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

[shallow_thought]

Ok game is played right now.

Highlights are I got lucky with combat rolls outsite Xmas Present (killed 2 Gallics, 2 Chariots and 1 Axe for the loss of three chariots), but overemphasised the Boudica threat and lost the wheat at Christmas Past to a barb archer who suicided on a chariot ran up to near the city.

Izzy popped up on turn 100 and looked for a Hindu conversion. After about a minutes cogitating I took the offer. Izzy and Mansa are both Hindu and Boudica is Jewish (Mansa will go to war for 250 gold).

The iron landed on the north west coast near Cuman but in any way that culture from there will capture it.

Have added three (unnamed) workers to our corps, whipped one out of Bean a Sidhe for overflow into an axe. We can build up a corps of them if we want to take Gergovia.

Save attached, if I get a chance I'll post a report later this evening, if not tomorrow.

Nice. We may have temporary lost the dry wheat, but the grassland sheep didn't get pillaged. The Hindu switch feels right to me; Boudicca already hates us and this secures us against Mansa. And those worker numbers look a lot better - I'm impressed you managed to do that while at war. Let's give Zalson a chance to get over Christmas, and see what he comes up with.

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok game is played right now.

Highlights are I got lucky with combat rolls outsite Xmas Present (killed 2 Gallics, 2 Chariots and 1 Axe for the loss of three chariots), but overemphasised the Boudica threat and lost the wheat at Christmas Past to a barb archer who suicided on a chariot ran up to near the city.

Izzy popped up on turn 100 and looked for a Hindu conversion. After about a minutes cogitating I took the offer. Izzy and Mansa are both Hindu and Boudica is Jewish (Mansa will go to war for 250 gold).

The iron landed on the north west coast near Cuman but in any way that culture from there will capture it.

Have added three (unnamed) workers to our corps, whipped one out of Bean a Sidhe for overflow into an axe. We can build up a corps of them if we want to take Gergovia.

Save attached, if I get a chance I'll post a report later this evening, if not tomorrow.

Nice. We may have temporary lost the dry wheat, but the grassland sheep didn't get pillaged. The Hindu switch feels right to me; Boudicca already hates us and this secures us against Mansa. And those worker numbers look a lot better - I'm impressed you managed to do that while at war. Let's give Zalson a chance to get over Christmas, and see what he comes up with.

The war isn't all that serious, otherwise Boudicea would be sending the kitchen sink at us rather than dribbling units in. I honestly think our best bet is to add a few axes to Xmas Present and take the first peace that doesn't surrender anything major (She refused to talk any time during my set). We're at a breakpoint where we don't have the attack to kill her defences.

[Brian Shanahan]

Turn 90 look over the world see that it is good and end turn.

Interturn combat (I'd the defence animations off, because of an endgame situation I had in an EitB single player):



Turn 91 Bean a Sidhe goes Chariot>Worker
Xmas Present Chariot>finish the granary
I sent in an unpromoted chariot at 95% odds to mop up and he won without a hit.
Both barb archers in the north ran away, I used the chariot outside Cuman to check the city and then sent him back towards Mansa's territory (by the end of the set he was clear off to Spain).
Drop Science to 20% to get IW and hired a Scientist at Yaqob Marley to keep it under the happy cap.
Split the espionage equally between Boudica and Izzy (and promptly forgot to check it all set. Espionage is one thing I always forget).

Turn 92 Iron Working to Metal Casting (we've no Sailing for Calendar, forgot that requirement, so I thought MC is the best goal immediately). Science to 0% {and it turned out I picked Code of Laws this turn by misclick, so we've three beakers towards that}
Iron Sit:

See the Jewish missionary, Mansa must have got Mono, I don't think AIs spread non state religions outside their borders unless they've the Holy City.
Oh and the Iron's in a bad spot for us. No swords.

Turn 93 Gallic Warrior which was poking around retreats.
Brocken gets Judaism without a missionary (unlucky spread that)

Turn 94 Didn't do much but reposition defences

Turn 95 Bean a Sidhe Worker>Worker (decided to push one more out before we got the copper on line)
Christmas Past Worker>Market
Decide to push my chances against the returning Gallic, send in two suicide chariots, third wins at 6%!!!!
Better to be lucky than good.
Xmas Present Granary>Market (both markets because of gold)

Turn 96 Barb alert at Christmas Present, is on wheat. I overreacted to Boudica and we got hit here.

