What have I done wrong so far?

[The Foo]

Howdy folks. I've been playing Civ since the very first one, but never really devoted much time to getting really good at it until Civ IV. Now I'm trying to move up the harder levels ("harder" being Noble and up) but find that I'm not having too much success. My problem is that I'm pretty sure I'm doing a bunch of stuff by habit that I shouldn't, and that I'm not noticing certain things which I'll need to if I'm to find success at higher levels.

So, I need you to slice me to ribbons! I'll be posting a breakdown of the first 100 turns of a game I've done recently, and look forward to comments and tips about what I've done wrong so far!

 

[The Foo]

Here we go:

In the beginning, the world was without form, and void...
Here are the settings for the game. There's 14 civilizations total, I think, and we're on a randomly-generated world with two distinct hemispheres. Other than that, I have no idea how many islands, continents, etc. there are. I turned off the space race 'cos I find it makes everyone focus on that winning condition and I want them gunning for me and other conditions.


Let's begin!

I'm playing as Churchill.
I'm hoping Charismatic will help keep my whiners citizens happier, because I’m a charming bastard, and I'll have a nice defensive posture for my eventual backstabbing by the AI.

Booyah, here’s the sitch after the first round. My Warrior went up on the hill to look around and spotted a village to visit. My settlers started on a nice plot that’s got sheeps, silk, and crabs, so that’s good. On top of that, we’re on a hill, giving a 50% defense bonus (like anyone’s gonna get to my capital anyway…), plenty of trees and a river providing fresh water.


I settle in place and start to build a Worker. I also find out there’s another source of crab nearby that will be within my city borders after the first pop. Excellent!

Before we go to the next turn, though, I have to decide what to research. It’s a no-brainer: Bronze Working. Slavery, here I come!!


On the next turn, my Warrior visits the village and they teach us to hunt. Score! Too bad I don’t have anything to hunt, though.


The Warrior heads east and spy a source of marble on the coast. I decide I must have it in order to build magnificent Wonders to fuel my ego. Lol, over-compensating.


I let my warrior explore for a few turns, rounding out the edges of the known world. On the ninth turn, London’s borders pop. Check out those bits of land across the water! I note that I’ve got evergreen trees and tundra to the north, so I must be near the top of the world. That’s good, ‘cos there won’t likely be people up there looking to murderize me.


On turn 16, Buddhism is founded in a distant land. Screw them! Six turns later, I meet my first victim friend, Peter, of Russia. Look at his eyes. He’s staring into my soul, planning no doubt to kill and eat me with a nice bottle of vodka. He’s even wearing a bib already.

I tell him that there will be peace in our time and back away.


Huzzah, Bronze Working! Hello, subjugation of my people and Axemen! And what’s this? There’s copper within London’s borders! Time to get that little worker crackin’, since he’s just been built. Also, I start researching Masonry. I want me a Pyramid, y’hear?


While I’m off planning the future of London, my Warrior discovers a source of stone! My ego itches again; I must have this to build Wonders! My only concern is that my empire will be stretched a bit thin for a while, and the maintenance costs on two fairly distant cities may be a bit too much to bear. Hmm.


The revolution is not televised, since it’s 3425 BC, but we change civics, adopting Slavery. Then, nothing happens for a while, and I start building a Work Boat to go fishin’. A tryant’s gotta relax somehow, right?


Meanwhile, my Workers are chopping down a forest to help me build faster. The Warrior continues his exploration and a short time later, I meet this fellow: Hammurabi, of the Babylonians. Look at that beard and ‘stache. That’s facial hair you can rule an empire with, and his hat is made of a fantastic raspberry lemon swirl.


I go fishing. This screenshot lies, ‘cos I didn’t build a Spearman. I started a Settler in order to get to that marble east and stone in the south! The Worker keeps chopping down trees to speed this up.


My Warriors spot a Babylonian fellow building something just inside their borders. We decide to kidnap him to force him to work our lands, because it’s much more fun to enslave other suckers and not our own citizens. We go to war!

…sadly, the Worker is eaten by a lion trying to get back to my kingdom. So much for the face that started a war. The Warriors head east, since I don’t really want to fight raspberry-lemon hat.


