[BTS] I want to improve my early game with your advices

[dontworryabouttsunami]

I'll give you some advice in this thread, but I'm only an Immortal player, so please do take the Deity players' advice more seriously than mine.

Why? I don't unterstand...
I don't run caste, I want to get the courthouses. In some cities I have -8 upkeep cost.

Caste likes food surplus so you can run lots of specialists (each of which eats two food). Without the Pyramids (for Rep) and Philosophical (for GPP) though, specialists are not all that attractive, especially compared to working Financial Colossus coast tiles. I think those tiles are almost certainly better for you than specialists.

That maintenance sounds super duper high for Prince. I guess those are your island cities? Even at those costs though, I think courthouses are probably not the best use of your hammers. You'll be spending 120 hammers to save 4 gold per turn. Worth it? Maybe... If you turned those hammers directly into Wealth, it would take 30 turns for the courthouses to beat them in value. But Wealth is a bit more versatile and you don't have to wait for it to finish to get the benefit. I dunno. You can maybe make some immediate cash though by selling resources for gold per turn. If you can get 4, you basically got a free courthouse.

I didn't realize earlier that you had both GLH and the Colossus. You definitely want as many coastal sites as you can get then. Settle as many cities along your coastline as you can fit; they will all make you $$$ and can immediately start working good unimproved coast tiles.

I didn't realize also that you are on the same landmass as everyone else. You probably should've prioritized those eastern sites (to block land) before settling those islands. Definitely head that way now. I'd be thinking about 1N of the eastern sheep for Fish, Iron and Whale. Settling all along the coast should pay for your expansion -- those cities should be a net gain.

The interior of your area is not that good, but it still has lots of resources to work and is worth settling too. It looks like you can easily get to like 15 cities even if you don't settle on the islands anymore.

 

[Gumbolt]

Start with your capital. Size 5 by 100ad is not good. Great you built Collosus and Great light house. You have 2f 4C sea tiles and you are not even using then. These easily out rank 1f3h tiles. This city should of been growing on the 2 food tiles.

Djeanne is much better. Size 9 and you are using the cost tiles. Great.

I would of been whipping settlers at size 6 in your cities. There are 3-4 coastal sitess not yet settled. Plus a barb or 2 that need capturing.

Buildings. You have spammed court houses and religious buildings. I rarely ever build walls. All not needed. Maintenance wise the cost needs to be 8-12 before it is really worth the 120H investment. Even then some will tell you it's a waste. You would of been better off building settlers.

4 trade routes alone is worth 8-10 commerce a turn. Keep spamming the cities. On Immortal the Ai could have 8-10 cities by now. Prince AI expansion is slow.

So settle cities 2/3/5/7 (7 Next to the 2xclam so move 1E. Always try to settle with food in inner ring. I would of done that for fish/horse site.

I would whip 3 of your largest cities for 3 pop for a settler. Need 10 hammers before whipping plus size 6.

You probably wanted more workers. So much forest left on this map. Chop chop!!

Overall expand more. Stop building buildings for the sake of it. Get a few axes or skirmishers out and capture the barb cities. Only key buildings here are granary, librbay and light houses for the financial bonus. 2F4C is a great tile.

Lean to run science at 100% tax/science. Never at 60%. As you lose commerce when rounded up and down by game.

Target espionage against a certain AI.

If you really wanted to you could spam horse archers and take down 1-2 AI here.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

1.6. City expanding and winning the races

Round 218 - 670 AD

I decided to push the settling inland. My 2 space were not the original ones, but good compromises. Soon I get stone, which can be useful for Sangkor and Spiral, which I like building at Prince.

Now it's 11 citys altogether, I have 6 more good city sites left.

What happened additionally?

- Won the music race
- Built Great Library and Zeus
- Now going for optics to win the ship race, finding new civs and spread confuzionism
- Converted to judaism. This way Ragnar likes me

(Additional I built masses of troops because of the barbs, means they won't attack)

I think, it's time to prepare the win. I assume, there are 2-5 civs elsewhere. I know, someone got Theology, but Philosophy and Divine Right wasn't researched yet. And I know, the remaining civs don't build wonders in big numbers. There's just Stonehenge elsewhere.

