RB1 - Cuban Isolationists

[WillowBrook]

Check out the color of the flag on the city and the color of the flag on the ship. That is a foreign ship.

Oops - clearly I'm having trouble with my colors.

 

[yoshi74]

Don't you agree that this gets tedious in the long run?? Doesn't this sort of go against Firaxis' general (and successfully implemented!) idea of less tedious micro-management tasks in the game?

Its somewhere on the line of shuffling workers around and units in war. Not always the most exciting thing to do and sometimes pretty tendios... but i can't imagine a better way which still keeps the player busy. And somehow automate them.... i don't trust the AI enough to automate anything. Even worse it would be boring .
Civ (like) games can't live without a certain degree of MM. I know one which tried without any MM (Moo3, and thats enough of this idea for some years ).

 

[Sullla]

I said the turns would be late tonight, didn't I? But they still got done, so here we go:

(0) 1675AD Well, we're in a Golden Age here for 3 more turns, running a huge surplus (+80g/turn) and still researching at a good clip (more than 500 beakers/turn). And that's with very few universities on hand and no observatories or labs! Ooh yeah, we're in good shape here. I go through out cities and reconfigure some of them slightly to increase growth; let's get our pop up too as far as it can go and extend our lead further over the AI civs!

(1) 1680AD Tons of universities complete, most notable project that gets started is San Roberto on Heroic Epic (only 4 turns!). This will be our #1 military city for the future, especially after we put Iron Works in there too. Can you say 2-turn Modern Armor?! Black Dot founded in the extreme south, as per Sirian's plan. It starts on a lighthouse, since the city will be all but useless until it gets a lighthouse for additional food (working the ice hill tile, so no growth at the moment). This will be a good demonstration of the potential use of ANY land, so long as you can supply it with food!

(2) 1685AD More universities finish. Santa Rosa is now our top science city! We'll definitely want to put Oxford University in there. I would build it now, but we're waiting on a few more universities to finish to get the requisite six. In the meantime, Santa Rosa is going to pop out a settler to have on hand when Alemanni pops its borders and allows us to expand further west.

We have leaped into #1 in GDP! (how much commerce each civ is producing) Yes, after trailing near the bottom of the pack for most of the game, the Cubans have now leaped to the forefront based on the strength of a late golden age. This is during golden age production, true, but it's still quite noteworthy. Killing the cottage-happy AIs in both population and production too, since they tend not to build enough farms and mines.

(3) 1690AD Golden age comes to an end... We slip to #2 in GDP. But I expect we'll be back to #1 before long! Finish research on Rifling, set a course for Corporation next so that we can build Wall Street in Havana.

(4) 1695AD Quiet turns. I've been running a slight surplus on research and using the money to upgrade some of our defenses. Still waiting on San Roberto to finish the Heroic Epic to begin a troop buildup there.

(5) 1700AD Economics discovered, on to Corporation (extra trade routes and Wall Street both make this a high priority!) San Roberto finishes Heroic Epic! 2-turn rifles already, even without a factory/power plant! Actually, it can get almost 100 shields/turn when building military units. Going to have it do infrastructure for the moment, in the expectation that Sirian will make a civics swap on his turn and run a general military crank for a little while.

(6) 1705AD Herodotus ranks us the second-largest civ in the world behind Alex. And there's still someone out there we haven't met yet! (What in the world are they doing? We certainly can't come to them in this game!) Santa Rosa finishes a settler (which heads over to Northwest Island), starts on Oxford University. Another national wonder that will be of great use to our civ down the road, methinks.

We are back to #3 in GDP again. I swear, you don't realize how much commerce you're getting from Open Borders until you have to do without it. That's the only possible way to explain that stat!

(7) 1710AD Adjusting more builds... wow, the AI governor *REALLY* likes to set specialists when you're running Representation. I have to keep manually removing specialists to ensure that cities keep growing. Yeah, we'll want to use lots of specialists down the line, but that's for when our cities are size 20+, not size 12! We want to keep growing until we reach that point. Otherwise, nothing too exciting going on. Holding down the fort.

 

[Sullla]

(8) 1715AD Corporation discovered - WOW do those extra trade routes make a difference! (Income jumps almost 30 gold/turn, and undoubtedly research increases by an even larger factor.) Research into Philosophy, which we can get in one turn at 80% science. Our GDP on the Demographics screen lept from roughly 140 to 180 with that tech too. Think trade routes make a difference in this game?

