Hi! I'm locutus... first time poster. Loved Civ2, never played Civ3, bought Civ4 a couple of months ago and have been having fun just fooling around at Noble level. I beat my first Noble game about a week ago (an American space victory where Saladin, my only "competitor" had just built the Apollo Program). So I decided what the heck? Why not try one of those RB Civ games? Seeing as how new I am to Civ4, I decided not to play Epic 10, but thought Adventure 19 might be fun. And so goes...
--Pre game thoughts--
First question.. which technology to choose. I debated Democracy (Emancipation), thought about rifling (easy high quality defense), but I settled on... Satellites.
The theory here was that knowing where everything was to begin with I would be able to make wiser decisions about my city placement, troop movement, etc. I also forgot that as nice as having a world map is, it does not show where everyone else is, it only shows the lay of the land. The tech choice, I believe, was the first of many "rookie" mistakes.
I decided quickly that because of my inexperience I should choose a few criteria to judge myself. Most important item on my list: Survive barbarians. I have difficulty against them on Noble, so I figured Monarch would be awful. I overlooked the fact that this map was much smaller than I'm used to (I almost always play on huge) and with it being a terra script, all of the civs would start on the same continent. So the barb threat wouldn't be as significant as I'm used to. In fact, I'd only ever see a few barbs on the main continent and would lose a total of one unit to barbarians on the main continent.
The second piece in my puzzle: found a religion. My theory was that if I could found a religion I would be able to generate enough culture to not be gobbled up alive. Not to mention the shrine income. In my personal games, I've become very much in love with the spread of religion. I could have gotten Buddhism if I would have tried, but instead went for Hinduism and never was close to any of the rest.
My final criteria for judgement: have at least 4 cities by 1 AD. In order for me to develop as a Civ player, I must learn to accept the no-growth thing, and expand while there's still room to do so. I was successful at expanding my Noble victory, so I thought I should continue trying the expansion thing. After all, with Mao being organized, the cost of expansion won't kill me.
---
I decided to found Beijing on the spot and got right to work on a warrior. I set research to mysticism, and sent my first warrior out into the dark to see if I couldn't find a hut. He did find one after a few turns, and got some gold. At that point, I rushed him back to the capital. With the impending barb rush, I didn't want to leave Beijing unguarded. (no barb rush came). Mysiticism was discovered soon, and I moved to Polytheism - since as we all know, the AI hates the possibility that there are many gods. Much to my surprise, Hinduism was FIDL in 3440 BC... before any other religion. Since Buddhism had to be close behind, I switched gears immediately and started researching Hunting so that I could get Archery quickly.
Once my warrior was built, I changed over to a settler. The settler would become Shanghai, the city on the hill 5 tiles west, one tile south of Beijing. With so many floodplains tiles, this new city would certainly become my research super center. If only Monarch's health cap was a little more like Noble's...
After the settler, Beijing went archer, archer, stonehenge (aborted when it was completed IDL) barracks. During the same time, Shanghai went worker, archer (until the second population), settler, resume archer.
My research felt like it was moving along well enough. I decided that CKNs would be critical, so I decided to make my move toward construction and machinery. First up was AH (for use of cows and locations of horses). Masonry came in 2200, then Writing, the Wheel, and Mathematics. But oops! CKNs require iron, and by this point land was already getting sparse in my little corner, so I decided to bee-line iron working. With only one iron to be found near my borders (in the icy north) I decided it may be time to move toward astronomy. I'd already settled my third and fourth cities (Guanghzou went on the coast just north of the marble tile & nanjing went 3 tiles NW of my capital. Nanjing was founded in 600 BC... so yes I met my 4 cities by 1 AD goal).
I discovered Alphabet in 300 AD... 100 years after Taoism was FIDL. That marked the beginning of the downward spiral. By this point, Toku was at least three techs ahead of me (mono/polytheism and construction) and Monty had seven techs more than me. Yikes!
The game got progressively less and less interesting for me at that point. I settled Chengdu on the Eastern continent in the mid-1400s (with 2 CKN guards). Those guards withstood about a dozen barb archers within their first couple of turns, and I sent a second city to the second continent a short time later. My theory was that if I could eliminate the barbarian presence, I would be able to hold on until 2050. But the barbs soon upgraded their archers to longbows, and I didn't have the interest to pursue what was clearly going to become a tremendous uphill battle. So.. the end result: retired in 1600.
I had a blast, but didn't put enough thought into the starting tech. Sure satellites are important for a space victory (remember, my only victory so far) but they don't help you at 1 AD, when I really started to foul up. I should have jumped on board two weeks ago, but I played my game over these last 48 hours. Kinda crazy!
