SGn00b - for those new to SG's

[Pie-es-Tasty]

If we do miss Judaism and get Hinduism or Buddhism spread to us, we could always go the "True Believer" path and just sieze the holy city by force.

 

[Sadan01]

Here are some screenshots.

First up, our empire as it looks with Shanghai added:

Here are the current scores at the end of my Turn 20:

Then the finance window showing -1 gold for distance maintenance.

And finally, the latest diplomacy screen showing everyone's relations to us:

 

[BeefontheBone]

I'd be somewhat reluctant about chopping in Shanghai unless its production improves and it starts on a wonder - it has 5 forests which is optimum for +2 health and will probably need the lumbermill bonuses - I'll have a look tonight when i get back from work.

 

[Sadan01]

Great turn Sadan, i can't believe we missed out on Hinduism by 1 turn!!!

Yeah I put a "sad" smiley in there when it should have been a pic of me being pissed and needing a I could not believe that the message appeared saying that we'd missed Hindu by 1, one damnit, one turn. Hopefully Mono/Judaism will come through for us.

Next i think we should research the wheel (i've looked at the save), build an archer in beijing and the a worker. We're really low on defence. I think the settler that is being produced in Beijing should go straight to Greendot along with the archer in our capital.

I agree about The Wheel. We are going to desperately need roads very soon. I hope my turnlog showed that I was seriously pondering about researching it. If we do get attacked shortly down the track, those roads are going to come in handy. Not to mention eventual trade routes besides those from rivers. Actually, seeing we do have a large coastline, this may not be a factor at all for trade.

What you said, Sir Toma, about the archer (build another one) and an additional worker. We need these badly. I dont really think there is much more that can be done in Beijing at the moment (we dont need more food for the time being) and unless we wanted to chop forests there, there is not much else we need to do. Shanghai and the future Green Dot are a different story.

I'd be somewhat reluctant about chopping in Shanghai unless its production improves and it starts on a wonder - it has 5 forests which is optimum for +2 health and will probably need the lumbermill bonuses - I'll have a look tonight when i get back from work.

Lumbermills dont come into effect until Replaceable Parts, which is a fair way down the line at the moment. Unless health is an issue in Shanghai, maybe someone could do a chop if a particular build going on there is required and urgent (maybe just one forest that is not located on a hill for example). This one is a hard call as you are correct regarding the hammers Shanghai is producing at the moment. Practically nothing! Hopefully that will change as the population grows.

Good Luck Beef!

 

[pling]

If we chop the forest that I think we can see 2 squares on the SE diagonal does that come back to Shanghai? I can't remember (and don't have time to reboot now to test it) if chopping outside our culture boundaries gives us hammers or not.

 

[Sadan01]

...if chopping outside our culture boundaries gives us hammers or not.

I am sure it does although I dont know if it has been fixed in 1.09. You used to be able to take your workers to just outside an A.I's cultural border and chop all their forests and you get the hammers for it. Nice!

But well and truly an exploit. It should be only forests in your cultural borders.

 

[pling]

But well and truly an exploit. It should be only forests in your cultural borders.

Ah, wasn't aware it was considered an exploit - I'd only ever done it just outside my cultural borders though, I'd not thought about going and doing that to enemy territory

 

[chriseay]

Argh I'm dissapointed about Hinduism. I suppose though that would have just been a bonus as the plan all along was to go for Judaism. If we get Judaism and convert we will have to probably destroy the heathen Incans sooner rather than later. I think after Mono and the wheel we should go for horseback riding and make sure to get the horses outside of Beijing hooked up in time for that. We could kick some Incan but in that case. Plus if we do it soon enough, we won't have to worry about the diplomatic penalties of attacking someones friend, because they won't be trading yet.

On the forest chop, I almost never do it unless I am planning on putting another improvement on that tile anyway. I'd be ok with it if someone else wants to. We should use Beijing to build another archer before this settler so it has an escort, and then finish the settler. A barracks might be useful too if we can get it somewhat quickly.

Great turns so far everyone, and lets hope for good luck in the future.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Hmm, I'm having some issues with the autologger, so I'll just type this as I play.

1275 BC (0)
I promote the warrior to Woodsman II for the healing effect and double movement, and the worker near Shanghai starts a farm on a plains for lack of much better to do without the wheel and pottery (and IW for jungle clearance). The warrior there is gonna head SW to make sure we get Green Dot with the settler. He spots a barb archer though - erk!

