RB4 - Desert Runner

Not just that, but IIRC Horseback Riding is worth 357 beakers; that's quite as good as 3 first-tier techs !
 
That's very nice luck with tribal villages.

Was the idea with Pottery to go on to Writing and Alphabet to try some tech trading, or are we going to go for Iron Working next?
 
Here I go :)

Some preliminary thoughts:

Louis asks for Open Borders... in 2880 BC :eek: That means he has writing - looks like we weren't the only ones to pop some techs! We are going unhappy with growth next turn, so the current archer build will have to stay in the city. I'll have to build another archer to push back the borders. I think the city location is a good one, though, with plenty of food and production. Healthiness might be an issue there.

So I get ten turns, in which I'll probably end up building mostly archers, but we'll see!

Pre-turn - 2440 BC - Fortunately, Louis is the only one with writing. Amazingly, we have a trade route with Alexander all the way up in the north! Our river goes all the way to him! He doesn't have anything to trade at the moment, but it's something to keep in mind. Other than that everything looks really well set up!

Turn 1 - 2400 BC - Pasargadae founded on the river to the north. I'm not sure what to build there. Interestingly, our quick connection to copper has left us with an inability to make any more warriors. It is starting on a floodplain so it has very little production, but I want to keep it there for growth. Hmm. We could use another worker but I don't want to start a worker at size 1. There is a barbarian archer immediately to our north however! Ack, we could very well LOSE this city to that barb! I couldn't see him until AFTER I settled. Well, this game might become a real challenge here in a bit... In any case I set production to an archer, that should be changed to a worker when we reach size 3

01_archer.JPG

Between turns - the archer moves away. THANK GOODNESS. I wasn't looking forward to losing the game for us. Our scout to the east kills a panther on defense - I had left him unpromoted to this point to try and use his promotion for healing (he's already woodsman 2), but he wasn't injured so I guess I'll leave him for now.

Turn 2 - 2360 BC - Our scout pops a hut, and we get:

02_tech.JPG

Another tech!!! We were in the process of researching this, so it only saved us 2 turns, but still, four techs? What to research next... I normally would go for priesthood becuase we need more happiness, but we don't have a religion, so it won't help us much. We could try for Judaism, but monotheism is 22 turns away altoghter, so I don't think we would get it. That leaves writing at 9 turns and iron working at 13 turns. I'll go for iron working. I'm not sure this is the best approach, but if we can grab the sources of it first, it wouldn't hurt. Our worker completes the road on the copper mine, so I move him to one of our forested hills to start a chop. I plan to build an archer but switch to a settler the turn the chop finishes, then back to the archer.

Between Turns -

Turn 3 - 2320 BC - Persepolis grows and finished an archer, but cannot grow anymore without becoming unhappy. I suppose we've found the disadvantage to not going for an early religion. I set it to max shields (which consists of several plains forests) and we are producing 11 shields. However, we can get two archers every five turns, which we'll need. I am going to mine some hills around it and, of course, when we build settlers and/or workers the food surplus is not a hinderance.

Between turns - no less than 3 barbarian archers in sight, and they are just the ones our scouts can see.

Turn 4 - 2280 BC - Two archers in production, and the worker is chopping for the settler. Our scouts are returning to home to try and clear some fog and also see what is to our west. I switch to a settler as the forest chop is coming in next turn.

Between turns -

Turn 5 - 2240 BC - The forest chop hits our settler, and I switch back to the archer.

Between turns - Persepolis finishes the archer, starts again on settler automatically. I set it to ANOTHER archer first - we need to secure pasargadae and still have an escort for our settler. This was a tough call - we are delaying our growth a bit (2 turns), but I want to make sure we are properly defended from these barbarians.

Turn 6 - 2200 BC - The newly created archer moves to defend pasargadae, and I insert another archer into the queue before the (four tenths completed) settler. Worker starts a mine on the newly cleared grassland hill.

Between Turns -

Turn 7 - 2160 BC - Nothing of note.

Between Turns - Pasargadae expanded its borders a few turns ago, and I note that we are first in score. Not bad for monarch, so far.

Turn 8 - 2120 BC - The next archer finishes, and I reconfigure for max food to build the next settler. This archer is going to move out towards the cows to help the scout look for another city site. Our scout looking west finds fur in the same general area as the cows and the deer - we DESPERATELY need that luxury resource!

03_fur.JPG

Between turns -

Turn 9 - 2080 BC - Pasargadae grows to size two. Our scout finds dyes and another river to the west!

