RB1 - Cuban Isolationists

[Sullla]

We're off to a good start here, just about ready to found a city with our first settler at Pink Dot. Main priority for this set of turns will be to improve defense beyond our cardboard cutout warriors. You could do that in Civ3, but the barbs in Civ4 have teeth, and there's no telling what Victoria will do either! I'll carry out our proposed goal of building a barracks and two archers, then leave it to Sirian as to whether to go right onto another settler from there. My feeling is that we'll probably need one by that point to head for (one of the!) Orange Dot(s).

Goals:
- Found Pink Dot
- Upgrade military
- Fend off barbs

(0) 1600BC Everything basically looks OK for now. However, there's one thing I can do to speed up the construction of our barracks by a turn: swap BACK to a religion again so we can gain the benefits of Organized Religion!

I go with Buddhism just for kicks (utterly irrelevant at this point). ETA for barracks drops from 7 turns to 6. A minor change, to be sure, and we do lose a fair amount of culture from putting two of the hydra's three heads to sleep, but if I can do it without costing us anything, why not? We aren't about to cross the 5000 culture mark for another border expansion in Havana anytime soon!

(1) 1560BC Oddly enough, I can't seem to get my units to move with the mouse all of a sudden. Wonder whether that's from Alt-Tabbing to type this (?) Been ages since I used the numberpad to move units, heh - I'd be lost if I tried to go back to Civ3 now!

(2) 1520BC Oho! I was still on the strategy layer of the globe view apparently even though I wasn't looking at the globe. Weird. Perhaps a minor bug? Anyway, the settler approaches Pink Dot. It's marked with a sign so I can't mistake the tile!

(3) 1480BC Worker finishes mine on gold tile - I'm going to have him wait on that tile until we finish research on The Wheel. Nothing else he can do now, and I'd have to move him back there anyway to start the road in just a couple turns. London's borders hit size 3 this turn, judging by Vicky's score.

(5) 1400BC Success! Santa Rosa founded!

Hmm, I took a picture of this, but it didn't appear in the folder afterwards... I can dispense with that sign now, of course, but I put new ones up for Orange dot to let Vicky know who's boss around here! Yeoch on that maintenance cost though (2 gold), but we'll manage. Santa Rosa begins work on a Fishing Boat, since it has a clam right there.

(6) 1360BC Havana finishes its barracks, starts Archer (also grows to size 5 this turn). Since we don't need the Organized Religion boost when building units, I swap us back to NO state religion again. Anyone who says Spiritual isn't a powerful trait doesn't know what they're talking about. You just *CAN'T* do this kind of stuff with any other kind of civ!

Tough call on what tile to grab with the 5th citizen in Havana. I can go with one of the lake tiles to emphasize growth, or pick one of the mined hill tiles to increase shields. In almost every situation imaginable I'd go with growth, but frankly the *SEVEN* commerce of that gold tile is a difficult lure to pass up. Since we're almost certainly going to build another settler at size 5 before growing to size 6, in this ONE situation, I'm going to emphasize the shields/commerce over growth. A real rarity. Sirian will probably whack me with the prod for it , but I want to get these archers out ASAP and then get another settler out to claim Orange dot.

(8) 1280BC Havana builds an archer, starts another. This archer goes to provide defense for Sanata Rosa, our reach city (he takes the City Garrison promotion, of course). After this second archer, I expect to go onto another settler. We can get some more workers once our borders are sealed off!

The Wheel finishes research, and I think hard about what to go with next. The top priority is Bronze Working and Agriculture so that we can put some farms on the two grassland forests next to Havana. Since we need to chop before we can farm, and we'll be able to see copper to boot, I go with Bronze Working first (if we had a worker up by Sanata Rosa and its rice, I would have gone the other way around).

(10) 1200BC And that's it. Nothing too crazy happens in the last two turns.

Second archer will finish next turn and I think we should go with a settler next - it's only a matter of time before Vicky shows up with another settler. We've got to try and plug the gap before that happens! Which "Orange" we take likely will depend a lot on what she does.

 

[Sullla]

And the large map:

 

[microbe]

It seems the addition of civics adds a lot of micromanagement (with spiritual civs).

