Sanguivorant's IM A NOOB Walkthrough

[Sanguivorant]

I call out to the experts, caliphs, kings, rulers, and dictators alike! I have a big problem:

IM A NOOB CIVVER.

Sacrilege! Blasphemy! I know. That is why I must seek the knowledge of the sages and the monks, and learn how to civ. I hope I stay on the straight path. Amen.

Okay, now that appeasement is out of the way, let us get into business.

I like this great game, though I have only won Warlords difficulty so far. I stepped up to noble a lot of times, but I can never manage to secure victory in any way. Is it the way I play? Do I do things wrong? Am I just a horrible decision maker? I do not know. But what I do know is that if I am spoon fed for one game, I might pick up on useful tips that might help improve my gameplay.

So here is what I am going to do. I am going to play a game on noble difficulty, and every 15 or so turns (Or whenever a major event happens), I will take a screenshot, and also write my intended decisions and plans so that I may get some advice.

The game will be standard-sized Terra, because my computer is slower on large maps and I love colonization. I lowered my graphics, so my screenshot may not look fancy, but it will be informative at the least.

Alright, here we go:

I chose a random leader and I ended up with Victoria, financial and imperialistic:

Spoiler :

Around my settler are two elephant supplies, rice and clams, and a nearby tribal hut. Moving my warrior to the next hill reveals a second tribal hut and two spice resources. A good start, I guess.

The computer recommends three areas, but I believe where my settler is stationed now is a good start for a city. I need to get the tribal huts first, and I might need to get iron working in the near future if I want to expand southwards, though there might be more land up north.

 

[pigswill]

First advice if if you're posting a game for advice then don't play ahead too quickly because people won't have time to post their comments, 15-20 turns a day to start with (maybe play another game while waiting for replies to this one).

It can also be helpful to post saves as you go along (like you've done already).

Back to the game in hand. Settle in place looks good. Good early techs are obviously agric for the rice, fishing for the clams and hunting for ivory. Because Vicky's imperialistic you get a bonus on hammers for settlers, getting an early settler is nearly always a good thing.

I'd go worker first, tech agric and hunting, use worker to improve rice first then ivory. After the worker build warrior(s) for more exploration then start a workboat once you've got some ivory improved. But maybe that's going too far ahead already.

Maybe start exploring north first because with jungle to the south you won't likely to be building cities down south to start with.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Okay, first 15 turns have been taken:

Spoiler :

Exploring the map revealed some livestock, pig and cow. There are two gem resources near my warrior. Beside the spices, you can see a scout that I've picked up from a tribal hut at the south-west, and there's a tribal hut north-east of my city.

It turns out that north of the coast, there is more land than I've expected, I think there's a river over there. It could be a candidate for a new city.

I'm teching Animal Husbandry, assuming that I could get the two livestock easily.

I'm current building a warrior, but I think it might be a better idea to build a settler first, since my scout can explore much better than a second warrior.

 

[Revent]

A thing to note, most cases, you should turn away as soon as you see jungle. You shouldn't be settling cities there to start with and the whole point of scouting is to find future city spots (and secondary objective is to find the AI)

 

[lymond]

Not applicable to this game, ofc, but I highly recommend you get the BUG mod, installed in custom assets, which you can find here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274636

The first thing you ask your self is how can I make the capital as productive as possible the fastest. AG>Hunting is not a bad start here. However, FIN clams is a better yield than dry corn, so I might have gone workboat first on this start, especially starting with the Fish tech. Grow to pop 2 on a warrior and build a worker. You would now be worker a 4F3c tile.

BW, only 1 tech away, is another tech that will make you highly productive early in many ways, as well as possibly providing you a strat. Instead you are teching AH for resources that are not even in your BFC. Ask yourself what is wrong with that picture?

As for IW, this is a tech I usually avoid teching myself except in extreme situations. Gems are nice, but jungled gems and jungly areas make for very unproductive early cities. I would hold decisions on that until I have a much better view of surrounding land and AI proximity. That area to the south and west might be a backfill area much later.

Based on what I see so far and not knowing where the AI is, a city for fish/pigs looks like it will be quite productive early..and you don't even need AH. Fish plus mined pigs plus mined grass hill with 3 forests to chop look pretty good. However, there may be other options to see as you scout.

Right now, assuming fish/pig is your next city, I would go BW>Myst. Then maybe POT>Writing.

edit: I do have to keep in mind that this is Noble, so AH is certainly doable and even get the POT+AH combo before Writing. However, BW is much more valuable to you at present for chops, mines(under the forests), copper, and what will probably be very minimal whipping in such a low food cap.

London is definitely a production city and not really a traditional Bureau cap,which you may relocate to later....unless you go all out war and do the Bureau HE thing.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Update:



By the time it took me to realize that I was going to research Bronze Working instead, I was one turn away from Animal Husbandry, so I researched it. Oh well.

