Gooblah's Prince: Gilgamesh

[Gooblah]

Strange Thread title, I know. Hopefully, it attracted you into the thread. I have opened this thread to help Prince-level players out. I'm thinking about taking the leap to Monarch, but I'd like to play a game in front of all of you here at Civ-Fanatics. It'll give me a chance to show my game so far, and what is needed. I'll be playing as Gilgamesh of Sumer (Random leader). The game will be played on a Fractal map, with the standard number of opponents, on Marathon speed. I'll be playing on BTS v3.13 with Bhruic's unofficial patches, and the Aggressive AI and No Cheating options will be on, since I confess to using Worldbuilder every so often. Despicable, yes. Which is why I hope the community's presence will keep the temptation away. Barring that, the option has been chosen.

Sumer, by the way, starts with The Wheel, Agriculture, and the Creative/Protective traits. Not bad, not great, either.

The start:

Pretty good! Gold and flood plains, so unhealthiness will be an issue. Also, Forests and Hills for (some) production. Cows will offer early-game production, while the Gold gives happiness and commerce. Either way, I'll have to research a tech. I prefer Animal Husbandry, since this has a chance to reveal Horses. The flip side of this start is Desert to the west, and hills to the east, so expansion may be blocked to the north and south. We'll have to wait and see for now.

So, thank's for reading this far, hope you post, and have fun!

The Save:

 

[Hackapell]

I can't think of a more ideal bureaucracy capital. Simply amazing start with gilga. Start farming in anticipation of an cheap-library powered SE and head towards BW

 

[mystyfly]

Move Warrior NW on gold/hill and show us what he reveals

 

[InFlux5]

It would be hard not to win with a start like that.

 

[DMOC]

Your start should be to tech to animal husbandry, then mining, bronze working (for the unique unit). After that, it's most likely pottery I guess,

Build order (my suggestion) would be a worker first. He can pasture sheep, and build as many roads as he wants to before mining/BW come in play.

 

[Gone Dark]

The capital you have rolled is excellent, but would you maybe consider rerolling and getting a worse start? To me, the worse starts have always led to the most educational games and I think people would learn more with a less optimal capital.

I would obviously not reroll that start playing an offline game myself, I'm not a complete masochist

 

[theskald]

Every start I see here has multiple resources, but most of mine have 1 or none, it's just not fair. I'll be following along as a lurker, hoping to learn and if you don't mind making suggestions just to see if I'm on the right track and am actually learning something. I'm tempted to say settle in place, border pop for the resources. That way you get no unworkable tiles even though early gold would be nice. I'd want to see what's west of the gold first.

Play a good game then, I'll be watching eagerly!

 

[toug]

I can't think of a more ideal bureaucracy capital. Simply amazing start with gilga. Start farming in anticipation of an cheap-library powered SE and head towards BW

Doesn't an SE comprise the full potential of bureaucracy?

 

[Zanttu]

Doesn't an SE comprise the full potential of bureaucracy?

Not really. Most SE players (like me for instance) like to cottage up capital for Bureaucracy bonus.

Settle in place. I would settle before moving the warrior, to see if there are any huts nearby. Squares 2W and 1W1NW of the warrior are most likely desert, so we won't move the settler there. So there's no point in moving the warrior up to the gold hill. And moving him to the east would only reveal one forest.

 

[Quotey]

Settle in place. I like the chances of 2E1S being a resource too. Every other non forest tile is FP or has a resource, so the map generators probably thought the start wasn't amazing and forested up.

Why? The plains tiles are forested. Deserts in the capitals fat cross are changed to plains (same with Tundra), and Forest can't appear on desert. So it was added.

Course all this is hearsay.

 

[Zanttu]

Settle in place. I like the chances of 2E1S being a resource too. Every other non forest tile is FP or has a resource, so the map generators probably thought the start wasn't amazing and forested up.

Why? The plains tiles are forested. Deserts in the capitals fat cross are changed to plains (same with Tundra), and Forest can't appear on desert. So it was added.

Course all this is hearsay.

Yep, I was thinking this too. Most players consider FPs good, but the map generator doesn't think the same way. So I would also guess that square holds a resource.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Most SE players (like me for instance) like to cottage up capital for Bureaucracy bonus.

Most people seem to say that, yes. But I reckon the production bonus is more important.

Your starting spot usually has lots of food, which is great for running mines and workshops. And in my experience, while good cottage sites are ten-a-penny, really strong production sites are few and far between.

Plus there are plenty of science and gold multipliers available from buildings (inc. Academies) by the mid-game, but you'll have to wait much longer to improve on Forges for production. (OR is a hammer-boosting option, of course, but if I'm running lots of specialists then Pacifism is my religious civic of choice, perhaps with a switch to Theocracy when I'm whipping or drafting a new army).

Since my capital is usually the best place to build wonders (and churn out troops in the meantime), I'll generally try to max out the hammers there, and get my commerce elsewhere.

unhealthiness will be an issue

Don't chop the forests 'til you've got something else to counter the .

On the other hand, I'd agree with Gone Dark that you may have to reroll for a tougher start.

Play a few turns first, to see if the surrounding area compensates for the start by being pretty horrible. If it's not, then this will be way too easy to be really educational. That capital is going to be an absolute monster, whatever you do with it.

 

[Zanttu]

Most people seem to say that, yes. But I reckon the production bonus is more important.

Your starting spot usually has lots of food, which is great for running mines and workshops. And in my experience, while good cottage sites are ten-a-penny, really strong production sites are few and far between.

You're right, the production bonus isn't something to neglete. I sometimes make my capital a production powerhouse too, if it has a enough food AND more than 3 hills. Most of the times I seem to get about the exact number of 3 hills (this is how map generator works, it always tries to add 3 hills if possible), and i don't think 3 hills is enough for a production city. In the early game mined hills are the only source of production, since workshops come rather late. Later I can turn any grassland river site to a production monster with workshops+SP.

 

[xxamonxx]

Can you post the save, I'd like to try this game too.

 

[Winston Hughes]

workshops come rather late.

Only if you delay Metal Casting, and it's a rare game where I leave that 'til long after CS. Before that, I'll probably be using the capital's food to run specialists anyway, so I won't have any mature cottages there.

On the other hand, perhaps you mean that workshops are pretty crappy early on, which is undeniable.

Still, if you're running Caste System anyway, then they're a respectable source of hammers in a deforested production city. And once you have Guilds they're a match for mined hills.

 

[Zanttu]

On the other hand, perhaps you mean that workshops are pretty crappy early on, which is undeniable.

Well, that's pretty much what I meant. Default workshop isn't much of a use.

But yeah, they are okay with caste system+guilds.