Mansa Musa on Noble.

[belle]

Hello you all. Finally had some extra free time to play CIV again.
This time I will launch a new one, with a hope that you people will help me improve my play and finally reach the skills requires to enjoy the life at prince club.

Game Setting

Spoiler :

So this time, I will play Mansa Musa, leader of the Mali Empire.

Spoiler :

This Time I will continue with FIN, since I feel I know my way through CE. Although one of the goals in this game is to finally Found and maintain a working SE city. In my last few games I did try to create a SE city that actually work but none have succeeded. So this time, with the hope that you folks will help me here, I hope I'll manage to finally do that.
And for the first time, Spiritual. No anarchy sound great. plus the temple bonus sounds... wait, What's the temple bonus means? you can construct a temple only with GP, so what's the production speed bonus actually do? In any case, I the reason for spiritual is to work on my civic skills and understand those features better.

Our UU is the Skirmisher. will replace the archer and gets 1 more STR (total of 4) and a chance for another FS. The skirmisher sounds to me like an improved archer. nothing more. good for Defense op, but nothing else.
And the UB is the Mint. another 10% for our
pretty worthless in my mind. but maybe will give the edge for space win.

We start with Mining and The Wheel.
The wheel is great. Pottery sounds like a good place to start the tech tree.
Mining is also great, since we can get BW pretty darn quick.

So, we have few goals for this game to achieve before we could announce it was a successful game:
1. work on City placement. I'm trying to study and improve my city placement.
2. successfully create and work a SE city
3. work on diplomacy. Decide which civ's are bad and which ones are good as early as possible.
4. decide which way I'm going to win the game as early as possible.
5. Win the game before 1880. time to work on our turns schedule.
6. and last, but not least, work and learn more about civics.

I believe those 6 goals are more than possible to achieve in this game.

So let's start:

Spoiler :

I see food plain to the West next to the gold. sounds like a good place for a commerce city. In my minds we should SIP - 7 hills to claim will make it our capitol a Productitol!
No food in the inner circle, but Capitols tend to pop border quite quick. and we have the fresh water so we can farm a bit.
and move warrior 1SW

production will be - Worker -> Warrior till capitol become population of 2 that move to settler, finish settler continue warrior

Tech tree -> AG -> Pottery -> Than or BW or AH.

so, what do you say?

4000BC - Save 1

 

[soundjata]

I would not advise pottery but BW first.
The reason is you want to whip your first settler asap and plant your city 2 near the gold.
If your only food tile is the wheat, your capitol will NOT support cottages.
After wheat, it is better imo to FARM the tile SE of your capitol spot.

Maybe you could settle, research Agriculture, scout a little with your initial warrior (in a circle around Timbuktu) then upload so we can help choose your second technology?

Cheers

 

[Amao]

Large size and low sea level... This will be an epic campaign.

My initial advice will be use the warrior to scout around the start place. Likely to SIP.

And current tech plan is AG. We will decide what to do next depending upon the scouting result.

 

[soundjata]

Did not read the "large size / low sea" part...
It is kind of masochistic (and kind of adding difficulty to belle's aim to finish earlier than 18xx) but eh. You do what you do

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

And for the first time, Spiritual. No anarchy sound great. plus the temple bonus sounds... wait, What's the temple bonus means? you can construct a temple only with GP, so what's the production speed bonus actually do?

You have confused Temple with Shrine. Any city that worships a religion may build a temple for that religion; just like any other building, it is built with hammers. The Shrine for a religion may only be created in the holy city for that religion, and is constructed by a Great Prophet.

1. work on City placement. I'm trying to study and improve my city placement.
2. successfully create and work a SE city
3. work on diplomacy. Decide which civ's are bad and which ones are good as early as possible.
4. decide which way I'm going to win the game as early as possible.
5. Win the game before 1880. time to work on our turns schedule.
6. and last, but not least, work and learn more about civics.

That's a pretty solid list right there.

In my minds we should SIP - 7 hills to claim will make it our capitol a Productitol!

Yup - so take the next step: how might you turn all that production into a win?

Tech tree -> AG -> Pottery -> Than or BW or AH.

Not a big fan of Pottery that quickly - on this map, you don't have very many rivers in the capital, which means that you aren't going to going to get any free commerce until you have worked the cottage for a bit. Furthermore, you've got the wheat and five (?) green hills to mine. So you might not be working cottages for a while anyway.

Ag -> BW or Ag -> AH (if there are animals here) are the natural plays.

 

[Amao]

Moved the warrior SE on to the Gold and I see this:

Spoiler :

This is the first time that I'm thinking to spend more than 1 turn for moving the capital. But it's really attractive.