Success! I am now ready to build all manner of stone-based things. This makes that source of stone a priority, since that’ll half the time it takes to build the Pyramids. One problem, though: I need a town down there to get it, and I need a way to connect it to London, where I’m going to build them. This means I need a river, shoreline, or roads connecting the two. I being to look into creating something called “The Wheel”, which will revolutionize the dragging industry, and give me roads.


In honour of the dearly departed slave Worker, I have my Warriors lie in wait for this pack of lions. They easily defeat them as they cross the water, and we grind their penises into a romance powder.


The powder must work, because when the Warriors find another village, they produce a second unit of Warriors! Nice work, boys.

Also, the Settler I began a while back completes and I send him out to build a new city.


Here you can see the situation in London. Note the three tiles of trees I chopped down. After I discover Pottery, the grassland (green) will have cottages built on them, to help me make more money. The plains will have a farm on it. We also start building Axemen, who will hopefully go on to pillage the lands of many a peace-loving beatnik.


Some jerk named Livy goes around and finds out how much money everyone has and Peter and I don’t even make the list. Which is fair, ‘cos I have no gold saved at all, but still rude because I told him that in the strictest of confidence. Also I see that Hammurabi is rich, and I decide to make peace with him for now.

 

[madscientist]

Not sure exactly what difficulty this game is, I assume Nobel. Looks to me like you have a fairly good start, no problem so far. I have found Churchhill benefits from getting Sonehenge and if possible the oracle. Use the oracle to discover Code of Law, thus founding Confuscism and use the first Great Prophet for the Shrine. That way you can leverage the Stock exchange to it's advantage. You may want to pop out a Settler first then hit the wonders.

 

[The Foo]

Next: my settlers head out and build York next to the cows and marble because, frankly, I can’t afford to build one all the way down by the stone owing to being poor. Or maybe ‘cos I forgot about the stone down there. I’m not sure yet. Shut up.

I decide to build a scout here so that I can send him out to check the world out, and because I need dudes to stand on the hills in between my towns to keep an eye out for barbarians.


A couple turns later, someone stands on his son’s collection of sticks, and they roll out from underneath his feet, killing him instantly. His son makes a killing by inventing the Wheel. We begin researching Mysticism so that he can talk to his father in the after life.

Meanwhile, I start working on another group of Settlers to claim dominion over the stone to the south.


…ten turns later, we discover Mysticism and my thousands of citizens rejoice and start burning incense for their ancestors and building monoliths in their honour. I start thinking about having Stonehenge built, but I probably won’t be able to, since those douches that founded Buddhism are probably already working on it. I try anyway.


I chop down a bunch more trees and a couple turns later, more settlers are ready to go and spread their Englishness upon the face of the planet, which I am calling Planet Foo, because forget everyone else!


The next turn, York finishes building whatever the hell I had it building. Oh yeah, a scout. I send him southwest to make the land safe between York and the place where the stone town will be built. This way, nobody will eat my poor, defenseless settlers who can’t even use that goddamned stick they have to take a damn swing at a lion or whatever when they’re attacked, I mean, c’mon, at least try to help yourself, y’know?

Anyway, I start building a Worker.


Four turns after I started it, someone finishes Stonehenge and I get a few shekels in my treasury from the effort spent on it in London. Oh well. I’ll get them to build me a magnificent pyramid.


Nottingham is founded next to the stone. Since I’m the government, I’ve worry that it’s settled it where there’s a few trees because that Robin Hood scalawag might hide in the woods and cause . .. .. .. .. I can’t focus on that now, though, ‘cos I’ve got stone to secure, a pyramid to build, and, aieee, a lion to kill!


Look at those scouts go! Chop him! Use your jungle-axe!


Nothing happens for 300 years (12 turns). Well, not true. I have to drop my research rate and increase taxes to pay for the maintenance of Nottingham way down there. This causes Polytheism to take longer than originally anticipated, but we finish it off. Sadly, by this time, I’m way too late to discover Hinduism. I decide both the Buddhists and Hindus must die painfully for believing in a God I wasn’t able to discover first. I begin working on Priesthood, hoping to give the Oracle a shot.


York completes the worker and I set him to work building the road to the marble. Since the marble’s not in the town’s cultural borders yet, I can’t actually use it, or build the quarry needed. I start building a monument which will produce culture to pop the border. The worker will have to amuse himself with roads and maybe chopping some trees down until that happens.


