Let's Play Civ 4

[schlaufuchs]

Ok guys. So I've been following this website for a while now (or at least what I would consider awhile), and I've tried a few game on my own (whipped through the first few settings), but although I studied the various guides (I became a real fan of the ALCs), and played a few games, trying to apply what I read, I just never felt like I truly "understood" the game. Normally I find that once I do something, but not only do something, but either having someone telling me, "Yes that's right", or literally showing me what to do, I tend to pick things up very easily. Furthermore, another thing I noticed is that while there are in fact a lot of games designed to help the lower level players, they're all put on by the higher level players. So the way I see it, this game will be by a Noble player (myself) for Noble Players (which would also entail myself), meaning that I'll probably ask more questions, and seek more in-depth explanations about such things, as where would you put a city and why, or what build order would you take specifically and why, rather than what I notice on other games which is criticism going from one to another with the reasons being generally understood by both parties without the need for explanation.

So then, seeing as how I would like to really play this game on higher levels, and have never resolved to finish a standard game,

And seeing as how I just picked up BtS, I think I would like to try to play a game using the "group mind" as Sisiutil so dotingly refers to it.

Anyways, a few parameters before we start.
As I said before I am still quite a beginner, I understand concepts, but not their application. Therefore I will probably sound a little redundant to those who view certain game concepts pivotal and, generally do them without thinking about it. Please don't be upset if it appears like I (as I said, appear redundant, or meticulous), I just tend to be very "OCD" (to use a phrase) when I'm learning something.

Ok, so on that, I'd like to let you guys know (obviously) that you should feel free to offer advice (as long as it's constructive), and play along (I'll try to post save games as best I can). However, in response the the aforesaid criticism, if you offer advice, and you please also include whys and wherefores if possible. For example, on first moves, don't just say settle 1N, actually explain your full thought process on why you would want to do that. I'll post games (the rounds will probably be pretty short at first, maybe longer later), and then I'll let you guys post your thoughts, and after a few days, compile them and put them down into a post, which would (based on your ideas) explain what I'm going to do in the next round.
(Like I said, meticulous, and often redundant)

So hopefully we will have good luck in this first try at this.

 

[schlaufuchs]

So anyways, on to the game.

We'll be playing Noble difficulty, Epic Speed, 6 opponents, Continents, Everything else is normal, although choose religions is on, (it doesn't really change anything, and I find it more fun for me)

Version is BtS, and our leader is Willem Van Oranje (for no particular reason, other than I think his traits will be helpful, and his UU doesn't really tempt me to do anything out of the ordinary in the early game (As I would with Rome)

Here's the Leader



As you can see, he's Creative and Financial, and starts with fishing and agg.

And here's the start



So, what I see, is that we have a whole bunch of hills to the west with flood plains, and two rivers to the east. (City placement is one thing I have a lot of trouble with) My thinking would be to move to the North, to get the Elephant up there, and then to grab some of the grassland tiles that appear to be in the northwest.

Some questions:
1. Obviously, where would you settle
2. What would your techpath be, based on all the hills, I would think mining to be a priority, and then maybe hunting to camp the Jumbos
3. We have no food resources, is this a problem, or would FPs in your mind counteract that.
4. Another problem I've had that hasn't been clearly addressed ever: How much exploring do you do with your first warrior? I know your supposed to "make a ring around your starting area", but how big of a ring, how many tiles specifically, etc.
5. Probably should have put this earlier, but do any of you think the map should be regenerated? and if so, why, what tells you the map is not suitable.

So yeah, just some of the first questions which came to mind. Anyway, here's the save so you can look at more stuff if you want, or even play a shadow game.

*Standard Rules for shadow games apply (make sure to wrap games in spoilers, and give forewarnings about any info that might give me extra knowledge before the fact, i.e. Leaders, Resources, etc.)

 

[DMOC]

So, what I see, is that we have a whole bunch of hills to the west with flood plains, and two rivers to the east. (City placement is one thing I have a lot of trouble with) My thinking would be to move to the North, to get the Elephant up there, and then to grab some of the grassland tiles that appear to be in the northwest.

