Please Help Me Walk Through A Game

[May Day 10]

I have difficulty getting through Prince. As someone pointed out in a different thread.... I am a "builder" at heart, throughout my Civ career which is all well and good in creating teflon empires on easy levels, but doesnt cut it when the game gets harder and you need to be efficient, specialized, and aggressive.

So I would like to walk through a game over a few weeks. Went random, here are the settings, pretty basic



I drew Pacal


And the Start

 

[May Day 10]

So basically, being Expansive and Financial, these flood plains tiles are awesome. But my starting techs are a little worthless.

But first thing is first, hooking up food, right? I will want to go with Aggriculture - AH. Then Wheel - Pottery. Then beeline for BW. In this case, would I maybe do a Warrior first, then a Worker because there is nothing for a worker to really do until AH or Pottery?

As far as settling, 1W would be best? Or Settling in Place? I would gain the cows for 1W but lose a woods. (am I allowed to settle on woods without BW?) Actually, SIP may be better looking at it for longer...

 

[Izuul]

That looks like the coast to the north so settling that direction probably wouldn't be advisable.

You might consider spending a turn to settle 1W. The grass cows would give you a pretty legit food source so you wouldn't need to farm any FPs.

Hunting > AH isn't a bad tech path since you have a nice riverside ivory that's 1F,3H,3C with a FIN leader. Then you would only need BW later to unlock Holkans since they don't even require copper.

Playing on Prince you really just want to work on the basics and developing good habits. Worker first is almost always the right move unless you are coastal and going for a work boat first.

Yes, you don't need any techs to settle on tiles.

 

[Fippy]

Settling decisions are important, first comes warrior / scout move
Unless it's super obvious, you should never settle before moving your guy.

Here there might be something hidden on the green hill 2s of your warrior.
Pigs can be on those hills, and would be very nice.
So i would move him 1sw probably.

There's also no way i would ever SIP here..why?
Cos that costs a floodplains, does not get another cow and there's no chance of finding another (visible) resource cos it's all forests.

While this might not be hugely important on Prince, missing on another cow is really bad.
They are great early tiles.

 

[lymond]

Not crazy about the start for you, but it is not terrible with the fps.

Yes, you can settle on forest without BW...and I would do just as you say as the grass cow will help a lot since you don't have strong food resources.

I would still go worker first. You can farm a fp while waiting for AH for a bit faster growth.

I'm inclined to go BW before TW/POT, but honestly I think you can go either way and be fine. But BW will allow you to use some chops earlier to get settler and another worker faster.

(I though he might have moved the warrior already, but definitely do so before deciding)

oh..and provide the start save as well..folks may play along and show you things

(Hunting would be slightly faster, but I like Ag better for the POT path..plus you can farm fp first thing)

 

[Izuul]

Yep. Definitely take Fippy's advice and move the warrior to the cow tile before you decide where to settle.

 

[nate46]

Sure, i'll help out!

I think settling on the plains hill 2s1w is obvious in this case -- you wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good flood plain by settling in place, and the plains hill is within range of the grassland cow. Also, settling on plains hills gives you an extra hammer in your cap. You lose the fresh water connection but that isn't a huge issue on pacal who is expansive.

What's less obvious is what to tech. As i see it you have three options:

1) go agriculture --> animal husbandry to get the cow working. This could reveal horses, which would give you the option to horse archer rush someone nearby. Its pangaea so you'll probably have a lot of targets.

2) Ignore food techs for now and tech bronze working and go into REX mode by chopping a bunch of workers then settlers. You can grow your city on the flood plains while chopping workers and settlers (switching to worker the turn the chop comes in them switching back). Once you get about 3 cities start cottaging everything up.

3) go agriculture --> pottery and get the cottages and granaries up asap.

There's arguments for each strategy, i'm not sure what your style is. Although maybe the settler moving onto the plains hill will reveal another resource that could change the strategy.

Pacal is expansive so you should be chopping granaries in all of your cities as soon as you get pottery and bronze working and about 3 cities and 3 workers. I personally think granaries are overrated on non-expansive civs... but building them everywhere on pacal is a no brainer since he gets them for half-cost.

edit: wow this thread got popular fast....

 

[May Day 10]

Settling decisions are important, first comes warrior / scout move
Unless it's super obvious, you should never settle before moving your guy.

Here there might be something hidden on the green hill 2s of your warrior.
Pigs can be on those hills, and would be very nice.
So i would move him 1sw probably.

There's also no way i would ever SIP here..why?
Cos that costs a floodplains, does not get another cow and there's no chance of finding another (visible) resource cos it's all forests.

He started out NW of the Settler and before I print-screened, I moved SW

 

[Fippy]

Oh okay..yep 2 options then, 1w for "normal" play and a really good long term Cap guaranteed.

Or PH Nate mentioned, which is more advanced and you may not want that in a learning game.
But it's useful explaining it's main advantage, you can get a 10t worker when settling on plains hills with expansive. That's very fast, 15t for 1w.

edit: before choosing tech paths, you should compare worker turns vs. target tech (AH).
If you settle 1w, you would have 16t until your worker reaches cows and that should work out with hunting / AH on Prince (cheaper techs).

