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

[naufragar]

Sailed a couple of ironclads into Superdeathian waters to gauge his willingness for peace. He instantly took it and offered fish for fish. I accepted fish for fish, declined open borders. I'm in mercantilism, and I think SD gains more from scouting me than I do him. Interestingly, he paused his Astro research. That would be kind of him.

Mjmd grabbed Communism, not Physics. He threw a golden age, revolting into Free Religion and Free Speech. He's going to make so much damn money. Nukes on the horizon. Free Speech also gives a +100% culture modifier, and he's the Sistine Chapel owner. Edit: Mjmd may build Kremlin. With my complete lack of food, it'd be worthless to me, but Mjmd might have more of a surplus. We'll see.

On the other hand, Ginger is about to grab Physics. In response, Ljubljana has ramped up military production. He's offered a cow for cow trade so as not to spook me.

[naufragar]

Mjmd won the Physics Great Scientist! He and Ginger finished the tech on the same turn, and Mjmd won the coinflip! He's gotten so disgustingly lucky this game, but, unless I'm mistaken, Ginger had opportunity to beat Mjmd to this. 

[naufragar]

I'm hopeful that pictures will resume tomorrow. This (t235) was an interesting turn. I got Railroad. I've never gotten this far into the tech tree. It's fun. Railroad will hopefully enable me to defend both eastern and western ends of my empire.

Ljubljana has been reinforcing the city on my border. He also dumped 90 espionage points into me last turn, hiding his graphs.  After factoring out the Nationalism espionage bonus, that's 72 EP. He has 42 cities. A courthouse in each is 84EP. It's unlikely that he has a courthouse in each (his capital, e.g.), so this is likely all his espionage spending.

[naufragar]

I've been working on the railroad all the live-long day.


Priority one is to connect the western seaboard to the garrison at One Trick Hedgehog. In a couple turns I'll have a caravel screen. My peace treaty with SD expires on t240. Hopefully, we enjoy a long peace.

My position in this came can be dynamic, but I need someone else to make the first move. If Ginger attacks Ljubljana, I can pitch in and make that war pretty decisive. If Ljubljana attacks Mjmd, I can pitch in and help spike the front runner. (If Mjmd attacks Superdeath, I'm not going to help.) But all this requires someone to act first. I'm too small and puny to take point. Oh well. Fun to build my railroads.

[naufragar]

Hell is other players.

Some 15 turns ago I proposed to Ginger that he and I attack Ljubljana. I would hit first, taking out Ljubljana's Heroic Epic city, and Ginger would follow up a few turns later when Ljubljana had redirected his forces. Even with Cavalry, Ljubljana wouldn't not be able to defend both sides of his empire and, I hoped, he would collapse under the strain.

Ljubljana is no idiot. He's been preparing for the possibility:


He has a total of 4 different scouting units in my territory, not counting Sentry units on his own border. He's reinforcing his border city with ridiculously highly promoted Rifles despite all the garrisons on my side being axes or crossbows. Smart guy, that Ljubljana. (Also, like clockwork, he asks for a cow-for-cow trade every ten turns to gauge my intentions. A teeny bit exasperating.)

Ljubljana has to defend like this because even though my troops are 16+ tiles away from the border, my developing Railroads means I can hit him way faster than he can defend with his extended empire. He's about to get cannons, but he doesn't have them yet. My cannons, defended by machine guns and transported on railroads, could cause him massive pain despite the power differential. I'm very fond of this plan.

So I was a little concerned when Ginger came back a few turns after accepting my anti-Ljubljana plan with one of his own against Mjmd. Ok. So be it. The goal of both plans is the same: prop Ginger up to be a contender against Mjmd. I wanted Ginger to eat Ljubljana to challenge Mjmd, but if Ginger wants to challenge Mjmd directly, that works too.

Of course, Ginger doesn't border Mjmd. He'd have to transport his army through Ljubljana's territory, which is either a minor wrinkle or sheer damn insanity, depending on how you look at it. So I was skeptical. But Ginger has the bigger army, so he gets to call the shots.

