MrB2-rewriting history....again

[Mr. Blonde]

So, this will be my first succession game for civ4

Roster (closed):
Mr. Blonde
Belisar
batteryacid

Difficulty level: Belisar heavily argued for Monarch, but as we still need some practise (and we don´t want to look too bad) we finally decided for Prince

Map size: standard, continents, else random
Game rules: everything standard, normal speed

Civ and leader:
up to discussion

My 2 cents on this issue: organised and expansive trait are out for me, they seem underpowered in comparison

Aggressive: nothing special, good units can be handy for aggressive play. Would be more important on Pangea, imo
Industrious: Wonder grabbing, could be interesting style to play
Creative: early culture, not too bad
Financial: very strong
Spiritual: Cheap temples, very good early on; civic switching could be very interesting later on
Philosphical: Leaders are very imprtant I noticed in my first games yeah for me

starting techs: Mysticism for an early religion? Farming or Mining would be nice to give our first worker something to do

I will post my 5 favourites, other members please post their preferences, I will then make a last post with my decision and wait for an OK and then start playing, preferrably today evening (CET)

Possible civs
Arabia: Ph Sp Mystcism Wheel
Atztecs: Ag Sp Mysticism Hunting
China with Qin Shi Huangdi: In Fi Agriculture Mining
English with Elisabeth Ph Fi Fishing Mining
Germans with Friedrich Ph Cre Hunting Mining
Greek Ag Ph Hunting Fishing
Inca Ag Fi Agriculture Mysitcism
India with Ghandi Sp In Mysitcism Mining
Mali Sp Fi Wheel Mining
Mongols with Kublai Khan Ag Cre Hunting Wheel
Russia with Katherine Cre Fi Hunting Mining

My 5 favourites out of these are
Arabia
China
Inca
India
Mali

Procedure: we play when we have time; when finishing your turn please post the next occasion you have time for playing.

 

[batteryacid]

I agree with you on the traits- the best starting techs and traits will alway be revealed by the starting position, so we have to stick which works semi-optimal in all starting positions and goes fine with our playing style

So- with all options open I would say: creative is not a must, other traits are ok.

we want roads or agriculture or mining; fishin is too much starting position depending; mysticism is a must if we want to found a religion; some players statet that it´s not a must to grab an early one; I think we will want one for spying and happyness reasons, so I vote for mysticism.

lets have a look on the possible leaders:

hmmm... so much trait combos
hmmmmmmm.....


1) ghandi looks good- spiritual and industrial - Happyness and Production and civic switching and cheap wonders - as techs we have mysticism and mining, two musts for the start I think

2) Inca: financial and aggressive- tech lead in early game - depends on starting near floodplains ( with cottage very strong I read) or a lake (2 food; 3 gold with lighthouse), aggr. for promoted units - should be relative unproblematic to play; and we don´t have to think that much concerning civic switching; myst. and agri not too bad

3) china: industrial and financial: interesting, but I think these two traits will make our first improvement discussions complicated (mine or cottage? ) they have agri and mining as techs (not too bad, but not the best for grabbing a religion)

4)Mali plus: spiritual and financial; plus wheel and mining; minus: some Sgs already with mali on the way; would be nice to try someone else


5) Arabia- Phil and Spir.: minus: no production or money or military bonus, plus: more great people- perehaps I am a bit biased against phil and great people, because I cannot estimate their importance, but it would be nice to play such a cultural monster ; mystic. and the wheel are Ok.

So, these were my 5 cents; now we are waiting for Belisar and his comments , man am I eager to play - perehaps we can finish before sirian and sulla when we play 24/7 for the next week

So for now I´m finished - will resume studiing the new tech tree -man, this seems to be more complicated than the script for my last duty-exam at the university- The Technology of Inorganic Materials

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Got a PM form Belisar, he doesn´t want industrial and he wants spiritual in. He doesn´t have objections to organised, Asoka would also be OK for him.

That leaves us with Arabia, the Inca and the Mali. Inca or Mali for me as my first civ4 game was with the Arabs already. As some succession games are on their way with the Mali I suggest playing Inca.

I will start today evening and play the first 5-10 turns. We should see the land next to our capital, maybe even a site for a 2nd city. Tech and expansion strategy will be discussed at this point.

Any objections for playing Inca?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

As I was eager to play and noone posted objections so far (I didn´t give you too much time, though ) I played the first 5 turns.
Settings: Inca (Aggressive, Financial), Prince, Standard size, Continents, Climate and sea levels random, Ancient start, Standard gamespeed
Variant: As proposed by Belisar we go for a 10CC. Not too challenging, but should force us to choose the cities carefully we found/ keep. Btw: can you abandon cities?

