It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[RFS-81]

By food, do you mean food resources, or just farmable grassland?

The city site I was talking about was labeled "Some future city?" or something and had deer only in the 2nd ring IIRC (can't check the save right now). The "x" city site did have deer in the 1st.

[haphazard1]

I was meaning a food resource. Flood plains could also qualify, since they are positive net food, but generally you want something that provides at least 4 food once improved.

If you need to build grasland farms to feed a city, then you are not able to cottage those grasslands for commerce. Farming them may still be the right thing to do, if the city needs the food to grow faster or to work stronger tiles like hill mines with resources that it otherwise could not afford to use. But when it is possible, having a food resource in the first ring gets the new city off to a much faster start. That gets it contributing to the empire, and eventually suppporting its own maintenance costs rather than being a financial drain, sooner.

[Zalson]

I was meaning a food resource. Flood plains could also qualify, since they are positive net food, but generally you want something that provides at least 4 food once improved.

If you need to build grasland farms to feed a city, then you are not able to cottage those grasslands for commerce. Farming them may still be the right thing to do, if the city needs the food to grow faster or to work stronger tiles like hill mines with resources that it otherwise could not afford to use. But when it is possible, having a food resource in the first ring gets the new city off to a much faster start. That gets it contributing to the empire, and eventually suppporting its own maintenance costs rather than being a financial drarin, sooner.

This is a great rule of thumb. Usually you want a 6 food surplus at size 2, because that means that, with a granary, you can regrow from size 3 to size 6 in 10 turns. So you can do hyper efficient whips, turning 24 food into 60 hammers.

If the only land you have available is farmable grassland, that's an okay city. If you can get it to size 4 with 4 grassland farms, you can get +6 food surplus and use the otherwise not the best land to whip out units and infrastructure and workers/settlers.

[Brian Shanahan]

Food in the first ring is always good.

I like monuments more than Zalson seems to; if a new city has a strong food tile in the first ring it is pretty easy to whip the monument and get some culture going without slowing the city's growth much, and the whip anger will wear off before the city grows to the happy cap. If we had religion we could spread that instead for the initial culture, but with raging barbs it is likely to be longer than normal before any of the AIs manage to send out missionaries.

I much prefer libraries for my culture. Mainly because the culture is only a minor province in the make up of a good library.

Just a heads up, if it comes to the save getting to me Friday or Saturday of next week, skip me as I'll be working the referendum (as a polling clerk) on Friday and absolutely bushed Saturday. And I'm gone the first weekend in June for a bank holiday break.

[Zalson]

I like monuments more than Zalson seems to; if a new city has a strong food tile in the first ring it is pretty easy to whip the monument and get some culture going without slowing the city's growth much, and the whip anger will wear off before the city grows to the happy cap. If we had religion we could spread that instead for the initial culture, but with raging barbs it is likely to be longer than normal before any of the AIs manage to send out missionaries.

I don't like monuments because they don't offer any other benefits. In this case, we don't have religion or caste system + spiritual or even libraries. So monuments it is. I just wish it weren't so.

Also I was grumpy because my cursor was slowly dragging across the screen when I was just trying to upload the save...

[haphazard1]

Good discussion on culture and food and such. This is part of what makes SGs so much fun.

My issue with using libraries for a city's initial culture is that they are much more expensive than a monument, so there is a significant delay in getting culture going. Libraries are much stronger buildings overall, of course, but that comes at a sizable cost in hammers and also in time to produce those hammers.

Ideally you can place the new city to get key resources in the first ring, or you can supply the initial culture for that first border pop by some other method (religion, forced artist using caste system civic, even building culture can be better once that option is available. But if things are not ideal, the monument is an option to get that first border pop. It gets the job done. And once built it continues contributing culture for future border pops; not very much, but having it slowly accumulating does have some value.

[RFS-81]

Played up to turn 100 which seems a good point to stop. I've lost enough builders already Feel free to go back to the previous save if it's too much.

Turn 94:

Settler finished at SuperMarioBros, next up is an Axeman. I move the guerilla archer to the hill hoping to bait the barb archer into attacking him there.

   

Writing is finished and I select Mathematics next.

Turn 95:

SMB finishes an axeman (which I name Ax Battler). I give him the anti-archer promotion which seems to be useful at the moment. The barb archer refuses to take the bait, so I move the archer and settler up to the x spot.

Another barb archer is poking around at FootballManager. I move the two workers to mine the hill north of the city.
[actual_spoiler]They're not going to make it.[/actual_spoiler]

   

Exploring in the south, I spot yet another barb archer and try to bait him into attacking into the hills.

   

Turn 96:

I accept an Open Borders offer from the Incas. We're not ready to fight them anytime soon, so the relations bonus and added commerce should be useful. I hope that's not equivalent to offering a NAP in MOO1 during the early landgrabbing phase, but with civ 4's city maintenance system, I doubt it.