People, any suggestions? spend 2 turn to move the capital for Rice/Cow/Gold?

 

[Izuul]

It would cost 2t to settle anywhere good here if you move. Rice is relatively weak food (although this one is at least irrigated) and cow won't be improved for awhile, so it's not worth it IMO. You have the strongest visible food tile right now, don't move away from it. 2nd city can probably grab gold.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a 2nd food pops up to the south when you settle. You certainly have more than just wheat in your capitols BFC.

 

[Pangaea]

That will be a fantastic second city. Gold, double food, at least two floodplains (probably 4), so plenty of commerce. It would be safe to just settle in place though, as that will reveal a few more tiles around the capital. And the capital's cultural borders will expand in turn 5 I think, so you can scout a little and then upload a new screenshot after perhaps 10 turns when a bit more is revealed. I'd probably scout west and north to reveal more around the gold spot first, and then circle around, trying to keep to forest or hills with the warrior, so he is safer when animals and barbs show up. For fogbusting it's great to park him in a suitable spot on forested hills. Great if said spot happens to have a river on the right side too, which would give you +100% in combat without any promotions.

Looks like a stunning production capital. In this case you might even put the Heroic Epic in the capital, as it doesn't look to be great for commerce anyway. With HE and Bureacracy, you'll pump out fairly expensive units on a 1-turn basis. If you choose to go that way of course. First we need to see more of the map

I'd SIP and put city 2 on the plains tile NW of the gold. But more scouting may change that initial suggestion.

 

[Ghpstage]

Our UU is the Skirmisher. will replace the archer and gets 1 more STR (total of 4) and a chance for another FS. The skirmisher sounds to me like an improved archer. nothing more. good for Defense op, but nothing else.

Well it gets a full first strike over archer being 1-2FS rather than 0-2 . The skirmisher is actually quite a potent attacker that requires no resources, and is the best choke unit there is, its one of the top UUs in the game.

And the UB is the Mint. another 10% for our
pretty worthless in my mind. but maybe will give the edge for space win.

Its not amazing, but it comes on an early building that goes more or less everywhere. It will have bigger impact than you might expect, particularly in a cottage capital.

And for the first time, Spiritual. No anarchy sound great. plus the temple bonus sounds... wait, What's the temple bonus means? you can construct a temple only with GP, so what's the production speed bonus actually do? In any case, I the reason for spiritual is to work on my civic skills and understand those features better.

Temples are the buildings with a cost of 80 and provide 1, 1 and 1 priest slot.
Like Monasteries, they get the bonuses from the religious wonders, that is, Sistine(+5), Sankore(+2), Minaret(+2) if they are your state religion, and the very, very useful AP(+2) bonus for buildings of the AP religion. Temples are also a requirement to build Cathedrals, which are powerful for culture wins.

 

[Pangaea]

I was intrigued what the map actually looked like, and ended up playing to 1AD Damn you Civ, go and hide in the corner

Playing on Noble is so strange now, self-teching just about everything, and there was at least one civ I could have "rushed" in 1AD and met warrior(s) in their 1-city empire...

It's a nice map btw, and SIP and 2nd city by the gold isn't wrong. Quite possibly the wrong call, but I actually ended up building an Academy in that gold city with the first GScientist, because I didn't foresee much commerce in the capital.

Get your first 100 turns pretty decent with good micro, and you'll quickly fly up the difficulty levels, belle.

 

[Gumbolt]

Starts like this normally have a 2nd food or another resource in the fog. 1 poor wheat resource would be cruel. Seems to be a lot of flood plains west of you. I would be moving the warrior south. Maybe SE or SW. Not sure. SE would show if you have a second resource.

Sometimes you have to trust RNG and settle in place. You could easily move and find you have no food at all for growth.

 

[belle]

So the year is 2840BC. It was AG ->BW For chopping a settler and than ->AH cuz we have a lot of animals in our surrounding
Gladly we found copper just next to Timbuktu, so I mined that place and now going for the chopping with the worker.

Spoiler :

so it was Worker->warrior>settler
my plans for now is to settle first on the red BFC
and next on the green one, to get stones, depend what we will find on the SE side of our emerging empire.
I think the production should be warrior->settler
and after AH ->POT->WRITING

what do you say?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

my plans for now is to settle first on the red BFC
and next on the green one

I believe you'll find green is illegal after you settle red (civ has two different measures of distance).

Why Pottery? Why not AH->Writing?

 

[ohjames]

The green city site is not very good anyway and I wouldn't prioritize settling in that area. The red site is obviously very good; your next priorities should be the pig/corn site to the SW and the gold/cow site to the S. I would put your third city on the pig/corn site, chop a Library immediately, and start running two scientists there.

