Enoch

If we do this again, I'd suggest either longer turns or a speed faster than Epic. We don't want people to feel like they're not accomplishing anything. We're 1 turn away from Alphabet. Whoever takes it next gets to enter the tech-trading market. Hit F4 to see what's available (this is so phenomenally better than in Civ3 where you had to call up every leader every turn to see what they would trade!). Trade everything away but Alphabet itself-- we want to keep our trading monopoly as long as possible. Also, when a tech is available from two sources, make the trade with the one who is further behind in the score chart. Definitely pick up fishing and sailing. Masonry would also be nice. I doubt anyone will be willing to sell iron working or monotheism, but it's possible. (If not, I'd suggest researching IW next.) Otherwise, I'd say to stop cranking out settlers after the current ones finish. This is the time to build an army and get some improvements in our cities (barracks, libraries, monasteries).

Fair point. Actually, in my own games, I find it's usually better not to adopt a state religion. One happy face per city isn't enough payoff for alienating a substantial number of the other civs. But that means that I'll need the temples even more. The 10% science bonus from a monastery is also very nice. Lastly, religion is a good way to get some rudimentary culture in your new cities. (When you have no state religion, each faith in the city gives +1 cuture/turn.)

I'd argue that it's even more important then. You need the trade routes to bring in foreign religions (the more the better) so you can build temples and monasteries.

Which is why I think we need to ramp up the military production once we get Green Dot (which, if I remember the Russian city list accurately, will be Rostov) settled. Anyhow, on the open borders, here's my case: Pro: --Potential religion spreading: this is particularly important because we've delcared a state religion. If we can get Hinduism into a civ before Izzy gives them the truths of the Buddha, we've got an ally. If we don't, we have another enemy. --International trade. --Diplomatic bonus. --We can scout out rival terrain. (We should build a scout or two to do this once we've got a decent defense.) --I find that civs will usually (though not always) withdraw from the Open Borders agreement if they're thinking about attacking. This gives us a warning of a few turns to prepare. Con: --Cutting off the AI: Not an issue here as we're surrounded. --Lets rival scouts in. --AI civs can benefit from international trade routes with us. I think the balance is clearly in favor of open borders.

It will also let them know what your cities and defenses are like. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I edited that point a bit in the original post (although I didn't mention the spying). To that point, I'll say that it both ways-- we can now scout them out, too. And, realistically, we're far more likely to invade them in the near future than they are to invade us.

Okay, new batch of turns: Turn 0 (1025BC): Considered switching to slavery as mentioned above. But the difference between civic costs at this stage rounds down to zero, so we can keep putting it off. As for our deficit, I'm not worried. Pre-Currency, the only thing cash reserves are good for is running a deficit. So I do. Turn 2 (980BC): Discover Writing! Start Alphabet (which will take a while). With this many rivals, being the first Civ who can trade techs will be huge. I know some of you have been pushing for Masonry->Monotheism. I'm not that big an organized religion fan, myself. The upkeep cost is huge, so I don't think we should prioritize the tech until our economy is strong enough to support it. Plus, the benefits only accrue when you're constructing buildings and wonders, and I see most of our production in the immediate future going towards units. Writing allows Open Borders agreements. The only real cost to signing these is if you've cut off another civ's expansion with your borders. So, I go ahead and sign an open borders agreement with everyone who is willing (this turns out to be everybody but Isabella, who thinks we're heathens, and Tokugowa, who is just a jerk). This will enable international trade routes (which will get us more $ and spread Hinduism for free). None of these start just yet, but they'll come as the AIs discover sailing and sign separate open borders agreements with civs that block the coastline. Also, Archer is complete in Moscow. I switch to a Worker-- our terrain is still rather under-developed. Turn 3 (960BC): Barbarian time! We spot one near Green dot, and our warrior off to the East finds one in the wild. This is a threat-- I moved him before he was completely healed, and he's one a plains tile when he spots it. I mobilize our Moscow archer to cut off the western barb from getting too close: Turn 4 (940BC): Our warrior beats the odds and wins! He gets Woodsman II as a prize: The barbarian to the west wandered off. I decide not to pursue him-- he may discourage Hatshepsut from claiming that land. Turn 5 (920BC): St. Pete's finishes its archer. I fortify it and begin an Axeman. Our exploring warrior spots a barbarian city-- it's under the magenta circle: Turn 6 (900BC): The barbarian pops up again, this time right on Green Dot. I ignore him. Also, the road to St. Petersburg is completed! Turn 7 (880BC): Novgorod's borders expand. We've now tied Isabella for the highest score. Turn 8 (860BC): Hinduism spreads to St. Petersburg. Yay! Turn 9 (840BC): Worker finished in Moscow. I move him to cottage the second floodplain. Now, we've got a tough call as to what to build next. Settler for Green Dot? Library? Temple (so that we can get a priest specialist working on GP points for our Shrine)? Barracks/Axeman? I decide to make the Settler, figuring that we can pause and build our military & economy after Green Dot is in the fold. A library is a close second, though. Turn 10 (820BC): The worker who had been making roads begins a forest chop in Novgorod, to finish the archer there. I intend the overflow to go to a barracks. As I mentioned way back when it was called "Pink Dot," Novgorod can be a production powerhouse, if we irrigate everything we can, then mine or workshop everything else. Here's an overview of our territory: We're second in score, but in the middle of the pack in Power, which is more important at this point: The AI tends to attack civs whose power rating lags behind their score. The Archer being made in Novgorod and the Axeman being made in St. Petes will help that.