Turn 98 Copper comes online.
Yaqob Worker>Market (IIRC)
Re stagnate Yaqob, with two scientists this time.

Turn 99 Whip the final few hammers of the worker in Bean a Sidhe to get a big overflow into the ax.
Barb attacked the chariot I scrambled to Christmas Present on the interturn (could have attacked turn 98 but at 75% didn't want to jinx my RNG).
Mansa has access to Elephants:

Copenhagen with 8XP gets C1 and Shock inside Christmas Present. There's an Axe and Gallic outside the city and I decide to let them attack as odds just aren't good enough.

Turn 100On the Interturn the Gallic kills a chariot (probably Copenhagen) to go to less than 3 strength and the Axe dies.
I get this from Izzy:

I took it.
If she changes religion she's going to hate us, though I don't know how likely she'll be able to tech that well.

Before handing off I asked my fellow Hindus if they'd hit Boudica, Izzy can see no reason to attack and Mansa will do this:


I don't think we should offer him the money. At the moment we can burn through MC on that cash in 7 turns, and then whip the forges out for hammers and happy.

[haphazard1]

A few thoughts:

- What crummy placement on the iron. You would need to plant a city to get it within your borders in any reasonable length of time, and unless there is seafood off shore (can't tell from the screenshot but I am assuming not, since nothing was mentioned) there is no food. Yuck. It is grassland and there is a dye there, so you could put a slow-growing city that would provide the iron and pay for itself (dyes, cottages, coastal tiles). It would never be truly strong, but probably worth doing for the iron. At least the iron mine would give it a handful of hammers, so it would be able to get basic infra built. Not a total dud city, but I was hoping for something a lot better.
- Religion. Keep a careful eye on Charlemagne. If he joins the Hindu block you are in a good position diplomatically, but if he goes for something else life could get interesting.
- Markets are pretty expensive builds for what they do at this stage. They do offer some economic help plus slots for merchants if you find yourselves needing more cash flow. But two markets is a lot of hammers. Would a handful of axes for an assault on Gergovia (or barb cities, or whatever) be more useful? Maybe, maybe not, just something to consider.
- And speaking of keeping eyes open, watch out for the insane Aztec to do something crazy now that you are not Buddhist. You just can't trust that guy.

[shallow_thought]

A few thoughts:

- What crummy placement on the iron. You would need to plant a city to get it within your borders in any reasonable length of time, and unless there is seafood off shore (can't tell from the screenshot but I am assuming not, since nothing was mentioned) there is no food. Yuck. It is grassland and there is a dye there, so you could put a slow-growing city that would provide the iron and pay for itself (dyes, cottages, coastal tiles). It would never be truly strong, but probably worth doing for the iron. At least the iron mine would give it a handful of hammers, so it would be able to get basic infra built. Not a total dud city, but I was hoping for something a lot better.
- Religion. Keep a careful eye on Charlemagne. If he joins the Hindu block you are in a good position diplomatically, but if he goes for something else life could get interesting.
- Markets are pretty expensive builds for what they do at this stage. They do offer some economic help plus slots for merchants if you find yourselves needing more cash flow. But two markets is a lot of hammers. Would a handful of axes for an assault on Gergovia (or barb cities, or whatever) be more useful? Maybe, maybe not, just something to consider.
- And speaking of keeping eyes open, watch out for the insane Aztec to do something crazy now that you are not Buddhist. You just can't trust that guy.

As Brian mentioned, there is a second source of iron, down at the barb city of Cuman. I've loaded up the game to poke around, so here's a screenshot.




Looks like we really want to capture Cuman. Given the cost of a settler, keeping this is probably best. I was going to propose considering raze and resettle Orange ring, but it doesn't really matter. We always want to fit three cities in on this coast (including the blue ring fishing town), and while they end up with a lot of overlap, it's mostly tundra and ice, so moving about doesn't help.

Up north, the big question is Chinook. It actually looks like a half-decent site (two food resources!), and actually fits our dot-map OK...ish? It leaves crummy "black dot" to work iron and dyes with no food, as haphazard1 says (could be moved 1S, no real difference).



I'm just unconvinced that we will get Chinook before Mansa does, so we may want to settle to contest the cows, either at big grey or small silver dot.  In this case, the iron actually helps that city. Pink dot is not serious; it dates back from my last turnset before scouting revealed Chinook. We can probably remove the marker.

