Passing the Torch

[Rex Tyrannus]

Great job with your first ever SG set and turn report. Yes, indeed it's a shame we had to build New York.

And, BTW, wheels are for more than just hamsters. Very funny.

 

[Arathorn]

Interesting report, Justinious.

I am curious what you chose to build in NY. Walls would really not be a wise choice, because we're not in danger of attack. If we don't need something right away, it's always better to wait.

Now we need explorers, workers, technology, and maybe another city or few. And probably a bit of culture so places like Boston can actually work those pigs and copper.

Anyway, I'm not sure I'll get to this today. But I do see it and will get it in when I have a chance. If I do get to it tonight, maybe arkenstone can play tomorrow.

 

[arkenstone]

hurry and play 15 wait! why do you guys get to play more turns than us! i have an Idea for our next city kansas city just not Chacago!

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

why do you guys get to play more turns than us!

Because, of the 30 turns I played, 26 of them consisted of me just pressing enter. There isn't a whole lot that goes on in the early game, so players take more turns early on.

As to city names, you are welcome to custom name cities you build. Just understand that Civ always checks the list of appropriate city names and will always choose the next available name from the list.

So, if you skip Chicago, the next city we build, Civ will want to name Chicago. I doubt all four of us care enough about the issue to continually skip Chicago for the remainder of this game.

 

[ForGreatJustice]

Lurker's comment
This is such a cute theme you guys have going here. I hope it remains educational and fun throughout.

 

[Arathorn]

I look through the cities and break out the mighty and dreaded VETO STAMP! Actually, I only stop the stable in New York. I know the city is evil, but there’s no sense in building something we’re not going to use. A barracks would be marginally useful (and a much better long-term investment because it helps everything). I cancel that and start another workboat -- as a scouting unit.

I would’ve done Pottery before IW, however. Knowing where the iron can be found is important. But especially since granaries are half-price, we really want to get to work on them so our cities can grow faster. Bigger cities means more squares worked means more hammers and more commerce. I’m going to let IW finish, though, because we have a lot invested in it and iron is important. I do turn science down a bit to start building up some cash, because it’s good to have some gold on hand for random events.

I’m curious why the scout wasn’t moved. It’s generally better with Succession Games to completely finish a turn. No biggie. Oh well.

After the chariot, Washington builds a worker. We had more cities than workers. That’s rarely wise. We want to get all our “good” squares up and running as fast as possible. Plus, chopping some forests will help us get our settlers and more workers faster, which is very good.

I also feel like this entire continent is going to have to belong to us at some point. So New York gets going on a barracks. It can a major military pump once we get our bronze hooked up.

Iron Working completes showing that we have that metal around, too. I am going to keep pushing north first, however, to keep the pressure on Mansa and Saladin. We can claim the south later safely.

Chariot vs. warrior -- I won. Goodie huts are generally worth the risk of combat. I want to know what's there, even if it's just maps or cash.

Naturally, I get the worst option.

They kill our chariot, of course.

Shortly thereafter, I get impatient....

Actually, it wasn't impatience. A few key points convinced me to do this:
- We were at our happiness limit. See the 6 vs. 6 up there? We can't grow without getting unhappies.
- *3* pop. The more pop you whip, it's generally better. Washington will have time to regrow 2 full pop before the unhappiness from whipping will be an issue. It also will have lots of carry-over to help with the next build (a worker as it turns out).
- Whipping a settler. Settlers and workers stop a city from growing, so they're often highest on my list to get done quickly.

I'm not sure it was a good move, but that's WHY I did it.

After Pottery, I went with Writing. Libraries give culture which is nice. Plus, they’ll help us use extra people as scientists, who are a lot better than regular citizens. I also whip granaries in all 3 of our cities.

That settler I whipped went on a long trip. Fishes and gems rock. Plus, it’ll help start sealing our borders.

That warrior you see was sent a bit earlier to make sure no barbarians were in the settlers path. Settlers move 2 and warriors only 1. So sending the warrior earlier let the total time to arrive safely be lower. Though it is dangerous.

Not that Philly was grateful....

I said "NO" of course. That's OUR city. Once we get the fishies work-boated and the gems mined, it will be a great city.

