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

[Tarkeel]

It's always hard to know if you'll be understood. The four resources listed are the ones at GT's capital. My offer is to buy the city off Ljubljana for 200 gold. I'm incredibly poor, so this is like a dozen turns of research for me, but the capitals on this map are so much richer than everywhere else, so GT's cap would be quite a prize. Of course, Ljubljana doesn't actually own GT's capital yet, so this 200 gold is really me buying right-of-way to take it. (I'm very unsure that I actually can capture it in a reasonable time frame. )

Bonus points for explaining the bewildering diplo in your report. I completely agree that being predictable is a key trait to successful diplo, and part of that is trying to explain what your weird messages means for after the game.

[naufragar]

Bonus points for explaining the bewildering diplo in your report. I completely agree that being predictable is a key trait to successful diplo, and part of that is trying to explain what your weird messages means for after the game.

Looks like Ljubljana figured it out!


He wants more money and to stay military allies. That price tag is too high, so I've backed off GT's capital. Oh well.

I've indicated my withdrawal through the diplo interface. As I've probably said a million times, I want Ljubljana to spike Ginger's tires.

Ginger Alert


Ginger just completed the Taj Mahal, throwing his own golden age, and revolting to the Theocracy and Vassalage civics. These give lots of experience to his soldiers, so he's likely thinking martial thoughts. I'd bet he's about to savage one of his southern neighbors. I forget who's down there. It's interesting that the north of the continent is full of action, while the south are a bunch of layabouts. Going clockwise from the western equatorial zone, we have Superdeath who killed Ricketyclik, me who troubled GT, GT who declared war on me, Ljubljana who will eat the majority of GT, and lastly Ginger. The south is everybody else and between all those players, the only conflict has been one war chariot snipe in the stone age. Strange game.

Ginger also returned to his village-pillaging ways the very turn after he asked for open borders!  I declared war on him and killed his chariot but not before it did probably about 100 gold in damage.  My choice of player pic for him was prescient.

Ginger and Civac have built a monster empire for themselves and will win the game because of it:



I've tried to play as well as them, but they seem inimitable.


It's plains to see I'll have to do better. 

[naufragar]

No time for a big t150 report, so instead have the weirdest Civ screenshot I've seen in a while:


GT crossed the entire width of Mjmd's empire with his army rather than defending his cities, so he could attack Gavagai, a player he never neighbored, facilitating the conquest of Gavagai by Superdeath. I don't think I can enumerate all the weirdnesses adequately. First, GT could've massively damaged me with his catapult stack. Second, his choice of target makes no sense that I can see. Third, Mjmd, who has been able to coast by with 0 military units due to Gavagai demilitarizing their border, backstabs his excellent neighbor by letting GT get all the way through to hit Gav. Mjmd is giving Superdeath an easier time, so when Superdeath does finally roll through Gavagai, Mjmd (who, again, has built no army) will be the next easy meal. It's astonishingly bad play by Mjmd. What has he been up to since stealing my Pyramids??? Oh and fourth, GT gave his Great General Pike 30% withdrawal chance. Hmm.

Gav asked me to declare war on Superdeath. I probably should, but I already told Superdeath we'd have peace. I did give Gav a couple spare luxuries. This probably makes Superdeath very unhappy if he notices, but eh. Superdeath's winning his war at a romp:


I don't know who I want to see win least, Superdeath who lucked into neighboring the newbie with Praetorians or Ginger of the infinite grasslands. (Ginger has built well. I'm just cranky.)

Oh well. Time to rebuild and get these newly conquered cities up and running.

[naufragar]

Wow. I didn't actually think that Superdeath would pose an existential threat to Gav, mainly because Gav knows what he's facing in Superdeath and presumably would've been preparing defenses this whole time. It seems like it wasn't enough:


Now, these northern cities were never going to be defensible. Superdeath's borders fork four of them, but SD is poised to take something like 8 cities from Gavagai. After that, Gav's production capacity will be non-existent and Superdeath finishing the job will be easy. (Which is why Mjmd's play of letting GT ruin the buffer Mjmd had between himself and Superdeath was atrocious. Barring intervention, after SD eats Gav, tasty Mjmd is next.)

I truly did think about pivoting to attack SD, but I gave Superdeath my fishy word just two turns ago. I've closed borders. I'm ok with him being a little more tense towards me. I doubt it's in time to draw any units away from Gav, but maybe it saves my buddy Mjmd (who stole my Pyramids and did nothing with them! ).

Mjmd is still facilitating GT's goofiness.


We snatched these workers.

Pseudo-edit: I've talked a ton about the politics of these donut maps a ton, but here's one more bit to think about before you make one: once a player can survive an attack by both their neighbors they cannot be stopped. The maximum number of participants in a donut-map dogpile is 2. Food for thought as Superdeath steamrolls one player after another with no possibility of them banding together to stop him. PB38, PB42, PB64, PB69, PB75; why is it always poor, earnest naufragar who is tasked with sacrificing his civ to rein in a runaway? Getting awfully tired of it.

