How am I doing? (Monarch, Pericles, Toestra map)

[skarpa]

Hello peeps

I'm new here. I've played Civ since the first one in the past but stopped about 15 years ago on Civ IV which I liked but wasn't very good at - Noble level at most. I returned to Civ IV a few months ago and was delighted to find peeps still playing and tips and videos to help me get better - especially Henrik's immortal games. I've gone up to Monarch level now and can win pangea maps with a cuirassier rush usually starting about 1200-1300 and finishing with cavalry c.1700-1800. I'm invariably first to Lib but I'm a little disappointed I don't seem to be able to get to cuirassiers any earlier but that just may be down to the fact that I need to self-tech most of it.

I wanted to try something different and maybe a little harder so I went for a toestra map (standard size, pangeas allowed, start anywhere) and got a beautiful food rich start. Stone too but no gold. I've attached the 4000 bc file (BUFFY installed) and if you don't want to read spoilers stop now. I played through to losing to a diplomatic victory that came outta nowhere and now am trying again with a different economy to see if I do better. I've added more files around 1200 AD and ask if either seems better at that point in the game and I'm looking for tips where to go from there (assuming I don't need to go back to the beginning!)

The 1120 file is from my first try. The starting location was great I thought even though it was coastal and no fresh water. Almost too much food. No gold or marble but stone within reach. I thought it'd be good for a specialist econ running Caste and scientists and merchants. I initially thought I was isolated as it was 500 BC or so before I made contact. I didn't get out my third city until 350BC but then got a move on to claim land. I didn't want to settle so far out from the first cities but the best tiles were some way away. I wanted to claim the phants but as I had found no horses and as any targets were a long way off my usual cuirassier rush didn't seem appropiate. Anyway I built caravels, found horses on a nearby island, built cavalry and vassaled Kublai and Ragnar by about 1820. I got their best cities but had lost my tech lead to other AIs and was already moving towards trying for a culture victory using the multiple religions I had available. I got close - 50 turns maybe but lost to a surprise UN diplo win by Augustus in 1908 which came outta nowhere. Zara was already building SS thrusters so I may not have beaten him either.

I'm now trying again with my more usual approach. Three cities out early and close in even though Corinth was a bit rubbish except for production. I've kept up tech rate by running wealth a lot, selling my map and lower level tech whenever possible. I've put in the 1160AD file for comparison but I'm now at 1240AD. I teched a slightly different path and got astronomy with lib instead of my usual Mil Trad. I've fewer cities but do have settlers being made and will probably settle more or less where I did last time. Caravels are out exploring and thanks to hindsight I know I will find horses on a nearby island. I've attached the file.

So where do I go from here? 'Find' and settle the island with horses again, build cuirassiers or cavalry and beat up Kublai and Ragnar again? Since they are pleased with me this time round maybe start with Rameses? I'm teching better this time but that'll slow if I give up making wealth and switch to military. It'll probably slow with new cities too. I have met Zara already this time round but I'm pretending I have no idea where he is and seaborne invasions are even more production dependent than land ones. I'm well ahead in tech for now do I limit new cities, build as little military as possible and try for a culture victory from here? I have 3 religions already and 7 cities, 2 more and I can have 3 cathedrals in each of my chosen culture cities. It's a little late - previously culture victories have had much much earlier starts. Or should I ignore all that and tech like a deity and win a space race? Suggestions and tips welcome!

 

[skarpa]

Up to 1670 now and boy *that* did not go to plan. Decided to settle horse island, slow build cuirassiers, tech hard as poss and then war with one of my neighbours. While I've done all that and now have 20 combat 2 cavalry ready to go, Kublai has become a total monster, over 20 cities, has vassaled Ragnar and Rameses and is now at war with Zara somewhere. He's also got rifling - must have beelined it and my cavalry no long look so good. Only good news is he's friendly to me and I still have a tech lead. What went wrong? Maybe I got too distracted early on building universities and Oxford and (since I'd spawned a GE) built the Statue of Lib. Ho hum. It often seems the case that when I replay a map trying to do better, I actually do worse. Two 1670 saves attached

 

[sampsa]

I thought it'd be good for a specialist econ running Caste and scientists and merchants. I initially thought I was isolated as it was 500 BC or so before I made contact. I didn't get out my third city until 350BC but then got a move on to claim land.

