[BTS] My new project - not a shadow game

[NightOnEarth]

After a long break I'm in the mood to play CIV IV again, but am quite unhappy with the recent results. Therefore, I would like to start a new project to find out why. I'm playing four games in parallel with similar (ha!) starting conditions but different leaders (random):

Difficulty: Emperor
Map type: Shuffle (pangea, fractal, continents or archipelago)
Map size: big
Civilizations: 9
Leaders, civilizations, climate, sea levels: all random
Speed: normal
Era: Ancient
No tribal villages, no random events
All victory conditions possible
Of course, this approach is not suitable for a full shadowgame, but I would like to stop at critical points, share my thoughts and ask for your opinion or criticism.

Let's start with my first game, Peter of Russia (philosophical, expansive) starts with hunting and mining. His UU and UB come - if at all - very late.
Here is the starting situation, the scout has already moved. The climate is dry and the sea level is medium.

Spoiler t0 - where to settle :

I seem to be located quite far north, fog gazing shows me tundra to the north and east. There could be more flood plains in the SW.
Where should I settle? SIP brings me 12 forests to chop, grassland in the north and 3-4 floodplains. 1S gains 1-2 floodplains and marble, but loses silk and freshwater, as well as six forests and three grasslands. S-SE on the PH makes little sense to me with no fresh water and little forest. I only now see in the screenshot that 1W would have been a real option. More floodplains (strong bureau capital) against silk.

I chose SIP, built a worker, researched agriculture and then a warrior while the worker worked the corn and Moscow grew to 3 pop. Working bronze next seemed logical to me for a number of reasons (chopping forests, slavery) but mostly to decide how to fight barbarians. As luck would have it, copper was revealed on the hill I just mined.
Now I have arrived at a first critical point (t24). Exploring the wheel next seems obvious to connect the copper and as a requirement for pottery to cottage the floodplains. But in what order should I build? Settler - axe fighter - worker or rather the axe fighters first because of possible barbarians. Where should I place my next cities and in what order?

Spoiler next cities - where and which one first? :

Here are my suggestions for placement of the next cities. Unfortunately food is scarce so the S and E cities either have to share corn with Moscow or rely on the 3F of the Floddplains with correspondingly slow growth.

Spoiler mid-term considerations :

Do I need a full fogbusting (except in the North of course) or do I trust Roosevelt to have my back in the South there? Due to the dry climate there are many desert tiles, so I should probably try to expand along the rivers, later probably along the coast to the SW. Two gold is tempting, but where is the food for it and do I really need it with all the floodplains? I seem to be well separated from the neighbors (Roosevelt, Suryavarmen II, Ashoka and Pacal). I suspect contact occurs when Roosevelt expands north or at the sheep in the SE. Sheep and wine should be my goal for another city in the medium term, right?

Speaking of which, the expansive trait seems like a good counterbalance to the unhealthiness of the floodplains.

Have i left out important aspects or considerations? Please feel free to reply with your comments, critics or suggestions.

 

[antimony]

I was thinking of the same thing re: expansive being great on this map with the floodplains and fast granaries to boost growth.

The southern sites are really good with double gold and also sheep + floodplains, it might be worth the more aggressive expansion on emperor. I would like to know if any veteran players would go for double gold first despite the travel time and possibly bad relations with Roosevelt (who fortunately is not a warmonger). In terms of nearby sites, my first picks would be the floodplains to the south (1W of your PH marker to get the most cottages) as well as Crab city (but settle 1W to get food without a monument) for the forests and sharing copper with the capital.

Wheel and pottery seems like the clear choices for tech, one consideration if you're going e.g. for crabs and gold first would be to get fishing before pottery to save some beakers. That assumes you don't need a granary in the capital because your pop stays low by building settlers / workers or whipping, and your workers have something else to do i.e. chopping. So you could for example whip a worker from size 3->2 and have both chop a settler. (Whipping - or chopping a worker is good as expansive since the hammers get the expansive bonus but the surplus food going into the worker doesn't).

