Playthrough - Willem van Oranje

[CO0PS91]

Hello everyone!

I'm starting a playthrough in order to better my own game (and hopefully others will find this helpful) and to discover new techniques and play styles. I'm hoping that you fine people will get involved with this and give me helpful suggestions, hints and tips. I am going to be playing on Noble level as I feel at my current skill that's sufficient. I find Warlord too easy and have only moved up to Noble recently. I found Sisiutil's ALC post's really helpful so I'm hoping this will prove to be the same! So without further ado, here are the details of the game!

I'm going to be starting with Willem van Oranje of the Dutch Civilization. His UU is the East Indiaman (Naval) and his UB is the Dike (replaces Levee). I have chosen WvO primarily because of his two traits which I perceive to be one of the best combos for a leader in the game (Creative/Financial), and I feel these outweigh his fairly weak unique unit/building.

Civilization/Leader: Dutch/Willem van Oranje
Difficulty - Noble
Speed - Normal
Map - Fractal
Climate - Temperate
Sea Level - Medium
Map Size - Normal

Here is the starting position: -



My first thought - not a great starting area. We only have a plains Cow and the coastal Clams as visible food sources. I think moving towards the sea with the Settler would be too costly in moves, so I'm tempted to settle near to where I am. I'm thinking of moving the Warrior 1SE to see if there are any other food sources, if not I'd probably settle near to where I am as I have the 3 flood plains (unhealthiness issues later on?). City Build would probably be Warrior, Worker, Warrior and I'd most likely tech the Wheel and Pottery so I can take advantage of Willem's financial trait from the off.

What do you folks think? Any helpful tips will be greatly appreciated. I'll wait until I have some feedback before doing the next turn.

 

[Fippy]

Well you certainly would have to explain why you build warrior first
If you are rushing an AI (no idea if that's possible on Noble with warriors), that could make sense but should probably not be used cos if you advance further you will find they have archers now.

If you are not doing that, always start with worker (or work boat) first.
Building warriors first only makes sense for rushing or worker stealing.
Then again you might play with goody huts on..but i think for those you would want scouts instead.
Recommended turning those & random events off for forum games here.

I might also say that picking leaders who are good in your opinion is less helpful for learning games, pick something bad (like Toki, Charly) so you can play without traits distraction. Your aim could not be winning full games, but learning important steps.

Starting position..not very spectacular, scouting move sounds about right and if you find nothing you could just SIP.
No need for over complicated moves unless you find nice food

Pottery first does not look right to me (and would fall under distracted by traits), you will want something for expansion first and cottages are not helpful for that.
AH would be nice cos Cows are strong settler + worker production tiles, and you will want bronze working for more hammers help.
Cottages first is mostly used on highest diff. levels where research times are longer, but on Noble or Prince def. production techs first.

 

[lymond]

Excellent advice from My as usual. (Willie is Creative/Fin by the way) Good point to accentuate is not to get too caught up in leader traits right now. You can win with any leader, so less focus on traits and more on actually learning to play and making good decisions.

I might even go Hunting here first since you get a bit of a bonus on AH with Ag/Hunt and you have ivory. Worker can start farm on one Flood Plain before AH which you probably want due to poor food. (I'm assuming no other food specials here unless you luck out on a wheat 2S of warrior)

Big mistakes that newer players make tend to revolve around poor worker management, bad build choices and timings, poor tech decisions, and bad city placement. These are areas I think you should really focus on learning now.

I recommend getting the BUG mod and BAT mod.

 

[FlyingSwan]

I second Lymond with hunt/ah first,a riverside elephant with a FIN leader will give you 3 commerce which makes them good tiles to improve early,but your first priority is food.

As for the scout move,why not 1E onto the plains hill-it will reveal more.


edit.WvO is CRE/FIN not SPI...

 

[nate45]

>I'm thinking of moving the Warrior 1SE to see if there are any other food sources

You should move the warrior to to the plains hill, cause hills give sight bonuses, so you could see everything around that plains hill, including whatever you'd see by going southeast. Depending on what you see, that would help you determine whether you want to settle on the plains hill or settle in place. IMO, if the warrior spots anything good at all, you should probably move to the plains hill. You lose 2 turns by moving, but you get your worker 3 turns faster anyway, so you net +1 turn, and then you get +1 hammer in cap for the whole game. Although if the warrior finds nothing good near the plains hill besides what you already see (clam/elephant) you should probably not move, cause you'd lose the cow and a few flood plains. why don't you scout the plains hill and see what you find?

also i second/third what everyone else is saying: Build worker first not warrior first. You want to get that cow going and also probably want to irrigate one flood plain for food before you worry about cottage spam.