I'll take another turn, if nobody else wants it right now.

I'd probably be more accurate to say that rock is a type of blues. (The good rock, anyway!) Modern jazz did emerge out of the big band experience, but it became, IMO, something rather different. The big bands were pop music, focused on dancing and popular entertainment. A few of the better individual musicians from the big bands thought that their music merited more than just being the background for a dance competition. So they got together in smaller groups, left out the vocalists, and deliberately played at tempos that dancers couldn't keep up with. They wanted to make the audience hear what they were playing as more than background music. (There was also a race factor-- these were mostly black musicians who wanted to be respected for their intellect and artistry.) The focus shifted more to solos than written arrangements.

As "the guy with the Eric Dolphy avatar," I feel like I should say something here. I have to say that I'm surprised by all the haters. I'm a bit taken aback by the accusations that jazz has no soul or passion. Now, some of this might be grounded in the 'smoooove jazzzzzz' BS you find on FM104 and the like. That is soulless, meaningless crap. Jazz is more intellectual than most other musical genres, but there is a balance between intellect and passion in all good jazz. It can be a bit difficult, though. It must be actively engaged-- i.e., put headphones on, listen, and concentrate on what you're hearing. And Kaftan is right that it is tough to find great contemporary jazz (it's out there, mostly in live clubs in the bigger cities, but you've got to work to find it). Also, much of the entertainment value is lost if you enter it without an understanding of its backstory. You're not going to get much of what a younger player like Branford or Josh Redman is playing if you haven't heard Coltrane, Rollins, Parker, et al. It'd be like watching a highly-referential comedy like Family Guy without having seen any other TV shows over the past 30 years. As for Blues, I enjoy that too. Its a different kind of enjoyment, though. Blues is comforting where Jazz is challenging.

Link Google is your friend!

I had a GeForce 3. I still have a GeForce 3. I'm screwed. Actually, I've been putting off a gfx & RAM upgrade, so I can get those up to the recommendations if I can convince myself to part with the cash. But I'll still have a 2.0ghz processor. Oh well. I'm not really burning to get this one anyway-- I'll wait and see what the reviews and community response are like.

Meh. Speed would've been a far better movie if Hopper had actually died in the beginning and Jeff Daniels' character went on to be the real villian.

With 3 luxury resources near our capital, I'm not too worried about unhappy citizens. By the time our cities are that big, resource trading and hereditary rule will be able to keep the peace. I don't think we ever did switch to slavery. We should-- even if we do no pop-rushing at all, the upkeep cost is cheaper than the starting civic, which makes it well worth 1 turn of anarchy. There's an argument that we could wait and package the switch with Hereditary Rule or Organized Religion, but that might be awhile yet, and 1 turn of production isn't a high price at this stage.

