RB2c - Mali - Noble - Just Win Baby!

Hmm, sorry I missed this thread the last day or two. All right, a few thoughts...

1. When I founded Timbuktu it had the little 'road' graphic fromt he city to both rivers, thus my assumption that it was connected to both, but I don't know for sure. I don't see the North river flowing into the sea, so I'd think the trade route we have with Frederick is via the southern river that goes East into the German lands.

2. Umm, we -need- to send any settlers South to block off Frederick sooner rather than later, since once the Germans border expands we have zero chance to build there.

3. It's too late for this but I liked your city placement further south Dwip, than the one on the hill. Desert's provide -zero- food, hammers and commerce unless there is a special there so avoid them if at all possible. They are essentially a wasted tile until late (is thre a tech that ever allows them to be worked?) in the game. COnsider them like mountains.

4. If you have more than one religion then you almost have to not have a state religion since you lose 4 (assuming only one other religion) culture points per turn for each religion you have that's not the state religion.

5. Stonehenge is a great early wonder, IMHO, since it gives GP points as well as the free oblisk, which can help cities grow borders relatively quickly (10 turns) after they are founded.

6. Don't chop all the forests around since later on they provide good health boosts, also, found cities on fresh water if at all possible since it gives a +2 health that way. Founding the second city on that desert hill means the city won't be as strong as the one a bit further South could have been.

7. If you want an early religion, I'd suggest going 100% towards it otherwise wait. I'm glad Fishing didn't cost us the religion, but I didn't choose fishing mainly because we had just that one lake tile and it seemed low priority.

8. The barracks, or whatever, I was using mainly as a placeholder while waiting for the city to grow, it wasn't 'set in stone' as a must have. :D That's a great feature, since the shield put towards something doesn't decay that fast. :)

9. We don't need to squeeze the cities in like sardines anymore, so we need to pick the best places to build them even if we don't get every tile used. It's better to have optimal city placement more than it is to make sure we work every tile, especially mountains and desert, since early on at least, both of these tiles are useless and simply wasted space.

I've played a few more games (started them at least) and have a better handle on what to do, regarding research, and such, or at least like to think I do. :D Usually while building the first warrior/scout and waiting for the city to grow, I've found is a good time to try to snag one of the early religions and/or flesh out the worker abilities so when one is finally brought out they can work on everything. :)
 
Ozymandous said:
Hmm, sorry I missed this thread the last day or two. All right, a few thoughts...

1. When I founded Timbuktu it had the little 'road' graphic fromt he city to both rivers, thus my assumption that it was connected to both, but I don't know for sure. I don't see the North river flowing into the sea, so I'd think the trade route we have with Frederick is via the southern river that goes East into the German lands.

I missed this completely! You are right, we must have trade access along the southern route.

Ozymandous said:
2. Umm, we -need- to send any settlers South to block off Frederick sooner rather than later, since once the Germans border expands we have zero chance to build there.

I am REALLY not a fan of this, It causes friction with the AI, so unless you have already decide to go AW with fredrck, blocking him into a corner, with a city that will no be productive for a long time (we need to be able to clear jungle), when we ALSO have a slow growing/producing main city seems like you are begging Fredrick to start a war we cannot win. The Art of War says to ALWAYS leave your opponent an escape route. Backed into a corner, the AI is smart enough to attack.

Ozymandous said:
3. It's too late for this but I liked your city placement further south Dwip, than the one on the hill. Desert's provide -zero- food, hammers and commerce unless there is a special there so avoid them if at all possible. They are essentially a wasted tile until late (is thre a tech that ever allows them to be worked?) in the game. COnsider them like mountains.

Look closer, there are 3 desserts spaces, true, but one is UNDER the city center, transforming it into a 2/1/1 desert (city centers are always 2/1/1, unless build on a resource, then they are 2/1/1 + the unimproved resouce benifit). A second has a stone resource with a quarry (that we will want anyway) so it will be a 0/3/0. Not great, but not horible. That leaves us with one dessert Hill (can be mined for 0/2/0 if needed) and it gets BOTH wet corn, and wet cows. (5/0/0 and 4/2/0). this city will get up and running quickly, and can easliy grow into the teens.

Ozymandous said:
4. If you have more than one religion then you almost have to not have a state religion since you lose 4 (assuming only one other religion) culture points per turn for each religion you have that's not the state religion.