 

[Speaker]

Speaker already tried to get me to jump into a MP game, but I declined (stupid work...)

I grabbed Sebmono instead and we're just into the age of Cavalry. Co-op MP is FUN! We're finally experiencing our first major war, and it's apparent that the combat in CivIV is 1000000x better than in Civ3. Peter the great was rolling out pikemen with 100% bonuses against mounted units, that were more than a match for my cavalry, but fell easily at the hands of my macemen and musketeers. Catapults are great, but against anything other than ancient units, a collateral damage attack seems to mean kamikaze. Sometimes worth it, sometimes not.

I am very pleased (but not about the fact that I have to wake up in 5 hours).

A comment relating to the game, so I'm not just threadjacking
I noticed that small "strategy layer" bug too Sullla. But I thought it was a "feature."

Also a question
To Sirian and Sullla, both: Do you find that you are spacing your cities significantly more than in Civ3 to avoid maintenance costs? Is OCP more "right" here (or is even that too close together), or do resources and tiles take full prescendence now--meaning a new city might "waste" several tiles or it might overlap by a few tiles depending on what the land had to offer? I've been sort of playing it both ways in my experiments, but haven't been able to draw any conclusions yet.

 

[Sirian]

It seems the addition of civics adds a lot of micromanagement (with spiritual civs).

Not normally. With only ONE city on the board, you can MM for a few bits, but later on, with multiple cities, any benefit from constant swapping disappears. You will still swap now and then, of course, such as swapping between Bureaucracy (peacetime and/or chasing a wonder in your capital) or Vassalage (wartime or any intensive unit-training phase).


Ooh, I'm Up Now(TM).

 

[Grimjack]

Great to see this game coming to a start, and what a start

Good luck on taming the hydras five heads

Grimjack

 

[Sirian]

1200BC: I'm a fan of more early military than Sulla, apparently.

1160BC: Train an Archer, start Archer. Archer moves west.
1080BC: Train an Archer, start Archer. Archer moves west.
1000BC: Train an Archer, start the Settler. Archer fortifies in Havana.

Wake Warrior in Havana and send him eastward (scouting).

975BC: Discover Bronze Working. Adopt Slavery Civic. Start Priesthood.
950BC: We scout out the area around White Dot.

A Fishes in range of York, but they aren't on the coast and can't build their own Work Boat!

(I wonder if they will ever get those Fish netted? Something to watch.)

900BC: Discover Priesthood, start Writing.
875BC: Worker arrives at Orange Dot (Plan A) and is set to chop the forest there.
(If you found on a forest, it goes to waste!)
This worker action will produce 20 shields for Havana, even though it is five plots away!

OK, so WTH is this? 875BC is the end of ten turns? Arrgh! Soren has timed the turns oddly, for those who are playing them in batches of ten. (You can tell this is -REALLY- my first SG!)

Like... What in the--! Turns will end on 875, 625, 375, 125BC, 125AD, etc.

I was tempted to play fifteen turns. You know? But enh. Let's stick with the ten plan and see how it goes all the way through, then I'll try to come up with an arrangement that makes more sense for the next time.

We can legally cross along the blue arrow, unloading our ships to that island (or maybe it's a dogleg of another continent??) What the hey, right? The more territory we control, the better.

Santa Rosa is working on a worker. The spare warrior is move to a forward position on a forest/hill to serve as scout/picket/watchdog. Yellow Dot might be a place to settle if we really want to get in England's face without actually attacking them. (Those Cows are in range of neither Rosa nor York!)

I am now firmly convinced that Plan A is the way to go. Firstly, Orange Dot will not only be stronger, but Plan B's Orange dot loses two health by not being founded next to Fresh Water. (That's, like, two sizes smaller of a city!)

White Dot (from Plan A) -is- still on fresh water, as that is a lake down there! Check the math:

* blue dots: 3 food apiece (after Lighthouse)
* green dots: 2 food apiece (no shields, though!)
* yellow dots: 1 food apiece (windmills on the hills)
* dark blue dot: mystery tile. Something unusal is there, but I can't tell what.

We're looking at a low-shield size 13 city! Plan A is the plan, methinks.

England can cross the isthmus via the red arrow, so we need to be aware of that.


