Sengir01 - Spying with a vengeance

[Sengir]

Moved the scout SW. Do we want to have another cow in our BFC? We'd get a plains hill, desert hill as well, giving up (as far as I can tell) two grass and a plain (with possible resources).

Spoiler :

I'm going to play my PtP02 set first, so you guys can chime in (after which there are probably exactly as much votes in favor of settling in place as against, meaning I have to make the decision myself again).

 

[Meiz]

I think there's something wrong with image link.

Edit: But I did the same move in original save and for me, 3 cows is just too tempting to pass (and one of them is on a grassland). I'd settle 1S. Btw. it's a fresh water lake in the east, so those non-river grasslands can be farmed as well.

 

[nocho]

It's the first time in civ4 that I see 3 cows possible in a bfc, in civ3 that happened a lot more. 1S looks good!

Let's build some trojan cows then!

 

[Sengir]

Images will follow as soon as I can get my connection stable. Save is possibly corrupt as well, please let me know.

Turn 0
1S we go.

Turn 1
Settle Berlin, start worker and AH (23 and 21 turns respectively)

Turn 2

Pop a scout from a hut

Turn 3

Pop Myst from a hut (hooray for discount on Masonry)

Turn 7
Get a map from a hut, but he ends up next to a panther, let's hope the scout survives.

Turn 8

Nope, back to scouting with one scout.

Turn 9

There we go, two scouts again

Turn 10

Meet Ragnar (from the east)

Turn 13

Budhism fiadl
Scout ends up next to a lion, other spots a hut, but runs away for a bear

Turn 14

Another dead scout, fleeing scout hides in forest in the hope to defeat the wolves who joined the chase.

Turn 15

Woohoo, scout wins. Flees back to Berlin for healing though.

Turn 17

Hinduism fiadl

Turn 20
Bah, freshly healed scout ends up next to a bear.

Turn 21

Hah, our scout is on a rampage, kills the bear and gets himself a woodyI promo

Turn 22

AH in, Masonry in 13 turns

Turn 24
Worker done, start warrior.
Decide to pasture the grass cow first, as we need the food more then the production (we need the food before we can work the gold).

Turn 25
Finally pop the hut I spotted in turn 13

Another scout

Turn 27

Meet Hammurabi (also from the east)

Turn 28
Scout spots panther

Turn 29

Scout kills Panther

Turn 30
Find Ragnars hideout

Turn 31

Scout kills wolf
Pasture is done. Warrior will finish at the same time as Masonry is done.

Turn 34
Berlin grows to size 2

Scout pops horsebackriding

Turn 35

Scout kills wounded panther flawlessly and gets a woody1 promo

Masonry in, tentatively set research to Bronze Working
Berlin: Warrior > Great Wall


The land as we know it:

Spoiler :

I've scouted mostly east as that is where the huts/animals were leading me. Northern scout should circle back west, southern scout can continue east



Roster:
Sengir - Just played
Norvin Green - Up
Whosit - On deck
nocho
sturick
Meiz

 

[Whosit]

Sounds like being a German scout is an "exciting" career.

Nice that the water to the west is a lake, so we can get a few more farms if needed. I'll give the save a try in a few, and get back to you on if it's working or not. Then I'll start calculating what improvements we'll need to squeeze the most hammers out of this place.

As of the moment, the lone picture isn't there, though.

 

[Sengir]

Pictures should be working now.

As for the map, seeing as the script is called Lakes, I assume most water bodies will be lakes.

 

[Whosit]

Doy. Clearly I was not paying attention to the map script.

Save is working fine, though. Actually, first thing I thought when I saw that large lake up to the north was "in real life, that would make a great natural northern border."

Tech Path: I'd actually go for The Wheel rather than Bronze Working right now. Why? True, BW will show us where the metal is, but at the moment, as we're committed to the Great Wall, we won't really be able to make much use of it. The wheel will let us connect the gold (which we can probably afford to work once the mine is there) which raises our happy limit by 1, allowing us to work more stuff/whip more stuff. Speaking of whip, we probably don't need slavery just yet, 'cuz we most likely won't be whipping the Great Wall (despite historical accuracies).

I was considering Agriculture, but our happy limit is still low, so the cows can probably handle our food needs for now.

One other point: A citizen is working a grassland forest. Might as well work the cow that is being pastured. Same output, but it just means the player won't have to remember to switch it after the pasture is done.