04_dye.JPG

Between turns -

Turn 10 - 2040 BC - The worker starts a road. The intention of this road is to hook us up to the furs as soon as possible. Getting more happiness I think is the best thing we can do for the worker right now.

Our lands:
05_overview.JPG

Notes:

- Persepolis is a great archer / worker / settler factory, even at size 5. However, it need careful micromanagement depending on if it's building a worker/settler or an archer. It can be set to no growth and 12 shields when constructing an archer, or 5 food + 10 shields when doing a worker / settler. I think this could be managed using the halt growth / maximize food buttons, but I find it easier to do it manually.

- I suggest the spot 1S of the cows for our next city. Pulls in cows, fur, deer, and two hills as well as lots of grassland (for cottages?).

- The scout to our north has a hidden archer directly below him, which I passed last turn. Be careful moving him, and remember he only gets one move in desert!
 
Yay, yet another tech. *yawn* :p

Someone on the general forum suggested that Firaxis had upped the chance of getting a tech from a hut in the patch, and at first I thought the guy just had good luck. Now, after playing a private game and seeing this one here...I'm not so sure anymore.


After Iron Working, I suggest going for Alphabet next. It's almost guaranteed we will be the first with the tech, which means we can make some good trades. (I can't understand why *no* AI goes for Alphabet in any game...)


Pasargadae and its flood plains looks to be a nice spot for some cottages.


Roster:
Kylearan
jameson
Snaproll -> just played
hiob -> UP NOW
dopplex -> on deck
Zeviz

-Kylearan
 
While that's possible, I think your tech-popping is more likely due to the fact that there are tons of huts in the middle "desert" part of an Oasis map. Pretty much every time I've ever played that map I've opened up a lot of them and received several techs. So it's probably due to the fact that this map script simply has a lot of huts that the AI is slow to grab, rather than any chance in the patch. :)
 
(0)
archer near pasagardea fortifies and the worker starts to build a road

(1)
I move the northern scout on the nearest hills next to a barbarian warrior (couldn't see him), which gets him killed in the next round. :-(

(2)
We're ranked as the 5th most andvanced nation of the world and spot indian borders to our west. Our only remaining scout will move north to explore what we can get get peacefully.

(3)
Persepolis finishes a settler, which is order to the proposed citysite, and starts an axeman. (It did gather some excess food while building the axeman to allow for growing immediately after the fur is hooked up.)

(4)
Our settler arrives at his destination and will found Susa next turn. His personal guard (the western archer) spots a hut in the south. (I didnt open it in my turn)

(5)
Judaism is founded as is Susa. Work on some garrison is immediately started(archer).Meanwhile Pasagardea grows to Size 3.

(6)
Persepolis completes an axeman and starts on a much needed worker.
The axeman moves to Susa to act as temporary guard.

(7)
Our worker finished the road that is connecting Susa with the rest of our empire and starts the work on a furcamp

(8)
Ironworking comes finally in and we start researching writing(due in 9 with 90% research)

(9)
The Archer finished in Pasagardea is send out to scout the area north of his hometown, which is ordered to construct a worker next.

(10)
Susas borders expand while Persepolis completes a worker. The worker starts constructing a cottage on the Floodplains.

I started a settler in Persepolis, but thats vetoable. The only iron we know of is far away, therefore is i sent two archers out to explore some more.

Attached you have a picture of our mighty empire alongside eastern india and the save.
 

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10 gold says that hut to the South gives us another tech :lol:. I do have the impression that huts give tech more often in regular maps too - I've toyed with multiple starts (usually on pangaea maps) on monarch level and seem to have a fair chance of picking up at least one tech from huts every time.

A bit late to reply but:

zeviz said:
Was the idea with Pottery to go on to Writing and Alphabet to try some tech trading, or are we going to go for Iron Working next?

Actually, it was just for cottages. My opening strategy definitely needs some improvement (though I will frequently go for Alphabet first too).
 
Thank you for the explanation. I am just trying to understand the strategies that everybody uses. (This is my first full game on Monarch level.)

About strategies, what should we do in the next few dozen turns? I know that a lot could change before the game gets to me, but I want to start planning strategy already. Should I focus on building cottages around our cities and settle a couple more cottageble locations? (That's what I do in my solo games to keep up technologically.) Or do we want to build up an early army to steal Bombay? (If I read the screenshot correctly, it's Jewdaism's holy city.)

EDIT: It seems that Bombay is producing no culture. (Size 4, but still radius 1.) Should we settle on the opposite shore from it, grabbing gold and floodplains, and hoping to culture-flip it with our creative trait? I think culture-flipping a holy city would be very amuzing.
 