Scouting in the east:

Maybe a little more land over there than I thought!


Check out the health bar on this Archer in Havana!

That is just insane!

* 3 Str Base (shown on the left of the break!)
* +60% Cultural Defense
* +25% Hill Defense
* +25% Archer-on-Hill Defense
* +25% max Fortify Defense
* +50% Archer-in-City
* +20% City Garrison I
* Archers get a First Strike

That is 305% of 3 Str = net strength of 9.15!

THIS is why players (who may not know WTH they are doing yet) get their lunch handed to them when they beeline their unpromoted swords and axes at a city filled with Archers. Especially if it is on a Hill!

This is how a Longbow can beat an Infantry or a wounded Tank.

If I had to attack a city like this, I'd simply not do it without artillery support. BRING IN THE CATS! Drop that city defense to 0 (taking away the 60% bonus) and drop the enemy (modified) strength down to 7.35, and go in with City Raider II Swordsmen: 6 Str base +55% City Attack = 9.3 and probably not lose any units, or maybe one. (You need Vassalage or Theocracy to get to City Raider II promotion out of the gate, though.)

Civ4: Sometimes It's Better to Be Good Than Lucky

 

[Sirian]

(Bugs Bunny Voice)"We need to come up with some Stragedy."(/Bugs)

Let's just hope we keep the S on the front of that word, eh?

OK, so...

The forest chop at Orange Dot:

The chop wll complete on the same turn as the settler in Havana.
This means the shields will all carry over to the next turn.
What should we build next?

The Oracle!

The forest chop will help, contributing 20s.

Our first Great Prophet is due any year now.

I recommend using him to learn a tech (presuming it will be a tech that will pop another Religion for us!)

We then use the Oracle to nab yet another Religion-founder.

We will then have monopolized the FIRST FIVE religions.
(They won't be founded in Havana, though. Guaranteed!)
(The only way to put more than three heads on your Hydra is to run OCC! At least until you are done growing the Beast.)

Frankly, I've had five religions going in one city in an OCC.
Never had more than three with normal play, though.

HinBudJewIsm the Magnificent(TM) is the most glorious beast yet sighted.

Rumors of Her big sisters ConBudJewChristaHindi and BudHinTaoConJewa are nothing more than fairy tales told to frighten small children.

So...

If the Prophet can discover Code of Laws:
* Prophet learns CoL, founds Confucianism.
* Oracle learns Philo, founds Taoism!

If the Prophet discovers Theology:
* Prophet learns Theo, founds Chrsitianity.
* Oracle learns CoL, founds Confucianism.

The new religions will appear in our newer cities, on the borders with England.

At least, that is what we are set up to do.
Our second Prophet (when he comes) can build a shrine in Havana.
Third and Fourth, too.

Havana should have National Epic and Wall Street as small wonders.

It's tough to spread more than three religions widely, even in your own empire.
I'd rather us have the extras than the AIs, though. In this game, at least.
If they are going to give us Spain-On-A-Lake-With-A-Gold-Mine(TM), by golly let's make use of it!


- Sirian

 

[Ragnoff]

Lurkers question: Sirian, you explained the forest chop is needed in order to avoid wasting the forest when a new city is founded, I have a question about the related case of when a worker builds the farm, mine, or some other force destroying an improvement on terrain. I've noticed that you do not need to chop the forest first, it is automatically taken down as part of the construction of the new improvement. My question is, does this act the same as a forest chop and then a separate order to mind or farm? Doesn't directly ordering the minor form blues use the lumber you could've gone from the forest chop? do the two actions take more time when ordered separately as opposed to directly ordering the mine, farm, or other improvement?

I do realize I could probably start conducting some experiments and find the answer to these questions, although a quick look in the manual does not find it. However, before I started doing that, I thought I would I ask you if you already knew!

Ragnoff

 

[Sirian]

Lurkers question: Sirian, you explained the forest chop is needed in order to avoid wasting the forest when a new city is founded, I have a question about the related case of when a worker builds the farm, mine, or some other force destroying an improvement on terrain. I've noticed that you do not need to chop the forest first, it is automatically taken down as part of the construction of the new improvement. My question is, does this act the same as a forest chop and then a separate order to mind or farm? Doesn't directly ordering the minor form blues use the lumber you could've gone from the forest chop? do the two actions take more time when ordered separately as opposed to directly ordering the mine, farm, or other improvement?

