Request for a Civ4: BtS "Intermediate" Succession Game

[Jamesds]

James has detailed all this in the 1st post which he keeps asking people to read...

that quote was from my first post

Anyway, I've added a basic outline to the first post, so you can see at a glance how it will all work out.

 

[Putchuco]

James has detailed all this in the 1st post which he keeps asking people to read...

And that's where I just found it...


No problem, I just missed/misunderstood this point, probably because I had a fixed understanding of succession in my mind.
I'll try anyway, should learn something either way.

 

[pawelo]

Now that we know our starting civ, I would like to propose ( take it or leave it ) to try one of peaceful victories - SS, diplo, apostolic or cultural - there is no fun in discovering the "beyond the sword" feel if we go for conquest

 

[Jamesds]

OK - results are through, and posted in the contents. We will be the Babylonians!

Putchuto - could you check your Private Messages and see that they are enabled, because you don't seem to have received the last two PMs I sent you.

Edit: SS is always my backup plan. I might be inclined to try cultural, but we aren't creative. So, we'll have to see!

 

[Jamesds]

Well, this is it. The save is here. We have a nice start it seems, I especially like the pigs next to the settler. And a nearby hut.

See what you can make of it, and I'll see you back here tomorrow with the first 40 turns complete, ok? If we are all done before that, we can move on quicker, but there's no pressure.

Here's the Save

Here's the starting position:

EDIT: Thought I'd also add screenies of the Bowman and Garden, Babylon's UU and UB.

The Garden has an additional +2 over the colosseum which it replaces:

The bowman is excellent for defence (and somewhat useful for attack too, I guess) with a +50% vs Melee units (it replaces Archer)

EDIT2: Sorry frob2900, but I forgot about the extra civ, so there's the standard 7 civs on this map.

 

[Putchuco]

Putchuco - could you check your Private Messages and see that they are enabled, because you don't seem to have received the last two PMs I sent you.

Apologies, I overlooked that, PM was enabled, but didn't have PM notification enabled.

So, future PM's should reach me, and freenode chat is open...



Can't wait to try the game out!
Will we have some sort of pre-game discussion, advantages/disadvantages of the leader, current situation? Or is that something you want to do as we go, and see how each one plays to the situation?

 

[Jamesds]

Well, depends what everyone wants to do. I'm fine either way. I think this is where the parallel playing is great, because we can all go ahead and play, then discuss what we all did, and compare our status to see how well we all did with the strategy we chose.

 

[Putchuco]

OK, I'll just go ahead and post some thoughts.

First I love to strategize (did I warn everybody that I love to draw city lines on my maps? ), and 2nd I'd love to see if other people start their games similar or totally different.

I do try to think about the traits and the UU/UB of a leader, the type of map etc, it gets me in the mood and might help me to develop a winning strategy.

Hammurabi/Babylonian:
- Aggressive
-- free Combat I promotion for Melee units and Gunpowder units
-- double production speed of Barracks/Drydocks

- Organized
-- -50% civic upkeep
-- double production speed for lighthouse, factory and courthouse


It's a bummer that the UU is not a melee unit and therefore doesn't receive the Combat I promotion ... lol
Well, you can't have it all.

I liked pawelo's idea of 'BtS specific' strategy, not 'just' domination; but with the early UU and the aggressive trait (Combat, cheap Barracks), it's almost a must to go to war early, or?

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

Well, I've done my entire 14 minutes of 40 turns. At least for me, there wasn't a massive amount to do...

Spoiler Initial Attempt at Stats :

I'm aware that the text-quality isn't fantastic. If I make it wider...
I'll highlight high-and-lows when there's more than me on there.

I'll get my save up sooner rather than later.
(Something easy for others to beat. )

 

[Jamesds]

Well, it is early I know, but I have finished my 40 turns. I've got a line for my next city. I'm not that great at choosing city sites, so after you have played through, I await discussion of this chosen (but not yet settled upon) site.

I enclose the screenshots and brief writeup in

Spoiler :

tags so those who haven't played yet aren't given any hints .

Spoiler :

So, I built a warrior at the start. Explored with my free warrior. Found some barbs, and got some goodies from 2 huts: 112 gold and 6 XP. I made sure to get Animal Husbandry ASAP for the Pigs.

Built a worker after the warrior, warrior defends.

Discovered the Chinese, Qin Shi Huang. He's on the bit of forest sticking out from the fog of war, which might be another island/continent. When I got the 6XP for my warrior, I promoted him to Woodsman II for double speed in Forest + Jungle.

The worker built a pasture on the pigs, then a farm over on the other side of the city, and it currently working on a mine. The settler is going up to the spot shown below, after a slight change of plan having seen the clams. City ready to be built next turn.

I discovered Animal Husbandry, Hunting, Archery, Mining, now 4 turns to Bronze Working. I also set my city to work the plantation for a slight increase in production and commerce.

My explored territory at the end of turn 40.

Where I think a city might go nicely - a cool choke-point too nearby.

