Meth01: Culture, with no Wonders

[MeteorPunch]

I think some short terms goals will be scouting, getting three cities ASAP, and Pottery (cottages).

If we build a temple in a city soon, we can generate a prophet who could discover christianity or maybe confucianism?

 

[Methos]

Our one city, Mecca, is at size 5. It is maxed out on health and happiness. Hooking up the corn will give us another health point, we still need agriculture for that. Happiness will need to come from a temple, which will require priesthood.

Yeah, I was thinking temples were allowed with one of the techs that also gave a religion. Forgot it was a totally different tech, my mistake.

I like your idea of going mining and priesthood before agriculture. It didn’t look half bad. Realize I forgot we needed priesthood so was expecting to grow another pop once the corn was improved and connected. Whoops!

I find it odd how many lions and bears we’ve run into so far. We still have yet to face a barbarian.

we also need to make up a good dot map and discuss it.

Definitely agree. My dot maps are not very good (I suck at figuring the best place for cities) but it would probably be best if we all gave it a shot. I’ll attempt one tonight.

This brings up an interesting point that we should probably discuss. Is the capitol going to be one of our 3 culture cities?

I’ve wondered this myself. Mecca does have a good potential for shields and a high amount of commerce. With Mecca already being considered as the Holy City for three religions its already doing great culture-wise. Question is, do we want it to be one of the three? I won’t be able to check the save to see how powerful this city will be until sometime tonight. If someone has the time can you? The extra commerce from this city would work great when it starts producing culture later on.

While I’m at it I might as well clarify several things. First off let me clarify a couple rules.

1. National Wonders are not allowed in the three culture cities.
2. Great works are allowed in the three culture cities.

I’d rather keep it at no wonders at all in the culture cities, just to keep it interesting. I’m not sure how tough this variant will be so hate to remove great works this early. If the game seems too easy and great works are not really needed than maybe someday I’ll try this again without them. For now, they’re in.

State Religion: I believe my statement earlier about no state religion wasn’t very clear. At this time declaring a state religion isn’t beneficial enough to do so. By not declaring a religion Mecca is able to expand culturally at a very fast rate, especially this early in the game. Once Organized Religion becomes available I believe IMO the benefits of that civic are of greater value than the extra culture. So once we are able to, and it would benefit us, I see no reason not to declare a state religion and revolt to Organized Religion. I hope this was clearer than my previous statement.

Typically we wouldn’t need to declare our three culture cities until late in the game. With this variant we need to have a good idea early as we don’t want to accidentally build a wonder there and than realize that was a good culture city possibility. Hopefully with a dotmap we should be able to pick our culture cities early.

Last night at work I came up with several things I wanted to discuss but now I can only remember a couple of them. Oh well, hopefully when I wake up I’ll remember the others.

Though I’ve already mentioned it, we need to definitely decide on whether Mecca will be one of the culture cities. If not than our second city needs to be setup with great people in mind. We need our second city to definitely be a non-culture city, or great person factory.

Just noticed that the religious shrines are considered great wonders, according to the game. The question is do we want to consider them as a great wonder or not?

Roster:
Methos
Soul Warrior
Conroe

Haven’t played yet:
MeteorPunch
ChrTh

 

[soul_warrior]

the religious great temples, IMIO, can be used.
agreed, the game mechanics considers them great wonders, but hey, we can disallow everything, can we?
cant remember thier effect offhand, but i dont recollect any groundbreaking stuff.

will try a dotmap later.

 

[Methos]

Ahh I wish you guys wouldn't be on the forum all day, so people like me can hop into SG's!!!

Good luck and whatnot though

Just a suggestion, subscribe to the CivIV SG Registration Thread plus all the Planning Threads. That way you'll notice when those threads have been posted too and are able to answer them quicker.

You're welcome to lurk, and who knows, maybe even play a turnset or two. Stick around, as players tend to ask for skips and sometimes drop out due to RL issues.

 

[Methos]

cant remember thier effect offhand, but i dont recollect any groundbreaking stuff.

They don't bother me at all. The grant +4 cpt and +1 gpt for each city that religion influences. Definitely good financially. IMO I have no problem allowing them in a culture city.

One obvious thing is to remember that Holy Cities are not selected, but become random. In the late game we could get a religion that has one of our culture become the Holy City for that religion. If we did not allow the shrines that we are losing all that gold due to randomness.

