Van01 - A Newbie Hope

[Vanor]

Hannibal is Financial/Charismatic - Willem has the traits you mentionned.

Willem could work as well, his UU is a bit later being a replacement of the Galleon might be useful. His UB is also a bit later not coming until the industrial age. Both seem a bit later then what people want for this SG. Hannibal still seems like a good one to start with. Financial is quite powerful and Charismatic giving +1 happy and needing 25% less XP to promote a unit seems to be quite useful.

So unless anyone objects, I'd like to suggest the following settings, and have Pigswill start the game as soon as he is ready to.

Difficulty: Noble
Civ + Leader: Carthaginian/Hannibal
Map Type: Continents
Map Size: Large
Map Speed: Epic
Number of AI Civ's: 5
All other settings would be normal

Does the lack of unofficial patch mater much? I don't think anyone other then perhaps Pigswill has it currently.

Morred: Lurker question: What is BUG? <_<

BUG is the BTS Unaltered Gameplay mod. Basically it changes the UI of Civ 4 to give more information and allows some customization of the names and such.

For example, with BUG running you'll get messages about when a city will grow the next turn or it's culture expanding the next turn. You'll also be warned when a city is about to become unhealthy or unhappy... So you get more info automatically then you do normally.

You can also set it up to name your units for you, so if you make a Archer in London it will be named "Archer 1 of London", ect...

 

[Splime]

If we have financial, then I think we can raise the difficulty... It is said that financial lowers the difficulty level by one. While I disagree, it certainly gives you an edge.

Also, only 5 AI civs on a large map? That seems a bit too light.

 

[Vanor]

If we have financial, then I think we can raise the difficulty...

We can do that sure. I'm playing with him on warlord right now and it's been surprisingly easy so far to stay ahead in score and tech with a smallish empire.

Also, only 5 AI civs on a large map? That seems a bit too light.

Would 7 be better? That would make for 8 total civ's.

 

[pigswill]

On a large map 7 AI should be about right. Alternatively we could play 5 AIs on a standard map.

Generally speaking people can play a level above their solo games in a SG, financial is certainly a powerful trait and easy to exploit. Having said that if most people feel comfortable on warlords then maybe play at noble. If we're storming ahead then we'll aim to wrap it up quickly for a respectable score.

 

[Vanor]

On a large map 7 AI should be about right.

Lets go for 7 on a large map.

Generally speaking people can play a level above their solo games in a SG.

Well I'm finding that winning on warlord is pretty easy so far. Splime and Dawn both have suggested Prince. I think between playing with some experienced people in a SG, and Financial, we should be able to play at that level.

So how about this...

Difficulty: Prince
Civ + Leader: Carthaginian/Hannibal
Map Type: Continents
Map Size: Large
Map Speed: Epic
Number of AI Civ's: 7
All other settings would be normal

I'm going to assume no one will object to that, so Pigswill if you're willing, go ahead and start it up.

 

[Splime]

I'm going to assume no one will object to that, so Pigswill if you're willing, go ahead and start it up.

Yep, looks like a good setup.

 

[pigswill]

Only thing that's left to be decided is whether we're using BUG and Bhruic's patch. I have no experience of BUG, I've played Bhruic's patch before which does sort out the worst of 3.13's idiosyncrasies but I'm not sure if it will affect the HOF Mod used for SGOTM.

 

[Splime]

I don't think we're using either.

 

[Vanor]

I don't think we're using either.

Splime, Dawn and glenmetz didn't have Bhruic's patch installed. So I removed it myself because I figured it might cause a problem with the SG. I'm guessing none of us have BUG, I know Splime, Glenmetz and myself don't. Based on Pigswill's comment I'm guessing he doesn't use BUG either.

Dawn mentioned using it, but it seems to be safe for SG's as long as the people who don't have it don't try to open the log file it creates.

 

[pigswill]

Ok, I'll roll up a start on BtS 3.13 without Bhruic or BUG.

Hannibal, Prince, Large, Epic, Continents, Default AI. Everything else standard (including Barbs).

 

[Splime]

Ok, I'll roll up a start on BtS 3.13 without Bhruic or BUG.

Hannibal, Prince, Large, Epic, Continents, Default AI. Everything else standard (including Barbs).

Except # of AI civs is 7. That's a bit different.

 

[dawn]

Cool, let's get this underway!

 

[pigswill]

The tale begins in the dawning of history.

 

[dawn]

I like the start, even if it will be low on .
Lots of and for a specialist economy, at least in the capital. Looks like a good fit for our traits.
Also looks like we're at the bottom of the continent.

