Mentor game

[MrFelony]

This is a game for me and jake2007

alright. so you want a domination victory focusing on cho-ku-nu. let's not shoot for the renaissance, but just to get the victory as soon as we can.

The settings are archipelago, jungle, prince difficulty. I know you play noble but I'm here to challenge you .

that's a picture of the start we have. now before you even play. now if you really want me to be your mentor, it will require a lot of "homework" on both of our parts. if you need help finding the articles and info need tell me. And i understand you just want critiques on how you play, but how you play is determined by the knowledge base you already have. I'm not saying that you should have an in depth knowledge about everything, I'm just trying to push you to learn these things if you don't already know them.

Okay so I want you to tell me the advantages and disadvantages of:

1) our start
2) our map settings
3)the techs we start with
4) our leaders traits.

and how these things will affect our strategy.

after that. Tell me what tech path and build order you'd propose and why.

and then after that, we can start the game .

here's the save
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93140/AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[jake2007]

well the start is nothing special looks pretty average. but we do have some pigs and a nice forest to chop or use for health.

we start with agriculture and mining
expansive protective

umm i get a different map when i open that save

my strategy would be to get bronze working then ironworking,
then i beeline to machinery
then i get hunting and archery
then i beeline to fuedalism

 

[jake2007]

oh nevermind this time i got the right map.. i dont know what the . .. .. .. . happened

 

[jake2007]

oh a build order sorry forgot.
i would build a barraks first. then a worker. then a settler. then a warrior. then another worker. then a forge. then cho ko nu

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Lurkers comment.

Playing as China should use Oracle to get MC then build Forge to use engineer to get a GE to bulb Machinery should be able to build Choku Nu by 500BC should be able to win pretty much any battle for 1000 or so years till Maces/Lbows.

 

[MrFelony]

ok jake so you would research BW>IW? i just need to ask if you see the flaw in doing that.

as for our start, it looks pretty crappy from the stand point of starts people usually like to see. here's my take. the pig provides +6 and with a light house the 2 inland sea's provide 32 each with just building a light house. this nets us 6 (since it takes 2 to feed the civilian working each tile). this allows us to work either 6 plains tiles, 3 plains hills, 6 plains hills with windmills on them, and many other combinations of that. we can also farm the areas around the lakes. we're also probably going to get either a horse, copper, or iron in our BFC with the possibility of something being in that one fogged square.

archipelago maps are pretty random at times and aren't always the best for domination type games (maybe i should have chosen pangea). so this'll probably be a late game domination. also we are in the north because the forests around us have "snow" on them. I have a feeling that these plains were supposed to be tundra lol.

as for the build order...I can sort of see why you're having problems. you are too focused on getting cho ku nu as fast as possible. when playing, you want to get your resources improved as fast as possible. I'm not sure if you switch from barracks after hitting pop. 2, but by putting off the worker, you will lose the momentum of getting the pig up and mines, farms, etc as soon as possible.

the tech order i would go with would be:

AH>BW>wheel>Myst>poly>priesthood>pottery

Build order:

Worker>warrior/barracks until pop 2 or 3>settler>barracks/warrior>worker>warrior>settler

this is only a tentative build order. a lot of times i need to actually see how the game is progressing to determine what is best to build next. I'm also not sure when the AI on prince builds all of it's wonders. I chose the expansive leader because i figured we'd take advantage of the cheaper workers/graneries to whip and expand more, though industrious might have helped out in our situation more.

Mighty Dwaarf is pretty dead on with the best way to get cho ku nu very early. If we started with a gold, i'd just manually research metal casting, but we dont. our spot is pretty low commerce.

also jake, how well do you know how to chop/whip things? btw, i asked what the advantages of our traits/techs/spots were, not what they were . you can go ahead and play the first 15 rounds. give me detailed reports on things like builds, city management, worker management, political management, etc. it might be best if you kept a notebook handy to take notes on (some high level players do this) and take lots of screen shots. also no automated workers. city governor is fine, but in the beginning stages you should probably manage your cities on your own.

 

[jake2007]

move warrior 1 nw
found city
start building barracks
start researching AH
-
move warrior 1 w
-
move warrior 1 sw
-
sw
-
sw
-
borders expand
s
-
se
-
s
-
capital grows to size 2
i switch to a worker as recommended
s village gives me 47 gold
-
s
find gandhi
-
nw
-
sw
AH done researching BW as recommeded
-
ok im not posting the warrior moves anymore haha
basically i circle the capital find another hut worth 40 gold and kill a lion.

 

[MrFelony]

not so concerned about troop movements unless it's during war time lol. what i recommended was starting the worker first before the barracks . also, for screen shots, post some with resources on since it's hard to tell what/where they are. it looks like there are no horses in your BFC or any of the land you discovered :/. I was kind of hoping for some to have a bigger payoff for research AH than working the pig, though that is your best and only resource so far :/. also, post the saves so if i have time i can load it up and take a look at the game more in depth. i would scout more of the area to the SW by those pigs and that seafood resource. that looks like your best prospect on a second city. do you want to practice doing some dot mapping or planning where all your cities will go?

 

[jake2007]

im not really sure what dotmapping is. wanna just play online with me it would be a lot easier.

 

[MrFelony]

dot mapping is a technique used to help lay out your city locations. and I'd rather do it this way . that way i can help you when i have the time. if you want to get better, it's going to take a decent amount of effort and a lot of "studying" the game. it's not something that can be fixed over night. well that depends on whether or not you get the game. I was able to move up to monarch pretty fast, but had to read some theory to win consistantly at the game. i then took a long break, and had to really focus myself a lot more to move up and win consistantly at emperor and i'm looking forward to trying immortal soon

 

[MrFelony]

here's an example of a dotmap i did

 

[jake2007]

okay thats fine. should i play some more turns now?