This is on a per city basis. I often feel the +25% to buildings and happiness bonas, plus the ability to create prophets without monastaries is worth losing 5 culture in only 1 or 2 cites, or the +2 exp. It also depends on whether you are going for a cul tural victory. the nice thing is, as a spiritual civ, we can switch back and for to what ever is the best on a turn by turn basis!


Ozymandous said:
5. Stonehenge is a great early wonder, IMHO, since it gives GP points as well as the free oblisk, which can help cities grow borders relatively quickly (10 turns) after they are founded.

Agreed, especially if another city is well set up to do workers/settlers.


Ozymandous said:
6. Don't chop all the forests around since later on they provide good health boosts, also, found cities on fresh water if at all possible since it gives a +2 health that way. Founding the second city on that desert hill means the city won't be as strong as the one a bit further South could have been.

That assumes that health will be the limiting factor in that city, some time happyniss is the problem rather than health. Freshwater is a consideration, but only one of several considerations. Actually, south green dot is not adjacent to fresh water either, and has much more jungle, so it would be less healthy, at least untill the jungle is choped down.

Ozymandous said:
7. If you want an early religion, I'd suggest going 100% towards it otherwise wait. I'm glad Fishing didn't cost us the religion, but I didn't choose fishing mainly because we had just that one lake tile and it seemed low priority.

yes, but with our finance trait it was one GOOD tile I did not need a worker to improve! As I said, this proved to be a mistake after I found rome and decided that the settler became ultra important, but it givs us an option we did not have. <shrug> at the time i thought eh 3 coins would make this at least a wash (3 turns to reserach, But gained back by the extra commerce.

Ozymandous said:
8. The barracks, or whatever, I was using mainly as a placeholder while waiting for the city to grow, it wasn't 'set in stone' as a must have. :D That's a great feature, since the shield put towards something doesn't decay that fast. :)

LOL I used it the same way!

Ozymandous said:
9. We don't need to squeeze the cities in like sardines anymore, so we need to pick the best places to build them even if we don't get every tile used. It's better to have optimal city placement more than it is to make sure we work every tile, especially mountains and desert, since early on at least, both of these tiles are useless and simply wasted space.

true, but all else being equal, a closer city has less maintainence, is connected quiker by the workers, and is easier to defend. a sloty overlap is fine if that is the best placement resource wise (although I am so glad ICS is gone).

Ozymandous said:
I've played a few more games (started them at least) and have a better handle on what to do, regarding research, and such, or at least like to think I do. :D Usually while building the first warrior/scout and waiting for the city to grow, I've found is a good time to try to snag one of the early religions and/or flesh out the worker abilities so when one is finally brought out they can work on everything. :)

Yes, although I actually have had a lot of success going for monotheism about like we did, after a *few* worker tecks, if you do nto start with mystisism. The AIs, if they lose the budism/hinduism race, usually do not seem to go for mono until later. If you try to get all of the worker tech first you will not get mono in time.
 
Variously:

Blocking Fred

We are not, from my perspective, blocking Fred in so much as we are making sure we have enough space. He can still escape to the southwest, and maybe the east. We are, in any event, going to wind up with "Our close borders spark tensions!" anyway, whether it's us settling those spots or him, so I can't really get behind that argument.

There are a couple of things we can do in the short term, though. #1 is simply garrison everything with skirms and laugh a lot when they try and attack us. #2, and this has worked well for me in two solo games thus far, is to go to organized religion (we can do this in 5 turns and should), crank a missionary, and make Berlin nice and happy and Jewish, which will cause Fred to convert, and be our best buddy anyway because the religious diplo bonus is gigantic.

Doing this to Caesar is probably a worthwhile plan, too.

Stonehenge

I'm all for leaping on Stonehenge with both feet, and having the workers run over to the stone and quarry it as soon as they get done. I think we're all in agreement on how great Stonehenge is.

Of course, we do need to be cranking lots more settlers sooner rather than later.

Religion

I think we get religious building culture bonuses regardless of the state religion, but I may be wrong. In any event, there's really no reason for us not to be Jewish with Organized Religion for a long time yet, for the obvious reasons.

Dotmapping

See attachment.

