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

[shallow_thought]

I've been playing civ IV for a decade, and have only become comfortable on Monarch in the last couple of months (inspired by what I've read on RB - before that I was even worse).

So, to wipe away the shame, it's time for my first game at Emperor.

Is there any interest in getting an SG going? I've noticed a few threads dated from recent months with people still eager to learn and improve.

The intention would be to go for MP-like settings, as getting up for playing MP (on a decade+ old game!) is the aim.

[shallow_thought]

Well, that provoked just about as much interest as could be expected for a short post about a decade year old game from a guy no-one has ever heard of . I never was much of a salesman...

Not a surprise, not a problem. Inspired by Zalston's excellent thread, if there's no other interest I'll do this as a single-player game (my inner nerd points out that just a limiting case of an SG anyway). The discipline of reporting will hopefully improve the quality of the play.

I'll go into detail on settings later, but they will be fairly standard. So, big question is what leader/civ. What matters is traits, then techs, then uniques (in that order).

Let's consider traits. First, "economic":
 FIN: Strong; not very representative of MP, where it's usually banned, modded or combined with a weak trait for balance.
 ORG: Decently strong; could well ease the pain of higher maintenance costs on Emperor.
 
Next, "growth":
  EXP: Cheap granary, cheap workers; extra healthy is icing on the cake. Strong.
  CRE: Takes worrying about border pops off the table; don't have to chase an early religion or henge. Makes dot-mapping easier.
  IMP: Cheap settlers; decent, but not as strong as EXP, probably weaker than IMP.
 
Other decent traits:
 PHI: strong in the hands of someone who knows what their doing; skill cap probably higher than I wan't to deal with right now.   
 SPI: also high skill cap, but offers a bit more value to general play; worth considering if I don't end up with other attractive options.
 IND: cheap wonders and forges; not bad, but not exciting.
 
The rest:
 AGG/CHA: better than PRO.
 PRO: ugh; limited value, even against AI.
 
I think I'd like one economic and one growth trait.

I'd prefer to avoid leaders I've played recently, which takes Pacal, Vicky, and Mehmed off the menu. That leaves:

 Willem - FIN/CRE; fishing/agriculture; dykes (hmm), East Indiaman (situational)
 Julius - IMP/ORG; fishing/mining; forum (meh), Praetorians (ooh - if we have iron...).
 Zara - CRE/ORG; hunting/mining; stele (useless), Oromo (OK).
Also:
 Huayna "Three traits" Capac - FIN/IND; agriculture/mysticism; Terrace (basically CRE), Quecha (at least I'll build some).
 
All of these are strong, but I might need that. All start with agriculture or mining plus one junk tech. Obviously the Incans are in there because of their UB. Praetorians could solve a number of issues if there's iron. Oromo add a small (resourceless) edge at an interesting time in the game. I've found dykes useful to push over the finish line faster if the game goes on that long. So, plenty of choice. Time do some thinking.

Question: does ORG scale better than FIN as difficulty rises?
 
Actually, that leads to a bigger question. What's different on Emperor? Time to do some research...

[taotao]

Well, that provoked just about as much interest as could be expected for a short post about a decade year old game from a guy no-one has ever heard of .

Well, it might (partially at least) also be that it's quite hidden away here at the succession game forum. Perhaps it'd draw more attention if the thread was moved to civ general?

Actually, depending on what happens with pb27 I might be up for joining a sg at some point. Even without pb27 I don't quite have the necessary time for an mp event, but sg's could be fun and emperor (though perhaps not as much of a challenge) is probably my favourite level to play casually.

Inspired by Zalston's excellent thread, if there's no other interest I'll do this as a single-player game (my inner nerd points out that just a limiting case of an SG anyway). The discipline of reporting will hopefully improve the quality of the play.

I loved Zalsons thread and if you pull off something like that I promise to follow with interest and give advise whenever I can.

I'll go into detail on settings later, but they will be fairly standard. So, big question is what leader/civ. What matters is traits, then techs, then uniques (in that order).

Let's consider traits. First, "economic":
 FIN: Strong; not very representative of MP, where it's usually banned, modded or combined with a weak trait for balance.
 ORG: Decently strong; could well ease the pain of higher maintenance costs on Emperor.
 
Next, "growth":
  EXP: Cheap granary, cheap workers; extra healthy is icing on the cake. Strong.
  CRE: Takes worrying about border pops off the table; don't have to chase an early religion or henge. Makes dot-mapping easier.
  IMP: Cheap settlers; decent, but not as strong as EXP, probably weaker than IMP.
 