Empire overview:

Writing is set to complete next turn. We should discuss what to research next.
- Metal Casting
- Religion path (Mysticism into other techs)
- Hunting/Archery
- Aesthetics
- Mathematics

Metal Casting provides forges (and Colossus). Forges are a huge hammer multiplier that I tend to build as soon as possible. This is a very good tech.

Religion path -- eventually we will need to go down this to get to Monarchy to get our wine connected and move on to other techs. They’re cheap, too, which is nice. Judaism is still available, too, so we might be able to found that religion. It’s a longshot, as we’ll need a few techs before we can even research Monotheism.

Hunting/Archery -- we don’t need scouts really any more. We have a pretty good map of most of our island. And Archery is one of those techs that can wait a long time, if we want. But I also understand liking to have good defenders, so I wouldn’t complain too much about this.

Aesthetics -- leads to lots of wonders. But we don’t get any bonus for wonder building. And we don’t have stone or marble, so I don’t think building wonders is the best use of our hammers at this point (except maybe Colossus, since that gets a bonus from copper, which we do have).

Mathematics -- Makes chopping forests worth more hammers. And it leads to Currency (a really nice tech for allowing additional expansion) and Calendar (which allows us to use some more of our resources). Useful.

I’d vote pretty strongly against Aesthetics. Metal Casting would be my choice. I am really fond of forges. But I’m curious about other opinions.

Roster:
Rex Tyranns -- on deck
justinious -- in the whole
Arathorn -- on base -- waiting to be driven in
arkenstone -- at bat NOW

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=245395&stc=1&d=1267929733

Arathorn

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I think Judaism, at Nobel is a shorter shot than you might think. Still, my vote is Metal Casting or Maths. I'd rather "acquire" a holy city. Saladin's will do.

 

[arkenstone]

well i went to the left and built a city so we would have a no pass zone.

at the same time though saladin had the same idea. so he built a city where the arrow is.

at the same time the barbarian went to take the city and then i sent Bosten's city army and they where late then they took it and then Bosten's city was gone and then we lost New York and now we just have Piledolfyia and ourv capital

i hoope that you can cover ouver for our game rex!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=245518&stc=1&d=1267998161

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Oh no! Do I understand correctly that you took all the defenders out from Boston and New York to try to sneak a city away from Saladin? Well, if so, we've obviously seen the hazards of leaving a city unguarded.

To be clear, there are times when I will abandon defenses for a choice opportunity. This one, though, I believe was an opportunity too far away.

Moving on, it looks like we have some axes ready to take back our cities, so the only harm should be a little population loss and a setback of some crucial production and research time.

But we'll see. I haven't opened the save and the situation could be more grave than my estimate.

 

[Arathorn]

It should be easy to take back our cities. But since we had no culture there, they'll take quite a while to come out of resistance. This is a nontrivial setback. I left two axemen building in an attempt to provide protection for their cities. Apparently, they were out wandering. I guess I should have communicated more clearly their purpose. We also will probably lose most of our buildings that we've spend the last 50ish turns building. It's not worth risking our cities without a very good reason.

In that situation, too, don't be afraid to go into the city and use "hurry production" to get some unit out in a hurry. Also, it looks from the combat log that we attacked out of the city and lost. While fortified in the city, our warriors have big benefits against the invading barbs. They may well bypass the city (giving time for our axemen to return home). They might pillage some improvements but that's a TON easier to rectify than the loss of cities.

Let's chalk this up to a lesson hopefully learned and look to the future.

Arathorn

 

[mlinneak]

lurker's comment:

I still consider myself a learner, and have lost cities many times. It's frustrating and a setback, but I'm sure that you guys can turn it back around with no problem and rebuild stronger than ever

Good game so far, and the turn reports are fantastic! I am totally subscribed to this thread

[/lurk]

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Let's chalk this up to a lesson hopefully learned and look to the future.

And let's see together what thay future holds.

First off, Boston.

Axe versus club monkey. I'll take the sharp metal any day.

New York is a tad more mysterious, though.

We have no idea what the garrison is like and we have no units anywhere nearby. Now, before we rush head-long and send Washington's defenders over to take back New York, let's see our options. Especially since emptying Washington of defenders would only repeat the cycle of violence.