1250 BC (1)
The barb archer moves toward us in the IT - the warrior is going to have to stand on a hill and hope for the best methinks. Settler finishes in Beijing, and heads south. The archer in Beijing is coming with him and I start another to replace it. The warrior near Shanghai fortifies in the forest to try and maximise defence, but it's a 50-50 thing. Western warrior healing, southern exploring.

1225 BC (2)
I gingerly hit Enter, and the warrior takes barely a scratch! Hah! It'll take him a turn to heal. Everyone else is pretty dull movement.

There's some Copper to the NE of the Incan capital I only just noticed - could be important.

1200 BC (3):

Woo! Monotheism completes, and Judaism is founded in Shanghai. That cultural boost could come in rather handy! I remember to switch Shanghai back to its growth-emphasising arrangement of tile use having altered it to get the archer done quicker. Sorry. Adopt Judaism as state religion giving a turn of anarchy, queue up The Wheel for transport. I also check where Green Dot was going

1175 BC (4):
We come out of anarchy with 5 turns to go on TW. Everything else is pretty dull

1150 BC (5):

Western Woodsman Warrior, now renamed Woody, spots the edge of Tokugawa's territory using his magical double movement. We're looking good for getting Green dot, but it's gonna need some mighty jungle clearance - IW seeems to be quite a high priority, but I'll start the Oracle next turn when Beijing completes its archer, so I'll need to make sure we're set with some useful prerequisites.

1125 BC (6):
Our warrior is glad he went to escort that Settler, as another archer shows up. The hill tile has a 75% bonus, so I'm pretty confident. The settler hangs back just in case - this has delayed our founding GD for a turn either way I had a shot of this, but neither unit showed up, so it's not that exciting. Dang.
I change my mind in Shanghai, work the gold tile for extra gold (cuts a turn off the wheel) and production at the cost of stagnating growth - I'll balance it when the archer is done.

1100 BC (7):
Noooooo! Damned archer killed our warrior. We've an archer coming behind, but this is slowing down our settling. Bah! I've no choice about it though. (Again, image wasn't any use. Bah.)

1075 BC (8):
I start Writing, setting us up for Code of Laws with the Oracle if we get chance. The other option was to do Pottery allowing Metal Casting which leads to Machinery, but I decided we'd need Courthouses and an extra religion more. We're going to need lots of defence soon - Tokugawa and Huayana are rather unpredictable! If we've no iron, we might have to wait for Construction for elephants and cut off his Copper in the north. On a positive note, we're now first in score!

1050 BC (9):
The wounded barb archer attacks into a jungle across the river, and is mercilessly cut down by our brave archers. That'll learn 'em.

1025 BC (10):

Guangzhou is founded at Green Dot. It'll have crappy porduction for now due to all that jungle, but we'll sort that out. I start it on an obelisk to try and get the borders expanded for another forested hill. The worker starts on a road between Shanghai and Beijing, then will try to boost the shields in Beijing, maybe with a chop if I feel like it There's some more copper south of the Inca (west of Guangzhou. Dang.)

 

[BeefontheBone]

1000 BC (11):
Archer completed in Shanghai. I consider moving the citizen to the now-irrigated plains for food and a bit of production but it would delay writing by two whole turns - I'll see again next turn.

980 BC (12):
Switch that tile over - Writing is only one turn slower, but it gets some growth going. A barb archer shows up in the southeast.

960 BC (13):
The archer disappears for now. Huayana and Saladin adopt Slavery. There's a barb warrior near Woody, but he'll have him in the jungle.

940 BC (14):
Told you. Woody is successful. That barb archer reappears, and I notice it's got 2 combat promotions. Yikes! Must've been slaughtering scouts or something.

920 BC (15):
He's off again. Meh.
Monty's off to found his second city on the southern coast. He's way behind on score.

900 BC (16):
Writing comes in, and I notice it also allows Theology, probably a better choice for Oracle tech - it costs more beakers, enables more and still founds a religion. The Oracle's due in 7 turns, Beijing being nice and productive. Getting that road finished will hopefully spread Judaism there. I start Pottery - we need cottages for the tech boost, then it should be IW. We need to be able to clear jungle and make the most use of the resources available with our next couple of settlers.