Spoiler :

I've improved the rice and and ivories, but there are four turns left until Bronze Working. There is a clear hill that I can place a mine on while my worker waits to chop trees. I don't have the wheel tech yet. Should I get it soon?

I've finished my warrior, and I placed him in my city just in case a barbarian attacks. Though it would probably be best to get him to scout south of the jungle.

Spoiler :

This is the world as of now. I have noted two good city sites. One is the fish and pigs site mentioned by Lymond, and another one is a wheat/cow site, however it is a far distance away.

The bananas have some jungle in that region, so I should probably not settle there for a while. The gold is in mostly a desert region, so it might be hard to get this one productive as quick as possible.

The land north of London looks very attractive, and I should probably explore it in some way. I could tech sailing and build a galley to send my scout there, or I could get a fishing boat to explore the coast. I'm not sure.

By now, both Buddhism and Hinduism have been founded, but I have not found anyone yet.

If it is not asking too much, can whoever is giving advice not use short terms for techs, as I get a little confused. I would appreciate it if you would say, "Tech Bronze", for example, than, "Tech BW". And what does BFC stand for?

I might not play/update again until the morning, so good night!

By the way, what exactly does the BUG mod do?

 

[The Oz-Man]

BFC is short for "Big Fat Cross;" it refers to the 20 tiles (and the city tile itself makes 21) that the city can "work" (click on the city screen). Before your cities pop their borders from culture, only the first 8 tiles and the city tiles are workable, but the first border pop gives you the remaining 12. It's therefore a good idea when playing a non-Creative leader like Victoria--who needs a source of culture (religion, culture building, most likely a monument early on)--to see that food to help your city grow is adjacent to your city tile; that way, your city can use the food to add population, letting you use the whip to get the monument (and therefore your first border pops).

Given the shape of the land, I'd say you're probably in the equivalent of North Africa since the Terra map usually takes on a somewhat Earth-like shape. It's odd that you haven't found anyone yet, but as Imperialistic Victoria with a Settler discount, that means you've got some room to REX (Rapid Early eXpansion, meaning building Settlers and founding cities before your opponents can). Both sites you've laid out look pretty good, but I'd see if you can found another city between London and the wheat city; that's a lot of distance.

IW (Iron Working) is going to be needed eventually, especially since Financial Victoria wants the double-gem site; on Noble you may have to self-tech it, but I usually plan to trade away Math or Alphabet for it.

EDIT: BUG adds things to your interface. Here's a shot from one of my old games that shows what you get:

Spoiler :

At the top, it shows turns until my next GP (Great Person), where he'll show up, and what type he'll be at this point; if I'd put up a Library and run Scientist specialists, that would affect the result. You're also alerted when cities are going to grow and have options to "tag" future city sites ("Filler Plainstown"). You also receive notifications for trade availability and when you can whip things. "1.0" next to Justinian is my power relative to his (about even), and I can also see relations with other civs and what religion they're running right on the main screen. There's a lot more, too. It's all information that you can calculate on your own, but the mod does the work for you. I don't know how I ever played without it; going back and playing a mod like Rhye's and Fall of Civilization without it now drives me bonkers.

 

[spaced]

Yes, BUG is great and I can't imagine playing without it (the associated BAT & BULL mods are also wonderful, but a bit more CPU intensive for my old comp). Dumb question though (sorry for being slightly OT): what do you press to label city sites in the dotmap layer? I see people do it all the time but I've never been able to figure it out (it doesn't seem to be in the BUG help menu either).

 

[The Oz-Man]

Ctrl-S brings up the tags; Ctrl+X lets you make a dotmap.

 

[s.bernbaum]

RE Oz-Man's answer, Ctrl-S is part of the game. Ctrl-X is part of BUG.

 

[lymond]

Sang -

You really should have a work boat out by now. Although non-fish seafood is not the best, it is the best tile in your BFC and food is the most important resource.

My recommendation is to stop the 2nd worker (it is good that you value workers though). Your next builds should be 2 workboats and a settler. The first workboat is for the clams and the second is for scouting. Just set it to auto-explore and let it work its magic.

It's a bit surprising you've not met AIs, but jungle can sometimes nerf their own scouting. My guess is you are on the Northern tip of a the usual large Terra old world landmass with the AIs south of the jungle.

A scouting workboat serves multiple purposes. It reveals coast and unfogs it - this is important for identifying spots to settle but will also open foreign trade routes via coast that fog blocks. Secondly, it will likely allow you to meet all the AIs much faster.