Arretium's borders expand up on Northwest Island. We can now move across to West Island and see what's over there! The galley indicated moves out, though it will take a turn or two to get there. There's a settler moving towards the area too so that we can plant another city and keep on island hopping.

(9) 1720AD Philosophy discovered. I finally see the opportunity to make some (even!) trades, so let's try this:

Philosophy to Huayna Capac for Music and change. Almost everyone already has Philosophy (just as we were just about the only ones lacking Music), and the two are almost even in beaker value. Seems like a nice bargain basement deal for both of our civs. Looking at the F4 screen, I further see that quite a few civs have Nationalism, but Caesar doesn't, and we similarly don't have Astronomy. The two techs actually have exactly the same beaker cost, so...

Keep in mind that this OBSOLETES our Colossus! However, we were almost to the point where we would have to research the tech anyway, and we weren't going to get a better deal than this one. Delaying the tech's acquisition for much longer wouldn't make a great deal of sense. I set our research to Chemistry next, making a note to upgrade a couple of galleys to galleons soon.

(10) 1725AD And as one wonder obsoletes, another takes its place:

What a marvellous coup for us! (Of course, we planned this out long in advance, so maybe "coup" isn't the best word to use.) Now we get *TWO* free specialists in every city on the continent! Representation-boosted specialists for that matter! Very, very, nice indeed. Havana is reconfigured for max growth, waiting on a couple more banks to complete before it can build Wall Street (we need about 8 more turns for them to finish). Oh, and get a load of this:

Havana can support 13 priests if desired! And that's with 0 cathedrals in it! That's just crazy. We could legitimately get that number over 25 if we built all the cathedrals that are possible. Not that there would be much point in doing that though.

There's the situation on that tiny island we can reach in the west. There's a settler along with that maceman; since there's a clams resource there, it's definitely worth founding another fishing village. And from there, we may be able to hop to the dyes resouce on the island to the north! It will take a lot of effort, but it should be possible. What a silly game!

I did relatively little with our defense. My plan was to focus on infrastructure here and let Sirian go with a civics swap to the XP civics if he so chooses and run a few turns of military buildup. Saint Bob can absolutely CRANK the troops now that it has the Heroic Epic; it will be SCARY when we add Ironworks in there too. Alternately, you can also choose to turn down science for a few turns and just upgrade the troops we have. That's probably what I'd do, but I thought I'd leave Sirian the option for a big military buildup if desired.

After we finish the military buildup (or before it, if we go the upgrade route), I think we should swap our civics to Freedom of Religion and Emancipation (granted, we don't have Liberalism yet, but it should be easy to get). Our civ has plenty of monasteries by now, and we're about to get factories which will largely render Organized Religion unnecessary. Similarly, we've probably got enough infrastructure in place by now to be able to drop Caste System in favor of the uber-cheap Emancipation civic. Up to you, of course, but that's my thought. Also - before we go to Freedom of Religion, let's scout out Buddhism and Hinduism. We've got those religion in most of our cities anyway, so we could legitimately swap to those two while still doing a military buildup, THEN go to Freedom of Religion after we've scouted with each of those two for 5 turns. It's a thought in any case (if Sirian can understand my ramblings, that is!)

One last thing - don't veto the two banks in production. We need them for Wall Street (only 4 out of 6 done so far). Wait till you see the income that Havana can pump once it has that too!

 

[Sullla]

Oh, one MORE thing to mention too. We still have a monopoly on Divine Right, so until someone else researches it, I see no reason to trade it to anyone else. Since it's an optional tech, the AI may just skip it entirely - wouldn't that be amusing?

Here's a map of our core empire:

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Lurkers question: (Since I don't have Civ 4 yet) For that settler on the island, would you build on the hills or in the desert to the left of it? Just wondering because normally you say specifically where you would build and why. The hills seem safer but the desert might give you other sea resources that might be to the west and cause no overlap.

 

[rabhison]

Great write-ups guys! Very informative.

Quick question: I haven't been able to get my Ironworks to work, and I know other people have had similar problems. (The screen says you're supposed to get 100% bonus from resources, but it doesn't actually appear in the shields tally on the city view screen.)