Some questions:
1. Obviously, where would you settle
2. What would your techpath be, based on all the hills, I would think mining to be a priority, and then maybe hunting to camp the Jumbos
3. We have to food sources, is this a problem, or would FPs in your mind counteract that.
4. Another problem I've had that hasn't been clearly addressed ever: How much exploring do you do with your first warrior? I know your supposed to "make a ring around your starting area", but how big of a ring, how many tiles specifically, etc.
5. Probably should have put this earlier, but do any of you think the map should be regenerated? and if so, why, what tells you the map is not suitable.

1. Settle in place and save the ivory for another city. This should be your standard Bureaucracy capital with cottages on the floodplains and mines on the hills.

2. Mining > Bronze Working > Wheel > Pottery > Animal Husbandry. This tech path may vary with further exploration. However, I'm certain that Mining and then Bronze Working are the best techs to start researching.

3. Did you mean two food resources? You said "to" so I wasn't sure what that meant. You actually have no visible food resource yet. That should almost certainly change when you settle in place (I'm pretty sure that hill 1SW and then 1S of your settler has pigs or sheep on it because capitals are supposed to start with food resources on continents maps). Also, I think the capital is quite nice with the floodplains.

4. You should explore in a ring but make sure there are no blackened tles between what you can see and the "ring" your warrior makes.

5. Regenerate? No way!

 

[schlaufuchs]

re: by to I meant, no, that was a typo I fixed almost immediately afterwards.

Warrior, what I mean is how far out would out would your ring extend, for example, would you only go out as far as the elephants on the map
and cover about that much on all sides of the capital or would you, go further than that. This is the problem I have, a lot of people say basically exactly what you say in their guides, but to me it sounds too vague to really make use of, and I like specifics.

 

[futurehermit]

Agree with DMOC. Scout around a bit and post some pics of the lay of the land.

 

[Zavior]

Dont take the hut with the warrior. If you do, you miss the chance of getting free tech.
As for exploring, just start moving your warrior around in a circle that leaves no tile unexplored.

 

[DMOC]

re: by to I meant, no, that was a typo I fixed almost immediately afterwards.

Warrior, what I mean is how far out would out would your ring extend, for example, would you only go out as far as the elephants on the map
and cover about that much on all sides of the capital or would you, go further than that. This is the problem I have, a lot of people say basically exactly what you say in their guides, but to me it sounds too vague to really make use of, and I like specifics.

Just keep exploring with your warrior until he dies. Try to stick to hills because they give you extra visibility.

 

[Skallagrimson]

1. Settle in-place. Hills make it defensible. When possible you want the floodplains 2 squares away because you don't want the desert that's almost always beyond them. Ivory will be important SOON but not RIGHT AWAY. Right away the important thing is food, and the FPs give you somma that.

2. Tech to bronze working, and because you're financial I'd say pottery after that, split the floodplains 50/50 between farms and cottages. Farms because they didn't give you any other foot tiles (yet?) and cottages because that'll lay the pipe right for this cap being a good if not great science city.

3. In the late game one flood plain can bring in 5 food. 2 of those usually feed a whole city with no other food, so I wouldn't worry too much. If you were industrious with this start I'd make the cap a prod city though.

4. Just keep the spiral formation going until you'll soon be needing it to escort the settler. Then escort, then go back to exploring. One thing I often do is preposition the escort at a way-point, so the settler can make use of his 2 movement out until a point of relative danger (1 or 2 tiles outside the culture border). Quicker city build that way. It gets the scout-warrior back to scouting quicker, too.

5. You know very little about the start at this point. Ivory is huge when you can get to construction and horseback riding and field war elephants, but it's useless before that (except the luxury bonus). See what else there is nearby, and if it's surrounded by desert or tundra, I'd pitch it.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Ok, so for the Warrior, should I move SW first to reveal what else would be in my BFC, and then from there continue making my ring by moving west or sw?

