Civ4 Succession Game - Codename: MCA01

[Lare Kikkeli]

Is this it?

[Nick_i_am]

Feel free to take a turn if you have the time SteveThaiBinh.

[SteveThaiBinh]

So soon after last time? OK, I'll go next.

[Nick_i_am]

Yeah, it's pretty much come down to Llyranor -> Nick -> Enoch -> Steve, with anyone else able to cut in whenever they want. That's not a 'rule' but if it's been a few turns since you've moved and there has been no activity for 10 hours or so then feel free to chip in I guess.

[SteveThaiBinh]

OK, a fairly uneventful ten turns:

 

1500BC: Finished researching agriculture, so I set it to Pottery next as suggested. The warrior SE of Moscow survived an encounter with a bear, and I gave him the woodsman upgrade. I'm going to send him to explore the east, as soon as he's done healing.

 

1400BC: Our worker has connected the cows to Moscow, so I've sent him to chop down some forest. This should finish just after the new worker is built, giving a boost to whatever follows him.

 

1350BC: Pottery is done, Priesthood is next. St. Petersburg's borders have expanded, and there's no sign of opponent cities nearby yet.

 

1325BC: Second worker is complete, and I've set him to build a cottage on the floodplain:

 

1300BC: Someone has founded Judaism . The worker has chopped his forest, giving a nice boost to the settler being produced in Moscow. The settler should be ready about the same time as the warrior in St. Petersburg, which will be handy.

 

1275BC: It was Isabella who founded Judaism (as she's just switched to Organised Religion). This is better than having a hostile neighbour, certainly. We have a worker who needs a task - I'd recommend helping to complete the cottage, then using both workers to connect and mine the copper by St. Petersburg as quickly as possible. It can't be long before barbarians start arriving, and we need some Axemen. :ph34r:

 

Here's the file:

 

Edited March 1, 2006 by SteveThaiBinh

[Nick_i_am]

Good stuff, Orginised religion should be a nice boon to us in spreading buddism and producing improvments, though I wonder what our next few reserch moves should be. I might suggest heading towards litracy for the libary, but i'm also a big fan of the pyramids (early access to representation can be a huge boon, not to mention great engineers).

 

We should probably cap archery next just for some solid defence before the first wave of barbarians comes in, otherwise, yeah, time to get that copper under control and a third city up.

[Enoch]

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.

Edited March 1, 2006 by Enoch

[Nick_i_am]

Yeah, with this many players, no instant access to stone and no industrious pyramids is most likely a pipe-dream. I agree with you on the writing -> alphabet, so with the archery tech we would have a few turns 'free' production for archers while those techs finish.

 

We still don't have fishing though, which could be considered somthing of an issue.

[Enoch]

Yeah, with this many players, no instant access to stone and no industrious pyramids is most likely a pipe-dream. I agree with you on the writing -> alphabet, so with the archery tech we would have a few turns 'free' production for archers while those techs finish.

 

We still don't have fishing though, which could be considered somthing of an issue.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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.

[alanschu]

You have stone near St. Petersburg don't you? Coupled with the huge amount of trees you can chop down, I bet you could rush the Pyramids pretty easily.

[Enoch]

You have stone near St. Petersburg don't you?  Coupled with the huge amount of trees you can chop down, I bet you could rush the Pyramids pretty easily.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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.

[alanschu]

I wouldn't entirely disagree.

 

Though Pyramids is rather useful. Representation can be pretty useful in the early game, if only for the happiness bonus.

 

A switch to slavery (which I assume you've done) could help you with the final push.

Edited March 1, 2006 by alanschu

[Enoch]

I wouldn't entirely disagree.

 

Though Pyramids is rather useful.  Representation can be pretty useful in the early game, if only for the happiness bonus.

 

A switch to slavery (which I assume you've done) could help you with the final push.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

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.

[alanschu]

Yup. I typically switch to Slavery relatively quickly for the savings in upkeep. It helps if you find yourself expanding a bit too fast.