Commentary as per previous dotmap. I moved the NE Red Dot city a bit to snag the copper over the crabs, since NW Purple Dot will grab some as it is. Also note the existance of Black Dot in the far north, which is a totally craptacular "Well, at least we get all those furs" type of city. Definitely an "If we get around to it" sort of thing.
 

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A bloodless coup ensues in Timbuktu and Tamerlane's ugly brother, Talamane, now sits on the throne. His plan is to build Stonehenge. A stone mine is commanded to be built. His majesty contemplates chopping the silk forests around the capital, since plantations he wishes to build later will necessitate their removal. He plans to institute Organized Religion. When his finance ministers questioned him as to how the royal treasury was supposed to pay for this, they were executed.

[00] 1680 BC Pre-flight looks good. Pottery will help our gigantic empire grow faster. And building it adds +1 health to the metro areas with corn, rice, and wheat, which are the resources we should be able to grab. Move one of our inexperienced warriors to Djenne since a settler will be built there. Scout some of the map towards the south, and hope to avoid the bears. Start Timbuktu on Stonehenge, due in 20.

[01] 1640 BC Since Timbuktu is food poor, creating priest specialists will be problematic, and our Great Person will probably be a Great Artist, if we build Parthenon. The Oracle is a possibility, but it requires marble to do so in a reasonable amount of time. We have marble, but it is way in the future.

[02] 1600 BC Frederick builds a city to the southeast of our capital near the cows and coast. Send warriors to scout it out. He has probably taken out the bears. Corn farm completes. Djenne will grow on the next turn.

[03] 1560 BC Start the workers on a quarry, which takes 8 long turns. Djenne can now complete the skirm in 6 turns, and will grow to size 3 in 5 turns. At size three, i will switch to settler.
[04] 1520 BC Pottery comes in, and we start on Priesthood (due in 4) to enable building the Oracle.
[05] 1480 BC Continue moving scouts to Fred's new town.
[06] 1440 BC Judaism spreads to Djenne, and to Berlin! Berlin is size 6, has wet rice and gems. It's garrisoned with three archers.
[07] 1400 BC Frederick converts to Judaism. It might not be possible to get a peek at his new town. I circumnavigate with the warrior.
[08] 1360 BC Priesthood complete, and start on Writing in 6. Bad news. It looks like Rome has settled just south of South Green Dot.
[09] 1320 BC Djenne makes its skirm, and i start it on a settler, due in 13.
[10] 1280 BC Worker will complete quarry next turn, start him on road. Talamane is killed in a chariot accident before he can institute Organized Religion, and a new ruler ascends to the throne.

Summary: Khan has been scouting our north (and no doubt likes what he sees), and the south is beginning to look crowded. We may want to send our settler to claim the horses/cows. Stonehenge is due in 10, remaining turns will drop in half when the stone quarry road completes. We can still settle on South Green Dot, and probably convert Rome to Judaism. I am glad i dont have to make that decision. I forgot to to throw the switch on the Organized Religion civic, before you do so, check to make sure we can afford it--it will speed up Stonehenge.
 

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Am I in this game? I haven't been added to the player roster, but in the SG topic Ozzy said "The more the merrier," or something to that effect. I suppose I'd be on deck right now i I were the sixth person in the rotation.
 
Ragnoff: Blocking the AI's and having close borders is a factor in the game. It's either we get the spot first or he (AI) does, so I'd always vote in our favor. If you sign an "open borders" agreement they don't seem to mind as much anyway. Do you want Fred to dictate where we settle in the South? I don't. :D

Tidus: I think Speaker made the roster so I'll have to PM him to add you add the end of the list, so yes I'd say you're up next. :)

General: Looking good so far, but we need to keep cranking settlers, which my initial choice of city site hampered, oops. ICS may be dead, but REX sure isn't, as long as we can defend the cities and keep at least 50% going on science.

Regarding culture, umm, everyone does know that culture helps with defense and the rapidly expanding borders help close off vast tracts of land without having to immediately have a settler found another city there right? I suppose the question is do we want to use the religions as more of a 'denial' tactic to keep them from ghe AI, or to boost the culture of the cities where they found in and thus help expand the borders of our empire without having to build a ton of military? Remember in Civ4, unlike Civ3, borders actually are worth something and rapidly expanding culture can help a lot.