I do realize I could probably start conducting some experiments and find the answer to these questions, although a quick look in the manual does not find it. However, before I started doing that, I thought I would I ask you if you already knew!

Ragnoff

If you farm/mine/other on a Forest plot, a forest chop is included. The forest will not fall until the whole work is done.

Farm, for example, will take 5 turns, chopping takes 3, farming a forest takes 8. If the city is actively using that forest, doing the two items combined means the forest stays around longer -- usually the way to go.

Occasionally, it will take an extra turn to do the two simultaneously. This on Quick game speed, or if you have worker bonuses. Mostly, it's the same amount of time either way.

I usually chop my jungles separately, but do my forests in one double-move.

You can chop outside your borders, but you can't improve outside your borders.


- Sirian

 

[insydr]

Hey Sirian, it looks like you missed the question I asked on page 3 (or ignored it ) so I'll ask it again.

Looks like I drew an Archipelago landmass type. (Tilted Axis defaults to "random" landmasses. Can be anything from massive continents to tiny islands!)

This sounds just like the completely random map feature that was present in Civ3 but missing in Civ4. Is there any way to do this without having to pick a tilted axis map? Or do we just have to rotate the view 90 degrees to get a completely random non-vertical map?

 

[Sirian]

I ignored the question.

Currently, no, there isn't. Play Tilted Axis.

Better yet, get the map guide and see if some other the maps (which have varying options) would suit. Archipelago, for instance.

Maybe at some point they'll add a Random option (of one kind or another).


- Sirian

 

[insydr]

Thanks, I'll just get used to rotating my view for now. Carry on.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

You can chop outside your borders, but you can't improve outside your borders.
- Sirian

Lurker's Comment:

Has anyone tried sending a worker out to the edge of another empire and chopping down their forests before their borders expand onto them. With each individual worker being a lot more valuable then in previous civs it may not be doable although with the 2 movement it wouldn't take as long to get there. Can you pop a worker from a village like before? If you popped one on the edge of someone's border it might be a good idea. Sorry to interject like this but I was reading (and enjoying ) the thread and thought I'd ask.

 

[LKendter]

lurker's comment:
I thought you could still lay roads outside your territory.
I am remembering wrong?

 

[Arathorn]

lurker's comment: Yes, you can still lay roads outside your territory, but you can't irrigate, mine, mill, pasture, quarry, hunt, or anything else outside your territory. I didn't know about chop until this thread, because, well, I'd never tried.

 

[Ozymandous]

Lurkers comment:

From this thread and another I saw I assume forest chop's now actually add to wonder production? Was this changed since we can't replant forests anymore?

 

[ndthsmdy]

Sirian or Sulla (long time reader, first time lurker):

You two are using an outside-in strategy of expansion that worked fairly well in Civ 3 (if I remember correctly, there was even a War Academy article about it).

If anything, this strategy seems to be even stronger in Civ4 (keep your borders closed, and they either have to declare war or sail around you).

However, I have learned from you two as well as my own experience that there are few if any universal strategies in Civ 4--so when is it NOT a good idea to expand outside in if you have a chance to wall off another Civ? It seems like a pretty reliable tactic to use no matter who you are or who the other Civ on the other side of the wall is...

 

[Sirian]

Planting your flag does not ensure that the AI will agree to your claim. (They may attack!) Getting bogged down in to a war, especially if you lose cities, may not be the move. If you want to be aggressive and attack, it is often better to keep your own cities closer to home.

We may yet end up with a certain problem, which I don't want to give away. Something to do with "BC Times". I'll explain more later.

The other thing is that reaching out to settle more distant places first slows your economy faster than building only in the first ring around your capital.

Lots of possibilities! Lots of choices.


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

Sirian definitely did a nice job of building up our defenses on that last turn. In my games, I generally have taken more risks expanding and then consolidate what I manage to grab a little bit later. Already getting to see some different play styles, which is great stuff! I never would have built more than 2 archers back there, but there's a good chance they'll come in handy. Of course - if we come up 2 or 3 turns short on the Oracle, I'm going to blame Sirian for his pursuit of the Military-Industrial Complex.

