Immortal Sitting Bull

[Set]

I've been playing on Immortal for for a little while now with some success but am trying to wean myself off a recent bad habit of using creative as a crutch. I need to improve a lot in my game so I figured I'd try posting on the forums! Will make me play a bit slower and think through my decisions more. Advice is also very appreciated.

I'm playing Sitting Bull as I consider him my go to learning leader. Dog Soldiers are no good for rushing and I've definitely relied too much on axe rushing to put me in a good early position before. They are a very nice UU for defending though and can give you leeway in the early game to skip archery or ignore copper/horses when placing cities. Philosophical is obviously a very strong trait and one of my favorites since it encourages more city management and more active play through great people bulbing/golden ages. Protective and Totem Poles are of limited value but that's part of what makes him a good leader to learn with.

The Start:

Spoiler :

Settings:

Spoiler :

(I usually play with huts and events enabled but I know the standard here is to disable them so I have for this game)

Thoughts on the start: Very nice with wet corn and sheep for solid food and lots of cottageable green river tiles for commerce. Looks like a fairly straightforward SIP. Maybe move 1 S to trade river for a forest and an extra grassland river tile? River has to be better I think. Settle and then decide where to move warrior, probably north along the river. I'm guaranteed 4 resources in the BFC right? Which implies metal or horses around the capital (or maybe furs/deer in that fogged southern forest). Metal/horses are less important for us than other civs because of Dogs but still nice. Little early to decide on tech but I'm thinking AH first cause of sheep and chance for horses pop. Then Mining -> BW for chopping + slavery and Dogs (+ maybe metal pop). Something with early Pottery here perhaps with all that wonderful green river land and wet corn?

 

[Harv]

trying to wean myself off a recent bad habit of using creative as a crutch

I have been using creative as my crutch the past four games or so!

 

[Fippy]

1w should be considered (esp if you like big Bur. caps with lots of rivers), those sheep are not super important.
Forest saved on a useful tile would also be okay.

 

[lymond]

Always move the warrior first. I think move him 1SW first. 1S also a possibility for him but don't see much there. As said above settling 1W seems the best here unless something interesting revealed by warrior. (you also save a forest and riverside grass hill which could actually be cottaged later) plains sheep no big loss with wet corn and juicy river tiles

Probably straight to BW here. But setect-deselect tech for first 5 turns.

 

[Set]

1W makes a lot of sense since it also lets me skip AH (or feel better about doing it at least) for a little bit. Thanks!

T1-5
I move Warrior SW as suggested to check for juicy stuff (furs maybe?)

Spoiler :

He finds nothing though. But hint of coast there makes me worry about ruining seafood! But you can't worry about everything so Cahokia is founded 1W.

I meet Darius's scout turn 5 with border pop. Warrior finds some incense and marble with a great desert to the east. Definite city possible there though not an ideal second city. He heads north afterwards to follow the river to look for good cities with easy connection to capital.
The Known World

Spoiler :

I see no reason to deviate from Mining -> BW route. Hopefully there's fish by that plains hill. I want to send warrior along that coast for a bit looking for seafood. Although sending him south also looks appealing since a city on that plains hill could maybe share food with capital if there's other goodies down there. Also looks like Darius might be S or W so southern cities might have to come sooner so Darius doesn't get them. Probably time for Warrior to do both. Otherwise what's labeled as Sheep spot could maybe be a reasonable second city. Might have to grab AH when Bronze Working is done.

@Harv

Spoiler :

Creative is definitely a very strong trait! I might like it more than is warranted though because I hate having to make decisions that favor short term benefits! Creative let's you grab all the goodies without worrying too much about first ring food resources

 

[lymond]

I meant your other SW..ha

Actually if the warrior did move as directed, I would be seriously tempted to settle one of those PHs below the corn

The thing is that the more you learn this game the more you find that those short term benefits are hugely important...and the decisions you make around them

Another little tidbit to take here regarding scouting is to take in the things you see around you as they might allow you to make better scouting decisions. In your case, settling reveal coast to the North and some tundra. That means you are at least at the N edge of the map.