Start:

Imo not too shabby, build city on spot and start Polytheism immediately. City builds second UU. Notice how the woods balance the health minus form the flood plains.

3880BC: hut gives us mining

3800BC: 2nd hut gives us 42 gold
Situation after 5 turns:
We got corn, marble and gold in our 1st city, 2nd city should with current knowledge be built on green spot. Sea tiles -> lots of commerce for us, additionally horses and cows in radius.

The 2nd unit should also explore (made arrows), maybe a better site for the second city pops up either on the eastcoast or more towards N. Build either a 3rd unit or, if the capital is already on 3 a worker (starts irrigating the flood plains). Our capital will have plain of food surplus and should be able to sustain lots of cottages and some specialists..

Tech: grab polytheism, then go for masonry. We have to decide if we also go for monotheism directly or research pottery and animal husbandry first. A second religion and the gold should eliminate early problems with happiness.

Strategy is now up for discussion:
Next player: Belisar, please state if you want to be skipped
My next turn: Thu or Fri

The Save

 

[Belisar]

Checking in...

Our civ is fine with me.
This looks like a good start. Lots of commerce with the gold in the north, will make a dotmap after some exploration.
Floodplains = lot of food, but I want to avoid a "full" floodplain city because of health.
Opening strategy: Early worker for powerfull improvements, then getting a core running quickly, no fishing villages (at least a good amount of land tiles)

Will play tonight

 

[Belisar]

First look at the known land: A decent start, Monarch-diff would
have been doable, but the 10CC will keep the difficult level later on, good.

The one thing our capital lacks is production. For now, getting masonry and
those marble will help but later we will need some workshops or watermills.
I will build a second UU-warrior (a good thing they don't trigger a GA any more)
and then a worker.



3600BC Quechua finished, start worker. The other explored on the coast north,
we find cows and rice.

3520BC We get Poly and Hinduism as our state religion, nobody has Buddhism yet.

3400BC Someone founded Buddhism, took them 15 turns, maybe no other civ
with Myst in the game. We find some nice furs, clam and sugar in the west,
but no AI yet.
We get some gold from a hut and kill wild animals while scouting.

3200BC We learn Masonry and I take a shot for Monotheism, if the AI needed 15 turns
to Meditation, we will get our 2nd religion. AnimalHus for the cows of the
second city can wait because it will take some time for the settler.
We also got a second tech from a hut, fishing. Our southern Quechua defends well
against a panther, second promotion now possible.

3120BC Our first worker starts building a farm on the corn.

2920BC we kill 2 more wild animals, the good thing is 50% defense in jungle and woods,
75% on jungle/wood-hills.

2880BC the next animal, and after the farm on the corn the gold is next, then the
marble and the floodplains.

2800BC I hand the save over after 25 turns, next player could play 15-20, then
we should reduce to 10-15, but I recommend handing the save over when it seems
"naturally", not with ten things left "todo" for the next player.

NO AI found yet. We could very well be left on an island. Now the question is:
Do we want to play such a game (with no trading partners until ships) or do we start
over? (after all we chose continents) On the other side, we have a good start
and it is only Prince, so we should be able to keep up on our own.
Any suggestions? I could live with both, haven't done a builder game for some time.


Dotmap: I would settle this 3 first, a lot of jungle in the south,
we need some workers to clear it. The gold with the commerce boost ist always
a priority. Cows/floodplains will help a lot.
The sugar in the south is not worth much until Calendr.

MicroM: don't forget to shift to the gold hill when the mine is finished, this way
we still get 3 production for the settler AND a lot of cash from the 3rd tile.

Good luck batter,
Belisar

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Thanks for playing, Belisar

No AI so far hmmm...

My 2 cents:
Dotmap: Looks very fine although I noticed 1 tile overlap ( )

Gold and marble online after irrigating 2-3 tiles (corn first of course). If your gut feeling tells you we might be alone and you are right I would suggest to make the 2nd city on a productive site at the sea (left or right spot). I want ships out rather soon, maybe we have an early seabridge.

Tech: wheel of course, animal husbandry should be finished when 2nd city is built and 2nd worker is online. Throw in priesthood for temples. There may be sugar hidden in the jungle as 2nd lux, maybe there is a cityspot hidden in between all this bright green ?
Wonders: The Parthenon in our capital (start when it is ~size 4-5 and our worker is done) is a must, imo. 2nd city should, if possible go for the colossus (comes with metal casting) 4 coins from seatiles -good for research. I think we have some woods near the right spot to make things faster.