EDIT: Well done for beating me to the writeup, Zetetic

 

[frob2900]

Quick msg.

I won't be able to play my turns tday, but possibly tomorrow.

(when I came home from work I had a notice that a water pipe had burst in the flat next to mine and now I have significant water damage in my flat.. bookcase full of books ruined etc. have to work on that all evening)

 

[Jamesds]

Quick msg.

I won't be able to play my turns tday, but possibly tomorrow.

(when I came home from work I had a notice that a water pipe had burst in the flat next to mine and now I have significant water damage in my flat.. bookcase full of books ruined etc. have to work on that all evening)

Sorry to hear that, I hope that too much isn't damaged. Can you get insurance?

Don't worry, the deadline is tomorrow evening, but we can be flexible for extreme cases. Just take your time and concentrate on what you have to do.

EDIT: Nice table Zetetic Apparat - looks great. But where's your brief writeup?

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

My save.
I'll add James' stats now...

Interestingly, I have a greater number of 'soldiers'. Presumably due to the Barracks?

My write-up...
Hmm...

Spoiler :

We're geographically isolated, so far it appears, in the sense that there's water between us and our pink (we're what, lilac) neighbour. Some resources, nothing useful for early wonders. Spices are helpful given our health boost in Garden form but there's not many varied happy resources. Some wolves, lost a warrior because I wasn't paying attention. Wonder what's to the north...
Qin has a higher score in my game. A little weird.

 

[Jamesds]

My save.
I'll add James' stats now...

Interestingly, I have a greater number of 'soldiers'. Presumably due to the Barracks?

Qin has a higher score in my game. A little weird.

Spoiler :

Well, you have Bronze Working (I'm 4 turns away), and yes, I don't have Barracks. As for Qin's score, I'm not sure - just random things probably - i.e. maybe he got a settler from a hut in your game, or a tech.

Let me just remind everyone who might have missed this in my first post:
Make sure you have Solver's Unofficial Patch installed!

 

[chopstyx]

Excellent work JamesDS.

EDIT: The deadlineis the 17th? I'll play it tonight & send it to you but I'm not sure I'll be able t play the next turns as I'm not home from tomorrow until Monday.

 

[Jamesds]

Excellent work JamesDS.

EDIT: The deadlineis the 17th? I'll play it tonight & send it to you but I'm not sure I'll be able t play the next turns as I'm not home from tomorrow until Monday.

Thanks, it's my first time leading an SG, so if you have any queries (like something I forgot or am not clear about) then please ask.

No problem chopstyx, if you could spend 15 min on your game tonight, that would be great. I just thought that if we could get the first 4 turns done quickly (and it only took Zetetic Apparat and myself 15 or so minutes to do), then we can start the discussion. We will start the next round next week, say Monday if possible. What I don't want to happen is that the SG slows down to a crawl, and we all get bored and leave. Let's keep it as fast as we can handle (within reason to allow learning time) to make it fun and keep us involved.

 

[frob2900]

Well, the water problem is handled. Books damaged, but no electronics

Anyhow, I played my turns. Shame about the Bowman UU, I hate archers.

Spoiler :

I worked the unimproved pig till size 3 while building warriors, built a worker and then chopped a settler. The settler was dispatched with 1 warrior as guard. A desperate moment ensued:

Spoiler :

Tech order (as far as I recall)
Mining->Bronze Working->Animal Husbandry->Pottery

Second city up and running on turn 40. 1 worker built, second being built in capital.
Will probably have to end up getting bowmen unless I can hook up the copper city to the south or north before barbs get troublesome. If I get 1 axe per city then I'm skipping bows and saving the for archery

There aren't going to be any wonders in this game, methinks. Cottages all the way. Oh, yes, and Qin Shi Huang must die! We must get that fish heaven he calls his capital!

 

[Putchuco]

Here's my first 40 turns.

Spoiler :

I settled in place, as my Warrior didn't see any better spot after climbing the hill.

Built a Warrior first (I hate building Worker/Settler with a 1Pop city),
and started with researching Hunting first.
Idea behind Hunting was to aim for two techs: Animal Husbandry and Archery.

Spoiler :

The first hut popped a technology, lucky me: Pottery.

3760BC: Hunting - At this moment I thought I might need scouts to go on large explorations
3360BC: Animal Husbandry - Preparation for the 1st worker to work the Pig tile

After the Warrior I decided to go for a Barrack, since it needed only 8 turns,
and I could time it perfectly with the city growing to size 3.

2nd hut gave my already nicely experienced Warrior some more experience

3120BC: Archery
At this point I started to think that the 'Big&Small' map was holding a size small for us in store... This 'continent' (island?) didn't appear to be anything big...

2920BC: Fishing
Wanted to be ready to harvest the lake or possibly the ocean soon.
(This was maybe a mistake or possibly too early, turned out I didn't really need this)

A little 'event' gave my already quite experienced Warrior another XP...