 

[Conroe]

State Religion: I believe my statement earlier about no state religion wasn't very clear. At this time declaring a state religion isn't beneficial enough to do so. By not declaring a religion Mecca is able to expand culturally at a very fast rate, especially this early in the game. Once Organized Religion becomes available I believe IMO the benefits of that civic are of greater value than the extra culture. So once we are able to, and it would benefit us, I see no reason not to declare a state religion and revolt to Organized Religion. I hope this was clearer than my previous statement.

Since we are spiritual, we can switch religions and civics on a whim every 5 turns. Organized Religion is only a boost for constructing buildings. Therefore, if units are being trained, switch back to no religion for the culture. At least until Theocracy comes around, which will add +2xp for troops.

I think some short terms goals will be scouting, getting three cities ASAP, and Pottery (cottages).

I forget the exact tech that allows it (monarchy maybe?), but slavery will be a good civic for us. With Mecca capable of generating 6 excess food (the farm & 2 oasis'), liberal use of the should be encouraged. It would need a granary up and running first, of course.

One obvious thing is to remember that Holy Cities are not selected, but become random.

I think this is why we have to allow shrines in our cultural city -- it is random. If we were able to select the shrine site, then I would vote to disallow. Since the games picks the site, I think they should be allowed.

 

[MeteorPunch]

42 2360 Map from a goodie hut.
43 2320 Mecca finishes Warrior, starts settler.
44 2280 Mining discovered, Pottery started. Killed 2 animals on IT.
45 2240 Warrior dies to Lion.
50 2040 Pottery discovered, Alphabet started. 51 gold from goodie hut.

- 2 turns for a settler. We need someone brave to dotmap the land.

 

[soul_warrior]

definitely a land that has had its hayday sometimes in the last 15 million years.
dunno where exactly yet, but down south seems sensible for our top 3.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I made an attempt dotmap with proposed city founding order.
City 1 is nearby, gets sheep and deer.
City 2 is nearby and gets gold.
City 3 is nearby and has floodplains, connect to 4.
City 4 is a decent spot but with no bonuses.

...maybe 3 should be 2, 4 should be 3.

 

[ChrTh]

I like the 1st and 3rd cities best because they're on the river with Mecca, so we wouldn't have to worry about roads right off.

Man that's some ugly land

I guess I'm the last one in the roster not to play, so I guess I got it. I'll be playing tonight (12 hours), so feel free to chime in with any suggestions.

 

[Zavior]

Only importat thing is you are going to miss the parthenon. Other than that, its not even hard

 

[Methos]

Only got 4.5 hours of sleep yesterday so other than playing DI1, I was basically a zombie all day.

Hopefully I'll have time tonight to attempt something. Yours looks okay MP but its hard to really get a good look at it from the globe view. I'd like to look at it closer up before I chime in on your dotmap.

I'm amazed by now that we haven't fully explored our continent. It would be nice to see if there are any coastal connections so we can tell if we're safe until caravels.

 

[Conroe]

Man that's some ugly land

ditto


Cities 1 & 4 seem like the only truly good cities. The rest just seem to have so much desert. Or is that flood plains in city 3 -- hard to tell.

Personally, though, I think we should place a higher priority on the un-numbered city west of Mecca. After cultural expansion, it will have stone and 2 gold mines. If the city would have the food, and I cannot tell from the dot map, those 2 gold mines would finance our expansion. If I'm doing the math correctly, each gold mine would be worth 8 commerce to a financial civ.

After studying on the map, I don't think it would work until later. Assuming there is 2 grassland tiles under some of that forest, we would need irrigation (ie Civil Service) to get the farms up and running. Although, a size 1 city could still work one of the gold mines and start turning a profit from the get-go. After Civil Service is researched, we could grow it to size 4 and work both mines (2 farms and 2 mines).

 

[MeteorPunch]

Cities 1 & 4 seem like the only truly good cities. The rest just seem to have so much desert. Or is that flood plains in city 3 -- hard to tell.

city 3 has 4 floodplains tiles which we can build cottages on (also, it has a gold source). So it's better than the city west of Mecca.

 

[Conroe]

city 3 has 4 floodplains tiles which we can build cottages on (also, it has a gold source). So it's better than the city west of Mecca.

Agreed. The western city should probably wait until Civil Service.

 

[ChrTh]

Guys, I'm not going to be able to play tonight ... if you want to put someone else in front of me, you can, otherwise I'll play tomorrow night.

