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

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I just think Henge is more useful than the Great Wall personally. And we need the Prophet Points anyway if we are planning on founding a shrine in an emergency to cover a Wonder problem. If we don't get it, we scramble and cross our fingers on Great Wall I suppose.

I think Mids is more useful than Great Lighthouse, but that is up to you all. The Engineer Points could be key getting us a great engineer to rush a Wonder or two.

I like the idea to do OR and then Metal Casting for forges. That would also let us build Colossus.

And yes, I do have it on cylindrical wrap, so it probably is the other side of the world. Good point. Can we get the circumnavigation bonus by taking our Scout all the way around the world?

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Just a side question: Those signs (like 2t chop) or whatever that you guys (and most other players here) set up, how do you do that?

I do everything with Microsoft Paint. Not sure about everyone else.

[novice]

Zoom out to the strategy layers, you have tools above the minimap for placing signs, drawing lines, etc. Also Alt-S is a shortcut for placing a sign, no matter what zoom level you're on.

[Nakor]

Time to play.

I assess the situation and see that we need 6t (maybe 5) to get to Mysticism. We've got 2 forest pre-chopped, one worker will pre-chop a third one. The other will road to our second city site (Stone).
With 3 pre-chopped forest and Industrious, we can finish Henge or GW in no time.

I'll start on a settler when Moscow grows to size 4 and try to get that done with a double whip before or after the wonder.

2480 BC:





Masonry done, Myst will only take 3t! Moscow size 4, set to a settler untill Myst is in.

2400 BC:
Ramasses revolts to Slavery. Our warrior kills a panter and we have the road to city 2 done.


2320 BC:





Myst done, onto Poly. Whipped settler. 2 workers ready for chop.

2280 BC:



Our second city is done, set to a scout since there's not much else to build.
Two chops into Stonhenge. Last one next turn and then let's cross our fingers.

2240 BC:



Micro Moscow to finish Henge in my last turn. Will be done at t45, so our next wonder should be done by t70.

2200 BC:



And that's it for today! A wonder and a second city in 10 turns.

I suggest we get the stone hooked up a.s.a.p.
Tech path should be Poly - Mono - Pottery - Writing (but when do we do AH?). To get more out of our chops we need Maths OR MC-forges.

Third city could go in all 3 directions. East, South or North.

Any thoughts?

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I was expecting you to play until turn 50, but I will take back over. I think I will play 10 or 15 turns on my turnset, whichever feels more natural. And everyone can do the same. If you hit 10 turns and feel compelled to keep going to 15, feel free.

I may take Pottery first to whip out a granary. I haven't decided yet.

Going to start aiming for Mids and to settle in the southern flood plains city.

I agree that Iron Working/Metal Casting are good ideas. I am worried that we won't be able to get that researched in time to get Colossus up as our post-Pyramid Wonder. We'll figure that out when the time comes.

Nice set of turns by both of you guys.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Alright, so the plan for my turnset is to nab Judaism and get us into OR and expand to the southern city site. Lets see if I can pull it off.

T46-50: Still working on the Work Boat in Moscow while growing the city and the scout in St. Pete, waiting for the border to pop to give us stone to improve. Complete the work on the river mine near Moscow and use the other worker to pre-road for the settler towards our floodplains site. After Polytheism comes in, I put us to work on Monotheism. Use the workboat to improve the coastal clams. Set the city to build an 8 or 9 turn settler. I pull the warriors off the cities to guard our workers. No happiness problem due to the gems.

I spent some time looking at the tiles if I pushed our southern city dot down one, and we would trade a flood plain for a river plain, and trade four coastal tiles for more desert. Even though settling here will cause our city to overlap with the capital, I think this is still the better plan. Nice job Tatan.

T51-53: Move our mine worker to place a road to the stone tile. Move our southern road worker to mine the copper that our border pop opened up to start churning out Axemen when we have little else to build.



T54: Whip the settler, with the overflow going onto another work boat. I could overflow onto Mids, but that will be a drop in the bucket until we hook up stone. Also, at this point, I make the decision that we will go after the Oracle instead of Mids. I did the math, and realized that we have exactly enough wood to clear cut all of our forests after OR, work the mines, and whip Mids out around turn 69-70. But that gets rid of every forest. Yuck. Oracle will be much less onerous. Also, right now Metal Casting is 28 turns of research. We need forges ASAP with all the extra health from corn, fish, clams (and soon to be pigs and hopefully cows and bananas).



