SG2- People Who Also Still Want to Get Better at Civ IV

[Nakor]

I think worker first is THE way to go with no Fishing. Agriculture indeed, and then BW to give the worker enough to do and chop out another worker and later chop/whip a settler sounds more optimal in my opinion.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

So here goes, my first ever turns in a SG:

I decided to go with this start because I just couldn't bring myself to load up the crap start once I saw it:



Despite oodles of seafood and corn, I made the decision to research Bronze Working first. I did this for two main reasons:

1) I wanted to build a warrior first:

a) Russia had a scout start and I wanted something to deal with Barbs

b) With the presence of a 3-food tile in the city, I could produce a worker
AND a warrior in the same amount of turn (~15)

2) I didn't see the need for Agriculture when the mining start would allow me to improve a 2/1/7 Grassland gems mine.

So I put us on Bronze Working and worked the corn for the 3/0/1 while building a warrior and growing to size 2. Just an awesome tile to speed up both Bronze Working and the Warrior.

I sent the Scout north and didn't run into any other civs for a bit. At turn 8, the warrior finished, the city grew to size 2, and I put us on a worker. I sent the warrior south to scout around.

I also micro'd off the city selected 2/1/0 tile to the grassland mine to speed up Bronze Working and slow down the worker so Bronze Working would finish at the same time I put enough shields into the worker to whip it out immediately.



At turn 12, I ran into Zara Yaqob, the first A.I. leader, with the scout in the north and Augustus with the warrior in the south:





The next turn Bronze Working came in and I revolted to Slavery on turn 13:





We also met Joao II on turn 13:



I decided to go with Agriculture over Fishing since we already had a worker built to improve the river grassland corn when it finished.

After the turn of Anarchy, I whipped to finish the Worker on Turn 15:



Our Scout was also attacked by a wolf, but only lost .1 health, so I kept him scouting:



I immediately sent our worker to mine the grassland gems.

I brought our Warrior back towards our city to play defense in case of any barb spawns, and used our Scout to give us a more clear picture of our immediate environs.

This is our empire on Turn 20. The grassland mine that was just completed added an extra 1hpt and 5gpt to the 2/0/2 tile, making it a 2/1/7.

With Agriculture set to finish at the same time our worker can make the trek over to the grassland corn, I think the first move for the next turn player is to take the worker towards the grassland corn and continue scouting.

Our next city choice is key:

1) Go south towards the 3-4 flood plains down that way
2) Go north towards the pig, banana, and gold
3) Go east and secure the STONE, copper, and ivory

Here is the world view of our empire at turn changeover:




Here is what Moscow looks like:



We need to start thinking about which wonder to build in the next 30 turns. Probably too late for Henge. We could research Masonry and do Great Wall if we are worried, or Pyramids if we are confident (would be nice to hook up the stone, but that will require Masonry, Wheel, Settler, quarry and roads by turn 50 to benefit our Mids build before turn 50). We would probably be better off just growing Moscow and chopping the hell out of all the forests, but I am open to whatever. We could try to research the techs fast enough to get to Oracle. With the gems mine, that line of techs still takes 18 turns though. As a fall back, we could also research Sailing and do the Great Lighthouse.

[Nakor]

Great job GES!

I suggest we go for the copper-stone-ivory site first since we have Rome in the neighbourhood. We can get Dye in the BFC there as well.

Things look promising enough with lots of land to expand into.
We need to have a better view of the land before making a good dotmap.

For a wonder I suggest going for Masonry and chop out Pyramids after we have settled our second city. We need an Obelisk to claim the stone, so Myst first, I think.

I'd tech: Fishing - Myst - Wheel - Masonry

Moscow can build a few warrior while growing for sentry purposes. Then double whip the settler at size 4 before another worker, I think.

Who's up next?

[Sciz]

Tatan should be next. I also like the copper/stone/ivory/dyes spot, stones would especially be nice for any stone based wonders.

Doesn't look like a great production spot though, even though it's kinda hard to see from the pics. Are we going with our second city as the main wonder pump or have we scrapped that plan?

The spot 1N of the southern dyes spot looks like it has a lot of hills, but that would make us lose the stone, copper and ivory, so maybe we could put our third city there.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

By the way, I went worker/worker because we have so many forests, that way I figure we could chop rush just about any Wonder.

As for the suggested tech path above, we might want to go Masonry earlier so we can get started on Mids sooner. After finishing Mids, deciding on our next Wonder in 25 turns is going to be a big decision.