Question 1:
I have a Great Artist (didn't use him) and get a Great Merchant soon. I will get Great Scientists soon too. What would you do with them?

Question 2:
How do you realize a tech advantage into a fast win, especially what would you do in this situation?
My only way so far was spamming wonders and winning in the end. But there must be other options...

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Caste likes food surplus so you can run lots of specialists (each of which eats two food). Without the Pyramids (for Rep) and Philosophical (for GPP) though, specialists are not all that attractive, especially compared to working Financial Colossus coast tiles. I think those tiles are almost certainly better for you than specialists.

Until astronomy, so far. Yes. I will research astronomy relatively late, wouldn't you?

That maintenance sounds super duper high for Prince. I guess those are your island cities? Even at those costs though, I think courthouses are probably not the best use of your hammers. You'll be spending 120 hammers to save 4 gold per turn. Worth it? Maybe... If you turned those hammers directly into Wealth, it would take 30 turns for the courthouses to beat them in value. But Wealth is a bit more versatile and you don't have to wait for it to finish to get the benefit. I dunno. You can maybe make some immediate cash though by selling resources for gold per turn. If you can get 4, you basically got a free courthouse.

Well, that are the eastern cities from Suri. I think about the calculation. What do ou think about these 2 spy points? Are they negligible? So 2 courthouses double my spy points, though... setting my slider from 0 to 10% it drives 'em from 10 to 35...

I didn't realize earlier that you had both GLH and the Colossus. You definitely want as many coastal sites as you can get then. Settle as many cities along your coastline as you can fit; they will all make you $$$ and can immediately start working good unimproved coast tiles.
I didn't realize also that you are on the same landmass as everyone else. You probably should've prioritized those eastern sites (to block land) before settling those islands. Definitely head that way now. I'd be thinking about 1N of the eastern sheep for Fish, Iron and Whale. Settling all along the coast should pay for your expansion -- those cities should be a net gain.

Yeah, I thought about it. Now Ragnar has taken a barb city there which means, I get the sheep only when I take up a border conflict with Ragnar. Would he declare war on me then, even when he is Pleased now? I think about taking 9 and 10A soon. Or would you take 10B? It's nearer to the fur, this way I don't need to settle a city in the nearly useless inner land more east.

The interior of your area is not that good, but it still has lots of resources to work and is worth settling too. It looks like you can easily get to like 15 cities even if you don't settle on the islands anymore.

Mhh... from the last picture with numbers 1-9 : Would you settle that one spot, which has only deer, silver and fur? It seems a bit too expensive...

 

[Gumbolt]

You do realise inland cities don't get the GLH bonus? Awdaghost is horrible. No 2f tile in entire inner ring. Wonder spamming is also poor play. Play with a strategy to win the game. You razed the barb city? Why?

Overall civ 4 is converting land into power. The more land you have the more science/hammers you have long term. Your best tiles now are food resources and perhaps strong commerce tiles. Not sure what you are trying to prove here.

Guessing you played on before reading my previous post. You ignored my double clam advice to settle closer to the iron. I guess with music you can run culture? You should do that in your gold and 2xclams city.

What is your plan to win here?

 

[Fippy]

A higher level would be better for learning, AIs are outmatched already.
Every mistake you made or might still make goes "unpunished" anyways
You already have enuf game understanding to do whatever you like on Prince.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Start with your capital. Size 5 by 100ad is not good. Great you built Collosus and Great light house. You have 2f 4C sea tiles and you are not even using then. These easily out rank 1f3h tiles. This city should of been growing on the 2 food tiles.
Djeanne is much better. Size 9 and you are using the cost tiles. Great.

OK, thanks! I changed it in my whole empire now and it was effectively in bulbs.

I would of been whipping settlers at size 6 in your cities. There are 3-4 coastal sitess not yet settled. Plus a barb or 2 that need capturing.