While one priority is indeed scouting nearby city spot, it is also meeting AIs. So that info tells me that I'd rather continue in an E, S or W direction for a bit instead of backtracking N to a dead end.

 

[Set]

SE/SW mixup makes me feel pretty silly. I was too focused on what I would leave behind by moving west that I didn't think about other moves assumed you were thinking the same way I was! A lesson in the intricacy of the first couple moves of the game I suppose. I like that plains hill three south of cap myself! Cap is still quite strong though so not the end of the world

I've never though too hard about warrior moves in terms of meeting the AI. City spots always seemed more important. Is it just the beaker discount were looking for by meeting AIs? I figure you meet them all anyway by the time trades become relevant. Warrior can move east and then south here instead and first warrior I build can always move north to check those city spots.

 

[Set]

Played until the worker completed. Nothing too exciting. Warrior headed East and South but managed to find Silver in the far north. He managed to win a battle against a wolf and a lucky fight with a lion and grab woodsmans I which is nice. I shouldn't have taken the fight with the lion but I thought I was safe under Darius's scout, lesson learned, Barbs move last.

Worker of course improves the corn first. Afterwards I would imagine he mines the Grass hill? Completing the mine delays chopping by two turns but seems worth it. Would you ever farm some grassland in this situation or mine the plains hills? City will grow to size two and work grassland forest tile until it completes the warrior. Then time for a settler.

Obviously could use more scouting but not sure how to value the silver. Sheep silver spot looks nice but corn silver will let me continue to skip AH. If no copper pop in the capital than I'll probably go towards AH since horse pop in the capital looks very likely. Seeing silver that early makes me happy! But I'm also nervous that I'm overvaluing it. I also need to see if I'm ruining seafood/furs/deer by settling there. Warrior's badly damaged so exploration will wait while he heals.

T15

Spoiler :

EDIT: I also wonder if it might be right to just hang out with the warrior by the silver and fog bust it. Looking at the game now, that looks better to me but might be overvaluing the silver

 

[lymond]

Post saves too including the start...some folks might play along.

Tundra silver is mediocre but nice that it is there...it will eventually be a happy for you and some commerce, but not near as appealing as say a riverside PH gold. My focus would be on the food. 1S of Sheep and 1W of corn appear to be good spots to me at the moment. Grass sheep has some nice overlap with cap though not really the best of tiles there. It can get its own cottages though and, ofc, has an instant trade routes with cap. Something else may present itself though later..who knows. Copper obviously may factor greatly in the first spot settled.

1 grass farm might be an option should there be not much to do otherwise pending BW, but 1 grass mine does not hurt and helps with settler production...but mines are usually of lesser value in most cases as you will be essentially whipping mainly. Exception might be imp/exp leaders that get the hammer bonus. One nice thing about the grass farm is it puts you into position to chop forest NE of that mine first ...a future cottage spot...as is the tile 1N of it.

On Deity one actually has less time to venture too far with scouting rather focusing more on barb prevention around potential spots. Point is your thought on having a buster up there is not bad like on the forested hill 1W of corn for now. (edit: or the forested ph 1W of your wolf sign) Your healing warrior has slowed the scouting a bit. The area SW of him is open desert so potentially dangerous. May indeed be best to send him safely back up to bust the N area as you say letting the next guy see what is below you and to the W.

 

[Set]

I had an issue for a long time with overvaluing gold/gems/silver and settling some crappy cities to grab them but I sometimes think I went too far the other way in undervaluing them. Good to hear a second opinion!

Played until T23 and Bronze Working finished:
Worker went to farm the grassland after finishing the corn. I intuitively value the mine more because 4 hammers for settler > 3 hammers for settlers and one commerce but I'm hardly sure about that and part of playing on the forum is trying different strategies. The point about the potential saved worker turn is well taken too.

Warrior moved back north and managed to whack a couple wolves on the way.

Woodsman II baby!

Also, killing wolves for experience, a hidden benefit to tundra starts? This makes me want to re-task the warrior again since it feels like wasting the double movement to fogbust with him but maybe that's little too fancy. For now he'll continue heading north I think. Maybe he can kill the wandering bear up there.

