[BTS] Unfinished business - improving at Civ IV (sic)

[shallow_thought]

As it's going to be at least a year before I get a computer capable of running Civ VI, I'm making an effort to improve my Civ IV play.

I'm about to try my first ever game at Emperor, and thought it might be fun to do it as an SG if there's enough interest (if not, I'll hopefully have the time to report it as a solo game).

I started the thread  over in the SG section   but was advised to post a link here as it was more likely to be read!

Hopefully suitable for improving players or vets slumming it casually at Emperor who enjoy a little bit (not too much) of weed cleanup...

EDIT: The SG is well under way and I'm certainly having fun; while it was getting underway on I played another "shadow" game based on one of the rejected starts. Others in the SG thread said they would be interesting in hearing a report on how I got on, so I've tried to put one together. As this thread is no longer serving any other purpose, I've hijacked it for the report.

[Ruined Everything]

At the moment my limited video game time is going to civ 6, but at some point down the line I'd happily do something like this. Sorry I can't do anything now - hope this helps gauge interest levels for the future though!

[shallow_thought]

At the moment my limited video game time is going to civ 6, but at some point down the line I'd happily do something like this. Sorry I can't do anything now - hope this helps gauge interest levels for the future though!

It's good to see that people seem to be having fun with Civ 6. I'll look forwards to giving it a go, hopefully in less than a decade's time. I suspect (hope) that there may be a wave of Civ IV activity once the initial excitement has died down and people want to go back down memory lane - I guess that's what I'm trying to train up for. So I'll hope to get a chance to play with you then.

[shallow_thought]

Well, the succession game is well under way and being reported over in the original thread. While it was getting underway on I played another "shadow" game based on one of the rejected starts. Others in the SG thread said they would be interested in hearing a report on how I got on, so I've tried to put one together. I wasn't taking notes or deliberately making screenshots, so this can only really cover the broad strokes, and may be downright wrong at points. Where truth and narrative conflicted, I'm pretty sure my memory will have prioritised narrative.

The headline news is that I lost; in fact I lost three times. Because I was interested in learning, on two occasions I went back around 5-10 turns to correct major strategic errors and see what the impact of alternative choices would be. So, this is the story of the several rises and falls of the Incan empire.


I never originally intended to play out a full game. Rather, I just wanted to get a feel for an emperor start, so played faster and looser than I might otherwise have done. HC of Inca is a pretty powerful combination, so it turned out that fast and loose was enough to be competitive.

The start had dry corn, plains cow, scattered floodplains and other rivers. Not a rocket start, but by no means weak.



I planted on the plains hill and went worker / Animal husbandry. Wanting terraces (and financial riverside cottages), I prioritised wheel and pottery over mining and bronze working.

Initial scouting revealed more food tiles, some gold and some neighbours. From west going clockwise they were Hannibal, Mansa, Gandhi, Ramesses , Sitting Bull and everybody's best friend, Monty. Lacking original screenshots I've reloaded the start and revealed tiles in worldbuilder. This was the world as I pieced it together:



The arrows point (roughly) at Carthage to the west and India, more distant, to the NW. Mansa was even further west, and was annoyingly left free to focus on tech for most of the game. The two northern arrows both point to Egypt; we ended up with double borders, either side of the large (but not lighthouseable) lake. Sitting Bull was a long way to the east, but Monty was only 10 tiles from my start.

As stated, I planted my cap on "red dot", then headed for "green dot" to block Monty. This was a desert hill (meh) but grabbed pigs straight away, with dry corn and stone to come 2nd ring, along with lots of river and floodplains. I followed up with "blue dot", a plains hill which would pick up wet rice and gold 2nd ring (also silks and incense), but only an oasis in first. With so much food I was able to spam workers and settlers quite happily. Cities followed at: yellow dot (dry corn); at the mouth of the deep inlet, north of the sheep; on the shore of the big lake 3N of the cap (a weaker city foodwise, but pushing towards Egypt and grabbing horses).

One fly in the ointment was a lack of copper; this and Monty as a neighbour meant I prioritised Iron Working ahead of Currency and Code of Laws. I got lucky, with iron 1S of the capital.

Strategically, I was in the middle of the continent, with a strong core and fairly extensive, but food-weak back lines. The key question would be whether I could avoid unwanted, multi-front wars...

I kept pushing expansion. In this wider view, I planted NW to grab cow and a pair of silks (Carthage had settled south of the dyes). I also started out into the tundra, planting on the coast S of the capital - a slightly sad city on a river, fed by a single floodplain that I targeted for an eventual Moai, and one out in the SW to grab the furs and compete with Carthage's Hippo on the north coast of the inlet for the crabs. These last two were an overstretch, with the completion date for currency getting further and further away, even with libraries coming on line. A particular blunder was to settle the furs without remembering that I had never researched hunting!



