Help me improve #1 (BtS, Victoria, Monarch)

[Arizona_Steve]

I used to be decent at Civilization III (Emperor+), and used to be a contributor in the succession games forum.

Then Civilization IV came out. The additional options and strategies involved left me somewhat confused and after a month or two of playing succession games, I dropped out. I am very unfocused when playing, and ignoring amateur mistakes like letting my cities riot, I find myself chasing a multitude of strategies and, in short, playing very much like the AI.

So after a few years' absence I am taking another stab at this. In an attempt to get some focus back, I'd like to enlist the help of the people here. I normally play at Prince, so I have set this game up at Monarch level. I took the first random start and leader generated. All options are default, and I generated a Fractal map.

I will be playing as Victoria.

The unique unit is the redcoat.

The unique building is the Stock Exchange.

And here is the start.

I would consider moving 1W in order to bring the second cows inside the BFC, but in this case I would lose a flood plain. So I'll probably settle in place. Victoria starts with mining and fishing, and with two hills available for mining, my inclination is to start teching with Agriculture while training a worker as my first build. After Agriculture, I have a choice between Animal Husbandry or Bronze Working. Both will reveal a resource, but Animal Husbandry would allow me to pasture the cattle. So opening would look like:

Worker -> Warrior (fogbusting) -> Warrior (garrison)
Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry -> Bronze Working (if horses) or Hunting -> Archery if none.

I'm on vacation this week, so I'll probably play the first set of turns as soon as there is a general consensus.

Edit: I'm wondering now if I switched off huts and events, since I have not run across either.

 

[dirtyparrot]

Sounds like a decent plan. Imperialistic trait should help you to get your 2nd city out in what might be a food-poor start if the FP and the plains cow are your only "food" resource. Hopefully you have something nice hidden in the fog.

 

[mjg5591]

Seems like a good stradegy to me. It's how I would open game. I would farm the FP also in no more food pops in the BFC.

 

[Sisiutil]

You guys are going really easy on the newbie. In one of my ALC threads, there would have been three pages of posts on where to move the Warrior by now.

Speaking of which, settling in place does seem like the best option, but move the Warrior onto that hill just to get a better idea at what's nearby before you settle. With luck, there's another food resource within the BFC (other than the grassland spices, which will provide +1 and some extra commerce when Calendar comes along). More food would allow you to cottage rather than farm all those lovely riverside tiles (there should be at least 5; 3 visible and at least 2 in the fog to the south) to take advantage of the Financial boost. Right now you've only got a +3 surplus, which will get eaten up just by working mines on the three visible grassland hills. With Civil Service and chain irrigation, you can farm the two non-riverside grasslands 1E and 1SE, but I'd prefer more food earlier for growth, slavery, and working the cottages tiles like I described. Let's keep our fingers crossed that there's corn or rice or something nice in the fog nearby.

I like most of your early build/tech plan, but Hunting->Archery? A waste of time and flasks. If there's no horses or copper nearby (which is unlikely), go for Pottery, cottage those tiles, and go after Iron Working. In fact, if you have a grain resource in the BFC, I recommend going for BW after Agriculture and leave AH until a little later; plains cows only provide +1 and +2 , and chariots are not as good an early unit as Axes.

Remember that to take advantage of 1/2 of the Imperialistic trait you have to be a warmonger. I wouldn't wait until the mid-game and the UU to do so. You have several forests for chopping, so you should be able to chop out a decent early army. Even if you have horses or copper nearby, I'd still recommend making an early run at Iron Working once you've cottaged and are working the riverside tiles, making IW an easier and faster research target. And you can produce a Settler to claim any of these strategic resources faster. This plan would make for a very nice strategic synergy of Vickie's two traits.

Finally, a tip for your screenshots: turn on the resource indicators (Ctrl+R) so it's easier for us to see what's where. I find the Blue Marble mod makes the terrain tougher to see (which is why I don't use it, but hey, I'm old and my eyesight is probably fading ), so the resource indicators would be welcome.

