RR12 - A perfect spy

I'm not worried about expansion at all, Rolo. We are Organized. Not sure what you mean by 60% break even. That figure is irrelevant to me. Just run some binary and soon we will have currency which will make things even better. I don't think we can limit ourselves on the expansion front.

The spy culture mission will be fun and interesting, but I still think we need some emphasis on culture to be effect. It takes A LOT of the missions to be really effective - and that's a lot of spies and hammers. We will lose spies as will. Music gives us a couple of things - a) a Great Artist for a strategic culture bomb or golden age b) We can build culture in cities to get over that final hump
 
I take it that the above means you're on skip until further notice?

If so, I'll try to post something resembling a plan tomorrow.

A swap would be good. I'll see where I am after that. Just finally found the office CD to start that install.
 
PPP

- Trade IW+Archery for Alpha or Aesth (which?) with MM. I'd pick up the unfashionable archery, as archers are cheaper than axes and provide for decent enough defense, just in case. I'd put something like 2 archers + 1 axe in Addis Abeba in the short-medium run.

- Courthouse builds are obviously good given the variant, but I'm inclined to halt both CHs after their respective growths for other urgent matters. Also with the thought that a chop into a CH gives double hammers, so we can chop at a convenient moment. That leads me to the following city build plan:

Aksum: work grass hill instead of gold for 2 turns to grow a turn quicker. At size 5 switch to settler. Afterwards continue with CH (with chop), then unit(s).
Gondar: switch to archer/axe now, grow, switch to worker. Finish CH (with chop) and unit. More units afterwards.
Lalibela: I think it's probably not worth it to whip the granary given it has good tiles and the pig about finished when it grows to size 3. Granary->archer (escort for new city up north)->settler (or worker?).
Addis Abeba: switch to granary, whip when possible. Overflow into stele. Unit.

Workers:
2 western ones, connect AA, improve cow and jumbos. 1 will chop a forest for Gondar at some point.
2 eastern ones, one improves pig, chops/mines a hill. Other one roads towards Wang and new city north.
New worker from Gondar roads towards capital (we don't have sailing, so we need a road which will be useful anyway), does a chop for capital, connects gold.

Now on settling locations. Here's a pic of the north.

If I understood correctly, lymond proposed the magenta spot. Certainly an option, but I could also see us settle both red ones. The western one will exert pressure on Mansa's city early, the eastern one will have Wang's capital in its 5th ring (at 5000 culture). With Magenta it has to be the 6th ring, which would mean legendary... ;) Wang may settle somewhere in between though, so that city might serve as the culture hub.
Thoughts? I'll go with the majority, obviously.

Misc.:
- Confu missionary goes to AA.
- What if Monty asks us to become Hindu? Accept?

I'll play until currency comes in.
 
Start by the end:

- It is no use to try to cuddle Monty IMHO and it is too early to see if Hindu is a good idea or not. So IMHO, no to conversion even if monty comes knocking.

-On the cities... well it depends of what we want to do with the city in that area. if we want to start attacking culturally, definitely the western red. If we just want a city to deny further settling by the AI in the area, magenta. To be honest, I think it is early to start those attacks , but earlier attacks are normally more effective...

-City queue orders. prooceed as you stated. Same for workers

- Trade for archery, definitely. Arcehrs are a pretty cheap investemnt to our current state of war planning ( defensive only :D )

@lymond

I'm not exactly a big fan of the number either, but I find it a useful early game gauge on the health of our civ.... unless you are proposedely running some strat that relies on anything else than good ol'working tiles and money on the sliders, 60% normally means "healthy enough, but take some care" :D
 
Finally have Civ4 working :)

Now to figure out how to get it to default to window (instead of full screen) and try to figure out why a brand new PC keeps giving a message about to weak of specs for a several year old game.
 
@LK

Documents/My games/Beyond the Sword/CivilizationIV.ini . Open with notepad or other text editor.

