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

[naufragar]

Ah, so nice to come back tanned, rested, and ready. Now what was going on in PB75?



I kid, I kid. I set this disaster up by not paying enough attention to my turns just before leaving. (Don't split your stack into bite-sized pieces, and raze the enemy city and resettle it a tile closer to put it out of immediate catapult range.) Oh well.

I made another mistake this turn. Man, take a week off and you forget everything:


If Superdeath takes New York, he can hit that forest tile with my units. I initially had everybody there, but that would lead to a second, fatal massacre, so I moved what units I could further away. He can still eat the Grenadiers, but it's at least not as free.

Because I'm in danger of losing the rest of my army, I've offered him peace for Washington and New York. If I can get a critical mass of either hitters or catapults, I can defend, but I'd need to give up land, so I might as well give up land in a peace treaty. Sucks, but that's the reality.

I do have to mention one thing Tarkeel said before handing back the keys: "Gee, naufragar, you really weren't exaggerating. Your land is total trash!" Verbatim. Or close enough. Here's the food graph since turn 0:


Notice the big drop from SD? That's when he whipped an army. Remember how I fought global power leader (at the time) GT and then declared war on SD? See how I have no equivalent food drops? I can't whip with my land, so my food graph has remained steady. In situations such as these, you're supposed to run the Serfdom civic, but lack of time, lack of green hills, and the need to, you know, tech, prevented that.

Here's what Superdeath's whip spree bought him:


That's a lot of soldiers. (I forgot how sweet of a start SD got. Grass pigs and floodplains all over. Start next to the first time player. Use Rome's praets for a free kill. Then snowball into Gavagai who also had weak land. Maybe this is SD's game to win. ) Also shown is Ginger sacrificing a ton of manpower to eat Dreylin. Ljubljana has now joined that war. That can't be comfortable for Ginger, but he's got a monster tech lead and his units (Cuirassiers and Janissaries) stomp anything that Ljubljana can field (knights and muskets, I believe.) Superdeath is safe at his south with 7-city Gavagai and, beyond that, sleepy Mjmd (who is going to win the Liberalism race. ). So he's got to be thinking that if he can eat me, he can have a stable border with Ljubljana and proceed to dominate the south of the island. Our job is to make this impossible. Let's see what the future holds.

[naufragar]

Very interesting. SD offered peace for 200 gold in payment. I accepted and there were two other potential peace offers underneath. I'm surprised he didn't want to push his massive power advantage. As far as I can tell, his south is completely safe.

Speaking of safe, it turns out Ljubljana made it all the way to Cuirassiers so Ginger is not as comfortable as I imagined. (Hence Ginger trying to reach Rifling.) Very interesting. I'm trying to get scouts there, but so far nothing interesting.

Hopefully a bigger report to come later.

[naufragar]

Wow, it's been a week since the last report?! Been busy and nothing's happening in old Moralia.

Did get this request from Ljubljana:



This is a request that I attack Mjmd where he and I share a border with gold resources:




I figure this would be a good time to do a big foreign policy overview. It's overdue:



In the far east, Ginger is about to finish off Dreylin in his incarnation as Tarkeel. After that, he'll border just Ljubljana and Greenline by land. (He has yet to research Astronomy to cross the oceans.) Greenline for his part will be lucky to live long enough to enjoy that border with Ginger. Ljubljana is cutting through him as fast as his troops can run. There's literally nothing stopping Ljubljana. (This is one of the brutal parts of civ4 warfare: once your army has been defeated, you're pretty much dead, since even if you can rebuild, your troops can't muster at one point fast enough to stop the enemy's cavalry from ripping you apart.) Once Ljubljana finishes with Greenline, he'll have a massive, massive empire stretching from pole to pole. He'll neighbor Ginger, who at this point must worry about being bumped down to second place in front of Ljubljana's gains. Ljubljana will also neighbor Mjmd.

Mjmd just got Liberalism, which comes with a free technology, and took Rifling with it. His power is still lower than mine, so the ability to build Rifles isn't particularly impressive when other players are running around with double his army size. Ljubljana's request that I attack Mjmd springs from Ljubljana's awareness that he'll have to defend his new acquisitions both from Ginger and Mjmd, but with respect to Mjmd, it's hard to imagine Mjmd ever poses a threat to Ljubljana. We're almost 200 turns into the game and he's never built an army. He tried to meddle with Ginger's conquests, so it's unlikely that those two will form a stable alliance against Ljubljana. He's let the rump state of Gavagai-Scooter live for reasons unknowable to me. Liberalizing Rifles seems to me like a defensive move. If I had to bet, I'd guess that Mjmd goes on to research Economics, keeps trying to tech up, and falls to irrelevance in the face of either Ljubljana or Ginger. (This is assuming he builds units, so neither Ginger nor Ljubljana, who currently have twice his army, can just roll over him.)

