Whosit Tries to Sharpen His Skills (Critique Thread)

[novice]

Actually you'd have to fix the techs in the worldbuilder file as well, GermanJojo.

At any rate it's easier to just enter worldbuilder in the game and change your techs there. No text file editing required.

[GermanJoey]

Actually you'd have to fix the techs in the worldbuilder file as well, GermanJojo.

At any rate it's easier to just enter worldbuilder in the game and change your techs there. No text file editing required.

Oh yeah, good point on both counts!

[Whosit]

I'll give that a shot, GJJ, see what difference it can make. I did consider the spot 1N of pigs for a city, until I saw that fish. I just... can't leave a fish hanging. I also wanted to expand east first just to grab what territory I could, because that's where all my rivals were. I figured I could settle back west at my leisure. Also, settling on top of the marble wouldn't let me take the cap's corn. Second city... yeah, I guess I don't want a monument if I don't have to. Not sure what else I should have done if I wanted to head east first. At least when borders popped I could have used the FPs and given the cows back to the cap.

[GermanJoey]

Oh you're right, looked at it cross-eyed there for a second and added that bit as an afterthought.

On the topic of isolating seafood... it sucks, but also consider when you'd actually be settling a city like that. Will it be in 30 turns? 50 turns? 100 turns? That site still needs a borders pop too, so add 10T on top of that, another bit to whip a granary and barracks in... is having an extra OK city in 50 turns worth more than having a better second city. Is having an OK city in 120 turns worth more than having a better second city? Probably not.

[Lord Parkin]

When your Scout revealed the grassland Cow to the north on T0 I probably would have settled on the Wine 1NE of your Settler. An extra commerce all through the early game, and a bonus oasis to boot. Plus the start you chose only has 2 forests, which is very bad and slows your early game considerably. In a multiplayer game you'd be more likely to get at least 4 forests, and perhaps 6-8 if the mapmaker was feeling generous.

My general advice for speeding up the average start is to build Workers liberally (say 1.5-2 per city) and chop forests as much as you can, as early as you can. The +50% to forest chops at Maths is an illusion; Civ is a snowball game, so 20 hammers now is almost always better than 30 hammers later. About the only exception is when you're 5-10 turns from Maths or waiting to rush build a critical wonder - but even then you should be spending your time pre-chopping.

[Jkaen]

Have you considered playing on an actual RB MP map?

Also for the very first action of the game, does NE, SE for the scout really reveal the max amount of info to determine your settling location?

[haphazard1]

For the second city, I would have tried NE of where you settled. Still on the river for a connection to the capital, gets horses and 2 flood plains in the first ring, adds 2 more flood plains when borders pop. It could not share the cows with the capital, but the capital will mostly want that tile anyway. You have 3 solid tiles without needing a monument, and with the river connection the capital would be able to build chariots quite early.

The pigs would also make a good site, but I agree with the idea of settling towards your rivals. You want a good share of those flood plains, rather than letting the AIs take them. You can grab the pigs later, along with the food sources to the north along the coast.

[Whosit]

I was not aware that there was a collection of RB maps. I might see if I can manage to start a game on one of those.

@haphazard: I agree the NE placement would probably be stronger, but I don't think I'd actually get a trade connection immediately. Before Sailing, I'm pretty sure you only get trade connections if the entire segment of river is inside your borders.

[haphazard1]

@haphazard: I agree the NE placement would probably be stronger, but I don't think I'd actually get a trade connection immediately. Before Sailing, I'm pretty sure you only get trade connections if the entire segment of river is inside your borders.

Looks like you are correct on that. You would need the border pop (or the tech, or some roads). But I would still take the NE spot, as the city would be significantly stronger from the much better first ring tiles. The extra 2 commerce is nice, but you can get it with a few worker turns or just wait for it. The stronger second city should more than offset the loss.

[Whosit]

So, I kind of lost the save from the last game I tried, so I can't try the switch to Egypt. Instead, here's me trying Toku of France. Also, it turns out it was in RB mod, because I had just played my PB18 turn and forgot to unload the mod. I don't think it made too much of a difference in the turns I played, except at one point because of how Animal Husbandry and Hunting got the pastures/camps swapped. However, I think the Agri/Wheel start helped, and I think the opening went better. Just curious what else could be improved (besides paying attention the mod I've got).

Turns 0-25

T0: I actually regenerated the map several times to get this. Decide to found in place. Unfortunately, dry corn is the only food. Worker is going to spend a lot of turns building roads. A good second city spot is located, but some ways to the east. I go for immediate mining > bw because of all the forests. Only a +5 food bonus, but lots of forests kind of make up for it. Probably?



Funny enough, I probably would have wanted to found where the peak was.... instead, I opt to settle to the east of the peak.

T21: Bronze Working completes. Getting second warrior before Settler. No copper visible, so I'll tech Animal Husbandry. Also for the pigs (this is where knowing I was running the RB mod would have helped).




T25: Opt to put another chop into settler to save 2 turns instead of pre-building a road connection. I end up putting a total of 2 chops into the settler (1st chop finished right after the warrior, so on the 1st turn of Settler production).

Turns 26-50

T31: Settler pops, start on Worker (chop coming). Extra Warrior defends Settler.



T32: AH, have horses at capital. Tech Pottery next. Revolt to slavery (forgot to do that at first, so reloaded turn~ I'm sure this happens to a lot of people in SP games.)



T33: Settle second city, start Warrior.

T34: 1-pop whip Worker to save a turn.

T35: Send new worker to improve pigs at 2nd city. Build 2 Warriors at capital.

T36: This is where I remember that I forgot I was playing with RBmod and can't improve the pigs. Swap to hunting. Build a road instead, then I'll farm some flood plains.

T45: Whip Settler in Capital (1 pop) after a couple chops go in.

T48: Settle 3rd city.



So, I think I overbuilt Warriors (I had like 6-7). I'm not entirely sure what else I should have built. Also, none of my cities were connected to my trade network. I was just beginning to get that done. Maybe I would have been better off delaying settlers to get the roads up? I'm really not sure.

Sorry that this one turned out wonky. I was already mostly through it by the time I realized I had goofed and figured I'd just try to finish it out.