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

[naufragar]

Alrighty. I’ll PM Ramk.

[Qgqqqqq]

I might be mistaken, but my understanding was that there's a benefit to letting a golden age finish before starting a new one - that you get 'half' a turn of golden age because some things process in that way. What say you, guider?

[naufragar]

I’ll owe people an in depth report after this, although my actual knowledge of turn processing mechanics is iffy…

I’ve finished my turn. It’s possible that we can remotely end turn to keep the game running but Machinery is giving me +2 gold on a lumber mill that would have to be subtracted out next turn.

[pindicator]

I might be mistaken, but my understanding was that there's a benefit to letting a golden age finish before starting a new one - that you get 'half' a turn of golden age because some things process in that way. What say you, guider?

My only recollection with half-turns and golden ages is when you build Taj.  Cities later in the list get the benefit of the golden age for the turn that you completed Taj in, and then you get your 8 turns after.

[Commodore]

[...]the Great Library in 7 turns.[...]

So are you going to get into bulbs, first-to bonuses, and how your plans chain on this kind of thing?

[Tarkeel]

I might be mistaken, but my understanding was that there's a benefit to letting a golden age finish before starting a new one - that you get 'half' a turn of golden age because some things process in that way. What say you, guider?

My only recollection with half-turns and golden ages is when you build Taj.  Cities later in the list get the benefit of the golden age for the turn that you completed Taj in, and then you get your 8 turns after.

Yep, that was my understanding as well. So the benefit is that you actually get half a turn free if you finish the Taj in a Golden Age.

[Qgqqqqq]

Ah, my mistake.

[naufragar]

Turn 113 Report
This was the turn I goofed up, but nothing else happened of note in my empire. On the other hand, very important diplomatic messages arrived:


Superdeath either asked me to go to war with GT in 12 turns or is warning me that GT is going to attack me in 12 turns. This turn I spotted GT's worker in an incredibly suspicious spot: on a hill which he doesn't need to mine but would be quite an attack vector into me.

The timing seems bizarre. He was far stronger than me for a long time, but now that I'm stronger, he wants to attack? Very strange. If the 12 turn timer is accurate, we should be well prepared.

And we got this from Gavagai:


Interesting. Ok, I'm torn between self-interest and my duties as a reporter. See, when Superdeath told me he wanted me to stay peaceful in his north while he attacked Gavagai in his south, I agreed, but I also sent a warning to Gav. I'll stand by my agreement with Superdeath and not attack him or provide material aid to Gavagai, but Superdeath eating Gav for free is just about the worst thing that could happen to me.

I'll feel a little guilty if Superdeath was truthfully warning me about a GT plot while I was warning Gav about Superdeath's plot.  I declined to respond to both. I've done what I will for Gav. I'll prepare for a possible GT war, although I am currently a little soft in that area.

[...]the Great Library in 7 turns.[...]

So are you going to get into bulbs, first-to bonuses, and how your plans chain on this kind of thing?

Hmm. I'm not sure how to best enter that topic. Let's try this:

Intermediate Interlude: Intermediate Goal-Setting

Let’s break goals into three kinds: immediate goals, intermediate goals, and ultimate goals. Immediate goals are obvious as you play a turn: how best do I improve this city? How do I most effectively move my army? Ultimate goals are similarly obvious: the ultimate goal is to win. There are a handful of victory conditions in Civ4, although usually players concede before an actual victory condition is reached when it’s obvious that a player will cross the finish line.

Let’s define intermediate goals as reason for accomplishing your immediate goals as well as the means by which you achieve the ultimate goal. “Why am I building this particular tile configuration? Why am I moving my soldiers to this tile?” Since the Civ4 victory conditions generally depend on either Science, or Culture, or Military Might, your intermediate goals are the ways in which you’ll become supreme in one of these three.

This is still difficult to grasp, so let me make up a new term. Let’s call it “exclusionary advantage.” (Not “exclusive” advantage.) Let’s also break up the wall of text with a current picture of the empire:


(Sort of current. Some builds might have changed, and I’m currently running 50% research to disguise my tech rate.)