Ahh... question back: Assuming, the barb cities are not in optimal spot, just suboptimal. Would you conquer or raze at this point of game?

Buildings. You have spammed court houses and religious buildings. I rarely ever build walls. All not needed. Maintenance wise the cost needs to be 8-12 before it is really worth the 120H investment. Even then some will tell you it's a waste. You would of been better off building settlers.

OK, I really should think about it. In former games I built courthouses everywhere. Now I am doing this only when maintenance is high. But what is high? Here we see one city now: Would you build now or still doing others? Maybe you can give me feedback on the city

4 trade routes alone is worth 8-10 commerce a turn. Keep spamming the cities. On Immortal the Ai could have 8-10 cities by now. Prince AI expansion is slow.
So settle cities 2/3/5/7 (7 Next to the 2xclam so move 1E. Always try to settle with food in inner ring. I would of done that for fish/horse site.

Mhh... that would solve the problem for first needing monument or library before using the best spots. Building that was a pain at the central spot.

I would whip 3 of your largest cities for 3 pop for a settler. Need 10 hammers before whipping plus size 6.
You probably wanted more workers. So much forest left on this map. Chop chop!!
Overall expand more. Stop building buildings for the sake of it. Get a few axes or skirmishers out and capture the barb cities. Only key buildings here are granary, librbay and light houses for the financial bonus. 2F4C is a great tile.

OK, I will use this in my actual game, settling 3,5,9 next, and thenafter again for 3 more cities. The empire can finance it for now, and it seems I am still research leader, when I am running at 40%.

It seems, that this will be a topic still for the next games

What do you think about harbors?

Lean to run science at 100% tax/science. Never at 60%. As you lose commerce when rounded up and down by game.
Target espionage against a certain AI.
If you really wanted to you could spam horse archers and take down 1-2 AI here.

Mhhh.... something we could try. I need Construction for that, which can be a good goal after optics. What would you do? Vassal them, razing them or conquering em? When I conquer and vassal I have the problem with the culture.

I need some more input about espionage and this rounding problem. I read about it, but didn't understood enough. Do you know articles?

Bis thanks!

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Well. Now round 227, after the hint with the settlers we have 3 additional cities on the planned spots.

These are the remaining city spots: (A,B,C)

I adopted the way to build culture (forgot about this, but now I know). Now stone is available. Two cities have stales and are spamming horse archers now.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

You do realise inland cities don't get the GLH bonus? Awdaghost is horrible. No 2f tile in entire inner ring. Wonder spamming is also poor play. Play with a strategy to win the game. You razed the barb city? Why?

Overall civ 4 is converting land into power. The more land you have the more science/hammers you have long term. Your best tiles now are food resources and perhaps strong commerce tiles. Not sure what you are trying to prove here.

Guessing you played on before reading my previous post. You ignored my double clam advice to settle closer to the iron. I guess with music you can run culture? You should do that in your gold and 2xclams city.

What is your plan to win here?

I razed, because this barb city wasn't optimally positioned. I like to had it one south to get gold in outer ring. Now I have sheep, iron and 2 spices there, gold is coming soon. Awdaghest is a weak spot, yes. Longterm it is medium, but it's a god way to get a second gold and stone. I plan to use it as production city.

Here they are:

Mh... I want to train quicker wins now. In other games I would win after gunpowder. Here I could wander through Brennus land, vassaling the Inca, thenafter going into persia with pikes and razing/conquering them. After that the other civs around the world and at last Ragnar and Brennus.

I don't know enough about diplomacy or culture victories. What would you do?

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Now that Awdaghost has the 2nd ring, it should be working that Wheat. It's still working the 1F1H tile when it has much better available.

Try to be careful about what tiles your cities are working.

 

[Gumbolt]

I would of captured the barb cites. Remember for each zero food tile you run a city it is slowing down growth. Gold tiles are nice but they need decent food resources or you end up with a size 1-2 city. Why waste units t capture a city to just raze it then spend 150 hammers on a settler?

-6.65 maintenance is not high enough for a courthouse.