Okay, a few things. For me there is no "specialist economy". The only real "economy" there is relies on population and growth. Population is working mostly, but not only, cottages (or coast). I don't mean that there are no specialists at all, but they are ran mostly during golden ages.

It is not acceptable to get a 3rd city 350BC for heavens sake! The base of your "economy" is population. Expand, grow. More is more. Even upon settling your 3rd city is roughly -neutral. Noble maintenance cost is very low so you should expand very hard, aim to grab every -res you can see in the BCs.

 

[skarpa]

Hi Sampsa - thanks for the reply. yeah 350bc was waaaay too late, not sure why, I think I was too busy fog busting and building the mids. I really expected a bad barb rush with no one else nearby. Got 3rd city out at 2120bc second try around which is much more like me. The dumb thing is despite that and despite teching much faster the second time I've actually done a lot worse regarding the game position.
BTW the his game is monarch level so maintenance and happiness are bigger issues.

Anyway I've played on 1160 file a few times now, concentrating on getting units out and ignoring other stuff as far as possible. I've done better but not good enough to beat Kublia. I think my mistake has been not having a stack of phants or HA ready to upgrade to cuirassiers when the tech comes in.

 

[jorissimo]

Hi Sampsa - thanks for the reply. yeah 350bc was waaaay too late, not sure why, I think I was too busy fog busting and building the mids. I really expected a bad barb rush with no one else nearby. Got 3rd city out at 2120bc second try around which is much more like me. The dumb thing is despite that and despite teching much faster the second time I've actually done a lot worse regarding the game position.
BTW the his game is monarch level so maintenance and happiness are bigger issues.

Anyway I've played on 1160 file a few times now, concentrating on getting units out and ignoring other stuff as far as possible. I've done better but not good enough to beat Kublia. I think my mistake has been not having a stack of phants or HA ready to upgrade to cuirassiers when the tech comes in.

I don't have my computer handy so can't check the save. But honestly, some maps are also just hard without the player being able to do much about it. An AI snowballing to 20 cities just because it got lucky with the starting position is always tough. But then again I don't know where Kublai is, whether he's your neighbor and his growth is due to your settling slowly. But generally these issues can arise and can be hard to deal with.

 

[skarpa]

thanks jorissimo. He started 26 tiles away but was still my nearest neighbour. I think the map script Totestra generates larger than normal maps on its standard setting and since it models monsoon winds and rainfall etc the interiors of some continents can be pretty dry and difficult to settle. I think i'll go back to other maps for now.

 

[jorissimo]

thanks jorissimo. He started 26 tiles away but was still my nearest neighbour. I think the map script Totestra generates larger than normal maps on its standard setting and since it models monsoon winds and rainfall etc the interiors of some continents can be pretty dry and difficult to settle. I think i'll go back to other maps for now.

I checked the mapscript and it looks pretty cool. If scripts create a lot of crappy land, like global Highlands or whatever it's called, this can actually favor the player as the AI will settle a lot of mediocre cities. But some scripts just distribute the land badly. I've seen situations like the one you describe on Terra maps. I've also heard big and small can be problematic in this respect. But yeah if you wanna go up a level I recommend more standard mapscripts like Pangea and Fractal, even through the latter can also have some surprises in store.

 

[sampsa]

The save is with old BUFFY btw. You need to enter worldbuilder and save it there as a worldbuilder save, then people can play it with any mod.

I can't open any of the saves unless I find and install the BUFFY version you are using. Screenshots are generally good enough for people to comment!

 

[skarpa]

Old BUFFY? I only downloaded that 2 weeks ago. 3.19.001.