 

[jnebbe]

Great map! I think you'd want to settle capital on the marble for the 3 hammer city tile but oh well, 2nd city can go on the marble instead. Crab city should be 1 tile to the left so you don't need a monument to reach the crabs. You have some great land you can backfill so grabbing land forward is a good idea, I like 2 south of the copper to grab both the golds just for the happiness.

Tech path is fine, wheel->pottery is good, gold+marble+philosophical definitely leads you towards writing->aesthetics

Barbs won't enter your borders until a certain turn (and animals can't enter borders at all), on Immortal I think they start entering borders on t50 so on Emperor its probably like t55. So you don't need axes immediately. Since you start with hunting I'd rather build a few warriors first for fogbusting/MP. Once you connect the copper you won't be able to build any more warriors unless you pillage or gift the copper away

 

[konata_LS]

Two gold is tempting, but where is the food for it and do I really need it with all the floodplains?

Yes, gold tile itself is not very appealing, especially with low food around. But the +1- from gold resource (+2 with forges, after Metal Casting) is worth considering. With so many flood plains and some high spots (fish, wheat, sheep...) , +1 happiness from gold means you can grow one more cottage in every city, or run 1 more specialist in your cities, or all your cities can suffer more whipping. Gold resource also speeds up Shwedagon Paya, which means you'll get more failgold from Aesthetics - given that you have capital marble, researching Aesthetics - Literature is a good choice after classical era. Not to mention the trading value of gold resource, for example you can sell the extra gold for 10+ to the AIs, or trade gold for AI's sugar.
Plus, the are also spice resources near the double gold. Your screenshots show that you share a continent with 4 AIs, so you'll probably need Optics-Astro to contact the remaining 4 opponents, as it's a Big size Shuffle map. Calendar (for spice plantation) is required for Astro anyway.

Of course, that gold spot doesn't need to be your second city. You might just want to grab the gold before Roosevelt gets it. If the low food around the gold area upsets you, nothing prevents you from settling on gold .

Agree with jnebbe. The map is quite good: you have nice flood plains, long rivers, and 5 - resources if you manage to get the gold/spice spot. The neighbour down south is a peaceful wonder-spammer who has very low "unit build prob" .

Good luck to your game

 

[NightOnEarth]

Many thanks for your comments and suggestions. I have already learned and understood a lot and would like to take advantage of it. All of you encourage me to play more expansively and move quickly towards gold. I should probably send my warrior ahead for fogbusting and possibly escorting. Unfortunately, I lack the experience to be able to assess how quickly Roosevelt wants to settle there. Perhaps I could first settle near the marble (antimony) or directly on it (jnebbe). On the other side:

You have some great land you can backfill so grabbing land forward is a good idea, I like 2 south of the copper to grab both the golds just for the happiness.

I think that's a strong, central point for medium-term planning. In fact I've sometimes played this way with good results.
Crab City:

Crab city (but settle 1W to get food without a monument) for the forests and sharing copper with the capital.

Crab city should be 1 tile to the left so you don't need a monument to reach the crabs.

Right, I should have known that. Food in the first ring if possible.
Fogbusting:

Since you start with hunting I'd rather build a few warriors first for fogbusting/MP. Once you connect the copper you won't be able to build any more warriors

Good advice, thank you. 15H or 35H per unit for fogbusting/MP are quite a difference. After my disaster with Barbarians in my last game, I was too fixated on being able to fight them effectively.
Tech path:

Wheel and pottery seems like the clear choices for tech, one consideration if you're going e.g. for crabs and gold first would be to get fishing before pottery to save some beakers.

Generally a good idea, especially since at least Roosevelt already knows about fishing. But I think I'll found Crab City later.

Tech path is fine, wheel->pottery is good, gold+marble+philosophical definitely leads you towards writing->aesthetics

given that you have capital marble, researching Aesthetics - Literature is a good choice after classical era.

