[PB75] Newbfragar and Rusty's Beginner's Guide to Civ4

[naufragar]

I know my complaining is wearying, but if I don't have an outlet, I'll go mad.

We got vision on Superdeath's capital resources.


And he too has a start that only requires two food technologies, while ours requires 3. He settled his second city for 4 flood plains, while we had to settle for 1 plains cow.

And now he's moving to settle the area in between us:


He'll likely settle on that plains hill by the sheep.

By the way, do you see how his city of Pumpkin Bars has a mine on a flat grassland tile? That's iron. So on his side of the line, he has a city that can work an iron resource, a 5 food tile, and two grassland gems. Those grassland gems are 2food/6 gold. The silks on "my" side are 1food/4 gold. I say "my" side because when he settles for the sheep, I have to move back to my plains cow. I can't settle for the grass cow in the north (Imagine the luxury! A grassland cow!) because then I'd be forked. He could take the city at will unless I kept massive garrisons in each direction he could attack. Let's ignore all the little stuff like how he has 5 food sea resources on his side whereas I have one piddly little 4 food crab on my western coast. Or how his 4f/1h wheat is balanced by my 4f/0h rice.

It's just so exhausting planning, micro-ing, working out how to get any value from this blighted map while my neighbors are rolling in more resources than they could want. I'll try to come up with more interesting content. In the meantime, we sit and stagnate.

Pseudo-edit: Yeah, did land the Mausoleum of Maussollos. So that's nice. Only had to delay Currency by 11 turns for it.

Post-pseudo-edit: Man, I'm in a funk today, huh?

[Commodore]

Pseudo-edit: Yeah, did land the Mausoleum of Maussollos. So that's nice. Only had to delay Currency by 11 turns for it. 

Post-pseudo-edit: Man, I'm in a funk today, huh? 

We have to read other threads to hear about successes in America. Need a Rusten Optimism Report counterweighting.

[naufragar]

We have to read other threads to hear about successes in America. Need a Rusten Optimism Report counterweighting.

Best I can do is a second dose of naufragar Doom and Gloom.

The Gloom:


That's two more Superdeath cities with more food than practically my entire empire. Banana Bars has yet another 6food resource and then another 5food just for kicks. And then Scotcharoos has 3 resources. Admittedly, Scotcharoos was probably Ricketyclik's original capital (were we the only ones that needed 3 techs to unlock our resources?), so 3 foods are expected.

This leads to The Doom:


Superdeath's research is ridiculous. I mean, Ljubljana alone would cause me to despair, but Superdeath makes the rest of us look pathetic. Add in that he still has plenty of life left in his Praetorians and has taken over Ricketyclik's area and can expand into it at his leisure. I'm planting a city on my side of our border, but I'm throwing him luxuries as tribute. Straight up. I'm a Superdeathian tributary right now. Hopefully he lets me live.

In 6 turns we launch our first Golden Age, and I'll write a lesson on that. In the meantime, we try not to die to Superdeath (or GT).

[naufragar]

It looks like few people have been reporting despite the good turn pace. My theory is that peacetime doesn't give much to talk about and nobody wants to post development updates.

But we love peace, don't we folks? Peace is great. Some people, I don't want to say who, don't like peace, but we love peace.


This area is...tense. Well, not really that tense since Superdeath can kill this city at will. You see scouts...watching me...watching you (ba ba bum). There's not really much I could do if I spotted a Superdeathian army on the march. Can't even get walls in the city. (Have I mentioned how sad it is that marble and stone are unevenly distributed? Marble is only used for specific (and risky) wonder plays whereas stone is used for everything. In the late-middle game, people with stone get to build walls+castle for +1 trade route, whereas those of us without probably shouldn't because the payoff is too small.)

Supereath right now is huge. Massive empire, biggest GNP (hidden by massive loan payments to Mjmd), super units. Because his empire stretches from the north end of our continent to the south, it'll be interesting to see to which end he pivots. My optimistic analysis sees him pushing Gavagai before me, but we'll see. Bad luck that he neighbored Ricketyclik. Bad luck that he neighbored Ricketyclik with Praetorians. Bad luck that the guy who killed the new guy now neighbors me.  All we want is to be left alone. Because of the massive size of this map, it'd take Superdeath a bit of work to kill me outright, but boy would it be painful.

[naufragar]

My optimistic analysis sees [Superdeath] pushing Gavagai before me, but we'll see.

Called it.



Superdeath sent a few more of these, the nuances of which I couldn't decipher, but I'm pretty sure this one is "leave me in peace to eat Gav." I quickly agreed because we have enough on our hands right now.