I think (And I could be wrong) that holy cities will produce culture because they are holy cities. Perhaps it just lately became a holy city? EDIT: It became a holy city five turns ago. it's borders will expand any turn now.

At the same time, the idea is certainly interesting... We'd be coming from a standing start culture wise, but if we really emphasized it there, I'm sure we could eventually flip it - but how long would it take, and would the resources devoted to that be worth it?

EDIT2: Oh, and Got it. Since I've played hardly any Monarch, I'm going to take a look and post my thoughts before commiting us to anything particularly dire. (As in: Turn 1: I declare war on Louis, Victoria, Ghandi, Alexander, and Peter. Turn 2: This military is expensive, so I'm disbanding it....)
 
About culture from holy cities, you get it only if it's your state religion, unless you are running with no state religion. (In RB1 they intentionally turned off state religion for a few turns in the beginning to let culture build up.) Anyway, that was just a random idea and I am not sure if getting a holy city for a secondary religion that will not be spread without our help is worth it. (Although that gold resource could be useful.)
 
Right, so since Ghandi founded hinduism, he's not likely to convert - hence no culture from Bombay. It's an interesting idea, and good use for the settler if that's how we go. I'm going to keep the settler build for lack of a better notion... So the question becomes where to start the journey to?

I see four options:
Pictures fixed now.
Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG

This one has iron, and a bunch of food resources and oasis(es? What's the plural of oasis?)

Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG

Lovely floodplains for mass cottaging (I can be worse than the AI sometimes when I play a financial civ...).

Civ4ScreenShot0002.JPG

Floodplains and ivory, for elephants if we see conflict in our future...

Civ4ScreenShot0004.JPG

Ye olde Culture Bombe... This might be the most fun, seeing as we'd be going after a holy city of our Very Own.


On second thought, I'm not going to be building that settler straight off (Nobody to escort, and it's too dangerous to go alone) so the ultimate decision gets made by whoever comes after me. But any consensus as to the next site?
 
Oh, and is it worth trying to bring the northern scout all the way down just for the better shot at popping a tech?

Scout survivability is pretty low in unexplored areas now that barbs are around, so maybe it's the best use of it? Then again, that's around 10 turns for the AI to steal the hut...
 
0:
Keeping production at Persepolis at Settler. Archer scouting in the SW is going to come back to escort it to the new city location (Location yet to be decided)

1:

Start worker building road to furs

North Scout moves East to explore more. Ends one space from barb warrior. Ouch.

Between Turns: Louis adapts Organized Religion.

2:
Furs Connected. Our southern archer spots a barbarian archer in the jungle, which moves away.
Susa worker starts pasture on cows.
Pop the village with our archer, we get a warrior. Ah well, the tech luck can't run forever. I send the warrior south to explore.


Between Turns:
Barb Archer moves into view near Susa.

3: I change my mind about which archer gets to escort the new settler. The southern archer moves into the jungle to hopefully get engaged by the barbarian archer with the 50% defensive bonus.

Between Turns:
Our archer has defeated the barbarian archer!

4:

Fortify southern Archer to heal.
Worker near Persepolis finishes cottage. Worker moves to mine the other grassland hill next turn.

Our warrior sent south had a very short journey - he hit the edge of the map in one go! I start him east to see what there is to see.

Between Turn:

5:
Civ4ScreenShot0007.JPG


Writing is discovered! I'm starting Alphabet here, so we can tech broker a bit - hopefully we can trade for all those cheap techs I'm passing on!

Worker mines hill near Persepolis. Northern archer explores a bit more north, and will head back to pick up the settler.

Between Turns: Ghandi adopts Slavery! What a tyrant!

6: Persepolis finishes settler. I start it on barracks - pretty soon we'll have barb axemen calling.

Now comes the settler question - where to send it? All the spots have something to recommend them. The most interesting idea is to try to culture flip Bombay (The Jewish holy city). I'm going to start the settler to the northwest, so it can either try that, or head up to the iron near where our scout died. I have to admit to liking the idea of stealing a holy city out from Ghandi's nose (peacefully, of course!)

Pasture finished. Worker Starts road.

7: Not much going on.

8: Worker built in Pasargadae. Starts an Axeman.

Susa trains an Archer. Starts Axeman (Near 1000AD, not comfortable just with archer defense)
Susa worker moves to build a camp on deer.

Settler and archer move within range of Bombay's city radius - it still has no border expansion. If we want to try to build near to culture flip it, now's the time to try. Pasargadae worker moves to work corn.

