Space 5 - Old hands can be newbs too, getting back in the game

[ainwood]

A point picking up on defensive units. In civ5 cities have their own defence - they can bombard units (barbs) walking past, and actually have hit points so leaving them I defended early on is tolerable (within limits). Barbs become painful as they essentially stop your workers working unless you have escort units. Therefore, defensive units important, but not critical in the first 40 or so turns. Escorting settlers is a very good idea though.

 

[TedJackson]

Just a quick question - do Barbs appear before you discover their camps?


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

From what I've read gold-rushing is a valid way to get more settlers out in the early stages of the game. And a focus on gold would dictate a shrine rather than granary to grab more land and trading options.

Aren't Shrines only?

Below you will find a link to a strategy based on the Tradition social policy tree.

More details in a post by Tabarnak.

Interesting...

edit TJ, I agree, and I think we should follow you second option for techs: Pottery, Sailing, then try to get AH through trading. Build order I would think Scout, Worker or Jag, Worker. Maybe we can skip the Shrine for the capital since we get culture from killing enemies.

Now you're talking


Ted

 

[a space oddity]

Aren't Shrines only?

Yes, I meant Monument. But the point is moot anyway, if we decide to go culture--ing!

 

[leif erikson]

As ainwood pointed out, you cannot trade techs in Civ5, only make research agreements and for that you must discover Philosophy.

With this start, early Worker seems less important than getting some Work Boats up and running. Granary gives +2 food no matter the resources, so it is a good build.

The rate of Social Policy gain is determined by your culture rate, so Monument is generally a good investment.

We can gain a free Worker and Settler through our Social Policies. Generally, I open Tradition for the +3 culture in the Capital, then Liberty for the +1 culture in each city and then take Citizenship for the Free Worker plus +25% worker construction rate.

I mentioned the slow rate of growth due to sea resource starts because you have to not only research the techs but also build the Work Boats. At 50 hammers per Work Boat, and the need for 4 to 5 early, it is painfully slow. Also remember, those ocean resources will be our sole source of early commerce, both from earning gold and for trading to other civs, so getting them up and running is a must.

Lastly, do we need to consider any Wonders, like Great Library for a free tech?

 

[a space oddity]

As ainwood pointed out, you cannot trade techs in Civ5, only make research agreements and for that you must discover Philosophy.

In this sudden (and very welcome!) flurry of posts, I missed that one, oops. It is a hard change to get used to, not being able to trade techs.

With this start, early Worker seems less important than getting some Work Boats up and running. Granary gives +2 food no matter the resources, so it is a good build. The rate of Social Policy gain is determined by your culture rate, so Monument is generally a good investment.

So, since we need sailing before we can build workboats, your suggesting something like Jag, and switch the next build to workboat as soon as we have researched sailing. Is switching cost-free BTW? I really do feel n00b.

We can gain a free Worker and Settler through our Social Policies. Generally, I open Tradition for the +3 culture in the Capital, then Liberty for the +1 culture in each city and then take Citizenship for the Free Worker plus +25% worker construction rate.

This makes me think Monument before Granary, to get to the food quicker.

I mentioned the slow rate of growth due to sea resource starts because you have to not only research the techs but also build the Work Boats. At 50 hammers per Work Boat, and the need for 4 to 5 early, it is painfully slow. Also remember, those ocean resources will be our sole source of early commerce, both from earning gold and for trading to other civs, so getting them up and running is a must.

So the question now is: is this a reason to go back and roll us some nice river starts to choose from, or do we just take this one as it comes. The latter is my (slight) preference, but we need to at least consider it, I think.

Lastly, do we need to consider any Wonders, like Great Library for a free tech?

In the light of being forced to do our own early tech-ing and being shield-rich, we should give it a try. We need to carefuly choose our next cities.

 

[TedJackson]

I still feel that an early(ish) worker would help us with Food (Cattle, AH), production (Forest Chop and Mines, Mining) and give us a head start on connecting our first settlement. I'm just not sure where in the queue to put him

I have the same problem with the Monument and/or Granary. How soon should we consider them?