Goals:
- Found Orange dot (on "A" site)
- Get started on Oracle
- Speed it with some forest chops!
- Found another religion with Great Prophet (hydra needs another head!)

(0) 875BC What a strange number for 350 turns left in the game! Soren has this amazing penchant for round, even numbers - yet then we get stuck with this bizarre number for a SG passoff! Sirian's left the archers out in the field unpromoted, another nice move. I think this guy knows what he's doing...

(1) 850BC Spot a barb in the east; there's a LOT of land over there. It shall be ours someday!

(2) 825BC Vicky spotted sending a settler... *WEST* into the tundra!

(3) 800BC Hastings founded in a questionable spot. Vicky passes us in score, but, uh, not entirely sure of her decision-making process. She's just going to give us practically the whole continent without even putting up a fight?

Pillage the road? No, Senora Victoria, surely it was vile banditos striking from the hills! We Cubans would never do such a thing!

(4) 775BC Settler produced in Havana! He heads for Orange dot, where an archer is waiting. Our worker moved onto another forest to add its shield chop to Havana as well. This is right around the time that AI civs usually start finishing the Oracle, so we need to do whatever we can to speed it along. Religion switch is flipped back ON again! We'll be Hindus this time, just because we are Cubans and must represent the socialist dream of equality. Havana will run a minor food deficit temporarily in order to knock another turn off the Oracle. ETA drops to 7 turns.

Btw - food deficit versus no food deficit is a difference of 10 turns versus 7. That's how big a deal having that extra mined hill tile is!

(5) 750BC Matanzas founded (a real city in Cuba!) on the "A" Orange dot.

I realize that the forest chop that I had set to go to Havana is now going to go to Matanzas instead, so I cancel that order and tell our worker to build a road connecting the two cities (we could use the trade route). Matanzas is on barracks because it has nothing better to build, and I'm not going to have it start a worker at size 1! Science dropped to 90% to cover our costs.

(6) 725BC Writing finished. Choices are Agriculture for farms or Pottery for granaries. I take Agriculture so we can start hooking up our wheat and rice resouces. I heavily recommend going for Pottery next though.

(7) 700BC Barb warriors incoming from the north! I move Mantanzas' archer to a forested hill tile to take care of the problem.

(8) 675BC Moses born in Havana. And our free tech is... Theology!

Break out the rosary beads, Madre de Dios, the Cubans are the founders of Christianity! (Oddly appropriate as Cubans/Spaniards in this game!) By the way - never seen so many shrines able to be built in one city before either! And forget about entering the Classical era, Theology leaps us ahead straight to the Medieval era! This game continues to be just crazy.

(9) 650BC Matanzas becomes the Christian Holy City. Santa Rosa would have been a little bit better, but I'm not complaining. Free missionary heads back to convert Havana. Archer on a forested hill clobbers incoming barb warrior and promotes. Santa Rosa finishes worker, starts on library until we research Pottery and can go to granary (feel free to veto if you want another worker out there!)

(10) 625BC Research on Agriculture finishes, start on Pottery. Christianity spread to Havana. Now ordinarily I'd stop, but with *ONE* turn left on the Oracle, I'm going to be greedy here and finish grabbing the hydra's fifth head, then stop before doing anything else. We'll be ready to move in a new direction next, and Sirian and I should discuss what our plans are. That and I detest passing off on such an uneven date as much as Sirian.

(11) 600BC We build the Oracle, take Code of Laws with it. (Took a picture of this too that didn't show up later. What is up with these in-game screenshots? I think I'm going to stop using them...) I stop without doing anything else to let us discuss our strategy.

I think we need some more workers next, but aside from that I don't have any real recommendations. We've founded 5 religions now, and will have a crazy amount of culture when running no state religion (which I'm sure Sirian will go back to right away). Confucianism almost certain to be founded in Santa Rosa too, for that matter. If that's the case, we may be in good shape for a cultural victory, should we choose to pursue it. Lots of different directions we can go in here, but overall things looking *VERY* good right now.