 

[Soirana]

i'd move warrior 1 SW and probably settle westwards. There is extra grassland cow in west, unless my vision is to blury from alcohol...

2cows+FP cottage is +7 food. You loose some nice hills, but cows should give enough hammers.

Installing mods in a way other people could load your saves easily would not hurt either.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Newbie? Check my join date...

And thanks for the excellent write-up. I will probably play some turns this evening.

 

[Sisiutil]

Newbie? Check my join date...

And thanks for the excellent write-up. I will probably play some turns this evening.

Newbie to posting a game thread, not a newbie to Civ.

Soirana: moving the city west either loses the flood plain or the fresh water bonus, and moving the Warrior onto the hill 1E will reveal more terrain.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Edit: Added spoiler tags in case anyone wants to shadow this game.

Spoiler :

Moved warrior onto the hill and revealed coast. London settled in place. First build is worker, and research set to Agriculture. The warrior will continue to fogbust for the remainder of these turns.

Buddism was founded in a distant land in 3700BC.Agriculture also came in and research was set to Animal Husbandry.

A worker was trained by 3425BC and was immediately tasked with farming the flood plain. A second warrior was ordered up.

Animal Husbandry came in by 3250BC, but no horses were found. Bronze Working selected.

In 3125BC my warrior runs into an Ottoman archer.

I finish off at the start of turn 39 (3025BC). My worker has completed a pasture for the cattle, and is awaiting new orders, which will be to mine a hill. My first warrior is being sent to bust more fog. A barracks has been ordered as a placeholder here, but no hammers have been put into it yet.

I will probably cancel the barracks and go warrior -> settler -> worker.

Should my second warrior be out fogbusting, or should he be left in the city as a garrison? My feeling it to move my first warrior out in order to meet any other civilizations on my continent, while the second warrior fogbusts the land on my peninsula.

On the research front, my feeling is to go for Pottery after Bronze Working. If there is no copper nearby, how long can I delay Archery? Or would I be better off going for Iron Working?

I will try to get a dot map in at some point.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Played a few additional turns and created a dot map.

Spoiler :

Pink dot looks like the best site for city #2, as it gets the gold hill after a border pop. Blue dot grabs cattle and wheat, and can also work the gold hill. Orange dot would be a coastal commerce city with some additional food from the corn. Black, yellow and green are filler cities. Will research Mysticism between Bronze Working and Pottery for Monuments (StoneHenge?)

 

[Shurdus]

The green city can work the clam sooner if you settle it 1S.

The greyish city grabs nothing while there is horses and fish to claim in the south. The blue city should be settled 2E imo, to claim the fish and horses and to be able to work those asap. you could also scout around the horses some more, see if there is a better spot visible to grab them.

If you grab the pink city next, be sure to get a good production city 3rd.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

I played up to 2000BC.

Spoiler :

Bronze working comes in 2750BC and there is some good news.

The Wheel is selected, a pre-requisite to Pottery.

We run into a second leader in 2725BC.

It turns out there's a second source of Copper at Orange Dot (see above), so I'm going to head there for city #2.

Another leader is encountered in 2600BC.

Our favorite religious nut is encountered in 2350BC.

I lost the eatern Warrior to a Barbarian Archer soon after, despite getting him into a forest before being attacked (he had Woodsman I from beating up animals).

Techs so far have been Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry -> Bronze Working -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Mysticism.

Mysticism was selected so that I could chop monuments to expand borders. Once that is in, I will select Writing for open borders and Libraries.

Here is the local area. My capital has spat out a second Settler, and he is located in the orange circle along with a worker who is roading to the third city site. I cannot decide whether to take the desert (blue circle, containing an Axeman, or the riverside location (green dot) that will require an immediate monument to expand the borders to get the gold hill. Now I realize I should've moved the worker onto the second cows and started pasturing.

Edit: Reading the post above, maybe I should reconsider my third city location.

Here are the lands to the East. The Barbarians have already plopped a city down.

