Spoiler: Ancient and Classical Rome.

[beestar]

This is my first ever GOTM and my second game of Civ4 (third if you count the tutorial). Actually, I only discovered Civ3 a few months ago - where have you guys been all my life? One thing that slows me down is that in Civ3 I could rely on well-established doctrine, but in Civ4 it's so new that there isn't yet that kind of established learning.

My early plans were the same as most people: military victory, start by destroying the Greeks. I concentrated on aggressive exploration with my warriors, discovered the Greeks through scout, and put Antium in the SW at the grapes to cut off Alex's expansion. I was all focused on playing a really good opening game, micromanaging every single move to produce the exact optimal growth.

That all came to a halt with two words: SETTLER. LION.

That'll teach me to send unprotected colonists into the barbaric wilderness. After that I got frustrated and started taking the turns much faster. After something like a ten turn delay from my original plan, Antium got placed near the wines and Cumae ended up in the east with the iron like everyone else.

After a Great Leader gave me Feudalism, I decided I had enough of a military tech lead and attacked Greece with longbowmen + praetorians. Well, my tech was good, but I failed to mass sufficient overwhelming force, and this caused the war to drag on for centuries as cities were swapped back and forth. Wish I'd waited for catapults. I'm really impressed by those who wiped out Greece so early - I don't think it's a spoiler to reveal that it took me until *1400* to destroy Alexander!

Oh well, it was still really fun to play without permitting myself reloads, and to know that I'd get get to discuss the same game with dozens of other players and see my nickname placed on the GOTM charts.

 

[beestar]

By the way, after several turns I was able to identify the other civs before making contact with them, by looking at the names on the "Top 5 Cities" list. Or am I mistaken, and there's some kind of trigger that has to happen before this works? I'm pretty sure I learned the names of three or four capitals soon after meeting the Greeks.

 

[Smirk]

Reading these descriptions is fun, but I think I might prefer to see more discussion of starting strategies.

...

I intended to chop a forest to help with settler production, but am not sure I completed Bronze Working in time.

My game was a bit different to start but with the same goal. I moved southwest after seeing the wheat and plain hill to settle on. This gave me a good boost on production with a loss on early commerce (and research). Anyway I started looking to get either hinduism or buddhism eventually getting the latter then agriculture followed by bronze. This was a bit hairy and I delayed the worker merely because I had nothing for him to do yet, but I prebuilt some exploring units in the meantime.

Anyway, the moral here is that I put choping as a fairly high priority because I absolutely wanted the best possible city sites if the land was tight because culture victories is slow enough already. Once I got that forst worker and a warrior and scout I think I built three settlers back to back. One I sent to the floodplain area, the other two along the river. These four cities became my powerhouses, while Athens would later become my great person city.

I still like to found a religion, but I'm beginning to think I overdid it this game. I like to found many religions on the easier difficulty levels to try to deny them to the computer, but another nation was able to found Buddhism early because they had mysticism. I managed to deny the computer 5 of the remaining 6 religions, but it didn't appear to hold them back. Buddhism spread a lot and I think it actually served to unite my opponents.

Ditto for me, I'll have to look at my cities and determine what the optimum number of religions was. Since its possible you might not build all the top religion buildings in each of your culture cities before you win it might be better to not waste time getting all possible religions. For happiness alone my cities are overkill with 30-50 happiness while health was the limit.

I didn't want to lose turns early on and did not convert to Hinduism or slavery immediately. I think there's an argument to be made for converting immediately

I didn't switch immediately, and I generally don't as I may have some key builds set to complete that would be reached a turn earlier. I switched religion once I switched to Organized religion for obvious reasons (also discovering you can't switch while in anarchy). Slavery I did take pretty early after some key builds were completed (granaries most likely) and I held to this well into the game. Since there does seem to be some sort of culture doubling effect in Civ4 early production pays for itself later on in game so slavery seems key for this victory, its easier to deal with in Civ4 but does require some careful balancing.

I figured Greece would be aggressive, and I wanted to own my continent anyway, so I allowed Iron Working to change the placement of my 3rd city to a less-than-optimal one.