Sonic the Hog chops out another axeman, and I order another worker next, since we'll need to improve the land around our next city.

Turn 97:

A barb archer kills my archer and two workers north of FootballManager.

I found Landstalker (best Zelda game ever...well, I haven't played it in a loooong time, so take that with a grain of salt). A pair of workers from Sonic the Hog gets moving to the new city to build a camp.

A barb archer near SuperMarioBros pillages the deer tile again instead of attacking my units.

   

Turn 98:

A worker finishes at Sonic, and I order another worker there to compensate for the losses at FootballManager. I send the just finished worker towards FootballManager. The barb archer over there kindly attacks the fortified archer in the city which has a double garrison promotion. The result is as expected.

Turn 99:

Mario completes another axeman. I just order another one, can't have enough units with all the barbs running around. I forget that one of my workers has a move command queued up, and he gets killed by the barbs east of Mario

Turn 100:

At Landstalker, a barb spearman shows up. I move the archer to the hill tile to defend, since he's got the right promotions for that.

   

Sorry for the cliffhanger ending!

[RFS-81]

And the save!

[haphazard1]

Another city for our growing empire. But also lots of barb trouble, including lost workers. And pillaged tiles. And barb spears are showing up. Axes are probably not far behind.

Open borders is generally good; you do not have the same kind of problems you can get with an early NAP in MoO. Any atttempt to actually declare war on you causes the enemy's units to be expelled from your territory, and they can not settle within your cultural control. It can allow the enemy to scout out your territory, but in general the benefits (diplomacy, trade, the chance to move through their territory) are worth it. Note that we do not actually get any increased trade unless we have a network connection to the AI, which I do not think we have yet with anyone. (It would show up as an icon by their name in the bottom-right score list.) If two AIs dislike one another, they might demand we cancel deals with the other; this is a no-win for us as we offend one of the two depending on whether we refuse or not. But this depends on the AIs' relations and also on the particular leader; some are more likely to make such demands than others, or to take more offense if you refuse.

Also, you mentioned choosing a promotion for an axe: one common approach is to leave promotions un-chosen until you really need it, for maximum flexibility. That way you can wait and see what type of opponent or situation the unit ends up facing. With barb spears showing up, we are likely to face fewer archers in the future so shock may be more useful going forward. Taking a promotion also heals half of any damage the unit has suffered, so keeping one in reserve for a quick health boost is also useful.

But on the other hand, it is better to have some promotion than to forget to promote a unit and have it die without using one. I have had that happen sometimes.

OK, I believe I am now up. I will take a look at the save and try to figure out what I want to do next.

[haphazard1]

The Video Game Empire has grown since my previous stint as Big Boss in Charge, but we appear to be struggling a bit with the barbs. We have lost some workers, and the deer tile at our capital is once again lacking a camp due to barb pillaging. Barbs, we hate them!

Our treasury is empty, so I drop research to zero to raise some cash. Breakeven rate is 40%, so our economy needs development.

We are severely under-strength in the north. Landstalker has no garrison unit, two workers on the deer are unprotected, and a barb spear is threatening our lone archer. It is not likely the spear can beat our promoted archer on a forested hill, but if we get a single bad roll of the dice we will lose the city as no other troops can reach it in time, and at size 1 no emergency whip is possible. I start one of the axes from the capital moving north immediately to help out.

I also find that Football Manager has reached size 4 without getting any culture going, so it can not work the pigs tile. I queue up a monument and will whip it as soon as it has some hammers -- we want that border pop ASAP.

Sonic the Hog is doing nicely and has a good garrison. Another riverside cottage or two here will help our economy.

Rename our southern-most city to Flimbo's Quest as per Brian's message earlier in the thread.

OK, time to see what happens.

T101

Tacitus reports on the largest civs in the world: an unknown civ is in the lead, followed by Gilgamesh, the Incas, us in fourth place, another unknown, Mali, and Rome in last.

The barb spear tries to move around our archer in the north. With the city empty, this is not good. The barb archer near the capital moves into the forest, avoiding combat and threatening to move south towards Football Manager where we have only a single archer on defense. I hate it when barbs are smart enough not to suicide on our defenders.

I start an archer moving west to help out at Football Manager, and position our axes as best I can.

T102

The two barbs continue moving towards our cities. Our archer will retreat into Landstalker and defend there; protective trait really helps here, but if we get a bad dice roll the city will be lost. The axe from the capital is moving north but is still too far away to help.

Football Manager should be safe, but we may lose the corn there since we have no unit available to protect it. An axe is in pursuit, but again will arrive too late.

Breakout has finished improving our wines tile to boost our happy cap. He joins the newly produced Adventure2 (replacing his lost predecessor) in adding another cottage for Sonic the Hog.