Other decent traits:
 PHI: strong in the hands of someone who knows what their doing; skill cap probably higher than I wan't to deal with right now.   
 SPI: also high skill cap, but offers a bit more value to general play; worth considering if I don't end up with other attractive options.
 IND: cheap wonders and forges; not bad, but not exciting.
 
The rest:
 AGG/CHA: better than PRO.
 PRO: ugh; limited value, even against AI.
 
I think I'd like one economic and one growth trait.

I'd prefer to avoid leaders I've played recently, which takes Pacal, Vicky, and Mehmed off the menu. That leaves:

 Willem - FIN/CRE; fishing/agriculture; dykes (hmm), East Indiaman (situational)
 Julius - IMP/ORG; fishing/mining; forum (meh), Praetorians (ooh - if we have iron...).
 Zara - CRE/ORG; hunting/mining; stele (useless), Oromo (OK).
Also:
 Huayna "Three traits" Capac - FIN/IND; agriculture/mysticism; Terrace (basically CRE), Quecha (at least I'll build some).
 
All of these are strong, but I might need that. All start with agriculture or mining plus one junk tech. Obviously the Incans are in there because of their UB. Praetorians could solve a number of issues if there's iron. Oromo add a small (resourceless) edge at an interesting time in the game. I've found dykes useful to push over the finish line faster if the game goes on that long. So, plenty of choice. Time do some thinking.

Ok, just to get things straight, you feel like emperor will be somewhat of a challenge for you and you want all the help you can get? How about playing with unrestricted leaders? I'm guessing you're against it for roleplaying purposes?

The leaders you listed are all strong, but just how strong somewhat depends on the map type, initial resources etc. - Things you can influence.
For instance, playing Willem you'd probably want a watery type of map (medium and small or 1-tile wide maze(!) ?) or playing Zara you could do with something a bit more compact, toroidal wrap and early hunting resources...

Question: does ORG scale better than FIN as difficulty rises?

I'd say so yes (though I don't have the math to support it). At noble I'd consider org almost useless, while at immortal+ I almost don't want to play without it. What world wrap you have plays a huge part though as well. Toroidal and org is probably the best trait available, flat and its only a decent trait.
I'd also like to add a comment that I believe org is better on randomly generated SP-maps than the lush monstrosities we generally play on here.
 

Actually, that leads to a bigger question. What's different on Emperor? Time to do some research...

Well, if my memory serves: not that much. AIs still start with "only" one city. They get a whole lot of bonuses for production and research, but those are still possible to overcome.
Do you have tech trading on?
On lower difficulties you might be well off beelining alphabet and start trading around afterwards. On immortal it's usually much better to tech aesthetics, put a few beakers into alpha, trade, and then go from there. Haven't played base bts with tech trading for quite some time so not sure on emperor, but believe aesthetics often might be the best course, but that you're occasionally stuck without anybody else completing alpha in a decent time frame.
Generally I could say that emperor might be the first difficulty where it's possible to stifle your own economy just by expanding. You still definitely do want to expand, but if you push the REX-train hard, then you also need to push commerce by early currency and/or lots of cottages/precious metals/off shore settlements.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'd be interested in an SG. It's been a long time since I've played at emperor, but half the fun's in the chance of losing.

Taotao's right that sticking the formation post here will get less eyeballs than in Civ GD. Maybe open a thread there linking to here.

[shallow_thought]

Well, it might (partially at least) also be that it's quite hidden away here at the succession game forum. Perhaps it'd draw more attention if the thread was moved to civ general?

Actually, depending on what happens with pb27 I might be up for joining a sg at some point. Even without pb27 I don't quite have the necessary time for an mp event, but sg's could be fun and emperor (though perhaps not as much of a challenge) is probably my favourite level to play casually.

I'd be interested in an SG. It's been a long time since I've played at emperor, but half the fun's in the chance of losing.

Taotao's right that sticking the formation post here will get less eyeballs than in Civ GD. Maybe open a thread there linking to here.

That's great - one potential player and one advisor to make sure that the game doesn't take an immediate dive into "losing is fun" territory! I'll take your advice to advertise in the GD thread and see what happens. I get the impression that 4 people is a minimum for a good SG.

Between the two replies, sounds like emperor is a sensible level. I'd actually planned to turn tech trading off, which might theoretically make things harder -  but it's how I usually play, so I don't know how to take advantage of the AI by turning it on.