Instead, I chose to whip (hurry production) another Axeman. Now then, take a look...

The unit I whipped would have been built next turn regardless, so why incur the anger and lose one population?

Because, right after pressing enter, I got one shiny new warrior-killer--and the next is only one turn away!!!

This is because Civ IV uses an overflow system.

Anytime you finish production with extra hammers or finish research with extra beakers, those resources pour into the next project.

So, I get two new state-of-the-art units in consecutive turns. At the cost of one angry citizen (for ten turns) and one population we wouldn't have kept happy anyway. Slavery is almost as much fun as killng longbows with tanks.

So what did I do with them?


Well, not take back Boston.

Arkenstone did that on his own--he only needed one more turn. That axeman has about a 97% chance of winning. And, since Arathorn wasn't playing, we won our 97% battles.

That was Arkenstone's doing. Instead, my guys took back the Big Apple.

And I let this guy take out the southern barb mennace.

BTW, we seem to have a lot of barbs around. We'll talk about fog-busting soon enough, I think.

(That guarded hut gave us a scout, incidentally.)


* * *

That's enough killing, let's talk about strategy. I re-routed the settler and moved him up north.

I then whipped two more settlers and moved them up there as well. (Sorry, I missed the screen-shot of founding Atlanta.)

These cities are less than ideal and they're expensive when they're that far away. But cities, in Civ, have tactical value, too. We have a lot of nice territory to our south. And I don't want to share it. So we're keeping grubby Mansa and Saladin away from our side of the continent.

As previously alluded to, I have one more settler on his way up BUT HE IS CURRENTLY ONE STEP AHEAD OF HIS ESCORT.

Justinious, make sure to protect him through the current barbarian plague.


(BTW, what happened to Kansas City? Did I miss its demise?)



So, anyway this only works if we fill in the line and don't offer open borders to anyone until we've grabbed all the land that anyone else might want.

One thing we ought to do before Justinious plays is talk about a dot map. I stink at city placement. (I'm more of a hit stuff over the head with weapons sort of guy.) I'm certain there are better cities here than I'd come up with.

* * *

In other news...

Someone got a free tech

And we finished metal casting.

I set research to Alphabet. I thought about taking Mysticism (only 2 turns away) so that we could build some cultural buildings and fill out our claim faster. But Alphabet will let us trade tech and I'm certain Mansa and Sally both have it for cheap.


* * *

Roster

Rex (just played)
Justinious (Up now for 10)
Arathorn (On deck)
Arkenstone (In the hole)

 

[ruff_hi]

Great set!

Instead, I chose to whip (hurry production) another Axeman. Now then, take a look...

<snip pic>

The unit I whipped would have been built next turn regardless, so why incur the anger and lose one population?

Actually, it was even better than that ... go back up and look at the picture just before the unit was whipped. Your city was going to grow next turn too ... so you whipped a size 7 city down to size 6 and it grew back to size 7 straight away. If that citizen you whipped didn't have an improved tile to work, then you are miles ahead. If it did have a tile to work ... well, you cannot have everything .

BTW, we seem to have a lot of barbs around. We'll talk about fog-busting soon enough, I think.

All the cool guys are spawn-busting now-a-days. I'll let someone google an appropriate reference for you.

 

[Arathorn]

One point from the point bears repeated emphasis I think.

Do not sign Open Borders! If you do, that civ will get past our line.

Justinious, when you found the next city, it should be in a position to fully seal our line so that no smelly forces from Mansa or Saladin can make it past. Then we can settle the whole south in peace (except for those idiots wearing black -- it's totally the wrong time of year for that!).

After we seal our line, though, we shouldn't be in a big hurry to settle too much too quickly. Too many cities gets expensive really fast -- until we get Currency and/or Code of Laws.

Nice set, Rex.