These are the forward-thinking ideas and planning that my game often lacks. See synergies where they exist.
I will also try to use your other suggestions and comments (increased happiness, failgold, whipping management, Roosevelt – know your enemy) in my game. As I said in my introductory post, I would like to play four games at the same time in order to be able to analyze game section by game section, what I can do better and what options I have. Let's see if my project pays off. I will therefore interrupt this game and start the next one.

 

[sampsa]

You are massively undervaluing extra cc . With EXP it's important to aggressively go for it. For me it's between plains hill and on marble and probably would go for marble. I would never consider 1W, loses a turn and a forest for very little.

 

[NightOnEarth]

Game number two with the same settings. This time the leader is Shaka (agg, exp) with UU Impi (spearman) and UB Ikhanda (barracks) and the starting technologies Farming and Hunting. The climate is tropical and the sea level is low.
While the start with Peter was straight-forward in the previous game, here I am already at a crossroads at t0.

Spoiler t0 - my start position :

Foggazing shows me coastline to the east and south, and the forest to the NE suggests I'm far north. I seem to be on an island or peninsula, only to the west there is probably more land. That means I need few units for fogbusting.
SIP, what else? PH, freshwater, three crabs, sheep and fish, and nine forests are a very good starting position.
I could move the Scout SE to check the coast for seafood, but maybe as an exception I should settle first and wait for the border pop-up after five moves, which would also reveal the east coast. So I could send the scout directly SW then NW.
My main problem is choosing the first unit and the tech-path. Unfortunately, the starting technologies are no help. For example, what should a worker do at the beginning?
1. Fishing (while growing or worker pre-build) – build work boat (8t) - crabs (4F, 2C) or fish (5F, 1C) – AH or mining while finishing worker
2. Directly mining - bronze working (copper?) without additional beaker, build worker meanwhile - worker mines the sheep - chops workboat
3. Directly AH (horse?), work sheep, but what then?

Coastal start and Peninsula/Island direct me towards early sailing, which would connect my cities and make The Great Lighthouse a viable option, especially since I can chop a lot of forests.
I would like to hear your opinion again on what the best starting strategy is.

 

[Fippy]

I think fishing & start on worker, then build a boat and pause the worker until it's done.
PH + Exp make this less painful..sheep tile is okay mined. Some worker idle time cannot be avoided with this strat (until BW), but you are not investing that much into him anyways at 10t build.

 

[coanda]

BW-first will be painfully slow and awkward, because there will be zero additional commerce besides the city tile and just the one tile your worker can improve... after which he gets to sit around twiddling his thumbs for 8-10 turns waiting on BW, while you maybe chain-build warriors and slowly grow to size-2 or something similarly weird.

AH-first is a waste, because the sheep tile alone just doesn't give enough value to justify the fairly expensive tech when you are so low on commerce and so urgently in need of BW to start chopping.

Fishing -> BW -> Pottery seems like the natural choice to me. That lets gives your city something useful to do with its hammers before turn ~25 and provides a valuable boost to your commerce in an extremely commerce-limited start. And you can delay AH because after you mine the sheep and get a bunch of work boats, you don't really need AH for anything but you will want to get that granary for a city with potentially 10 surplus food at size-4. I think I'd be looking to get the fastest pair of improved tiles here and then focus on commerce. Which I believe is worker (until fishing) -> WB -> worker (finish), then build work boats and a warrior growing to size 4 prepping for a chop-and-2-pop-whip settler.

High-forest, high-seafood, low-commerce starts are always a little finicky though; I've been surprised in the past when people actually tested out what were the best choices, so I'm not sure my preference is the right one here.

 

[NightOnEarth]

@coanda, @Fippy: Thanks for your advice and analysis in what is a tricky starting situation for me. In the meantime I had tried to calculate the variants with pencil and paper, and the result is the same as your recommendation. The lack of commerce gave me the idea of using my first workboat to work the crab instead of the fish (1 turn faster, 1 more commerce). That would shorten the time for bronze work. The timeline, if I did the math correctly, would be:
(t0) Fishing & start on worker
(t7) mining & workboat
(t15) wb finished, work crab, finish worker
(t16) start bronze working (~14t?)
(t18) worker finished
Next turns as recommended by you:
worker mines sheep, grow on workboats and warrior(s), whip and chop when bronze working is finished
I find this to be an extremely challanging start, which I welcome for learning purposes.