Other than that, suggested settings are pretty vanilla, but with some of the random elements removed, or MP-like settings chosen.

Size: Standard (I often play small, but that could be a bit variable)
Speed: Normal (quick would be an option, but I'm not used to it)
Map: Pangaea (nothing fancy; continents would be an option)
Wrap: Cylindrical (toroidal does my head in)
All other map settings at default

No Tech Trading
No Vassal States
No Tribal Villages
No Random Events
Barbs on (no farmer's gambits here)

So that would mean a heavily coastal start and empire is unlikely, and we'd be at the mercy of the RNG for strategic resources. I've never really experimented with the balanced map script or balanced resources; some reading suggests that they guarantee strategic resources within 5 tiles of the start (for all players, duh). 

All up for discussion by lurkers or potential players!

[Brian Shanahan]

Well, it might (partially at least) also be that it's quite hidden away here at the succession game forum. Perhaps it'd draw more attention if the thread was moved to civ general?

Actually, depending on what happens with pb27 I might be up for joining a sg at some point. Even without pb27 I don't quite have the necessary time for an mp event, but sg's could be fun and emperor (though perhaps not as much of a challenge) is probably my favourite level to play casually.

I'd be interested in an SG. It's been a long time since I've played at emperor, but half the fun's in the chance of losing.

Taotao's right that sticking the formation post here will get less eyeballs than in Civ GD. Maybe open a thread there linking to here.

That's great - one potential player and one advisor to make sure that the game doesn't take an immediate dive into "losing is fun" territory! I'll take your advice to advertise in the GD thread and see what happens. I get the impression that 4 people is a minimum for a good SG.

Between the two replies, sounds like emperor is a sensible level. I'd actually planned to turn tech trading off, which might theoretically make things harder -  but it's how I usually play, so I don't know how to take advantage of the AI by turning it on.

Other than that, suggested settings are pretty vanilla, but with some of the random elements removed, or MP-like settings chosen.

Size: Standard (I often play small, but that could be a bit variable)
Speed: Normal (quick would be an option, but I'm not used to it)
Map: Pangaea (nothing fancy; continents would be an option)
Wrap: Cylindrical (toroidal does my head in)
All other map settings at default

No Tech Trading
No Vassal States
No Tribal Villages
No Random Events
Barbs on (no farmer's gambits here)

So that would mean a heavily coastal start and empire is unlikely, and we'd be at the mercy of the RNG for strategic resources. I've never really experimented with the balanced map script or balanced resources; some reading suggests that they guarantee strategic resources within 5 tiles of the start (for all players, duh). 

All up for discussion by lurkers or potential players!

Your game, your rules. I'm not that worried by game settings (well apart from no vassal states, as that really effs up wars Edit: vassals on I mean).

[Zalson]

I'm in if you'll have me!

I am fine with whatever settings you choose. Just please, no protective/Arabia (I'd like to be able to maybe improve a tile if we snipe a worker).

Also: we can always farmer's gambit with barbs on. The whole "having no defenders" on your interior cities works wonders!

Maybe that's a variant rule? You can only have defenders in a city if the city itself creates them? It's not actually too difficult: you'd just have to have a sentry net and prioritize building a warrior every now and then.

That's just a suggestion: it's up to you if want to take it.

[shallow_thought]

I'm in if you'll have me!

I am fine with whatever settings you choose. Just please, no protective/Arabia (I'd like to be able to maybe improve a tile if we snipe a worker).

Also: we can always farmer's gambit with barbs on. The whole "having no defenders" on your interior cities works wonders!

Maybe that's a variant rule? You can only have defenders in a city if the city itself creates them? It's not actually too difficult: you'd just have to have a sentry net and prioritize building a warrior every now and then.

That's just a suggestion: it's up to you if want to take it.

Welcome aboard! I can promise, no protective civs.

However, I've rolled some candidate starts, and it looks like I may be continuing your luck with starting land.

So, noob question. How do I best take upload screenshots? Obviously I can use Printscreen to get a shot, but they're quite large...

[Zalson]

Are you on mac or windows? Mac you can use preview to edit the image; Windows you can use paint.

imgur.com is a good upload vehicle. I use my own hosting because I like to control how I spend my time and imgur isn't good for me in that regard.

If we can, maybe some nice person can review the map for us? Or you can just post the starts (I think that's where your question came from).

[Zalson]

Naming scheme: famous ghosts?