Adventure Two - Justus II's Report

[Justus_II]

My fault, I had looked at the production without checking for carryover. It was actually 50 base, plus 20 carryover (from the previous turn for the screen I was looking at), for 70, +200% = 210. Here's the screenshot. So the calcuations are working correctly, it's human error on the part of the observer!

[Bezhukov]

One key to your success was getting some early cities on fertile (i.e. normal) land. Tundra/ice is better than nothing, but that extra hammer/food from each tile is a subtle but powerful difference. It also affords more development options.

[Sullla]

Similar opening to what I played, aside from building warriors and scouts while growing to size 2. I think you're right in your retrospective commentary that the worker first would have been a better move, but live and learn! I'm interested also why so many people built a barracks early on in the game; not that it was a bad move, but I guess I thought going for Stonehenge was a better use of those turns of production.

Wandering around the tech tree with no real aim... that's good to hear.

Wow, missed Stonehenge AND Oracle. Almost everyone got at least one of those. A bit of a tough start here.

Jeez, where was your Mao setting? I have no clue how you were able to waltz into the south so easily. I KNOW that those spots weren't available in my game. I only got the locations I did in the Southeast Corner because I conquered a barb city that had sprung up over there!

I think the decision to convert to Christanity was the best move all game. You instantly managed to jump into the winning team's side, and created a magical shield against aggression from Mao, Alex, and Saladin. As a result, your extremely aggressive push to the south and east was able to stand unmolested. Just a brilliant move, really.

Your (uninitentional) backfilling settling strategy really paid off. Instead of grabbing the lake sites, as many of us did early on, you reached out FURTHER and got some land territories that no one else took. Then, you went back and cleaned up the uncontested lake spots later on. It all worked out extremely well.

The AI jumped ahead of me on production of SS casings too, but I wasn't worried because I still had the overall tech lead at that point. If you think YOU were low on production, you should have seen what I was forced to deal with!

Another player who got good value from the Internet. I didn't build it since it wouldn't have helped me (I was the tech leader). All around an excellent game. For your third game of Civ4, this is simply stunning. Your ability to settle so much of the south and east, and then swapping to Christianity so that those holdings wouldn't come under attack, was well played. Great job.

[Justus_II]

I'm interested also why so many people built a barracks early on in the game; not that it was a bad move, but I guess I thought going for Stonehenge was a better use of those turns of production.
...
Wandering around the tech tree with no real aim... that's good to hear.

Wow, missed Stonehenge AND Oracle. Almost everyone got at least one of those. A bit of a tough start here.

Those three statements tie together, in that after founding my religion, I got Sailing and then started teching toward Alphabet, and basically forgot about religion for a while! That included the wonders, I never even attempted them. I didn't see the value for Stonehenge at the time, I was counting on religion to spread or thought I would be building libraries by the time I was ready to build settlers. I completely overlooked the GPP value, which is why I never was able to build the Buddhist shrine! The barracks was more from instinct, I've heard so much about 'no farmer's gambit' and 'beware raging barbs' that I went for military faster than I normally would have in CivIII (and probably faster than I needed to).

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I think the decision to convert to Christanity was the best move all game. You instantly managed to jump into the winning team's side, and created a magical shield against aggression from Mao, Alex, and Saladin. As a result, your extremely aggressive push to the south and east was able to stand unmolested. Just a brilliant move, really.

In retrospect, especially after reading the other games, I have to agree. I had done a miserable job of spreading my own religion, and knew I didn't have the production to take on any of my neighbors, so "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"

Your (uninitentional) backfilling settling strategy really paid off. Instead of grabbing the lake sites, as many of us did early on, you reached out FURTHER and got some land territories that no one else took. Then, you went back and cleaned up the uncontested lake spots later on. It all worked out extremely well.

Another example of a possible over-reaction to what I've read/learned early in Civ IV, but one that probably paid off. Because of the maintenance costs, and an experience in my first game where I really over-expanded, I was initially very stingy on founding new cities, if I could only have a few, they were going to be good sites! I wanted at least 2 bonus resources and some farmable land, and that wasn't happening anywhere up north. Later, I convinced myself that the fishing villages would be able to pay for themselves (especially with 2 fish), I probably could have settled them earlier, actually, but I was worried about maintenance.

Definitely lots of fun, and a very good learning experience!

[kryszcztov]

Eventually took the time to read your report too (didn't take long for a change). Man, I'm flabbergasted !! I don't know who will win this game before the results are up (or I have to take one week to real all the reports), but you're a serious candidate. We started this game in about the same status : newbies, with only a bunch of completed games. And in the end, I failed and abandonned miserabily, while you discovered yourself a very brilliant Civ4 player, CONGRATS. I'll echo Sullla's comment, converting to Christianity was the turning point of your game. And you know what ? When I read this, I thought "Oh, poor Justus, forced to do that". Read : I'm not sure I would have done that. This means that, even after reading your spoiler, I'm still a bad player. So, how did you manage to finish faster than Sullla and Sirian ? I think the other people got it right too : a very peaceful game (thanks to a good mix of military and religion moves on your side), and the grabbing of good sites very early, also brilliant. All the units that they had to build, you just didn't build them yourself, buying some turns in the end.

Hope you'll be back soon for more action and tech wandering. And thanks, that's another story that tells me that I have to master the religious part of the game (I don't understand anything about it, damn it). This solely makes me fail game after game after game...