Micro Question: Is it better to work the double hammer tile or the double food tile here?

Spoiler :

Hammer tile lets us finish the warrior two turns sooner and start the settler sooner. It doesn't seem like working a third tile beyond the farm and corn helps too much so growing to size three seems odd.

On the other hand, food is King and I like working food!

I end up working the hammer tile since it gets the second settler out sooner (2 turns of 5food+3hammers is more than one extra hammer/food over 12-13 turns from growing to size three, even worse deal once you factor in chopping). But it does feel weird to not work the higher food tile. Micro experts chime in?

Bronze Working reveals no copper anywhere that I can see. Not the worst thing though since Sitting Bull has copperless dog soldiers. AH is next I think since no copper around capital means I probably have horses in starting BFC and second city looks like it's going by sheep because of easy connection to cap/close for maintenance and defense purposes. After that Wheel -> Pottery so capital can start growing on cottages. Doesn't seem urgent though. Mysticism for totem poles maybe too but none of the potential city spots so far have an urgent need for border pops and Writing could come after pottery for libraries.
Map

Spoiler :

I've edited the OP with a save. Played with the most recent version of BUG mod. I'll put up a WB save too if someone wants it. The most recent save is uploaded with this post

 

[lymond]

As long as BUG is installed in custom assets anyone can open it. If standalone install then some may have issues. I have BUG/BULL installed both ways myself, and BAT which is even better. But custom asset install of BUG best for forum games. Can't look at save at the moment.

Farm is okay - mine would have been fine. You can move to forest 2XNE and chop there then proceed to nearby grass river tile forests.

WII guy is nice - potential future medic but killing more animals is not doing anything for him so I'd avoid it. (max 5XP from animals) Like you I'm inclined to use him for faster scouting (or worker stealing/choking ..ha...though you've only met one AI at this point so you may be semi-iso and better to have a trade partner unless just a psycho guy)

I would not stall growth at this point in Cahokia so 2F would have been better, but you should find the next turn or so that you can work the 2H and still maintain the same growth rate...but don't slow your growth for a faster warrior. Adjustments like that may come later when city is larger and with granary/granary optimization. But right now your focus is more pop because more pop is tons more hammers - and not from tiles worked.

Woody guy could move back pretty safely via forest to scout your S/W areas a bit while new warrior heads back up to bust position.

AH is right call at this point

 

[Set]

I have BUG installed as a separate mod unfortunately. I've gone and put up the WB save though (remember to add barb techs when using it!). I avoid BAT since I have a pretty slow computer (late game is pretty awful on this thing) and I worry a lot of graphical enhancements will either be missed because I'm on low settings and/or the game in general will be slowed a little. If nobody else has had that experience though I might grab it and install it in Custom Assets for the future.

I'll play another turnset a little later but curious in the meantime if you could elaborate on your thoughts about hammers vs. food at this point. My thinking wasn't so much that a faster warrior was better but that a faster settler was better. Trading +5 food stored for a settler coming out 2 turns earlier. The faster warrior is just a nice bonus. I guess I might see the difference later in the game when a 2 pop whip doesn't quite line up and I'll be thinking "oh man, if only I had +3/4/5 food..."? Maybe once I've seen how things turn out a bit in say 20-30 turns I'll go back and try it the other way just to see the difference.

Woody warrior will probably go out an explore then. Always makes the early game a little more fun when you've got a small hero running around . Darius isn't the worst neighbor but would prefer if I wasn't playing semi-iso.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[dankok8]

As long as BUG is installed in custom assets anyone can open it. If standalone install then some may have issues. I have BUG/BULL installed both ways myself, and BAT which is even better. But custom asset install of BUG best for forum games. Can't look at save at the moment.

Farm is okay - mine would have been fine. You can move to forest 2XNE and chop there then proceed to nearby grass river tile forests.

