[SPOILERS] Gandhi: the Road to Poverty

[Hum]

I have been playing Civ4 for a few years, including a large amount of casual fast multiplayer games. This means that I seldom maxed out efficiency using spreadsheets and clever strategy. I'm a bit more experienced than MYKI and Zanth, as far as our players go, but less experienced than Bacchus and Gavagai.

It's my third PitBoss game with more than three players. Comments and suggestions are very welcome.

CivStats: http://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=2634
Rules: AI diplomacy; ban on spies, war elephants, blockades, nukes, corporations
Map: big and small, modified for balance by Qgqqqqq.

Players:





Spoilers after this!


Thread outline
Page 1: starts at turn 1 - comments
Page 2: starts at turn 49 - economic downfall and recovery
Page 3: starts at turn 195 - war with Furungy
Page 4: starts at turn 209 - peace with Furungy

[Hum]

Pre-Start Considerations

We have 7 players of varying experience. To balance this out somewhat, we choose leaders from a pool. The players regarded as least experienced had to choose first, the most experienced chose last. This resulted in the following picture:


Excepting Alexander's aggressive choice, everything came out as expected. Alexander motivated his choice by being Alexander the Great's namesake. Sadly, it would turn out he would be my neighbour.

Bacchus and Gavagai are considerably more skilled than the rest, though Zanth also shows dedication. The former two individuals are the type who would make calculators to micromanage their Civ resources. MYKI is a bit limited with time and not very experienced; it's his second multiplayer game. Supposedly, Alexander and Furungy are newbies to multiplayer in Civ, so I wouldn't regard them as overly dangerous.

The situation with special units is grim. I expect some early wars. Only politeness might prevent those people from wiping each other out.

Players

Gavagai - Qin Shi Huang
Experience: 10
Dedication: 8
Aggression: 5 (early), 10 (mid)

Will probably go on a mid-game rampage with the crossbowmen and squish everyone else. At least he can't scheme without diplomacy. I hope I won't end up anywhere near him. There is a chance that the players will instinctively gang up on him, but I wouldn't count on it. Might show mercy towards weaker players.

Bacchus - Hatshepsut
Experience: 8
Dedication: 8
Aggression: 9 (early), 8 (mid)

Will probably go on an early rampage with chariots and gain much advantage. Will be a consistent threat to his neighbours because of Spirituality. Has shown himself to be aggressive in the past. Still, he has less experience than Gavagai.

Zanth - Cyrus
Experience: 5-6
Dedication: 9
Aggression: 8 (early), 6 (mid)

Zanth isn't nearly as experienced as either Bacchus or Gavagai, but he doesn't play Civ as often and so is more excited about the game. Has shown himself to be a reasonable tactician in the past, though perhaps with Gavagai's help. Will probably try to leverage Immortals; likely to succeed against Alexander, MYKI and Furungy.

MYKI - Pacal
Experience: 4
Dedication: 5
Aggression: 6 (early), 3-4 (mid)

Not likely to be very aggressive because he seems to be lacking the time to play the game. Will probably pursue a defensive approach and peaceful development with a focus on finances. Might get wiped if he gets seduced by finances too much and doesn't churn out those holkans.

Alexander - Alexander
Experience: 3-5
Dedication: 5
Aggression: 7-9 (early), 6-7 (mid)

It's the first time I'm playing with Alexander, so I don't really know what to expect. His reason for choosing the Hellenic civ is probably a joke, and he probably intends to exploit the hoplites. Might be scared to attack because he thinks others are more experienced, but that's unlikely.

Furungy - Willem
Experience: 2-5
Dedication: 7
Aggression: 2-3

Looks like the only non-threatening player to me, and a likely victim to other civs. His inexperience might give him some security, since it would be cheap to attack a newcomer. Still, I expect people to start attacking him when he shows any sign of economic strength. Since there are no tech trades in our game, no one is likely to align with the Dutch.

Hum - Gandhi
Experience: 7
Dedication: 6
Aggression: 3

I wanted a decent balance of defensive and economic ability, so I went with Gandhi because of Spirituality. The Fast Worker remains a reasonable unit throughout the game. I got fed up with wars in the previous game I had with these people, where I played for Rome (without iron). I hope I won't have to wage many wars this time. Not until I get a definite edge in other spheres, which is unlikely to happen.