[Commodore]

How can you leverage your Phi to outcompete? You seem positioned to be more economic than SD and more biggerer than Gingac.

[Tarkeel]

The bigger question is, will GT be available to cover when you're away?

[naufragar]

Alright, alright, I’ll break character. And I probably should if Tarkeel , GT , or another kindly lurker plans to grab my turns in the first week of June. But in spoilers because old habits die hard.

There's always a plan. I currently have a banked Great Scientist and will produce another in 3 turns. You can see I’m slow researching Alphabet. I’m doing this to save gold. In three turns, I’ll research Alphabet which will open up Chemistry for a double bulb. I’ll still need probably ~2 more turns of gold saving, then I research Military Science in 8 turns. (7 if I have way more beakers than I’ve estimated.)

Military Science unlocks Grenadiers, which are upgraded from pikes (and maybe Crossbows?) so I can be slow building pikes in all of my non-GT cities and finish them as Grenadiers a turn or two after researching the tech.

Attacking with 1-move infantry when your enemy has Engineering (3-move roads) is always hella dicey, but so be it. I don’t know what the field’s tech level is. I imagine Ginger is currently building Cuirassiers. SD got a Great Engineer recently, so It’s possible he’s looking to bulb gunpowder. I haven’t seen any Knights from him, so hopefully that’s a ways away. Knights can’t defend against Grens. Muskets can. (For what it’s worth, I closed borders this turn, so he’ll never see a Gren from me. I haven’t built a musket, so hopefully there’s some doubt there, too.)

The timing is just a little off. If I were maybe 5 turns faster, his army would be mostly stuck in Gavagaistan. As it is, I think his conquest of Gav is over before I attack. Regardless, my goal (or my hope) is that I can start making inroads in his north. His empire is hilariously long, so if Gav is in any way alive, SD has to at least worry about a vengeful attack in his south. Again, infantry attacks are always dicey (as Commodore knows (I’m at work so I can’t link your opus)).

All depends on the technology gap. There’s just no way I can annihilate an empire as big as Superdeath’s, but if I can put him on the back foot for long enough, hopefully Grenadiers remove him from contention. We’ll reevaluate once that’s done.

Superdeath is my bugbear. Ljubljana and I have had enough friendly interactions that I’m not worried about him in the short term. Meanwhile, it’s Ljubljana’s job to deal with Ginger. And for his part, it’s Ginger’s job to deal with Ljubljana. Things in that area will explode soon, I expect. Ginger has good tech, but Ljubljana will outscale him. On the other hand, Ginger’s tech is good enough that he’ll never be easy prey and Ljubljana won’t be able to relax his Ginger-side to make gains against me. (I hope. )

So my path to victory is to kneecap Superdeath while Ljubljana and Ginger stymie each other. After my 2nd Chemistry scientist, it’ll take ~30 turns to produce another 2 for Education for Philosophical Universities. Hopefully by then I’ll have reduced Superdeath and Ljubljana will be occupied. And as I mentioned in the last report, so long as one can hold off the two neighbors, one is made in the shade with a pink lemonade. That’s the plan at least. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

[Commodore]

You might want to test those upgrades. I remember it's weird, something like maces upgrading to both grens *and* machine guns, and pikes can be rifles and grens both? Been a while since I've upgraded en masse like that, although the occasional hero unit gets the money of course. Have GGs banked for Military Academies?

[Tarkeel]

Answers in spoilers then.

I've been basically ded-lurking since the offer was made, so I should probably be unspoiled enough by the time it's needed.

Pikes, crossbows and maces all upgrade to rifles and grens, muskets and LBs only upgrade to rifles. Rifles upgrades to infantry but grenadiers upgrade to rifles and machineguns, which might be what Comm was thinking off?

[naufragar]

(I should clarify that I'm talking about queue-upgrades. I'm so dang broke; I've got no money to spend on gold upgrades.)

Pikes, crossbows and maces all upgrade to rifles and grens, muskets and LBs only upgrade to rifles.

Is this true about pikes? I'm 80% sure that pikes don't upgrade to rifles, just grenadiers, although I've been burned before. I remember some game I tried to queue-upgrade triremes to caravels and that blew up in my face. Will probably make a good beginner lesson in a bit. (The Civilization wikia lists both rifles and grens as upgrade paths, but I'm skeptical & want to check for myself.)

I don't have a Great General ready for a military academy, because I've done very little fighting against GT! I've birthed two (as Imperialistic) which have stacked into one city for 3-promo knights. (A third great general would enable 3-promo infantry.  ) GT has basically avoided pitched battle (which is what makes the odyssey of his siege units so odd).