Land is a premier example of an exclusionary advantage. If I have a particular plains cow tile, that tile can only benefit me. It’s exclusive. But it also excludes you from using it. The more land I have, the less my neighbor does. And if, by some barbaric grotesquerie, my neighbor’s land is reduced and mine is increased, my neighbor is excluded from the advantages that those tiles would bring.

Wonders are another example of an exclusionary advantage. The Mausoleum of Maussollos gives me and only me +50% golden age length. Through this, I have an advantage that is impossible to replicate.

Note that a tech lead, while possibly an exclusive advantage is not exclusionary. Have a picture of the tech tree for relief:


Freaking Machinery.

Imagine that you are the first player to Guilds and can build Knights. That is an advantage, but nothing about the possession of knights excludes another player from getting knights themselves. (Unless, some barbaric grotesquerie etc. etc.) If your knights take land from another player, then you’ve gained an exclusionary advantage.

Return with me to our ultimate goals. Let’s say you want to pursue a science victory. Naïve thinking goes: to win a science victory I need more science than my opponents. The truth is you need a way to prevent your science lead from being eclipsed by other players. You need to not be excluded and/or you need to find ways to exclude opponents. As I write this, I realize I’m just paraphrasing Sun Tzu. A victorious army wins first and then seeks battle; a defeated army first battles and then seeks victory.

Here’s the world at large. Right now I am defeated:


Superdeath is on 18 cities to my 14 (3 of which are babies). Ljubljana has 17. Ginger only 13 but a monster tech rate. At least 3 other players are ahead of me in the race for victory. My intermediate goal needs to be to manufacture exclusionary advantages, preferably ones that reduce their odds of victory.

Let me tell you what the original plan was and then tell you how it’s changed. The original plan was a thing of beauty. Grab the Pyramids with a cheap Great Engineer, use the Pyramids’ Engineer points to produce another, while we get a third from another city. Use these two to grab MoM and the Great Library. Throw a Golden Age or two and keep chaining Great Scientists all the way to Chemistry and Liberalize Steel. It would’ve been awesome. Curse Mjmd for taking away our Pyramid Engineer points and all the Representation beakers we would’ve gotten from our scientists.

The new plan is recognizably similar: Grab the Mausoleum of Mausollos, throw a couple of golden ages, use these to tech to Knights to gain land tiles, land the Great Library to cook up some Scientists to bulb some combo of Printing Press or Astronomy or Education (we’re Philosophical) which would help our development after the knight conquest. (Sharp strategists may notice that trying to kill someone with knights and cruise the tech tree for Scientist techs causes a bit of friction.)

With those plans laid bare, you can see how what we’re trying to do is drive a wedge between us and our opponents. We keep them from two powerful wonders, but we also, for short bits of time, have exclusive tech advantages, being the first to Knights or Galleons or Universities or, perhaps, the Liberalism free tech or the Economics free Merchant. The goal is then to use these exclusive advantages to gain more permanent exclusionary ones.

But remember, exclusive advantages run out. Other people can tech to knights. Our golden ages will run out and other people’s will begin. Every nation with better land will out-tech us. We need permanent advantages.

I called this an intermediate interlude but honestly, this kind of stuff needs a synoptic view of the game of Sid Meier’s Civilization 4. What things can you race for to give you a short-term advantage that you can parlay into a long one? How can you know without experience? Oh well. If there is one takeaway, let it be this: the game state is fluid and you have agency. If you are winning, beware the agency of others, but if you’re losing (as I am now), don’t despair. Take action.

[Commodore]

Nice update, I was more thinking how you're planning on landing Literature and opening up the Music bulb while getting a Great Artist...

[naufragar]

Ha! I should've mentioned! Getting a Great Artist is almost a complete disaster. It's difficult for me to get a 3-man golden age because of how many scientists we'll be putting out, but at the same time I'm diluting the pool with Artist points. (In the t100 update, you can see I wrote "NE" above Sore Fox. It combines Carnegie Library, Great Lib, MoM, and National Epic to put out something like 40+ gpp per turn including its specialists. The sacrifice is that each time we have like a ~18% chance of an artist.

Unless used for a golden age, we'd have to chew through Theology and Divine Right before using him on anything really juicy (like Liberalism). Well, what's life without risk?