[SPOILER] Ikhanbod

[T-hawk]

I don't even know if I should grow my cities or not and when should I stop to build a settler...

Always grow the cities, except when you have 1 or less happy to spare. Limiting your own city sizes was only correct in very early Civ 5 patches. Settlers should get mostly bought rather than built to avoid the non-growth time.

I don't know when to build workers, nor how many I need. I don't know if the free settler and worker from liberty are a must and I hate thinking about getting them or not.

One per city plus 2-3 building roads is usually enough. You don't need as many as in Civ 4 because city growth slows down sooner and you don't road many tiles.

The Liberty settler and worker policies are actually rather weak. They're worth 106 or 70 hammers, so compare that to other policies. Legalism is minimum 160 hammers, Aristocracy is a few hundred, the Tradition finisher is 400, the Piety opener saves 70 per city so 700 with ten cities, the Rationalism opener and Free Thought are each equivalent to half a university so 80 hammers per city or 800 with ten cities.

You can't expand and you can't grow your cities, since it all costs happiness. ... You can use money and ally city states to get happy. But if you do that, you don't have money to buy settlers and workers, so you won't be expanding that much...

At least in single player, the answer to happiness is city-state quests, religion, and trading for luxuries. I don't know how that will translate to multiplayer when you've picked fewer CS on the map, banned Desert Folklore, and your rivals might not trade.

Another question: how does the XP requirements progress in Civ 5? It's 10xp, than 30xp, if I'm not mistaken, but what are the following numbers?

10, 30, 60, 100. I'm not sure I've ever had a unit get past 100, but if the pattern continues, it would be 150, 210, 280, 360.

[Ichabod]

Thanks for the answers, T-Hawk. I'm still undecided regarding Tradition or Liberty and I'll probably delay the decision until I have the culture and I have to.

Anyway, I've been pretty busy this weekend, so I couldn't update. But I'm here now to fix that mistake, though with only one screenshit, since the screenshot key apparently doesn't work for Civ 5.

When the game was loading I was thinking: "Please, no coastal capitals or jungle capitals!". I hate those! But then I realized, I'm the Mongols, they lived in the steppes, I'll get a plains start, full of sheep and horses.

At least there's two luxuries...

Research was set on AH for a turn. Then, I switched to pottery. I figure a granary will help me grow more than a worker early (getting 3 food instead of 2 from improved wheat and sheep - farming plains aren't exactly the best thing). So, pottery, AH, mining, BW... Then, we'll see...

I'll probably get two scouts, then a granary. Since my capital isn't the best, getting some huts can help. From my test games, low sea level pangae makes for a very big map, which means huts. Maybe I'll go scout -> monument -> granary, though. I'll have to thing about it.

[DaveV]

screenshit

Freudian typo?

[Ichabod]

screenshit

Freudian typo?

Well, not gonna argue against it. Though the start isn't bad, it's just out of my confort zone. Double luxuries starts are pretty good (one of them is actually a mining one!). There's a river, which is always nice. That 2 food, 4 gold unimproved tile is good to help growth, while giving a significant yield. And there are hills in my capital, which is also good (my test games showed there is actually a big chance of no hills capitals - or just 1/2 hills in a large area around it). I wish I had a fish tile, though, because food is pretty lacking (how does tradition work with low food capitals in your experience T-Hawk?). I was looking for a very quick Civil Service beeline, so I guess it makes even more sense now (that and farming hills will be needed).

And there's a hut that I'll pop next turn too, near my warrior.

Minor complaint: when you hover over a no hill, jungle tile, it doesn't say what the terrain under the jungle is. I've seen plains under jungle and grassland under jungle, so it'd be nice to know. I'm guessing everything near me is plains...

[T-hawk]

(how does tradition work with low food capitals in your experience T-Hawk?).

I don't know. I reroll the map to get a high food capital instead. Anyway, I wouldn't call this capital low food, you've got river wheat. That and the granary come to +6 food which should be enough. 8.8 if you go Tradition and take Landed Elite.

Don't overrate the jungle gems. 4 gold is worth less than 1 hammer.