Find this:
Code:
; Specify whether to play in fullscreen mode 0/1/ask
FullScreen = 0
Default is 1 ( duh ). Change it to 0 or ask ( depending if you want a irking pop up asking eery time you load the game if you want to playfull screen or not ).

About being weak of specs ... well, not sure about that one. it might be a issue with some of the components ( can't say if you designed the machine of if you bought it without changes , but in the second case it is a pretty standart deal for the manufacturers to put one of the boards of far inferior quality of the rest ( usual culprits are the graph car or the RAM ) to cut on the price while still boasting about the processor ).
 
Worked - have windowed mode back.

The issue is voice capture device. Need to figure out how to turn that off next.

Tested, and I could play the game. Now need to get the options back to how I'm use to...
 
Lkendter - For the voice capture issue, go to the Vanilla INI file and look for the voice capture setting there and set it to "off". For some reason, it has to be changed in the vanilla INI. I had that issue before. As for the graphics issue, I get that message after installing BTS - which I've done a few times for various reasons. The PCs I have it installed on are excellent, so I think it just some quirk with the old game. I ignore the message and go back and adjust all the graphic settings to normal and BTS runs and looks great.

@rolo - I ignore slider percentage altogether. As long as I can maintain a certain number of cities and not actually bleed gold, I consider that healthy. I run binary around Writing which usually give me plenty of money to expand OR one can war to get money. Once Currency is in it's a free ride.

@Nocho - hmmm....I think I like the idea of splitting those cities up there. However, we might need to get a couple of settlers up there quick to do the job before Mansa's borders expand again so that we could not settle. In fact, i would settle the Mansa side first, since we know Wang's borders just popped. Both cities are actually pretty decent. Another thought is to still settle the sugar and also the grass hill 3 tiles W of the sugar as that city will exert pressure on 2 Mali cities.

I think Gondor and Lali should build workers now. We need a lot of them here.

I might consider holding off on growth in Aksum to build the settler. I don't think it will add much in terms of how fast the settler will grow by delaying 2 turns, plus the lose of the commerce from not working the gold. Too bad Aksum was whipped earlier as there are plenty of forests to chop around the city. 8 turns is not bad for a settler and we could put a chop into it.
 
Played yesterday afternoon already, but due to parental obligations couldn't write a report in what was left of the day.

All went more or less according to plan.

Started with trading IW+archery for alpha with Mansa. We have iron in the 3rd ring of Aksum.

Monty came to make a demand and caved for some guaranteed peace and some diplo. Monty is worst enemy of the rest of the world but Shaka and as I never can remember if caving in to demands counts as trading with WE feared some diplo minus with the rest, but that didn't happen.


I know we said not to whip Aksum, but got a bit nervous about getting to our spot, especially when I saw that the sugar was under MM's control already. So whipped the settler in Aksum for good overflow into the CH. Just after having pressed the build city button, noticed that MM just founded Christianity in Djenne. Cursed shortly thinking our new city would come under too much pressure, but I guess with creative, a religion spread, a library and a stele we should be okay. A city 3E of Yeha might help too. Yeha might need some chopping to get that infra asap.


Finished when currency came in. Got 2 workers out of Gondar. Built an archer and axe for AA, the latter is just 1NW of Aksum. Monty is in WHEOOHRN so beware! We have some turns of forced peace still and we're not his WE, but you never know. He might do us a favour and go for Mansa though. Still would try to get some more units in AA though, better safe than sorry.

In Lalibela we are about to finish a settler (was just 1 hammer short of finishing it this turn) as well as an archer (21/25h). Note the city right now has no garrison, it went to Yeha. We might want to settle 3E of Yeha if that spot is still available, or alternatively somewhere E/SE of Lalibela.

Here's where we stand technologically.


Tentatively just hired a spy in both Aksum and Gondar, basically to speed up GPP generation. Also just remembered to look at EP spending, I think MM will be best target for now so adjusted accordingly.
 

