Let's Play Civ 5: A New Challenger Approaches!

[furikawari]

Hi everybody!

I've been noticing that only madscientist has a game running right now, so I thought I might try my hand at a public game! I hope you'll come along for the ride and offer your help throughout the game.

First: some introduction. I'm furikawari--I used to post under a different name here, but I've always been something of an on-again off-again troll (lurker?) here at CivFanatics. I'm a 90%+ (win rate) Monarch player at Civ4, with something more like 50% on Emperor; usually I give up because I don't have the focus to micromanage more than lose straight up. sisiutil pretty much taught me how to play with his ALC series! Hopefully I can give back a little as recompense.

Second: about this thread. I hope I can make it entertaining enough for you all to join in with advice and suggestions. I'd really like if this were a forum game; not just my game that I'm showing to you. So please offer any thoughts you have! And more importantly, please don't criticize too harshly or engage in any personal attacks. I have seen a good bit of hostility towards lower rated players lately, and it kinda bummed me out. If you don't have any constructive criticism to offer, take a walk!

Third: About the game! Since I'd like to discover the differences between Civ5 and Civ4, I'm open to just about any strategy that works for us in game. I am pushing myself a bit out of comfort zone by going for a King game with random settings, as I haven't even progressed all the way through a full round of 5 yet. It's possible I'll fail! I hope not though...

<< Session 1: 4000 BC - 2760 BC, 31 Turns >>

Here are the settings:

And the random generator brings for us.....

Harun al-Rashid of the great Arabian peoples!

Harun's got +1 for each trade route, and gets double the oil when he finds it under his rich, rich sands. We also have a couple of special units/buildings:

Doesn't seem that great... How will we do? The random generator brings more goodies, as here's the map we start with:

Wow! Look at those gems. Should have a great economy to start!

What now, then? I don't see anything better than settling on the spot. For techs, I'm thinking mining, then go to calendar. Production: Scout-->Worker, then perhaps a granary or settler.

Good luck to us all--let us lead Arabia to greatness!
-f

ps: anyone know a good tga image converter? the one I got adds that annoying tag at the bottom right of images.

 

[Vordeo]

I am eternally grateful to you for showing me where I can enable quick combat. Should've thought the check advanced setups sooner!

I don't really rate Harun's UA much (+1 gold/city isn't much, even with modifiers, and the double oil is just decent), but I do like his UU, and his UB is excellent for making gold (via selling excess resources).

Very good start there, with 2 happiness resources (gems and ivory) and plenty of hills for production later on. Mining and scout>worker sounds about right.

One last thing: could you enable resource views in the screenshots? Makes things much easier to follow.

Good luck with one!

 

[slobberinbear]

The UB is pretty great for trading. You'll have extras of everything.

As far as your start goes, I see no reason not to settle in place. Hopefully there is some more food around. That's a LOT of hills to feed. I see a lot of farms and civil service in your near future.

Techs: Mining, AH, Trapping to start ... then to the wheel so you can start getting your trade route bonuses?

 

[feelotraveller]

Yeah, Mining, AH, Trapping.

Don't bother with the granary.

Look for a maritime CS as the capital hasn't got a lot of food but there should be a fair bit of cash early.

Beyond that, Trading, trading, trading...

 

[am138]

The UB is pretty great for trading. You'll have extras of everything.

As far as your start goes, I see no reason not to settle in place. Hopefully there is some more food around. That's a LOT of hills to feed. I see a lot of farms and civil service in your near future.

Techs: Mining, AH, Trapping to start ... then to the wheel so you can start getting your trade route bonuses?

No-one rates archery as a good early tech? Once you have an archer garrison you can pretty much forget about barbs [attacking your cities]?

 

[King of Spades]

I would settle in place. That's alot of hills - should be a decent production capital, maybe you can churn out some Wonders? I think going for Stonehenge here would be a good idea.

As for research, I would go Animal Husbandry -> Mining. You probably won't get a Worker out before you've got both of the techs anyway, and you probably need to grow you capital some before you can get those Gems up. The excess Happiness towards a Golden Age would be better used when you've got some cities.

BTW, glad to see someone giving a public game a shot! I'll be following.

 

[furikawari]

[edit: Imageshack seems to be having loading problems. I'll probably switch to photobucket.]

Hey again,

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I played until I got our first settler and stopped so we can take a look at the map. The round was quite successful, but our map is...let us say...interesting.

Also, I've never played a game like this so I had to try and curb my natural tendencies to click through things and do a better job recording what was going on. Hopefully future updates will show improvements on this. There's probably too much minutiae below, but it was a short session.

Taking the consensus I went with the mining->AH plan, and started out building a scout. Our intrepid warrior began scouting and quickly found the lost goodies of ancient civilizations he was looking for! Just south of Mecca:

Pretty cool. Since it looks like our hometown is a bit food deprived, I went ahead and picked Tradition for the extra +1 food in the capital. On the 3rd turn or so, that seems pretty strong. Our warrior found more, though...

What a head start! Goody huts got better in this game, you say? Maybe the next time we turn them off...

Soon our scout is ready (thanks to the extra production of our hillside city), and heads off exploring.

Of course, not all that glitters can be gold, as he finds only some dusty, useless sea charts in the ruins ahead:

Our explorers forge on, while the philosophers at home figure out how to break rocks.

To the north and west, we find our first two neighbors: the city-states of Florence and Sidon.

Swing and a miss on maritime for both of them, darn... Our scout stumbles upon a ruins just east of Sidon, with strange pieces of wood to use for weapons:

Strange that bows could survive in a ruined city, you know... If you left them strung, they'd be worthless right-quick. What do you think, were there pictographs describing how to use them? Or maybe some pastoral survivors who carried the knowledge of archery through the ages. Ah well. Our warrior loops north after seeing an isthmus to the south, and finds another city-state.

Another non-maritime, ick. I don't have a great picture, but if you can see in any mini-map shots, we are on the north end of a peninsula or large island. I haven't met any other AI civs so I'm a bit worried we're alone right now. The only way forward is south, so our Warrior and Archer-Scout both head in that direction.

About now our worker popped out. Since we got a good boost from Tradition in the capital, it was only a few turns away from 4-pop. I parked its hammers in a monument for those turns while it grew before halting growth with a settler build. The worker hopped out to the gems and started pre-chopping--that is, I chopped the first gem forest/hill for two turns, then moved to the other one, so that the chops would go into the settler (though only one chop was applied to the settler). After chopping, the worker set to building a mine. A sticky right-click at one point cost me two worker-turns as I accidentally moved him out of the territory. Anyhoo, along the way we nab our second tech:

And start researching Trapping. Mmm, elephant tusks and deer antlers for dinner tomorrow!

On the way south, our warrior scuffles with some barbarians. The fight leaves both heroes and villains at 5 hp, so we beat a bit of a retreat and wait for the archery to arrive. When it does, it mows down the poor brutes through the trees. Eventually we track the source of the barbarian scourge, and put the nail in the coffin.

(That said, the good ol' computer did manage to tell me I'd have a "decisive victory" with my warrior attacking--turns out I lost 5 hp to the barbs' 2. That'll show me to attack up a hill.) Trapping concludes its research cycle, and we pick up another 25 gold from the barbarian encampment. Finally, our real competition arrives:

Alexander! Isn't he supposed to be good? Well, we know he's equipped with Civilization class AI, so we know he's ruthlessly intelligent. Our archer continued south and filled another barbarian warrior with some arrows.

Then, the reason for stopping and posting occurred. Our settler has been built in Mecca, and it's time to choose the location for Medina. I'm a bit stumped on this one and would liked to have played further. However, I just don't know how to place cities well in Civ 5 yet. Here's a look at the map so far (with diplomacy window open):

And here's the strategic view of our peninsula, with possible city locations marked.

The whole dang place is covered in hills! Red looks good because it has food and a river, and the area just west is empty of resources, so I'm expected Iron in the vicinity. Blue is very close to Florence (not sure if they disapprove of such expansion), and can't nab the horses they already control, so it may be a later fill-in. Yellow and Purple start blocking the isthmus from Alexander, but the computer has no compunctions with settling cities wherever it wants, continuity of empire be damned. They both have OK food production but are in a sea of hills. Finally, Steel is very far away (though that matters not for corruption, it does make our road more expensive), but looks like a primo spot.

So where do you think is a good spot to settle?

Mecca is currently building a monument, but can switch out if needed. We have a lot of scratch right now to use for buying units/buildings if we have to.

Thanks for reading and commenting,
-f

 

[King of Spades]

I would place the city NW of Mecca, 1E of the Ivory. That way you'll get said Ivory, and with time secure Horses, also getting Wheat and Sheep. It will not be the best city in your empire, but it will give you another Happiness resource securing further expansion, and give you access to Horses (for Camel Archers). Defence won't be much of a problem either, with the city being easily accessible from your Capital, and being surrounded by City States. As soon as you've hooked the Ivory up, you can go for city number 3.

 

[feelotraveller]

Go Steel, or somewhere near there. You want that Wine!

 

[TM Moot]

Having played Alex a couple of times I would be most careful of his UU's, the Hoplite and Companion Cavalry are capable of devasting early warfare...

 

[Makaz]

I would personnally settle in the South rather than in the North. Alex and others AI are probably south from your location as the rest is surrounded with water so if you settle in the south, you will block them from expanding on your own land. You can easily populate the North much later when you are the only one with access to that land.

Also I would grab that wine asap. A new city will give you immediately +2 and after a few turn later +4 (when it has 3 citizen) so it is absolutely critical to secure the wine that will bring +5 to your empire so that with the ivory and the gems, you have +15 quickly, meaning another 1 or 2 cities to spread southward or closer from golden age depending on your strat.

 

[slobberinbear]

I would personnally settle in the South rather than in the North. Alex and others AI are probably south from your location as the rest is surrounded with water so if you settle in the south, you will block them from expanding on your own land. You can easily populate the North much later when you are the only one with access to that land.

Also I would grab that wine asap. A new city will give you immediately +2 and after a few turn later +4 (when it has 3 citizen) so it is absolutely critical to secure the wine that will bring +5 to your empire so that with the ivory and the gems, you have +15 quickly, meaning another 1 or 2 cities to spread southward or closer from golden age depending on your strat.

This. You need to be exploring towards Alex and block him off.

 

[pincus]

3E of the south wheat would give you good food (deer, river, wheat) and lots of hills and forests. It might not be priority #1, but it does block Alex. Also, flood plains and desert hill could mean double oil in the distant future. Could be further west, even on the coast if you think you need a navy.

My general strategy is based on 3-4 cities: food/science, money, military, (wonders). I don't see an obvious science city, so you could also use this location for that, knowing science boosters are hammer heavy, and CS river farms seem like the best for high pop.

 

[furikawari]

Near the south wheat/wine seems like the consensus. That city will probably have to fend for itself as the distance between it and the capital is great and forested. I think holding off on the road between for a while is smart, as even our upgraded traderoutes won't pay for it for a while. A third city up near red or on the isthmus seems like something to do in short order with our good happiness and gold base.

-f

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

Thanks for hosting a forum game, furikawari. I think I'm a bit late for the next round, so I'll just say that I'll be following this game and I agree with the sentiment to settle south and block off the whole northern end of your continent.

 

[furikawari]

The second session is played, and all is well in Arabia. I'll post it as soon as I can (may be a few hours).

 

[CarlH]

I am still waiting for my copy to arrive, so I make this suggestion ignorant of the mechanics of the game, but I think settling where your archer is looks good.

 

[furikawari]

All right, here we go!

This is something of a long session, but as you'll see, nothing much happened. It turns out our competition is far, far, far away from us, so we have just about as much room as we could possibly want for expansion.

We begin by sending our settler exactly where CarlH recommended and we all agreed upon--the spot where the archer is in the last posted turn. On the way south, we pick up the wheel:

Our Scarcher finds another barb encampment, but there's no cover around and I can't tell if a brute is spawned to wander around, so I decide to skirt away carefully instead of running into an attack.

The next turn we run into more AI competition!

Suleiman? Hah! The Ottomans can't stand in front of the power of the real Caliphate! We also run into another city-state:

A few turns later our settler finally wanders down to the southland and founds our second city.

We also pick up pottery, which will help out with our food-short cities in the hills. It also unlocks Calendar and Writing, our next targeted technologies.

Medina buys a worker, who gets to business farming the wheat and camping the deer right by the city. Our worker up north has by now hooked up the gems, camped the deer near Mecca, and moved on to camping the elephants as well. Happiness is plentiful!

At this point I decided to go for Stonehenge. It seemed like it was still early enough to beat the AI to the wonder, and we were due another social policy. A bit foolishly, I had banked the culture when the social policy unlocked (before Medina was founded) and then realized that I had to spend 10 more culture to buy my next policy. (There is an exploit related to this in the opposite direction.) Anyways, Stonehenge is cheap, adds a lot of culture, and gets GE points (are they good in 5?). I picked up the wonder-builder policy under tradition and went for Calendar.

Around this time Mecca started building another settler, which would pop just about when Calendar finished researching. I planned to drop the third city on the Isthmus of Arabia.

South of Medina, our warrior caught up to help out the scarcher, who had looped around the barb camp. Another 25 gold in the bag.

Just southwest of the barb camp on the other side of the desert we finally find a friend we like:

I haven't done much to befriend them yet, but it's a possible avenue for all our scrilla, yah?

Sully and Alex don't like each other very much, as Sully shows up asking for a "Pact of Secrecy." I really don't know what the heck this thing does, but I suspect it just destabilizes the relationship between the two AIs. I agree.

Our scarcher heads east and finally locates our friends.

Wow, they're far away. And as we quickly find out, right on top of one another.

If I understand the AI a bit, these guys are going to haaaaate each other all game. And we're far enough away, with all the land in the world. Oh, random map generator... Just to prove the point, Alexander shows up and asks for his own Pact of Secrecy against Suleiman. Never one to avoid playing the left against the right, I happily agree.

Our settler has popped, and Stonehenge is almost complete (it took about 8 turns), but I give it a chop to help it along. A worker starts building the road down towards where Damascus will stand, which will eventually continue on to Medina.

Alexander decides that his Pact of Secrecy just isn't good enough, and drops in to request I aid him directly.

It seems a bit much for just now, and so far away, so I decline.

Florence requests we blow up Sidon, and Singapore (the maritime one) drops us a line that it really hates Kuala Lampur's guts:

Kuala seems uninteresting right now but we might want to blow it up if getting Singapore's well-wishes is important enough. For now I do nothing, as we don't really have much in the way of military units.

Time passes and Stonehenge is built in the wondrous city of Mecca:

Damascus is founded as we move towards bows and arrows thousands of years after our intrepid scout found some spares lying around in burned out buildings. I believe Mecca began work on a granary after Stonehenge. Medina was growing fast but only building a warrior. Probably some inefficiency I could have cleaned up there.

Damascus starts immediately on a granary as the surrounding area seems food poor. Our workers hustle along to get the roads built, and one starts chopping some of the great forest so the city will have some breathing room. Alex drops by and offers open borders, which we accept without much thought. No money down, cancel any time, I suppose.

Just as we pick up archery, barbarians become a problem for the people of Florence and Sidon:

The scarcher is recalled, having explored much of the south area but not really gotten much penetration into Ottoman or Greek lands. I probably should have left him out, but I didn't have any units back at the time and wanted to make sure I could handle any nasty surprises. We also go to bronze working and eventually iron working to reveal the resources around us.

Medina finishes its warrior (which I hope to buy an upgrade for later) and starts on a library.

We finish bronze working and I check around with Sully and Alex whether they'd be interested in any of my fine Arabian jewelry. However, Alex is broke and this is the best deal I can wrangle out of the Turk:

I buy an archer while Mecca builds another and head towards the barb camps in the north, but the city states get their first. And after asking for my help, too! Sheesh. The archer heads west to deal with a different camp. Down south, scarcher has returned and is taking out the camp that sits near Damascus.

You can see in that picture there that our road from Mecca to Damascus is complete! Yay! The road down to Medina is almost there too.

We get a message that Venice has been conquered, wherever it is.

Just as we are finishing up iron working, Alex takes Singapore's offer and starts in against Kuala Lampur!

A 16 strength city seems like it can hold itself out just fine, but should we gift some units, or go attack Alex's in aid? Or should we wait until the city is weakened and strike second, winning Singapore's favor? Might not be reasonable to do either, yet, as our military consists of a few archers and warriors.

We achieve iron working and the Classical era--I'm sure we're almost last on Classical, as the alerts have paraded down about far away civs entering classical. I'm not too worried, though, as our tech rate seems fine. We just back-filled a bit to get techs we wanted before taking a Classical tech. I stopped here. It's tough to stop in a forum game! Civ 5 is starting to get one-more-turn-y on me now...

[summary below]

 

[furikawari]

[recap above]

So here's North and South in real view and Strategy view:

Our economy looks pretty good:

Policies with probably the ability to select two.

Tech tree

And a peek at the score.

Finally, our cities and what they can build.

So, what now? I think we should probably found a couple more cities. I think one of the Irons is in range of Mecca, but we could pick up one more (as expected) with the sheep city north of Mecca. We could also found one down near the bananas, or close to Florence. Right now Mecca and Damascus are working on Barracks, and then will hopefully build swordsmen. I'll buy the tiles near Mecca to get to that iron if necessary.

Techs, I don't really know. I'm not a master of this tech tree yet. Construction for Coliseum? Philosophy for research agreements?

Should we go wipe out Kuala and puppet it? Or just try to buy Singapore's friendship? We could really use the Maritime bonus.

Thanks for reading and commenting!
-f

 

[Jaaboo]

Arabia does well with city spam, as long as you are connecting all your cities. I'd say work on claiming your land and let your trade routes fuel your economy. Ottoman & Greece will be at each others throats until Greece gets companions online.