Unfinished business - SG for improving at Civ 4 (sic)

[Zalson]

What about 1ne of the pigs. Shares it with the cap and gets gold?

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok done up to turn 27, chop will be in three turns. Settler is at four turns before the chop so we're saving a single turn here. We've also met Charlemagne of the HRE and Izzy (who's got no religion yet!!!!!).

I'm not going to play any more tonight because we've a decision to make, where to settle. I've taken shots of the known land showing resources and borders:

Resources:


As you can see our best single site is down South East in the tundra, we've got a site with sheep and silver, and another with sheep, gold and flood plains. Our copper is directly north of Yaqob Marley in a handy to get location (so we're actually pretty good for strategic resources early, all we can't build are possibly swords). I still don't like Chumchu's pink dot, but it's actually become of strategic importance for securing the south west because:


Yeah, that's Mansa's borders popping out of the fog (you can only see it in globe view culture mode, or a lot of eye watering fog gazing). The gold and silver are half way between us, and having two of the three forge happys and three calender resources will set us on happy for a long time.

I'm thinking settling goes either yellow or pink dot (I'm not too happy on either of them), then push for the silver site, then bronze, then up to near the bananas.

I'll hold off on playing for another few hours.

[Brian Shanahan]

Zalson, we won't ever share the pigs in the capital, because the capital is too food poor otherwise.

[Zalson]

Zalson, we won't ever share the pigs in the capital, because the capital is too food poor otherwise.

Fair enough on that one. I'm pretty busy this morning but should be able to give some more feedback later in the day. Our large happy cap does mean that we shouldn't have an issue with stagnating at a particular size.

[chumchu]

Pink dot, yellow dot and a city on the hill nw of the sheep southwest should seal of the land from Mansa (if you can get there first). He should be likely to settle on the sheep gold site as well with what we know about the land around him. There might be a better city but in the fog but we do not know.

We definitiely do not want to do a chariot rush against Mali. The AI builds a lot of archers so their cities will be packed with skirmishers and they eat chariots for breakfast. With this amount land horse archers from around 6 cities looks the earliest rush that is reasonable. Even then it may be premature. Hopefully Mali can build some wonders or us to steal.

[Brian Shanahan]

Pink dot, yellow dot and a city on the hill nw of the sheep southwest should seal of the land from Mansa (if you can get there first). He should be likely to settle on the sheep gold site as well with what we know about the land around him. There might be a better city but in the fog but we do not know.

We definitiely do not want to do a chariot rush against Mali. The AI builds a lot of archers so their cities will be packed with skirmishers and they eat chariots for breakfast. With this amount land horse archers from around 6 cities looks the earliest rush that is reasonable. Even then it may be premature. Hopefully Mali can build some wonders or us to steal.

I'm not gone on early rushes on anything past Noble, to be honest. Any settling up against Mansa will simply be to block off a nice bit of land to backfill.

PS. I met Charlemagne between the Sheep and Gold in the south, via seeing his C1 scout. Izzy met me. I didn't think to look where her unit came from, but unless she's cramped in against the sea, she's probably come from the north.

[Zalson]

Slightly adjusted dotmap.

1. Let’s move yellow dot to the forested plains hill 1NE of where it is currently. That gets us a few more grasslands for farms and also splits up that hills region between blue dot and the new lime green dot.
   
2. Let’s move pink dot 1NW. That allows us to trade some desert tiles for … riverside plains. We can farm all the riverside tiles and have this limp out military for us until we get to calendar. Then it can limp faster. This will be a killer in state property with watermills though.
   
3. I like the green “City” sign in the north. That’ll be a decent commerce city – but needs iron working in order to be improved. If that’s the case – do we want it so soon? Not sure where else to go but…
   

I’ve added some suggested spots for the south. Feel free to veto/comment.

Those cities in the south are really the cities we should found first – but I think they’re too far away to be easily defendable against human players. Yes, I know the AI won’t attack but isn’t part of this to practice? J

I’d like to say our first plant should be yellow dot. Let’s get gold working for us. While there isn’t a lot of food, the gold tile is an incredible yield. That city can be a unit pump and we can use Yaqob Marley to build settlers.

Pink will grow faster but yellow will contribute more immediately. Now that I write that, I’m waffling.

I think our second plant should be, um, purple dot. Yes, it’s far away (contradicting what I just said). But the gold will allow us to improve our tech pace considerably, perhaps allowing us iron working to unlock pink dot and “City” spot. But if we have chariots, we would be able to defend against a rush - especially if we've got a barracks up at Yellow Dot.