 

[euripides]

this barb city is good news, as it´s a free settler in ideal location (fish, horse, wheat & cow) + you already have axes. You should consider blocking the ottomans near that isthmus. you can use one (S of stone, downside is 1 off the coast) or two cities (W of cow + N of corn) for that purpose.
I think building your next city on the green dot is better in mid and long term. but your blue circle has merits too (gold immediately).

Edit: after blocking (gold should pay for it + some riverside cottaging) make friends with the ottomans, as they appear to be your only direct neighbors.

 

[PeeDub]

Played a few additional turns and created a dot map.

Is that a dot map mod?

 

[kossin]

BUG mod.

 

[PeeDub]

Most cool! I've been away for a while, and I see that it's also in the BUFFY mod (right?).

I should go away for a while more often!

 

[iggymnrr]

I am very unfocused when playing, and ignoring amateur mistakes like letting my cities riot, I find myself chasing a multitude of strategies and, in short, playing very much like the AI.

Ouch!

Settle in place. If cows are you only food, Ag/AH gets you a fast start on growth and a few hammers. Without at least a 4 hammer base the faster settler production gets wasted.

 

[Sisiutil]

Good work thus far. That was a nice bit of luck, copper showing up in the capital's fat cross like that. I usually go for BW before AH, but your sole food source required a pasture, so this time it was a good call.

Claim that gold hill. You have Mysticism and a food source readily available (yes you should have pastured the cows in anticipation--live and learn), so I would found the city next to the water for the fresh water bonus. Its overlap with the capital means the citizens can work the shared cottages in the early game to help them grow.

Now it's time to get barracks and your army of axemen rolling. Go claim that barb city soon, as others have said, it's in an ideal location and saves you a Settler (build more Axes instead). Sometimes the AI does get a city location right! Expand towards the Ottomans. You have some room, and you're Fin/Imp with access to gold (soon) and riverside cottage tiles (why no cottages yet, BTW? ) which means you are in a perfect position to REX. You could probably wait until the mid-classical era (Swords and Catapults) before going to war with Sully, but you eventually will butt heads with him.

You need to explore more (maybe once you have horses, send a couple of chariots out) and find the other civs' locations. Writing is therefore a good choice for your next tech, as you will want Open Borders to move through and scout your neighbours' lands.

In terms of diplomacy, Mehmed must die sooner or later, he's in the way of the English empire's eventual expansion. He will also likely claim those elephants before you, and that just won't do--you want the extra happy, and you don't want him to be throwing War Elephants at you. So given a choice between ticking off Mehmed or the others, especially Izzy and Toku, give the Ottoman the short end of the stick. The only complication there is that given what we see of the map already, Mehmed may be able to cut off your trade routes to everyone else.Tokugawa will be useless to you unless you share his religion, Isabella much the same; with luck, she'll found a religion and he'll adopt it, and you should do the same if possible. Hannibal is relatively easy to get along with in comparison; you can be on good terms with him without sharing his religion if you play your cards right.

One other thought: you should consider moving your capital later on. London is not the strongest start I've ever seen, so it will not benefit that much from Bureaucracy's commerce and hammer boosts, and as you expand west, it will become more and more distant to your new cities, increasing your maintenance costs. If Mehmed has a good capital for cottages (lots of rivers and food, I'm hoping), take it and move the palace there in time for Bureaucracy.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Pictures are switched to Imageshack, as the auto-resizing in Photobucket is getting on my nerves. EDIT: Imageshack is no better. How do I avoid the resizing?

Spoiler :

I have two goals. First, capture the barbarian city. Second, get a blocker city in place which will (with a LOT of luck) get me the elephants. To this end I adjust my dot map and add a few cities to determine the best placement for the blocker.



I moved the original blue dot and yellow dot to account for the placement of the barbarian city.

Nottingham is founded in 1975BC, by the river as suggested.