Building the second settler from 3-pop at your capital may not be ideal because there are actually four good tiles to work (the floodplains to the SW). I would pump out warriors until you hit population 5 or 6, chop one settler, then two-pop whip the second settler. The red city can build another worker once it hits size three.

I would skip Pottery for now too. It's not immediately impactful and delaying your Libraries will slow you down. When you get the city at the red site up, you're initially going to want to farm those flood plains and grow the city to its happiness cap ASAP. You can cottage it up after it's nice and big. What would be ideal here would be a neighbor to trade you the basic religious techs so you can get Monarchy...

 

[Amao]

So the year is 2840BC. It was AG ->BW For chopping a settler and than ->AH cuz we have a lot of animals in our surrounding
Gladly we found copper just next to Timbuktu, so I mined that place and now going for the chopping with the worker.

Spoiler :

so it was Worker->warrior>settler
my plans for now is to settle first on the red BFC
and next on the green one, to get stones, depend what we will find on the SE side of our emerging empire.
I think the production should be warrior->settler
and after AH ->POT->WRITING

what do you say?

One thing i observed is that you wondered into the wildness too much yet not exploring the immediate surroundings. Such as the north side. It's turn 29, you should have circled the capital instead of heading directly into the jungle.

 

[soundjata]

I second VOU that you don't need pottery. Just go writing immediately.

Your proposed city placement (red and green) don't work.
City 2 should probably go 1south of gold or 1north of gold to allow for a later clam site
Or you could consider the clam to be a weak tile and keep the red dot as it is.

 

[Pangaea]

As mentioned early on (before I played to 1AD), I'd suggest to settle 1NW of gold first, on your red spot. It becomes a really good city with those floodplains, though you may want to use some of those to feed other cities. You can just see some land sticking out which may grab the crab, so red dot won't kill it, and you can of course put a city SW of crab as well. This is noble so there won't be great urgency to grab spots. I think the first priority should be to claim the two gold spots. The cow-gold also helps to block off whoever was down there.

Building a settler at size two is a bit too early for my taste, especially here with so many good tiles to work. Size 4 (or at least 3) would be better.

As mentioned, send warriors up north and east too. By turn 29 you want the land around your capital to be explored. I see there is a warrior to the east, so that is good, but you should probably have scouted a circle around the capital earlier instead of going into the jungle. The starting guy could go SW-S-E, while the other warrior could go NW and then circle around depending a bit on what you find.

 

[belle]

Ok, year is 2160BC
Djenne is working the gold and a food plain.
I'm gonna wait till Djenne is pop 3 than move to worker.

Timbuktu working the corn, mine and cow.at the moment working on axespam, when size 5 gonna whip a settler (yes?)

My city placement at the moment:

Spoiler :

Blue - it's a decent place. 4 Hills and fresh water. 2 sources of food. sound like a good place for SE
Yellow - looks like another production city. there's 5(6?) hills to work, and one of them is gold. maybe hybrid of production and commerce.
Red - Beaker town, another commerce city.
I want to expand to the horses on the east coast, mainly to block the area for the AI,
I'm working on the Alphabet. Good choice? or Should I work on something else?

Plus - I know I should settle some overlappin cities to help the major cities to work all the tiles, so if you guys have ideas where i should settle those, please help

 

[elitetroops]

What do you need axes for? And why do you need barracks in Timbuktu at this point? I don't see any neighbors nearby to rush, but you have plenty of land to fill yourself. Settlers and workers should be your priority right now.

What do you mean with SE city? Specialist economy? In that case you should call it GP farm (Great Person farm) to avoid confusion. Blue city is not very good for that, you'd want something surrounded mostly by green.

Regarding blocking the AI on the east coast, the jungle will do a pretty good job for a while still. It mostly takes the AI quite long to settle through the jungle (unless there is some important strategic resource like copper that they really need behind it). Horse/clam is of course a good spot that you want, but there's no reason to believe that you would be in a rush to get it before the AI. If you have a neighbor nearby to the west I'd be more worried that they come to grab the pig/corn unless you are there in time.

You also really need to explore the north. When you are this close to the coast you want to know where the seafood is.

 

[fed1943]

Belle: may I try to help another way?
Just questions, no answers:
What will be the food deficit on capital without farms, but the wheat one? So,
How many farms to be worked to allow hammers increase? And,
Translate these in pop numbers and turns.

Check the close future hammers and the modest grow and commerce to decide what your
Civ most needs from 2nd and 3rd cities.

Improve and above all get fun.
Cheers,