SG1 - Anyone still want to get better at Civ4?

[Whosit]

Well, finally got to the set. Have I done good, or have I brought about our doom??? You be the judge! All I can tell you is that I did what I very well pleased.

No pictures 'cuz I don't have the time/energy. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe someone more helpful can give the pictures. For the most part, our knowledge of the world hasn't changed.

Pre-turn

T129, 775 BC

I reset the dotmap according to the most current one to avoid confusion. I cancel the Aqueduct in Ivory Towers. Without Stone, the Hanging Gardens are going to be too brutal. Take off signs that are merely out-dated clutter. We should make a policy of dating signs from now on, I think. Anyway, here is my bold plan: Settle blue dot to the west to get access to stone! Ah, but we would need sailing for that. Hmm. Well, I'll try conquering my way west, and see how far I get (I.E., capture the Barb city)!

We're hurting for happiness, though. Another city south of Seoul (hmm, renamed: Border Control) to grab the furs and Silver may be a better use of our Settler. I'll try to scope it out before it finishes building. Stagnate Capital and Border Control because they will become unhappy. No use whipping units at this point.

-End Turn-

T130, 750 BC

Found another silver south of Border Control. No food, but a city there is worth two more happy in our whole empire, so I'll send our Settler there. Sorry for the change in plans, but I think that's more important right now.

Adjust EPs to Justinian because we already have vision on Dutch research.

-End Turn-

T131, 750 BC

Found fish for Fur/Silver site, but we'll have to settle off-river and on a Silver (ain't that how it goes?). Still, better than no food at all. Much better. And instant happiness, more or less. Need a road, though.

-End Turn-

Turn 132, 700 BC

Southern site got even better. Whales are in range, so when we hit Optics, we'll get yet another happiness resource. Nice.

-End Turn-

Turn 133, 675 BC

Whip Granary in Sealed Pigs. Library next. Archer in Border Control finishes next turn, then a Worker, methinks. Need more of them.

-End Turn-

Turn 135, 625 BC

Ivory Towers: Axeman > Barracks. We really need some of these if we're going to be building more troops.

-End Turn-

Turn 136, 600 BC

Iron Working is complete. We have a source of Iron three tiles south of Ivory Towers. I'm going to steer us to Alphabet. Neither of our neighbors has it, and we may still get some use out of a trade if we're quick enough.

-End Turn-

Turn 137, 575 BC

Whip Worker in Border Control. 2-pop.

Found Silver Dreams.

-End Turn-

Turn 138, 550 BC

Border Control: Worker > Worker (4 turns with overflow).

Temple of Artemis built in a Distant Land.

Dutch will complete Writing next turn.

-End Turn-

Turn 139, 525 BC

Dutch going for Math, so Alphabet seems safe for the moment.

-End Turn-

Turn 140, 500 BC

Whip Library in Sealed Pigs for 2-pop.
Whip worker in Copper Central for 2-pop.

Workers trying to connect resources of importance.

-End Turn-

Turn 142, 470 BC

Cities now have access to silver. Good. Very good.

Building Barracks for lack of anything else. Don't need more unit costs right now.

-End Turn-

Turn 144, 440 BC

Great Prophet is born somewhere. Dutch, perhaps?

-End Turn-

Turn 145, 425 BC

The Oracle is built somewhere that's not us.

Kill a Barb Archer that wanders into our borders.

-End Turn-

Turn 146, 410 BC

I realize I've gone a turn too far. Oops.

We're 10 turns from Alphabet at 50% science. Not as good as I would have hoped, but not bad for Epic, I think. Iron will be connected soon, and we may want to build a couple of swordsmen for Barb city capture. However, since the cities in question are on hills, we may have to wait for catapults.

Silver Dreams needs its monument to be useful. Alas, we can't build Missionaries for it. Whip it as soon as possible. Building a farm on Tundra to make it grow a bit faster, but it's still going to be very, very slow. 12 turns. But it's going to pay off! I swear!

Demographics: Second in Production, food, land, and population. Second in GNP, but only at 100%. At 50%, it ranks us at 5th. Not terrible, really.