Good on switching to Ag. We’re going to need it for either spot.

[Brian Shanahan]

Orange dot needs to be one south east Edit: or one south. That way it's both on coast and on river.

Looking at that dot map, I like new yellow. The only reason I put the city marker down is because of the copper.

I think I'll play out the turns now and post a full report shortly.

[shallow_thought]

Orange dot needs to be one south east Edit: or one south. That way it's both on coast and on river.

Looking at that dot map, I like new yellow. The only reason I put the city marker down is because of the copper.

I think I'll play out the turns now and post a full report shortly.

Looks like I picked a bad time to have dinner. Brian, I hope peoples' opinions were useful Brian (I certainly found them informative), but yes, play the turns once you're happy; if push comes to shove this is an SG, not a demo game! Agg rather than wheel is definitely OK. 

I don't have the time to compare the dot maps in detail; no options stand out. I really called Mansa's direction wrong! - will have to dig out my screenshots to demonstrate that his scout really did come from the north... And yes, if I'd made a fully report about meeting Mansa, I would have said that he's OK as a neighbour, but we're going to need knights to take him on. Definitely not a rush target.

I'm a little worried  that new yellow has no good starter food tiles (oasis, and  any grass farms we can knock out?) but, there is nothing better, so the choice is new yellow or old yellow. The former lets the cap grow, the second starts faster but will be horrible going forward.

As you know, I'm not familiar with Emperor, but earlier today I  ran up the Huana Capac start that i'd generated and played with it (fast and loose, for fun). I took away some lessons:
- don't play fast and loose at Emperor until you're better
- it's frighteningly easy to crash the economy (even FIN with loads of rivers - the start was embarrasingly green)
- I don't think there's time to deviate to IW before writing-maths-currency if you want to keep pumping cities ( i felt I had to - no copper and Monty next door)

There may well be plays and tricks I'm missing to keep the economy, but keeping the first few cities close to reduce maintenance makes sense. With this terrain and ORG, does some form of ICS work if we can get to CoL fast enough to build early courthouses? Lots of small cities, many topping out at size 6 or less even once we get more happy?

Sorry Brian, left you with some hard choices there...

[Brian Shanahan]

Turnset:

Turn 20 Scout moves around the horse, no food to be seen. Half strength bear pops out of the wood. Start mining gold

Turn 21 Think I spot Mali in the fog, I see his scout. IBT our scout wins flawlessly against wolf on forested hill.

Turn 22 Meet Charlemagne


Turn 23 Finish mine, citizen works gold for commerce. Worker goes to put turns on the hill next door until BW.

Turn 24 Meet Izzy (she has no religion, Atheist Izzy, what manner of rabbit hole have I fallen down? )



Turn 25 Nothing

Turn 26 Worker moves onto forest for chopping next turn

Turn 27 Bronze Working> Agriculture. (at this point in the report I realise I forgot to revolt to slavery). Start the chop, which'll save one turn on the settler (and put 13 hammers into the worker)

Turn 28 Meet Monty who found Buddha



Turn 29 Find out that Mali is North East and not East as I posted earlier. Izzy is east (unless we've Mongols on the map).

Turn 30 Settler finishes and moves to Yellow Dot (I'll later move 1SE from Yellow Dot as the computer says it's a better site, and I agree. Put a turn into a new worker.

Turn 31 Start on Warrior in Yaqob.

Turn 32 Agri>Wheel. Start farming the flood plain. The mine the worker was doing has two turns to completion.

Turn 33 Nothing

Turn 34 Found Bean a Sidhe, which starts a warrior. Go back to worker in Yaqob.

Turn 35 Take pics






Relations are fairly stable, Charlemagne likes Izzy and Mansa, Monty is annoyed with Izzy and Charlemagne. We're neutral with everybody and Monty doesn't yet know Mansa.

Thoughts
I messed up with no slavery, but as we've no real food cities on line yet, it's not a big mess. Zalson should revolt early his set though. The scout in in the North on the coast, my idea was to start swinging him back south for scouting more back line cities, though putting him straight north may be better for finding more civs.

I think we should go Pink Dot, Orange Dot, Copper city fairly quickly and in that order. Those three cities will pin down a substantial back line for us giving a good share of the land. The land between Pink Dot and Mansa is decent but jungly and has three Dye resources so good commerce. But he should get it first as it's on his border and is a reach for us. Better let him develop it and vulture later.

I think Zalson should play 15 turns, just to bring us up to an even fifty for the first round up. After that we can go ten a set.