Randomly Conquering Monarch 6CC

[Nad]

It's been over a year since my last Civ 3 SG but I always knew I'd be back for Civ 4 . I've had the game for a month or so, and now I have a permanent home internet connection, I want to get back into the SG fold. As per tradition, I'm looking to start a variant game, a 6CC conquest on Monarch with random world parameters.

Game: Civ 4, patch 1.52
Speed: normal
Difficulty: monarch

Civilization & Leader: random
Opponents: 6 random
Map Size: standard
Landmass: continents
Climate & Sea Level: random

Victory Conditions: all enabled, CONQUEST required
Variant: strict 6CC. We may NEVER have more than 6 cities at any point. These 6 cities can be founded ourselves or captured, but once we have 6 we must raze anything else we capture. If we ever lose 1 of our 6 cities, then we may capture another city. Our aim is to conquer the world with the might of our 6.

Etiquette: 24 hours for a "got it", 48 further hours to play. This will be a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule.

I'm looking for 4 or 5 players. No "qualifications" are required to join, but you must be up for a challenging game. I like to play hard but fair, with plenty of team input on decision-making and strategy. Once we have enough players, I'll generate the map and we can talk tactics. As per my custom, the first start is the one we will take, our aim is to play the hand we're dealt.

 

[grs]

I'll join this. Continents will probably make this very hard, since we will have a difficult time keeping up in research later on. Additionally I think civ4 is harder to play with outdates units than civ3 was.

 

[microbe]

Nad, welcome back!

I really want to join this SG but I don't think I'm ready for it right now due to various issues. I'll be watching though. I only played/won one Monarchy game so far.

 

[microbe]

Double post.

 

[Greebley]

Hi Nad.

I would like to join this as well.

 

[goraemon]

Hi, I'll join. I'm a developing monarch player (meaning I'm beginning to consistently beat the level on standard continent, random civ, all standard settings) but it's still far from a walk in the park. One of the games I won at monarch I did it with just 6 cities, but that was a space race victory. I have some domination victories too but never won by conquest at these settings so this will be a great challenge for me.

 

[knupp715]

I'll join also, if there is room for me. I am a in the same boat as goraemon. I play mostly prince level games but I have won a few monarch games. I'm looking forward to this game. It should be a challenge, and a fun learning experience.

 

[kryszcztov]

Hey Nad !! Glad to see you around. For some reason, that Civ3 SG that we played together, the Non-Midas theme, is stucked into my mind. I'm not joining your game, as I'm not into SGs right now, but good luck. With grs on your side, you're with good company (I know him).

BTW, in Civ4 a 6CC isn't often a variant... You have less cities and all...

 

[Nad]

Excellent. This game is now FULL.

ROSTER

Nad
grs
Greebley
goraemon
knupp715

Nad, welcome back!

I really want to join this SG but I don't think I'm ready for it right now due to various issues. I'll be watching though. I only played/won one Monarchy game so far.

Hey Microbe, good to hear from you. I'm jumping into this game a bit too, I'm comfortable winning on monarch but haven't tried this variant fully yet (experimented enough to know it's feasible). Look forward to playing together again in the future

Hey Nad !! Glad to see you around. For some reason, that Civ3 SG that we played together, the Non-Midas theme, is stucked into my mind. I'm not joining your game, as I'm not into SGs right now, but good luck. With grs on your side, you're with good company (I know him).

BTW, in Civ4 a 6CC isn't often a variant... You have less cities and all...

Hey krys! The Non-Midas Touch was a classic even though we lost. Again, maybe we could play another SG together in the future?

You're absolutely right that 6CC is not the same as it would have been in Civ 3, in some ways it might help in the early game with maintenance costs to be restricted. However, for a conquest game production will probably be as important as commerce so the idea is to limit that. The reason I went for 6CC was so we still had just enough cities to enable several national wonders that rely on 6 buildings (Wall Street, Oxford, Ironworks etc). Otherwise I'd have gone for 5CC a la Five Take On The World in Civ 3.


Great, onto the game. I'm gonna go generate the start now, and what the map generator offers us will have a significant impact on strategy. We're gonna have lots to discuss early on about what path we take, so I'll start a game and then we can have a team discussion.

 

[Nad]

We drew Napoleon of France. Not bad at all, Aggressive will come in mighty handy in this game and half price forges will boost our military production - and maybe we can pinch an early wonder (Pyramids - Representation!).

We start with agriculture and farming. The settings tab shows we have been assigned a temperate world with medium sea level...sounds fine.



So we need to discuss what we should do. I think in a perfect world we should look to plop down 6 cities in good locations with no overlap and trying to grab as many resources as possible, try to nab the Pyramids, get resources online, build crucial buildings (barracks, courthouses etc), stay in touch with the tech leaders, and look to start taking out neighbours somewhere around macemen? Sounds pretty ambitious! Of course, contact with other AIs will surely change many aspects of that, on a medium sea level we'll be lucky to be able to plant 6 perfect cities, it's more likely we'll get 4 and have to conquer the other 2.

The other question for the early game is whether to go cottage heavy or farm heavy for flatlands tiles. If we get the pyramids, then representation for + 3 beakers on specialists makes a farm heavy approach attractive, but in my limited experience I think the guarantee of cottage income is the better way to stay in the tech race in the classical and medieval ages. So I think for cities with good food, we should look to build plenty of cottages.