Exploration continues and I find a village on the border of Babylon. Why he didn’t send someone out to grab it, I dunno, but I get a free warrior out of his stupidity. I also now know where the south end of his empire is, and am not impressed.


Gah! Japanese! Tokugawa wrinkles his nose at me and sneers. It seems the random personalities have gifted him with an isolationist jerk attitude. Too bad that’s his regular attitude.


Success! Priesthood. I figure I’ll try researching writing. This will let me grab Code of Laws (and Confucianism) if I finish the Oracle in time. But don’t bet on it. I also want to build temples for happiness, proving that Sid Meier is a dirty commie and religion is an opiate for the masses.

I also realise that I’m wasting some nice irrigated plains near London, so I start work on Agriculture. We will have farms!


A few turns later, I meet Cyrus. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, right? What about when it's a hat of cigars?


York finishes the monument and I’m as happy as a little girl. I start the Oracle, even though I’m pretty sure I’ll never get it built in time, even once the marble knocks production for it in half. Oh well, carpe the diem, right?


As I’m wrapping up the update at 100 turns, I accidentally discover a fantastic strategic tool built into the game! I don’t know if this is new for Beyond the Sword, or if I’m just a ******, but when zoom out to the globe view, I discover a line-drawing and labelling tool and proceed to create a “dot map”, drawing out possible locations for cities on the continent. I also discover that some barbarians have built a town and promptly label them “VICTIMS!” and plan to build a couple axemen to go over there and take their town. Dirty barbarians.



Anyway, that’s the first 100 turns. My next goals are:
-kill the barbarians and take my town they built for me
-shore up my finances and then build a couple more towns (see #4 and 5)
-finish up my roads and connections so that London gets the benefit of that stone for the Pyramids!
-explore the north a bit
-hopefully found or adopt a religion
-send my axemen army out to . .. .. .. . with Peter, Cyrus, Hammurabi and Tokugawa. Peter’s gotta go. I still don’t trust him, and I’m pretty sure Hammurabi is pissed that I declared war on him and kidnapped his dude, so I gotta watch him.

So, advice? Besides "dude, lay off the wonders, man!"

 

[The Foo]

Not sure exactly what difficulty this game is, I assume Nobel. Looks to me like you have a fairly good start, no problem so far. I have found Churchhill benefits from getting Sonehenge and if possible the oracle. Use the oracle to discover Code of Law, thus founding Confuscism and use the first Great Prophet for the Shrine. That way you can leverage the Stock exchange to it's advantage. You may want to pop out a Settler first then hit the wonders.

It's set to Prince, I believe.

 

[madscientist]

Never mind, you playing too fast for me to really give some good advice.

 

[The Foo]

Sorry, done now. I just wanted to put the first 100 turns up and see what I could have done differently.

 

[njorls]

*Edit* These are my comments on your 1st set of turns

You could have done things a little more optimally:
You started with Fishing and a seafood resource. A fishing boat would have been the ideal first thing to build. Food for growth is your biggest priority.

You researched Masonry before you had a source of stone/marble in one of your city's fat cross. You should have gotten Animal Husbandry before that to work the sheep in your capital and would have revealed Horses.

I would have gone for The Wheel once the copper was revealed in your city. This would let you build Axemen sooner.

You will need Mysticism for your next city to build a monument so the borders will pop. I usually like to make Monuments my first build.

And the unescorted worker was a big mistake. The warrior that stole him should have escorted him back, unless a barbarian ate both of them. The AI won't be able to catch you early in the game, 1 space at a time will get you back safe. *Edit*: Move the warrior 1 square, if there's a bear there don't move the worker onto the warrior.

 

[The Foo]

Okay, good stuff. Thanks!

*Edit* These are my comments on your 1st set of turns

You could have done things a little more optimally:
You started with Fishing and a seafood resource. A fishing boat would have been the ideal first thing to build. Food for growth is your biggest priority.

So, roughly speaking, it's usually better to build a fishing boat to get things growing than it is to get a worker out and chopping? I figured the worker would help accelerate everything.

You researched Masonry before you had a source of stone/marble in one of your city's fat cross. You should have gotten Animal Husbandry before that to work the sheep in your capital and would have revealed Horses.