I can't remember last habour I built. Useful for Vikings?

I would of rushed map with HA. Purely because Ai are so slow to get going. Cuirs are the go to unit. Gunpower/military tradition and HBR required. 12 str unit that when whipped in numbers can walk over a map.

Just run 100% science when you can afford it and 0% when you can't. Reading articles now will just confuse.

You can also run wealth and science which is often better than building buildings for the sake of it. Helps push science and allows you to run 100% science more often.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

I can't remember last habour I built. Useful for Vikings?

They can be worth it for health, especially with Expansive, right? Definitely not a default build though

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

I would of rushed map with HA. Purely because Ai are so slow to get going. Cuirs are the go to unit. Gunpower/military tradition and HBR required. 12 str unit that when whipped in numbers can walk over a map.

Would you use catas? If not, until which defence would you just use AH?
And would you conquer or raze? Vasalize?

I will do this last one on my home continent, after that I define the game as won and start a new one in monarch. Learnt enough now to proceed.

Found the other continent. They're back in tech. 3 guys, everyone christian, built apostolic. Nothing more.

 

[Anysense]

You keep settling cities with food in second ring. Always seek to settle with food in first ring (8 tiles in immediate proximity of a city). This is one of the few rules in Civ that nearly always hold true. If in doubt - discuss it.

You really should start doing some math before you build something. Consider courthouses in cities with 8 maintenance. How do you build them? I takes forever to just build them and 4-pop whip's too big (city has to be at least size 8). It will be a mixture of chops and whips; 2 chops and 2-pop whip, for example. How much do 2 forests and 2 units of population cost? You could chop them into Moai for failgold: 45*2=90 (180 with stone, which you can obtain easily). Two citizens could work 2 coastal tiles for 3*2=6 per turn (without Colossus). Courthouse would save 4 per turn, that is less than what 2 citizens can do if you keep them instead of whipping a courthouse. The conclusion is: courthouses are complete garbage until maintenance is at least 20.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Let me summarize, what I have learnt so far:

1. Mansa is great for GLH and Colossus. He is typically very quick in research. Mansas UU is great for an early attack like choking, worker stealing or maybe even conquering. For conquering it needs around 2.5 skirmishers per enemy-archer in cities.

2. It's a good start with overlapping tiles, especially food tiles. Old cities should help newer cities to grow.

3. It's good to settle in a way you can use resources directly after founding. Means inner ring or the influence area of an existing city.

4. Don't build too much: Granary, library, blacksmith/mint, maybe market, maybe lighthouse, when sea tiles are attractive (e.g. when being financial and having colossus, hehe). Build research instead. This is a strong advantage of Alphabet.

5. Building cities on other landmasses influences trade greatly. Good way to start with trade can be sailing, but building roads can be better, even better rivers. The second city should be connected quick, cause trade routes give 2 directly

6. Every counts. Upgrading river tiles or using strong water tiles instead of weak land tiles can make a huge difference in research.

7. Worker optimization: Improving tiles on the way is a great way to speed up a little. Build the workers early, chop like a beast and don't think too much about sawmills later. Chop workers early and buildings later.

8. Build cities quick. One way which works is getting 10 prod and whipping 3 citizen for settler

(to be continued...)
________________

Now to the things I haven't understood yet:


Question on diplomacy

The diplomatical situation is quite comfortable here: We have 3 religion-founders, plotting each other. Ragnar came to Brennus. I have founded Confuzionism.
How would you act diplomatically here?

1) Would you take the religion bonus (e.g. building bonus 25% for running organized religion) and sacrifizing the neutrality?
2) Would you stop trading with one of them when asked from another? Or would you go to war?
3) Would you actively bribe for starting wars?

Staying completely neutral and gathering economic advantages seem a good solution for a while, but I don't build up a friend. But do I need that? In aspects of research I have run 'em out.

Question on GPs:
I have a Great Artist (didn't use him) and get a Great Merchant soon. I will get Great Scientists soon too. What would you do with them?