 

[Amao]

so you do get desert in fat cross from Fractal? such a imbalance map!

 

[nate45]

so you do get desert in fat cross from Fractal? such a imbalance map!

That's a flood plain. You can see a bit of the river in the corner.

 

[Tatran]

The warrior should reveal more tiles to see where to settle coastal.
The starting location is weak and will slow down your development.
You also need the Wheel to link the happy resource.
To settle on one of the two plains hills is probably the best choice.

 

[CO0PS91]

Round 1: 4000BC - 3440BC

I can already tell you folks are going to be helping/carrying me through the game !

I moved my Warrior 1SE and discovered another Ivory source directly below the first one. However, there were no other resources to be seen so I took Fippy's advice and settled in place. I thought it to be the best option despite lack of a good food source. But I'll have 12 forests to chop which is good I suppose. Oh and look what it revealed -



A goody hut which I'll pop with my first border expansion (3 turns)! I'm playing this game with them on as well as random events, I might do my next game without them depending what you people think of them.

Anyway, I ditched my aforementioned plans of going Wheel>Pottery and took lymond's advice of researching Hunting so I get a boost for AH. This seemed to make even more sense now there was another Ivory source, yet I'm always unsure of what to do with repeating resources. Trade them to other Civ's for alternate resources or ignore them and build a more worthwhile improvement? I'm leaning towards the trading as they're on plains tiles which aren't all that great.

I continued exploring to the SE with my Warrior, and then the goody hut popped which resulted in a gifted map -



There's some OK but not great terrain to the NW of me, yet I'm already thinking about a potential second city 2N of the Marble. It looks to be a hill (hopefully plains) that would have the Corn, Marble and Silk in it's BFC. Obviously the silk won't matter until Calender, but it would be nice to have the option there. I continued scouting to the south of Amsterdam. It seemed to just be coast, so I kept going SE. I popped another hut but this one was hostile! Luckily, it was on a forested hill so the resulting attack did no damage just gave my Warrior experience! The next turn Buddhism was founded in a distant land and AH completed -



There's a Horse resource inside the BFC of the potential second city!

...and I think this is where I'm going to leave the game for the moment as I have some important decisions to make. My first decision is what to research next. I have opted for Mining at the moment as I want to be able to chop forests and see Bronze with Bronze Working, and potentially research Masonry fairly soon so I can hook up Marble with the suggested second city. Next is the build order of Amsterdam. I'm thinking a Warrior or two (send it SW to then head north) so the city can grow and then build either Worker or Settler. I'm thinking Worker next as I haven't met another Civ yet so I might not have to do a land grab. But an early settler might be useful for those resources up north. Here is a look at the discovered world -




And here is a potential dot map from what I can see so far -



The potential second city I think is in a good location but obviously if you guys think it can move to be better then I will. The third city, despite the Clams, is pretty awful but could be a good bridging city for the Corn, Beaver and Wine in the far right, and it might have another resource in the undiscovered tiles. I could have a city 2E 1N of the Fish but the only trouble with that is the 4 mountain tiles that it would have . I know a whole lot of the map isn't revealed but I'm hoping you folks can provide your words of wisdom and guide me in the correct direction!

 

[Strickl3r]

I would settle the clam spot closer to my capiol to share some tiles, like 1-2 cottages and elephants.

Settling on the plains hill wouldn't be to bad.

 

[Fippy]

Certainly not bad surroundings
City 2 area you picked right, but most here would always settle that on the plains hill southeast of your marker without thinking, and this would be a nice task for you: list all reasons why

 

[nate45]

Ok. First, I'm going to comment on your dot map:

Generally speaking you should build your cities as close together as possible, unless you have a strategic reason to build further away (blocking off an AI, or securing an important resource). close together cities are advantageous for a few reasons:

1) Lower maintenance costs due to distance from capital.
2) Your cities can re-enforce eachother easier with units if they are under attack.
3) Your cities can "share" resources that the other doesn't need at the moment, which will relieve some pressure on your workers.
4) You can fit more total cities in the same amount of area.