You do not need a galley and a scout on this map. Avoid building scouts in general except maybe later for use as a super medic should your current one dies. However, getting a galley at some point to settle that island to the north is a good idea since it counts as overseas trade routes which is a boost. You may want to settle that as a 4th city.

Unless in an extreme urgency to block land or grab certain resources, it is a good practice to keep the empire compact and work outwards gradually, even using some overlap (although with such a low food capital, overlap doesn't benefit it much this game, but there may be cases for it elsewhere).

Other than pigs fish, your immediate surrounding land is not superlative. Since you have AH, settling cows/ivory third may be best - likely on the plains hill W of the cows. However, the possible BW copper reveal may determine where you settle next.

You will often be advised correctly to avoid teching IW but rather trade for it later. However, considering the scarcity of good land it may be ok to go for it to get gems up sooner than later. Maybe as a 4th or 5th city, but it is still not a pressing concern.

Yes, The Wheel is a good tech to get. For one it opens Pottery and also allow for connecting resources and cities. So BW>TW>POT>Writing is a good path here. Then maybe Sailing and IW next.

You reallly want to get that clams up though and get a bit more commerce and food in the picture.

As for abbreviations and acronyms, you are going to see that a lot around here. You make a valid point in terms of being more considerate to new players such as Oz's example above. However, I would recommend getting used to it and familiarizing yourself with this terms as you move forward, because it will not change.

Lastly, try to keep you scouting units on different path. Unfog the north coast and send one back west to see that area. Then pull the back a bit to spawnbust (anti-barb) future city spots.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Update:

Spoiler :

So a few turns afterwards, I got the message that the Maya civilization was destroyed. This probably hints that other there are aggressive civilizations I'm going to have to deal with, or the Mayans didn't defend well against barbarians.

Spoiler :

I teched Bronze, and as you can see, I've chopped the grassy hill and placed a mine on top. All the forests are on grassy terrain, so I should chop the remaining, starting with the other grassy hill.

Spoiler :

I've founded York in the desired city spot, but I can't reach the fish resource. I think it's a better idea to research Mystic now than writing, especially since I need to border pop York. The land up north wasn't as big as I thought, but it sure is an ideal location. Perhaps I could quickly develop a city with the clam and sheep there.

Spoiler :

The world as of now. I still haven't found any AI, so I'm afraid I might get out-teched because of isolation.

P.S: How do I remove signs?

 

[vicawoo]

There was really not much for your second worker to do, should have just built a settler straight off. Also on non raging barbarians, you don't need to garrison your cities for quite awhile, so it's better to save hammers and use it for scouting/escorting settlers.

Your 2nd city's building a worker, but there will be nothing for it to do. I might sound contradictory, but building workboats when you have worker improvable resources is useful more for the commerce at the cost of potential food/hammers (more workers/settlers).

 

[lymond]

Good point by Vic.

I lost my track of thought between my last post and previous comments and turnsets by you. I did mean for you to pick up Myst after BW (also assuming you would not get AH, but still it does not matter)

You are not in Iso on a Terra map unless you choose New World start. Therefore, your workboat scout should meet some AIs shortly if you send him in the right direction.

York should be growing on a workboat and then switch to monument with myst. York can eventually be a settler pump.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Never fear about getting out-teched on Noble when playing Financial leaders.

Land nearby looks terrible. I would be tempted to settle two cities as third and fourth settlements on the island to the North as they each provide one trade route to your mainland cities that carry a nice bonus for being overseas.

Do you have events on? That is an awfully early date for Pacal to bite the dust. Looks like he fell to the "Aryan Invasion" event.

If by signs you mean the notes you made for plotting cities, then Ctrl+S and then click on the plot with the note, delete note, hit ok and the sign will be gone.

 

[Sanguivorant]

update:

Spoiler :

Using my work boat, I scouted the coast and game across two AI's, Darius and Roosevelt. All I know about them so far is that Darius has a coastal city and Roosevelt appears to have large borders. They are both higher in score than I am by a bit. I signed open borders with Darius, because he asked.

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, I've created a third city, and trained a fourth settler if you can see. However, I do not know where to place this fourth settler.

Should I start building roads to connect the cities any time soon?

Concerning York, I've build a monument over there. York and London are constructing granaries now and Nottingham is creating a worker.

Spoiler :

The world as of now. Not any new information besides the Coastal city of the Persians, and guessing by the name, they probably have two cities at the moment.

And yes, events are on.

So as of now, I have gotten a few good tips:
-Make first city as productive as possible
-connect resources quickly
-Good city sites must have resources in their BFC
-Tech only what is crucial
-focus on pumping settlers early in the game.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Take this with a tons of salt but here are some of my thoughts.

You have a TON of empty land to your east and lots of land to your south. It doesnt look like any AI's or off on the east so most likely they will be coming up from the south. Now building wonders just for wonders isnt always the best idea. However if you use it as part of plan they can be helpful.

