Hi, everyone!
OK, introductions are in order. I’ve been playing Civ on an occasional basis ever since it came out, lurked on Realms Beyond reading the reports for similar amounts of time, but haven’t really played baseline Civ BTS when it came out – got into “Fall From Heaven” mod instead. Never the less, I consider myself a reasonable player, even if I am occasionally fond of save-reloading (which got me my first and only win on Emperor).
This adventure (thanks, T-hawk!) piqued my interest, so I decided to give it a go. It was a very pleasurable afternoon spent figuring out the mechanics. How well I did at that is a good question.
***
Ok, so we are aliens. I sit down in front of the computer with a piece of paper, kick off the game, and start writing down my thoughts before building my first city.
So, hammers give me food, bread gives me commerce and coins give me… hammers? I need hammers to eat? Hmm… Puzzling, to say the least.
Long term, what is going to happen? In my Civ late game, commerce is flying freely, as towns in late civics give lots of commerce. Production is a pain for me, generally (but perhaps I just don’t build enough mines?), whilst food… food is king. Food equals people, and people equal power. So my default builder’s approach in this mod will result in lots of production (from towns) and a chunk of commerce (from farms)… except that with very few mines my cities would starve. Not good!
Let’s approach from another direction, then. How am I going to get my food? What are the yields on common tiles that I can see? Ok, so a forest is either 2F 1C (plains) or 1F 2C (grassland). A mined plains hill is 4F (or 4F 1P on a river). That’s actually pretty good – a mined plains hill on a river in early game is better than a standard game’s farmed floodplains (both 4F but 1P beats 1C in early game, I feel).
Water? Water is weird – no food but good production and commerce for us. 2P and 4-5C on a resource is looking pretty, though 2P 2C on a standard water tile is marginal. With Moai Statues that becomes a 1F 2P 2C, though – will keep a look out for a good spot there.
Cottages? Well, these will be good hammers, but they will be food-deficient, plains ones starting at 1F 1P 1C, whilst grassland are 1P 2C. This seems to rule out using lots of them, making Universal Suffrage and Free Speech not a no-brainer.
Beaver to the east is excellent – starts out as 2F 1P 1C and increases production with a camp? Sign me up.
The sheep is interesting – to mine or to pasture? Pasturing gives me commerce, mining gives me food (I went with pasturing, but think I should have mined instead – will be interesting to see what others did).
I can see desert incense in the distance – that is going to be a 5P spot. Woo-hoo! Or is it? Not sure, depends if I will have enough food elsewhere to use this.
So, conclusions so far:
1) Plains hills are my friends (extra nifty when they are riverside). Building on the spot seems reasonable.
2) Mining is the first item on the research menu. Then, bronze working to get a delicious 4F 1P hill one to southwest working.
3) Worker first.
***
I settle, begin my worker, mess around with tile assignment, and notice something interesting – I actually don’t need to research Mining straight away, as it will still take some time before the worker gets done. So, I have a shot at religion (“Spain on a lake” keeps going through my head for some reason). Buddhism or Hinduism? In the screenshot I’ve selected Meditation but in the end went for Polytheism, as an old rule of thumb tells me (of course, the situation where all AI’s went for Meditation rather than Polytheism has been patched away years ago, but the scars remain).
I set out on the Polytheism-Mining-Hunting-Animal Husbandry-Bronze Working path. First two are obvious; Hunting will give me the beavers, which is a nice and guaranteed bonus (knowing that this is a pre-constructed map, I highly doubt that copper will be around the starting spot). Animal Husbandry may have been a mistake, but I decided to pasture the sheep.
Send the warrior exploring. He finds a map locally.
Hmm… Gold is good. Even desert gold is good. Two food and seven production in one spot? That is very, very nice. And ivory? 3F 1H 1C is quite sweet for the early game. Oasis, on the other hand (the invisible square above the corn) is 2P 3C, which is OK, but severely lacking food.
***
Built the worker, then a warrior. Ooh, Stonehenge is available? You know, it’s been years since I’ve managed to build Stonehenge! I give it some thought – well, I’ve already got a religion, so an early prophet will be useful, and the free border pops are a favorite of mine (I normally play Creative leaders just because of that)… Sigh. I went for it. Not sure if this was the correct thing to do – I could have used religion for same effect.
However, such strategizing went out of the window on turn 39, just as I finished researching Bronze Working – as you can see, a lucky mine pop means that I now proudly possess a riverside gems mine at my own starting location. This 2F 7P 1C spot just won me the game! Or at least made my life much easier than intended by the sponsor, I think. With bureaucracy, this will be ten and a half hammers from just one spot.