 

I have actually never been a fan of Hereditary rule. The biggest benefit of Representation IMO is the science beakers. Though I guess you don't have too many specialists at this stage of the game. But I do find I prefer having it long before I can actually research representation.

Edited March 1, 2006 by alanschu

[Archmonarch]

Go for it, he's late.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yep, broken cable modem tends to do that. I'm back up so Ill take a turn this evening if no one minds.

[Llyranor]

Don't bother asking. Just grab the spot. First come, first serve.

[Nick_i_am]

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.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I chose not to when we first discovered bronze working (not realising it was cheaper) but since we are just about to get orginised religion, we might as well wait for that.

 

Yep, broken cable modem tends to do that. I'm back up so Ill take a turn this evening if no one minds.

 

Cool, there have been lots of suggestions on the last few pages on courses of action you might want to take (including the bundling slavery with orginised religion) but play however you see fit.

[Pidesco]

I'm thinking of giving this a try after archmonarch posts his turn. This is a great way to improve our Civ skills.

[Archmonarch]

You go ahead. Im having some more computer troubles, so Ill get around to it when I can. Anyone else is free to supersede me.

[Pidesco]

1275BC: Like Steve suggested, I used the worker to speed the cottage on the flood plain.

 

1250BC: Nothing big happened. Kept exploring with the warriors.

 

1225BC: Completed Priesthood. Chose archery to start buiding those archers as soon as possible. Changed the tiles being worked in Moscow to speed up the settler:

 

 

1200BC: Sent both workers to St. Petersburg to get copper connected.

 

1175BC: Warrior is done. Sent him to the future city site east of St Petersburg. Nothing intesting to build in St Petersburg before archery and copper, so I maxed its food production.

 

1150BC: Caesar adopted slavery. Started a mine to connect the copper to St Petersburg.

 

1125BC: Completed archery. There was much rejoicing. St. Petersburg started an archer. Finally our cities will be safe from barbarians. Our soothsayers are researching writing.

 

1100BC: We have a new settler. It has been sent south to build previously mentioned city. Because cows will one day help us rule the world. The easternmost warrior has found a barbarian warrior. Let's see if he attacks us.

 

1075BC: Our warrior defeated the barb. Healing is required, as its strenght is down to 0.9. In other news, St. Petersburg will soon be connected to copper.

 

1050BC: My final turn. Hooray for us for Novgorod is our new city! Also, we now have copper and I've decided to build our trade network. One worker has started making a road to connect St. Petersburg to the rest of our sprawling empire. The other worker can't move yet. Before I forget, note that we are now losing 4 gold per turn, something will have to be done about that soon.

 

 

Here's our world map so far:

 

 

My advice is that you go for alphabet and masonry next. Also, start building up the military. This is fun!

MCA01.zip

[SteveThaiBinh]

Good job. I'm still hopeful we can get that spot to the west of Moscow for a city next, but who knows what the Egyptians will do? There's plenty of room to expand eastward, though.

 

Our cows will indeed reign supreme. (Though as the founders of Hinduism, we really ought to get a happiness rather than a food bonus for controlling cows. )

[alanschu]

I don't disagree with the building of the roads, but keep in mind that trade networks can be created via rivers as well.

[Pidesco]

Yes, of course. The worker I sent from St. Petersburg will connect it to both Moscow and Novgorod due to the river.

[mkreku]

You guys didn't give up on this little project, did you? I'm actually enjoying myself reading through it all, even though I don't even own the game (but you guys sure make me want to play it anyhow..). It's like following a little story, complete with pretty pictures and everything.

[SteveThaiBinh]

You guys didn't give up on this little project, did you? I'm actually enjoying myself reading through it all, even though I don't even own the game (but you guys sure make me want to play it anyhow..). It's like following a little story, complete with pretty pictures and everything.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, it's still going as far as I know. Soulseeker and I are the last two to take a turn, so basically anyone else can jump in now.