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

[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

 

[Gumbolt]

You settled before asking for advice?
Mansa again? Are you a one trick pony? You don't learn games by playing best leader all the time.
Zero food resources for your capital. Reroll as this is really bad.

Your actally getting advice from some great players here. Learn to listen! These people are playing immortal/deity level.

Forges/markets are not great builds for most cities. Focus on granaries/libraries based on the cities strength. Granary is the best building for cities. Super powerful for growth.

Settling of cities should always be based on food resources.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

2.1. The build-up

After some scouting and building worker now we understand the world. It will get more complex:

Boudicca is around, her scout was coming from the west.

I marked the next potential building sites:

In former experience I had chosen site A, but knowing about the advantage of overlapping tiles I would think about B or C. C seems to be stronger because of the oasis, but is not on a plain-hill and not on the river. I tend to choose B, because I get the pig in 33 turns by borderexpanding of capital and I could need the quciker research and the bigger overlapping. What would you choose?

I researched bronze-working after agriculture. We need to get known where what is and want to begin to chop and whip. My warrior will go west now and tries to find boudicca. After bronze I would go straight into pottery to build cottages. I would take the easter floodplain as cottage and the western as farm.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Did you get Mansa Musa again randomly?

I took him because I want to change not so many parameters at once. I want to see different situations with the same traits before changing. So I will use Mansa the next games, until I beat my first monarch game. He will be a constant in this thread.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

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

Mh... what had you choose? And why are my assumptions not correct?

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

You settled before asking for advice?
Mansa again? Are you a one trick pony? You don't lean games by playing best leader all the time.
Zero food resources for your capital. Reroll as this is really bad.

Your actally getting advice from some great players here. Learn to listen! These people are playing immortal/deity level.

Forges/markets are not great builds for most cities. Focus on granaries/libraries based on the cities strength. Granary is the best building for cities. Super powerful for growth.

Settling of cities should always be based on food resources.

I can restart again, when necessary to see the other ways, where it could go. So see it as a possible way to let me learn by mistakes, trial and error ;-)
You can argument and show me the mistakes, at best with some calculations.

And... I don't want to reroll. In a tournament I cannot reroll too. So let us assume, this is a map, I cannot change and try to make the best of it.

To forges: What do you think about Mansas mints? Are they better?

Where would had you settled here?

_________

To Mansa: I plan to keep him until I beat monarch. When this game is quite easy again (this time without using the standard rush), I want to play monarch level next. The idea is changing not too many parameters at once and learning, what works with him first before learning other things. I am sure, I am far away from understanding the use of financial or spiritual trait perfectly, or the use of early archer UUs.

The changed parameters here are:
- inland sea -> more barb management, fixed borders
- no huts and random events
- normal speed (which I play seldom)
- other map and other opponents

This enough for now to deepen the learnings of round 1.

 

[Fippy]

On dyes keeps wet rice (counts as good unlike dry rice). 2 more for the city tile.
Or on Epic where moving costs a bit less, an argument could be made for pigs + all floodplains. So this would be 1s of your current posi.
I didn't fully think this over, but settling past 2 good resis isn't what you should do. If you end up with none for your Cap.

 

[Gumbolt]

The idea of overlap is for cities to share food tiles. You have zero food tiles to share in your capital. I have never settled a capital with no food resources in last 10+ years. Capital should always have a 1-2 food resources in Big Fat Cross. (BFC). I don't consider flood plains as food resources. A/B/D/E have no food in inner ring. Really bad to settle. Don't agree with C.

Agree with Mylene (Fippy). 1S of your current city site would of been better. This then allows the wheat site. Which would get the gold when the capital border pops. This would of required AH to make pigs work.

Make no mistakes food resources in your capital BFC is critical for Civ 4. Same for new cities but in the inner ring. No food in inner ring will cripple any new city.

Reroll or start over 1S of current position as any further advice here is pointless as you have nerfed the start.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

OK, I restart. But I want to debate the settling position again, cause what Fippy said, is interesting:
Settling on the dye grants me +2

I would have 12 commerce instead of 10, and the initial best improvement will need lesser technology. Settling 2S of this forces me so sink far more before I can start with bronze. En plus I start 1 turn earlier and there could be other resources in the north, matching my existing techs (well, they are not there, but I don't know that).

When I take the argument, that snowballing little short-term advantages makes the game (like 1 turn earlier settling, 2 more and a more free choice of techs), why is the position 2S of Fippys proposal the better choice?

The only reason I could name is, that we know this area and don't wake up with jungle or such a horsehocky.

Question aside: Can we see the base terrain of the neighboring tiles or is it just an optical illusion?

_______________

Here's the beginning save:

 

[AcaMetis]

Question aside: Can we see the base terrain of the neighboring tiles or is it just an optical illusion?

Fog gazing can allow you to guess what tiles are hidden within the darkness, but only to a point (a desert could actually be a flood plain, for example). Another aspect of that is checking for fresh water. A tile will always mention whether it has access to fresh water (adjacent to a river, oasis or lake) regardless of whether you can actually see the source of this fresh water, so that can be used to make educated guesses as to whether a water tile is coast/lake or whether a desert tile is actually an oasis tile.

 

[Anysense]

Wet rice is 1 better than farmed FP and takes fewer turns to improve + 2 extra commerce from settling dye + lots of river + forests make it a good location. You need a good reason to walk away from it. Swapping wet rice and 2 for a floodplain or two simply loses you 2 per turn (wet rice + grassland farm provide the same 6 surplus as two farmed floodplains) and you will need more workerturns to farm floodplains.

It is actually good have some fogged tiles in BFC. Any unexplored tile may contain food, gold etc. Better than tiles which you know to not have anything special on them. There is also a chance of getting some deserts or jungle but it is unimportant.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Are there existing desert river tiles, which are not floodplains? We know, there's no desert in the north, but could there be one? From the first look it is grassland, which means 21, a grassland-forest or jungle. Just jungle would be uncool.

Aside: Knowing the map already it could be good to settle the 2nd city south of the pig, isn't it? We could share a farmed floodplain while developing the pig. How would you improve the capital? What were your first tiles? The rice is clear, but what after? (we know, there's a second floodplain and a "wet" dye there, which has 3).