By my calculations, working all 3 cows (with pastures) gives us just enough of a food surplus to work all the plains hills, too, capping out at 6 tiles worked (assuming we connect the gold). I just noticed the gold is on a river . . . but it's the wrong river, so we still need a road. I'd mine and work the hills in this order, of course: Plains gold, plains river, plains. We would have 20 hammers at this point. And 10 commerce, but who's counting? Er, 18, forgot Palace bonus.

Doin' the ol' food count I learned from one of those intro articles, we'll need an additional 6 food to work each tile (I included pastures in the initial count). That means, well, 6 farms, right? That means every exposed grassland will need to be farmed. One can't be farmed until Civil Service, but we surely won't need it before then. Theoretically, we don't need to cut down any forests, but I'm sure we are going to. It may not hurt long-term production, depending on what we do. When we get Biology, we'll only need half as many farms. Riverside ones could be replaced by watermills, or we could always put down workshops to replace the forests that will surely be cut. If we have any woods left, we could put up lumber mills.

In other news, after a bit more scouting, we can try to figure out where to settle next. Up north, we can actually get a town that will grab all 3 gems and 2 dyes in one go (by placing northwest of the lake at the end of the river). Just about everything else is grassland or lake, so maybe a farm or two to make up the difference, and then cottages. I imagine it could be a commercial powerhouse. I imagine.

Those 3 silks to the east look lovely, but the vikings will surely beat us there. So many resources, it's kinda crazy. Actually, we probably DO want to focus on commerce, because commerce will = espionage points, and we'll be eating through those like candy.

As far as scouting, the scout healing by Ragnar should head north along his borders, maybe then north or north east. Northern scout, circle around northwest to fill in some holes and see what's to the other side.

 

[Meiz]

We should race for the stone after GW is built. With our production capital and stone, pyramids is a no-brainer.

I think we have a good chance to get that spot if we whip a settler once GW is built. We don't even need another escort, capitals warrior can do that. Remember that we should have GW at this point so no real fear of the barbs, right?



I'd also go for Wheel next and continue with BW after that.

 

[sturick]

@ Meiz: Normally the pyramids make perfect sense here...unfortunately the variant rules won't allow us to go that route. I still like the location for our first city provided that BW doesn't change things too much.

@ Sengir: Excellent hut popping! I don't think I have ever seen Horseback Riding given from a Monarch hut before! I was seriously considering settling the clam/corn/horse city to our west for some early HA action until I realized that we would need archery for that.
Its worthy of consideration if Norvin can manage to pop archery!

Here is an early dotmap for your consideration.

Spoiler :

The red cities are merely filler towns that we can settle later on to grab the silver, wheat and deer.
Yellow is Meiz proposed city #1. A stone grabber and a solid production hub.
Cyan is a commerce site to bolster the spyconomy.
White is a killer commerce city.
Magenta is the Horse rush city.

 

[Meiz]

@ Meiz: Normally the pyramids make perfect sense here...unfortunately the variant rules won't allow us to go that route. I still like the location for our first city provided that BW doesn't change things too much.

You're right of course. I'll read the variant rules ten times again

Edit: Nice dotmap. Another option for gems city would be 1N of the eastern gems. It misses one of the dyes but gains riverside rice (5 food) from north.

 

[sturick]

I'll read the variant rules ten times again

The only reason I knew that was because I had to read the rules ten times when I missed the alphabet rule...

About the gems city...I like it there because we should be able to lighthouse the lake tiles for 3 tiles.
Its been a while...you can build a lighthouse on a lake right???

 

[Whosit]

About the gems city...I like it there because we should be able to lighthouse the lake tiles for 3 tiles.
Its been a while...you can build a lighthouse on a lake right???

I . . . think so. I know lakes get the benefit of a lighthouse, so it seems likely.

 

[Meiz]

Unfortunately you need to have coast access for lighthouses. So pink dot gets one, but gems city doesn't.

 

[Sengir]

Pyramids is out indeed. I think lighthouses are available if a water body is 10 tiles or bigger (which makes it saltwater) and the city is on the coast. WB are available if there is a resource in the lake

Dotmap looks good to me. Even the filler cities aren't too crappy with the resources they have in the BFC.

If we all agree on BW next, Norvin can play untill it is in so we can adjust the dotmap accordingly

 

[nocho]

I think it'll make little difference going wheel or BW next, as soon as the gold is mined, both will be researched before we hit size 6. I think. That's maybe why I'd go BW first so we can chop a forest or 2 after the 3 pastures and the gold mine. And maybe one mine more (with bronze in it, hopefully!). But wheel is also ok if that has the majority vote.

