[SPOILERS] Cornflakes Returns to Civ 4: Forget 1UPT, STACK OF DOOM!!!!!

[Cornflakes]

T0:

   
Settle and scout to the southeast. Lots of green, many forests, few resources yet [slaps writs for forgetting resource bubbles]. Located wine which is intermediate-term happy. I'm pondering the possibility of early beeline down the bottom of the tech tree, so wine fits for a happy resource. Possibly even self-researching Metal Casting since it is cheaper in the mod and sandbagging Oracle to take Machinery   I suspect that my traits will deter someone from rushing Oracle so it's worth a shot, right? I can put most of the hammers into Oracle taking advantage of the production modifier for boosted failgold in the event somebody 1-turn completes the wonder before I unlock Machinery. 150 will fuel research for a while as a consolation prize. IND early Metal Casting > Machinery + SPI can take advantage of serfdom & vassalage civics at Feudalism sounds like a decent plan. What if I skip Mathematics [just chop everything early] + Alphabet [no foreign trade ] + Currency [only +1 commerce / city]? I lose wealth and science builds but save 1400 beakers ( = nearly cost of Guilds). Also if I avoid Mathematics and research Iron Working, a GEngineer can bulb Guilds (iron is necessary for knights anyway).

The advantage of the guilds beeline is that I can put watermills and workshops down for hammers on all those riverside tiles. Imagine watermills in a golden age turning riverside grassland into 2/2/1! Floodplains are apparently eligible for watermills as well. That sounds like a superbly juicy when a Golden Age is added on top. Then go bash some heads with knights built from all those hammers

First thought for scout movements is wider RED route through SE-SE plains hill and then starting counterclockwise circuit. On the other hand, given the tundra bleeding through from the south I'm considering the more direct PINK route to scout the river(s) more before animals are a problem. I'll likely follow RED for the additional map info even though it is likely tundra backlines. I'll need that extra few tiles of defogging southwards in order to intelligently locate a city east of my capital. YELLOW dots indicate tiles that should be revealed by T5 border pop, quite a few tiles actually thanks to all the 2nd ring hills. Defensive situation is decent. I can't be attacked on the NW or SW diagonals. NE and SE I'll have an extra turn of vision thanks to hills. My biggest concern early on is Impi, and then barb defense.

[Charriu]

Seeing that some players had problems setting up their sims, I decided to provide everybody with an accurate sim.

[Cornflakes]

Thanks Charriu

T3:

   

Found 3 calendar happy resources, cows, and a very long river. Also Marble within what should be solidly my sphere of influence to the south. RED dotted line is the scout's traveled path, solid line is the future path northwest continuing the CCW circuit. The saltwater in the south and west presumably connects, making the area immediately to the south of the capital a safe peninsula.

[Cornflakes]

T4:

   

See demographics screenshot for commentary. Much anticipation for the additional map info next turn from border pop.

[Cornflakes]

T5 - Border pop nearly doubles the amount of revealed terrain:

   
   

Map dimensions: 42 x 34 = 1428 tiles. Divide by 7 players = 204 tiles each, take square root = approximately 14 x 14 area/each. Score mouseover indicates 932 land tiles = 133/each (65% land, no circumnavigation).

There is massive happiness resource count visible! Furs, silver, gold, wine, sugar, dye, incense, spices. That's +8 without building multipliers, and more importantly 3 early / 2 forge-doubled. With just furs + gold + silver + forges we will have happy cap of 9 (10 in capital). On top of that, stone and marble are both within reach! Silver is 3rd ring to capital so will be within borders at T50 expansion ... good thing too since food is scarce there.  

Speaking of food so far, so far food looks quite scarce. The beautiful eastern river is barren except for a floodplains, cows that are likely-as-not closer to a rival, and sheep too far for 2nd city. No food to the north or west yet within share-able range of the capital's food. Wheat to the northeast is nice, allowing me to delay hunting, but unfortunately a city in the vicinity will not have immediate trade connection to the capital without roads. I'll need a few more turns of scouting before I can sketch some dots around the wheat. Something to consider though is that the Wheat may be the only food with which to reach Gold. The hill 1SE of Wheat would work with a terrace-border-pop but that is likely too far a reach for a 2nd city when I only have a single Quechua.