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Good call on not giving up on our city. In fact it was by far the best call to settle it as it is, since it allows us to attack culturally 2 of mansa cities. But the fact that Mansa has theo means that we will see a AP built sooner or later :( ... hopefully mansa stays christian :D

I guess we have not much to expand now without applying some judicious cultural pressure. i strongly suggest we settle soon against monty cap ... say , 5 E of monty cap. And then the game of cultural pressure begins :p

BTW, Monty is with hands full :| As we can't be the target due to the enforced peace deal, who is it ? Wang is the worst enemy, but he is annoyed with everyone except us , so it is hard to tell ... bets are open :D It would be nice if it was Mansa.

Not sure on the hired spy specs. The one in Aksum is pretty much unneeded in terms of GPP points, but i can see the point in hiring him. The other ... not so much.

Now on other issues ... what to do with the incoming GSpy? I already said of my justice some posts ago , but i would like more opinions.

And we need to discuss the tech path from now on. I suggest Math->CS ... lymond suggested earlier to give a detour to atleast Lit ( or Math->Lit->Music ? ). I understand his point, but I'm not sold.

Oh, and PLEASE, don't burn the treasury below 10 g. Do I have to tell this EVERY SG ? :p

LK, if civ able, is UP. I'm on deck.
 
We need to hook up trade routes asap...
 
I guess we have not much to expand now without applying some judicious cultural pressure. i strongly suggest we settle soon against monty cap ... say , 5 E of monty cap. And then the game of cultural pressure begins :p
Might I suggest 5E1N of Monty's cap? Conveniently on a hill in case of a not unlikely DoW at some point. Clears a jungle instead of a forest, has some irrigable grassland to the north (in case we want to work some hills for prod) and is a tile closer to that barb city which will likely end up in Monty's hands anyway.

I'd like a city against Wang's cap as well (like the suggested 3E of Yeha).

Not sure on the hired spy specs. The one in Aksum is pretty much unneeded in terms of GPP points, but i can see the point in hiring him. The other ... not so much.
I basically hired them before saving to have some discussion about this... I think I'd perma-hire the spy in Aksum in the hope of generating a 2nd spy. I'm fine to drop the spy in Gondar, it's just that it has some GPP generation going thanks to the Oracle and maybe we don't want to waste that. Btw, in Aksum I could even see a hybrid hiring of spies/scientists to speed things up a bit more. Instead of a 2nd spy a GS for an academy would be good to.

Now on other issues ... what to do with the incoming GSpy? I already said of my justice some posts ago , but i would like more opinions.
Definitely SY in Aksum, any other GSpies also SYs. We're more interested in late game heavy EP generation, than early EPs. With what we have planned I think the SY in the end must win out on an early settled GSpy.

However, anywhere we create a SY, imo a spy should be hired to at least leverage it a bit before the heavy spy buildings become available.

And we need to discuss the tech path from now on. I suggest Math->CS ... lymond suggested earlier to give a detour to atleast Lit ( or Math->Lit->Music ? ). I understand his point, but I'm not sold.
Maybe a reason to get music is denial of the GA to the AI. They are prone to culture bombing and I'm not sure that if Mansa for instance bombs Djenne early, Yeha wouldn't flip... I'd rather bomb Yeha myself! :D Or use it on a golden age or whatever, but maybe denying isn't bad. And usually music makes a good trading chip, so I'm fine to take it. Not sure though whether before or after CS. :p
Literature for the NE can't be too bad either. I can live without GLib (especially if we're without marble). Question is where we want the NE. If we're interested in GSpies, Aksum would be obvious, then again, it would be a pretty good bureau cap if we cottage it up. That doesn't go too naturally with NE.

Anyway, I agree we should go asap to the spy buildings, but a little detour to music won't hurt, imo. Backtrading will make up for the detour, I think.