Thanks for bringing an exciting game to me... it was definitely over my head but it's these over-my-head games that teach me the most! Now, to practice on Prince... I would love to try Epic 11, and at least not retire!
--Pre game thoughts--
First question.. which technology to choose. I debated Democracy (Emancipation), thought about rifling (easy high quality defense), but I settled on... Satellites.
The theory here was that knowing where everything was to begin with I would be able to make wiser decisions about my city placement, troop movement, etc. I also forgot that as nice as having a world map is, it does not show where everyone else is, it only shows the lay of the land. The tech choice, I believe, was the first of many "rookie" mistakes.I decided quickly that because of my inexperience I should choose a few criteria to judge myself. Most important item on my list: Survive barbarians. I have difficulty against them on Noble, so I figured Monarch would be awful. I overlooked the fact that this map was much smaller than I'm used to (I almost always play on huge) and with it being a terra script, all of the civs would start on the same continent. So the barb threat wouldn't be as significant as I'm used to. In fact, I'd only ever see a few barbs on the main continent and would lose a total of one unit to barbarians on the main continent.
The second piece in my puzzle: found a religion. My theory was that if I could found a religion I would be able to generate enough culture to not be gobbled up alive. Not to mention the shrine income. In my personal games, I've become very much in love with the spread of religion. I could have gotten Buddhism if I would have tried, but instead went for Hinduism and never was close to any of the rest.
My final criteria for judgement: have at least 4 cities by 1 AD. In order for me to develop as a Civ player, I must learn to accept the no-growth thing, and expand while there's still room to do so. I was successful at expanding my Noble victory, so I thought I should continue trying the expansion thing. After all, with Mao being organized, the cost of expansion won't kill me.
---
I decided to found Beijing on the spot and got right to work on a warrior. I set research to mysticism, and sent my first warrior out into the dark to see if I couldn't find a hut. He did find one after a few turns, and got some gold. At that point, I rushed him back to the capital. With the impending barb rush, I didn't want to leave Beijing unguarded. (no barb rush came). Mysiticism was discovered soon, and I moved to Polytheism - since as we all know, the AI hates the possibility that there are many gods. Much to my surprise, Hinduism was FIDL in 3440 BC... before any other religion. Since Buddhism had to be close behind, I switched gears immediately and started researching Hunting so that I could get Archery quickly.
Once my warrior was built, I changed over to a settler. The settler would become Shanghai, the city on the hill 5 tiles west, one tile south of Beijing. With so many floodplains tiles, this new city would certainly become my research super center. If only Monarch's health cap was a little more like Noble's...
After the settler, Beijing went archer, archer, stonehenge (aborted when it was completed IDL) barracks. During the same time, Shanghai went worker, archer (until the second population), settler, resume archer.
My research felt like it was moving along well enough. I decided that CKNs would be critical, so I decided to make my move toward construction and machinery. First up was AH (for use of cows and locations of horses). Masonry came in 2200, then Writing, the Wheel, and Mathematics. But oops! CKNs require iron, and by this point land was already getting sparse in my little corner, so I decided to bee-line iron working. With only one iron to be found near my borders (in the icy north) I decided it may be time to move toward astronomy. I'd already settled my third and fourth cities (Guanghzou went on the coast just north of the marble tile & nanjing went 3 tiles NW of my capital. Nanjing was founded in 600 BC... so yes I met my 4 cities by 1 AD goal).
I discovered Alphabet in 300 AD... 100 years after Taoism was FIDL. That marked the beginning of the downward spiral. By this point, Toku was at least three techs ahead of me (mono/polytheism and construction) and Monty had seven techs more than me. Yikes!
The game got progressively less and less interesting for me at that point. I settled Chengdu on the Eastern continent in the mid-1400s (with 2 CKN guards). Those guards withstood about a dozen barb archers within their first couple of turns, and I sent a second city to the second continent a short time later. My theory was that if I could eliminate the barbarian presence, I would be able to hold on until 2050. But the barbs soon upgraded their archers to longbows, and I didn't have the interest to pursue what was clearly going to become a tremendous uphill battle. So.. the end result: retired in 1600.
I had a blast, but didn't put enough thought into the starting tech. Sure satellites are important for a space victory (remember, my only victory so far) but they don't help you at 1 AD, when I really started to foul up. I should have jumped on board two weeks ago, but I played my game over these last 48 hours. Kinda crazy!
Thanks for bringing an exciting game to me... it was definitely over my head but it's these over-my-head games that teach me the most! Now, to practice on Prince... I would love to try Epic 11, and at least not retire!
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