josh4bs' attempt at getting better

[josh4bs]

Good morning, fellow civvers! I have been lurking the boards for a while now and have finally decided to join the conversation and the process of attempting to get better at this game that we all spend too much time playing.

I am tired of playing like Grog..."Me, big army. Me, crush you." As you all know, that only gets you so far until you actually have to consider other things.

Any and all criticism is desired. I know I have a long way to go, but with your help, hopefully I will be a worthy adversary for the AI and others soon enough.

Without further adieu....

I am playing a "shuffle" map, with 7 AI's, no events, and now goody huts. Everything else is left untouched....Oh, and the difficulty level is "Noble".

The leader I drew is Bismarck, which is ironic since I live in Germany, so this works pretty well. From his traits, I believe I will be attempting to wonder spam as much as possible. Hopefully, the land agrees with this strategy.

A little on Bismarck:

And our starting location:

My thoughts are to settle in place. I see there is coastal land to me east and it seems that I am in the middle of a forest, which is great for the chopping that will commence. Also, SIP will give me access to the 2 resources seen (cows and marble), plus the hills (future mines) south of me are interesting as well. Since I am a little scarce on the "visible" resources, hopefully that means that more is to come as tech gets researched...

So, going forward:
-SIP
-Scout with the warrior
-Research: AH - BW
-Build: Worker-Worker-Warrior-Settler

Hopefully, I have included the things needed. If not, fire away.

Thank you in advance for your sage advice!
josh4bs

 

[soundjata]

Moving the scout North could be an option while enviseaging settlng 1S for a nice early production boost while moving slightly away from the north pole me think.

Welcome to the party josh4bs!

 

[Revent]

Hello and welcome to CivFanatics!

Why don't you move the scout onto the hill 1S of the settler before deciding to SIP?
If you are playing a forum game to get better, I would advise you against wonder spamming. It is something that is possible in this game, pretty easily, but I'd advise against spamming. For example, beelining Civil Service via the Oracle may be a powerful move here. Building The Great Library will be pretty good as well

 

[Revent]

Moving the scout North could be an option while enviseaging settlng 1S for a nice early production boost while moving slightly away from the north pole me think.

Welcome to the party josh4bs!

It looks like he may have a lot of plains if he went 1S so I'm not sure how long the 2 turn faster worker benefit will be before he'd lose out due to crappy plains. Plus, Noble rarely requires the settler to move

 

[pigswill]

Moving scout SE>SW could reveal if there's any seafood down there which may have a bearing on a decision on settling 1S.

 

[lymond]

Yep, move the scout to the PH south of the settler. On first glance though I might forgo settling on the PH for the early boost, for what may be a better capitol by SIP. Clearly you have river tiles to the north that you would lose and I would want to have maximum food/hammers in the cap for an IND leader. The south looks like dry plains so I do see any advantage moving that way.

AH>BW is not bad call, but you may need to wait to see if you show any more food. You may want BW second either way as you might run into idle worker turns, while there is tons of forest here.

 

[josh4bs]

The scout was moved in a SW direction to reveal the following:

Spoiler :

Further south is desert, so that leads me to leave the settler where he is at. I didn't send the scout East since it seemed it was coastal and this settler will be too far to fish any "would-be" seafood. I liked the insight by the first responder of mentioning the North Pole. That lead me to not worry about North as the forest seems to be that of the tundra variety. I still do not know what is West of the settler, but with Wheat/Cow/Marble all available where I am at, I think it is prudent to SIP. There just isn't the benefit needed to move and lose the early settling option, at least that I can see.

So, with no further hesitation...I SIP'd.

DANG IT! Missed out on the stone, by SIPping...Oh well. I will start on the tech path mentioned earlier (AH > BW). With only Wheat needing AG, I will postpone that for a bit. AH, allows me to benefit from the cows as I would from the Wheat, but also will reveal horses, so that wins.

Seems I am on either an island or a very skinny continent, and I have surmised in the northern part of the world. Not too worried about north, thinking that I am the last Civ that would be up here, so the scout will start his circle in a southerly direction.

Worker is being hatched...

Anything I'm missing?

 

[Chuwe3y]

When moving up difficulty, u have to decide what wonders u should build and how it will benefit u. First you want to ask urself what will be your victory type. With the resources nearby an Oracle and Pyramid seems like your best choice. Looks like u r on the northern side of the map from all the tundra u should focus more on expansion.
Most of all that will improve ur gameplay is to install Bug Mod. Its a very nice interface that deals with diplomacy.

 

[barbertje]

The techpath seems Ok. If you go AH - BW, your worker will have 6 idle turns, and you'll have only 1 idle turn with AG - BW, because AG is cheaper, and it takes longer to move to and improve the wheat, but the cow is a better tile, so I think the two options come out about the same.