9:
Spoke too soon! Bombay's borders expand between turns, taking our prime building site for culture flipping away.
Worker starts farming corn near Pasargadae

10:
Our Southern warrior stumbles across a hut! Unfortunately, Ghandi's warrior is next to it, and will likely grab it before us.

Archer scouts our ivory building site, and it also has stone!

I'm leaving the settler and archer escort unmoved. We can either settle them in place and try to win the cultural battle with Bombay, or we can move to one of our other possible sites.


Current State:

Alphabet in 15 turns.
Susa builds Axeman in 4.
Persepolis builds Barracks in 1.
Pasargadae builds Axeman in 9.

Settler and archer are two squares away from Bombay if we want to try to assimilate it, or we can move them north for iron, or east for ivory and stone. They have yet to move this turn.
Settler and Archer:
Civ4ScreenShot0009.JPG


Here is our empire:
Civ4ScreenShot0008.JPG


Here's the save.
 
Got it.

Too bad about Bombay. It looks like it controls tons of resources.

As for our settler, I think ivory is far more important than iron. We need some fast moving units and elephants can last well into middle age. Also, macemen can be built with copper and elephants can replace pikemen and knights. So with copper and ivory alone we will be able to ignore iron completely.

I think we need at least 1 more worker and (if I have time) 1 more worker/archer/settler set to grab iron.

Proposed new city cite is attached. It grabs ivory and stones and, after a couple border expansions, spices. Does anybody have comments before I play it in the next couple of hours?
 

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Snaproll said:
- Persepolis is a great archer / worker / settler factory, even at size 5. However, it need careful micromanagement depending on if it's building a worker/settler or an archer. It can be set to no growth and 12 shields when constructing an archer, or 5 food + 10 shields when doing a worker / settler. I think this could be managed using the halt growth / maximize food buttons, but I find it easier to do it manually.

Why is it necessary to MM (in civ4)? What does it save you there?
 
microbe said:
Why is it necessary to MM (in civ4)? What does it save you there?

The city was at its happiness limit, so I wanted to avoid growing anymore. So, when building an archer, I set it so that it would have no extra food but maximum hammers. In this configuration, it produced 12spt but would not grow. However, when producing a settler or worker, any excess food goes into the production of the settler instead of into growth. In the city's max food configuration, it would pull in 10spt and 5 extra food per turn, for a total production of 15 for the settler.

If i didn't micromanage, I could have left it in either max food or max production. If I left it in max food, it would grow into unhappiness, and the new citizens wouldn't be working, leaving me at 10 shields per turn despite my larger size, so I would produce archers slower. If I left it on max shields, I would be getting 12 spt but no extra food, so I would produce settlers slower.

Back to the game, remember that war elephants still only have one movement point, so they aren't faster than foot units. I personally would lean more towards grabbing iron, as that is important for many types of units, but in all honesty both of the proposed city sites look good to me.
 
Wow, the game moves along fast! :eek: :goodjob:

Regarding micromanaging cities: I rarely feel the need to MM the cities by hand, only exception is when building a wonder and I want starvation. Apart from that, when I want to produce a worker or settler, I just emphasize both food and hammers and deemphasize commerce, which will max production. And when I want to produce something else important and "emphasize production" won't give me enough hammers, I'll check "avoid growth" and the game automatically maximizes hammers (without starvation of course), which is exactly what I need.
There *are* some oddities with the governor, but they don't happen very often.


I'm somewhat glad Bombay's borders expanded already. Culture-flipping a holy city would have become *very* hard, would have needed some major commitment on our part, would have taken ages, and would have annoyed Gandhi, so good thing IMHO we didn't try that. :) I'd like to have at least one of our neighbours to become our ally, and I find Gandhi usually easier to befriend than Louis - but we'll see.
By the way, I believe holy cities generate a little bit of culture even if it's not your state religion, but I'm not 100% sure about that.


Regardless where the next city will be founded, it will most certainly be a major drain on our economy because it's far away from our capital. Be careful with founding more cities rapidly; maybe we need some turns of consolidation before founding more, depending on our income. We will also need more workers.


I noticed Susa and Pasargadae are building axemen without having a barracks. Since barracks will be complete in Persepolis in two turns, maybe we could build our military there and switch Susa and Pasargadae to other things? If Zeviz feels more comfortabe with the axemen around it's of course okay, too. (I tend to neglect military in the beginning, which admittedly is a bit risky ;) )

-Kylearan
 
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