Still thanks for trying to look. I will fiddle with the worldbuilder as suggested and see what I can do.

I've found my screenshots. I was gonna upload but then forgot. I'm mostly trying to show tech rate v income at about the same point in the 2 games and then at the new game at 1240

 

[sampsa]

Old BUFFY? I only downloaded that 2 weeks ago. 3.19.001.

Ah! Superduper new BUFFY!

edit: hmm, no. http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php 3.19.005 is the latest one.

 

[skarpa]

I checked the mapscript and it looks pretty cool. If scripts create a lot of crappy land, like global Highlands or whatever it's called, this can actually favor the player as the AI will settle a lot of mediocre cities. But some scripts just distribute the land badly. I've seen situations like the one you describe on Terra maps. I've also heard big and small can be problematic in this respect. But yeah if you wanna go up a level I recommend more standard mapscripts like Pangea and Fractal, even through the latter can also have some surprises in store.

yeah the new game I've started has a interior desert too - that was a fractal. I liked the totestra maps, they seemed more realistic. I know what you mean about the AI settling rubbish cities, in the game above I'm sure at least half of Kublai's cities are trash but it didn't seem to stop him going from no gunpowder to rifles in about 25 turns

In my new game I've just razed 3 or 4 taking down Sitting Bull. None had any food. I think they may just about have paid for themselves eventually but I can't carry them right now - I've got an island continent to settle y'know

 

[skarpa]

Ah! Superduper new BUFFY!

edit: hmm, no. http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php 3.19.005 is the latest one.

ha! They're pretty swift with the updates. All I need now is to try and persuade BTS to start with buffy installed. I see they've provided instructions but I think I'll have to mod them cos it's a steam install

 

[a pen-dragon]

Just renaming BUFFY 3.19.005 into 3.19.001 does the job here, since the mods are similar enough. (Do not forget to rename back later)

Now about how you played, comments on your 1120AD save:

1. You need more workers. 1 worker per city on such a forest/jungle heavy map is not going to be enough. Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 would be nice. You did not even finnish improving food yet (granted, a dry rice is not amazing, but still a 4 food tile)
2. You need to settle the good land, not the bad. Cities like Argos and esecially Pharsalos do very little for you. Meanwhile you have great land still unsettled: lush grassland with rivers and food resources. Basically the entire coast to your east is great post Iron working.
3. Going to War while not even bordering your neighbour at this stage of the game means that you mismanaged something. You should grab the good land first. A good city will help your economy medium-term.
4. Running some specialists in the cities with great food, and especially in rep is a good thing, but that should only come after growing your city. You still have unworked, uncottaged, flat grassland available around sparta, a good happy cap and you are running lots of scientists. Specialists will always drain food, thus while out of a golden age they should almost always only be worked by a city at its happy cap.
5. Running caste on this map is not too bad, but in that case you definitely need to chop your granaries ASAP.
6. Moving lots of workers to rush improving a non-roaded jungle tile that you do not yet is a huge waste of worker turns.
7. You are working too many mines. As mentioned above now is not the time for building troops, thus in rep a scientist or merchant easily beats the two grassland mines that consume the same food surplus.
8. Regarding early game city placement, in this case a tighter layout would have been better. Athens and Sparta both have much, in the early game waaaay too much, food, setting up a city to share that food would have benifited your early game and thus your entire game.

Frankly I do not think that this map script is conductive to warfare, instead it seems like a peaceful map with leaders so far apart that you can build in peace until the late renaissance. The map has 1800 tiles, that is freakishly large. Medium sealevel standard fractal maps tend to have around 800 tiles, this is double that.

About the screenshots:City placement is a bit better, but still Pharsalos is bad, Argos only viable because it grabs gold. Again you did not expand eastwards into the jungle.

In the early game I think your second city should have gone 3E1N of Athens and your third 2E1S of Sparta, or something similar. This spreads the food amongst more cities and allows whipping more settlers/workers. It also means you set up a strong three city core quickly.