Edit:

Spoiler I'm perplexed by what I saw after I settled :

Of course, the corn brings a new component to the game, because Shaka has farming as a starting technology. I still tend to stick to the line outlined above, trying to slightly improve commerce and fill the time for my worker to work another resource until bronze working has been finished.

 

[NightOnEarth]

You are massively undervaluing extra cc . With EXP it's important to aggressively go for it. For me it's between plains hill and on marble and probably would go for marble. I would never consider 1W, loses a turn and a forest for very little.

You mention a very important point for my understanding of the game, which I would like to get right. I guess it's about assessing how important extra cc are compared to the resources and tiles in the BFC, especially if you're expansive (or imperialistic?). Is it mainly about advantages at the beginning (e.g. faster duration to build workers, warriors or settlers, extra for workers) or also medium and long-term advantages?
To be honest, I hadn't even considered marble as a location for my first city (due to lack of experience). I would have been deterred to spend 3t for this. Jnebbe mentioned that I can build another city on the marble. Does it matter whether capital city or another?

 

[sampsa]

Does it matter whether capital city or another?

A bit, yes. Capital cc extra are a lot more valuable, because they help you develop a lot faster.

 

[antimony]

I also did not think before of ever delaying 1st city by more than one turn, but now doing the math it makes sense. 3 surplus food + 1 hammer from city center means 60 prod worker takes 15 turns, 2 hammers in cc takes it down to 12 turns, but 3 hammers means 10 turns, and down to 9 with exp (assuming 3.75 hammers is rounded up). The only downside is the 8 beakers per turn lost from capital before settling, but that loss is linear vs. early growth can snowball.

 

[sampsa]

and down to 9 with exp (assuming 3.75 hammers is rounded up).

It is not rounded up. But with a 3 cc-tile all you need is a 4th to gain one extra. So for example working a 21-tile is good enough.

 

[coanda]

I think I'd just go ahead and let the worker finish since you found corn. Small delay on the crab, probably also means a 1-turn delay on bronze working, but significantly earlier corn and sheep ought to let you rapidly grow to size-4. Worker, work boat, work boat, warrior, settler, and if you juggle tiles right you can probably have size-5 city, warrior finishing, and bronze working finishing all hitting about the same turn. Can get additional work boats / warriors while growing back up to size and then pop out another settler and worker. Early cities can just share corn/sheep/crab with your capital, it's got too much food anyways, so cities 2 and 3 ought to have pretty rapid ramping-up phases.

 

[NightOnEarth]

.. but significantly earlier corn and sheep ought to let you rapidly grow to size-4. Worker, work boat, work boat, warrior, settler, and if you juggle tiles right you can probably have size-5 city, warrior finishing, and bronze working finishing all hitting about the same turn. Can get additional work boats / warriors while growing back up to size and then pop out another settler and worker. Early cities can just share corn/sheep/crab with your capital, it's got too much food anyways, so cities 2 and 3 ought to have pretty rapid ramping-up phases.

Thank you, coanda! I've tried to follow your plan as best as I can, but was a little too fast in research to grow to size-5. Still, I seem to be on the right track. By the way, Bronze Working shows copper directly outside the BFC.

Spoiler turn 31 - city screen :

Four developed resources, warrior ready, settler needs only eight(!) turns. Then I would grow back on warrior and work boat as you suggested (9 food surplus per turn!) and after that build/chop/whip the second settler and worker.
Next would be settler/worker or vice versa.

Spoiler turn 31 - territory :

It looks like I'm alone on a long island. The scout stopped exploring after spotting a bear. First, I could found the eastern city because I can connect copper directly and share the corn with the capital. I've marked two possible places, but I'm still undecided. The second settler should settle west of the capital and shahre one crab and the mined sheep.
Fog busting might be easy if something doesn't happen in the next couple of turns.