WII guy is nice - potential future medic but killing more animals is not doing anything for him so I'd avoid it. (max 5XP from animals) Like you I'm inclined to use him for faster scouting (or worker stealing/choking ..ha...though you've only met one AI at this point so you may be semi-iso and better to have a trade partner unless just a psycho guy)

I would not stall growth at this point in Cahokia so 2F would have been better, but you should find the next turn or so that you can work the 2H and still maintain the same growth rate...but don't slow your growth for a faster warrior. Adjustments like that may come later when city is larger and with granary/granary optimization. But right now your focus is more pop because more pop is tons more hammers - and not from tiles worked.

Woody guy could move back pretty safely via forest to scout your S/W areas a bit while new warrior heads back up to bust position.

AH is right call at this point

Is BUG same as BULL? What is BUFFY? I want to install one of these that everyone uses and that will be compatible with forum games so that I can open and everyone can open my saves.

 

[lymond]

I have BUG installed as a separate mod unfortunately. I've gone and put up the WB save though (remember to add barb techs when using it!). I avoid BAT since I have a pretty slow computer (late game is pretty awful on this thing) and I worry a lot of graphical enhancements will either be missed because I'm on low settings and/or the game in general will be slowed a little. If nobody else has had that experience though I might grab it and install it in Custom Assets for the future.

I'll play another turnset a little later but curious in the meantime if you could elaborate on your thoughts about hammers vs. food at this point. My thinking wasn't so much that a faster warrior was better but that a faster settler was better. Trading +5 food stored for a settler coming out 2 turns earlier. The faster warrior is just a nice bonus. I guess I might see the difference later in the game when a 2 pop whip doesn't quite line up and I'll be thinking "oh man, if only I had +3/4/5 food..."? Maybe once I've seen how things turn out a bit in say 20-30 turns I'll go back and try it the other way just to see the difference.

Woody warrior will probably go out an explore then. Always makes the early game a little more fun when you've got a small hero running around . Darius isn't the worst neighbor but would prefer if I wasn't playing semi-iso.

Thanks for the advice!

Not sure on faster settler but as I said with wet corn you could have likely switched to 2H in a turn or two and maintained the faster growth point and likely about the same build speed on the warrior. This is something you can play with. Adjustments like this can be made at times, but I would not overthink it at this stage. Right now the main focus is getting your city to grow before you start the settler, which I guess would be a size 3 chop joint here or possibly a size 4 2 pop whip. I think size 3 would be faster in this case. Next settler will probably be whipped.

I'd keep woody close and get more coverage on your settling radius around Cahokia.

I'm interested in your computer specs. Keep in mind a couple of things here. First, Civ IV runs like crap no matter how fancy the machine. It simply has a memory leak that was never resolved so it is going to slow down after a time. It does for me mod or no mod. Also, it's a 15 years old game that I"ve been playing at least 13 of those years. I've lost count but have probably played IV on at least 7 or 8 different machines over that period of obviously varying quality relative to the generation of the model and the type of machine (i've run on desktops, business laptops, casual non-gaming laptops, and gaming laptops). The point being is that I'm fairly certain that at least some of those machines I used were of less relative quality in terms of running this game or any game to your's.

Another thing to note - assuming you run on a Windows OS - is that if you use ALT+TAB to bring up task manager which also effectively minimizes the game, it will refresh memory and the game will speed up considerably - at any point in the game. I used it a lot especially in longer sessions.

Is BUG same as BULL? What is BUFFY? I want to install one of these that everyone uses and that will be compatible with forum games so that I can open and everyone can open my saves.

BULL is a separate directly synergistic mod for BUG. You install both to get the full features of BUG. Install BUG in custom assets as most do here, then unzip the BULL files and follow the included instructions to copy them in the right place. The key thing is the BULL DLL that will replace the vanilla bts dll. Just note that you do not want to overwrite the vanilla dll as you may need it for other mods - just add a fake extension to the vanilla dll so it is ignored and just change them when you need van active and bull inactive (this is quite easy and I actually use .bat executables to do this in a snap). BULL will not effect running BUFFY and BAT though you will need go back to vanilla dll if you play HOF or GOTM games as those games used locked modified assets so having the BULL DLL will prevent opening those saves.