There's a chance (if you want to try, by all means download the save!), but, IMO, it's too high-risk. We'd have to build a road to St. Pete's, and down to the Stone tile. Then research Masonry (outside of the wonders, this isn't a very useful tech), and build a quarry. Then all of Moscow's production would be put into the Pyramids, and all our workers would be set chopping trees. That means putting settlers, libraries, and military units on hold, not to mention sacraficing future production bonuses from the forests. And even then, one of the other 17 civs (perhaps an industrious civ that started next to some stone) could very easily beat us to it. A civ that spends its time and resources building axemen, workers, and settlers will tend to come out ahead of a civ that races for an early wonder.

We don't really have any use for fishing right now,* but it would be best to have it before (or right about when) we settle Green Dot. It's a very cheap tech, so it wouldn't be much of a detour. Or we can wait until Alphabet and trade for it. If we do develop fishing, though, we should be sure to trade for Sailing once we get Alphabet-- international trade routes will spread Hinduism far and wide! * One often-neglected use for fishing is that work boats make cheap explorer units. This is great for archipelago maps and other island starts. Not much use to us now, though, because our progress along the coast is blocked by Egyptian and Aztec territory-- we'll need Open Borders agreements (and thus writing) to get by.

I'd put a priority on getting one or both of those workers to St. Pete's (that's what I was planning when I built the second one). Build a road connection, and get those strategic resources on-line. I am starting to get nervous that we only have warriors in our cities. Archery would be a decent choice, although I really like to grab writing and alphabet as quickly as possible. As for the pyramids, it can be tough. I haven't played any games with settings like these (noble/epic/17civs), so I don't have a good sense for when the AI gets going in the wonder race. I usually play on Monarch, where it's really not worthwhile to race for the early wonders at all unless you can do so very cheaply. As for Great Person (GP) generation, the Great Engineers are nice, but lets not forget that we need at least one Great Prophet to build the Hindu Shrine. Without Marble or Industrious, I doubt we'll get the Oracle successfully (the AI likes that one), so we may have to do it the old-fashioned way of temple + priest specialist. Long-term, I think that Green Dot would be an excellent GP-factory (it is most efficient to concentrate your GPP in one city). Working the Fish and irrigating the 4 floodplains would give us a total of 11 surplus food (12 with a lighthouse), which is enough to support 5 specialists (subject to happiness limits). That should be enough to keep us well-supplied with Academies.

It was mostly the cows. Under the old plan, the Blue Dot city would've taken advantage of them. St. Pete's location didn't, though, and I don't like having a good resource like cattle fall between cities. Other than the cows, it's pretty much a push between the two locations, although the river frontage is a nice bonus.

Alright here we go! Not much going on for the first few turns. Toku & Mansa both adopt slavery. Turn 3 (1700BC): Warrior just south of Moscow kills some lions. Worker clears forest, contributing 45 hammers to the settler, which is now only 4 turns away: Turn 4 (1675BC): As animal husbandry is only 2 turns away, I move the worker to the Cow tile. Turn 5 (1650BC): Warrior near Germany kills some wolves. After some debate, I give it the Woodsman I promotion. (Took a screenie, but it's not worth it.) Turn 6 (1625BC): Big one! Animal Husbandry discovered. Begin work on Agriculture. Horses discovered SW of Moscow: This merits a change of plan. I decide that our settler should take advantage of these new resources. By building a city under the westernmost warrior, we'll claim the Horses, Copper, Corn, and Stone! An amazing resource haul that I'm not going to let Cyrus get to first. Lastly, Monte has a new city just NE of Moscow: Not a bad location. We'll have to keep this one when it is made properly Russian! Turn 7 (1600BC): Settler finished! Begin Worker, so we can take advantage of all those resources around our city-to-be. Settler moved towards mega-resource site. Our warrior near Germany finds himself looking some Bears in the teeth (obligatory "oh, my!"). Bears are tough, so he moves into the forest for a greater defense bonus. Turn 8 (1575BC): Warrior survives the attack, but only barely. Set to heal, which will take 7 turns. Turn 9 (1550BC): Settler arrives on mega-resource site with a step to spare: The 'blue circle' likes a site two tiles north better. It is sometimes helpful to pay attention to this because it actually takes undiscovered resources into account (confirmed bug/feature). But any resources it 'sees' will be likely be within range of a later Russian city, and we want the stone to the south. Anyhow, St. Petersburg is founded! I considered changing the name so I could read something like "MCA builds Fallout 3," but I decided to follow Llyranor's precedent of using the default names. The new city does push us into deficit spending though; we're losing 1 gold per turn from the city maintenance. I set the production on a warrior. We've got a worker going in Moscow, and none of the buildings available (obelisk and barracks) would do us any good right now. Turn 10 (1525BC): Forest grows near St. Pete's. Nothing else of interest. Overview: My new city site recommendations: I've moved the Pink dot closer to St. Petersburg to pick up the Cow resource. Green dot stays where it was. We're 1 turn from Agriculture. I'd recommend following it with Pottery, so we can get some cottages going on Moscow's floodplains-- those gems will only sustain our economy alone for so long. Good luck! Edit: I had accidentially posted the same screenie twice. Fixed that, and the 'here we og' at the start.