...

The war lasted from about 475 to 75 BC...

I was delaying for a different reason, so that my four main (potential) culture cities would become holy cities. I later realized this was pointless as I wouldn't be trying to get great prophets. I think it was around 900 BC that I changed this plan, so I was a bit behind on conquest. My dates were more like 75 BC to 475 AD.

I had several early warriors destroyed by barbs and this was annoying and limited exploration, but was to be expected I suppose.

This is more likely a general game tip but I didn't really lose anything from beasts or barbs (although did get some pillaging) all I do is move a unit adjacent to the enemy on a good defensible tile and let them attack and lose. As with Civ3 there is still a major (unrealistic) defensive slant to tiles so take advantage of that.

I find in the early game a couple scouts will let you move settlers unprotected which is better since your early combat units move half as slow.

Actually, assuming you're careful those couple early scouts are useful well into the future if they see enough combat and can get the Medic upgrade they can scout and follow your later conquest stacks as healers (much cheaper than having to use your current units). The same applies to warriors but my scouts due to their movement speed tend to see more action and thus experience gain.

I built Stonehenge.

Same here and I believe it was a mistake. This was the first game I did it and mainly did it to see whether I got a "free obelisk in each city" (as it claims) or got a "fake obelisk effect in each city", it was the latter so this is worthless for a culture game and many others beside.
Now I have to test whether I can really build the thing either before or after the wonder and see how they keep after becoming obsolete. I mean, the point is that you want that +1 culture to stay in the city well beyond getting Calendar so want to build them manually, but the culture of the wonder is still valuable for as cheap as it is.

In my next culture attempt I would build an obelisk in my second city (or second best production city) then start Stonehenge, meanwhile building obelisks in my other 3-4 cities. This way they all have real obelisks while the wonder culture remains (and all the culture remains after Calendar). The reason I say this is that its easy to beat the AI to as they don't seem to want to chop for it while a human can easily drop a couple forests for it.




All that aside the biggest culture question is religions, building those +50% culture buildings, getting great artists and flipping from science to culture production. Much of this hadn't happened during the time of this spoiler so I will refrain comment.

 

[hrc333]

Ok...First official GOTM. I played a few civ3 games long after the fact and looked at the threads to get an idea of different ways to play the game.

I have played a few games of CivIV before this but never got pass around 500ad due to the crashes before the patch.

Before game thoughts are to try and take as much land as possible in the early game with the praetorians. I am hoping that the starting continent is large enough to have 3-4 civs to give me plenty enemies to conquer. Once I have a continent to myself I will then make a choice on what the best course of action to achieve victory is.

Here is my rundown thus far:
4000- Founded Rome on Starting Positions: My thought is I did not see any spot that was obviously better and I thought I could maybe get a city in each direction on the river if I start here.
- Worker
-Bronze Working
3760- Pop Hut for Wheel
3720- Discover Sea to the East
3440- Get Bronze Working
3400- Worker starts chopping
- Am progressing my warriors on the Woodsman Path to get the movement bonus
3200- Now have 3 Warriors so start on barracks.
-Huts have been yielding all gold
3120- Get Agriculture
-Start Pottery to get Granaries
2960- Discover the river source. I plan to build two cities on the river
2920- Discover the north coast. Believe I maybe alone on the continent. Start to think about switching from growth/military focus to maybe a culture focus
2880- OK Not alone. Discover the Greeks to the south.
2400- First Settler
2360- CLASSICAL ERA Have Ironworking.
-Change my settlers direction and head him to the iron. Decided to build 2 south of iron.
2240- Antium Founded.
2200- Realize I need culture to get to iron and don't have Mysticism! (First Mistake?)
-Have no seen the Continent. No it is just the Greeks & Me. Plan to take them out once I get an army.
2080- Start 2nd Settler
2000- Rome is at 5. Antium is at 1 I have mined the gems & the hill south. I have built a farm on the corn and a road to Antium. Have 204 gold due to huts and 2 warriors exploring. I have lost a scout and a couple of warriors due to animals!!
1960- Greece founds Hinduism. It is not founded in Athens but rather in their 2nd city. I plan to take this 1st.
1600-Cumae Founded on the river at the 1st bend on the river once it turns south. (I really need to start taking screen shots )
1360- Rome Starts Stonehenge
1160- Antium borders expand. Start Iron Mining
1000- Stonehenge built elsewhere.
- Rome is now at 7; Antium at 5; and Cumae at 2 I am mining hills, Farming corn & grain.
700- Start to get experience for my praetorians by fight barbs.
625- Take Barb. city to the north. Will need to clear some jungle.
250- WAR!!!
- I attach Greece with 12 praetorians with city raider I.
175- Take Sparta & get my first Religion
- I loose 5 praetorians on the attack. The city was built on a hill and they put up a good fight.
1AD- I take a few more cities and sue for peace. I get Masonry (he has not other techs or gold). I still have research at 100% but am losing gold at 18 per turn.
100- Switch to Organized Religion.
350- Bankrupt so switch my research to 40%
450- Get beat to the pantheon but get enough gold to get my research up to 60%
500- 1 Million Souls
580- War!!
-Have built enough gold and soldiers to finish of the Greeks.
620- Athens Falls
820- Medieval Era
840- The Greeks are gone.