Minor complaint: when you hover over a no hill, jungle tile, it doesn't say what the terrain under the jungle is. I've seen plains under jungle and grassland under jungle, so it'd be nice to know. I'm guessing everything near me is plains...

I think it's plains unless otherwise specified. I think the game will say grassland if so. If it doesn't say, always assume plains.

[Ichabod]

Thanks for the help, T-Hawk.

So, do you guys want to see how a single turn can change ones perspective of a game?

Hut? I wonder what's inside it.

Bows? We are sounding more like true Mongols already!

And how about this view? Isn't this a beautiful second city? Food + luxs (including a new one), everything improved with the techs we already want. No river, though.

Next turn we'll have another dude running around. I'm thinking of opening with two scouts, just becuase it's more fun. We'll see, though. A monument could be helpful too.

---

Need to think of a naming scheme. I already have one in mind, I'll use it next turn.

[Ichabod]

Don't overrate the jungle gems. 4 gold is worth less than 1 hammer.

Not really overrating them. I'm going to improve them as soon as possible. But it's better to have a 2/0/4 tile to grow than the usual 2/0/1 (consider we might be without a worker for quite some time if I go for a granary first and tradition).

Anotehr question for you, T-Hawk: Liberty worker policy reduces mining and farming time from 4 turns to 3 in quick speed. This seems pretty powerful, don't you think, especially since you can't really compensate with just more workers (only 1 per tile)? I'm guessing in the long run, when you are outimproving your cities in comparision to the growth rate, it won't make that much of a difference...

[T-hawk]

Funny thing is the tile arguably gets worse when improved. The 2 food will become 3 hammers instead, which isn't necessarily better. In general, money resources are underwhelming in Civ 5, because the gold is only good for converting badly to hammers at over 4:1, rather than converting commerce 1:1 to beakers via slider.

As for the Liberty worker speed bump, it's helpful but I hardly notice when lacking it. The advertised 25% isn't nearly so, because workers spend a lot more of their time moving around in Civ 5 compared to Civ 4, with fewer roads and irregular city borders and the river penalty. Just one or two additional workers can compensate fine.

Does it reduce roads from 3 turns to 2 on quick speed? If so, that's a significant point in favor. On normal speed, you need both Citizenship and the Pyramids to get that reduction. 2-turn roads make a serious difference in tactical fighting with combat workers.

[Ichabod]

As far as I know, roads are 2 turns to build on quick, dropping down to 1 with Pyramids + Liberty Worker police (which won't happen in this game).

When do you start building roads, T-Hawk? It seems to me that waiting a bit is better, so that the TRs are worth it. In a recent test game, I built them too early and I was bleeding money soon (it's hard to keep a lot of cash without the AI). That's a good point in favour of Tradition, like you already pointed out: the amount of free buildings you get, saving precious gold.

The second city seems a bit food starved, with no river. It'll have fish (which I don't know the yield when improved, I'm guessing WB gives +1 food and Lighthouse +1 too - EDIT: Lightohouse gives a further +1 to fish, making it a 5 food tile ) and cows, but only 1 grassland to farm (I'm considering settling where the warrior is right now). I'll have to check the Coastal wonders to see what they do, maybe I can get some cool things with my coastal capital.

Ah, and to the Civ 5 begginers reading this, the Archery tech that I just popped is far from useless. Unlike Civ 4, it's not a dead end tech - it's a pre-req to The Wheel tech, for instance - and Archers are very powerful. Apparently, Composite Bow (the first archer uograde) rush is pretty common and sucessful on MP games.

[T-hawk]

I build roads pretty haphazardly, whenever a couple workers have a few spare moments. Roughly when cities reach size 6 or 7 and slow down on growth so worker labor comes available, which also happens to be when the trade routes become profitable. But I have no set practice there.

Yes, fish is 5 food fully improved, and goes to 2 gold with some later tech (Navigation?). However, I often see fish tiles never actually get the work boat. That's 50 hammers for just +1 food, a very bad payout among hammer:food conversions. Compare to granary at 60:2 plus wheat/deer, watermill at 75:2, lighthouse at 75:2 per fish, aqueduct at functionally 100:4 for a city at +10 food surplus.