Some big questions about priorities for Zalson to answer :
- Take Cuman for iron; doable (I guess, we can get CR1 or C1 axes out of BaS that should have OK odds?), but doesn't immediately push back Mansa or Celts.
- Reach for Chinook; would love this site and to block Mansa, but taking two barb cities without iron could get expensive. We could also march troops up there and see Mansa grab it before marching them all the way back.
- Focus on Boudicca; maybe even grab / raze Gergovia (horrible city site; would trade it back to Celts for good feeling in a heartbeat)
And that's without considering the fishing site or anything else in the backlines W of the cap. Of course, if Boudicca turns up with another army, this could be moot. Or there is the very real possibility I've missed something more urgent.

In most cases, we want some axes. I think that the markets are largely hammer dumps, metal has only just come on line, so we should be able to switch without disturbing any plans.

As for tech, I don't mind the three beakers in CoL; it's probably what I would have picked to research next. I'd rather be building tasty, cheap ORG courthouses to help keep the expansion snowball rolling than markets. I can see us wanting to fill a lot of land with mediocre cities soon.

Sailing -> Calendar is also good. Gets those resources, but also cheap lighthouse at FD and we could think about starting Moai there. Lots of whipping food to build it through overflow, and to me it's exactly the sort of meh site that benefits from Moai. There will be better sites (fishing village?) but it takes so long to build that I would value getting it started.

MC is a good tech, but I'd delay it until after these. My thinking is that we've got too much else to build (axes, settlers, always more workers) to want to commit to forge builds, whereas we can easily pop a cheap courthouse in here and there. I'd love to be whipping through forges, but it's going to be slow getting there.

Anyway, as I demonstrated last turnset, the player is free to go their own way, for good or ill. So, will see what Zalson comes up with when he is available .

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the screen shots, shallow_thought! Very helpful.

Cuman is a nice target, with iron and plenty of food. If you raze and replace it 1W you also get the furs. Don't know if that is worth the cost of a settler and delay to regrow the razed population, compared to just keeping the existing site. I could make an argument for either choice on that one.

The iron by the dyes (black dot) is a less than wonderful city site, but it is not terrible. It can easily pay for itself with the dyes and some grassland cottages, and the iron would offer some hammers for building infra. Plus, of course, iron. I would probably grab black dot, unless I had a good shot at massing enough toops to grab Cuman in the near future, just to get the iron, but an alternative would be the grey/silver dots closer to Chinook. Tons of overlap with Chinook, which could be an issue, but you are cultural and could likely keep control of the important tiles there. Strong possibility of conflict with Mansa over this region.

I like the idea of getting your cheap Organized courthouses into play. It would help your economy, allow you to keep expanding (including more marginal sites), and it would boost your EP production which will provide some helpful passive information over time. Forges are very useful, especially when you have luxury metals for extra happiness, but they are quite expensive builds.
Some interesting choices to be made. Good luck!

[Brian Shanahan]

Re the techs I was on 0% after IW so only beakers are dribbles if scientists. My thoughts on MC was more the two free happy with forges than anything else. CoL is always a good tech, but we've not a huge amount of good land to settle into without going unit spam, so it's not as essential as usual.

If we're going to prosecute Boudica then we're best giving Mansa the 250 g this turn for a two on one, it may even pile Izzy on. He's got elephants so he'll be a harder nut to crack (even with his lowish unit prob). I actually prefer peace for now, snipe the barb cities and tech into a stong position for an industrial wipe of the board.

[Zalson]

Got it. Will try for some thoughts tonight.

[Zalson]

I think that adding the markets where we've got gold present is a good idea.

My only nitpick would be the suicide chariot: now Boudica will think she's winning, right? Also, we effectively spent 60 hammers to kill 35 hammers -- but what're we gonna do now?

Chinook's kind of a reach, in my opinion. We don't have units in that theatre and don't need them there. Cuman is significantly more valuable. The +2 happy for metal casing -- in addition to the free hammers it grants -- make it valuable.

My turnset goals:

1. Get Cuman
   
2. Add another city?
   
3. Get metal casing
   
4. Dot map the heck out of our potential areas.
   
5. Peace for concessions from Boudica/use her to get us a great general.
   

[Zalson]

Any comments before I play? Not in too much a rush. But I'd like comment on my plans

The way I see it: we should add at least one city every 10 turns until we have no land left.