At this point, things slow way down. I have not be doing a good job on techs, so my cities have nothing to produce. I switch many to research. I build the wonders of Great Lighthouse, Great Library & Sistine Chapel. I had forgotten all about Great People & Specialists. (First time I have been past 500AD ) Don't get my first great person till 1140 AD. Finally get Optics at 1290AD. And then discover the another Continent at 1380 AD.

I really felt like I wasted a few hundred years in here. I did pick up a few wonders and I have my cities with more worker improvements than they know what to do with. I was hoping the starting continent would have at least one other Civ on it. I would have a conquered a little more before I turned to development of my territory.

At this point I think my best chance for a quick victory is a diplomatic one. I plan to try and send lot of Hindu Missionaries Overseas and try and convert as many civs as possible.

 

[Spoony]

I had a really good start to this GOTM, although i was a bit shocked to get confronted with all the barbs. Had to re-think the securing of my cities.

I don't make many notes so this will be really thin.

Founded four quick cities and raced tech straight towards Preats.

My third city was placed for the iron. Switched all production to Preats as I had connected all the cities to the Iron as an early priority (not much of this was needed as the rivers proved very useful). Created three Praets and the war was started. Don't know much on dates, got far to carried away in the heat of war.

Greeks were wiped out in 225AD. I messed about a bit with Athens too as stupidly I held my garrison outside but did not pillage the Iron. This left me with two swordsman to kill which took it's toll.

Spent far too long on expanding my empire accross the continent, my economy suffered through lack of experience and I am slightly lacking in tech speed. I was hoping for a quick domination, but it's looking much more difficult as I didn't realise caravels can't carry military units.

I did mangage to found christianity and a golden age is helping me catch up and develope my fledging cities.

'I really felt like I wasted a few hundred years in here.' hrc 333

I know what you mean, after the war I got lost in bad economic management and even had a STRIKE on my hands! I find whilst expanding I lose control of science and wealth.

 

[culdeus]

Maybe not the right time for this, but I'm having trouble getting any of the other civs to give me open borders. This hasn't ever been a problem before. That and the lack of horses on the island will make things difficult for me.

 

[Redbad]

Lack of horses
Do you have animal husbandry ? I.i.r.c. there should be 2 horses on the isle.

Open borders:
You need writing and the relations should not be too bad (say not under -2 or -3).

 

[Gato Loco]

Lack of horses
Do you have animal husbandry ? I.i.r.c. there should be 2 horses on the isle.

Open borders:
You need writing and the relations should not be too bad (say not under -2 or -3).

The real question is what you need those horses for. We've got praetorians. The enemy has phalanxes. The only thing my horses archers were really good for was giving them the medic promotion and using them as a mobile medic corps. And even there ny troops tended to stick together so a praetorian with medic would have been just as good. I suppose they could be used as pillagers, if Alex actually bothered to build anything to pillage.