Netherland got the Oracle, and a couple of the top cities are larger than our capital (both Dutch! Size 9 and 10 compared to our 7!). They are in Hereditary Rule. Perhaps Willem took Monarchy with the Oracle? Didn't catch when he switched governments.

We have 5 cities and 8 Workers. Not too bad, but our cities are very spread out, so our Workers have a long way to go in order to get to distant cities for improvements. We should probably keep expanding, but we may want to finish Alphabet first.

Red dot should probably be next because it can gain us Horses. Very important. Hopefully we can turn Alphabet into something more useful, and get some new buildings to build. Nothing but Barracks/Units to build at the moment.

[Sareln]

Border control will get 3rd ring in 11 turns, faster than anything we can put together at Silver Dreams. Still needs it for the fish, but the furs will be ours relatively quickly.

Taking pictures.

[Sareln]

Pictures:

[Whosit]

Border control will get 3rd ring in 11 turns, faster than anything we can put together at Silver Dreams. Still needs it for the fish, but the furs will be ours relatively quickly.

Taking pictures.

Ah, good point. Tech-wise, after Alphabet, Currency would be a good idea, both for the innate bonus, as well as for the Markets. With Ivory and Furs, a Market gives a +2 happiness bonus on top of the gold bonus. They'll also double the happy value of Whales, once we get them, whenever that is.

Might be a good excuse to push for Optics, though. We clearly have to meet civs on other Continents, and getting access to Whales would be icing to that. If we make it to Alphabet first, we may be able to stay at tech parity with some shrewd tech-trading.

Thanks for the pics, too, Sareln!

Ah, I seem to have added some signs after I saved the game. The Worker west of Copper Central is meant to build a Cottage. As is the worker north of Border Control.

It may be a good idea to put a road on our Pigs to connect them (low priority), and we may want to improve and connect our second Ivory (middle priority). Build more cottages around our capital. As our happiness cap rises, we'll want to work more of them.

Ah, and perhaps we can build a Scout or something, and Open Borders with the Dutch just long enough to see how much land they have. Those big cities have me uneasy.

[Amelia]

Without the fish, Silver Dreams is just a dream. Let it build the monument to expand, get the fish, then start working the silver/fur to at least pay for it's cost.

Edit: Come to think of it, I actually wanted to head for the gold site... oh well.

Edit: Is there a Settler in production? 5 cities (one of them semi-junk) isn't enough.

[Twinkletoes89]

Good set Whosit.

We definitely definitely need to get the floodplains site up and running as soon as we can, give the cottages the best chance to mature and earn us some serious wonga!

I would also like us to claim the Horses soon as we could do with a bit more variety in our military.

Expansion should be the watchword for the next set (and probably mine too!)

Also, we still need to mine those plains hills at the capital along with chopping a couple of those forests (maybe for our settlers?)

EDIT: City wise, we could also have a pretty decent production city S of CC which could encompass both the copper and Iron in its second ring, along with the wines for happiness. (its also on a river as I know Whosit likes that!)

[seifer_md]

This is a quick 'got it' post, will probably play my turn in 12 hours.

[Twinkletoes89]

One other thing:

As we are going for Alphabet now, it may be worth getting a couple of spies out to explore Willem & Justinian's territories to see how strong their defences are, and maybe meet a couple of neighbours passing through.

What do you think?

[Whosit]

Without the fish, Silver Dreams is just a dream. Let it build the monument to expand, get the fish, then start working the silver/fur to at least pay for it's cost.

Edit: Come to think of it, I actually wanted to head for the gold site... oh well.

Edit: Is there a Settler in production? 5 cities (one of them semi-junk) isn't enough.

It's going to take some time, but with the Fish, Silver Dreams can pay for itself (just a shame I had to settle on one of the Silver). Silver + Fur should be good, and it could just work coastal tiles (with a Lighthouse, come Sailing), for more money.

Did forget about the Gold site, though. Saw the three happies, and was like, "yeah!"

Also, getting spies out to explore could be good.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Good call on the spies!

Between reading/playing the PBEMs and playing FFH I sort of forget spies exist/ are extremely useful.