[PB59] Ichabod realizes Civ 4 PB is for closers only

[Ichabod]

To be fair, I think Neymar is constantly beaten inside the pitch by the opposition and that is way worse than diving, but I couldn't resist the joke.

We are top food:

   

Pelé:

   

The potential second city is even better than we thought. I guess that settles the deal about where to settle, since the coastal spot seems to be way better.

   

[Ichabod]

   

I don't think we can afford to chase any of the early wonders, as we have not a lot of early hammers to spare. But marble will always help with the Epics and perhaps with some wonders down the road.

[darrelljs]

Someone working a non food tile and someone rocking 5 hammers means IMP Settler? Would have expected 6...

So many forests makes an early wonder more viable perhaps.

Darrell

[Ichabod]

Someone working a non food tile and someone rocking 5 hammers means IMP Settler?  Would have expected 6...

So many forests makes an early wonder more viable perhaps.

Darrell

5 hammers must be a plains hill settle + forested plains hill. IMP Settler bonus won't show in the demos, just base hammers and global bonuses (like forges).

The problem with early wonders is that missing out on one is death, considering the tech costs. And we have no early advantages other than the marble.

   

A potential marble city just got way better. We really need the resources on first ring, because border pops will take ages in the early game. A marble city, thus, would go 1E of the marble, or perhaps on the marble. That would share the pigs and get the powerful rice.

Well, a city on the marble would be a really good city for, let's say, getting oracle. If we had chosen Augustus, that would probably be a very interesting plan.

[Ichabod]

Border pop in the Capital and we have great news.

   

   

Gold!!! Man, the land is so, so good. I wish we had the CRE trait now, as that would make settling way easier. There are some really great cities if you consider all the BFC, but I think that's a big mistake in a normal speed game without a CRE civ. We need to get all good tiles in first ring.

Happy cap will not be a problem in this game, it seems. We have gold, ivory, sugar, incense and wine, that we can already see. A big Capital with cottages is certainly a must. The planned city to the west wouldn't be able to share cottages, but we can settle auxiliary cities in the northern pig and eastern sheep. We could also try for two cities to the west, one for wheat and shared fish, the other for the pigs and crabs, while sharing the wheat. That wheat + fish city would be able to share cottages.

But I don't think I can justify a second city with only 1 new resource in a land this good, with the huge happy cap we'll have. Our second city can also grow a lot. And it'll be a while until we can get cottages going, so the second city doesn't really need to help that much with that.

Perhaps we can find a city with 2 resources + a shared resource near the northern pigs. My scout will go there next.

We'll need AH soon, by the way.

[Ichabod]

I need to come up with some plans, but for now, I'll just keep this updated with pictures. We found stone, so it's very likely that all players will have easy access to the wonder resources. Currently teching BW, likely to go AH next.

   

   

[Ichabod]

   

Something leads me to believe that this islands with happy resources will be contested between a pair of players. If that is indeed the case, we can't slouch on naval units. We'll need sailing soon. IMP/IND would perhaps do good in this map, considering the great land, the wonder resources and the usefulness of MC, but I won't dwell too much on this thought. 

IW is also a tech that interests me, as it will open the jungled gems. We won't be starved for happiness so soon, with Ivory + gold easily within reach, but I'll also eyeing the aggressive swords. I'm expecting a lot of farmer's gambits going on and perhaps a couple of swords can capture an island city here or there.

Current idea is play just with the basics for now. BW, AH, Pottery. Settle some cities, build some granaries. Get workers and settlers. Settle with resources on the inner ring so as to delay monuments in favour of granaries. 

There's two people with size 2 cities, working 9 food, that settled on turn 2. Starts are likely mirrored and those players settled on the sugar, just like us.

[Ichabod]

   

There's no need to explore further south. I can't see a city settled for the sheep that would be better than the pig + wheat site, so I'll defog those tiles later, with a warrior or another unit. Scout will go north, to what appears to be land bridges near the jungle, likely contested land. Next turn, we'll have our worker ready.

[Ichabod]

Worker done, farming the corn. Scout just backtracked, so no new tiles. No contacts yet,

[Ichabod]

Since not much is happening in the next few turns, here's my initial dot map. The general idea is to settle for resources in the inner ring, as previously stated.

   
Here, white dot is my second city. Really powerful, with 2 6-yield resources on the first ring. The map has a lot of water and I expect navies to be important, so this city has to go on the coast (and, well, otherwise we'd orphan the crabs). This city can have crazy food when it wants, so we can use it for GPP on a GA. Long term, there's too much water tiles to make it a top city, but early game, it's really, really powerful, and i'm favouring that right now.

Yellow dot will likely be our first island city (is that an island for sure?), for better routes. I want to build the Moai here soon. For that purpose, we have chops + stone. Placement can change based on what's on the fog, obviously. I like the current spot because it doesn't need a monument before getting Moai (a lot of tiles will be available because of the Capital). We could probably go granary -> ORG lighthouse -> Moai here. We have 2 forests to chop for that purpose as well.

Light blue is a helper city for the Capital. By my current dotmap, it's basically the only city that can help the Capital with cottages. The idea here is to have a city that is easy to get of the ground (shares corn), that brings a new resource and helps the Capital. Seafood can change placement, but not by a lot, I'm hoping there's seafood that fits my current placement. Low priority city, likely to be settled when we start to get worker crunched.

   
Red city is the gold city. Lacks food, so I don't want to whip it that much. Prime candidate for HE city, if we get lucky with the barbs. It'll mostly build units with hammers anyway, I guess, since I can't whip a +2 surplus city. Granary probably has to be chopped. Grow it once, work hills.

Marble city is up to debate. On the marble shares the pig, which is good, since the white dot doesn't need all three food all the time. But i'm also considering a city that would make it possible to connect between the different seas with a canal. The last screenshot shows what a city like that would look like. Perhaps I can get both.

   
Green is a greedy third city, most likely. I'm hoping that the Capital will bring the pig in our borders, so it can be third ring. I need to sim things to see if the timing works out. That city would obvisuly be great. What makes me worry a bit is that the current placement makes our position in the northeastern sea very weak. We have no ports there. My idea would be to make a canal with the black dot + a fort, which would connect the seas (would that work?). But will that be soon enough? Do I need a port on that body of water? If the answer is yes, perhaps changing the black city 1NW would be best (or even 2N1W, to share the corn -> that delays the stone by a lot, though, which delays any Moai plans). About the green city, I think I can plan to change my Capital to it in the future, as this seems like a crazy good Bureau commerce city. It's even easier to get helper cities for cottage growing (especially if we change black dot).

Black city is likely to change, as mentioned above. The idea, again, was to get a powerful inner ring, but perhaps that's not that great of a concern when we settle it.

   
The other black dot is a tentative city for the NW sea. On a hill + fish + helps green dot with cottages. Pretty good, I guess. I also changed the blue dot, to show a possible canal city.

My current plan is white => green => red => island? Something like that. But I really should sim a bit to get a feel for the timings. 

I wish lurkers could comment and give suggestions, as I'd appreciate to learn a bit here. Let's be serious, I'm not winning this, so that wouldn't be so damning for game balance. And such a big game ought to be taken casually. But I understand the restriction, even though I think it's a pity.