In the meantime, the AI's had snapped up religions. Monty beelined Buddhism, Gandhi Hinduism, Ramesses Judaism, each converting Hannibal, Mansa and Sitting Bull respectively. I'm not sure how Buddhism got to Hannibal before me, but when it finally spread I converted, hoping to keep friendly with both Hannibal and Monty, leaving only my north unfriendly.

It didn't work; Monty hit me anyway shortly after I converted. The strain of the war tipped my economy downward; I think at one point I actually had negative income at 0% science, with too many weak cities, too few trade routes, no courthouses and an army whipped up to defend the "green dot" city of Tiwanaku. I couldn't get to Currency; I accepted this as a loss, rolled back around 10t and tried again.

[shallow_thought]

This time I didn't immediately found the tundra cities; while it still took some scientist hires, I managed to get to first Currency, then Col before fighting off Monty and restarting expansion. I still managed to get all the sites I had before, but now they were maintainable.

I stuck with the original decision to go Buddhist. This may have been a mistake. It certainly didn't protect me from Monty. He'd be back again, and again, and again. While it secured my flank against Carthage, it tanked my relations with Ramesses and (less importantly) Sitting Bull. Hannibal grabbed an Indian city, only to be driven back by Gandhi and Mansa in alliance. I fought off initial invasions from Ramesses and (eventually) Sitting Bull without too much difficulty, but all my military effort was defensive. My best target was probably Hannibal, but he was my only friend! Monty kept coming back, I kept killing his stacks and razed an iceball he planted to try to grab horses (a saving grace was that he never got two movers all game).

Despite being IND, I didn't initially focus on wonders - I kept seeing anything I might be interested in fall, although I picked up a little failgold (I was never able to consistently get access to stone because of Aztec pillaging). However, no-one seemed to want MoM; I planted a city on the marble at the end of the long SW peninsula (hey, one day it could work the whales!) and started a build in the capital; boosted failgold would still be useful. A few turns later I was able to chop the last few forests around the cap, saved for just such a moment, and grab my first wonder.

I had a Great Scientist ready to trigger a GA (first had gone on an Academy), but had left him waiting to see if I could land the MoM first. This looked good - I reckoned I could more or less chain four GA's, as the first two would help me get the Taj, and that would help me get some more first-to-bonii. Civil Service rolled in at the exact same moment, so there were fun new civics to play with. But first, I had a major problem.

Ramesses was back; this time he had brought cats and - worse - war elephants, in numbers. My ancient army was in trouble, split between the NW against Egypt and the perennially troublesome SE against Monty. I didn't have Feudalism or Machinery; I would have in only a few turns, but that could be a few turns too late to save the north. I gathered troops while he bombarded down the culture and then attacked out with the cats I had to hand. Nothing like enough. I started thinking about what I could do differently if I rolled back, but then had another thought...

I dialled Ramesses up and asked how much cash it would take to make him go away. Only 350 gold? No problem! In 10t time I would have macemen, pikes, crossbows and castles...

These were the great years. The first GA spat out two more great people; they started a second. India, Mali and Egypt combined to eliminate Carthage. Hadrumetum almost immediately revolted to join Inca, while Gandhi just gave me Hippo. I could barely have asked for more if I'd had to fight for it! Not everything was quite perfect though.

Monty was at a tech disadvantage, but happy to pillage and throw troops at my walls every few years - a constant, minor drain. More worrying. Mansa was starting to burn through first-tos as well: Music, Liberalism, Economics all went. I beelined Nationalism and got to work on the Taj... got it. Went back to grab knights to fend off Monty; Sitting Bull came in for another round as well. I picked up Gunpowder, and then Rifling to boost my defences, and ploughed on up the tree.

Sloppy GPP handling meant that I was getting a mix of scientists and artists; I targeted Communism to guarantee a three-man GA. My memory is unclear on my exact tech order, but I did get to Communism first; I also denied Mansa Physics, but he got the SoL - not that I was too worried about it in his boutique empire. At this point I was confident; this was the sort of position from which I would easily win games at Monarch. It looked a bit tedious to go for conquest - I still didn't have Literature, so no Mil Trad any time soon - so I started to think about space, and stopped concentrating.

Relying on rifles I pushed towards railroad. Then I made a simple, but fatal mistake.

Monty was back with grenadiers. Lots of highly promoted grenadiers, which were capable of eating my rifles, while fending off my knights. Luckily, I would have cannon before he could do too much damage... except I wouldn't because I was building Steam Power before Steel! One of my best cities would fall, and all my resources would be involved in trying to take it back.