My concern turned to panic this turn when Ginger didn't acknowledge my diplo about the timing. This thing is supposed to be right around the corner, and Ginger isn't communicating and looks checked out enough to miss turns? This does not a happy naufragar make. C'mon man! You're in a strong second place with great leverage! Don't give up!

Pseudo-edit: I've got a ~20% chance of both my next great people being Artists. So long as I dodge that, I can throw one final Mausoleum-boosted Golden Age, which I'll try to use to get up to Constitution for a final civics swap.

[naufragar]

I like playing Sid Meier's Civiliation 4. I don't like not playing Sid Meier's Civilization 4, so when people miss turns and cause the game to drag, I get sad. Ginger has had a repeated problem of getting demoralized (or busy) and checking out a bit.  Seems like a good time to zoom out:



This game's interesting. Mjmd can basically pick whatever victory condition he wants. Despite being beaten to Biology by a few turns, he's still the one that founded Cereal Mills. He's used his Great People nicely. Superdeath and I share a hope. We need someone to start beating on Mjmd. If SD and I fight each other, nothing happens in a timeframe that matters. He or I would win our little war (I would win for sure ) and then Mjmd would win the game.

Ginger is the only one who can unilaterally alter the game state. I think he needed to court me for an alliance against Ljubljana forever ago. It's a little silly that I had to be the one to reach out to him. They're have equally large armies, but Ljubljana's is primitive. No cannons, no railroads, while Ginger is running around with Infantry supported by Airships. As it stands, the window is rapidly closing and maybe is now closed in which Ginger attacking Ljubljana is profitable. Ginger proposed attacking Mjmd, but that seems silly. Plus, at this point, with all the missed turns, I don't think Ginger really means it.

I can't see a way Ljubljana wins this. He conquered too much too fast and didn't have the economy to support it. Now he's desperately behind in tech. He's got a massive army that gets vaporized by any of the contenders. And he's positioned himself in such a way that Ginger has no route to Mjmd. So Ljubljana has to constantly defend against Ginger who has nowhere else to go, while Mjmd can run skeleton military and enjoy teching. (Which has been what Mjmd has been able to get away with since after turn 50.) Hilariously, Ljubljana's conquests probably cinched the game for Mjmd.

All this to say, if something is going to happen, it needs to happen now. Ljubljana either needs to make a pact with Ginger to storm into Mjmd, knowing full well he leaves himself wide open to a backstab (and hasn't Ginger already tried to backstab Ljubljana once this game?) or Ginger needs to hit Ljubljana right now and hope that new cities with bio farms drafting infantry is enough to pressure Mjmd.

As for me? Well...


There were no real catastrophes. No real disasters that show up in my empire's food graph. As far as tech goes, I'm in 3rd place behind Mjmd and Ginger (but way behind) and, if I say so myself, have done a great job with the hand I was dealt. I just didn't have much. I have no hope of rising to the contenders. I've just got to hope that they lower themselves to my level.  C'mon, Ginger! Do something!

Pseudo-edit: The demos screen tells me that Superdeath has 58% more food than me, while having 13% more cities. Draw your own conclusions about land quality.

[naufragar]

Oh has it been another ten turns? Here's Ljubljana back again asking for a NAP:



Boring. But I accepted because at this point, my refusal would send him into a panic and I don't need that.

Last turn, he proposed this:


As I understand it, he's asking me to defend him via railroad if civac/Ginger attacks.

But I'm 100% on team Ginger/civac. They're roughly in the same ballpark as Mjmd and the only hope of defeating them. Ljubljana is, by my count 50,232 beakers behind Mjmd and Ginger. He's roughly where I am on the GNP graph and I make 883 beakers per turn at full tech. Let's say he makes 1000bpt. He needs enough gold to research for 50 turns and then 50 turns in which Mjmd and Ginger don't research a thing. Mjmd will land on Alpha Centauri before Ljubljana learns Flight. I can't bet on Ljubljana, so I can't help him against Ginger.