Maybe Mjmd even eats Gavagai-Scooter. Gavagai made some inscrutable decisions this game, but I'm sure Superdeath and Mjmd had a better vantage to tell you about them. The end result is that his empire was left to do nothing but spin its wheels. Scooter is just marking time until Mjmd or Superdeath kill him.

Superdeath for his part just researched Chemistry. So he is one tech away from cannons. This means we need to try to neutralize the threat, but more realistically get into as defensive a position we can. Superdeath is completely safe on his Mjmd/Scooter-Gavagai side, so those cannons are all going to be pointed at me. So far my alliance with Ljubljana has held, but I've got to imagine that if he stalemates against Ginger, he'll try to eat me with SD's help.

It's a fascinating game state. Of all the players, honestly, I think I prefer Superdeath's position. He's just as big as the top dogs and about to have a decisive military advantage against his neighbors who both have tiny armies (all three if we count Mjmd). The other two superpowers border each other, but SD has plenty of room to expand and he's already hit the conqueror's plateau (weird maintenance threshold, don't worry about it), so any other cities are comparatively cheap to add to his empire. I'd be very interested in my own position, but I would need an army to be relevant. Still, interesting game.

[naufragar]

In an act of generosity, Superdeath has liberated the two cities he took from me:


So we're back at the status quo ante, except I no longer have an army.

I did foreign policy in the last post, so I'm not going to redo that. Got this undecipherable diplo message from Mjmd:


This looks like he's telling me that Superdeath will attack me on the other side of my empire in 6 turns. Or that Mjmd will attack me and wants to know I should still fight SD? I don't know. Those cities in my Southeast I took to kill GT, but they're completely indefensible. They're stuck in the desert. (And minor map note: there's no settling path from my core to them. I have no food there. Other empires can settle into that desert because of oases, etc.)

Speaking of food, I'm not really sure what to do here. Superdeath avoided a war by returning my cities, which would've been my war goal anyway. He has time to build up to eat Mjmd/Scooter (which he can do now). As I've said a thousand times, Mjmd hasn't built an army. He's making the huge gamble that he'll be left alone to tech away happily. So far, he has, I guess. It's just tough for me to imagine every being that lucky. Either Ljubljana or Superdeath will come knocking eventually.

So I guess I sit on my hands?


You can see where each other power went to war and sacrificed their food to build military. I know, I know, I've harped on this topic to death, but even when I was #2 in city count, I never had any food, not even close to people with far fewer cities, and now as SD, Ginger, and Ljubljana grow ever bigger, I'll continue to get dwarfed. (Man, looking at this graph really drives home the point, huh? ) So I think we just turtle up? But turtling up doesn't get us anywhere when everyone else grows bigger. Tough to decide.

[naufragar]

Well, an interesting turn for people not named "naufragar." Ginger surprise attacked Ljubljana (and I do mean surprise. It looks like they Ljubljana gave up a city to Ginger for 28 turns of peace and Ginger stabbed him the very next turn). Unfortunately for the game, this surprise attack apparently went disastrously, with Ginger losing a string of 80%+ battles and rage quitting. This is horrible for us. (I mean Moralia.) First, it's bad because it looks like Ginger's attempt to counter-balance Ljubljana went way worse than it should have, so the balance of power shifts and now Ljubljana looks to have no good rival. Second, a sub will necessarily be less prepared than the original player. It looks like Krill is taking over, for which we're thankful, but Krill is, how to say this politely? Rusty? Prone to his own morale problems? Krill can talk a good game, but the jury's out how well he can actually pilot. On the other hand, being handed a #2 civ just on the edge of the industrial age might be exactly the kind of problem to keep him engaged and invested.


As for us, we finish the Paper technology next turn and spend two Great Scientists to research Education. Then we throw up Philosophical Universities everywhere. So I really want a long stretch of peace. I'm not in a position to bail Ginger out, and Ljubljana has at least 3 scouts in my territory constantly because he's worried about just this possibility. I would like a breather to build. Between the GT and Superdeath wars, there haven't been many peaceful turns in Moralia.

Dream scenario? Krill takes over, orchestrates and alliance with Mjmd, the two of them push Ljubljana out of Greenline's old territory with Mjmd taking the majority of the spoils. Now that I've said it, let's see if it springs into existence.

[naufragar]

Alright. Ginger's back and ready to throw down apparently. I still don't know what I'm doing about the Mjmd problem.


Here's the problem. Mjmd throughout this game has coasted by on his neighbors being harmless. To his east, Greenline never really got to a position of power, and to his west, Gavagai tangled with and then was cut down by Superdeath. Because of this security, Mjmd could recover from bad start (which involved stealing my Pyramids! ) by just not building any units and putting all his resources into digging himself out of his hole. Neighborhood security is a wonderful thing. He's parlayed this Liberalism and is now building a handful of Rifles, but mostly he's just been teching, teching, teching. Now, Ginger is fighting Ljubljana to prevent Ljubljana from eating the last scraps of Greenline. It looked like Mjmd was finally going to have a neighbor that would affect his Single-Player Strategy, but Ginger has given him more breathing room.