A simple bad order decision, with a huge impact. I winced, but went back and reloaded from a few turns before, recording my second loss of the game.

[shallow_thought]

With steel correctly selected this time, cannon would be available to pummel the grens before the city fell. It was never less than tough fighting, but they held, and I managed to get a rail net out - just in time.

When I'd been rudely woken up and forced to started concentrating again, I realised that I was coming under enormous cultural pressure from both India and Egypt. I actually lost not only the dyes I'd picked up with Hadrumetum, but silks I'd had for centuries on my border with Egypt as well. The corn that had fed my "yellow dot" city since my fourth or fifth plant was swallowed up by ugly, bright yellow borders.  I left my last golden age in Free Speech, while heading back for theatres and culture builds.

Disaster; Ramesses was coming for me with cavs and cannon. I was finally on my way to Assembly Line, but I still had no two-movers better than knights. Also, I was in Free Speech for culture and town commerce, and Emancipation to avoid unhappiness from all the other, democratic AIs, no drafts or whip. The saving graces were my rail network and the Kremlin. Cash-rushed rifles, cannon and even machine guns tried to stem the flood.

They failed. Hippo fell to the army that had recently conquered Carthage; Hadrumetum to fresh Egyptian troops from the north. Vilcas, that I'd paid ransom for all those turns ago was the next target.

It held. One, collateral damaged Quecha MP was left in the city. There would be no more reloads. This time it was do or die.

Cannon and infantry hunted down Ramesses' stacks and killed them; artillery came online to first take back the cities, then raze Carthage (useless, surrounded by Indian culture). The Indians gave us free dyes to keep the citizens happy and the troops clothed (I'd switched to Hinduism for a while as Gandhi had kindly spread it to every one of my cities, then to Free Religion as part of the "ok, space then" thinking). I found time to switch back to Nationalism. Wouldn't be leaving that again in a hurry, not unless I built Christo Redentor.

Airships hassled Egyptian defenders as the army slogged north through their culture. For the first time since razing an Aztec iceball back in the ancient era the empire was on the offensive.

Egypt got artillery, and airships of their own. Inca got tanks and Pi-Rameses burned. Egypt got anti-tanks, but they did nothing. Ramesses built the Pentagon in Thebes, but only a turn later my tanks were knocking at the door. The new century saw the Egyptian capital fall.



Heliopolis was next. After turn after turn of war, and all the associated weariness, I accepted peace for the city of Elephantine, on the north coast. Inca now held a solid strip of Egyptian territory, cutting them off from India. I also held Thebes, but surrounded by Egyptian culture. One more push would see Egypt fall, particularly if I could get bombers into action (had Radio, was pushing for Flight).

My problem was India. Delhi and Bombay were legendary, Vijayanagara nearly so. But my tanks were only five tiles away, and Gandhi still didn't have rifling...

[shallow_thought]

The First Minister walked out of the tent of the Great Inca with the instructions for the generals in his hand. For the first time in all his years of service he hesitated to carry out his orders. From the hill where he paused to look out he could see the Incan army: infantry and artillery, of course, but mainly the Inca's latest weapon, to which no-one yet had an answer - tanks.


The land on which the army stood was a narrow corridor of captured Egyptian territory, leading from the old Incan city of Vilcas, held by courage and a miracle only a few decades ago, up past the ruins of Pi-Rameses and captured Helipolis to the port of Elephantine, surrendered in the peace treaty that had just expired. To the east there was a dark smudge on the horizon - Thebes, the former Egytptian capital. Still surrounded by Egyptian lands, its people starved, fed only by a few smugglers. But it was to the west his eyes turned, where the setting sun gleamed off the temple towers of Indian Vijayanagara.

Most of the army wanted to head east, smash the remaining Egyptians before the citizens again became too weary to fight. It would be a long march over the plains, but half the empire's cities were already in Incan hands. There would at last be true vengeance for Danegeld extorted at the tusks of war elephants a millennium ago, for the border cities taken by cavalry and cannon and then recaptured at the cost of many Incan lives.

Others would wish to head home, to the fortress city of Tiwanaku. From here they could at last strike back at an even older enemy - Montezuma. His greed had lead to countless deaths beneath and on Tiwanaku's walls. But, unlike the Egyptians, he did not have infantry, or artillery, or even the laughable "anti-tank" units which had fallen so easily beneath the Incan tracks. Victory could be swift and sweet.

A few, those who truly understood power, would look west, as the minister did. The Indians had long been friends; when they allied with the Egyptians to crush upstart Carthage - they had granted Inca the city of Hippo as a gift! When their culture spread and covered former Carthaginian lands held briefly by the Inca, they offered to trade back the lost dyes without payment. Their trades helped keep the Incan armies dressed and fighting against their long-time foes.

