Io1

[IdiotsOpposite]

Sweet.

A question for anyone who's looking...

Can you patch, and depatch Civilization? I'd like to try 1.74 again, but I'm using 1.61 for this game...

 

[S.ilver]

Some thoughts... I haven't actually downloaded any of the saves, so yeah .

Our GNP is freaking sweet. Our closest rival is only 2/3rds of our GNP. I'd say we have Confucianism in the bag. In my experience the AI doesn't really prioritize it too well. When Confuci pops in one of our cities, send the free missionary to Haven to confuse it ASAP.

We appear to be isolated on our own landmass. I'd suggest that after we bag Confuci, we get fishing and sailing, and launch some boats to see if we can find enough coastline to contact anyone.

I like the prospect of a CS slingshot... but I'm not sure it's doable. The AIs clearly rushed for the religious techs, which is why we missed the first three religions. We also don't have any marble.

Once the settler in Haven is done, we may want to whip a library, among other things, and then set the citizens to work the mines a bit to stunt growth and build a few skirmishers.

I'll do another dotmap for the east tomorrow. Not gonna try and do one when tired, or rushed It results in

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Of course, our production is less than half of the WORST rival production.

Also, I like the idea in your sig. Why don't we do that sometime in the game? After all, we don't even get the turn of anarchy...

 

[S.ilver]

lol. That quote is from the first SG I ever played, FS-1. Basically we failed at our variant, and became warmongers because we got cornered in the beginning. Hence keeping our options open with that civics set mid-game.

 

[Trynthlas]

lurker's comment: Hm, IMHO I would have said "crap" and lived with the mistake rather than replay the turns. Sucks, but makes the game more interesting!

Also, personal opinion here, but placing spoiler tags around your images makes the thread much easier to read!

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

@Silver

Well, we don't have to really keep it... but doing it for five turns? Why not? We might even do it if we need nationhood, like I did this one time in one of my games...

I was playing Saladin, I forget what difficulty. I happened to share a border (but not a religion) with both Monty and Alex, and they were religious buddies, too!

I was busy fighting a war with America, and was just about closing up their elimination, when suddenly Monty and Alex both declare war on me! I had Military Tradition and Rifling, and they didn't, but my nearest city had just a cavalry in it, because most of the troops were fighting a war near Washington.

I was running Representation at the time, and I thought I had switched to Theocracy less than 5 turns ago, to aid in the war effort. Luckily, I was able to change civics, adopted Nationhood, and immediately drafted a Rifleman in Visigoth (the city next to Monty and Alex).

Anyway, the cav died, the rifleman fought off the attackers, and I drafted another one... anyway, the moral of the story is... Nationhood can save your life! Let's see another civic do that!

@Trynthlas

Well, the mistake was horrible, and unless theres a "delete city" button somewhere, it would probably ruin the game. Why do you think I called it Fixed Mistake in the second runthrough?

@Everyone

Ooh, here's an idea. If you make a city, you have to name it something imaginative, like I've done with Commerce Heaven and Fixed Mistake.

 

[S.ilver]

Nationhood is useful, but it's better to be prepared for the situation instead. In your case, having Monty and Alex share a border is never a safe prospect, and I never leave lightly defended cities next to them.

Also, it's your SG, so you can do the replay turns if you want (especially since it's a n00b SG and it was a pretty big mistake ), but I do agree with Trynthlas that you usually don't do stuff like that in SGs. It encourages more careful play that way.

 

[Hackapell]

Pre-turn: Micromanage Commerce Heaven so that it works Hamlets instead of cottages for more commerce.

Found Timbuktu in Cow/copper/wheat/Gold/FP spot; that will be even beeter for commerce.

Just really a round of exploring. I played until we knew the size of our landmass, and it's pretty fair-sized.

We were first to CoL, and Fixed Mistake became the holy city:

We also discovered maths, and are working on currency.

Maps:

Spoiler :

We are rich, but health-poor, which justifies Maths b/c of Aqueducts. I made a preliminary dotmap, but we can discuss in more detail later. Fishing sshould be our next tech, follwed by a rush to the GLib. Then we can Grab CS while bulbing to lib.
More soldiers are needed as well. the barbs are already settling down.