Mansa Musa shows up asking for Open Borders; he is the worst enemy of Huayna Capac and Gilgamesh so I refuse. Gilgamesh shows up with the same request; he is no one's worst enemy so I agree.

T103

At Landstalker, our archer is badly wounded (1.1/3) but manages to kill the barb spear and save the city. I name him 'Spear Slayer' in honor of this important victory.

The barb archer advances onto Football Manager's corn, but our pursuing axeman uses the road to catch up and kills the barb before it can pillage. He is now 'Corn Saver.'

Additional barbs emerge from the fog: an archer and a warrior at Football Manager, and a wounded combat I archer by Sonic. Well, at least we are not the only ones getting hit by the barbs.

A Roman axe appears south of Flimbo's Quest. Well, we know Julius has some metal; is it copper or iron? Hopefully it is copper and he can not yet build praetorians.

T104

Someone gets a great prophet; most likely it is Huayna Capac due to Stonehenge. We will see if he builds the Buddhist shrine in the next few turns.

More barbs continue emerging from the fog. Corn Saver slaughters a barb warrior to earn enough XP for another promotion.

Our workers in the north have camped Landstalker's deer, boosting growth significantly.

An exploring archer to our northeast finds the borders of Mali, and also some horses:

We could plant a city for sheep + horses, which would be very useful for military and also to help keep Mansa Musa from expanding further in our direction. I will produce a settler from the capital (which is short of improved tiles to work until we can re-camp the deer) and see if we can claim this site before the Malinese. (I changed my mind about the best location later, moving the sign NW of what is in the screenshot above, to avoid cultural pressure from Mansa.)

T105

As expected, the Incas build the Mahabodhi in Cuzco with the great prophet.

Our exploring archer by the horses defeats a barb warrior; an archer near Sonic defeats a barb archer. And still more barbs continue pouring out of the unclaimed lands....

Mansa Musa has a pair of skirmishers northwest of Landstalker, one of them combat III. At least he is killing some of the barbs; I just hope he does not have a settler following this pair.

T106

I have been adjusting our EP to try to get visibility on all the AIs' graphs. With Mali now visible again, I shift EP over to Gilgamesh.

At the capital, an axe kills a barb warrior that wandered into the open. The capital 3-pop whips a settler for the horses site.

We have enough cash in the treasury to finish Math, so I turn the slider up to 100%.

T107

Huayna Capac adopts Organized Religion. Maybe he will send us a Buddhist missionary?

At Sonic, an axe crushes a barb warrior that wandered out into the open. In the north, our settler moves out; I send the axe from Landstalker ahead to guard the path, and it finds our first barb axe. Well, we knew this would happen, but the timing is especially poor. Our axe is combat II and is on a forested hill, so hopefully we win if it attacks. If it refuses to attack us on defensive ground, the settler is going to be delayed.

T108

The barb axe avoids a fight; worse, a second one appears behind it. Our horse settler is going to be delayed. A third axe appears near Sonic, and additional lesser barbs (archers and warriors) continue appearing out of the darkness as well.

An archer exploring south from Flimbo's Quest finds some wet rice; potential for another city to the south if and when we are ready to expand some more.

T109

Math finishes. I drop the slider to zero to accumulate cash, and tentatively set research to Currency next.

We lose an axe against the barb axe near Landstalker. A second axe cleans up the wounded enemy, and the settler continues towards the horses site by a less direct path. We have an archer there waiting, but will need to send more units for defense. Plus workers for development, of course. But we could really use some chariots for anti-axe duty.

An axe defeats a barb warrior near Flimbo's Quest. Another barb axe is threatening Sonic, but we just built another axe there and have two on hand, so we should be OK.

Football Manager 3-pop whips a library. It is lacking in improved tiles, and once the borders pop and we improve the pigs it will have plenty of food to fun a couple scientists.

T110

The barb axe at Sonic attacks our axe across the river and is defeated, although it does heavy damage.

And my turnset comes to an end. There are quite a few units yet to be moved this turn.

Notes for the next player:

- Football Manager has a good bit of overflow from the library whip; I have tentatively put it to build a barracks but you can obviously change this if desired.
- Our settler is approaching the horses site; be careful with its path. I have marked a suggested site, not on a hill but it gets the sheep and horses and is not quite so close to Mansa's culture. Feel free to pick a different location. We will need more units and some workers up here. And a road to link it to our network.
- We have graphs visibility on most of the AIs, but just barely in a couple cases. Adjust spending here as needed; currently I have it even with 1 point/turn on each AI.
- Flimbo's Quest is about to pop borders; Football Manager will do so fairly soon as well. More worker development is needed for both cities once they get their second ring.

haphazard1 (just played)
Brian Shanahan (UP Next!)
shallow_thought (on deck)
Zalson (waiting in the wings, but with hardware issues )
RFS-81 (chewing bubblegum in the dugout)

Good luck!