You seem to be constructing your dot map such that the cities "fat crosses" do not overlap, and this is not really a serious concern or something you need to worry about at all. Overlapping fat crosses is perfectly fine and often a good thing. You won't be able to work the whole fat cross until you get 20 people in your city, and even then you'd rather have specialists. You can win the game or gain a decisive advantage long before then. There is no reason at all to think that far ahead. And in any case, you want to fit as many cities as possible near your capital because these cities are cheaper maintenance wise, so even in the long term its much better to settle near your cap.

My opinion is that you should build your second city on the plains hill 2E1S of the horses, because you want to secure that resource. Build your third city directly on the wine (this gives +2 commerce, a nice boost). Build your fourth city on the plains hill 1W1S of the clams.

edit: I made a map

as you can see i like settling on plains hills for the extra hammer. It really does help.

city "6" is optional. It may be necessary to block off an AI from settling your land. You have another good 5-6 city spots to the south and the southwest west, which the 6th city helps block off and claims as yours... although not sure exactly where to put them, I can't see if there are any more fish south of your screenshot.

 

[Gaires]

I would settle second city on the plain hill between marble and corn as well, because you can do one more ok city to west 1N1E of the clam, it would get the clam and horse.
In east i would settle 2S of the clam, it would get ok amount of river grass and early on use elephant(s) before Amsterdam could use them both.
In south with this information i would settle on the grass hill next to cow, it gets some grass land too and could help with Amsterdam's cottages.
For the tech, bronze working next is good, after that you could go pottery, writing or masonry, because with 12 forests you could get pyramids if you want.

 

[CO0PS91]

Thanks for the feedback already guys, more is appreciated .

In regards to the dot map, I wasn't aiming at having each city's BFC separated I just thought they were the best/optimal locations - obviously I was wrong ! Having read the comments posted already, I think the unanimous decision for the second city is the plains hill 1SE of the planned city. I like nate45's advice about the third city, but I think before I get too far ahead of myself I should scout that area.

Any advice about build order? Like I said in my previous post I'm thinking 1 or 2 Warriors, Worker then Settler. And I think I'll stick with Mining>BW so I can utilise those forests early on.

 

[Fippy]

Depends on how worker turns develop, but usually with this start i would build another worker at size 2 and then settler if i have BW. There's too much to do here, and 2 workers > a new city first where you would slow build it's own worker again.
Or you would build another worker in your cap, but then other way round really works better.

 

[Tatran]

This start is a clear example why SIP was a bad choice.
A few more turns scouting and settling on the wine and grabbing the river corn would have been a no-brainer.

 

[nate45]

This start is a clear example why SIP was a bad choice.
A few more turns scouting and settling on the wine and grabbing the river corn would have been a no-brainer.

eh... scouting too much on normal speed before settling is really risky. If this was marathon. i'd agree with you but wasting normal speed turns is a huge problem.

 

[nate45]

Any advice about build order? Like I said in my previous post I'm thinking 1 or 2 Warriors, Worker then Settler. And I think I'll stick with Mining>BW so I can utilise those forests early on.

worker first is almost always better than warrior first. You don't need warriors this early.

edit: i'm dumb, i forgot you already built a worker.

I'd still build a second worker here though, as fippy says there's lots of stuff to do. Personally i'd build it from size 1 rather than waiting for size 2 although it probably doesn't matter much...

 

[Tatran]

eh... scouting too much on normal speed before settling is really risky. If this was marathon. i'd agree with you but wasting normal speed turns is a huge problem.

With some luck only 1 turn (max 2 turns) would have been lost,
settler -> NW (floodplains) -> N (plains forest) and warrior -> E (plains hill).

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Yup, no. 2 is looking good now, fippy was absolutely right about that. You really should understand why that is such a good spot.

I would want to be working those riverside elephants as soon as possible with a financial leader, that is a good tile. You will need some farms to be able to do that though. Oh, that's been mentioned as well, lymond is on it.

Okay, then let me suggest that you start planning your worker moves. Which tile to improve first, how to move from there to the next tile and so on. You want to see their path with similar precision as your tech path, choosing the right goal is important, each step along the way is important, eliminating waste is important.