[PB75] Newbfragar and Rusty's Beginner's Guide to Civ4

[naufragar]

Fast turn pace. Next turn we start Literature. The turn after that we finish it. Hopefully with the weekend approaching, Ramk will have time to work his magic. I'll ping him on Civforum tomorrow in case.

[naufragar]

I miscalculated. A reload would've been much smoother. Misjudged how busy Ramk would be. If we can't reverse the Engineer screw-up, I don't know. I guess we have to play on, which would suck freaking massively. Because not only would I have misfired the engineer, I also would've spent a thousand beakers for no reason.

[naufragar]

Well, the weekend came and went with no magical reverse engineering. We play on and my game is f-ing shot. Well, my fault for pressing the wrong button. So be it.

We do the best we can and start the Great Library in the capital.



Let me explain why this is so disastrous. I was going to build the Library in a city with no hammers by means of that Engineer. So instead, I have to build it in a city with hammer output that can also run specialists to stack up on the free scientists the Library gives. The only city that fits that description is the capital (because all of our other cities are built on trash land). And since I'm building the Library here, I'll also need to build the National Epic to stack the specialist points. Which means I can't build any other National Wonders here, since you're capped at two, so no shot of Oxford or whatever. And for the 18 turns that I build these two wonders, I won't be using the capital's excellent production for anything else, so I'll be missing out on a stack of ~9 catapults. F me. That's the game. Remember how I talked about leveraging advantages? Instead, all I'm doing is playing everyone else's game, but with a horrific land and trait disadvantage.


But! I'm making a commitment, and I want you to hold me to it. I'm done complaining about my slice of the map. Honest. Here's why: it clear that the weakness of my area was just an oversight. Folks forgot to check it before sending the map out. This actually makes me feel better. Not good, but I can accept it now.

I realized it this turn because we researched Iron Working. Take a look at all the capitals that we have vision of:

Superdeath

Iron 3 tiles from cap.

Ricketyclik

Iron 2 tiles from cap.

Gavagai

Iron 2 tiles from cap.

Greenline

Iron 2 tiles from cap.

Ginger/Civac

Iron 3 tiles from cap.

GT

Iron 2 tiles from cap.

Naufragar

No iron. Luckily I was able to stretch way far out to get some. Oh well. Life goes on.

[Thoth]

What is the second Nat Wonder you have planned for the capital if not Oxford?

[Commodore]

Oops. Hoping you pop one in compensation.

[naufragar]

What is the second Nat Wonder you have planned for the capital if not Oxford?

Oops. Hoping you pop one in compensation.

Harumph. Listen, I'm trying to indulge my depressive streak and take my readers along with me. Fine fine. I'll be """honest."""" (Not sure I have it in me.)

I can still grab Oxford. I have no plans for any other national wonders besides Moai/Heroic Epic which is already earmarked elsewhere. (And Ironworks I guess.  ) And I'm not in trouble for iron:


One popped near my Superdeath border, which is good. Another is in the Moai/HE spot, which is excellent. Yeah, no iron problems. 

I do have relative tech problems:


Despite being in a golden age for the past 10 turns, I don't have anywhere near the research spike that my neighbors GT and Superdeath have had.

Speaking of GT, he's about the be a huge problem.


This is bad bad bad. There's no reason for a road on GT's southern mine except as a staging route to invade me. His northern worker has no business being on that tile unless building a road for invasion or cramming in the most obnoxious city possible. And after all this time, GT is scouting me with a chariot. Bad news. I don't think I'm particularly weak right now but boy I sure wish the capital could build units instead of wonders. 



Well, time to stew in paranoia.
Live look at naufragar planning his Civ4 turns:

[Commodore]

Well, at least you have crossbows this way...

[naufragar]

Well, at least you have crossbows this way...

That's true. I'm going to give myself a couple more turns to churn out catapults, then I might go for a round of Crossbows.

Because the world is scary.


(I'm not actually researching full bore yet. I just turned it on to show you the demos screen.) Ginger/Civac just threw their golden age and converted to Christianity. Their research rate in a golden age is double mine in a Golden Age.  Holy smokes, we're doomed. They also took Theology. This puts them ahead in a Liberalism race. (Not that I'm really racing, but still.)

You can also see that I've caught up in power to everyone except Gavagai and Superdeath who have massive armies. Superdeath has signaled his friendliness and Gavagai has no vector into me, but I still worry. I would think that they would fight, but if Superdeath thinks he can't make any gains into Gav, he might start getting antsy.

On the other hand, Gav must have something like double the power of Mjmd. Mjmd has had no soldiers or anything all game. It's infuriating. All he does is steal my Pyramids and then lies there like a slug!    How come I get the spikey Superdeaths and GTs of the world instead of the delicious Mjmds and Ricketclicks!  (No offense, Ricketyclick. You had a brutal neighborhood for a first game.)

Edit: Wow my demos are bad.

[naufragar]

Opened the turn up to this:



GT was polite enough to send me a PM about the war, so I knew it was coming. I also figured out what happened before the turn got to me:



Because I don't think like a brigand, I didn't have a garrison in this sleepy little village on the coast of my empire. I should've anticipated the danger and closed borders last turn. But again, I'm a man of peace, so I don't pay attention to stuff like this.

As infuriating as losing a city is (and during a golden age when I want to be building infrastructure!), this was just about as good as it could be. Gavagai declared war on Superdeath this turn, and this gives me diplomatic cover to stay out of that war. In Superdeath's eyes, he and I can demilitarize and focus on the other neighbor. (N.B. it's very difficult for me to trust a Superdeath DMZ.) And now Ljubljana knows where I stand on the GT question. All it cost me was a lovely city with infrastructure painstakingly grown without hammers. 

I'm not ready for war but if both GT and I need to use our Golden Age turns for fighting, so be it. I've got more Golden Age turns to waste than he does. (Needing to build wonders instead of units in my cap is hurting like a bitch right now.)

All the same, thank you.

[Tarkeel]

Yeah, this is a good example of why I strongly dislike people that scout with charitots, especially in the phase of the game before borders expand to fill in the entirety of the land. Which might be a topic worthy of a lesson on it's own?