Just a thought, not saying we have to do things my way at all, but I'm a fan of somewhat peaceful border/territory expansion without having to divert everything to military if at all psosible. Unless it's an AW game or something.. :)
 
Preturn:

Adopt Organized Religion. Stonehenge now due in 9 turns. We have 97 gp in the bank and are running a -1 defecit as a result of our new upkeep costs.

Turn 1 (1240 B.C.) Quarry finishes, start on road.
IBT: Genghis Khan shows up asking for Open Borders. I agree.
Turn 2 (1200 B.C.): Not too much
Turn 3 (1160 B.C.): ditto
Turn 4 (1120 B.C.) Writing comes in, start on Theology. Spot a French scout to the north of Djenne-it’s Napoleon, who tell me to fear his Archer. Stonehenge is now due in two with stone hooked up.
Turn 5 (1080): I decide to start roading towards the NW red dot in an effort to close off our borders on that flank.
Turn 6 (1040) Stonehenge finishes in Timbuktu! Djenne’s borders expand. I decide to let Djenne finish its barracks.
Turn 7 (1000) I bring back our worker to start irrigating the land around our capitol.
Spot a Roman worker connecting his Elephant city to the rest of what I presume to be his empire. Lose a turn on Theology as I temporarily move one of Timbuktu’s pop units off of a river tile in order to speed up growth; once the farm is built, it can be switched back.
Turn 8 (975): Judaism spreads to Antium, the Roman Elephant city to our south.
Turn 9 (925): Djenne builds settler, starts worker. I hate to screw up its growth curve like this, but we really need another worker ASAP and once Timbuktu finishes its barracks it can fufill our military needs or build settlers as appropriate. Warrior/Settler pair heads north.
Turn 10 (900): Timbuktu finishes ‘rax, starts Skirmisher.

Sorry, no pictures this time :cry:
 
Arg, had a great report together when BSOD took it out. At least it didn't strike while I was playing.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Freddie has control of the two southern turquiose dots on Dwip's dotmap. I sent the settler toward the red dot on dwip's map, near the cows. Worked on getting a road to this city. Both of our mature cities are working on settlers; however, I noticed that there is barbarian cultural control in the north, so we may have to swap over to some military to deal with the threat. Two civs came knocking for open borders, but I turned them down.
 
If you are getting BSOD's after C4 has been running a while, chances are something in your computer is getting too hot, usually the video card.

Somehow, our player name became YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9, lol. I have no idea how to fix this.

Edit: I loaded the file into a hex editor and poked RB2c into the player name. It works. However, it looks like your file format is different from the others that have been loaded. This is new territory for me, so i was poking around. Did you startup the game in some odd way? (i find that hard to believe, i presume you loaded DeceasedHorse's game and went from there) . Was it an autosave?

Ozy? If you want i can post a "fixed" save of his game.
 
Talamane said:
If you are getting BSOD's after C4 has been running a while, chances are something in your computer is getting too hot, usually the video card.

Somehow, our player name became YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9, lol. I have no idea how to fix this.

Edit: I loaded the file into a hex editor and poked RB2c into the player name. It works. However, it looks like your file format is different from the others that have been loaded. This is new territory for me, so i was poking around. Did you startup the game in some odd way? (i find that hard to believe, i presume you loaded DeceasedHorse's game and went from there) . Was it an autosave?

Ozy? If you want i can post a "fixed" save of his game.

Actually, yes it was an autosave. I hit a wierd bug on about turn 3 when Caesar came calling asking for open borders. Basically, the deals area obscured the diplomatic area. It allowed me to click "yes," to the deal,"not a chance" was obscured, so I couldn't click it. So I reloaded the autosave from the turn before and then clicked no to his proposal.
 
Talamane said:
Somehow, our player name became YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9, lol. I have no idea how to fix this.

Alt-D brings up details on your civ and let's you rename the leader.
 
Thanks a bunch, LK. I hope someone makes a list of all the undocumented features soon. Was this feature in Civ3? I can't recall. Shift-D was diplomacy, IIRC.

Edit: Sheesh, ALT-D is in the book.:eek:
 
ok, been a day and a half, hate to skip the captain though. If I do not see a got it by this evening, I will play it.
 
In the interests of keeping the game moving, I'd say go for it. We can always swap Ozy and you for this round if he shows up soon.
 
OK Got it, playing soon (ozy if you post a got it before I am done with turns we will go with your turns).
 
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