But soon that would be over. People all over the land spoke in awe of Delhi, and Bombay; they wondered if perhaps the world would be best if it followed Indian culture, and the ways espoused by Gandhi. The Great Inca had seen it; if Vijayanagara was allowed to reach the same, legendary state, then even his own subjects would gladly fall at Gandhi's feet.

For all their success against Carthage, the Indians were not truly warlike. The main part of their troops were still curassier! Intelligence suggested that there would be riflemen and cavalry by the time the city was reached, but no cannon. The Indians had less answer to tanks than the Aztecs; and the army was here, on their border. The risk was that the Egyptians would strike; a new war would almost certainly commit the Inca to two, or even three, fronts and see the population ground down under military law to keep order.

The minister still waited. The Great Inca was old, and weary but bitter. The captured lands had offered him no ease - scarred by war and worked by a populace that looked at his entourage with fear and anger. Could he be wrong, after all these years? Was he able to balance honour, friendship and old hatred accurately against the weight of necessity, of the need for power? Should he be overridden, even overthrown? The minister shook his head at his own thoughts. Whatever these last years brought, his duty of obedience was, at least, clear. He strode the few yards to the larger tent where the generals waited. He paused, and carefully placed the written orders on the table. Bracing himself for the babble to follow he spoke as he had been instructed.

"Hear the words of the Great Inca. We go home. We will have peace. Let the rule of the Indians come if it must."

I decided to let the Indians have their victory. Gandhi had gifted me a city, unasked, and handed over free dyes when I need them. They also hadn't reloaded to avoid to defeat earlier, after all... . I didn't really have much interest in slogging out an industrial / modern war to scrape victory in a game which I'd already lost twice.

Emperor did feel a noticeable step up from Monarch. There was still room to recover from small mistakes, but the AI was able to punish me for larger ones. So, did I learn anything useful for MP?

The need to phase expansion is useful MP training (although there the pressure comes from the very rapid expansion that tends to be possible due to lush, RB-style maps - and also due to better players being able to expand faster).

Never, ever neglect military. Always have the capability to produce defenders fast, and always have at least two types of up-to-date unit! My rifles were notionally the strongest units in the world when Monty turned up with grenadiers, but his promotions and the rock-paper-scissors edge left me floundering when I didn't have a second option to turn to.

Know the side-effects of your beelines. I don't think my going for Communism was "wrong" - it got me a GA, and a useful civic. I understood during the game that it meant I wasn't improving my military tech, but misunderestimated the impact. I also had no idea that lacking theatres would lead to so much pressure on my borders. A lot of the the pressure was coming from quite distant cities - four or five tiles off in some cases. I'd not seen that before (at least not from the AI).

A strong position is only strong if you do something with it. I did lose interest a bit in the middle, as it felt that I was going to have to grind out a win - a few turns of indecisive faffing later and it was back to "can I win?" not "can I win fast?". Oddly, that re-invigorated my interest for at least a while!

It's difficult being in the middle between two aggressive opponents, while someone else is left free to tech! I think that this element of the game would have provided at least some challenge for experienced players. I never felt free to go on the attack against Monty's promoted hordes, as I always had to worry about Ramesses military and Mansa's tech. There must have been a window somewhere I could have taken. It might well have been better strategy to ignore Mansa and just grab land.

As far as Emperor SP is concerned - get the diplo right! I ended up unable to implement the strategy I wanted to (target Hannibal, then eat Mansa and Gandhi) because I was bogged down with Monty and Ramesses alll game. I plausibly should have completely pivoted, killed Monty and then Sitting Bull. I just didn't really fancy either as targets...

[haphazard1]

Thanks for this report, shallow_thought! Very interesting, especially the alternate atttempts as you recognized mistakes. Reloading and trying a different strategy can be an excellent learning tool, as you see the differences play out over time.

Being in the center of the map can be useful (more early contacts and trade opportunities) but can also be very dangerous, as you found. And Monty...I can't count how many times I have seen similar behavior from that crazy pain in the neck Aztec madman. He just keeps coming, harassing and draining your empire even when he isn't really doing serious damage. But the long term distraction and weakening can be disastrous.

And the tundra cities.... Yes, even for a civ like HC and Inca you have to be careful about founding those marginal cities too soon and too rapidly.

The bit about the tech order for steam vs. steel was interesting. Getting caught by grenadiers against your rifles is painful when it happens. Most of the time I don't think too much about grenadiers, but in the right (or perhaps I should say wrong?) situation they are extremely effective.

A good report, with some useful lessons. Thanks!

[Zalson]

Thanks for posting, shallow_thought!