 

[S.ilver]

Looks good... Thanks for doing the dotmaping Hackapell. I really actually hate doing it . Now for my colour commentary...

-Why is Timbuk building a Courthouse? It's going to take 119 turns to build, and there's some more pressing things needed there... like a Granary, since we do want to take advantage of the production resources there. We'll also want a Barracks there because our first axeman to seize Angle will likely come out of there.

-Getting Maths was smart, but the logic of getting it because we have more happy than health is flawed. We've got all three oceangoing resources near our landmass and granaries will double the bonus from that wheat that is being hooked up. Meanwhile our happy resources consist of gold, silver, and dye. We're close to hooking up a gold, but the silver is in otherwise worthless tundra, and the dyes are coveted by the barbs right now. We REALLY wanted Maths because it leads to currency and because it gives a chop bonus.

-Mistake is working on the Oracle for the CS sling, but it's working a cottage and NOT working the mine. MMing it brings Oracle from 16 turns to 11 turns. Do this.

-I would immediately whip that settler in Haven, since we needed to send out the skirmisher to deal with the barb. The skirmisher won't be able to make it back for another 3 turns anyways, and Haven will be happy neutral while it builds a 3 turn skirmisher (gank citizens over to the mines for that).

-Next city hookup should be the site south of Haven that claims the clams and fish. We'll save on maintenance, and we're not getting redundant resources with that. After we finish with currency, get fishing and sailing so we can actually take advantage of those to resources. We also need those to explore off this landmass.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

First thing I thought when I saw Silver's third bullet was "Why is that a mistake?" Then I realized what he was talking about.

I'm glad that we got Confucianism, and a third city, and it looks like we truly are isolated. We got this nice big continent all to ourselves... let's use it!

We are losing gold for the first time... we might want to put a stop to that, a'ight?

I do like the position of Timbuktu... we get 5 MORE flood plains from that spot! Now if only the gold and hills were moved NE a little, then we'd be set...

One thing I like to do with dead tiles like the one that's one to the north of Timbuktu, is place a fort on them. This is, of course, the last of my worker priorities, but I pretty much have this order: Appropriate improvement on a special resource, cottages on flood plains, farms on plains, cottages on grassland, mines on hills without forests, LUMBERMILLS on forests, and finally, forts on dead desert/tundra/ice.

I agree with Silver on the location of the next city, but more important is capturing (not razing) that barb city. Remember, hostile cities are more important than founding your own!

Lastly, anyone think that after we get currency, and possibly banking, a beeline to liberalism MIGHT be in order? Perhaps after Sailing, Currency, Banking and Civil Service are done, Liberalism could be our next priority...

Well, Simon, you're up!

 

[S.ilver]

The losing gold is no big deal. We have nothing to spend it on (due to not having a pressing need to upgrade units), and we're still at 100% commerce with more than one city, so it's expected. I'd vote to just let it bleed away, unless we think we'll be needing the money anytime soon.

Can the enemy still use forts in your territory (like in Civ3)? If they can, I'm not crazy about plonking down forts there, as they're right beside the city and could be used by an enemy to house units in an attack. We can find a million more constructive things for our workers to be doing than constructing forts beside our cities.

As for mines on hills without forests, there's no need to leave forests on hills, because a forested hill w/ a lumbermill gives you the same production as a mined hill, but you can get it earlier. If we're hurting for heath (not really), it may be something to consider, but I'd rather have the production now than wait until replaceable parts.

Also, depending on the city usage, I'll farm over grasslands if there's lots of hills to get it running pure production. I usually don't like to mix and match city specialization unless it has appropriate special resources for both.

Angle is actually decently placed, which is surprising for a barb city, and may be an example of a city that can bend both ways. 4 hills and two food resources give it good production, while 2 dyes, and all water tiles coastal give it good money making potential too.

Beeline to Liberalism from here isn't exactly a beeline, because we basically have to fill in all the techs on the bottom of the tech tree, so we have to be a bit less haphazard, and address our needs before any more beelining. We don't have much of an empire right now anyways. I'd shoot for optics so we can get Caravels and go find people. Banking's not far from there, but we need guilds, which needs Feud.

One thing I would like to do is be the first to music. We'll be wanting Drama for the Theatre's to amplify our Dyes in the future anyways.