I agree. I think I was planning towards the Pyramids too much, especially considering the distance to the source of stone.

I would have gone for The Wheel once the copper was revealed in your city. This would let you build Axemen sooner.

You mean because roads would let the other cities have access?

And the unescorted worker was a big mistake. The warrior that stole him should have escorted him back, unless a barbarian ate both of them. The AI won't be able to catch you early in the game, 1 space at a time will get you back safe.

Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to him. I should've moved him manually. Even alone, I can usually get them home fine because I can move one square and then move away if a barbarian is revealed. Oh well.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[madscientist]

*Edit* These are my comments on your 1st set of turns

You could have done things a little more optimally:
You started with Fishing and a seafood resource. A fishing boat would have been the ideal first thing to build. Food for growth is your biggest priority.

You researched Masonry before you had a source of stone/marble in one of your city's fat cross. You should have gotten Animal Husbandry before that to work the sheep in your capital and would have revealed Horses.

I would have gone for The Wheel once the copper was revealed in your city. This would let you build Axemen sooner.

You will need Mysticism for your next city to build a monument so the borders will pop. I usually like to make Monuments my first build.

And the unescorted worker was a big mistake. The warrior that stole him should have escorted him back, unless a barbarian ate both of them. The AI won't be able to catch you early in the game, 1 space at a time will get you back safe.

I agree with all the comments here.

I had difficulty following the game that well because there are too many pictures. Alot could have deleted with a simple line and perhaps a list of the order you teched, and the build order.

The humor addition is fine, but putting all the pictures (one line of text, another picture) in between loses the flow. I tend to be the opposite, using almost all text to describe my games and I only got a photobuckat account yesterday so perhaps that will change.

I did not realize there was a tool on teh world map view for drawing, I'll check it out tonight.

 

[madscientist]

You mean because roads would let the other cities have access?


[\QUOTE]

so London can use the copper. Usually you need sailing to use a resource on the river, such as the copper: however, I think since the resource in within the Big Fat Cross AND the river connects to the capital that will work. Anotherwords, I do not think you needed the wheel. I could be wrong on this.

EDIT: Well I screwed up another quote!

 

[Babibo]

I can see some mistakes. At Prince level, they may be ok, but at Emperor level, they would kill you.
1. Your citizens are not efficient enough because you don't improve your land. At start, you have fishing, and your worker has nothing to improve except chopping woods. Build a workboat first. Then a worker, a settler, and another workboat... Later, I see London is at size 5, but you haven't improved the sheep, and the other crab. In York, you haven't improved any tile. A pasture on the cow would help a lot...
2. Why did you build the Pyramids ? You didn't hook up stone yet, so it's a waste of hammers ! You should build workers instead
3. Your third city is very far...

 

[njorls]

2nd turnset: Ideally you would have had mysticism before founding 2nd city. Start a monument, work the higest food tile (cows?) and whip once you get to pop 2. Otherwise you can start something else and when myticism comes in, change build to monument and on next turn whip.

London should have built the worker for your 2nd city. When I found a 2nd city I like to build a worker first, that worker chops the next settler. It delays the founding of a city but I think a city is pretty useless without a worker working on it. And your 2nd city looks undefended, what's best is to put a warrior near where the 2nd city is in and have him fog bust for your settler on the way to the second city. Lone settlers get eaten by wolves.

Worker should have improved the cows before chopping trees or doing roads, food for growth is all important.

London should have tried the oracle, a new city most likely doesn't have the population or production to build a wonder.

I wouldn't have started Pyramids until I had the stone hooked up, it's too expensive that early to slow build.

Sailing and your 3rd city would have gotten London access to the stone the fastest.

 

[The Foo]

You mean because roads would let the other cities have access?


[\QUOTE]

so London can use the copper. Usually you need sailing to use a resource on the river, such as the copper: however, I think since the resource in within the Big Fat Cross AND the river connects to the capital that will work. Anotherwords, I do not think you needed the wheel. I could be wrong on this.

EDIT: Well I screwed up another quote!

Right. Roads to actually bring the resource into town. I hadn't realised that you need them within the fat cross, too. Cool.