Now me in a map like this I would save the forests around my cap just have the workers pre chop them. Pre chopping is having them chop a forest but stopping them one turn away. (btw another eason to get BUG mod. You have to keep on the balla nd chop stop the chops one turn away yourself normally but BUG mod has an option to stop the workers automatically when they are one turn away from chopping a forest.)

Now while your workers are prechopping I would tech masonry asap. Once masonry is done have your cap start on the great wall. Then have all your workers hit the forests you been prechopping. That should get you the wonder pretty quick. What this will do is it will allow you to settle agressively to the south to block off the AI and not have to worry at all about spending time fogbusting the empty east to keep barbs from harassing you. You can just backfill that area at your leasure onece you've gone as far as you can south.

So, with that I mind my tech order would be switch to masonry while prechopping. Then if you dont have the wheel yet get that so you can start making roads down south ahead of your settlers.

Then you have some choices--something either pottery or writing then iron working. Personally I would go writing--to get a library in my cap and run at least one scientist. then iron working to clean out the jungles once you get cities down south. Then pottery for growth.

I know basic rule of thumb is never self tech iron working. And it is a good guide to go by on say monarch and higher. However when I play on noble I almost always tech out IW myself. The reason being is it can take the AI's for EVER to tech it out on their own. On monarch yeah you can go straight from writing to alphabet and by that time you can trade for iron working.

On nobe howevber what usually happens if you go that way is 1) the AI's wont have ANYthing use ful to trade much less iron working. 2) even if one or two might have it there is good odds that they wont feel that enough other people already have it to be willing to trade it. and 3) while they wont have anything at all to offer in trade they wont be shy about starting to beg/demand free stuff from you which can get annoying.

Thats in general but also on this map you have already teched out animal husbandry, and bronzeworking and form your screenies it doesnt look like you have horseys or copper anywhere in sight. So I would definitely want to make finding iron a priorty.

After that I would head for alphabet then currency while again expanding as hard as I could southwards. both alphabet and currency can help fuel the expansion by building rearch then wealth as necessary.

It may mean delaying sailing more than you'd like. so that island wont get settled immediately. (do make a couple of workboats to go fogbuts the north end of that island tho or else barb galleys will could start to be a PITA.) but for me that would be worth it if I could get the south all setteld and blocked off with tons of land to backfill.

Plus once you get the jungles cleard and start working the gems and all those flat green tiles after putting a lib or markets in a cpl of cities there--wheeee Besides you're Imperialistic and financial so you would be using your traits to the max if your rex'ed (rex= rapid early expansion) as hard as you could then recoverd by milking the gems and some grassland cottages.

Again take this with tons of salt. I do consider myself a very strong noble player--however while noble diff is in my wheelhouse all those other folks like lymond et all or all like immortal-diety skill level so when in doubt--do what they say

Hope this helps good luck

Kaytie

edit--worte all that before I saw your udate seeing where darius is I would make going to snatch the gems before he gets there a double priorty--or even better just a lil south of the gems to block off ALL of that other land.

 

[Sanguivorant]

I think a good spot would be between the sugar and the gems, if I want to prevent darius from expanding upwards.

 

[vandermerwe]

I think a good spot would be between the sugar and the gems, if I want to prevent darius from expanding upwards.

Yep, would be a good spot anyway, esp. with the cow (rule of thumb - all cities should have a food resource and all food resources should have a city). Hard to see exactly where from the zoomed-out pic but something like 1N of the cow looks about right. As you say it'd also as block Darius and therefore (maybe) force him into expanding towards other unseen AIs to your south, causing tension which can only help you. A longer-term possibility in that vein might be to go after Code of Laws first, spread Confucianism to Darius (esp. if he still has no religion by then) and watch him have serious disagreements with others while acting as a buffer state for you.

That site will suffer with city maintenance to begin with (relatively far from your capital) and also with poor health and limited growth / production before you get iron working to clear the jungle. But go for it if you can. It should work out in end; don't (ever) get put off by short-term drawbacks when there's a reasonably safe long-term payoff.

PS also like Kaytie's great wall idea. A wonder I used to be addicted to (which is never good) but still has its uses when there's lots of land around and you're imperialistic. Blocking Darius then becomes an even stronger move - the land to your east is pretty much yours to be settled whenever you want.

 

[Sanguivorant]

I am guessing this would be a good plan of action:

-Postpone alphabet to go for masonry instead, while chopping forests up to 1 turn.
-Get great wall so I do not have to deal with barbarians, speeding the process by chopping existing trees around London (Which is a very productive city).
-make my next city so that it effectively blocks Darius from expanding northwards.

And I should perhaps cancel the open borders agreement with Darius just in case.