Arathorn

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

lurker's comment: Once you complete the blocking, you will be able to open borders... AI won't sail past them.
That's a nice idea you got there guys! Wishing you fun!

edit: as Ruff says, "All the cool guys are sporn-busting now-a-days"

A quick tip on fogbusting:

I'm not sure how many of you fellow civfanatics know about the GlobalDefines value MIN_BARBARIAN_STARTING_DISTANCE = 2 and already exploit it. It means that new barbarian units are not allowed to spawn within a 2 tile radius of ANY existing unit (including other barb units) on the map. This rule allows very efficient "fogbusting" on smaller landmasses. Here is an example (spoiler for current LHC Huayna Capac checkpoint 1):

Spoiler :

2 Quechuas and 1 Scout are all I need to keep my lands barb-free . It is not required to have active vision for all the tiles (the fog doesn't matter). I've changed the Dotmap-function of BUG to display the no-spawn areas for my three units.

Note that barb cities CAN appear 2 tiles away from my units if the tile is in the fog though.

Raskolnikov

 

[justinious]

Haha! Whatever.

You WANT to die???????????????

Whoops.

WATCH OUT.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I'd like to clarify something from the above turn report as I was also present during game play. We lost Philadelphia to a single barbarian Axe. In general, while it's great to be funny in a turn report, it's only great to be funny in a turn report that also lets your teammates know what's going on.

I know, it's a little like homework, but the rest of us rely on your report to know how to make the next right move. Knowing whether we lost Philadelphia to a freak luck combat by a warrior or a stack of doom with thirteen axes, nine archers, and a catapult makes a huge difference.

Roster:

Rex
Justinious >> just played
Arathorn << up now
Arkenstone

 

[ForGreatJustice]

Lurker's Comment:
Even though the barbs are a force in your game and causing headaches, I think the added pressure is good for learning purposes. Keep it up everyone, the light at the end of the tunnel is looming. You will have good land in the end for some serious cottaging once the barbs are gone. Plus, any barb cities you do take out will at the very least give you some gold for max research turns. Gotta look at the brightside

 

[SilentConfusion]

I have just started watching the game. I remember all the mistakes I made when I was learning, and it is amazing to me how much I have progressed from that point. I am still working on Emp/Imm, but it seems like not so long ago I was playing Noble. If anyone feels like they are making bad mistakes, don't lose heart.

Just a few comments on play to this point based on my own opinions:

First in relation to this:

One point from the point bears repeated emphasis I think.

Do not sign Open Borders! If you do, that civ will get past our line.

Justinious, when you found the next city, it should be in a position to fully seal our line so that no smelly forces from Mansa or Saladin can make it past. Then we can settle the whole south in peace (except for those idiots wearing black -- it's totally the wrong time of year for that!).

One note regarding AI settling and open boarders:

As I think RRR was pointing out, in BtS (not sure about previous versions), the AI will not send settlers through your cultural borders even if you have open borders. They will on occasion send galleys around but not for a while.

From the screenshot of the northern cities it looks like a border pop in those cities won't complete the seal so another city will be needed in between Not Chicago and Atlanta. But I would have settled Not Chicago 1E from it's current location. It will still work the gems with a border pop and in addition it would complete the seal with the first border pop without the need of another city.

Since getting a seal is very important to blocking the AI (settlers won't walk through your cultural borders to city site) I usually get Myst fairly early, and in this case I would have definitely gone Myst (supposedly 2 turns) before Alpha (10+) even though you could trade for Myst. I think it's that important. If Mansa gets a settler through the crack your border cities didn't do their job. A monument is usually the first thing I whip in a city if I need the border pop, and then a granary. A library can be built later in some of those future cottage cities, but right now it doesn't do much.

To complete the line a coastal city could be built possibly 1S of stone (depends on seafood), but this site is far less important than the other city, as you have lots and lots of land relative to your opponents. With that much land, you should be dominant in the late game. Just be careful with diplo until you've got the barbs taken care of and can focus troops on your northern border.

After looking at the last save I could see. I saw 7 cities and only 4 workers and with all that jungle workers need to be built asap. I saw non border cities with 3 or 4 total science building libraries. I think workers would be more beneficial to hook up cities and cut gems out of jungles and military units for barbs.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

All excellent points, SC. Thank you. I hope no one's looking at me to be the expert. (That's Arathorn's job.) I'm really rusty at Civ, having taken a two-year absence from the game until only just a couple of months ago. So, yes, I'm relearning through teaching in this game and the big mistakes on city placement and research are mine.

And thanks for pointing out that that lazy son of mine didn't attach the save. (Or, maybe, his dad never showed him how?)