My current opening build sequence is Work Boat > Worker > Quechua > Settler EOT 28 [chop + double whip] > Worker > Q > Q (research Fishing > Mining > BW). I plan on playing very conservatively with the scout since I will only have a single Quechua defender (Animals start appearing on the turn roll). I was tentatively hoping for a good city location 3rd ring to the capital where I wouldn't have to spend any turns outside borders, or just a single turn outside borders with stacked Q + scout to ward off marauding animals. I'm not overly concerned about safety since I will have some hammers into a 2nd Quechua from growing, able to complete in 2 turns comfortably or 1 turn if I work max hammers and neither food resources. It would delay 2nd city a couple of turns but I could easily get out the 2nd Q if deemed necessary.

[Cornflakes]

T8: C&D update.

There is added complexity in score tracking this game since pop growth and tech research are both 6 points each. It will therefore be difficult to distinguish between them as the game progresses. For now though top 5 screen indicates one other capital grew to size 2, and Mr. Cairo’s 12 point gain clearly identifies him as the one.

I researched Fishing in 6 turns. 3 players researched a tech in 7 turns which could either be Fishing at 11bpt (working hammer tile as opposed to my riverside floodplain), or Mining at 12 bpt Working a lake (only possible with Fishing as a starting tech). Therefore it’s pretty clear that JR4 and Superdeath both researched Fishing while Wetbandit with a Fishing start researched Mining. Rival average power is consistent with 1 mining research.

DZ and BGN/Mr. C both researched an 8-turn tech, but BGN/Mr. C with a Fishing start has 1 extra bpt (assuming all starts had a lake seafood) which is enough for Agriculture. Rival average power is consistent with DZ researching Mining. For confirmation next turn I would expect rival max GNP to increase to 21 as DZ Ceative gets arrow-bonus on Bronze Working [note in above demographics markup I was technically correct in noting that CRE/Zulu did not open with BW, but that’s it obvious because Zulu don’t start with Mining ].

Elkad has not yet researched anything. I would expect either Agriculture next turn or a few turns delay for Bronze Working. What is the overall takeaway? From two rivals opening with Fishing research I gather that everyone must have a lake seafood. DZ does indeed appear to be on the BW/Impi beeline subject to GNP confirmation next turn.

Demographics from this turn:

   

Rival best food of 8 is Mr. C with 2 pop. Rival average of 6 indicates that many rivals went with Workboat first and netted their lake seafood last turn. I on the other hand grew first and am now maxing hammers to complete the workboat:

   

With 2 food in the box I'll be able to complete the WB in 2 turns at -1F. I'm curious to see how this compares to my rivals. Are they building warriors now while growing to 2 pop? Are they building workers now still at pop 1? I'm curious to see how it works out for us.

Northern scouting:

   

Lots of floodplain but few food resources. Tentatively city #2 at YELLOW 1SE of Wheat with future city on the BLUE hill with the scout. #2 will be a stretch there with only 1 Q + 1 Scout, but compared to the alternative locations available I don't see anything better. Wheat in 1st ring which can be improved with current tech. Border pop picks up furs + gold which will greatly boost early commerce. Enough hills for future production/commerce hybrid city. I think I'd prefer delaying city #2 by 2 turns if necessary in order to get the 2nd Q to safely settle YELLOW, rather than settling a closer sub-optimal location closer to home. We can put a few cottages down at #2, and then once we reach the happy cap we can work gold + cottages while founding BLUE and swapping the wheat there.

BLUE will be nothing but commerce with no production, until Watermills. Question then, is it really worth cottaging at BLUE if I'm going to later want watermills on all those floodplain & grass? For the first 10 turns cottages are equal to just working lake, then as hamlets they are ahead +1. It probably still makes sense to cottage even if I decide to later pave over them with watermills. Or just cottage the corner tiles? But the only floodplain corner tile is 2nd ring.

I played a test game on current game settings and found severe commerce limitations. Gold I can generate through +100% IND/Stone/Marble failgold, but still I need commerce for beakers. Research was painfully slow and I had trouble scraping together commerce. What are all of the possible sources of commerce/beakers in the game?

• base riverside +1
  
• Cottage > hamlet > etc.
  
• Scientist/merchant specialists are an option, but food intensive and this is a food poor map. Even with Pyramids I won't be able to generate many beakers this way. I could farm a floodplain to support a specialist, or I could cottage a floodplain + grassland and get more commerce that way.
  
• Base coast +2. Could be boosted to +3 with Colossus ... but with only a dozen or so water tiles in borders for the foreseeable future that seems like a questionable investment, considering I'll also have to invest hammers into Lighthouses.
  