So reading this in the tech thread:

I currently have no contact with Ginger after he sent me a message to take the turn a few days ago. So I want the game to go as slowly as possible in the hope Ginger reappears. Sorry about that.

Just takes all the air out of my sails. Civac, who is a lovely person, has no intention of being the primary player and making plans to win. He's just keeping the seat warm. Ginger's game requires tenacity, creativity, and calculation, none of which Civac is in a position to provide. That sucks. What was an interesting and tense game just crumbles because one player disappears.

But we're not going to hold this against Ginger. In my head, I've constructed a story. Ginger is a secret agent whose cover has been blown. He had been able to play quick turns in Moroccan internet cafes and aboard derelict oil rigs in international waters, but he's now on the run and can't get back to his civ. I choose to believe this, so I don't get sad and sign up for another game while this one's in progress.

And besides, this new Path of Exile league is a blast. Ask me about my Poison-based Lightning Tendrils Occultist! (It's garbage.)

[naufragar]

Got to play a double turn today rolling turn 250 into 251. Civac's ability to cover Ginger is about to evaporate and Ginger still hasn't been able to reach a neutral embassy to inform his station chief or his video game buddies about his whereabouts.

So screw it, one last big reporting extravaganza.

(You might be coming here for Civ4 analysis, but you're getting Brazilian music from the 70's whether you like it or not.)


Turn 250: Lean and Slippered Pantaloons

Here's what's going on in the world:


Ljubljana and Mjmd throwing their lots in together. I can't fault Ljubljana for this. He doesn't feel comfortable throwing his lot in with Ginger, so he becomes a de facto vassal of Mjmd.

Mjmd is the owner of Broadway and the Sistine Chapel, so he won't have to eat Ljubljana for a victory condition. I don't feel like doing a cultural victory lesson because I'm not a draft-dodging, Woodstock-dreaming longhair. But I have been tracking Mjmd's culture cities for a couple turns. He hasn't turned on the juice yet. He's got one city at 20k and a couple at 11k. Oh well, there are worse ways for me to lose, I guess.

Here's the world:


You know it. You love it. It's been the same for, like, 100 turns. If Superdeath, Ljubljana, and I all piled into Mjmd, he'd have a rough go of it. But the three of us have trust issues.

I like making plans, which is partly why this game has been so annoying. I had plans to use 4-move galleys and ironclads to savage Superdeath's coast, but then that would've benefited Mjmd. I had plans to use my railroads to take Ljubljana's Heroic Epic city, but then Ginger dragged his feet on our timeline (and then disappeared to evade the NKVD). So I'm just building my sandcastles, which I normally hate, but it's kind of relaxing now. In 3 turns, I'll throw a 3-man golden age boosted by the Mausoleum of Maussollos. (Remember that?) I'll swap to Nationalism, Caste System, and Representation sometime during it. I have three classes of city: wealth-builders, economic centers, and production centers. The economic centers are desperate for the whip to build any infrastructure, but I don't think this game lasts long enough for me to reach any new infrastructure. So I just want the econ boost of the new civic arrangement.

I had been building Machine Guns. Don't let the description fool you. They are offensive weapons. They're what enable armies to march through foreign territory without getting annihilated by siege. But since it looks like no mutual Gingerian-naufragarian offensive is forthcoming, I'll probably swap to Rifles/Cannons.

Ljubljana, for what it's worth, has the most power by a good bit:

But only on t251 did he get Steel, so the best he's got is Cavalry, which are currently fine for defense, but they go splat if they step into Ginger or Mjmd's land. Civac has gotten Ginger 2 turns away from tanks. I don't have tech visibility on Mjmd, but he's due for a tech soon. It'll be something monstrous, I'm sure.