880 BC (17):
Another barb shows up in the north, seeming to ignore the Inca for now. Monty founds that second city.

860 BC (18):
Wait, make that his THIRD city. That did seem a bit slow.

840 BC (19):
Monty offers Open Borders. I see no reason to refuse, might as well boost our relationship slightly. It also lets me have a bit of a scout around Teotihuacan.

820 BC (20):
Not a lot happens, bit of an anticlimax after the first few turns. Pottery is due in 2 turns, I say we go for IW and get some cottages up on the grassland and floodplains, or connect the horses in anticipation of HBR. The Oracle is due in 3, Theology being a no-brainer for free tech. Shanghai is building a second archer, it'll want a monastery soon (lots of gold is good for science, and missionaries make sense, particularly if we get monty to convert) but we can't build those yet. We'll definitely need a couple more workers ASAP, probably coming out of Shanghai and Beijing, and some more settlers.
There's a couple of barbs about, so definitely no unescorted settlers! At present, there's one to the East of Guangzhou and one near Huayana's northern copper resource.

The magnificent Chinese empire, as at 820 BC:

 

[BeefontheBone]

Finally, the save and a roster.

Sir Toma
Pling
Chriseay
Sadan01
BeefontheBone (Just Played)
Admiral Kutzov (Up Now)
Pie-es Tasty (On Deck)

 

[chriseay]

So looking at the save, I'm thinking if we can manage to get one more city on the same southwest axis the rest are on, maybe even getting the copper to the south of the incans, we can seal of the backside of the continent for 3 or 4 cities for ourselves. If we can manage to get the northern copper spot as well, we've probably denied the incans copper all together. We'd also have 3 fronts to come at them in what I see as an inevitable war.

 

[Sadan01]

Excellent turnset Beef. Good to see that Warrior in the beginning survive against that Archer. The barbs are only going to get stronger from now on and I don't think we want to get 'surprised' when an barb axeman heads for a city. I think we need to make some military techs a priority (although maybe not top priority). Horse Archers would be a decent unit to combat them if and when they appear. The Cho-Ko-Nu would be much better however as they are designed to attack melee units (besides being our UU).

I'm glad we founded Judaism. We may even want to try and monopolize the other religions later. Theology from the Oracle would help greatly in this end (Christianity founded). Theology is probably the better choice anyway as it would be the most expensive tech to go for free.

That's usually something I try and do, same with the GP's (even though you don't get a choice with the GP); if I want to gain a free tech, I will pick the most expensive. In the case of Great People, I will wait even for a tech they can give for free to be researched to get the "next" one free (or at least take most of the required beakers off it).

I do agree with Chriseay's analysis with building another city on the SW axis and then backfil (oh, and also the copper - didnt read that to begin with). However, we are going to need to concentrate or be mindful of two main things:

1). Road infrastructure between all cities and increased amount of workers and defense for all cities. How many units do we want to garrison in each city?

2). Gold going to the treasury. With a further city on the SW axis, we are going to lose more gpt going to distance maintenance. How far are we prepared to go in dropping the science rate? I think a major saving grace with this strategy however is the fact that we have the gold-mined hills. Excellent.

Chriseay, regarding the three fronts, unless we attack on all three fronts (or majorly-attack one front and feint on two others), it also means that the Inca have three fronts to attack us with. Don't get me wrong - this point does not stand against building further cities on the SW axis and expanding, but our defense of all cities is going to have to improve over time. But that's cool, it is only early days!

 

[Sadan01]

Ah, wasn't aware it was considered an exploit - I'd only ever done it just outside my cultural borders though, I'd not thought about going and doing that to enemy territory

Sorry pling. I should've worded that a bit better. I consider it an exploit. If it was only in cultural boundaries, then that's fine but being able to forest chop outside borders and still get the bonus I think is a little unfair. The A.I doesn't do it (that I know of).

I dont know if this has been banned in GOTM (chopping outside cultural borders) to make it "official". Sorry for the confusion.

 

[chriseay]

Chriseay, regarding the three fronts, unless we attack on all three fronts (or majorly-attack one front and feint on two others), it also means that the Inca have three fronts to attack us with. Don't get me wrong - this point does not stand against building further cities on the SW axis and expanding, but our defense of all cities is going to have to improve over time. But that's cool, it is only early days!