It's the high sea level setting. The world generator has a set number of resources to distribute, and high sea level gives it less land to work with. Turns are done. Update forthcoming after I wrangle with the screenshots a bit.

Would it be bad form if I also cut in front of Archmonarch? If not, I've got an hour or two to burn right now... I promise it'll be quick!

Huh? Is this because I came down a bit hard on Nick for some of his choices? I apologize if some of my criticisms sounded less than constructive. No ill will was intended.

Well done. I wouldn't have gone with the Wheel just yet (happiness isn't that big a concern this early on Noble, especially since we have religion), but it's a solid choice and will be necessary to connect our new cities. The techs will start coming in rapid-fire once those gems are mined, anyway. I'd suggest another warrior before starting on the settler. That way, the settler won't have to wait around for an escort or leave Moscow undefended (the barbarian risk will be greater by then). So who's next?

I forgot about that. I opened the screenshots in Paint and added the dots.

Alternately, we can move both Pink and Blue dots 1 square to the SW. That would give Pink river-frontage (Three Gorges!), but leave some decent terrain unusued to the north of Blue (and add 2 useless desert tiles to its city radius).

Okay, here goes. Turn 0 (since I got it with end turn button red, I'm not counting it) Switched Moscow to build a warrior. I would've gone Worker, but the city's only 3 turns from size 3, so I decided to let it grow first. Another exploring unit will come in handy, too. Turn 1 Took warrior in Moscow and moved him west, leaving the city undefended. This is low-risk. It's too early for significant barbarian activity at this difficulty level, and the AI really doesn't get aggressive until the available settling space is taken up. Mostly, I want to see what's over those hills west of the city. As for our scout, I'm swinging him back towards the SW. Turn 2: Meet and Greet time! Bismark's scout pops up just south of Moscow (I thought I took a screenshot of him saying "You are wiser than you appear, MCA," but I seem to have lost it). Then, our scout spots a scout from Ceasar in the wild. I leave them both in peace. Turn 3: Moscow grows to size 3. Hooray! Turns 4-5: Nothing interesting Turn 6: Warrior finished; begin Worker. Again, I leave Moscow temporarily undefended and march this warrior north, just to see that little spot of coastline our scout missed earlier. Speaking of which, our warrior marching west has found a damn nice potential city location: Turn 7: Nothing intheresting Turn 8: Scout meets Cyrus, who has a city almost directly to our south (and, oddly enough, an unpopped hut 2 squares from the border). He's also the current score leader of the Civs we've met: Turn 9: Hut gives us 37 gold. Turn 10: Scout spots a Stone resource not far to our SW. Overview: We're 1 turn away from Polytheism, and, surprisingly, nobody else has founded Hinduism yet. Once we finish that, I strongly recommend researching Bronze Working so that our soon-to-be-completed worker can supercharge our settler production by chopping some trees. Moscow is undefended, but the warrior I sent scouting north is on his way back. I've been thinking about potential locations for our future cities Here's a wide shot of the west of Moscow: The Green Dot is, IMO, an excellent city location. The South: Pink Dot would be a great production city. Irrigate the rice and the river-adjacent grassland & floodplain, then mine all the hills. Build the national epic there, and it could make our whole military by itself. Blue Dot claims the Stone, Corn and Cows. The Northeast: I'm willing to let Monte have the first move here. Some good resources, but most of them won't be useful until after Calendar. Plus, they're spaced out just enough so that there wouldn't be any one great city location. Let the Aztecs fill it with unpronounceable cities that we can conquer later. In terms of settling order, I'd go Pink Dot, Blue Dot, Green Dot, although I'd consider moving Green Dot up a bit if we find a rival to the west who might take it first.