of good things.
Plus with cyrus founding bhudism, this pretty much guarantees no spiritual civs, which rules out truly nasty civs like Izzy, Monte, and Hatty.
Otherwise settings are the same as last game. Based on the early voracity of barb animals, we may be looking at a high level of barb influence, which is good for us.
Despite atrocious RNG resulting in 2 warriors kicking the bucket, this one is very promising.
2nd city on sheep and corn, third on copper. Lots of resources. We have the wheel, Bronze, are in slavery, working on granaries, are on a river, and all sorts of good things.
Plus with cyrus founding bhudism, this pretty much guarantees no spiritual civs, which rules out truly nasty civs like Izzy, Monte, and Hatty.
Otherwise settings are the same as last game. Based on the early voracity of barb animals, we may be looking at a high level of barb influence, which is good for us.
romeothemonk
Order of the Engineer
After trying a few times, and actually doing fairly well in a solo game, I think I can make a few suggestions that will help.
1) Consider a small map instead of standard. 2 less baddies makes a world of difference.
2) Iron, more so than copper is a defining resource for Qin, at least once Cho ko nus can be built.
3) I hate immortals even more than Praets. I think Immortals are the single most broken unit in the game.
1) Consider a small map instead of standard. 2 less baddies makes a world of difference.
2) Iron, more so than copper is a defining resource for Qin, at least once Cho ko nus can be built.
3) I hate immortals even more than Praets. I think Immortals are the single most broken unit in the game.
I kind of like the idea of posting the 4000 bc start and discussing.
Note that a lot of forests over grasslands is also a very strong start. You can chop out workers and settlers early.
Note that a lot of forests over grasslands is also a very strong start. You can chop out workers and settlers early.