Excellent point. I'm not all that great at this warring stuff yet. I think the point is as long as we can defend our cities, having three places to attack from and three cultural borders pushing on his is better than one or two. I'm not completely keen on a city north of the Incans though, especially if we can snag the copper to south.

 

[BeefontheBone]

There is room for a city in the north with some rice and so on near the copper, but the south is more appealing I'd say, although it would have a higher distance modifier. The science rate is still at 90%, but no longer with a positive GPT, we're breaking even.

 

[Sadan01]

I think the point is as long as we can defend our cities, having three places to attack from and three cultural borders pushing on his is better than one or two.

This is where we are going to start having a problem - when our cultural borders start encroaching on the Incan's borders. This is where our relations might take a plummet with them and war may be inevitable. Having three main points of attack can be a blessing and a death-wish at the same time. I could make a bold prediction and say that because we are only playing Noble, the chances of the AI making a huge strike against us would be unlikely but there is one thing I have found in Civ4 - You just never know as the AI is more cunning than in Civ3 and before. I think I might browse through some other SG's to see how others have done it. As you can probably tell, the higher-level strategy involved is of great interest

One other point involving the three points of attack, it essentially means 2 to 3 times the amount of troops needed. This means longer production times to get to that "magic" amount of troops needed and also will be a drain on our treasury - although being Financial should help.

I don't know how the AI would react in Civ4 when it would see three advances at the same time coming towards it - would it split its troops; concentrate on the most important city such as the capital, or do something totally unexpected? I just haven't been involved in enough wars to quantify the AIs behaviour.

Ok, enough of me crapping on ...

I'm not completely keen on a city north of the Incans though, especially if we can snag the copper to south.

I think we should try and snag both the south and the city north of the Inks. From when I played - I don't know about after BotB's turns as I havent looked at the save - the Incan's had not expanded to a second city. The borders we can see are it. It will be interesting as to where they go next.

 

[Sir Toma]

Hey guys.
I would have posted earlier but it's 11:00pm and i only just got home from my grand parents.
Great turn BeefontheBone, i'm happy that we secured Greendot (if i'd beenplaying that's what i would've called it ). About our next city, i believe that we should go for one of the copper resources. If possible we should try to grab both but the incas will grab one of them i think. I believe the south one should be our priority. I know it will cost more in mantinance but the north site will either miss the rice or have some problems with the typical 1 square from the coast thingy. After we secure 1 of the copper sources i think we should consolidate and build up our war machine for the incan war.
I think that our strategy should be to attack from 1 point (most likely Greendot) and hold the incas back along the rest of the front. I'd say 2-3 defensive units/city should be alright. One thing i'm not sure of is when to attack. Do we attack with swordsmen when we get catapults or wait for Chu-ko-nus to destroy them?

Good luck admiral for your turn (damn, there's no saluting smilie )

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

got it.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Fire this puppy up and take a look around.

Oh my, we have a religion, much, much, earlier than I'm used to!!! On the other hand, our resource connecting abilities appear somewhat challenged. But who needs resources this early?

Obelisk in Guangshou? Does someone have Freudian issues? Change that to an archer.

We got BW. Got axe, will chop.

The copper in the SW is dead in the water. With the luck of the idiot (me, no offense intended to anyone else), we'll grab the NW copper. Goals! Dad will be so happy that I finally have goals!

PUSH THE BUTTON

1) Forgoe violating Japanese borders and just move the warriors
2) Pottery in. OMG, these costs are way more than I'm used to. Must be epic. Start HBR (pony rides are a hoot).
3) Oracle done. Take Theology. It was the most expensive; it must be good. Start a settler in Beijing.
4) Oopsy, got another religion. Start Shangian archer to NW so they can get there before the settler.
5) The lost turn
6) Take out a barb warrior (think his name was Bill)
7) Beijing gets religion (Christianity)
8) Open borders with Mansa Musa (JoePa hopes to recruit there someday)
9) Shanghai finishes archer, start a worker
10) Archer in the NW takes down a barb archer

still trying to solve autolog.

Of note:
Settler due in 1 in Beijing. Suggest we send him NW to the obvious spot. Please connect the ponies. Please build more workers and connect the resources we've got sitting about.

dotmap map skills are rusty. so, unpack the crayons and come up with these (and in alphabetical order in preference to settle, no less):

Please don't ban me. I'm having fun.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Lord_n00b_BC-0620.Civ4SavedGame