Tech path: after wheel - pottery (as you suggested) I would choose sailing (then stonemasonry) and try to build TGL with heavy support from the lumberjacks aka workers. An island with only coastal cities is perfect for this. Triremes could come in handy, too, for island hopping. Only next would be AH for the sheep and possible horses.

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, did you not notice that fish > crab? Not a huge deal I guess, but in general 1 > 1. 2nd city to the east, but for me it's between 1NW and 1W of sheep. I see no reason to not get a 1st ring sheep. Cap borders will claim copper T50/T51 anyway, so leaving copper to the 2nd ring for 1st ring fp plus fresh water seems worth it.

3rd city I'd consider 1S of cap sheep. 4th to claim capital crabs.

 

[NightOnEarth]

Hmm, did you not notice that fish > crab? Not a huge deal I guess, but in general 1 > 1.

Yes, I noticed. Under normal circumstances I'd already have improved the fish. I did so for speeding up my poor commerce - one turn less for the workboot and one more for early bronze working. But fish will be improved next after the settler is out.

2nd city to the east, but for me it's between 1NW and 1W of sheep. I see no reason to not get a 1st ring sheep. Cap borders will claim copper T50/T51 anyway, so leaving copper to the 2nd ring for 1st ring fp plus fresh water seems worth it.

Good advice!

3rd city I'd consider 1S of cap sheep. 4th to claim capital crabs.

You're right, I should stay compact - I could imagine for a bureau cap later, for less city maintenance and who knows how much space is left on this island(?)?
What do you think about an alternative to your proposal: placing the 3rd city 1SE of the cap sheep and the 4th next to the short river?

 

[coanda]

Certainly, 1 > 1 in general. I think this start may be one of the rare exceptions though. Many potential sources of food. But your starting techs aren't great for the situation, and there's not a lot the worker can do without Bronze Working. After the corn and the sheep, you're going to end up with idle worker-turns waiting on BW to finish - so finishing BW one turn earlier gets you, at no additional opportunity cost, 25% of one more chop (~5 hammers). If working the crab does get you that extra turn of BW, it's probably worth it. I haven't run the numbers, so I'm not sure which it tips on.

I might have simply left my scout fogbusting the western side of the peninsula in this situation - with the copper and sheep, and ability to steal the corn from the capital without slowing the capital down much, that's a powerhouse city site you want to lock down with your next settler. A barbarian spawning in that region would be fairly inconvenient since it'd be bottled up with nowhere to go but harassing you. Warrior probably gets there fast enough though.

GLH is looking appetizing this game, even without Stone or IND. No other civs met by turn 31, what looks like an easily settled island to the southwest and maybe another to the northwest, lots of coastal city sites, lots of forests in the capital that can be chopped, not many early commerce resources. I'd be thinking of taking a tilt at it after the settler for the third city is produced.

 

[NightOnEarth]

Okay, I want to start the third game. Conditions are as in my first message. Leader is Hatshepsut of Egypt, spiritual and creative, starts with farming and the wheel and has war chariot as UU and the obelisk (monument) as UB. The climate is dry and the sea level is medium.

Spoiler t0 - warrior has already moved :

Foggazing: there is already coastline to the north, the tiles to the south look like tundra.
Let's see if I've already learned something from this thread. At first you might think this is a similar start to my game with Shaka, but I think I have a miserable starting position.
No matter how and where I settle, I don't get both fish. Space for other cities could become scarce. The only two options I see are SIP and on the PH with silver. As far as I know, despite the silver, this would "only" result in 2 , 2 , 1 . Still, I would prefer this spot and could found another city 3S that gets the second crab and shares the other crab and sheep with the capital.
Tech path alternatives:
An early worker could build at most roads, hence:
Fishing (for workboat) - Mining - BW (chop forests)
Fishing – AH (Horses? > War Chariots)
Fishing - pottery
The first option wouldn't help the worker much either, but the second is risky if there are no horses within reach. What do you all mean?