Qualification Poll, city after Quatron?

[Earthling]

See, I would actually say some of those things, which had been part of discussing/mentioned before, really aren't "technical" and that's where I agree with Tyboy. Some of the points are true, securing trade routes and cultural borders being the most important, and getting another health resource is direct measurable, the debate there being how necessary it actually is

But a "forward base" and "local hammers" mean very little though. Especially since Resonance in fact will have clam and flat grassland tiles, it realistically will not be a center of production right away - it doesn't mean anything in terms of the game really. As far as military and transport costs go right now, one galley can transport 2 units at a time, and it's a short distance from Continuum over there - in other words, until we're building more than about 1-2 units a turn on the home island, there's little difference in "supply lines" or "local military" or whatever between if we'd just units etc... over eventually.

In terms of just claiming the land so that other teams know, yes, we are doing that, and that has uncertain effects on diplomacy and the game as it goes forward. But for raw hammers/commerce/economy, we're not getting any special or possibly the most benefits out of these cities, that just has to be recognized. (I do agree we'll probably have a slight weight to commerce over hammers as the most likely outcome, as Tyboy also said)

 

[peter grimes]

I've been absent for a while (work has been crazy), but I'm trying to catch up.

My vote is to settle The Island before the mainland - in other words, unless we are going to settle a military production city on the Mainland, I don't see the point. Grabbing a sole source of Iron? Certainly! But that's not been mentioned yet, since we haven't gained the ability to even see Iron yet

One thing that I only saw mentioned obliquely, but I think is actually pretty important: How will the other teams respond to seeing a Quatronian city on the mainland?

Think for a minute or two, and you'll see that it could well result in a land-grab race. Are we prepared to run in that competition? Not yet, for sure. I can easily imagine my doppelganger on the other team, strongly advocating for settling a foothold on the mainland as soon as possible simply so as not to be left behind. But if the other teams don't see us as an expansion threat, they may not rush to settle the mainland; and therefore we will not be FORCED to settle faster than we'd like.

For that matter, I'd advocate that once we do get a land unit over there, we should keep him out of view of the coasts so as not to worry the other teams

 

[TyBoy]

Note that to actually block a trade route you have to be at war with BOTH parties that you want to prevent trade between and be the only route, it's actually very difficult. Lord knows there have been a few games where I have been extremely frustrated by my inability to cut my war target off from resources.

 

[Provolution]

Well, now we are 5-5, and in good faith, I am willing to switch votes to island, as time is getting short (I am switching sides not because of "opportunism" or because I am "confused", but because I see many routes to the same goal), and we need to plan the production of Continuum accordingly.

Given this scenario, I expect support for researching Alphabet, especially as we now see Indiansmoke starting his metagame insults again. He and two others were the prime reasons I left that very team, even though it was leading the game for periods.

If this is the context, I would follow CavScouts lead on the galley-warrior first, then worker, settler, settler, settler, settler and trade for as many resource based techs in the meantime.

 

[Earthling]

Note that to actually block a trade route you have to be at war with BOTH parties that you want to prevent trade between and be the only route, it's actually very difficult. Lord knows there have been a few games where I have been extremely frustrated by my inability to cut my war target off from resources.

I am pretty sure this is not true. You cut off trade even if you are not at war, as long as you don't have open borders. Now not having open borders with CDZ for instance may be self-defeating, but it'll still exist as the "threat" that we could cut off their trade, if they have no other way around, and they shouldn't pre-Astronomy.

 

[TyBoy]

I felt pretty confident about that based on a single player game in which an "ally" was trading ivory to someone I was fighting and I was trying to cut them off. So I went in game and tested it pretty thoroughly with the world builder.

What I did was position myself in the middle of a long thin strand and two other civs at either end. I edited in calendar, sailing and the wheel for everyone and hooked up multiple copies of a resource for everyone and revealed map and put units in so everyone could see the sea-link and had contact with everyone. I also pumped up the culture in each city so it was sure to control all possible routes past their part on the line. The two other civs started trading their resource immediately. Then I declared war on one of them and waited a couple turns, they were still trading. Then I declared on the other one and waited a turn, that stopped the trading.

After that I added a 4th civ to see how it worked with me involved in the trading so that the civs were lined up X - Y - Z - me with culture blocking any trade routes between any civs not bordering. While I was at war with Y, I was still able to trade with X. I also set it up so that I was at war with only Y and X was at war with only Z. In this situation I was unable to trade with X, which surprised me.

For the heck of it, I then gave out writing and opened borders between various civs. It did not affect any of the trading.

I had initially thought that everyone had a trade area that consisted of everywhere they could peacefully access from their capital and as long as those two touched they were able to trade, that turned out not to be the case. I then thought maybe they had to actually overlap, but pulling back cultural borders so that there was neutral sea between each civ did not change anything. I now think that it requires that atleast one of the two civs has to have a peaceful route all the way from their capital to the other guy's, with no meeting halfway allowed. Either we have to be at war with both parties, or atleast one person inbetween them has to be at war with each. For example we could go to war with the civ beyond mavericks and CDZ could go to war with mavericks, and CDZ would still be unable to trade with the civ beyond mavericks, even though they were at peace and neither us nor mavericks were at war with both of them, unless CDZ or the civ beyond mavericks explored around the flower the other way and met up with CDZ's culture again. Open borders don't figure into it at all.

This is all only relating to who you are eligible to trade with. Open borders are obviously still required to enable commercial trade, though I think these same rules govern who you can trade with commercially, provided you have the open borders. As you can see, actually blocking a civ off from trade with another is very unlikely unless you are involved in a two front war. It's one of the real deficiencies in civ4 diplomacy I hope they're diving into for #5. It's certainly been a very important theme in a number of major real-world conflicts.

P.S. It occured to me to see if boats set to blockade have any additional effect. Blockade can not be used within your own cultural borders. Long story short, I ran it through a few similar tests. It appears to basically have the same effect as though your cultural borders occupied the blockaded area, but still requiring war with both parties involved to actually stop trade.

 

[Earthling]

The trading for resources surprises me, but I guess we have to live with it; war is not feasible to do just for that. I just tested how open borders/the actual trade routes work (that's what I was referring to there) and it's the same way so you were right. Unless we're at war with both they still get trade routes and can trade resources. That's kind of ridiculous I guess but everyone has to live with it, wonder if the mapmakers were aware of/remembered that.

Though come to think of it we should have tested how the Ocean-cultural thing worked. Actually I can do that too, and I ought to post a test save/screens.

Edit - ok, it looks like Ocean actually WILL cut off trade routes if there aren't connected cities on another land mass - both resources and trade routes. So that kinda ameliorates this situation, but it's still odd all around. For us personally, this does mean we don't get to trade until everybody starts settling off of their home islands, since trade between home islands won't work until astro.

Worldbuilded saves to play around with:
View attachment no oceans.CivBeyondSwordSave
View attachment with oceans.CivBeyondSwordSave