***
Turn 78
Over the last twenty turns, I built Barcelona to pick up a few hills, some riverside plains, grassland horses (3F 1P 2C is a good tile) and with expansion, the all-mighty desert gold that should turn this place into quite the production power house.
However, before I am able to send a settler into the fertile lands to the east (river, plains hills and floodplains, the last of which give 1P 3C by default, and can be enhanced with cottages for production, or farms for commerce), the barbarians build a city. Reluctantly, I demolish it and rebuild two west in an ideal location – which turns out to be my nearest iron. Aargh! I just lost a five-food plot. The pain is unbearable!
I seriously consider reloading here, but settle for screaming “Aargh!” two or three times more and taking a break.
***
Turn 105
Right, this is embarrassing. I was aiming for a Civil Service slingshot via Oracle. Self-research Code of Laws, time the Oracle to finish at exactly the same time – and Bureaucracy will power the unholy machine of my capital. What can I say? I’ve played lots of the original Civilization, but BTS not so much.
So here I am, researching Code of Laws, and meanwhile building Great Lighthouse. Why am I doing that when I have three cities, only one of which is on the coast. Simple, really – I just discovered that all commerce gets converted to production; not just the commerce from the worked squares, but also the commerce from trade. This is… rather sickening, Any coastal city with GLH will be bringing in three-four production on the spot straight away.
I must have it, I build it super-fast – and I lose it to Elizabeth by three turns!
Aargh!
Take a deep breath, step away from the game. Oh well, at least my unholy bureaucratic empire will soon be up and running… except… except… except didn’t I read in someone’s RB Epics stories that the Bureaucracy slingshot was nerfed in BTS? Check the Civipedia, quickly.
Aargh!
It requires Mathematics, which I don’t have. But I can research it in five turns at full-speed deficit research. Oh well, let’s see – if I lose the Oracle race because of this delay, I… I honestly don’t know what I will do.
What follows is a nail-biting experience of pressing “Enter” five times in a row, and… Success!
In 250 BC, on turn 105, I land Civil Service slingshot! Life is good.
OK, so now what?
OK, introductions are in order. I’ve been playing Civ on an occasional basis ever since it came out, lurked on Realms Beyond reading the reports for similar amounts of time, but haven’t really played baseline Civ BTS when it came out – got into “Fall From Heaven” mod instead. Never the less, I consider myself a reasonable player, even if I am occasionally fond of save-reloading (which got me my first and only win on Emperor).
This adventure (thanks, T-hawk!) piqued my interest, so I decided to give it a go. It was a very pleasurable afternoon spent figuring out the mechanics. How well I did at that is a good question.
***
Ok, so we are aliens. I sit down in front of the computer with a piece of paper, kick off the game, and start writing down my thoughts before building my first city.
So, hammers give me food, bread gives me commerce and coins give me… hammers? I need hammers to eat? Hmm… Puzzling, to say the least.
Long term, what is going to happen? In my Civ late game, commerce is flying freely, as towns in late civics give lots of commerce. Production is a pain for me, generally (but perhaps I just don’t build enough mines?), whilst food… food is king. Food equals people, and people equal power. So my default builder’s approach in this mod will result in lots of production (from towns) and a chunk of commerce (from farms)… except that with very few mines my cities would starve. Not good!
Let’s approach from another direction, then. How am I going to get my food? What are the yields on common tiles that I can see? Ok, so a forest is either 2F 1C (plains) or 1F 2C (grassland). A mined plains hill is 4F (or 4F 1P on a river). That’s actually pretty good – a mined plains hill on a river in early game is better than a standard game’s farmed floodplains (both 4F but 1P beats 1C in early game, I feel).
Water? Water is weird – no food but good production and commerce for us. 2P and 4-5C on a resource is looking pretty, though 2P 2C on a standard water tile is marginal. With Moai Statues that becomes a 1F 2P 2C, though – will keep a look out for a good spot there.
Cottages? Well, these will be good hammers, but they will be food-deficient, plains ones starting at 1F 1P 1C, whilst grassland are 1P 2C. This seems to rule out using lots of them, making Universal Suffrage and Free Speech not a no-brainer.
Beaver to the east is excellent – starts out as 2F 1P 1C and increases production with a camp? Sign me up.