 

[The Foo]

I can see some mistakes. At Prince level, they may be ok, but at Emperor level, they would kill you.
1. Your citizens are not efficient enough because you don't improve your land. At start, you have fishing, and your worker has nothing to improve except chopping woods. Build a workboat first. Then a worker, a settler, and another workboat... Later, I see London is at size 5, but you haven't improved the sheep, and the other crab. In York, you haven't improved any tile. A pasture on the cow would help a lot...
2. Why did you build the Pyramids ? You didn't hook up stone yet, so it's a waste of hammers ! You should build workers instead
3. Your third city is very far...

1. You're right. I should probably get the base improvement techs (agri, hunt, etc.) for the resources I have before I start on Masonry and the like.
2. I like Pyramids!
3. Yeah, I realise that. I think I probably should've accepted that it was too far and passed up on the stone, but I'm a bit of a wonder-whore.

 

[slobberinbear]

I think you did a good job of setting goals and settling cities.

Once you get past Noble, however, it is harder to get Wonders consistently unless you get the enabling tech quickly, start working on it immediately, and have wood to chop and/or stone or marble. Stonehenge, in particular, is usually taken by 2500 BC in my Monarch games, and probably would be quicker in a 14-civ game like yours. I would focus on just one Wonder at a time unless I had two high-production cities.

Agree with the other posters re: improving your tiles.

I would have started with two workboats then built the worker in London. I would have teched Mining-BW-Animal Husbandry-Wheel, and added Mysticism in there early if I wanted Stonehenge.

Also, Churchill is Protective and you got Hunting from a hut. Why not take Archery and build some well-promoted archers? This will free up your axes for offensive operations.

Keep scouting.

 

[The Foo]

2nd turnset: Ideally you would have had mysticism before founding 2nd city. Start a monument, work the higest food tile (cows?) and whip once you get to pop 2. Otherwise you can start something else and when myticism comes in, change build to monument and on next turn whip.

I will have to keep this in mind in future. I think I'm planning too far ahead and missing the steps it takes to get there. I was also playing the Greeks just before this, and that Creative bonus to culture spoiled me.

London should have built the worker for your 2nd city. When I found a 2nd city I like to build a worker first, that worker chops the next settler. It delays the founding of a city but I think a city is pretty useless without a worker working on it. And your 2nd city looks undefended, what's best is to put a warrior near where the 2nd city is in and have him fog bust for your settler on the way to the second city. Lone settlers get eaten by wolves.

I tend to leave my cities undefended in the first turns simply because animals won't come in. I think I have to break this habit and force myself to make more combat units, or to research archery quicker.

Worker should have improved the cows before chopping trees or doing roads, food for growth is all important.

Noted.

London should have tried the oracle, a new city most likely doesn't have the population or production to build a wonder.

I wouldn't have started Pyramids until I had the stone hooked up, it's too expensive that early to slow build.

I'm starting to realise that, especially at the high levels, you should basically ignore the big wonders unless you have the corresponding resource hooked up already.

Sailing and your 3rd city would have gotten London access to the stone the fastest.

Argh!!! I totally forgot about trade on shores! You're absolutely right!

Thanks again, folks. This is good info!

 

[The Foo]

I think you did a good job of setting goals and settling cities.
I would have started with two workboats then built the worker in London. I would have teched Mining-BW-Animal Husbandry-Wheel, and added Mysticism in there early if I wanted Stonehenge.

To be honest, I started with the worker because my turns to research BW and build a worker were the same (due to starting with mining).

Fish > worker, I'm hearing, though.

 

[stuttrboy]

"dude, lay off the wonders, man!"

Besides this I don't think you really did anything wrong per say. You could tighten things up a little for sure.

@Njorls: worker and bronzeworking is actually better than WB first, but not by much and not if you have your worker sitting around doing nothing.

If you have tiles to improve and roads to build then yeah it's fine to go worker first but in this case the OP didn't get good worker techs to make use of the worker. getting that bronze mined up and the first WB chopped out would make great use of that worker and you'd still get your WB's out quickly in that situation and tech something that will keep your worker busy with things other than chopping. I think Agriculture should have been the tech after BW then Myst

I agree that Mysticism was needed earlier since you plopped down cities with the resources you were aiming for in the second border pop. I find the best way to get an obelisk in a city is to whip it, it's only one pop if you let your city build it one turn. so work a barracks or libuntil 1 turn from growth, cue up a monument and whip it next turn. This is why people like, religion Stone Henge and the Creative trait, those border pops can take forever sometimes.

the worker was a bonehead move but it happens to best of us when not paying attention. The fact that you weren't paying attention makes me think there were many micro management opportunities missed if you can't even micro a unit you may not be working the best tiles for your goals either.