So when you get there, maybe you shouldn't bother trying to build it...

Here's a screenshot someone posted:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139164

Rabi

 

[The Fjonis]

Hello! Great game, I'm enjoying the read.

One question, though, about religions: multiple religions is powerful, no doubt about it, and can give a nice income if you build several shrines. But in order to get this bonus, you have to build tons and tons of missionaries to spread those religions about, and manually assign their target cities one by one (I usually use the Globe View for this). Don't you agree that this gets tedious in the long run?? Doesn't this sort of go against Firaxis' general (and successfully implemented!) idea of less tedious micro-management tasks in the game?

Cheers!

Its somewhere on the line of shuffling workers around and units in war. Not always the most exciting thing to do and sometimes pretty tendios... but i can't imagine a better way which still keeps the player busy. And somehow automate them.... i don't trust the AI enough to automate anything. Even worse it would be boring .
Civ (like) games can't live without a certain degree of MM. I know one which tried without any MM (Moo3, and thats enough of this idea for some years ).

I see what you mean, but still, I think the missionaries are a bit different. For while all other forms of management, such as selectiong what builings to build in a city, which civics to use, deploying workers and moving military units in time of war require you to think a bit and consider alternatives (is a farm best, or should I build a watermill? etc), missionaries are different. There isn't much choice to be made (which city you send him to really doesn't matter) - the path is already laid out, and all you have to do is complete it. IMO, in that sense, missionaries compare most to clearing pollution in Civ3 - both are tasks that you just have to do, not invovling much consideration or reflection.

Still, as you pointed out, I regret that I cannot think of a better system. Since the benefits of religion are so obvious, it should definitely take some effort to spread your religions about. Otherwise there wouldn't really be much point to it... But I think that a more abstract level would be good.

Thoughts, anyone?

 

[Jkaen]

I disagree, for example say you only have 1/2 your cities converted, do you send a missionary to your biggest city for the quickest impact, or do you send it to the one on the far side of your empire than the current converted cities in the hope of some natural religion spread saving you some missionaries, or do you even leqave your nationa lone or send them to your enemies (not viable here obviously) ?

 

[Thyrwyn]

Doesn't Civ IV place a limit of 2 National Wonders per city? If so, then I would think you would be better off with the Heroic Epic (double shields for military)/West Point (+4 xp for units in that city) combo for Saint Bob. I discovered this combo by happy accident in my first game. The benefits from the Pentagon (+2 xp for units in any city) apply to all cities, so it is not as important to build it in Saint Bob.

 

[Sullla]

I didn't post a dot because I knew that it would be obvious for Sirian as to where to place the settler (on the desert tile to the west). That will allow the new city to then mine the plains hill tile for shields, as well as avoiding overlap with Arretium. I'm sorry if I didn't explain the thought process for our readers.

With regards to the Ironworks, any bug regarding it would be news to me (we never had problems getting it to work in testing). If anything, that makes me more determined than ever to build it, so we can verify if there is a problem or not (and then pass it on to Firaxis if there is).

Would it be better to build West Point in San Roberto? That, I don't know. Since San Roberto is our top shields city (aside from the capital getting the Bureaucracy boost), I think it would be better to boost the overall shield production with Ironwork and then build MORE overall units there than add more experience to each unit produced with West Point. We could legitimately get over 150 shields/turn there for military builds, which is a shockingly high amount. (In fact, I see us building our entire modern navy out of Saint Bob!) But you're right in that there is no one right solution here, and going with West Point would equally be a valid choice. Although some people have chafed at the 2 national wonders per city rule, it's to set up choices like these that Soren implemented it.

As far as missionaries go, there was a point in time when all religion spreading was done automatically without player control over it. However, this proved to be not much fun and rather frustrating, so missionary units were created and the system we have now implemented.

Religion is a mini-game in Civ4. You can play (and win!) while paying little to no attention to it, if desired. You can also go hog wild on the religions and reap significant benefits, it's up to you. Do the missionaries introduce more micromanagement? A bit, I'd agree. But it's also not that hard to build one, then right click on the city you want him to go to, and then click the convert button when he gets there (it usually takes me all of 2 seconds to decide where to send the missionary). So I would hardly say that it adds a lot of tedium to the game. If you don't want to fool with religion, the game won't make you do so, which I think is about the best compromise possible.