 

[josh4bs]

As for what victory condition....I HAVE NO IDEA! Wonders should be quite easy with Bismarck...and as one poster commented, I might veer away from that path in order to learn more, although it will be difficult with stone and marble in my backyard with all of the lush forests to chop.......

The techpath seems Ok. If you go AH - BW, your worker will have 6 idle turns, and you'll have only 1 idle turn with AG - BW, because AG is cheaper, and it takes longer to move to and improve the wheat, but the cow is a better tile, so I think the two options come out about the same.

I was thinking there would be a few turns of inactiveness from the worker, but I think I can just pre-chop some of the abundant forest land surrounding me. I will be sticking with AH > BW > Wheel????

I decided to play a few turns, since there isn't much that happens while your first worker is built.

Lo and behold, I have meant my first neighbor:

Ran into his warrior 9 tiles south of Berlin, after the desert:

So, I need to read up on ole Ragnar, since he is fairly close to me...I will play up to my worker coming out then post to see what the options are from there.

 

[josh4bs]

UPDATE
AH is done and my worker will come out the next turn...so no wasted turns. I stopped to make sure I was on the right tech-path. BW is my thinking, but when do I do Wheel, Masonry? Not worried about the religion per se, but I would like to get Oracle/Pyramids/Great Wall/Stonehenge, seems a waste not to go that route with the map and traits I possess.

Berlin's status:

I think I am safe from Ragnar. We have a sizable desert between us with useless land there as well, except for the spot of gold that showed up. Expansion should be easy, but how much should I expand? How fast? This is where I need the help. Just not sure what to concentrate on early.

Map as I see it:

Ok, I will stop here for now. Agriculture is in the queue as a placeholder, but will most likely change that to BW after feedback is gained.


EDIT: Added save file

 

[barbertje]

Ragnar is agressive, and almost certain to attack you if he has no other targets.

The best way to get all these wonders might be to kill Ragnar with chariots.
Even on immortal difficulty a 1 city chariot rush rarely fails. (altough it might be too far away to do it on immortal)
Build a barracks, another worker (at size 3 or so) and chop about 8 chariots, This can be done by 2000 BC.

 

[Izuul]

Maybe start on a warrior and grow to size 2 before starting the worker here? With Expansive you can get a 10 turn worker working the 3f cow (for the +1 commerce) + 3h FPH. I think that's a T18 worker vs T15, but the capitol is already size 2, and you have a warrior halfway finished.

Research goes Ag > AH > BW. I'm not entirely sure what turns each of the techs finish, but i think it's something like T8 Ag, T17 AH, and T30 BW. Somebody that is better at calculating research could clean that up for me.

-Worker goes cows > wheat > PH chop > mine
-Capitol finishes warrior or two, grows to size 3, and starts a settler. PH chop goes into the settler.

That would be my general plan here i think.


EDIT: Apparently i was too late with this. I got caught up with *gasp* work. Since there are now 3 good tiles to improve without BW, it's all a bit of a moot point.

 

[Revent]

Your land is food poor/not food great. I think I'd avoid the Mids here.

 

[josh4bs]

Your land is food poor/not food great. I think I'd avoid the Mids here.

Sorry to ask...but what does "Mids" refer to?

 

[Izuul]

The Pyramids

 

[pigswill]

Chariot rush sounds a good plan, kill Ragnar before h becomes a problem.

Maybe wheel before BW. Improve cows then horses, road horses, build chariots, chop chariots. Do you need a rax (barracks)?

 

[josh4bs]

Chariot rush sounds a good plan, kill Ragnar before h becomes a problem.

Maybe wheel before BW. Improve cows then horses, road horses, build chariots, chop chariots. Do you need a rax (barracks)?

Chariot rush would eliminate Rags from the game quite early, which isn't a bad thing from what I can tell. If that is the direction, Wheel would need to be before BW. Barracks would help the rush a bit...but do I sacrifice the loss of workers/settlers for that???

If I am betting on Rags being the only one with me...I would have time to recover the peaceful side of the house...with that in mind, I think I raze his city and not keep it. Thinking the upkeep on that would be a bit difficult. If I raze the city, how much of a problem would Barbs be down south??? Or do I use the Chariots to protect against spawning?

 

[josh4bs]

Chariot Rush in On!

Teched Wheel and now Bronze Working is in the works.
Worked the Cow and the Horses...and added a worker to help with the road to the horses.

Barracks are currently under construction. Think it best to pre-chop the forests in prep of BW coming online in 7 turns. By the way, I have BUG installed, but it doesn't pre-chop...do I need to switch to BAT instead?

View of life in Berlin:

Explored down to where Ragnar lives and verified that we are the northern boarder:

So, what do the workers do for 7 turns? Am I right with the pre-chop?

 

[pigswill]

Can't chop before BW so can't pre-chop. Workers can however build a road south while waiting for BW to speed chariots on their way.