Relearning my Civ ABCs (getting back to Monarch)

[Capellan]

10 years ago I was a solidly Monarch-level player, and I would like to get back there. To that end, I am going to play each leader, going in alphabetical order, stopping reasonably regularly to seek feedback.

Please feel free to lend a hand by offering comments and suggestions!

Maps are random script - looks like I may have drawn an islands-oriented one, as here's the start.

My initial thought is SIP + worker + AH, probably with work boat second. But first I should move the scout - S to see if the land ends, or NE/N onto pigs to see what is out that way??

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I am pretty sure settle in place and then workboat first. You get it in six turns. Can't help you with which tech to research first.

 

[SillyGoat]

SIP looks right, you're unlikely to find anything better.

I think this is one of the rare cases where netting a clam/crab is better than worker first.

WB can be completed in 6T with the 3H tile + 2H city centre. Netted clams + 2H city tile = 10t worker.

I'm not sure about tech timing on Monarch, but I think worker first (12 t) winds up with the worker idle for a turn or two. It also comes in behind WB first in commerce.

Tech....AH first looks obvious. After than Mining/BW/Sailing/Masonry in some order. Great Lighthouse should be a priority.

This is a poor commerce capital so you'll want some other means of generating commerce/beakers than the bog-standard cottaged Beuro capital.


I can see what looks to be an island to the West, these will be important for setting up internal intercontinental trade routes (for the +100% bonus).

Everything else depends on scouting.

 

[Capellan]

Thanks for the comments. I went work boat first, then worker, and played to .

Techs: AH, Mining, working on BH - 7 turns to go, which will likely still mean 2-3 turns where the worker is idle, so definitely WB was right call.

Turns out there is a land bridge to the east and I am just on a peninsula.

Unfortunately, the Ottomans are right in my grill:

Worse, these guys were the third Civ I actually met, with Monty and Shaka both showing up before that! Oh, and then Boudica rocked up as well, a turn or two later.

I'm thinking a quick push for a 2nd city 1 NE of the elephants, to grab both them and the rice in its first ring. Bronze turning up may change that, of course! But another option would be to settle right up in the Ottomans' face. I think I would only do that to grab a war resource though.

The squares just north of the screenshot are mostly jungle, by the by.

3000 BC Save attached. I have BUG installed so you will need that running. Again, (spoiler free) comments and suggestions are welcome.

 

[AcaMetis]

Why settle 1NE of the elephants and not 1E on the plains hill? Lack of hills for production?

 

[Capellan]

Why settle 1NE of the elephants and not 1E on the plains hill? Lack of hills for production?

1E gains +1H in the city square and an extra forest forest chop but has more coast, more overlap with the capital, and loses riverside grass and two mine-able plains hills ... it does get a desert hill but that's in the second ring and they're pretty bad. That was my thinking, anyway.

 

[Nick723]

I’d be tempted to go on the Ivory to share food with capital? Land to east doesn’t look up to much - maybe south is better?

 

[sampsa]

To me, on plains hill is a no-brainer. Try to avoid settling on the forest when possible (gains 20) and try to kill plains tiles when possible, especially hills (and obviously, +1 in city center is great).

 

[dankok8]

Some rough neighbours... Which Ottoman? Mehmed or Suleiman? Mehmed spams more units but both don't declare at Pleased and are good allies in general. Anyway all these other AI's are notoriously militaristic and spam units like mad but surprisingly enough Boudica doesn't declare war at Pleased either. Hopefully her religion spreads to everyone and Monty will be the odd one out and get dogpiled by the other warmongers while you watch the fireworks. Either way on this kind of map you know wars will erupt and I doubt you can keep everyone off your back with two different religions already.

Since you said in alphabetical order I assume you're playing Alexander and not Pericles. In that case you're not Creative so it's harder to pop borders. I'd settle to have Rice in the first ring for sure so 1E of Ivory makes the most sense to me as others above explained.