 

[Methos]

Guys, I'm not going to be able to play tonight ... if you want to put someone else in front of me, you can, otherwise I'll play tomorrow night.

I'm doing the typical 24/48. In other words, don't worry, play it tomorrow.

 

[Methos]

city 3 has 4 floodplains tiles which we can build cottages on (also, it has a gold source). So it's better than the city west of Mecca.

Floodplains are definitely good for cottages.

 

[Methos]

Wow! After looking at the save attempting to make a dot map I realize just how brown this continent is. Should be an interesting game.

Personally, though, I think we should place a higher priority on the un-numbered city west of Mecca. <snip>
After studying on the map, I don't think it would work until later. Assuming there is 2 grassland tiles under some of that forest, we would need irrigation (ie Civil Service) to get the farms up and running.

From the map view you can’t see the oasis, which does provide fresh water to some of the tiles. Figured I’d give you a closer look…

As you can see we can water the plains and one of the grasslands. This isn’t much but this city would need all the food it can get. The two grass hills should have a windmill. With the watered grass, windmill grass hills, and the oasis tile this city could work either both gold tiles or one gold and the stone. I would agree that this city is probably best to build next.

Either one or three would probably be my next choice. One is nice as it can grab the game and sheep. Three has more green showing.

Never played a desert game before, so I’m actually finding this enjoyable. Yeah, it looks bleak, but at least we don’t have any neighbors.

 

[ChrTh]

Turn 0 - 2000 BC

Oh I been through the desert on a horse with no name ...

Blech, I've started using windows mode because it made it easier to switch between Notepad and Civ, but I'm not used to having to use the arrow keys instead of the mouse to move the camera

Goals for this turn: Explore. Settle. Start Temple in Mecca (Happiness is about to get us). Oh, and learn to write.

Everything looks good, so I hit ENTER

Turn 1 -- 1960 BC

Lions to the East!

The venerable Bede compiles his list of the Most Powerful Civs of the World. We're DEAD LAST.

Exploring, exploring, la la la

Turn 2 -- 1920 BC
Settler completes. I start Buddhist Temple, I mm a little so that it finishes in 5 instead of 9 turns without cutting into research ... we'll still grow in 4 (instead of 2), but it'll minimize our unhappiness. Will be nice when we get slavery ...

Because the last suggestion (from the thread creator) was for the Western city, that's what I'm going to build ... so if it's , blame Methos, not me

Turn 3 -- 1880 BC

Our northern explorers have found the edge. Our southern explorers have found clams. And our central explorers are heading to the city to guard it.

Turn 4 -- 1840 BC

Medina, despite the protestations of the AI, is built (our spot wasn't a blue one).

I start Obelisk. We can already work both gold tiles because of culture joining with Mecca.

Mecca stops working the Oasis and starts working the cottages. I'm building a road between Mecca and Medina. Unfortunately, Medina can't work the Oasis tile yet (maybe after expansion?)

Turn 5 -- 1800 BC

Exploring exploring exploring

Turn 6 -- 1760 BC

Mecca grows and gets unhappy

Turn 7 -- 1720 BC

The Buddhist Temple is built and Mecca gets Neutral ("If I don't make it, tell me wife I said 'Hello'").
Writing comes in. I negotiate an Open Borders treaty with the Lions.

Ok, I start on Bronze Working, due in 8. BW=Slavery= ... I start Granary as well (due in 10). So Mecca is being set up as a Whip Factory. Or, let's just say all three of our religions require blood sacrifice

Yikes! Barbarians! I try to negotiate Open Borders, but they decline (can you tell I'm loving the lack of neighbors?)

Turn 8 -- 1680 BC

Detente between the Barbarians and our Warriors.

Turn 9 -- 1640 BC

Ah, now I see why the Barbs aren't attacking--they're on a Tribal Village. I contemplate attacking but I know I'll lose, so I just walk around them.

Turn 10 -- 1600 BC

Medina and Mecca are now connected.

I believe I've found the southern tip of our continent.



The worker is ready to start building cottages on the flood plain next turn. Currently Mecca is back to working the Oasis tile, when the cottage is done, move to that tile (hopefully Medina will be able to work the Oasis tile eventually). We may want to chop to help build the Obelisk once BW comes in.

Hopefully I didn't do anything too crazy ...

Here's the save:
View attachment 108434