Thanks guys!
I think this was the first game where I really made an effort to think about every turn, and report almost nearly every single one. Part of it was having Nauf helping, so having all the info and my thoughts written down was necessary. As a result, I had better plays and a better plan throughout the game. Even if it felt like I was a little lost in the mid-game. After looking through Charriu's reports in the lurker threat, it was sad to see how strong my position was at T100, and how I couldn't capitalise on it
And Nauf, I don't think you talked me out of taking Agg, neither of us realised how powerful it was. You talked me out of Fin, and that's probably for the best. Even if I said I would've taken Ragnar if I could pick again, I think it was middle of the pack among Agg leaders. If I did realise how much we wanted Agg, with Kublai and Boudica already gone, I think Ragnar, Alex, and Toku would all be in contention (I would not have considered Stalin, and props to Miguelito for recognising the value of Ind and making it work). It's interesting to see that lurkers saw Fin as one of the weaker traits at the start, but I think that was largely because no one expected the game to last this long. Pre-HR, Fin would've been near-useless, but once HR removed the happiness constraint, we ended up working a lot of tiles which would've benefitted from it
So some final thoughts, and also addressing some of the comments in the lurker threads
* In the very early game, I was worried too much about scout chokes, and didn't end up scouting the map. I don't think it ended up mattering much, but it probably was overcautious play, and at least an oversight
* I think inner sea ended up being under-utilised, don't think we had any naval action apart from Commodore's 4-move galleys. I wonder if it could've played out differently if I did get some triremes / galleys into the inner sea. Although again, this brings back the issue of me fighting high unit maintenance and putting navy into the non-essential category (apart from a couple of triremes to protect the seafood)
* Workshops. I think the eurestic of Civ4 players is that unimproved tiles are bad, and high food, low hammer tiles like mines are bad, therefore early workshops which are no better than grassland forests are super bad and are never worth building, let alone working. In this game, where food was plentiful, and whip anger limited the usual approach of getting hammers from slavery, 1/2 and 0/3 workshops were worth building and working. I mentioned how I ended up running specialists just to find a use for the food suplus without whipping - well, I could've built more workshops and switched between them and high food tiles. Don't think I could get Metal Casting any sooner, but I do wonder if I overbuilt cottages and underbuilt workshops once I had it
* I was surprised to see lurker comments about Currency research being a waste. It wasn't worthwhile for the extra trade routes, but unlocking wealth builds was very important. I also hoped to build markets and run some merchants in addition to other specialists, even though I never managed to find the hammers to fit them between units (which is likely why my economy was in such a bad shape at the end of the game). Calendar I agree ended up not mattering at all - Miguelito and I never researched it; Commodore ended up getting it, but I think he needed alternative happiness sources after switching out of HR
* Attack on Blue Moon. I said in the thread that I was very unsure if launching it was worthwhile. The thing is, lurkers bring up that Commodore and I had to ally against Miguelito, so this was me attacking a potential ally. The fact is, I was not getting signals from Commodore that he was willing to cooperate. After what happened with Boros Burn, I was unsure about reading those signals correctly even if they were there, but skirmishes over the hill between Blue Moon and my capital looked like anything but a sign of peaceful intentions. And at the time I launched the attack, Commodore's power rating plummeted to the point where I was unsure if he still had the military to contribute to attacking Miguelito together even if we did go for it. So I do think it was at least a justifyable decision. I do admit that I probably committed too many units to what was supposed to be an opportunistic strike, but at the time I didn't think See-Scape or any other of my core cities were under threat
* I definitely underestimated how strong culture from capitals was. By the end of the game, Naya Burn only had like 5% culture on the furs tile - of course, that tile had culture accumulated from Blue Moon in addition to the capital, but I didn't realises how difficult it would be to flip it. I also didn't think Yellow Comet would still be isolated from most of my territory by a strip of Commodore's culture. It was going to be a pain to hold, even if at that point I was desperate enough to try
* Luker thread mentioned a possibility of using a great engineer to build Sistine. This is an interesting one. I admit I never ever won a culture victory in Civ4, even against AI, so this line didn't cross my mind. Now the way the game played out, don't think I had an opportunity to go for it. I think the Engineering bulb was essential, it was such an important tech for this map; and by the time I had the second great engineer, See-Scape, which would've been one of the three legendary cities, was about to fall. But if I thought of it, culture definitely could've been a path to victory, with our two religions, Christianity still available, and me sitting on a great prophet who could bulb it