Mjmd's economy is impressive:

He's the leader, but honestly, there's some culture inflation here. Ginger is in his same league, which means that if Mjmd doesn't play this correctly and halts science to bump culture before he's ready, Ginger could capitalize. Immer bereit! As his nefarious nemeses would say. (I can't decide who Ginger works for. The lore isn't settled.)

Ljubljana is the one making most use of bio farms:

This is cool, but I'm not totally sure what comes of it. His empire is big enough that he can do a full draft cycle every turn without the unhappiness building up. He can also be planting farms for the trickle of serfdom gold, but I'm skeptical.

Who needs food when you have corporations?

Mjmd's ability to secure both a food and hammer corporation, while also landing Kremlin, while he had a same-tier rival is annoying. Nicely played. With this kind of hammer advantage, he can basically do whatever he wants.

Part Two, in which I go through every city in my empire, coming later after I do something with my morning that isn't Civ.

[naufragar]

Why am I about to spend literally a couple of hours going through all my cities in a game in which I'm last place?



Let's do it.

Turn 250 Part Two: The Nitty Gritty

Our beautiful capital, Talking Horse:

The heart of Moralia and the origin point of the Moralintern. This is an ok city. It had to share it's food resources, so it was never going to be great (more on this later). It has a couple of hammer tiles and a handful of green river tiles. It was...fine. What makes it outstanding is America's unique library and the wonder The Great Library. Coupled with Philosophical Mercantilism, this city makes 27.5 Great Scientist points a turn. Add in Oxford and the National Epic, which anybody can get, and this thing is currently pumping out something like, I don't know, 63 Great Scientist poins a turn all without spending an iota of food on real specialists. If our land were a touch different, this thing would be the specialist pump to end all specialist pumps. Oh well.

Recidivist Scorpion:

This city looks mediocre, but when we founded it, it was way, way worse. It's only food is a plains cow (this is a theme for our land, remember), which made our snowball pathetic. This city and our third were founded within one turn of each other, I believe, so it's not likely we were misprioritizing food resources. On the other hand, in the very short term, Imperialistic enabled us to settle a very fast second and third city for trade route connections and to get their Carnegie Libraries up in time. We didn't know that the food resources in the fog would all be trash.

Net-Chewing Mouse:

Here's where we start getting into thoughts of Serfdom. We researched Civil Service late (after Military Science!) because we were bulbing up a storm. Meaning that we only had 3 plains river tiles to farm. Even with all the farms in the shot, it's not worth it. (Remember to subtract out all the river hammers from the levee. This city had no hammer output without the whip.) Oh well. This was a strong commerce city even if it hurt like a bitch getting banks, grocers, etc. set up.

Last note: that irrigated rice is the best food tile in my empire. And it's freaking rice.

One-Trick Hedgehog:

One-Trick Hedgehog is emblematic of the empire. A desperate compromise that would look terrible in any other game but is forgivable here. Net-Chewing Mouse had been founded before Bronze Working (Imp is fast, babe), so we couldn't feed our Copper city with its rice. That left...absolutely no food for our absolutely strategically vital copper (which, for kicks, had to be a plains tile). So we did the only thing we could: we gave away our capital's plains cow. So this is city number 2 with a plains cow as its only food, but even that was stolen from another city.

Can you see a theme? Of the first three cities we settle, one had a plains cow and one had no food, and I stand by both as the best options. Rough start.

There's an argument to be made for growing onto these farms, but the payback period was always too long. It would have taken dozens upon dozens of turns at any point to pay back the hammer loss and this was one of 3 early unit pumps we had. Just couldn't afford it. Once we swap to Serfdom, I'll windmill those mines and grow onto the farms.

Sore Fox:

I love this little city. It's bad, like every city in our empire, but what it's been able to do with a +3 food surplus (the equivalent of a plains cow) has been incredible. Mausoleum of Mausollos went here so as not to dilute the other cities with Artist points. Great Library was also supposed to go here but for the Machinery bulb screw-up. Seriously, look at how much this city has gotten done. I love it.

And at least there's no doubt that Serfdom would do squat for this city.