And for open borders, if the other civ has a different religion you're probably going to have to make a couple trades to build trust first. Maybe even gift them something or declare war on their enemies.

 

[culdeus]

Lack of horses
Do you have animal husbandry ? I.i.r.c. there should be 2 horses on the isle.

Open borders:
You need writing and the relations should not be too bad (say not under -2 or -3).

Yeah, this was my first game under the patch. Didn't realize AH gave horses now I do. I didn't need them to O\/\/[\] the greeks, but I wanted to roll the next conty with cav.

I finally got two civs to give me OB. Took a long time.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I've just made trancontinental contact (800AD) and have read through this spoiler. There is much of interest, but I'm curious about the lack of discusssion regarding Great People.

I made a concerted effort to produce them, thinking (or perhaps just guessing, since this is my first civ4 game) that their value would be great early in the game. I succeeded in creating a priest (shrine), an artist (holding for use during conquest), an engineer (Notre Dame), and a scientist (Academy). However, it is not at all clear to me in retrospect that this is an optimal strategy.

I would be interested to know which Great People other players produced and especially how valuable they found them to be -- whether they were worth the effort.

 

[Quantum7]

- Scientist: 50% academy. Worth it.
- A few great engineers. Rushed a few key wonders. Worth it.
- A great merchant. Used for a spoilerish goal. Worth it.

 

[Redbad]

Got 15 great people (see final thread), all worth it

 

[DaviddesJ]

From what I read above, I think I have the fastest time to Optics (225 AD). I killed Greece quickly with my Praetorians, and then I basically ignored everything else and blitzed to Optics. I hope this will work well if I can trade for the techs I skipped. Or, if I can just blitz to Astronomy and conquer everyone without ever getting the rest of the early techs.

I encountered what seems like a bug, that cost me. I built a city on the east coast on the Stone resource, to try to race for Pyramids, but, when I built it, it didn't autoconnect to my trade network. I had to build a road there to get Stone into my network. I don't understand why. All of my other coastal cities autoconnected into my network, along the coast, as soon as I built them.

Getting beat to Pyramids wasn't all bad, as I got a big pile of cash and this let me run at 100% research for quite some time.

My Great Scientist will give me 80% of Astronomy, but I've been holding off on that because I don't know if I want to obsolete the Colossus. I figured I would try to make contact first before deciding whether to rush for Astronomy. If I could have gotten the Great Lighthouse, then I'd definitely go for Astronomy for the trade routes, but, it's not clear that it makes sense in my actual position. I wouldn't mind trading some of my extra health resources for some luxuries, though.

Events:
3960 BC - build Rome SW of start, on Silk, access to Wheat and Corn
3960 BC - Rome autopopped hut for 45 gold
3720 BC - discover Agriculture
???? BC - warrior popped hut for scout
???? BC - Alexander's scout finds me
???? BC - scout popped hut for 52 gold
3200 BC - discover Bronze Working - we have Copper but relatively far
3080 BC - warrior popped hut for Mysticism
2720 BC - build Antium 3W of start, access to Gems and Corn
2520 BC - discover Iron Working - we have Iron near Antium
2360 BC - discover The Wheel
2280 BC - build Cumae SW near Wine
2200 BC - discover Pottery
2000 BC - discover Writing
1560 BC - discover Alphabet
1400 BC - discover Sailing
1080 BC - discover Mathematics
1000 BC - discover Masonry
775 BC - build Neapolis on Stone on west coast - doesn't connect??
775 BC - war on Greece, with 11 Praetorians on his border
775 BC - capture worker
750 BC - capture Sparta
725 BC - capture Athens
700 BC - capture Thermopylae, eliminate Greece
700 BC - discover Hunting
650 BC - discover Animal Husbandry
550 BC - capture Polynesian from barbarians, NW near dye
450 BC - discover Currency
325 BC - lose race to build Pyramids in Antium, by one turn
225 BC - discover Metal Casting
200 BC - build Pisae in center of continent, near Corn
175 BC - build Hanging Gardens in Rome
25 BC - discover Machinery
50 AD - build Ravenna in center of continent, near Sheep
100 AD - discover Compass
125 AD - lose race to build Great Lighthouse in Athens
200 AD - Great Scientist in Athens (saved)
225 AD - discover Optics
250 AD - discover Polytheism
250 AD - build Colossus in Athens
300 AD - discover Literature
350 AD - 1st and 2nd Caravels completed, in Neapolis and Thermopylae
425 AD - discover Music, free Great Artist
425 AD - build Arretium on Marble on south coast
450 AD - caravel finds foreign civilization

