Adventure 19: KMad gets edjumakated and hates the map

[KMad]

i debated and debated what to pick. emailed my choice to sulla, got my file, started the game and went YUCK at the map, grumbled to myself about taking useless tiles to get the cows, and settled in place. i ought to have moved, really, cows rock early on and the useless tiles don't matter til much later, but hey, it was 3 am. here's my capital before i renamed it in the traditional Candyland Empire manner:



i started initial research on gunpowder to completely wipe out the AIs, since i am about the worst at early rushes. seeing that gunpowder was going to take quite a while to research, i figured i might as well go with the oh-so-boring traditional bronzeworking instead. not obvious yet? i picked Education as my starting tech . it seemed fun, on the way to lib, and it's gunpowder's only prereq. yeah it skips mao's UU but i'm like totally not an early war type and for me early is like, pre-2040 AD some days. plus making my citizens smart is cool. i was leaning heavily towards constitution to have rep ultra-early, but decided that wouldn't be as new an experience for me, since i've done the rep thing before via pyramids.

of course as soon as i send the email the regrets began, well i'm only saving + fraction great scientists, it doesn't get me anything at all until i can make a library (and even then unis are a lot of hammers), blah blah. i rationalized ... at least this way, if i lose, i don't have the shame of knowing that i have something completely overpowered available on turn 1 and was defeated anyway *giggle*.

in 3640 i meet huayna, who founds buddhism in 3440. in 3360 i meet monty, he says "may the peace last 1000 years." that's only what, 40 turns or something? i need longer than that mr. psycho!!! 3320 whee i beat monty to a hut and popped a scout. 3200 doublebonusscore scout beats a wolf, and there's a hut on the forested hill he's gonna go on anyway to heal up. it crosses my mind to change my tech to poly, but with monty as a neighbor i figure picking any religion isn't gonna be a good idea, and i'm not spiritual to give in to demands, so i'll not go down that road. hinduism wasn't founded until 2640, 14 turns later, so i'd have gotten it and the world would have been very different, we will never know.

this was my thought process in 3040, when i had to pick my next tech. it was exactly 3 am and i was obviously delusional: "we can now put our shoulders to the wheel. and i don't know what to research next. i never do the axe rush thing. but there's a holy city RIGHT FREAKING THERE. so i really want to. but i'll mess it up. golly. archery will help vs. barbs, but not against HC. oh he's HquechaC in fact! fishing will let me work the lake, and his clams if i get 'em, but that's being over optimistic. AH will let me see horses, but i'm bitter about not being able to reach either cow tile. i dunno, hunting i suppose, i did see an elephant. oh right. it's a holy city. it's gonna get a lot of culture defense. ok, back to my usual 'let's all get along and i'll just get voted in by UN or whatever' thing." 2760 victoria strolls up. 2520 meet toku. he was me the other day, or vice versa. didn't end well for him, or me, or us. 2320 i met sally, hindu founder, and that was everybody.

2200ish i completely drove myself nuts where i'd marked my 2nd city down by the elephant. i'm not a fancy dotmapper, i look at the map and i just know where my cities will go. i put an x sign there, sometimes a ? sign, and then find the next one. not on this stinking map. "here a cow, there a cow, everywhere an unreachable cow, argh argh argh argh argh!" i actually moved settler #1 to my first x, then sat there for 10 minutes staring at the screen. i ultimately ended up moving him back up to another spot, between city sign x1 and city sign x2 and settling there. i never do that unless i can't settle my spot since an AI got there or nearby first. ever. anyway, Beijing was founded. Beijing because, of course, my capital was renamed Peepsville.

2120 HC has writing, therefore open borders. he and monty are pleased and have OB, i figure i won't get asked to cancel by my nearest threats so i sign up for them too. i OB with monty when i get writing myself too. i scout around and meet roosevelt and giggled hysterically for about 10 minutes. poor guy! in 2000 hinduism spreads to beijing. attn RNG: one serving of buddhism to Peepsville please? HC is closer, i dunno where sally lives.

1600ish. i settled city #3, over by the incense part of the floodplains. peepsville can pump out those settlers! again a case of not settling where i'd placed my x sign, so very odd for me. in 1480 monty founds judaism. oh boy, this is going to be a fun religious world. 1280 buddhism in peepsville yay! toku doesn't have copper either. wow -- only me, vicky, and HC do. interesting. i guess that means it's time to get myself in trouble by putting city #4 near that copper toku just settled near eh? and then i have to settle another city along the coast to trde route. hmmz. and study sailing. this is so complex. i wouldn't be able to see lack of iron, i don't have IW myself, almost done researching alphabet. i can see the HC has some, he's guarding a suspiciously mined flatlands plains tile.

1080 how do i hate this map? let me count the ways! crab/copper/toku-annoyance city has to of course skip cows or get 80 tundra tiles in my city cross. naturally! oh and sally says something about a vile aztec. i tell him to shove it, the aztec hasn't beaten me up yet so i ain't gonna push my luck.

in 1000 BC that "yeah he might actually be vile, come to think of it" aztec cancels OB, and i save the game to go to sleep. i never did end up playing it again. other games to play with better maps got priority, and i'd put off this adventure until deadline was almost here.

the candyland empire (aka dangit this map argh!) in 1160. i forgot about crab/copper/toku-annoyer city when taking this, but you can imagine where it is. notice how monty is trying to rack up those "our close borders cause tension" -s, thanks doll.



i love the concept, and i'll have hubby set up something similar for me, but on a map that doesn't drive me quite so crazy *giggle*. and i definitely look forward to reading the reports, especially the ones that chose more wisely than i did (my guess: everybody). i had a ton of fun deliberating techs, despite indecision and even without getting to utilize it.

others find it irresistible too. have you see the CFC thread? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=223138

2008 AD: i resolve to figure out how to write more interesting reports. all y'all's (why yes i do live in the south) are such fun!