Oh, and PLEASE, don't burn the treasury below 10 g. Do I have to tell this EVERY SG ? :p
YES! :p Never remember you like to play with events on. :)
 
LK, if civ able, is UP. I'm on deck.

In the queue for tomorrow.

Still got a *lot* of work on the PC, but Civ4 is working.
 
Surprise no comments about where is the game. I didn’t realize I was a bit past 48 hours.

I am still going nuts with too much to do despite being between assignments.


550 BC
Just 3 bucks in the bank, so dial science down.

I fire the spy is Aksum. Right now our goal is to build a strong empire. Using the mine helps to get out a scout to check south for possible seafood.

We have another settler coming up, but our pickings for city sites are slim. Looks like an aggressive city site coming up.


500 BC
(IT) Go away Wang - I am not wasting the trade limit on fishing.
Darius wants us to cancel deals with Monty - NO.

475 BC
Our aggressive site vs. Mansa. I like the Christian city. Once with get control of the flood plains we gain food, and banana gains food later. It also secures our only iron source.


425 BC
Scotland Yard is built in Aksum.


400 BC
A spy is hired in Aksum now that it has hit the happy limit and has SY.


375 BC
(IT) We rank as the least powerful civ. :(


So far my exploration of the south and southeast has showed a bunch of garbage. At best I see some resource cities.
Civil service is a PLACEHOLDER. I stopped here so that tech path can be discussed.
Addis Ababa will be a lot stronger when we control the rice - pushing culture in that city.
Whip Yeha and put a steele in the queue. That city badly needs culture. Debre is in the same situation, but a steel will complete next turn.
 
The new city. By next turn I need to recall the best way for inline pictures. Still to many missing links in IE.
 
For the next set, I think the most important thing is settling the east while we still can. It will put a strain on our eco, but we're well ahead tech-wise and taking empty land now is a lot easier than painfully pushing culture later.

I propose settling the two sites shown here:



Tech-wise, getting Fishing and Sailing sooner or later might be a good idea so we can trade for Calendar - MM will get it very soon. Music and its prereqs are expensive and currently not worth it for the GA I think.
My favorite next tech is Monarchy. We have happiness issues in several cities and we're planning to build some more military anyway. CS is nice but quite expensive, I'd get it after Monarchy and possibly Sailing.

Other than that, it seems to be a straightforward builder's game, with focus on culture. Gondar should see to building more troops so we won't fall behind in power. After the temple there is no more urgent infrastructure to build there anyway. Does anyone know which units are most cost-effective to raise our soldier count?
 
I'd whip the Temple in Gondar this turn, and the Courthouse in Lalibela into a temple.

Will we try to run some priests for the shrine, I know we've only 2 confused cities, but shrine gold will be handy for the espionage slider later.

@Thrar purple can't be settled, its only 2SE of Tarsus, it'll have to go either 1SE or 1E.

Regarding my own city placement ideas, we could settle on the furs in our SE, it will give us the furs themselves, a source of crab, and a safe source of iron, in case someone goes after Debre Barhan. It is a longer term target and doesn't squeeze anyone, but it'll probably be worth it at some stage.
 
Lurker's comment :

Did I miss castles in the discussions?
Was Sumeria, maybe, a better choice?
 
Lurker's comment :

Did I miss castles in the discussions?

Don't think so.

Was Sumeria, maybe, a better choice?

Sumeria was already done in RR6, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm over going over previous ground.
 
@Thrar purple can't be settled, its only 2SE of Tarsus, it'll have to go either 1SE or 1E.
I think you meant 1W didn't you? In case you did I would vote for that site as well to be our next city!

Regarding my own city placement ideas, we could settle on the furs in our SE, it will give us the furs themselves, a source of crab, and a safe source of iron, in case someone goes after Debre Barhan. It is a longer term target and doesn't squeeze anyone, but it'll probably be worth it at some stage.
And this should be next afterwards.

And techwise I don't think we should leave the GA from music behind..
 
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