I'm against re-rolling the start as I thought the whole point of the exercise was to learn the game and we'll probably learn more by having a "non-standard" start rather than by going down the "settle on a river not too far from the coast" and follow along in everybody else's wheel ruts route.

I've no idea on Wonders but surely we would have to found our second city before committing to one (unless we're cash-rich enough to buy one ).

Just thrashing out the options in my usual SoC sort of way


Ted

 

[ainwood]

My normal first build is a worker. The only time I deviate from that is if there are sea resources to go after (clams and whales not the best, but oh well). If researching towards sailing first, then building a worker often leaves that worker with precisely zero to do, as by the time the worker is finished, there are no worker techs. As such, if researching pottery / sailing, I will typically get a scout or warrior type unit to go scouting. I'd advocate that approach here, too. A worker can be second or third build.

 

[mad-bax]

Sounds like ainwood is not to keen on the tech path... What would you prefer to do?

So is it right to say that our start position will be a good site in time, but right now fairly average?
If this is the case, would we consider building a unit and then a settler hoping that one of our two quick units would have found a good high food river location near the coast as per Teds comments?

The weekend is upon us, I hope to find the time to play a few civ V starts so that I can contribute a little more.

 

[TedJackson]

... If this is the case, would we consider building a unit and then a settler hoping that one of our two quick units would have found a good high food river location near the coast as per Teds comments?...

M-B, you seem to have misunderstood the intent of my post. I was merely saying that I thought we should go with the start we have rather than re-rolling until we found one that satisfied some imaginary ideal. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough

I like the idea that we won't necessarily be playing a conventional game and will have to come together to think our way ahead. That's part of the attraction of an SG.

We'll never all agree exactly on every single detail but we should be able to achieve a consensus on direction and strategy

So go ahead and play. Use your best judgement and use as much or as little of the advice presented as you see fit. After all, it's only a game and nobody's going to give you a black mark if things don't work out perfectly.

Have fun!


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

My normal first build is a worker. The only time I deviate from that is if there are sea resources to go after (clams and whales not the best, but oh well). If researching towards sailing first, then building a worker often leaves that worker with precisely zero to do, as by the time the worker is finished, there are no worker techs. As such, if researching pottery / sailing, I will typically get a scout or warrior type unit to go scouting. I'd advocate that approach here, too. A worker can be second or third build.

Thanks for clarifying that. I'm beginning to see a little light at the end of the tunnel now


Ted

 

[leif erikson]

My normal first build is a worker. The only time I deviate from that is if there are sea resources to go after (clams and whales not the best, but oh well). If researching towards sailing first, then building a worker often leaves that worker with precisely zero to do, as by the time the worker is finished, there are no worker techs. As such, if researching pottery / sailing, I will typically get a scout or warrior type unit to go scouting. I'd advocate that approach here, too. A worker can be second or third build.

Agree pretty much with this. For Worker actions, all we can currently do is farm. We need Animal Husbandry to build Pastures on the Cows, Mining to mine the hills or chop the forests, Masonry to Quarry the stone or Bronze Working to chop the jungle. Until we are close to one of these, the hammers may be better used to build some protection, Jags (edit - or a Scout), and if we have the time, Granary and/or Monument.

Would be nice to find some fresh water (we need it to build our Unique Building - Floating Gardens) and some food. Also, if ruins are on in the game, scouting may give us some culture, a citizen or some new tech. So we should get out and have a look around. Fear not the Barbs, at least if you meet one, takes several turns to kill a unit in Civ5.

 

[mad-bax]

Four pages without a set of turns being posted. Now we're really getting in the swing of it

@Ted, I was actually agreeing with you my friend. I thought pumping out an early settler might have been a good idea. I have not played a single turn of Civ 5 yet (except a couple of the tutorials) and will be on training wheels for quite a while. We rely on Leif and ainwood to lead the way and hopefully come out the other end with some of our dignity in tact.... or maybe not.

Anyway, enough spam. Let's go.