 

[Capellan]

It would be dumb to ask for advice and not take it, so 1E of elephants it is.

Here's turn 50:

I believe it is Mehmed leading the Ottomans. I am Alex.

I just got WB out to explore W and see what land I can find there. Will slap a road to Sparta in ASAP so I can make it a strongpoint. At least I do not need to fear a chariot rush (or horse archers, if I add a spear or two).

Thinking about a city where the southern warrior is, at some point - with lighthouse and Moai it should be pretty decent.

Bronze in the capital BFC was a nice surprise. Wandering if I should now chop for Barracks / Phalanx and try to rush Mehmed? Probably a risky play. Thoughts on strategy from here?

 

[sampsa]

First thing I see that you are working a bit weird tiles in both screenshots. T25 screenshot the pigs were improved last turn, but you are not working them. T50 screenshot you have improved 6 tiles around your capital and you are not working clam and the copper. You should expand faster, 3rd city is certainly called for before T50 (south to share food, for example). You should keep the governor on!

Going for axes with a funny name should work ~100% of the time on this level. Just chop all the forests.

 

[Capellan]

First thing I see that you are working a bit weird tiles in both screenshots.

Fixed this (but have not played any further turns).

 

[as2w]

Would you share the starting save if you have it? It looks like a fun one to play along.

 

[Capellan]

Would you share the starting save if you have it? It looks like a fun one to play along.

Attached!

 

[sampsa]

Since you haven't even started a settler for the 3rd city and you have started a 3rd worker, I think axes make the most sense. With AGG those attacks are pretty powerful, even on deity.

Opening the save, I can see many habits that you could fix to improve your play tremendously

• 90% slider. It's much better to go 0/100% with the slider, due to rounding. You are likely losing one / per turn going 90%
• improving tiles. Here improving both clams was a mistake, since work boats are costly and you can't use all that food anyway. Even a mine would be a better tile here
• starting with a worker in 2nd city. That's nearly always bad when you have a -resource available. If you need a worker you should grow to 2, whip
• 1-pop whipping. You just 1-pop whipped a scouting work boat in capital, which is a huge mistake. You are whipping away a strong tile and now can't grow back to size 5 without being unhappy. Okay, this is partly due to improving the wrong tiles. If you want to whip your capital, often 3-pop whipping settlers is the best, as -penalty is the same (-1 for 10T), but you are generating 90 instead of 30

Edit: so why am I recommending a 1-pop whip in 2nd city but labeling it a big mistake in capital? Because in 2nd city we are far below -cap and that -1-penalty has zero impact.

 

[Fippy]

Classic case of a shared tiles 2nd city

Spoiler :

Honestly your dry rice city is rather weak compared (and also needs Agri researched).

 

[lymond]

Settlin” on ivory woulda been fairly classic too. Seems OP has an aversion to city overlap and does not realize its strengths.

 

[sampsa]

Oh forgot to say anything about tech. After the techs to improve food, BW, you should usually go pottery-writing, unless some "special plan". Mysticism by itself is not very useful (at least here, your cities won't benefit from monuments as they are correctly placed) and I wouldn't recommend going for Oracle that often. Well, depends what you are planning to do of course.

 

[sampsa]

@lymond Yes, settling on ivory is certainly possible. I don't think sharing the food tiles is more important than grabbing new ones though (even as modest as 4) and settling on plains hill kills a weak tile, leaving ivory-tile available. As Fips pointed out, another city to share tiles can be settled in the south.

 

[sampsa]

I played the start to show my interpretation

Spoiler :

I switched the resource bubbles off, we know where the resources are anyway. Went for the eastern city first because it's connected via coast (I think the southern one wouldn't be connected to capital?) and these cities are settled 5T apart so can't be a big deal either way. Sparta is whipping the work boat for Corinth/Athens soon (actually would've been the same to whip it in Corinth as it's done on the same turn. edit: no wait, Corinth would be 1T faster). Next we build some workers, then start producing barracks+units.