 

[Vol]

lurker's comment: I also experienced the Iron Works bug in my city with Heroic Epic (Iron Works is listed as a +100% boost to shields, but the resulting number of shields show it has no effect at all).

I've even attached a save where you can see the bug in action. Hamburg, just south of the capitol, is the city with Iron Works.

 

[Sirian]

Yeah. It's a bug. I've passed it up the line, so no need for us to build Ironworks just to prove it's broken. ... It's broken!

So it looks like we can build either West Point or Red Cross in Saint Bob, depending on which turns up first.


- Sirian

 

[anjf]

You could boost your income by spreading al the religions, from which you have the holy city, by using misionaris, even if you just do that in your own land, it could give a great boost, sice cities as Havana or Santa Rosa will probaply build one in just a few turns. I have been in a similar situation but most other civ had the one religon i didn't found, but still I was able to gain much money with not more the 10-12 cities, and 5 shires

 

[Zed-F]

They've already been spreading their religions by missionary within their own lands. They haven't done so to other civs because of the variant rules they've chosen, of course (no open borders.)

 

[Double Stack]

In addition to having all the religions in the game, the AI will spread the religion for them regardless of the relations. So they make more money all the time as the world spread to the full.

 

[Sirian]

1725AD: Why are we still emphasizing Priests in Havana? (What is he smoking? ) We will be lucky to spread FOUR religions to all our cities. We already have four Shrines. Are we really going to beat on every city on the map to cram five religions in to all of them? I don't think so.

We have so many religious wonders, that even with no emphasis on Priests, we'll get more Prophets than we can use.

64%? Yikes. Well, we can put TWO prophets to use in late golden ages, which is the best possible use of our Great People in this situation. (We've got twenty cities). Any more and, well, I don't know what we'll do with them.

I switch Havana to University. (It didn't get one because it was busy building the Statue. Sulla may have overlooked this.)


1730AD: Judaism spreads again for the first time in eons. Aha! The Incan Black Dot!

1735: I convert our civ to Hinduism, for religious scouting purposes.

We only get a peek at four cities. The AIs are simply not very religious yet!

Nara? That's a Japanese city. Was it acquired by war or by culture flip? Hmm.

I did relatively little with our defense. My plan was to focus on infrastructure here and let Sirian go with a civics swap to the XP civics if he so chooses and run a few turns of military buildup. Saint Bob can absolutely CRANK the troops now that it has the Heroic Epic; it will be SCARY when we add Ironworks in there too. Alternately, you can also choose to turn down science for a few turns and just upgrade the troops we have. That's probably what I'd do, but I thought I'd leave Sirian the option for a big military buildup if desired.

We're talking about me here, right? The nutjob who ignores the assumptions and often goes with the unlisted possibility?

Behold! For I shall produce an army out of thin air.

 

[Sullla]

I can see where this is going...

 

[Sirian]

Uncle Sirian has a message for you, young man!

We begin "recruitment" in Havana.

Starting with the sons of current Senators.

"Son, if you can hold a rifle..."

AttennnnnnSHUN!

 

[Sirian]

"What do we have here? You got something to say to me, soldier?"

"You're not happy? YOU'RE NOT HAPPY? Does this look like your Momma's kitchen, boy? Ain't nuthin' cookin' in here to make YOU happy, boy. You got that!?! Now STFU and get back in line before I bust you down so far you have to look up to see the soles of my boots."



1745AD: Drafted three units of Riflemen. Havana, Rosa, and M-City.

1750AD: Drafted three units of Riflemen. Ravenna, Guantanamo, Madrid.

1755AD: Drafted three units of Riflemen. Santiago... (You gettin' the picture here??)

1760AD: Drafted three units of Riflemen.

1765AD: Drafted three units of Riflemen.

1770AD: Drafted three units of Riflemen. Fishing Village A, Fishing Village B, Fishing Village C.

Eighteen cities, eighteen units.

Also trained three units. We now have Twenty-one Units of Riflemen.

Twenty-one gun salute to the conscripts:


1770AD: Swap religion to Buddhism to "scout". Five cities peek out of the fog.

Having scouted, same turn we switch Civics back to "normal operations."

It will take most of Sulla's turn for the draft anger to fade, but we've got ourselves an army now.