In the immediate aim, I should think that my initial turns should be worker first, then warriors, look to do a bit of scouting. We can get that wheat hooked up fast for quicker growth and there seem to be plenty of forests around. I don't think we particularly need a religion for this game, so I'm thinking hunting, mining, bronze for initial research, and start getting Paris improved quickly.

What are your thoughts guys?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RCM6CC_BC-4000.Civ4SavedGame

 

[grs]

link is broken

 

[Nad]

haven't uploaded or used the forums for a long time, so I'm making a few mistakes...but the link should be fixed now.

 

[knupp715]

Napoleon - This is good. I think we should use his traits to the limit. Maybe grab an early wonder or two. Edit: (Removed - missed it) The industrial trait will help us to get forges, so I think we should grab them quick, build them before the AI's and use our advantage to pump out some military units.

The aggressive trait will really help us build barracks early on and get some nicely promoted units. An early military campaign is tempting, but I think we should get our six cities (or however many we can build in the space given to us) up and running first. Establishing ourselves in the beginning should help out a lot.

I see no reason to chase after an early religion. If we so desire we can pop a Great Prophet and rush a tech for a later religion.

 

[knupp715]

One more thing, are you planning to build a worker first at still a population of one? In my experience, this can hurt early growth.

 

[grs]

Just a bit of brainstorming while looking at the save.

Hmm...the wheat does not give us any bonus before we work it so I would say we could risk moving the settler to a place where the wheat is only in the outer ring (hope that is understandable). Reason is that I would not like to waste a forest by settling on it. On the other hand there are not many attractive places to move to. South is desert and desert hill, so S and SW are out. NW will make us lose the elephant. The warrior won't give us any valuable info, so all in all I would say pop the hut and settler in place (very sad to lose the forest though).

I generally agree on building cottages on grassland as long as we get decent food. With only a wheat on plains yet and some nice grassland hills with forests we will probably chop/mine soon, I am not sure we can do without farming some grasslands at least.

For reasearch I would like to have mining and bronze working after we assume our worker to have improved the wheat.

Last, I'd prefer one warrior before the worker to explore.

 

[Nad]

The screenshot is in the post.

Yes, I'm definitely thinking worker first, simply because farming the wheat (which we can do immediately) will greatly accelerate our growth to all other sizes. Effectively we'll get to size 2 maybe 15 + turns or so later than we would going warrior first, but we'll increase our growth to all other sizes drastically (+3 food) and we'd have to build that worker anyway, which would require a pause in growth at size 2 or 3. So my reasoning is why not pause growth when the opportunity cost is lowest (ie we would be working a single unimproved tile)?

 

[knupp715]

I agree with GRS. One warrior to scout things out before the worker.
Cottages will help us with early gold and research, hopefully we can be the tech leaders in this game.

I wouldn't move the settler though. I find that usually the best place to build is right where it is, (if you move, a copper/iron resource might be right outside city radius when you discover iron/bronze working).

 

[Nad]

okay, maybe I'll go warrior-worker...we'll still be at size 1 when we go for the worker so the opportunity cost is still low...it's just a case of whether having an extra explorer first in exchange for a slower growth curve is worth it. Hard to say, but since we might be able to pop some huts, a free tech or unit would definitely tilt the balance.

 

[Nad]

Turn 1, 4000BC: warrior pops hut for 52g, found on the spot, no more resources but coastline and another goody hut to the west. Start on warrior, research set to hunting.

Turn 6, 3800BC: borders have expanded, jungle to the north, plains to the east, neither particularly appealing.

Turn 7, 3760BC: hunting is in, start on mining.

Turn 9, 3680BC: warrior is complete, since there are only 3 turns til growth, I decide to delay the worker and gap-build barracks (despite what I said about opportunity cost - what a hypocrite I am!). New warrior will also explore.

Turn 11, 3600BC: Hinduism is FIDAL. Warrior pops hut for archery! What a bonus!! Now the warrior first approach has definitely paid off.



Turn 12, 3560BC: Paris is size 2 so switch to a worker.

Turn 14, 3480BC: we have a gold resource just to the northwest of Paris. Fish resource also to the west. A few other resources are being revealed in the south and east, cows, bananas, and rice. We have a good range so far.

Turn 15, 3440BC: mining is researched, start bronze working. Buddhism is FIDAL. Our warrior sees a panther in the jungle, he's on a hill so he should survive an interturn attack.

Turn 16, 3400BC: warrior survives but needs to heal 4 turns.

Turn 17, 3320BC: other exploring warrior ends turn next to a bear. He's in the jungle, so again, should survive.

Turn 18, 3280BC: warrior wins easily but needs to heal 2 turns.

Turn 19, 3240BC: we have contact from Washington of America as one of his scouts hoves into view.

Turn 22, 3120BC: Huayna Capac of the Inca introduces himself with an archer. An American archer is going to beat us to a hut by 1 turn .

Turn 23, 3080BC: worker complete, resume barracks. Start farming wheat.

Turn 24, 3040BC: exploring warrior ends turn next to a panther again, but this time he's on grassland...

Turn 25, 3000BC: panther kills our exploring warrior Combat odds reveals it only had a 22.9% chance. I'll hand off here.



The Save File: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RCM6CC_BC-3000.Civ4SavedGame

 

[knupp715]

Nice set of turns. Popping a hut to get archery, I guess that warrior first strategy really did pay off. I suggest GRS plays 20 turns. Greebley 15 turns. And then back to a normal 10 turn set.