EDIT: CS slingshot is out of the question. I pressed end turn on the save to see what the barb warrior would do. He attacked us, but the next turn someone finished the Oracle already. We'll have to research it manually, which should be our next priority.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Well, I didn't mean for specialization. I just meant generally...

Also, if we're really that worried, couldn't we just fill them (the forts) ourselves? And I meant as a LAST priority, as in ouce our workers really have nothing more to do... which WILL happen if we never get a coal resource.

Music might be a good idea after sailing, if we can be the first to a grreat artist.

If we, with our three cities right now, could build a Confucian Cathedral, in which city would it be put? CH-city? FM-city? Timbuktu?

Perhaps... Fishing, Sailing, (techs to music), then a few more fill-in techs, then beeline to banking? I'd want Feudalism anyways, if for nothing more than Serfdom...

So, the Oracle's unavailable? Darn... let's quickly get started on something else, preferably a wonder... we need some great people, just anything but a merchant. A scientist would really be useful for an Academy in CH-city...

 

[Simon_c]

OK I got it.

How many turns do yo want me to play ? 10 ish ?

Some thoughts on the save. The skirmisher was on goto to the barb The barb could have moved somewhere else, then our goto executed, then the barb would have walked into our city.

We seem to have build a confucian monistary in Fixed Mistake. If the reason for that was to spread confucian to CH, then it's a huge investment in hammers to get + 60 wouldn't have got is the oracle in this case, but it could have made the difference. The odds are that confucian will spread to CH by it self allong the trade route. After that, building a monistary in CH will give us the 10% and be a good thing.

So, what's my priorities for this turn set ?

I think:
* CH more settlers/workers, and truing to slot in science/health/happy based buildings when it can. We need at least 5 more settlers and workers though.

* FM: to build skirmishers until Timbucktu can take over unit production.

* The barb city will be nice to get, but I don't think that's on the short term goal list. It's just a bit to far to get and keep comfortably. It's a in a nice location though.

* Our tech rate is way ahead of our production rate, so there's lots of nice things to spend our on. That's good But it means we have to be focused.


What's the next city location ?

What's the tech priority ? There no point getting fishing/sailing until there's a settler heading to the coast. It will only take us 2 turns for fishing, and 4 for sailing, and the city will need to build a workboat while we're learning about galleys.

I'll head towards literature if nobody has any better ideas.

I'll play and post tonight (start playing approx 14 hr from now)

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

CH: Pure settlers/workers until we have 8 health AND happy there. No less of either.

FM: Military first, and then I'll let you use your judgement.

Timbuktu: Get the production going!

Place new city here:

Get fishing and sailing, then CS.

10 turns.

 

[Simon_c]

OK. Finished, and I think I played 10 turns. Could have lost count in there though


Io1: Turnset SC-1

0: preturn.
Take the skirmisher of goto. Stop the chopping around FM. Move the skirmisher in the south towards the hills for better barb supression.

Change build in Timbuktu to courthouse.

1: The barb attached our skirmisher in the woods. I thought he would pillage. Dumb barb. I whipped the settler, and brought our skirmisher back to the city. GH to produce a skirmisher while it grows, then back to worker/settler. We need an escort for the new settler anyway.

Sent the worker from FM over Timbuktu to build some roads while the other two fixup the land around timbuktu.


2: Started the worker mining for copper around timbuktu.
Set the Skirmisher in the Iron/gold lands over to hill to watch out for barbs better. Moved the skirmisher from FM to CH the turn before the new skirmisher was due in FM.
Swapped to fishing to new city can start on work boat as soon as it's founded. Ultimately that will cost us about 6 and get about a 7 turn start on the work boat.

3: Beat up the 2nd barb incoming to CH form the south. Send the worrior near the barb city to camp out on a jungle hill to absorb barbs. Hopefully he can get some XP before the archers/axes turn up in the city.

I also remember about now I'm supposed to take screen shots too. And I missed out two fights.

But, We get fishing.

Sometimes the AI makes dumb-ass suggestions for city locations. Do we really want one here ? Two seefood, no way to build a work boat ?

4: Nothing much happens. FM starts on a chariot so we've got some more mobile troops for running down the barbs. Probably try to get a barracks in there soon.