T55: Sent the scout out researching and put St. Pete on an Axeman (six turns! at size two). If we can get enough food to this city, it is going to be a production monster. Micro'd from clams to mine to speed up Monotheism by one turn. Copper finished and the worker finishes the road to stone and begins a quarry. I move the copper mine worker to finish a road on the stone. I move our settler onto our new city spot.



Turn 56: I found Novogrod at our southern flood plains/pigs site. This is going to be one food rich city. Maybe a Great Person farm, or all cottages?

Turn 57: And we get Judaism!



With the Prophet Points from 'Henge, we have our "found a shrine" backup plan. We might lose 100 turns of shrine commerce, but it might be worth not building it early I think, unless we just feel that we can get Christianity, Taoism, or Islam. The advantage of building the shrine early and trying to get another one later is commerce and maybe solidifying a solid Jewish diplomatic bloc with our neighbors.

I go ahead and immediately revolt.



T58: I put us to research Priesthood so we can get Oracle. Our workboat finishes.

T59: I revolt us to Organized Religion and start putting shields into 'Mids now that stone finishes. We should start to build Mids and maybe chop 2 forests into it at the capital after Oracle finishes, diverting only to whip a forge and maybe a granary. I think two forests will do it, because with the mines at Moscow (maybe build one more), we can probably straight build 'Mids in 15 turns after a whipped forge once we take Metal Casting with the Oracle.



T60: I have one worker building a farm at St. Pete. He should build at least one more farm there to grow St. Pete down the road. The other worker is returning to Moscow to pre-chop another forest for the Oracle. Two should do it.

Here is the state of empire:



Here is the world wrap for the whole region. We actually have the whole thing scouted pretty well:



And oh yeah, our scout is in trouble:



So fortune favors the bold. Priesthood will finish in two turns. Oracle should be a 9 turn build, maybe quicker if micro'd to hammers. With two forest chops (the pre-chopped forest and one other), we should be able to have Oracle by turn 68-69, which should be plenty early to beat the AIs on Monarch. One we have Oracle, we should take Metal Casting and whip a forge at the capital and start building/chopping Mids (maybe divert and build a granary first?). After Priesthood comes in, we should do Pottery and then Animal Husbandry to improve the pigs. I set St. Pete to build a settler (10 turns at size two!) after the Axeman finished, since it is super food poor until we get a farm built and a granary up. When the settler finishes, I would build a third worker at St. Pete. Maybe just churn out settlers and workers there for a little while, and whip one or two at the crazy food cities. The next turn player will need to move either the axeman or the warrior at St. Pete back to Moscow to fix the happiness penalty for lack of garrison before Moscow grows again. Once we, hopefully, Oracle to Metal Casting, we can plan to build the Colossus after 'Mids, which should be really powerful on this map. And we should start using the worker that doesn't improve the southern pigs (and build farms there) to road a path up to the northern pigs/gold/bananas city site. Once we can make deals for gold, we should trade our clams for gold.

Here is my suggested expansion order with the sites that I think are best. I think we can definitely get the first three sites, and probably the first four. Zara will likely claim the fifth:

[Square Leg]

Did you consider settling on the stone at all earlier on for your 2nd city? I generally find this tactic useful for an attempt on the Pyramids or even a late 1t henge - just time those pre chops to when the stone comes online.

Sorry if this comment is out of place, I figured a lurker comment on an event that took place a while ago would be ok.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Lurker comments are encouraged for this game.

No, we didn't consider it. But the stone was hooked up before we ever started building 'Mids anyway. I think the dot map was much cleaner at this position too, and gave us more river/food options.

[regoarrarr]

Nice work guys! I definitely agree with Oracle before Mids.

The only other suggestion I have on pre-chop micro is that it's generally not that efficient to prechop on a tile that you don't have a road on (as I have seen once or twice from maps posted). Reason is that you have to then waste a turn moving back on to the forest to finish the chop.

Exception of course is if you are playing India...

[Nakor]

Reagoarr, that was one of the things I noticed when playing, therefore I did road a forest, but it was to late.

GES, great job!
Oracle is a good plan and grabbing MC is even better.
I think we need workers before settlers now. 2 workers for 3 cities is far to few. The sooner we can work developed tiles at our new cities, the faster it will grow.

I'd let St. Pete build a few more axes to scout out the zone near Rome and to be safer before going for workers/settlers there. If we build a few farms on the grassland, the city can grow faster and be even more productive later on.

Other thougts?