[Qgqqqqq]

Why is spirituality a constant threat?

[Hum]

The Beginning
I'll begin the report with turn 36 and sum up what I did so far.

Geography
The starting location is this:


An overview:

Economy:
- Lots of fishing tiles and food for my philosophical great men
- Reasonable production even without whipping
- Cities can be built in a compact way
- Not a lot of forest, and I'll have to build on it - so I'll need many workers
- It would have made more sense to focus on a worker instead of the workboats, but I figured it out too late

Defence and logistics:
- Compact peninsula gives good early defence
- Later on, I'll be vulnerable to naval attacks from either side
- Plenty of barbarians from the cold south
- Jungle means no immediate competition for territory
- I can cross the peninsula in the north if I build a city and a fort, though it will spoil a good farm tile

Tech
So far, I've been focusing on the clam tiles and coming up with a hasty defence against the barbarians.

3720 BC - Fishing (I need those clams)
3200 BC - Bronze Working (I need that whipping)
2880 BC - Meditation (got a bit scared someone will take it, since Hinduism was taken early on)
2760 BC - Hunting (since I have 2 ivory anyway)
2560 BC - Archery (it might take too long to connect copper and whipping is a greater priority)

Tech development order for the next month:
Agriculture - for corn and irrigated rice in the north, and more importantly for the granary
Wheel - a must for defence
Pottery - granaries! And will start with cottages
Sailing - the lighthouse will give a big boost to the capital; might give a shot at the lighthouse, but probably not
Husbandry - to develop City 2. I probably have no horses.

Cities
You can see the plan and order on the screenshot above. Granted, City 1 might prove a big tricky to defend.

I find City 2 amusing because of the bugged elephant.

I won't be planning for the very long term yet, and I haven't explored the northern areas. A coastal city in the north, capturing rice and mountain copper, is a possibility. Looks difficult to defend, however, so I might opt out for an inland city on a mountain.

Production
So far, I've been focusing on workboats, so I have no units at all. Shamefully, I wasted the hammers I spent on a warrior during the first turns of growth. However, I thought that workboats had greater urgency.

Turn 35: whipped a worker from 29/60 for 2 pop
Turn 36: overflow 36 goes to Archer
Turn 37: overflow goes to Settler

Production order:
Archer
Settler (whipped/chopped)
Barracks
Worker

Will make a spreadsheet later on.

[Hum]

Why is spirituality a constant threat?

Well, it's easy to switch to military civics for a spiritual leader, letting him create a massive army in no time.

[BRickAstley]

Just as a notice, I moved your thread from the general forum to a Pitboss game subforum, since there are enough threads by players to make sense to do so.

[Commodore]

Thanks for the update! Just a note, I wouldn't be down on your UU; Fast Workers are actually probably the scariest *combat* asset in the game, as well as being amazing for the economy. Never underrate the power of combat roading.

[Hum]

Indeed, I hope I'll be able to put them to use against Alexander.

At present, I'm still quite upset that I got a bit dazzled by the clams and didn't run a simulation game first. Things would have turned out better if I built a worker and a farm straight away.

[Ceiliazul]

just found this pitboss, thanks for reporting. Also, welcome to the Realms!

Did you play much Civ3? Your city placements look a bit like the old "ICS" placement strategy.

[Hum]

just found this pitboss, thanks for reporting. Also, welcome to the Realms!

Did you play much Civ3? Your city placements look a bit like the old "ICS" placement strategy.

Thank you for the welcome, Ceilazul.

I did play a fair deal of Civ3, but it was a while ago, and I was never so theoretical with it as to use a particular strategy. I mainly play on small and crammed maps in single-player, so it's probably a habit from there. Moreover, we are actually playing on a pretty small map, everyone is aggressive, and it seems easier to organise the defence of a small territory.

Do you think some of the cities appear entirely useless? They all look pretty solid to me. Either way, I intend to set out to explore the world outside the peninsula once my first city is somewhat fortified.