Partial Elephant:

Ok, I lied. There is one good city in the empire, and it's Partial Elephant. This is Moai+Heroic Epic+Military Academy+ 2 Settled Great Generals. Throw in a Drydocks for naval production, which is unnecessary on this map, but I worried about Superdeath getting Astro and I had an Ironclads plan. I love this city. It produces 10xp boats and 9xp infantry. And it cranks them out. Someone else can calculate how many hammers per turn it produces for land units. I think it's something like 110 per turn. I love this city.

I have to starve it down because my capital produces Great Scientists too fast. From Partial Elephant will come our 3rd great person for our 3-man golden age. (It even does great people! It's just the best city. )

Thirsty Raven:

This is an ugly city made awesome by coal-powered Ironworks. (Hey, if I Serfdom I could be making +6gpt and +1hpt! ) Don't ask me how long it took me to build Ironworks here. The answer would make you cry. But it's done and now this city actually looks halfway decent. If I ever make it to Biology, I can even run a bunch more Engineers! And while we're dreaming, that X in east will one day be our National Park city!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: yet another city with only a plains cow for food.

Lion-Chewing Dog:

Oh boy, this city is cool. It's not good. In fact, it's terrible. But it's cool. When this city was born, it stole the capital's deer until it could expand borders to work the fish. It helped develop cottages for the capital, Singing Horse, and for Recidivist Scorpion. But then what? Well, I'm glad you asked. Just like you don't want to know how long Thirsty Raven's Ironworks took, you also don't want to know what horrible things I had to do to produce the Globe Theater with no hammer tiles. But now that it's done and this city has a Military Academy, it whips 4->2 pop for 105 hammers, which is basically a constant production of cannons. (Later Machine guns, but that took a touch longer.) How cool is that?

I know I said a while ago I was done complaining about the map, so please know that nothing here is a complaint. I just need to explain my expansion process. There was no better way to settle for the fish. If I settled on the hill to put it first ring, I invalidate the cow city to the south which causes more problems with city #3 and so on and so on. So I had to settle for the fish second ring, which meant I had to share food and the only possibility was robbing the capital. And now you know the story of how my capital went from having 2 food resources (and a plains cow) to having 1 food resource (and no plains cows ).


Steady Tortoise:

I hate even looking at this city. I've been listing the cities in the order founded, so we're getting into "filler" territory. I had river tiles and I needed a way to work them. If I just farmed them (and was in Serfdom), I could feed the city but there'd be nothing for commerce. So I needed to cottage the plains river, which meant I had to feed the cottages with the irrigated rice. Another irrigated rice. Surely there could be a 6 food tile somewhere in the empire? No matter. We'll subsist on rice and plains tiles.

Hey, decent levee city, I guess.

Are you coming to understand how rough our land is? Are you seeing the light? Well, you've been reading a while. How about a Hank Williams break?



Thoracic Crane:

Even I forget how rough this land is. With Civil Service and a very long farm chain, I'm able to irrigate the wheat. Before Civil Service, this land is uninhabitable. Oh well. At least we're able to incorporate desert silver into our empire. It had to be desert, huh? You don't want to know how long it took to build the Forbidden Palace here, but once we conquer Superdeath and Mjmd, it'll help with maintenance costs significantly.

Spindly Stag:

Another city I hate to even look at, so I probably don't pay enough attention to what it should do. I'm serious, I hate this city. Note that we founded it after our desert city. It had an unirrigated rice. That's it. Whatever. It has contributed.

Placid Bull:

Poor Placid Bull. This was the city that sent this game on its current course. GT, the player to my east, was enjoying scouting me with our open borders treaty. But Placid Bull hadn't expanded its culture ring nor did it have a garrison. It was tucked away from enemies, I thought. So GT chariot-sniped this little guy. The rest, as you know, is history. GT and I went to war. Ljubljana joined it. GT was ground to dust but not before ruining Gavagai somehow for some reason. And that established Ljubljana as a power and enabled Mjmd to have a perfectly safe western side. I regret nothing. If you burn my city, especially like that, I will kill you.