5: Doh. CH has flipped into unhappy cos I wasn't keeping a close eye on it. 4 turns of a non-productive person. Sorry. The warrior who was exploring the east is no on the way to a hilltop to try to suppress barbarian activity.

Oh yes. We get our city setup.

I set it to work on the workboat as soon as it can to really start growing.


6: got our first horsey unit.

The workers have finished linking CH up with timbuktu, but we could still do with more road for troop movement, but I wanted it linked up ASAP to build axmen in FM.
Send a worker down south to link up to Djenne and improve that area. That also links up our wheat for more health.

We get currency too.

7: Chariot over to CH to be a central mobile reserve. Skirmisher arrives at Timbuktu.
There's actually not much for the worker to do in Djenne. Doh. The road can wait a while as it will be linked via the see next turn, I send him back to Ch to build more road and cottages as we'll soon have gold on line and will be able to get the temple finished.

8: Got sailing. Set to alphabet.

I just realised writing this up that I was supposed to go for CS.
Well, I think getting the great library ahead of the AI is probably a better long term move. Then CS and bureaucracy can solidify our tech lead.

9: Hooked up gold. CH has 8 and 11 Settler should be out in 3, then we can finish temple while growing another point, then more settlers. May need more workers, or we may be able to get away with 3 for now.

10: Granary finished in Timbuktu. Leave it to go onto the courthouse. We'll need it soon.
There's an axe with 1 turn left in the build queue of FM, I think FM can slip in a barracks, then back to promoted axes. If the barbs get stronger, we can get the axe in the queue out before do any damage. I'd We can then aim for an axe/skirmisher pair for each city. that should see us through for a while.
Djenne will finish it's workboat soon, then move the worked tile to the see food. and start the 2nd or maybe a galley. I'm hoping we'll get a free spread of religion there soon. I've loaded up the build queues with what I think is useful, but feel free to change it.

We should have literature in 10 turns, then we can set CH to build the Great Library and chop that out. If we manage overflow correctly we should be able to get a boost if we whip 2people into the temple.
Maybe then FM can take over creating settlers for a while, and Timbuktu troops ?

Here's a pic of our empire.

Looking quite good IMO.

We'll eventually need some junk cities I think to fill in the gaps, but if we can run a priest somewhere to generate a profit then the shrine income should make those cities profitable very quickly. Speaking of which, we probably may need to delay the greal library a little to get the GPPs into profit points before the library overtakes them. What do people think ? Do we need a shrine ?

I think we should go for stone/cows next, then gold/wheat or gold/iron.
The spot south west of Timbuktu should probably be farmed to allow the wheat to get irrigated with CS.

Here's the save.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/111964/Io1_BC-0425.Civ4SavedGame

And the roster, as best as I can make out.

Roster:
IdiotsOpposite >> Up now
Hackapell >>on deck .
S.ilver
Simon_c >> just played.
open

 

[S.ilver]

I was under the impression I was up... but it's IO's SG, so we'll wait for him to show up, since he's up according to the roster. Need discussion anyways.

 

[Simon_c]

Er Bugger. You might have been Sorry.
I just copied the roster from the front page cos I thought that was the only one I saw.

Sorry.

 

[S.ilver]

Well... I'm not actually sure if I'm supposed to go... Nor has there been any strategic discussion. I'm waiting for IO to come and clarify the roster order.

At any rate, I'll be able to play the turns in 20 hours if I'm up... Which I don't know if I am yet...

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

So sorry that I wasn't able to get to this until now. I've been at school until 2:50 (an hour ago), and then I've been shoveling, then I had to wait for father's work laptop to turn off (a fifteen minute deal).

So... I really can't, in good conscience, play my turns. If you look, I've played twice, and the rest of y'all have only played once. So, S.ilver, you're up.

EDIT: However, is there something... imaginative we can name Timbuktu and Angle? Something on the order of Commerce Heaven, or Fixed Mistake??

EDIT2: Woops, sorry there, mixed up Angle and Djenne... I just realized something. The people who lived in England about 500 AD... they were called Angles! And England was called Angleland...

 

[S.ilver]

Right. 10 turns I'm up. I'll see what I can do to improve us. Any immediate goals? Or should I wing it?