RE: warrior movement: Ok, what you guys are saying makes a little more sense, I guess corkscrew is the best way to explain it.

I'll probably play tonight.
What It looks like I'm going to do:

1. Settle in place
2. Move my warrior in a corkscrew shape to reveal potential city sites.
3. Tech path will be Mining->BW->Wheel->Pottery

However, what do you think my first build should be. I know that the choice between warrior or worker depends on if your worker has something to do when he pops out. Since we have ag, we can farm the FPs as was suggested right away. So that would point towards worker first, and, if by the time the worker comes out we still don't have mining, then farm FPs until mining, and then mine a hill.

In regards to these also, if in fact worker come first, what would you do after that, and why?

 

[absimiliard]

I would settle in place, agreed.

I prefer Pottery first, then Bronze Working. I'd go with a worker first and cottage first. Getting your capital's early commerce going is important. You're Financial and I feel early cottages exploit that.

If you go Bronze Working first you're practically committing yourself to a chop routine with your first worker since the floodplains want cottages and not farms. That'll help you REX faster, but I find too early a REX can mean overexpansion and a weak economy. (this is actually a classic mistake of mine)

Either way is fine though. I think Pottery or Bronze both make fine initial paths, I just prefer the commerce from Pottery to the hammers from Bronze.

-abs

 

[henrebotha]

I say settle in place as this start looks to be a potent Bureaucracy city (and a decent first city otherwise).

Build a worker (to farm the FPs) while teching Mining (so you can improve production) and Bronze Working (for Slavery, letting you make use of all that food; for chopping, if you feel the need for a further production boost; and for revealing copper, hopefully within your BFC).

 

[JammerUno]

That is one great starting position for a financial leader, 6 floddplains, great production, alot of tiles riverside, there's no reason not to tech BW before pottery, working a cottage 30 turns earlier doesn't compare to the advantage of chopping out settlers and possibly even settling a bronze city before an Ai does. So I'd tech mining->BW->wheel->pottery.

As for warrior movement, like DMOC says; target hills for the visibility bonus, if he get attacked and there's a forested hill nearby, park him there while he heals. As for exploring, I usually try to spot a couple of early city sites, so while moving in circles is an effective way of scouting, if you find some good resources nearby, scout around it to see if there's anything else there.

As for first builds; if your worker can't work when he's done, you timed him wrong. In this case, a worker would be useful after BW, for chopping forests. So having one at that time would be good.

Worrying about overexpansion isn't something for financial civs with pottery, dropping down some cottages will save your early economy fast, especially if you keep down upkeep on the cities with the whip.

 

[DMOC]

Ok, so for the Warrior, should I move SW first to reveal what else would be in my BFC, and then from there continue making my ring by moving west or sw?

I wouldn't recommend moving SW. It only reveals forested hills which I can tell by looking at your screen closely. I would go NE (don't pop the hut) and then the following turn NE again so you are on that hill for extra visibility. Anything after that really depends on what the map looks like.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

"Corkscrewing" around your capital to look for more city sites is certainly a great idea. Just don't get too caught up in trying to stay true to this. Remember, priority number 1 with that early scout/warrior is to stay alive! So always try to stay in forests or on hills as much as possible. Also, remember priority number 2 is to find good city sites. So if you come across a river, you're gonna want to scout that area out a little more because rivers are usually good for almost any kind of city you'd want. Likewise, if you see a big area of desert-screw it. You can scout this useless land later.

Tundra is a little more important since there are usually a couple of happy resources like Silver here. Still though, tundra can be scouted more thoroughly late on.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I wouldn't recommend moving SW. It only reveals forested hills which I can tell by looking at your screen closely. I would go NW (don't pop the hut) and then the following turn NW again so you are on that hill for extra visibility. Anything after that really depends on what the map looks like.