 

[a space oddity]

OK, here we go:

turn 0
Move Jag to the hill near the cows, revealing a nice river site to the north! A good spot for our second city.
Settle in place, start a Jag, start researching Pottery

Spoiler :

turn 1
Move the Jag further north. The spot near the river doesn't have anything else but the cows so I am glad I didn't suggest we move the settler.

turn 2
Moving east reveals Marsh, not too rich environment so far.

turn 3
Moving south reveals Bananas and Ruins, nice and shiny! Let's hope it brings us something good.

turn 4
The Ruins give us 20 Culture! We can choose a Social Policy next turn.

Spoiler :

turn 5
Our Capital has grown. We adopt Tradition.

turn 6
We discover a second Ruins.

turn 7
The Ruins give us Pottery, 2 turns before we would have found out ourselves.
We have found a Barbarian Encampment, I'm thinking maybe we sould 'milk it' for Barbarians to give us Culture.

Spoiler :

turn 8
Our second Jag is ready, I will start a Granary. At the current Science output we will discover sailing in 11 turns, the Granary will finish in 10.
I send the new Jaguar up north.
We have not met any other civs yet, which starts to worry me a bit.

turn 9
Lots of Desert to south, some Spices.

[IBT]
Nappy's Archer says hi.

Spoiler :

Our fledgling empire:

 

[a space oddity]

Roster:
a space oddity
mad-bax <-- UP
TedJackson
AlanH
leif erikson
ainwood

Would it be wise to move leif or ainwood up in the roster to mix the n00bs with the knowledgable a bit? The sequence of the current roster is just a reflection of the order of entrance.

 

[TedJackson]

Roster:
Would it be wise to move leif or ainwood up in the roster to mix the n00bs with the knowledgable a bit? The sequence of the current roster is just a reflection of the order of entrance.

I have no strong feelings about the roster order so change it or not according to the wishes of the many.

We'll still have ample opportunities to mess up


Ted

 

[mad-bax]

OK Good job Space (I assume) . I've got it. I can open the save.

Nice Capital name - Not sure I deserve it (though I can pronounce it so for that at least. So what's the plan?
Sailing will be completed in 9 turns. Granary in 8.

Which is our next tech? - would have thought mining or AH if the next build is a worker, or optics if our next build is work boat.

How would you prefer me to explore? should I beeline to the extrmities of our land mass or gradually push back the fog in our locale to find new city sites?

And from point one, what is our next build?

/edit - The other thing is social policies - if I have to adopt one then which should it be - do I start collecting the parts of Tradition or do I adopt a whole new tree? My guess would be legalism for the free culture buildings right?

Finally, what is milking barb camps about - and how is it done?

Will play in 36 hours time to allow for discussion or sooner if you like.

 

[a space oddity]

The next build should be work boat, but we still can do AH since there will be worker in our near future too. You will have to probably choose something else first since the Granary is due before we get sailing. I think we can switch builds without penalty, can someone confirm?

When we slay an enemy we get culture, so we can move trhough the Social Policies quicker. As long as the camp is there, it will spawn enemies. The downside to that is, that we will have to dedicate a Jag to the camp to keep our Capital save.

 

[TedJackson]

Nice solid start Space

Shame about all that desert but there are Bananas, Deer, Sheep & Marble out there so not a total loss

With a barb camp so close to home should we build another Jag and make Honour our next SP? We would then, if I understand things correctly, get double culture for every barb we kill. Anybody who knows for certain please chip in

As far as research goes I'm inclined to go back to Mining & AH until we've got a couple of boats out there and then switch back to Optics.

So much to do, so few resources! Ain't it always the same

Just some of my random thoughts.


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

... I think we can switch builds without penalty, can someone confirm? ...

According to the Civilopedia you can't

"If you wish to change what a city is constructing, you may do so on the City Screen. The production already expended on the original item is not applied to the new item; however, it remains 'on the books' for a while and if you later order that city to resume construction on the original item, it may get the benefit of some or all of the earlier production. The longer the delay, the more production is lost."


Ted