BAT and BUFFY were created by the same team, and though totally separate mods for different intent they are quite similar in most ways. Both are basically BUG and BULL with all the BULL stuff active (some BULL features were made optional like worker prechops and heal sentry which are two things I like most about the mod anyway..ha. The main difference is that BAT was designed to included some nice graphical enhancements like Blue Marble (easy separate install too), a mod component that I'll call VD since I can't remember the exact name that includes a bunch of unit and building enhancements, and some other stuff I can't remember. (I use BAT more than any mod - it is great) BUFFY on the other hand was designed specifically for HOF and GOTM vettting so it basically includes BAT+BULL+HOF mod. HOF mod was developed by the HOF team years ago with the BUG team to provide a means to ensure integrity of these friendly competition games.

edit: If you want compatibility with forum games then BUG/BULL in custom assets is the way to go. Installing all of them is not out of the question though - I have them all.

Note: Blue Marble is an easy install that does not conflict with anything nor is it loaded. I find it so much better than vanilla terrain/water graphics.

 

[sampsa]

Is BUG same as BULL? What is BUFFY? I want to install one of these that everyone uses and that will be compatible with forum games so that I can open and everyone can open my saves.

They are all different, though partially same. I'm using BUG to open your saves, so they work fine. I'd simply suggest you to install BUG to "custom assests". In offline games, I use BUFFY (=HOF-mod) as it's even more convenient.

 

[lymond]

I use BUFFY (=HOF-mod) as it's even more convenient.

Did you ever get the new version of BUFFY (005) we put out like a year or so ago (after like 10 years)? Not sure if you were aware as you don't ever seem to play HOF or GOTM. Have you ever tried BAT?

 

[sampsa]

Did you ever get the new version of BUFFY (005) we put out like a year or so ago (after like 10 years)? Not sure if you were aware as you don't ever seem to play HOF or GOTM. Have you ever tried BAT?

Yes, I use BUFFY 005. I have one HOF entry. I've tried BAT, but didn't like it. Too used to non-modded flags, graphics and unit names I guess.

 

[Set]

Played another short turnset. Thought I would play until Settler finished but worker decision had me wondering so I stopped after 6 turns.

Not sure on faster settler but as I said with wet corn you could have likely switched to 2H in a turn or two and maintained the faster growth point and likely about the same build speed on the warrior. This is something you can play with. Adjustments like this can be made at times, but I would not overthink it at this stage. Right now the main focus is getting your city to grow before you start the settler, which I guess would be a size 3 chop joint here or possibly a size 4 2 pop whip. I think size 3 would be faster in this case. Next settler will probably be whipped.

I'm not sure I was clear on what I was going for with food/hammer micro. The idea was that I didn't want to build a settler until the warrior was done so he could fogbust/explore. So building warrior faster meant I could build settler faster. Settler builds at size 2 instead of size 3 since a third citizen would only work an unimproved tile and therefor only add a single hammer to settler production. After watching it turn out in the game I can see why this is less than ideal. By working hammers I will be getting my settler and therefore my second city one turn sooner than by working food but at the cost of -5 food stored in Cahokia which I don't think is a great trade (since it seems like it will mess up whip timings on a second settler/worker). It's nice to see the math in game like that.
EDIT: I misread you post the first time through. You're saying I could have gotten same build time on warrior by manipulating hammers slightly differently. That makes sense! I'll look at it again.

I find Darius pretty quick. He's very close to me to the West

Spoiler :

You can also see the plan with the settler here. With the chop the settler will finish exactly in 8 turns

Darius being so close is a little alarming. Not sure if second city spot by pigs is a good idea. EPs tell me Darius hasn't met anyone else (+7 per turn on me) so looks increasingly like semi-iso and Darius is not likely to get a religion. Settling close to him will annoy him and he's my only trading partner + I don't want to get killed. I'll also have to head to mysticism and get out a monument fast or lose the pigs to his culture which I'm not sure I can do (and I might lose them anyway since AI builds every building and tends to win culture war unless you focus on it). But he seems likely to settle in my face anyway + I could always found a later religion. There's some value in depriving him of the city as well since it's a solid city spot. I could maybe box him in nicely here if he doesn't have much land to the west.