Speaking of which:


We produced a Great Scientist in LionChewingDog, which I then used to "start a golden age" as seen in the lower left of the screen. This makes naufragar happy.

Lesson Seventeen: Golden Ages

As your citizens work as specialists and accumulate Great People Points, eventually their tradition of excellence will produce a Great Person. This Great Person can lead you civilization into an 8-turn Golden Age. During this Golden Age, every tile that produces at least one hammer or gold will produce one more of those resources. You also won't suffer anarchy when rearranging your government as the Golden Age is also a period of great reform. Lastly, you get a +100% modifier to any Great People points you generate.

Here's how our stats looked before the Golden Age:



And here's after:



Hopefully no one starts looking at us funny because of how much money we're making. Now, while this is a great boost to your economy, it is short-lived. 8 turns is usually not enough time to put daylight between you and your rivals. And notice the most important stats, food and land area. We're still practically dead last in land and below average in food. Those portend doom for our civilization.

8 turns is very short, but luckily we have the Mausoleum of Maussollos wonder, giving us +50% golden age length for a total of 12 turns. I normally don't consider the MoM worth the price (others disagree) but since I rushed it with an Engineer, it was free. (Hello, Opportunity Cost. )

After your Great Person starts your first Golden Age, they get progressively more difficult to create. Think of this as simulating a growing society. King Glurb of the Rock Muncher clan might have been wise and just, but when your society gets big enough, it's going to take more than just President Glurb of the Rock Muncher Conglomerate to reform the State. Each Golden Age after the first requires an additional, different Great Person. So for my next Golden Age, I'm going to try to get a Great Artist and a Great Scientist.

The Artist will come from here:



The Scientist will come from here:



Notice that each of those bars says "6 turns remaining." Sore Fox was founded before Thirsty Raven, so it takes precedence. Since each Great Person requires 100 more Great People points than the previous, I get my Artist for 400 points in 6 turns and then the Scientist is born 3 turns after that for 500 GPP. (I'm saying Artist although it could be an Engineer or Scientist. If it's an Engineer, no problem, but if it's a Scientist, I can't launch the second golden age because I'd just have 2 Scientists.)

I'm saying "second golden age," but all the game does is add golden age turns to the counter. If I launch my "second" golden age when I still have, say, 3 turns on the clock, I'll just add my 12 turns to those 3. Thanks to the Mausoleum of Maussollos and 3 great people, I'll have 24 turns of golden age. This is better than the original 8, but still doesn't fix the deeper issue: my land sucks and I have little of it.

Oh well, we'll try to figure out something.

While I'm thinking about it, here's the Crop Yield graph:


When I say I'm in terrible shape, I mean in terrible shape for the wannabe contenders. People like Mjmd or Gavagai (future Superdeath snack) are already out of the running, methinks. So Superdeath rolled up Ricketyclik and is about to demolish Gavagai. There's an argument to be made for my intervention, but I think I improve my odds more by developing during the long golden age than by tangling with Superdeath as he eats Gavagai. Historians will decide.

[naufragar]

Uh, dear lurkers, I did an incredibly stupid thing. At the start of my t113 turn, I used the Engineer that's been sitting in my cap since t105 to bulb Machinery. No idea why. I've been saving him since forever for the Great Library in 7 turns.

This was not a misclick. I knowingly woke the Engineer and bulbed, but it was definitely a moment of temporary insanity. I could've bulbed any time since its birth on t105. I've been saving him to build the wonder in my MoM city.

Am I able to ask for Ramk to remove the Machinery tech and restore the Great Engineer? Again, I didn't misclick, but I have no idea why I did the actual click, going against my plan since turn like 50.


Edit: Obviously I logged off the moment I clicked the button.

[Commodore]

1. Have you used your Oopsie yet?
2. How do you feel about insanity plea deals/sequels to Hitchcock's Psycho?
3. Would you honestly classify this as more of an "oopsie", or is this more a "whoopsie-doodly-do"?

[naufragar]

1. Have you used your Oopsie yet?

No.

2. How do you feel about insanity plea deals/sequels to Hitchcock's Psycho?

I'm on the record as pro defense by reason of oopsie. But we never came to a conclusion in the tech thread.

There's a sequel???

3. Would you honestly classify this as more of an "oopsie", or is this more a "whoopsie-doodly-do"?

This is less of an oopsie and more of an


(Is swearing the dividing line? Because there might've been some swearing.)

[Commodore]

Norman Bates gets released because of his insanity plea, so he goes right back to his hostelry business and murders keep on happening.

[pindicator]

Well if there is a one oopsie rule then I suppose it's yours to use here if you want to.

Have you messaged Ramk?