I think your war is being sabotaged by your lack of expansion.

 

[sampsa]

Just renaming BUFFY 3.19.005 into 3.19.001 does the job here, since the mods are similar enough. (Do not forget to rename back later)

Hold on. Rename actually what? The mod? Not sure how to do that and my game is set to automatically load BUFFY 3.19.005.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Hold on. Rename actually what? The mod?

The mod folder in your BTS\Mods directory. That probably breaks the automatic loading.

 

[sampsa]

Yeah got the game to work and playing with the latest BUFFY.

 

[sampsa]

T50

Spoiler :

You should try to achieve something like this by T50. 3 cities, 3 workers, 4 boats. I think it's important to skip agri, dry corn in that location is close to worthless until you can get a higher -cap. 2 whips, 3-pop settler in capital for 3rd city and 1-pop whip boat in 2nd. It's important to chop! Chop settlers/workers mainly, just to expand faster.

I think you should want both GLH and Mids, probably in different cities just to get them faster. 3rd city needs to chop settlers meanwhile, so need a lot of workers, maybe like 6.

 

[skarpa]

ha! They're pretty swift with the updates. All I need now is to try and persuade BTS to start with buffy installed. I see they've provided instructions but I think I'll have to mod them cos it's a steam install

T50

Spoiler :

You should try to achieve something like this by T50. 3 cities, 3 workers, 4 boats. I think it's important to skip agri, dry corn in that location is close to worthless until you can get a higher -cap. 2 whips, 3-pop settler in capital for 3rd city and 1-pop whip boat in 2nd. It's important to chop! Chop settlers/workers mainly, just to expand faster.

I think you should want both GLH and Mids, probably in different cities just to get them faster. 3rd city needs to chop settlers meanwhile, so need a lot of workers, maybe like 6.

View attachment 710447

thanks for this and the other suggestions. I never meant to settle sparta so far out but the blue circle distracted me and I let it go. I corrected it on the second try. Yes pharsalos was a rubbish attempt to share some of athens food. In heading south I was too drawn by the shiny stuff and phants and I love a good set of floodplains. I don't think I was aware early enough of the goodies to my east. Scouts don't last long on monarch I find. Yep, I never build enough workers - I've taken comfort in Henrik complaining he hasn't enough workers either and maybe I shouldn't.

Regarding the map, I hadn't realised how just big it is compared to standard size. In the past I've been a peaceful player and kinda liked isolation starts. I realised that to get better I needed to play the sort of pangeas the warmongers love and get more focused on war. Typical of me to find myself in a situation that actually wants a peaceful approach and still be thinking about war.

I think I shall go and play the first 50 turns again and see if I can replicate what you've done and then expand further east if I decide to play on. Thanks again

 

[sampsa]

T75

Spoiler :

I think this is a rather typical expansion speed (or a lot faster with IMP or without wonders). Settler for 6th (cow/phant) ready, but a barb spear is trolling me so haven't settled. Probably should've gotten one phalanx out earlier...

As you can see, workers mainly chop. In general all forest should be gone asap. Athens is 2 sizes past happy cap, but so what. Can whip something (settler?) soon. Just expand hard early and you'll be the runaway civ every game!

 

[skarpa]

here we go third time lucky maybe

50 turns in
3 cities
3 warriors
2 workers with just 1 pop whipped number 3. 4th worker in 3 turns
3 workboats and just 1 pop whipped number 4

Maybe I shouldn't have roaded the pigs - I thought I needed to connect Sparta to Athens to get a trade route but Sparta and Corinth have both picked up trade with Athens even though no sailing. I ignored agri as suggested and skipped archery for now, Masonry is in next turn so I may think about archery as barb warrior incoming. If I drop masonry now and go for archery and work the extra fish it's 4 turns away. Maybe a couple of those warriors should have immediately gone out fogbusting once the settler was safely in place

Thanks again, very interesting to see how it could be done better