[Sullla]

i debated and debated what to pick. emailed my choice to sulla, got my file, started the game and went YUCK at the map, grumbled to myself about taking useless tiles to get the cows, and settled in place. i ought to have moved, really, cows rock early on and the useless tiles don't matter til much later, but hey, it was 3 am.

See, this is why I never start a game of Civ late at night! T-Hawk and I discussed this in one of the other reporting threads, and we definitely concur: it's much better to grab an additional food resource, at the cost of picking up some desert/tundra tiles.

Whether or not Education was a power tech, it was always good to see players heading off the beaten path to explore new options. It was probably smart not to go after a 150-turn Gunpowder right away though!

2200ish i completely drove myself nuts where i'd marked my 2nd city down by the elephant. i'm not a fancy dotmapper, i look at the map and i just know where my cities will go. i put an x sign there, sometimes a ? sign, and then find the next one. not on this stinking map. "here a cow, there a cow, everywhere an unreachable cow, argh argh argh argh argh!" i actually moved settler #1 to my first x, then sat there for 10 minutes staring at the screen. i ultimately ended up moving him back up to another spot, between city sign x1 and city sign x2 and settling there. i never do that unless i can't settle my spot since an AI got there or nearby first. ever. anyway, Beijing was founded. Beijing because, of course, my capital was renamed Peepsville.

Figuring out where to put the cities is one often one of the hardest parts of the Civ games - but it's also one that I've always enjoyed immensely. I know you mentioned that you don't do dotmaps, but they always help me out a lot. You can snap a screenshot, then cut and paste into a program like Microsoft Paint, where I like to draw all over them. Here's a classic example from Civ3:



Dot-mapping is less necessary in Civ4 than in Civ3, since the game is built around having fewer, more important cities. It can't hurt though if you're running settlers around in circles.

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the game, even if you didn't manage to finish.

[KMad]

Whether or not Education was a power tech, it was always good to see players heading off the beaten path to explore new options. It was probably smart not to go after a 150-turn Gunpowder right away though!

Figuring out where to put the cities is one often one of the hardest parts of the Civ games - but it's also one that I've always enjoyed immensely. I know you mentioned that you don't do dotmaps, but they always help me out a lot. You can snap a screenshot, then cut and paste into a program like Microsoft Paint, where I like to draw all over them. Here's a classic example from Civ3:

Dot-mapping is less necessary in Civ4 than in Civ3, since the game is built around having fewer, more important cities. It can't hurt though if you're running settlers around in circles.

oh i planned that first turn screenshot from the moment i sent you the email *giggle*!

i love placing cities and fitting them together, using the map in the best way. but i don't go to the effort of making an official dotmap. i'm too lazy ... errrrr ... more efficient than that. i do it all in my head, it comes together for me and i just put the X sign on the map where the city will go. that's what was so completely bizarre about this map for me ... i have never run my settler around in circles like that! to sit here for 10 minutes second-guessing my X sign, when my settler is already there ... i'd have thought that as unlikely as tokugawa signing a PA. part of it was the late hour i'm sure, but i'm also convinced that the map was out to get me . it wasn't even that it was a particularly horrid map, it was just out to get ME, doing all my pet peeve things!

but i did enjoy it . and the giggling i got to do while saying "i got Pig Iron" when i was toku excuses multiple maps that i don't like in the future . placing cities there went my usual way, and even with the little land area JC and that meanie Mao left me, i was happy with where i put my cities. i didn't dotmap, i looked it over and could picture the fat cross and put a sign up. i might have been happier if i could have taken some of Mao's cities too, but that would have required actually taking the fight to him !

[darrelljs]

Sorry the map was not enjoyable for you, I know the opponents were no stroll in the park either . One of the nice things about taking Education was as you mentioned, Gunpowder is only one tech away. Like T-Hawk mentioned, the thing to do would have been to Oracle slingshot to it. I think one of the big keys to improving as a player is to get used to planning ahead, not just dot maps, but also technology paths, build queues (especially Workers and Settlers), etc. When you were going over your tech choices at 3040 there were some good ideas in there, but they didn't seem to be based around a coherent plan like "I want to expand rapidly and fund research through lightbulbing", or "I want to nail the Oracle for Gunpowder and will follow this tech path and build it in City X while Cities Y and Z handle A and B". Or, the same but I want to use the Oracle to take Liberalism to take tech C meaning I need to research/lightbulb techs in this order. Its not bad to make a list of goals at first, and after you play in a focused manner for a while it will become second nature.

Alternatively, play at a level your are comfortable with and don't bother! It is a completely valid choice; the key is what gives you the most enjoyment. I still play Noble games from time to time, it is nice not to have to sweat too many details and just enjoy the ride .

Darrell

[KMad]

hehe yup i loved what you did with "our" choice! i was just messing around to have fun in this game . more planning put into, and more success achieved so far, in other games since!