By 1900BC, Mysticism is in and both York and Nottingham are switched to Monuments. Next tech is Writing. A warrior was quickly built in London for garrison so that its Axeman could be sent out towards the barbarian city. There is a granary being built there - it'll be allowed to build for one turn between other builds to avoid hammer decay.

Hannibal has Writing by 1650BC and offers open borders. I have a warrior in his neck of the woods so I accept in order to explore his territory.



Meet Catherine in 1525BC.



By 1500BC Writing is in and I select Aethetics for the trade opportunities.

By 1400BC I have opened borders with Catherine and chopped six Axemen, four of which are already standing outside the barbarian city. London uses some chop overflow to pop out another worker quickly. After finishing the worker, I switch London to work two riverside cottages and stagnate growth as it is at its happy limit until the gold mine comes online.

Hannibal gets to Alphabet by 1325BC and will trade Hunting for Mysticism. Now my understanding here is that I can keep building cheap warriors for garrison as long as I don't get Hunting. For that reason I decline the trade.

By 1250BC I have six Axemen outside the barbarian city. There are three archers defending.



The city is taken with the loss of two Axemen. Goal 1 achieved.

For goal 2, York popped a settler while London was building Axes. It is heading towards the choke point with a Warrior a couple of tiles ahead. Some of the spare Axes will also be sent in that direction.

These barbarians sure love giving me free cities don't they?



The Russians are causing me an interesting problem. I am using the BAT mod, and have attached a save from 1175BC. Move the Warrior 1 tile NW and the game crashes. I will post this to the appropriate thread in the mods forum. In the meantime, I cannot continue to explore Russian territory.

Surprisingly, I manage to settle the Jumbo city.

And in 650BC I settle blocker city #2. I cannot believe the AI didn't grab these sites. The jumbo city already has a Monument built.



Now in retrospect, I totally spaced out the Sheep to the west of the Jumbo city. Had I seen those I would've placed 1W on the Jumbo.

Looks like there might be a war brewing.



Indeed, I check and Suleiman has enough on his hands now.

550BC - Aesthetics comes in. Only Tokugawa and Hannibal have Alphabet, so I switch research to Alphabet for a few turns in an attempt to trade for it with Hannibal.

I finally get around to revolting to slavery, since it is now apparent I had huts and events turned off (no slave revolts).

Coventry is founded in 485BC and can pay for itself by virtue of a riverside cottage.

Some trades are made.

Aesthetics to Hannibal for Alphabet (partially researched).
Aesthetics to Suleiman for Iron Working + Hunting
Aesthetics to Catherine for Sailing + Masonary.

The last deal was a little light, but if I didn't trade Aesthetics to Catherine, someone else would. Research is switched to Mathematics.

Convert to Judaism, as Suleiman has spammed missionaries to most of my cities, and it seems the best civs are all Jewish.

Oh, and that Ottoman stack I was talking about earlier? It's on my borders and it looks like I am the target.



So where to go from here? I have some Axemen on the way but they're going to arrive too late. I also have no iron in my lands.

 

[Sisiutil]

If you don't want to switch away from working certain tiles to avoid growth, just use the "Avoid growth" button in the city screen. You can work any tiles you want and the food bar will fill, but the city won't grow until you turn that setting off.

Aesthetics is almost always an excellent tech target, for the trading opportunities as you have encountered and demonstrated.

Don't panic about not having iron; you have copper--two sources, IIRC--and if Sully invades, you need to defend, and Axes and Spears are more than adequate for that. Pursue Mathematics -> Construction and then counter-invade with Catapults, Axemen, and War Elephants once you have HBR (you will probably be able to trade for it). Sully has iron, so take it from him, and then you'll be able to build Swords to continue your conquests.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Unfortunately due to the crashes yesterday (and after reading the associated threads in the Mod forums), I had to reinstall BtS together with the BUG mod and Blue Marble (no BAT mod). As a result, I'm unable to reload my save - an issue that was alluded to in post #5.

I would love to continue this. If there's a way of getting an updated 470BC save, would someone go ahead and upload one.