Adventurer save. I really appreciate the chance to compare a Warlord game with other peoples'; I've been struggling for a long time at Noble and not succeeding very well. It's nice for me to go back to Warlord and find that, even though my Noble-level games don't go so well, I've at lease picked up a few skills I didn't have a year ago.
I settled in place and went Mining > AH > Archery > Bronze. Given that I had the Adventurer save's worker, I wanted to be able to work the silver ASAP. The lack of nearby horses was a bummer, so I decided to settle a couple of nearby cities:
Of course the horses were just out of sight to the north, but even if I knew they were there I suspect I'd have built the same two first cities. Notice the black unknown just to the east: a good 5-FP site with copper was visible, and had I seen the cows hidden there, I might have noticed it was also worth considering (the FP alone would have alerted a more experienced player, I think, esp. since they'd already know to look for a good GP farm, and I've only just learned to build one in the last couple of Nobles' Club games). My third city, Arbela, was near the horses, but I didn't build it until much later (850 BC) after a successful CS slingshot. Thus my only two immortals saw little action, each eventually succumbing to barbarians while replacing the two scouts that died earlier. The barbarians weren't a huge problem aside from that; they pillaged a couple of improvements before I could move archers, or, later, axemen, close enough to kill them. Eventually I had enough protectors around that even the axemen died quickly without damaging anything. I seem to recall that in earlier Civs there could be barbarian musketeers and suchlike; in Civ IV, do they cease to be a problem after a while, even if there are big unsettled areas left (there's nobody in the northwest, for example)?
Huts were very nice to me, especially the last two:
- 3400 BC experience for my scout
- 3280 BC map of the area to my east eventually occupied by Julius and Louis
- 3200 BC gold
- 3080 BC gold
- 2080 BC technology: metal casting! too bad there wasn't any place to build a Colossos.
- 1080 BC technology: horseback riding, thus, it seemed to me, obsoleting my immortals before I built any.
I didn't notice when I hit 475 AD so can only examine and post info for my 475 AD save (shortly after building the Hanging Gardens). Here is the Persian Empire.
Mansa and Ghengis are Confucian with me; Hatty is Hindu (and has the shrine), Louis is Jewish, and Saladin is Buddhist. Until recently Julius was Jewish also, but he has switched to Confucian. I haven't done any warmongering yet but am working towards taking out Khazak to my north. After that, my nearest neighbours are Louis and Julius. I hate to tackle a co-religionist
but, once I noticed Julius doesn't have iron connected yet, I figured I need to take him out before he gets Praetorians. Then on to Louis; at that point I suspect the territorial ambitions of the Persians may slow a bit. I notice that
Woaz decided on the same pair and expects to go after Ghengis next, but as he's Pleased and likely bribable into attacking other civs for me, I think I'll keep him around! I don't want to go after Mansa, since he's the only one who has teched fast enough to have anything to offer in trades (Philosophy, giving me a jump towards Liberalism and the free technology).
Game status in 475 AD: This is my first use of Photobucket thumbnails instead of full images; let me know if having to click twice is annoying, or, if you don't want to look at them, whether having just thumbnails is an improvement over spoilers with the full images.
The score and power charts show that Hatchepsut appears to be my closest rival,possibly going for a cultural victory given the victory screen. She's the only other Civ with any wonders (Stonehenge and Hindu shrine); I have the Confucian shrine (Pasagardae) and the Oracle, Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens in Persepolis. I want to build up a different city as a science centre, partly to avoid polluting a "great scientist" gene pool with prophets and engineers, but couldn't figure out where until I decided to build Gordium with farms on the flood plains for growth, then convert to cottages once I built it up enough. Is this two-stage strategy for Gordium silly? After reading
nerbuth's plan to use a city to the SE near copper for this purpose, I have to figure out whether to use my Bactra (his Susa) instead. Gordium has more food, especially once I farm the flood plains, but Bactra has more usable territory around it. It's pretty clear there once was a much better location for a science city:
Unlike Jesusin, I was selfish and kept the settler for a GS farm west of Rome with cow and 5 flood plains and later had copper in BFC.
I deduce this must be the location 2E of the copper I mined with my Pasargadae. It's pretty clear from my dotmap that I hadn't explored quite far enough before committing to my first two cities. Pasargadae makes this location weaker for me; it does get valuable copper, gold, and sheep, though.
. That's how strongly I feel against popped settlers!!! Of course that's just me, it's my problem if I don't like them.
).
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I swear if I could get myself to play the way how I want to, I can be a better player.
I tend to be lazy (Also I belong to my kids and my wife once I am at home). Thank you for your input, I will likely use it.
) and I never settle a city without 1 food resource (2 is what I normally look for). In this game, a site with a bunch of FP can make up for the lack of food resources, though.