The sheep is interesting – to mine or to pasture? Pasturing gives me commerce, mining gives me food (I went with pasturing, but think I should have mined instead – will be interesting to see what others did).
I can see desert incense in the distance – that is going to be a 5P spot. Woo-hoo! Or is it? Not sure, depends if I will have enough food elsewhere to use this.
So, conclusions so far:
1) Plains hills are my friends (extra nifty when they are riverside). Building on the spot seems reasonable.
2) Mining is the first item on the research menu. Then, bronze working to get a delicious 4F 1P hill one to southwest working.
3) Worker first.
***
I settle, begin my worker, mess around with tile assignment, and notice something interesting – I actually don’t need to research Mining straight away, as it will still take some time before the worker gets done. So, I have a shot at religion (“Spain on a lake” keeps going through my head for some reason). Buddhism or Hinduism? In the screenshot I’ve selected Meditation but in the end went for Polytheism, as an old rule of thumb tells me (of course, the situation where all AI’s went for Meditation rather than Polytheism has been patched away years ago, but the scars remain).
I set out on the Polytheism-Mining-Hunting-Animal Husbandry-Bronze Working path. First two are obvious; Hunting will give me the beavers, which is a nice and guaranteed bonus (knowing that this is a pre-constructed map, I highly doubt that copper will be around the starting spot). Animal Husbandry may have been a mistake, but I decided to pasture the sheep.
Send the warrior exploring. He finds a map locally.
Hmm… Gold is good. Even desert gold is good. Two food and seven production in one spot? That is very, very nice. And ivory? 3F 1H 1C is quite sweet for the early game. Oasis, on the other hand (the invisible square above the corn) is 2P 3C, which is OK, but severely lacking food.
***
Built the worker, then a warrior. Ooh, Stonehenge is available? You know, it’s been years since I’ve managed to build Stonehenge! I give it some thought – well, I’ve already got a religion, so an early prophet will be useful, and the free border pops are a favorite of mine (I normally play Creative leaders just because of that)… Sigh. I went for it. Not sure if this was the correct thing to do – I could have used religion for same effect.
However, such strategizing went out of the window on turn 39, just as I finished researching Bronze Working – as you can see, a lucky mine pop means that I now proudly possess a riverside gems mine at my own starting location. This 2F 7P 1C spot just won me the game! Or at least made my life much easier than intended by the sponsor, I think. With bureaucracy, this will be ten and a half hammers from just one spot.
***
Turn 78
Over the last twenty turns, I built Barcelona to pick up a few hills, some riverside plains, grassland horses (3F 1P 2C is a good tile) and with expansion, the all-mighty desert gold that should turn this place into quite the production power house.
However, before I am able to send a settler into the fertile lands to the east (river, plains hills and floodplains, the last of which give 1P 3C by default, and can be enhanced with cottages for production, or farms for commerce), the barbarians build a city. Reluctantly, I demolish it and rebuild two west in an ideal location – which turns out to be my nearest iron. Aargh! I just lost a five-food plot. The pain is unbearable!
I seriously consider reloading here, but settle for screaming “Aargh!” two or three times more and taking a break.
***
Turn 105
Right, this is embarrassing. I was aiming for a Civil Service slingshot via Oracle. Self-research Code of Laws, time the Oracle to finish at exactly the same time – and Bureaucracy will power the unholy machine of my capital. What can I say? I’ve played lots of the original Civilization, but BTS not so much.
So here I am, researching Code of Laws, and meanwhile building Great Lighthouse. Why am I doing that when I have three cities, only one of which is on the coast. Simple, really – I just discovered that all commerce gets converted to production; not just the commerce from the worked squares, but also the commerce from trade. This is… rather sickening, Any coastal city with GLH will be bringing in three-four production on the spot straight away.
I must have it, I build it super-fast – and I lose it to Elizabeth by three turns!
Aargh!
Take a deep breath, step away from the game. Oh well, at least my unholy bureaucratic empire will soon be up and running… except… except… except didn’t I read in someone’s RB Epics stories that the Bureaucracy slingshot was nerfed in BTS? Check the Civipedia, quickly.
Aargh!
It requires Mathematics, which I don’t have. But I can research it in five turns at full-speed deficit research. Oh well, let’s see – if I lose the Oracle race because of this delay, I… I honestly don’t know what I will do.
What follows is a nail-biting experience of pressing “Enter” five times in a row, and… Success!
In 250 BC, on turn 105, I land Civil Service slingshot! Life is good.
OK, so now what?
at the early capital gem pop.