Spoiler :

3rd hut popped hostile villagers, well, one...
The lonely angry Warrior couldn't take my 2nd Warrior down, not even with the help of a nearby Lion...

2680BC: Mining - Preparation for BW

Built my 1st Bowman and gave him an extra 1st strike.
At this point Babylon was right on it's way to grow to size 4 in 4 turns.
A 2nd Bowman would take 5 turns.
Burned by very aggressive opponents in recent Monarch games, I went for the 2nd Bowman before building my 1st Settler. With size 4 that Settler would also be built faster, was my thinking. Someone smarter than me can probably easily calculate if that theory holds any water.
The final straws on the decision to build the 2nd Bowman were a) this is our UU and quite strong, b) there's this Bear roaming around and I really don't want to get him used to my people's blood.

Spoiler :

I finally find the first opponent: Qin !
He's quite a bit behind me (no wonder in Prince), but I'm VERY careful with this guy:
his SUPER archer later is a MENACE that I usually love to use myself a lot!

Spoiler :

Here's my 'universe' at turn 40:
- Settler is being build
- Bronze Working 5 turns away
- 2 Bowman and 2 Warrior protecting, exploring
(could they even try an early rush?)

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Here's my current stats:
- Soldiers look very good, quite unusual for me, I normally grow faster in the beginning
- Population is OK (I usually like to lead here) and Land is bad (probably because I'm missing a 2nd city)

Spoiler :

Tech tree looks like this right now:
- 5 turns till BW, and hoping for a nice location for that Settler,
which will be ready just three turns after

Spoiler :

 

[pawelo]

OK friends, let's get this party started
PS. Sorry to be that late - I ve been busy the whole day.

Spoiler :

I am ok with Babylonians, though they don’t fit well my peacefull nature . Well, let’s start and get some profit from those nasty bowmen.
Our starting location seems rather nice, with two river hills ( youpi! ), pig tile and a nearby spices for further happiness. I choose to settle on site and get the worker on the way.



I went for AH. The nearby hut gave some gold, and things went smoothly for some turns. In turn 10, I met Qin Shi Huang at our east, which made me consider settling next city to the east, to secure some fertile area nearby. However, we will wait and see until the scouting is finished. AH revealed no horses, and I went on for Mining. I popped a scout from the goody hut to the east. The same turn ( 14 ) Buddhism was FIDL.

Next turn the worker was built so I decided to put some shields on barracks while pasturizing the pig tile and mining the southern hill.BW came by in turn 32, Slavery followed in 33, and a Settler was about to be whipped . Btw, we have bronze! Not too bad .

I started Hunting, beelining for Archery, than I think about going for fishing/sailing , I think we are on the Small part of the Big and Small . On turn 36, our scout gained some experience far in the north ( discovering next bronze and a yummy clam ) and settler got whipped in Babylon ( got a warrior than, and started a next settler).

I went south/east to settle close to the next pig tile, leaving the bronze one for the next city. However, and I think it was a mistake, I didn’t settle one tile from it, but two ( according to my grid map, it seemed to me a better idea ). But we don’t have monument, so this tile will have to wait until we discover mysticism ( ~ten more turns… ). We will have the monument chopped by then and everything should be ok.

So here is our situation at the end of turn 40 :



This is the north/east/center part.

And here we go with the southern/western part :



OK, I have drawn some crosses here and there. Well, just to explain. Red ones are already there ( Babylon and Akkad ), and those rose tiles around Akkad are actually being worked. I plan founding the next one on the green bronze tile, and then going for one of yellow crosses ( pretty much good land here and there. The plan is also to go for the island north/east, and maybe get benefit from our bowmen/aggressive combo to get Qin Shi Huang island just west from us ( see that red fish and clam ? – there he is ).

I am keen on receiving your appraisal and criticism ( there surely will be some ) and I am eager to discuss everyone’s games
Pawelo

 

[Jamesds]

Well done all, nice to see lots of saves in so soon!

Spoiler Quick Analysis :

After looking at the saves, I see 2 of you have managed a second city (I would have built a new city on my next turn...oh well).
frob2900 - your choice for a city location is different than I would have done, but pawelo, you have marked the spot I am about to settle on, so I feel I've done something right. You've got the continent mapped out, and you've planned ahead nicely. I usually look only two cities ahead or so.

Putchuco is taking a military approach, with defense being priority, and a city further off as a result. Zetetic Apparat also is slightly behind with a Settler, but maybe that's because he consider's military important enough to warrant building a barracks.

Most of you made a beeline for Bronze Working, whereas Archery was more important to some of us (inc. me).

Anyway, that's just a quick overview - once we all submit our games, then let the real discussion begin!

EDIT: I see Zetetic Apparat is now busy at work . I was thinking, should there be something for 'gold', 'beakers/turn' when breaking even and 'total beakers' (total beakers can wait a small while until you have time)? And do you think the techs should have the current tech with the number of turns until completion in brackets? Anyway, nice job on the table!