So go wheel -> priesthood -> animal husbandry -> copper -> iron -> ->metal casting
Throw in pottery maybe before animal husbandry, cottages near rivers bring in 3 coins from the start. then: if we don´t have contact yet go directly for Optics (Caravells)

Important: If we are alone leave some units as sentinels in unsetteled regions, otherwise the barbarian horde will appear!

My notes are of course open for discusssion

Good luck, batteryacid ->15 turns

Question to the audience: can you abandon cities in civ4 ??

 

[batteryacid]

Asking about the floodplains: I read that corttages at floodplains are nice for commercial civs, because you get 3,3 tiles which is huge at the beginning, so we should save perehaps 2 or 3 floodplains for the blue city for cottages, since we will get a lux/happyness problem (since we started on a smaler continent we will be short on lux goods) when we irrigate too much floodplains

What to settle next? Blue or green?

Another Question: I would say we should get bronze working asap for chopping help for the second settler?

Do we need Priesthood that early? wouldnd´t be bronze for chopping help better ? I would change priesthood with bronze (since trading with other civs seems to be out of question at the moment)

I would vote for blue, then green then red.

 

[Belisar]

All 3 sites are a must, I would probably go for the gold/floodplain city first,
but not critical.
Forest chop ist OK, but not too much because we need the health from the woods.
Yes, there is sugar in the south (plenty for trading)
and we have clam and fish on the west coast for health.

In the southeast, were MrB wanted the second city, there is still room for one
later (on the small river).
The western coast city could build the colossus.

I would recommend bronze-working (chop), animalHus, wheel+pottery (for cottages and granaries) and then priest.

The 1-tile overlap: I had a feeling that this would be Ok, because the cow and the gold are that important. We also have some mountains, but one can only work with the map one gets

 

[batteryacid]

So, played my turns til 2000 BC which sounded the right number to end my turns

Sum Up:

Mil: scouted our nice little continent- NO AI - so much for the aggressive trait - beware of the bears in the north, scout the south for barbarians
Found a small island in the northwest
FURS AND ONE WHEAT IN THE NORTH - ONE MORE DOT ON THE DOTMAP!!

Tech: monotheism- WE FOUND JUDAISM (hmmm should we try to compete with sulla and his six religions... ?
get bronze, the wheel, FIND IRON WORKING IN A HUT- WE HAVE IRON IN OUR CITY RADIUS!
animal husbandry is next

Cities: found our second city; switched it to worker after small discussion with MrB. - the other worker is needed for the Iron and ozur roads, this one should be finished in few turns.
Marbel is hooked up

So : big question:

Settler : 8 turns, faster with chop (if we want one)
or should we try to get the Parthenon (as we are alone for the next time so we should try to grab some wonders) 25 turns! even faster when the city is growing and the iron is worked; settler should also be faster with bigger city and 1 or two irrigated floodplains (perehaps in 6 turns instead of 8)

I vote for: Parthenon (with chop): ~ 17 turns if not less
Settler , Settler : Sum : 12 turns
then if necessary worker til other cities are founded and Happyness and Healthyness are ok; then temple, forge

our other city: worker on the way; then perehaps barraks? granary? which is better? with no ai (perehps nasty Barbarians, but they ahould not be trouble with our well trained Army - perehaps we even let them build one or two cities in the jungle which we can grab later) there is no reason yet to go for military.

So, let us discuss our next goal .
Mr.B is up!

Pics:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/inca2000.jpg;http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/inca2000b.jpg
Savegame

 

[Belisar]

I would go for another settler to have 3 strong cities running as soon as possible. Parthenon is fine, (with marble hooked up!), but don't sacrifice expansion and growth.

 

[batteryacid]

I don´t know if its that bad-
We loose 17 turns - with chop even less
we gain 4 turns for the next settlers because of more worked terrain (and our main city has a lot of surplus tiles) and we gain commerce from the more worked tiles - and we have then a good wonder (we will have to stick to great people as we are now stuck on this island, on the other hand it is a culture wonder- but can we deny a world wonder when we are able to grab it?

Let´s see what Mr.B has to say

 

[Mr. Blonde]

My thoughts:

The parthenon will grant us great people points, culture and increase the chance to get great people. The question is: how do we use them. In my experience without priests or engineers we get artists first, their culture increase is not that helpful in this situation, burning them for science or saving for a golden age neither. Engineers or prophets are more juicy, so we should ensure that we can build temples or a forgery the moment we have the parthenon.