Turn 29 worker finishes his chop. I think he'll farm where he is so that city can have something to work at size three and then either go to pigs or sheep depending on where settler goes. He could also pre-chop right now? Not sure I want to chop into a dog/warrior but could help get out third settler later maybe. Grassland farm isn't a super valuable improvement. After settler, revolt while he's in transit and then grow capital to size 4. Not sure if I should put the hammers into a warrior or a dog soldier. Warriors cheaper and if his main job is going to be fogbusting I would rather have a warrior. But I need to fight barbs at some point and dogs are good for that. After size 4 get a third settler with a 2 pop whip + maybe chop. Second city probably goes for a worker so I can have someone chopping and improving tiles at the same time. Am considering pig spot one south of where label is now to get forest first ring so I can chop worker maybe. It's also close to Capital and overlap can be good. Although maybe that's too much overlap? I'd only be giving up sea tiles. If Pig Spot, after AH I go for mysticism. If not then Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing.

Spoiler :

Not easily visible in this screenshot but there's coast to the south and dry corn with no seafood.

I'm interested in your computer specs. Keep in mind a couple of things here. First, Civ IV runs like crap no matter how fancy the machine. It simply has a memory leak that was never resolved so it is going to slow down after a time. It does for me mod or no mod. Also, it's a 15 years old game that I"ve been playing at least 13 of those years. I've lost count but have probably played IV on at least 7 or 8 different machines over that period of obviously varying quality relative to the generation of the model and the type of machine (i've run on desktops, business laptops, casual non-gaming laptops, and gaming laptops). The point being is that I'm fairly certain that at least some of those machines I used were of less relative quality in terms of running this game or any game to your's.

Regarding my computer. It's a fairly newish business/study notebook. 8GB ram, Intel Pentium 2 core 1.6 Hz. Integrated graphics card. Not really meant for gaming. In some ways it's more of a glorified tablet than a laptop so I'm impressed it runs anything at all. I think the bottleneck is the processor since IIRC civ doesn't really know how to use multiple cores. I've downloaded and installed this patch and it seemed to make the game run better although given what you said about the game having a memory leak it's maybe that difference I was identifying. The alt-tab trick is handy! Thanks.

I might give BAT a try. I like the idea of more unique graphics.
EDIT: Is there actually a comprehensive list of BAT graphical changes anywhere? Can't seem to find one on the Unaltered Gameplay forum

 

[sampsa]

Some things you should pay attention to. First one is you should build settlers/workers (especially the first ones) with an empty food bar. This is because that food is doing you no good, but you've spent time gathering it. Also, while a farm in general is a better improvement than a mine, when slow building a settler, it's giving you less. I think I would've rather grown to size 4 intending to whip a settler, with the help of one chop.

I'd go for the pigs next, because it's the best spot and it prevents Cyrus from settling there. I'd go 1S or 2S of your marked spot (I like 2S best, closest to capital and the wine tile is worth something at some point). Coastal tiles are not good, riverside cottages are much better. Even plains cottages are OK, when you have as much food as you have here.

 

[Set]

Some things you should pay attention to. First one is you should build settlers/workers (especially the first ones) with an empty food bar. This is because that food is doing you no good, but you've spent time gathering it. Also, while a farm in general is a better improvement than a mine, when slow building a settler, it's giving you less. I think I would've rather grown to size 4 intending to whip a settler, with the help of one chop.

I'd go for the pigs next, because it's the best spot and it prevents Cyrus from settling there. I'd go 1S or 2S of your marked spot (I like 2S best, closest to capital and the wine tile is worth something at some point). Coastal tiles are not good, riverside cottages are much better. Even plains cottages are OK, when you have as much food as you have here.

Some quick head math tells me that whip/chopping the settler would get it out in around the same amount of time but with substantial overflow into the next build. I usually don't whip my first settler but this is a good example of game where I have enough food that that makes a lot of sense!

2S for pig city is right I think. Don't ruin any riverside grassland that way.