I recommend everyone load up the save and have a better look at the terrain before making a decision on the city.

The best land is definitely to the north at the pig, gold, banana spot. Also to the south for the Flood Plains (might want to fogbust to check for another Civ down that way). The only real reason to go east is if we really want the resources that are there. And admittedly they are good resources, but that city is going to be weak food and production wise I think. I am not sure we can get Stone up fast enough to help with Mids. That is the call of the next turn players.

Also, I don't think you can see it, but I thought I remember spotting Zara's city up at the marble spot in the north east.

Since we are on Inland Sea. We have a pretty good idea where we are located. We are at the upper NE corner of the sea.

Here are my guesses at a dot map:




I think securing the bottom five city spots plus the coastal cow spot in the top picture is key. After that, grabbing cities will just be an exercise in opportunism.

Crazy thought, but what if we just rushed settlers, do what we can with our workers, and just delete at turn 50 without worrying about the Mids? I think this is crazy because we can chop out Mids, but we could be chopping/whipping a hell of a lot of Settlers instead. The biggest reason I am against this idea, other than deleting workers, is that we get the Industrious discount towards Mids, so we are getting more hammers per chop.

Any grey-beards around here to point out all the stupid decisions I made?

[regoarrarr]

Any grey-beards around here to point out all the stupid decisions I made?

First of all - thanks for allowing and encouraging comments! I think you'll probably learn more that way.

The only thing I noted was the fact that you mined your gems before farming your corn (due in part because of going to BW before Ag).

I didn't run the numbers on it, but in general, you want to get your food first, especially when it's the best food in the whole game!

It probably doesn't make a HUGE difference, and I may not even be right (grassland gems are also an extremely good tile) but that was my initial thought

[Gold Ergo Sum]

My thoughts were that it was the best use of shields, since I could get a warrior and worker out, instead of just a worker, and I wanted slavery/forest chops available ASAP. Also, with the grassland mine, I could get Agriculture and Fishing and other early techs out faster than I could with the grassland corn. And since we are on a tight schedule to grow and get 'Mids, it seemed like the best optimization of our starting techs and hammer/gold options. If we had an Agriculture start, I would've gone to the grassland corn instead. And since we were just building worker/worker anyway to ensure we could chop the Wonder we need, the difference in build times with the corn and the mine was going to be pretty similar, and the corn will be ready to go once we are ready to the grow the city after the second worker pops.

I obviously didn't crunch the numbers either. I just kind of debated it for a few minutes, and decided that strategy seemed superior. I wouldn't mind knowing the actual numbers.

[Tatan]

Okay, you can consider this a 'got it'; I should be able to play some time today, don't know exactly when. I agree with the current loose plan of settling the stone/copper site and chopping the Pyramids. This won't matter to me personally because I'm only playing 15 turns [right?], but for clarification's sake do we actually have to build the Pyramids ON Turn 50, or just AROUND Turn 50?

Seems like a good set of AIs so far, in my experience they are all pretty friendly usually [watch out for Joao, though, he's back-stabbed me a few times].

One thing about the dotmap as it is currently: both the yellow and the pink dots appear to be one off the coast, which might not be such a good idea on Inland Sea... I don't really mind the yellow one because it needs to grab the pigs and gold, but I think the pink one might want to move 1 W [trading coasts for plains].

Any more thoughts before I play the turns?

[Sciz]

Because of various circumstances i'm going to have to drop out of this SG. Sorry guys :/ and good luck

[Liquidated]

What I do for SG's I host is have a consensus of some sort,on what leader to pick and the map type, though cannot recall anything remotely democratic in that regard.

So say Sally on Iceage monarch. I then roll one start, return completely to the main menu and pick same settings (most seetings past leader are saved).

That way you get different leaders opposing you (all toku and/or monty tiles away for my luck). I then make 5 copies of such and have a vote on which map to use. Keep in mind we never go for the strongest map but rather one of the more average starts that don;t annoy us (wow, more plains cows the RNG thinks is food!)

Half the fun really is the process of evaluating some maps over others (past the obvious hall of fame scum fest maps that have a city start that can win the game by itself). It's an art judging the average BC start because there's so much hidden by fog, not to mention hidden resources to consider.

Normally though, I let an SG wait a few days to give people time to sign up so map games help pass the time.

Cheers!
-Liq