 

[pigswill]

Let's avoid rushing into a start and making it up as we go along. We won't be in a position to think of an overall strategy until we've got some exploring done and met the neighbours but let's think about getting off to a solid start.

What do we know so far? Hannibal is financial making him a natural for a cottage economy. Charismatic is good primarily for the cheaper promotions which does of course mean fighting to get the promotions. Happiness is always a bonus of course.

We're playing at prince level which means that at least some of the AIs will be able to keep up in research. This means that tech trading is going to be a useful option, and that means that we have to keep an eye on diplomacy and have some tradeable techs. With continents and 7 AIs we're likely to share our continent with 2-5 other civs.

Hannibal starts with mining and fishing, neither of these are much immediate use for our first city. Agriculture would enable us to work the corn. On the other hand we could grow fast enough with the floodplains and work the wine tiles for some extra commerce without having to worry about rushing into building a worker straight away.

We'll probably have barbs to worry about but they won't be much of a threat until at least 2000bc, probably later. Our explorers will run into animals fairly early on.

So where do we put the first city?

What should be our first two techs?

What should be our first two builds?

 

[dawn]

I'll take a stab at answering those questions.

Where to build? Keeping in mind that we can't see everything in the BFC (Big Fat Cross) if we settled in place, we would still get +3 even without improvements (floodplains SW and NE, and the corn to the E). We have 4 tiles with break-even (2 food on the tile) so we can work a lot tiles or run a lot good amount specialists, before improvements. As I mentioned before, are lacking, but we can make this a Great Person city and go for production elsewhere.

Tech wise: We don't start with Agriculture, but need it for the corn. Agriculture (and start with a worker build) -> Bronze Working -> Wheel (hook up the copper we'll find, right? right?) -> pottery (cottages to exploit our Financial trait).

Builds: Start off with a worker as the time spent there will be made up by farming over the corn for added growth. Need another warrior for exploration.

These are conservative ideas as I'm more of a builder than warrior.

 

[Vanor]

Here's my thoughts, I'm trusting you all to tell me what I've gotten wrong.

So where do we put the first city?

Settling in place seems like a good option to me. We'll have lots of rivers in our FC, and plently of food, between the floodplains and corn. I don't see any square currently that would be better.

What should be our first two techs?

I'd say Bronze working and Agriculture, do you start with the wheel on Prince? Never played that level so I'm not sure when that gets cut off.

BW would allow us to chop and there seems to be plenty of forest in the area, plus finding copper quick is always handy.

What should be our first two builds?

I'd go warrior and then worker there's what looks like a hill 2 east that we could mine once the borders pop, and hooking up the corn would help us reach a pop of 3 or 4 rather quickly with all that food there.

 

[Splime]

Settling in place does look nice.

Agriculture is a good tech to get, as is Bronze Working for chopping and founding city #2. (Vanor: Mining and Fishing are the only two we get.)

A worker first may be worthwhile with agriculture... however, a warrior first would also work well.

 

[pigswill]

I'd go with settling in place: 2 floodplains, 2 grassland hills, corn and grapes seem reasonable. River for health and traderoute is useful. There's a lot of fog but we don't want to lose much time exploring before we settle.

In terms of techs I'd go BW first for chopping and whipping and then agric to improve the corn.

I'd build a warrior first while working FP to grow to pop2. On reaching pop2 I'd switch to working the grapes because the commerce boost will speed up research slightly. Complete the warrior and send him exploring before starting on the worker. On epic a worker is 90 hammers; you also get 45 hammers per whip so we can rush the worker after 45 hammers once we've got BW and switched to slavery.

That's probably as far as I can guess before some turns have been played and we've done an initial circuit of exploration.

 

[pigswill]

Played 11 turns so far and already time for decisions.

Settled in place:

Not too bad: 3 floodplains, 3 grass hills, 8 grassland (1 corn, 4 riverside for early cottages), 6 plains (2 wine).

Did a bit of exploring and found the seaside:

We're also way down south near the tundra. This could potentially mean a long term problem with barbarians because its difficult finding good city sites in tundra/arctic to help with fog-busting but we need to explore more first.
We've also got four goody huts nearby.

At turn 11 we grew to pop2 which means we can work another tile (got plain/wine tiles wrong, they give 3c but only 1f/1h). Bronze working is 10 or 11 turns away depending on which tiles we work. We could either complete the warrior or switch to a worker which could be whipped as soon as BW comes in.

The warrior can aid with exploring and help pop the goody huts. The worker can start chopping out our next build.