I don't know who wins a Ljubljana vs. Ginger duel. I know, based on Mjmd's player profile that he loves just being left alone to build. If Ljubljana and Ginger fight, I'd bet money that Mjmd stays out of it to tech. This is a good thing for me if one of Ginger or Ljubljana beats the other decisively. At that point, Mjmd would be the counter to the front-runner.

On the other hand, Mjmd has done piddly little snipes at both Superdeath and Ginger, so it's possible he tries the same at Ljubljana. Ljubljana looks very strong, so maybe Mjmd wants to spike Ljubljana's wheels.

How is any of this my problem? Superdeath wants peace along our border to go eat Scooter/Gavagai. We'll ignore how big that would make Superdeath. It'll make him a neighbor of Mjmd and presumably Mjmd will finally be unable to employ the Ostrich development strategy. On the one hand, finally having a neighbor would likely make Mjmd build military. On the other hand, it likely means he stops interfering in the Ljubljana/Ginger conflict. Is it better for us that Mjmd be worried about Superdeath or is it better that he has a secure western border and perhaps interferes with Ljubljana and Ginger? I've responded to an SD fish-for-fish offer positively. I think it's in our national interest to see if we can wake Mjmd up to the perils of the world.

[naufragar]

Ljubljana has had three scouts zipping through my lands spying on my army deployments for forever. Ginger, with his own scouting chariot, killed one scout, so now Ljubljana has two impis plus scouts running through my lands. All this to say, Ljubljana is giving me a pretty invasive investigation. So, I decided to scout him with a chariot and he freaked out:


Note the facing of his muskets. He's moving them to his city to join the two muskets already there. He can see where my army is, but the thought of losing his heroic epic city apparently concerns him greatly. I'll need to keep any eye on this border. Don't like neighbors that scout my every pore while getting twitchy when I take a look at them.

That said, I can't imagine Ljubljana's going to be a problem anytime soon. Ginger just blew up an army of his:


So I imagine Ljubljana's in trouble. He's whipped his cities down to bloody stubs, while Ginger can just keep up his production of higher quality units. Remember, we want Ljubljana and Ginger to give each other trouble for a long time, so we're not so happy that it looks like Ginger's going to cut right through him.

Whether because of the loss of his units or because of my scout unit, Ljubljana sent me a cow-for-cow. I offered it back. Ljubljana, friend, if I tried to attack you, I would just get eaten by Superdeath or, eventually, Ginger.

Speaking of Superdeath, he keeps asking me to go to war with Mjmd, but I'm very suspicious. Here are our respective attack vectors:


I can't attack Mjmd. (Who has finally started building an army. Where will it go?)

And since I haven't been educational in a while, I don't know how much Ljubljana lost, but by looking at the difference between rival average power between this turn and the last, I know it was considerable.

[naufragar]

Well this is interesting. Superdeath sent me a fish for fish message last turn, when his army was already in Mjmd's territory moving towards mine. Now, I don't have an especially deep appreciation of SD's commitment to honorable diplo, but it would be...eyebrow-raising for him to be sending peaceful messages while his army was actively on a sneak attack route. That said, I've whipped a couple of pikes. He can take Talking Bass, but assuming normal combat rolls, I can stuff Massawa too full unless he has other stuff trailing behind.

Again, I doubt he's actually attacking me. The recent messages plus the fact that these cities don't help him makes me think he's doing some weird end run into Scooter/Gavagai. If he does attack me, prepare for me to indignantly picture dump all the diplo he's been sending me for the past ten turns.

In the wider world, Ljubljana revenged himself on Ginger, wiping an army twice as strong as the one of Ljubljana's that Ginger destroyed. We love to see it, don't we, folks?

[naufragar]

Interesting. Superdeath's army moved, but I'm not sure exactly how. I've reconstructed my best guess:


Mjmd closed borders with Superdeath this turn. This teleported all of Superdeath's units out of Mjmd's territory. I'm not sure if I can rely on the facing of those knights. So this still leaves me with all my original questions about what in the world this strike force was doing.

In the meantime, here's a mechanics question I can't answer:


To build a farm, you must be able to irrigate it. Early game, this comes from fresh water sources (rivers, lakes, etc.). After researching the Civil Service technology, your farms will spread their irrigation, so you can chain-irrigate from one fresh water source. You can see how the fresh water spreads from the lake tile to my wheat farm, giving it +1 food. (Note that cities on flatland will spread irrigation after Civil Service, despite that being documented nowhere in game as far as I can tell.) Here's my confusion. I thought this only worked through your own territory, so when Ljubljana's borders expanded over my easternmost farm, I thought I'd lose the irrigation in my wheat farm (and all my other farms at Debre Berhan). Apparently, irrigation doesn't work like this?

[DaveV]

I think it only works if the other player has civil service.