Status at 450 AD:
24 techs
2 Great Leaders
11 cities
84 population
Hanging Gardens
Colossus
1 settler
11 workers
1 scout
3 explorers
4 warriors
11 praetorians
3 caravels

 

[Gato Loco]

Not many great people here. The generally low food production of our island argue against too many specialists. Athens eventually became my GP-specialized city due to the lack of good cottage terrain around it. I'll save a more detailed discussion for the final spoiler if I ever get the game working fast enough on the late ages.

 

[Shillen]

I encountered what seems like a bug, that cost me. I built a city on the east coast on the Stone resource, to try to race for Pyramids, but, when I built it, it didn't autoconnect to my trade network. I had to build a road there to get Stone into my network. I don't understand why. All of my other coastal cities autoconnected into my network, along the coast, as soon as I built them.

I've noticed this happens with all of my cities. For some reason coastal connections don't happen immediately. Maybe it calculates how long it would take a boat to get there then it connects it, I don't know. But I find that the trade route doesn't show up for a few turns if coast is the only connection to the rest of your cities.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I've noticed this happens with all of my cities. For some reason coastal connections don't happen immediately. Maybe it calculates how long it would take a boat to get there then it connects it, I don't know. But I find that the trade route doesn't show up for a few turns if coast is the only connection to the rest of your cities.

I haven't seen that. Most of my connections showed up immediately.

My current theory is that a barbarian galley interrupted the coastal route. I did see one sailing around, a while later. I remember this being an issue in Civ 3, also.

I think I have a contemporanous save file, so, at some point, I'll open it in the world builder, and try to figure out what's going on. I don't want to do that until I finish the GOTM, though.

 

[Quantum7]

From what I read above, I think I have the fastest time to Optics (225 AD). I killed Greece quickly with my Praetorians, and then I basically ignored everything else and blitzed to Optics. I hope this will work well if I can trade for the techs I skipped. Or, if I can just blitz to Astronomy and conquer everyone without ever getting the rest of the early techs.

Interesting approach. Might replay to try something similar . The greek cities probably provided a nice amount of cash and experience.

Some notes / questions:
- I'm surprised you didn't go for Code of Laws. It seems to be alot more effective in reducing costs than Currency. (and it gives the excellent caste system)
- Animal husbandry that late! That's something I simply refuse to do. I want those horse, sheep & cow tiles used earlier than that.
- Did you chop for barracks & praetorians?
- Why didn't you build the Oracle? It's free tech would have enabled you to get even faster to Optics?

 

[bradleyfeanor]

225 AD - discover Optics
325 BC - lose race to build Pyramids in Antium, by one turn
450 AD - caravel finds foreign civilization

Wow, your dates are quite early! Sorry about those Pyramids though. Ouch. I look forward to hearing about the rest of your game. Do you remember what your expenses, beakers, and taxes were running at at the time you had 11 cities? I would have guessed that not having courthouses would be hurting bad at that point, but your population is very high, so I guess maybe that was making up for it?

 

[Quantum7]

I've noticed this happens with all of my cities. For some reason coastal connections don't happen immediately. Maybe it calculates how long it would take a boat to get there then it connects it, I don't know. But I find that the trade route doesn't show up for a few turns if coast is the only connection to the rest of your cities.

I think I read somewhere that all coastal terrain linking the two cities had to be explored before the connection could happen?

 

[Shillen]

You're right DaviddesJ. I was imagining things. I just verified in one of my saves and the coastal connection was immediate. Maybe it does have to do with a barbarian galley getting in the way or something. Also I'm pretty sure you're correct Quantum7 in that the entire coastline has to be explored from the city to the next coastal city.