In principle for a lighthouse a city should be coastal, probably unless a lake is larger than x tiles like Sengir said. However, I think if you have a coastal city that's also on a (small) lake, then the lake will be 3 food with a lighthouse. However, as far as we can see there's no possibility for that here.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Got it and will post a plan tomorrow a.m. and try to play tomorrow night. I like your dotmap sturick. Not sure about the gem city discussion but think we would be better served settling the cyan city first. Two reasons, one being another gold for more commerce (higher slider hence more ep's) and the other being Mr. Ragnar. Not so sure we should settle so in his face, ya' know.

 

[sturick]

We have plenty of time to figure out the best location for the gems city...its still a ways off.

I agree that Cyan will give us another shot in the arm with its gold commerce.

I still think settling the stone site first is the better play...Rags could just as easily settle up in our face too. Cyan should be available to us for quite some time while the stone site might not.

 

[Whosit]

I agree about the stone site, too. We want to be the ones controlling the distance between the noble Germans and the savage Vikings.

Regarding Gems Town, let's have that northern scout hike west so we can get a better idea of the lay of the land up there; all the better to make the best choice.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Ok, so the stone site it is. Tech BW>Wheel (probably how far I will play - maybe less if its too many turns) Not even sure I will build a settler anyway as the GW is more important to our variant.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Turn 35 (3125 b.c.)

I alt-x’ed in sturicks’s dotmap and took a look at the scouts and land and hit enter. Left research on BW.

Turn 36 (3100 b.c.)

Took the liberty of naming the scouts. Northern scout is now Erhard and southern is Gunter.

Turn 37 (3075 b.c.)

Scouting, not much to see.

Turn 38 (3050 b.c.)

Repeat of previous turn.

Turn 39 (3025 b.c.)

Erhard (north) finds the edge of Babylon far to our Northeast while evading a lion. Pasture is finished and worker heads for the last cow. Great Wall completes in 35 turns.

Spoiler :

Turn 40 (3000 b.c.)

Our worker makes a swift U-turn after this nice event.



Turn 41 (2975 b.c.)

Begin to mine the gold.

Turn 42 (2950 b.c.)

Erhard (near Babylon) is hard-pressed to avoid a bear sending us farther north than I would have liked. Gunter is slashing his way slowly through loads of green jungle tiles between Hammurabi and Ragnar. Eventually it will make some nice commerce locations.

Turn 43 (2925 b.c.)

Just more jungle.

Turn 44 (2900 b.c.)

Swing Erhard slowly westward away from a pursuing bear. Gunter baits a lion in jungle and across a river in hopes of getting to woodsman II.

Turn 45 (2875 b.c.)

Yeah, a plan that actually worked. Gunter is now Woody II. Erhard is trudging through what looks like the Sahara far north and west of Hammurabi.




Turn 46 (2850 b.c.)

Gunter heals and Erhard sweeps back toward our capital. The gold mine is complete and will be worked in two turns.

Turn 47 (2825 b.c.)

Healing and scouting. The worker is shipped to the riverside plains hill to mine it.

For what its worth:



Turn 48 (2800 b.c.)

Erhard sees a small village . . . or is it a mirage?




Turn 49 (2775 b.c.)

We’ll probably wish it was a mirage. Instead a map revealing this:

Spoiler :

In better news with the gold on-line the GW will be complete in 11 and BW drops from 11 to 6.

Turn 50 (2750 b.c.)

Erhard ends up next to a bear. I doubt our luck will hold.

Turn 51 (2725 b.c.)

Erhard makes a tasty meal for Ursa Major.

Turn 52 (2700 b.c.)

Send Gunter westward to try and pick up where Erhard left off.

Turn 53 (2675 b.c.)

In doing so he meets a wolfpack.

Turn 54 (2650 b.c.)

Gunter scouts on unscathed by the wolf encounter.

Turn 55 (2625 b.c.)



BW is in. Slot in Wheel but no beakers invested. I was sending the worker to chop the grassland river tile in the southeast but seeing as the GW will arrive in 5 turns we might want to rethink that.

A look at Berlin:

Spoiler :

Roster:

Whosit (up)
nocho (next)
sturick
Meiz
Sengir
Norvin Green (proud of himself for stopping before GW completed )

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