I think this was the first game where I really made an effort to think about every turn, and report almost nearly every single one. Part of it was having Nauf helping, so having all the info and my thoughts written down was necessary. As a result, I had better plays and a better plan throughout the game. Even if it felt like I was a little lost in the mid-game. After looking through Charriu's reports in the lurker threat, it was sad to see how strong my position was at T100, and how I couldn't capitalise on it
And Nauf, I don't think you talked me out of taking Agg, neither of us realised how powerful it was. You talked me out of Fin, and that's probably for the best. Even if I said I would've taken Ragnar if I could pick again, I think it was middle of the pack among Agg leaders. If I did realise how much we wanted Agg, with Kublai and Boudica already gone, I think Ragnar, Alex, and Toku would all be in contention (I would not have considered Stalin, and props to Miguelito for recognising the value of Ind and making it work). It's interesting to see that lurkers saw Fin as one of the weaker traits at the start, but I think that was largely because no one expected the game to last this long. Pre-HR, Fin would've been near-useless, but once HR removed the happiness constraint, we ended up working a lot of tiles which would've benefitted from it
So some final thoughts, and also addressing some of the comments in the lurker threads
* In the very early game, I was worried too much about scout chokes, and didn't end up scouting the map. I don't think it ended up mattering much, but it probably was overcautious play, and at least an oversight
* I think inner sea ended up being under-utilised, don't think we had any naval action apart from Commodore's 4-move galleys. I wonder if it could've played out differently if I did get some triremes / galleys into the inner sea. Although again, this brings back the issue of me fighting high unit maintenance and putting navy into the non-essential category (apart from a couple of triremes to protect the seafood)
* Workshops. I think the eurestic of Civ4 players is that unimproved tiles are bad, and high food, low hammer tiles like mines are bad, therefore early workshops which are no better than grassland forests are super bad and are never worth building, let alone working. In this game, where food was plentiful, and whip anger limited the usual approach of getting hammers from slavery, 1/2 and 0/3 workshops were worth building and working. I mentioned how I ended up running specialists just to find a use for the food suplus without whipping - well, I could've built more workshops and switched between them and high food tiles. Don't think I could get Metal Casting any sooner, but I do wonder if I overbuilt cottages and underbuilt workshops once I had it
* I was surprised to see lurker comments about Currency research being a waste. It wasn't worthwhile for the extra trade routes, but unlocking wealth builds was very important. I also hoped to build markets and run some merchants in addition to other specialists, even though I never managed to find the hammers to fit them between units (which is likely why my economy was in such a bad shape at the end of the game). Calendar I agree ended up not mattering at all - Miguelito and I never researched it; Commodore ended up getting it, but I think he needed alternative happiness sources after switching out of HR
* Attack on Blue Moon. I said in the thread that I was very unsure if launching it was worthwhile. The thing is, lurkers bring up that Commodore and I had to ally against Miguelito, so this was me attacking a potential ally. The fact is, I was not getting signals from Commodore that he was willing to cooperate. After what happened with Boros Burn, I was unsure about reading those signals correctly even if they were there, but skirmishes over the hill between Blue Moon and my capital looked like anything but a sign of peaceful intentions. And at the time I launched the attack, Commodore's power rating plummeted to the point where I was unsure if he still had the military to contribute to attacking Miguelito together even if we did go for it. So I do think it was at least a justifyable decision. I do admit that I probably committed too many units to what was supposed to be an opportunistic strike, but at the time I didn't think See-Scape or any other of my core cities were under threat
* I definitely underestimated how strong culture from capitals was. By the end of the game, Naya Burn only had like 5% culture on the furs tile - of course, that tile had culture accumulated from Blue Moon in addition to the capital, but I didn't realises how difficult it would be to flip it. I also didn't think Yellow Comet would still be isolated from most of my territory by a strip of Commodore's culture. It was going to be a pain to hold, even if at that point I was desperate enough to try
* Luker thread mentioned a possibility of using a great engineer to build Sistine. This is an interesting one. I admit I never ever won a culture victory in Civ4, even against AI, so this line didn't cross my mind. Now the way the game played out, don't think I had an opportunity to go for it. I think the Engineering bulb was essential, it was such an important tech for this map; and by the time I had the second great engineer, See-Scape, which would've been one of the three legendary cities, was about to fall. But if I thought of it, culture definitely could've been a path to victory, with our two religions, Christianity still available, and me sitting on a great prophet who could bulb it