Do you mean NE? The goody hut is due E and hill is NE

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"Corkscrewing" around your capital to look for more city sites is certainly a great idea. Just don't get too caught up in trying to stay true to this. Remember, priority number 1 with that early scout/warrior is to stay alive! So always try to stay in forests or on hills as much as possible. Also, remember priority number 2 is to find good city sites. So if you come across a river, you're gonna want to scout that area out a little more because rivers are usually good for almost any kind of city you'd want. Likewise, if you see a big area of desert-screw it. You can scout this useless land later.

Tundra is a little more important since there are usually a couple of happy resources like Silver here. Still though, tundra can be scouted more thoroughly late on.

Bah, you can be as careful as you want to be, but you're bound to get hosed. Get hit by 3 panthers or 1 bear and the odds are against you surviving. I usually coasthug with first warrior and 2nd/3rd after 1st worker start fogbusting/looking for settling sites.

 

[DMOC]

Yeah, I mean NE, my bad.

 

[Jet]

The map generator always gives you a food resource in the fat cross. There's probably pig or sheep SSW of the settler. Or maybe something SSE.

But I'd settle 1NE and research Hunting, Mining, Archery. Bronze Working would be all right, especially with the 3C camp to cartch up on research, but with the flood plains I wouldn't be clearcutting, and my habit is to get a defense up promptly with minimal risk.

^ Actually probably Archery before Mining. With the Ivory and the plains hill forest, (and 1F2P tiles) it's not crucial to build mines right away.

 

[Levgre]

On noble difficulty you get 2 free wins against barbarians, so you don't have to worry about sticking to forest/hills until after those 2 combats.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Round 1, to 3325

Ok, so it was a pretty short round, but hey, I warned you guys!
Anyways it was pretty successful if you ask me.

So first, as everyone suggested, I settled in place which revealed:

Pigs to the South
Also there's wheat the the NW. I also picked up some gold from the goody hut when I settled. I started teching mining, and also started work on a worker.

So, as per DMOC's suggestion, I moved my warrior NE, and then NE again to reveal this:


stone, I took this pic a couple of turns after the fact, but it gets the point across.

Anywho, I continued moving my warrior around in a circular fashion. I popped another hut for some more gold, and then on my next goody hut I got this:



Sailing. Also I fought off a wolf and then a lion to get my warrior promoted. Since he's an exploring unit I gave him Woodsman for faster movement on hills and woods (I believe?)

During this time, I also teched off mining, and set research to BW as per suggested. I also popped out my worker, set my next build to warrior, and then set the worker to farm one of the FPs. I'll get him to build a mine afterwards.

So I continued exploring until I teched off BW, and as for copper, well you don't have to look far:



I revolted to slavery, as I'm sure the whip will help us out, and I find a lot of games I watch end up doing it right away.

After that I set research to wheel and saved.

So that's this round, here's the map so far:



Maps looking alright, we got two sources of stone and two sources of copper (I know, ya only need one, but whatever)
Some things to note:
1. Bronze is not hooked up (I just discovered it the turn I saved) I'll get my worker on it as soon as farm is done (unless someone thinks it should be done sooner)
2. My warrior right now is on his way to pick up another goody hut which you can make out from the map, I believe he is one or two tiles away from it
3. I haven't met any rivals yet.
4. Buddhism was just discovered the turn of the save.

Finally, more thoughts and questions.


1. What should my build path be, I figured I should go warrior next and that was what I did, but should I send that one exploring as well and then build another to defend the city?
2. Tech path, right now we are set to go wheel->pottery, but what should come afterwards?
3. Cities, how soon should we start planning new cities, we don't need to worry about claiming copper, but it would be nice to grab some stone, and how should we plan for specialization?
4. Wonders, with stone close, it makes me think that we can grab a few wonders that have half speed with stone (i.e. 'mids, SH, and GW for example), should we (by we I mean I) be thinking like that.
-an addendum to that: Willem is creative, so SH is kinda less valuable as we already have easy border pops

Those are the only questions for now, though some more will probably pop up.

Also, I'll try to play a bit of a longer round next time, it's just that I'm well aware that the first few moves are crucial, and I want to make sure that I'm getting this right (or as close as I can), and if not it will be easily corrected.

anywho, here's the save: