[BTS] Mansa - Deity - Continents - Random Events - Help me learn the game.

[Gl0bal1st]

Civ 4 Fanatics,

I've decided if I'm going to play Civ 4 then I may as well learn to play it well, hence why I am getting stuck in with a deity game. I like playing randomised continents for the added realism and I think the navy is an important element in the game to learn. I also like playing with random events on because it adds variety. I'm running BAT 4.1 if you'd like to play along, otherwise I plan on giving pretty detailed turn summaries. I humbly ask for any and all advice even if you're not a deity player and I hope you will be patient with the huge amount of questions I will be asking.

I lucked out on the random leader, we will be playing as...

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MY THOUGHTS:
Mansa is definitely an above average leader, two really strong traits. Spiritual will save some turns and the extra commerce is always helpful no matter what you're doing. The mint is a really strong UB. Skirmishers are pretty meh.

Spoiler Start: :

MY THOUGHTS:
Coastal start, plenty of food - probably research fishing first. Warrior 1NE to confirm we're on the north of the continent. River system going south is a good thing. I'm thinking Timbuktu should be settled in place and working one of the crabs. Worker first.

The question is, what are your thoughts? What would you do?

 

[Fippy]

Hiya, good choice with BAT

Continents can spawn plenty deity barbs, not having fishing with this start looks annoying but warrior first until it's teched also has some use.
I would make sure to keep those early warris secure, and fogbust close areas (east with Ice looks typical for barb problems already).

SIP and fishing first look like no brainers yup, but as mentioned i would not go worker first.

 

[Gl0bal1st]

Hey Fippy,

Thanks for the interest.

Continents can spawn plenty deity barbs

What's the average date for barbs to start spawning on deity?

i would not go worker first.

My thinking was I could get some preemptive roads down (potentially towards my second city), would that be a waste?

 

[Anysense]

What's the average date for barbs to start spawning on deity?

They start spawning from turn 10 or earlier, not quite sure about that.

My thinking was I could get some preemptive roads down (potentially towards my second city), would that be a waste?

I think it would be a waste. Here you have a river and coast, seek to use both to connect your cities without roads. Workerturns are extremely valuable, particularly early on, when 60 invested in a worker are a great deal. Usually you want a quick and significant return for that investment, like improved resources and chopped forests. Road for a city which you don't even have yet is a long term and not very efficient workerturns investment. Right now you don't even know whether you'll need that road. Besides, financial coast diminishes the value of traderoutes.

 

[Fippy]

Animals turn ~6 i think, and barbs often start entering your borders around turn ~40.
Especially in early deity days, i lost more games to barbs than AIs

Skirmishers are no war chariots, but they are a good backup unit if you need Archery, cos they unlike normal Archers are okay attackers too.

 

[Gl0bal1st]

Hey Anysense, thanks for the interest.

preemptive roads down (potentially towards my second city), would that be a waste?

I think it would be a waste. Here you have a river and coast, seek to use both to connect your cities without roads. Workerturns are extremely valuable, particularly early on, when 60 invested in a worker are a great deal. Usually you want a quick and significant return for that investment, like improved resources and chopped forests. Road for a city which you don't even have yet is a long term and not very efficient workerturns investment. Right now you don't even know whether you'll need that road.

Warrior first is a no brainer when you break it down like that, thanks!

financial coast diminishes the value of traderoutes.

Would you mind expanding on that some more?

Animals turn ~6 i think, and barbs often start entering your borders around turn ~40.

Okay, that's manageable.

Skirmishers are no war chariots, but they are a good backup unit if you need Archery, cos they unlike normal Archers are okay attackers too.

I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but I guess that's one thing skirmishers have going for them.

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Okay, based on the advice given so far I'll play some. Please rate my moves.

• T000: Warrior 1NE, confirming we are on the north of the continent, reveals fish. SIP, build warrior working grassland forested hill in 4. Fishing in 7.
• T001: Warrior 1SE.
• T002: Warrior 1SE.
• T003: Warrior 1SW.
• T004: Warrior2 complete, build another warrior. Warrior1 1SW. Warrior2 sent here.
• T005: Border pop reveals sheep. Warrior1 1S. Switch Timbuktu to the plains hill forest.
• T006: Warrior1 1SW
• T007: Fishing. Warrior3 complete, was thinking of sending it here. Build workboat. Warrior1 sentry.

QUESTIONS:

1. Is there anything I could of done more optimally there?
2. What to tech next? I'm thinking Ag>AH, hopefully reveal some horses.
3. What to work in Timbuktu? Do I go for production, or growth and ? How do I go about making those calculations? Is it better to have a 6 turn workboat and then work the crabs or work the crabs grow in 9 and probably finish the workboat in 10? is it six-in-one-half-a-dozen-the-other or is there more to this?
4. Additional city placement?
5. Anything else I should be considering at this point?

 

[Swordnboard]

I would have definitely gone for the sheep or GrassForest tile rather than the GrassForestHill. My city micro would look like this:
Turns 0-7: work sheep, build warriors--14 food in bank, 1 warrior complete +6 into the next one. Fishing complete T7
Turns 8-11: work sheep, build workboat -- city grows to size two, 12 into workboat. Begin Bronze Working T8
Turns 12-14: work sheep + PlainsForestHill -- workboat complete on turn 14, send towards fish.
And while I think that setup is a good deal better than what you have now, it is by no means the only possibility. Where you stand now, I would work the PlainsForestHill and finish the workboat in six turns. You'll be behind in growth, but have a workboat one turn faster and an extra warrior.

I choose bronze working over ag->ah for the following reasons:
-Capital has lots of forests, we will build a worker soon to begin chopping out workboats, then later settlers
-Slavery could be good here as well, since the capital is very high food. Other cities will definitely want it too!
-Improved sheep is kind of a lame tile and not worth the tech investment this early on. Agriculture brings almost nothing here.

No need to agonize over city placements this soon, we have some exploring to do and the land around us right now is pretty weak. Since you have multiple warriors, you can also explore outwards a bit while not neglecting fog-busting.

 

[Pedro78]

Fwiw, barb animals start spawning on turn 6. Warriors/Archers start spawning on turn 13. They start entering borders as soon as the average number of cities per player is superior to 3, which is usually around T35-40.

Oh and if you make a WB save I might play a couple of turns (I'll play witout BAT and events, though)

 

[unas876]

Traderoutes become relatively weaker for a FIN leader since you have extra commerce for example from coast tiles. The traderoutes still give the same amount of commerce, but they make a smaller fraction of your total commerce, especially since with FIN you have a greater incentive to work commerce tiles early on.

In other words: you get the same extra commerce from the traderoutes, but you already have that extra commerce from being FIN and thus may like to prioritize other things before hooking up the traderoutes.

Thats my way of thinking in terms of the early game where all that is available to you are 1 commerce internal TRs and you are usually short on worker turns. However its not an absolute statement and it's worth mentioning that being FIN or not is not usually what makes me decide between hooking up early TRs or not doing so.

In this case, I agree that it would be best to head towards BW. You have little means of production here without chopping and you have great whipping potential. Heading all the way to AH just for the one PlainsSheep, which is a pretty mediocre tile anyway, I don't think thats a great idea. I'd head towards BW and then see what additional scouting information and availability of copper will suggest afterwards.

 

[sampsa]

The mint is a really strong UB.

Dunno, I'd rate it as above average, but not great. Mostly because you will be running high -slider for most of the game. Even at 0% slider you will make only a few per turn thanks to mints, obviously depending on the size of the empire etc.

 

[Gl0bal1st]

Hey all, thanks for the interest.

I would have definitely gone for the sheep or GrassForest tile rather than the GrassForestHill. My city micro would look like this:
Turns 0-7: work sheep, build warriors--14 food in bank, 1 warrior complete +6 into the next one. Fishing complete T7
Turns 8-11: work sheep, build workboat -- city grows to size two, 12 into workboat. Begin Bronze Working T8
Turns 12-14: work sheep + PlainsForestHill -- workboat complete on turn 14, send towards fish.
And while I think that setup is a good deal better than what you have now, it is by no means the only possibility. Where you stand now, I would work the PlainsForestHill and finish the workboat in six turns. You'll be behind in growth, but have a workboat one turn faster and an extra warrior.

I didn't save my game, so doing it as you suggest is still an option. Would you mind extrapolating why growth is more important in this situation? Does everyone else agree?

I choose bronze working over ag->ah for the following reasons:
-Capital has lots of forests, we will build a worker soon to begin chopping out workboats, then later settlers
-Slavery could be good here as well, since the capital is very high food. Other cities will definitely want it too!
-Improved sheep is kind of a lame tile and not worth the tech investment this early on. Agriculture brings almost nothing here.

Very self evident now, thankyou!

Fwiw, barb animals start spawning on turn 6. Warriors/Archers start spawning on turn 13. They start entering borders as soon as the average number of cities per player is superior to 3, which is usually around T35-40.

Awesome to know, thankyou!

Oh and if you make a WB save I might play a couple of turns (I'll play witout BAT and events, though)

That would be so awesome of you! Find attached.

Traderoutes become relatively weaker for a FIN leader since you have extra commerce for example from coast tiles. The traderoutes still give the same amount of commerce, but they make a smaller fraction of your total commerce, especially since with FIN you have a greater incentive to work commerce tiles early on.

In other words: you get the same extra commerce from the traderoutes, but you already have that extra commerce from being FIN and thus may like to prioritize other things before hooking up the traderoutes.

Thats my way of thinking in terms of the early game where all that is available to you are 1 commerce internal TRs and you are usually short on worker turns. However its not an absolute statement and it's worth mentioning that being FIN or not is not usually what makes me decide between hooking up early TRs or not doing so.

Thanks for the breakdown. I think with TR's the sooner the better, but I agree that when you're FIN there may be other things more urgent. Out of curiosity what does make you decide to set up early TRs or not?

The mint is a really strong UB.

Dunno, I'd rate it as above average, but not great. Mostly because you will be running high -slider for most of the game. Even at 0% slider you will make only a few per turn thanks to mints, obviously depending on the size of the empire etc.

I usually play into the modern era so the extra 10% multiplied across a relatively large empire adds up.

 

[Swordnboard]

Would you mind extrapolating why growth is more important in this situation?

The general idea in the early game is to snowball as fast as possible, that is to build things which most quickly improve your rate of building other things. So my hierarchy goes something like this:
1. Worker -- If you have good tiles to improve, workers greatly improve your city's production and growth rates
2. Work boat -- Like a worker, but cheaper and one-shot.
3. Settler -- Often too expensive to consider this early on, but extra cities greatly improve productivity if there are good spots around
4. City Growth -- Even without any improved tiles, growing will provide at least +1 .
5. Warriors -- Don't directly improve rate of building things, only prevent later negatives from occurring.

So, in your game, I crossed off worker (no good tiles to improve with current technology), and workboat (no fishing). I'm kind of on the fence about settler-first (it would take 20 turns, which is on the long side, and there's no obvious city spot just yet). I would have definitely gone for it with an imperialistic leader (settler would have taken 15 turns instead of 20). Anyways, that means the only thing to build is a warrior, having eliminated other options, but I choose to do it with a priority on growth rather than making a second warrior. Also, it is sometimes tempting to let the capital languish at low population to churn out workers and settlers, so it's good to start the growth process early on to avoid that issue.

But honestly, the best way to get a feel for these openings is to play starts a bunch of different ways and see which ones feel "right". So you might play the first 50 turns or so many times, testing out different starting paths. Some options I find interesting:
-Warrior -> Workboat, as discussed
-Settler first (I would settle on the plains hill 3S2E of the capital, I think)
-Worker first and research bronze working->fishing (worker can chop forests to produce work boats, settlers)

 

[Pedro78]

I usually play into the modern era so the extra 10% multiplied across a relatively large empire adds up.

Doesn't make a big difference as in most cases you're supposed to be running at a high research slider for most of the late game.

 

[Pedro78]

Played to T39. Very quickly:

Spoiler :

Fishing-BW-Hunting-AH-Archery

SIP, worker first. Considering the river hill revealed when settling I'm convinced this was the right move. Improved all the seafood -- usually isn't required but in this case there is no great spot for a second city & there's a lot of extra hammers, so getting that food/commerce early was a good thing.

Going for Archery. Could settle the horses and build chariots, but commerce is not an issue and I'd rather not risk getting screwed. Fogbusters' position is important. I don't think this map can be fogbusted with warriors alone.

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