The colossus is, imo more vital in our situation - we need every commerce we can get as this will probably end up in space race (with some pillaging/ eco crippling action from our side if things get close).

Settler first with chop, mining iron, starting the parthenon. 2nd city needs imo a cultural building after the worker to get more productive tiles online.

3rd city: east or west?

East: horses after 1st exp, cows and rice in 1st ring, some hills and woods.

West: Floodplains (after expansion) + 1 cow + more wood to chop

West will probably grow faster, East will have more production early on.

The worker from our cap should move to the coast city and start improving there, imo. We don´t want to loose time for the Colossus by building workers because we don´t have copper!

Opinions? And again: can we abandon cities (in case we want strongholds on other continents)?

 

[Belisar]

Go with west first, closer to capital, could be 1-2 coins less
maintainance and the 4th gold-tile is important.
I don't know if there is an option to abandon cities, according to the rulebook there is NO option to rename, so there is probably none for ab. too.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

played this evening here is the summary:

Start, as discussed a settler in our capital, support with a chop after mining the iron. Turn 6: settler finishes -> Parthenon, move to westcoast and build city. Worker finushes in 2nd city turn 7, start improving tiles.

Research: Turn1: Animal husbandry -> writing as I think libraries are essential in our position, start library in 2nd city after worker.
Start library in 3rd city after founding, support with 1 chop, still needs time to finish.

Writing comes turn 5 -> metal casting for workshop/ colossus

Little happens until turn 23: Metal casting->sailing (or Theology for a 3rd religion...?) and....the Parthenon is ours

Situation: Capital is for the next person to decide: worker, settler, library and workshop are for discussion. capital is size 7 and on its happiness limit. -> specialist could be handy....
2nd and 3rd city build their Library, because many juicy tiles are outside their 1st border. After that: coast city needs workshop and tile improvements for the colossus!
Maybe 2nd city could build another worker, and capital starts settler (maybe after library)?

Up: belisar
batteryacid and me have time on sunday, next occasion tuesday for me).

Here is the SAVE

Strategy is up for discussion!

 

[Belisar]

A good move starting our research-kulture infrastructure.
The other priority will be optics and contact with the rest of the world.
Will try playing tonight.

 

[MinionJoe]

Nope, you can't abandon cities anymore.

 

[Panth]

Lurker: You could actually abandon a city though - just pull everybody out, wait for somebody to claim it (with probably few troops if it's empty) then re-take it and raze. A hassle, I know but . . .

 

[Mr. Blonde]

MinionJoe and Panth thank you for the information! Giving the AI one city...over my cold, dead corpse!

Hmmm....
That makes city challenges more interesting (and that you can´t build colonies any more)

@belisar:
Overthought the situation. I think the main city should go worker -> library -> settler (and see that you can get the scientist specialist so we don´t get a great artist)
We need to hook up that iron (didn´t build road to save time for coastal city)so we have something to fight the barbarians that will start to pop out. That way we can avoid hunting and archery.
Coast: finish library -> forgery -> lighthouse -> colossus
2nd city: flexible
Any thoughts if a 3rd or 4th religion are of profit for us? It would mean more temples and monasteries for us, but the AIs should have some different religions to keep them divided...

Good luck with your turns (I know a player of your calibre doesn´t need it, just wanted to be polite) !

 

[batteryacid]

My turns: I played until 600 BC with the founding of our next city

Research: Priesthood, Sailing, Alphabet, Code of Laws

Barbs: A Lot of barbs around - found a barb city in the north (1 tile away from our Dotmap, would get Furs and cow, but would not have freshwater; my proposed city tile would be 1 tile southwest of the barb city. We have no casualites so far, but every 3 turns 2 barb warriors appear in the north, and two more in the south; Watch our iron and marbel! the Quechua in the jungle is meant to bind the barbarian forces there; shouldn´t have trouble with all of his promotions.

We now have Libraries in our cites; Lighthouse is one turn away, then switch to colossus immediately; chops are a nada because of health; one chop might be possible IF (thats one point I don´t know ) 0,8 health from woods count as 1; then it is no difference between health-wood effect from 3 and 2 tiles in the west coast city.

Units: I built one worker, one settler and one swordsman (was necessary to be on the safe side with that much barbs; I promoted him to City raider as he is thought to go north to pillage those nasty barb city

Cities: all our cities are at max pop; they need granaries and temples for more growing; but we have to develope more tiles and close our road network first; the two power cities produce now a forge which gets ous one more happy face from our precious gold.


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