Question on research advantage:
How do you realize a tech advantage into a win, especially what would you do in this situation?
My only way so far was spamming wonders and winning the races and in the end. But there must be other options...

Question on Moai:
Where would you build it? Should there be at least 1-2 production tiles already or would you build it rather, when you have maximum seatiles? Whats a good heuristic for that?

Question on classic attacks:
When would you attack with AHs? How many would you use and would you take catas with you? Do you have a good example to learn this form of attack?

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

You keep settling cities with food in second ring. Always seek to settle with food in first ring (8 tiles in immediate proximity of a city). This is one of the few rules in Civ that nearly always hold true. If in doubt - discuss it..

Yea, here I have a problem with. With building culture (e.g. with an 3 tile) I expand in only 4 turns, in earlier phases with chopping I need one chop and 15 turns, which is okay, when I can use other relatively strong tiles meanwhile.

I don't see the point, why I should sacrifize a longterm better city position with more resources for just 4 turns. The disadvantage of a slower developing may be ended after the city grows to 3-4 citizen, which is quick reachable compared with 4 turns. So why should that be true everytime?

You really should start doing some math before you build something. Consider courthouses in cities with 8 maintenance. How do you build them? I takes forever to just build them and 4-pop whip's too big (city has to be at least size 8). It will be a mixture of chops and whips; 2 chops and 2-pop whip, for example. How much do 2 forests and 2 units of population cost? You could chop them into Moai for failgold: 45*2=90 (180 with stone, which you can obtain easily). Two citizens could work 2 coastal tiles for 3*2=6 per turn (without Colossus). Courthouse would save 4 per turn, that is less 2 citizens can do if you keep them instead of whipping a courthouse. The conclusion is: courthouses are complete garbage until maintenance is at least 20.

Mhhh... okay. I need to calculate next game. You may be right, thinking the aspect of money. Prince isn't a challenge enough here to learn that... I take the 20 mark up to now, it's a better orientation.

 

[Anysense]

Yea, here I have a problem with. With building culture (e.g. with an 3 tile) I expand in only 4 moves. I don't see the point, why I should sacrifize a better city position with more resources for just 4 turns. The disadvantage of a slower developing may be ended after the city grows to 3-4 citizen, which is quick reachable compared with 4 turns. So why should that be true everytime?

Yup, once have the means to get a quick border pop (artist with Caste, build culture etc.) you don't really need to have food in inner ring. But usually expansion is over long before that happy time. However, here you have huge amount of land to expand peacefully. Besides, better city position is often a subject of most fierce debate, you should not regard this problem as a trivial one. Revise your approach to choosing locations for cities as you learn something new, you may find that your argumentation changes and you come to entirely different conclusions.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

2. Random game: Masa Munsa

Large size, Inland sea, 9 AIs
No huts, no random events
No tech brokering
Normal speed, Prince

Masa Munsa
(Spiritual, Financial)

2.0. Starting situation:

First impressions:
- I like the floodplain and the dye tile. The pigs can be interesting. But remembering the last game it takes long until getting AH, so starting out with a food source may not be wrong. Problem: Rice, even when it's wet, is not that strong.
- When I settle at my actual position, I have food and hill tiles to build up quickly. It makes a good hybrid production city.
- Warrior would go SE, NE or SW. With SW we can think about moving settler on the plains hill SW of warrior (+1 prod). If moving SE or NE, we only see more from the world east of the river
- The world east of the river looks like grassland, the world south looks like plains.

Let's move him SE. Heuristic: Open as much tiles as possible
Looks interesting. To start 1 turn before I just moved settle SE and founded this nice spot. I saw the world east of river after founding, but I like it. In the east there seems to be a coast. I will investigate northwest first and thenafter the east.

What do you think about the idea to farm 2 floodplain, cottage 1 floodplains (later change 1 farm to cottage) and farm both dyes? This starting site is a great spammer of workers and settlers, even without slavery...

First built of course a worker, first research of course agriculture, first improvement: Flood plain SE farm.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Did you get Mansa Musa again randomly?

 

[Fippy]

You made the worst possible decision with settling there, dodging all food