 

[MrFelony]

ya go ahead and play the next 15. Focus on maximizing your workers efficiency. this could be getting the resources you need up first, partial building, partial chopping, etc. Also, focus on trying out managing your city on your own. I know i've said it's not always necessary to do this, but checkign your cities every so often to make sure they're working most effectively is a good habit. I would like you to post what you have your worker do first and why. Also, remember to post a save so i can look into the game as well. Also, start looking at the tech tree and try and figure out what techs you need, and what is the best tech path to get to cho-ku-nu. try and give it in a similar manner to how i did. AH>BW> etc. and one last thing, label where you think the best city sites are. what kinds of cities will these be? production? commerce? GP farm? this is one thing i dont do that great of a job doing.

 

[jake2007]

first i thing i did with my newly produced worker was build a pasture for the pigs for food supply. city is in the process of building a barracks. planning on switching to settler when city reaches size 3. after the pasture i sent the worker to chop. then bronze working was resarched the same turn he got to the chopping tile. i switched to slavery. so far ive met brennus bismarck and of course gandhi. city has reached size 3 so i switch to settler. i then open up my city display and swtch the worked title from a forest with 1 hammer to a hill with 2 so i could mine for more production. now the wheel is reasearched. switched to myst.

and thats about it for 16-17 turns

 

[MrFelony]

Whats the P and F mean? production and food? if those are your future city sites could you tell me why? what benefits do you get from settling there. also, are they food positive or food negative? what's the max population they'll be able to get? if it's production, what kind of production will it get you? also, will the resources be bringing you in 's? etc. there is also a lot of crappy land, but you may also want to consider settling some cities to block off the AI's expansion and save some territory to back fill. also, if you can, explore the area by the clams to make sure there are no other resources by there.

go ahead and play the next round after you answer these questions about why the city sites are good (and don't try and justify your location if it's crappy...aka the P site). however, i woudl settle until you figure out the best place too.

 

[jake2007]

i thought the p was good because of the near by forest and hills. and the f because of the near by clam and pig resources.

 

[MrFelony]

well you're still not answering my questions. how food negative is the P site? in case you haven't heard the term before, cities can be considered food positive, negative, and neutral. usually the goal is to get a city to population size 20. the reason why I, imho, think that P is a pretty bad site is because all it has are pretty much plains hils and a couple of forests.

to determine whether a city will be food positive, count the total number of that each tile produces and subtract two. so a plains hill gives us 0 so it counts as -2. the P city site would be about a -8 or -9, and also has 2 desert tiles. because it is so poor, it wouldn't be able to work very many of it's tiles and would only reach a decent city size if it only worked farms and the silk.

there are certain things you want to look out for when selecting where to place your cities:

1) does it have fresh water? fresh water give +2 which can be very important at higher levels.
2) is it near/along a river? good for fresh water, dikes, and cottaging.
3) is it on a coast? coasts will give you much more lucrative trade routes, which can give you upwards of 18-27 later in the game.
4) how fast will it grow? this ties into the food + and - idea. you want your city to be able to work as many of it's useful tiles as possible too.
5) is it overlapping too much? I personally don't mind cities that have upwards to 4-5 squares overlapping as long as they're good city sites, or at least the best. most games are decided before all of your cities hit 20 pop. but in your great plains game where you settled next to the edge of the map is a perfect example of a big no-no in civ.
6) what resources is this city going to bring in for me? cities that get your country strategic resources like copper, iron, horses, and oil are no brainers. but also consider whether or not your country needs or resources, and if your civ already has them.
7) can I afford this city? city maintenance can kill your civilization if you expand too early too fast. the same should be asked about captured cities. usually you should raze mediocre AI cities to save yourself the upkeep costs, but with the addition of uprisings, 2 or 3 extra axemen to deal with can sometimes kill your momentum.
8)is the tile i'm settling on giving me some sort of bonus? this is sort of like the "am i getting fresh water/river" rule, but it has to do with settling on hills, plains hills, and resources. settling on hills gives you the bonus to defense obviously, but plains hills will give you +1 and resources give you extra bonuses as well.
9)where is the city in relation to the AI? this is important to consider because of several reasons.
9a)if you're creative and place a city close to another civ, that can eventually lead to negatives in relationship with that AI due to close boarders. soemtimes it may be best to settle a little farther away if you need good relations.
9b)does it block AI expansion? this is only a necessity at higher levels due to how fast the AI expands. but it is still something important to consider. Justinian's university thread has a good example of aggressive blocking. blocking is mainly used to secure land to settle in the future, which won't be very necessary below monarch.

these are all that I can think of atm. if you would like, i can do a dot map of the map for you and give you some reasons why I think that some of the cities are better than others. your F city isnt too bad, but i think it'd be better placed

 

[MrFelony]

also, if I ask a question, please try your best you answer it . if for somereason you can't or are unsure of what i'm asking, just ask! . i expect you to not understand some of the things I'm asking (or why I'm asking them) because I wouldn't have understood them, and had never even thought about them back when I was playing on noble. now if you do understand the questions I'm asking them and aren't answering them because you're being lazy, well then I dont really see why I should mentor you then . though i don't want you to get the impression I think you're not listening to me. from the sparse report you gave me, you did seem to follow my advice well. go ahead and play the next 15 rounds. I'll trust you to use the settler well.

 

[jake2007]

thanks for all of the tips. sorry im not answering your questions fully i wasnt sure what you meant by food negative and food positive. actually can i request a dotmap before i play the next 15 turns im not sure where the optimum locations are yet.

 

[MrFelony]

that'd be fine. I'll go ahead and make one (i dont really feel liek writing my paper anyways lol).