• Resources like Gold/Silver/Furs will provide welcome shots in the arm, but those will be limited. Also plantation resources to a similar degree later on.
  
• Trade Routes, but probably no internal 2c overseas routes from an island given the initial scouting. Foreign routes won't be unlocked for a while.
  
• Anything obvious I missed?
  

[Cornflakes]

T9:

   

Found an even more dense pocket of luxury resources! Only gems are new though. The row of floodplains 1S of scout are 7 tiles from my capital. I'm not sure where to send the scout now. Options include:
a) follow the river NW to find a rival (presumably about 2-3 turns further)
b) continue CCW circuit to scout around the stone. At the moment this is most likely course of action.
c) turn NE and circle CW around the the freshwater lake.
d) Return without any further exploration to spawnbust (for 20 turns??) around city #2 location.

Rival max GNP is indeed 21 confirming DZ is headed to BW. If starts are mirrored or very similar (as they appear to be) then DZ's worker will have 5 turns idle to either farm a grassland or partially farm a floodplain before starting to chop. Also his seafood 2nd food resource will be connected a dozen turns later than the rest of the field. The only way I see this coming out ahead is impi rush with riverside copper, or settle on the copper and chop. Otherwise we will reach BW > Wheel at the same time (or DZ delays fishing even further and gets Wheel a half dozen turns quicker).

Elkad did not research a tech so he is either headed to BW, or tech swapping to hide Agriculture and make if look like BW (which doesn't work due to the comparatively massive power spike from BW). Elkad must have pigs as his equivalent of my grass-wheat.

[Cornflakes]

Nice 2-turn/day pace for the most part so far Turn 10 brings rumors of intelligent life! Faint signs of civilization appear on the horizon:

   

I decided that it was worth knowing who was competing for the north since my first expansion will likely be northwards. I therefore moved a little more risky with the scout into a location with 5 fogged tiles. Fortunately no animals were lurking in the unknown. Grey borders are peeking through the fog to the north, probably Elkad's Germany but slight chance of Superdeath's modified-White France. Anything but Zulu is fine with me! Spacing is 14 tiles vertically / 2 tiles horizontally, which matches the previous rough guesstimate of 7 tiles to the mid-point. BLUE dot would be considered "aggressive", the hill 1SE of cows would likely be "contentious" since border pop expands to the mid-line (even though it is only 5 tiles from my capital). Once I have better understanding of neighbors I can determine how I want to play the geopolitical situation. Ideally I'd like to

Next turn I can go NE-S making contact but retreating onto the hill still in vision but appearing to have come from the north/east, with the idea to continue southwest to the stone region. This is what I will probably do. Alternatively I could go NE-N to try and get vision on the capital tile, or S-SW to avoid contact. City center vision gains some C&D value at the cost of greater scout risk. I see no value in avoiding contact with either Germany or France. The appearance of animals can always change plans 

   

Workboat netted clams this turn and I've started the 8-turn worker.

[naufragar]

Once I have better understanding of neighbors I can determine how I want to play the geopolitical situation. Ideally I'd like to

Win the game through brutal and cunning methods? (We lost some of your words. )

[Cornflakes]

Once I have better understanding of neighbors I can determine how I want to play the geopolitical situation. Ideally I'd like to

Win the game through brutal and cunning methods? (We lost some of your words.  )

Whoops ... ideally I'd like to be able to identify a potentially weaker neighbor to settle more aggressively against while maintaining friendly borders elsewhere. That won't come into play though until cities 4/5+ most likely, when I know who my neighbors are and have an idea whether they came out of the starting gate running, or stumbled early.

T11: Contact! Elkad's Germany is indeed to our north. And his worker is improving a pigs tile, so the weeping and gnashing of teeth won't be nearly as bad as if he had an agriculture resource like my start.

   

I have a little over 15 turns before I need to be back to the YELLOW region to help guide the settler. I'll probably move the scout NW-W to reveal more of the territory between Elkad and me before returning south. Fog gazing identifies previously-missed saltwater tiles near cows/stone indicating a larger body of water there. Does that connect to the bay that my capital is founded on? Time will tell. First animal sighting occurred this turn. Citizens of Cuzco [no, I have not yet settled on a naming scheme] report a lion roaming in the hills to the southeast.

JR4 grew to size 2. Curiously rival best food did not increase so I must assume that JR4 is working a hammer tile in order to finish a warrior before starting his worker.