@madscientist: nope you don't even need fishing to use rivers as roads they auto hook up any resources/cities bordering them, OP didn't need roads too quick. I think it was a good move for him to put it off in fact there are other techs that are a bit more pressing.

@Babibo I agree with point 1. unimproved tiles are not tiles you want to be working. however, with other food sources and productions like grassland copper some food sources can be put on the backburner. Sheep, especially plains hill sheep colors me unimpressed 3f 2h 1c? Yeah, the copper and seafood is way more important given the resources at hand.

As for 2, if OP was trying for a wonderspam strategy building pyramids without stone is not that big a deal, if it's going to take 25 turns for a border pop to gather in the stone, not to mention the worker turns to build the roads then that's time spent to ensure you get the wonder. Unfortunately I think it was more of an ooh shiny distraction than an actual thought out strategy. This, I feel, is the biggest problem with your game play. You have no clearly defined objective on how you want to get this win off.

3. I totally disagree with you. First of all that's a great blocking site, it will help keep Hammurabi out of those lands and let you backfill at your leisure, you will need another down there soon (though the barb town will do in a pinch), he will go around you.

Hammurabi is one of the worst opponents to have at your door step, unless you have an early chariot UU like eqypt or Persia. Those Bowmen will stop an axe rush cold. So the only real choice is to REx out some cities and keep him out of your land.

The feeling I get from your post is that you don't really have a clear idea of what you want to be accomplishing. Maybe that's just the humor, shooting from the hip wit you are attempting to portray. Why do you want Pyramids, is this going to be a specialist economy? why do you want Stone Henge, GP points or just border popage?. The oracle is obvious but what tech are you shooting for here? These kinds of details can help us better assist you in improving your play.

*Edit*

Once you get past Noble, however, it is harder to get Wonders consistently unless you get the enabling tech quickly, start working on it immediately, and have wood to chop and/or stone or marble.

I think Obsolete would disagree he got a ton of wonders even on his most recent Immortal walkthrough. but I tend to agree, unless pursuing a specific wonderspam strat it's not a great idea to be chasing every shiny wonder you stumble upon.


Oh yeah and you need more workers, I like at least 1-1.5 per city based on resources and things like irrigation about of land vs water tiles yadda yadda, yadda.

 

[slobberinbear]

To be honest, I started with the worker because my turns to research BW and build a worker were the same (due to starting with mining).

Fish > worker, I'm hearing, though.

I wouldn't say Fish > worker ... A workboat is essentially a one-shot worker, or a pillageable mini-food factory, depending on how you look at it. You're trading hammers for increased food production. And you get to keep growing while building it. But a worker keeps on increasing production until you run out of things to do or he dies. That said, I prefer boats early.

Seafood is great, and even better when you start the game with the Fishing tech. Build the boat, get increased food and commerce, and still grow. There are other threads out there about the best way to build workboats. I favor the quick method, working high hammer tiles until the workboat is done, then working the seafood after the boat has improved it.

Having two seafood tiles makes producing a worker faster (+2 or +3 production over a standard 3 production unimproved tile), and working two 2-commerce seafood tiles gives you four extra commerce/turn, which greatly aids in research. Think of seafood as providing a food and commerce foundation on which your city can grow. Your workers can then focus on chopping wood, building mines, and getting the sheep online.

If your happy cap is five, then, you would be able to work 2 crabs (4F/2C each), 1 plains hill sheep (3F/3H ? -- I may have this wrong), 1 grassland river bronze mine (1F/5H/1C ?) and 1 grassland hill mine (1F/3H). Combined with your city tile, that's 15F/12H/5C plus the commerce from the Palace.

15 food at size 5 means a +5 food surplus for good growth/whipping. 12 hammers makes an axeman in 3 turns.

That makes London a solid production city with some commerce as a bonus. As the city gets larger and you get the tech, you can get some plantations and cottages going to improve the income.