The city itself is ok. It works cottages and very slowly builds infrastructure. The whip has been invaluable here.

Butterfinger:

Ok, this one I grant you is an argument for Serfdom. How else to best utilize its plains cow? Seriously.

Superdeath took this from me after I got my siege weapons wiped out. Then he gave it back to me. (Hence its Superdeathian name of Butterfinger.) I have never forgiven him his generosity and have yet to open borders with him.

Snickers:

Another city that I lost to Superdeath who then gave it back. Notice that this city doesn't have a plains cow but a grassland cow! How delightful. As we get away from my land and into Superdeath's, the resources get greener and Serfdom becomes more attractive.

Debre Berhan:

GT's first casualty in our war. I didn't criticize GT's dot map during the war, and I won't start now, but as with my... description of the map, I have to point out a few things to explain how my empire developed.

GT was addicted to building monuments, so he had a lot of cities like this, two tiles away from food resources. It made conquering his cities annoying, because they took forever to become profitable. (On my side. For some reason, his dotmap towards Ljubljana was a lot more sensible.) This is yet another city with just a plains cow. It sort of has a wheat, but I had to settle a whole other city just to get Civil Service irrigation to it. More on that later. But now that I did, this is a respectable city. Biology will be nice here.

Qohaito:

Here's a true Serfdom city. I could be making 4 extra gold per turn! As will all of my conquests for GT, it was founded miles away from food and with no hammers to produce culture buildings. Seriously, this conquest was just miserable.

Yeha:

Speaking of miserable. Here we have a couple of floodplains. This actually wasn't too bad. Both my neighbors had floodplains to expand into, which is like having a plains cow but better because they come in groups. Low food surplus plus plains cottages is the theme of our game.

Notice that GT's former city to the east of Yeha was founded for an adjacent wheat. Seriously, I had to laugh to keep from crying at how different his dot map in my area and Ljubljana's was.

Massawa:

More GT floodplains. I'm grateful. It's made money. It has been and will remain vulnerable out here in the middle of nowhere, but easy come easy go. (Seriously, this nothing desert city makes more commerce than own home-grown developed cities. Screw my land.)

Hawulti:

Oh look. Another desert hellhole I took from GT that makes more money than anywhere in my own empire.

Addis Ababa

This city is capable enough. When I took it, I decided against razing and resettling even though it was two tiles away from both its food resources (one of which is a plains hill sheep) and would never be able to build a lighthouse for its crab. Still, I figured that the pop and infrastructure it had would justify not resettling. GT did his best to make his dotmap unappetizing.

For what it's worth, compare GT's grass furs fed by crabs 4 tiles away from his capital to my ancient luxury: plains elephant 8 tiles away from my capital fed by plains cows. Ok. Ok. I'll stop. It's just that more and more of this stuff keeps popping into my head as I'm reminded of it.

Talking Bass:

Hey! I founded this city! It extends from Hawulti and works two gold tiles. That's its job. Mjmd can kill it at will, but so far he hasn't. Nice guy.

Washington:

This is the city I founded just to irrigate the wheat that Debre Berhan is using. Eh, whatever. I've already swapped to an artist. It's a balance between keeping my tiles and not annoying Ljubljana. Once it grows and works the lumbermill, it'll be a net positive for sure.

New York:

Our last city, founded quite recently. It's on the cusp of profitability. The upcoming Serfdom swap will see it become an asset instead of a liability.

And there you have it! Moralia in all its famine-ridden glory! If you think after spending however many hours on an empire walkthrough I'm entertaining thoughts of concession, you're out of your mind. They can pry my patchwork, starving kingdom from my cold, fabulous hands.

[Tarkeel]

Having piloted your empire for a few turns I concur that your area was ever so slightly bereft of food. I can't understate how afraid I was to swing the whip in your absence.

Oh, and very nice overview!