 

[May Day 10]

Not crazy about the start for you, but it is not terrible with the fps.

Yes, you can settle on forest without BW...and I would do just as you say as the grass cow will help a lot since you don't have strong food resources.

I would still go worker first. You can farm a fp while waiting for AH for a bit faster growth.

I'm inclined to go BW before TW/POT, but honestly I think you can go either way and be fine. But BW will allow you to use some chops earlier to get settler and another worker faster.

(I though he might have moved the warrior already, but definitely do so before deciding)

oh..and provide the start save as well..folks may play along and show you things

(Hunting would be slightly faster, but I like Ag better for the POT path..plus you can farm fp first thing)

I am leaning toward this advice so far... Probably 1W settle, Worker, go for AH, and then BW for the Unique Unit and Chop-a-rama and slavery.


I will also get the game file up sometime tonight.

 

[nate46]

I'll point out that if he builds two workers immediately, which seems like a good option for pacal --he'll save around 9 turns by settling on the plains hill -- just from the first two workers. 9 turns is a lot.

 

[Izuul]

PH is a good option and quite possibly what i would do, but i agree with Fippy that it might not be the best thing when trying to learn the basics. Absolutely fine if he wants to do that though.

 

[Fippy]

Hmm i will put this into another post, cos i find it rather important.

If you decide on settling 1w, hunting - AH is far superior.
Farming floodplains is something you want to avoid with financial, those should all be cottages.
And Eles are your 3rd fast & good tile at size 3, while your worker should also arrive at cows in time for AH.

Finding those good early combos helps getting a nice understanding of Civ4, and how much open space for improvement this game offers

 

[nate46]

also you can't be sure that 1W is a even better buruea cap than the plains hill--who knows what is to the south, its unexplored. If there's a corn down there or more flood plains you'll be kicking yourself for not settling on the plains hill

 

[May Day 10]

Hmm i will put this into another post, cos i find it rather important.

If you decide on settling 1w, hunting - AH is far superior.
Farming floodplains is something you want to avoid with financial, those should all be cottages.
And Eles are your 3rd fast & good tile at size 3, while your worker should also arrive at cows in time for AH.

Finding those good early combos helps getting a nice understanding of Civ4, and how much open space for improvement this game offers

So why Hunting? Is it cheaper?

 

[lymond]

yeah, I'm fine with this...had the impression mayday was going Hunt>AH anyway. honestly, i had POT on the brain and wasn't thinking about the ivory. It works out rather well. might even just head on to writing>alpha next, although may be best to get TW first

edit: ^^^yeah, hunting is cheaper than Ag, and you have a special that it applies to

(with that said, farming an fp early in not always a bad thing even if you cottage later..depends on growth needs and how worker turns work out)

@nate - I don't base these decisions on the unknown.. however, with the actual save open, one could get a pretty good idea of what is down there probably

 

[Izuul]

Oh okay..yep 2 options then, 1w for "normal" play and a really good long term Cap guaranteed.
But it's useful explaining it's main advantage, you can get a 10t worker when settling on plains hills with expansive. That's very fast, 15t for 1w.

You do need a 2H tile in the first ring to get a 10T worker though. Have to get the full 4H before the 25% expansive bonus kicks in. There may be a 2H tile available once he moves there, but there isn't in the screenshot.

Even if there isn't a 2H tile available you get 5 HPT for 5T, and then 6 HPT for 6T (after border pop) which is still a nice 11T worker. Either way it's 5-6T faster than settling 1W. The downside is that you won't have AH available for quite some time so it really locks you into farming a FP unless another resource shows up to the south.

Most likely 1W will provide a much better long-term bureau capitol. Plenty of raw hammers too with the cows, ivory, and a river grass hill mine. I think if the goal is learning, settling 1W and setting up 1-2 helper cities to grow cottages would be pretty beneficial.

 

[kevtrev]

So why Hunting? Is it cheaper?

It makes AH cheaper (by 20% I believe), and you will definitely be teching AH to get your food online. If the elephant wasn't there, then Ag -> AH is probably preferable, but as it is Hunt -> AH will work out beautifully.

Why?

Because cows are very strong tiles and very quick to improve (4 turns). Both give a yield of 6 (4f2h and 3f3h) vs. the 4f1c of a farmed fp, which takes 7 turns to improve and is not as desirable as a cottaged fp (3f3c, 5 turns). The elephant can be third tile, again quick to improve (4 turns) giving a very nice 1f2h3c. Once the cap is size 3 it's time to build settlers. The second or third city can share tiles with the cap and start to develop its fp cottages whilst it builds settlers/workers or runs scientists for an academy. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...

Settle 1W. Build worker. Tech Hunting -> AH. Meanwhile start looping around the cap with your warrior. Stop at turn 17 when the worker's built and update the thread.