[BTS] Civ IV Newbie Succession Game - Monarch - Beginning now!

[Dhalphir]

Great report Tasunke. You can post the save as a .zip rather than a .rar and it will work fine

I'll grab the save once you post and play tonight.

[Tasunke]

   

As you can see here, I had placed a warrior on the Cows, threatening their health. While I was only after the pillage gold, the AIs saw it as an important enough threat ... so they sent 2 of their archers foolishly down their only remaining road, which I had generously left un-pillaged. I then immediately killed one of the archers, and brought some warriors onto the hill portion of the road, cutting them off. The isolated archer then circled back around trying to get back into the city, going through forests so as to avoid a quick and hasty destruction. However, the axeman that got the first kill was promoted to CityRaider1, and led the initial charge against the city. The CityRaider Axeman was successful, but several of the other axemen died. However, down the the last man, I was eventually able to take the city within the same turn with the last available axeman.

At the start of the battle there were 3 archers 1 Quecha in the city and 2 archers that had recently deployed outside the city walls. It was over within a few months. Chieftan Alexander walked through the city the next day to survey the damage. Several buildings were destroyed, so he ordered work crews to clean up the debris. His military marched all of the citizens into the old palace square of the defeated government. Those that would swear fealty joined his newly swelling ranks, while the rest were sent back to the old cities as slaves. Within the next year immigrants from Aiur and Hiigara would arrive to make a new home for themselves, a new start. Alexander could see great potential within the surrounding lands .... then he gave control of the troops to his 2nd in command, and went into hibernation, only to be awoken upon the signs of great strife.

   

[Dhalphir]

hey that's too many turns! :-O

[Tasunke]

I can give you the t121 save if you want ^_^

But yea >_> .... take it outta my tab for next time

I'll just play 16 next time I s'pose



EDIT: t124 is attached

[Tasunke]

Did you get the save?

[Dhalphir]

got it, i'll take a look tonight.

don't worry about playing too many, war is exciting and I'm glad you were able to conclude the war before my turn.

[Hart]

Yes! Two cities for the price of several axemen, which we keep the majority of! Good work Tas.

Looking at the save myself, I can see that our priorities now need to be improving the economy and expanding to form secure borders to the east and north. Critically, we need to explore the land nearest to us, up until the jungle line and up to where ever Shaka has expanded to. That said, I also think it's worth suspending efforts to expand until we get Monarchy in. Once that happens we should see rapid growth in our GNP, and can then afford to REX hard. Our economy isn't TOO bad, but a 25 gold deficit at 100% with 11 turns to go on Monarchy and only 157g in the bank is less than ideal.



Shockingly, none of the civs have founded Judaism yet! This is a bit of a missed opportunity for us, we could have had a religion for several turns already. However, backtracking to get Polytheism+Monotheism would be a waste at this point.

Speaking of tech, our possible options now include:

• Code of Laws - Courthouses, Caste System and, in particular, Confucianism. At 19 turns at 100% this is cheaper than going for Judaism, which is probably being researched by one of the AI right now. With our soon to be sprawling empire and the fact that this map is toroidal, maintenance costs are going to be sky-high.
  
• Mathematics - As explained previously, this improved chop efficiency dramatically, which will make building infrastructure in new cities very easy. Also unlocks the Hanging Gardens, which is a great Wonder for generating Great Engineers. Also leads to Calendar, which will give us... 1 happiness. (Yes, thats right, just one, until we expand north to the jungle. Almost not worth it with Hereditary Rule...) Also Currency! Currency would give us a 20% bonus on research applied to CoL, but its far enough off that it might not matter.
  
• Masonry - Unlocks a bunch of Wonders and lets us build walls, and connect Stone. Going to need it, for Construction in particular. Need Monarchy/CoL much more. We might want to get this before we grab Maths, if we decide Maths is a higher priority than CoL.
  

Other techs that have a lower priority:

• Iron Working - to clear the jungle and hopefully reveal production bonuses.
  
• Hunting/Archery/Horseback Riding - once we secure horses.
  
• Metal Casting - FORGES! Great Engineers are one of the best great persons in the game, due to insta-building wonders.
  

Speaking of wonders... no one has built the Oracle yet...

MM suggestions:

• Aiur will complete a library next turn. Until we unlock new infrastructure to build there, use two scientists instead of working the mines. Don't let it grow until happiness issues are resolved.
  
• Let Hiigara grow to size 6, and use the extra population to whip out a Library. Plan ahead, and balance using the mined tile with the Corn. Keep in mind the 8 turns of slave anger.
  
• Get some workers building mines around Shakuras, quickly! With 7 workers we should have no excuse to let cities work unimproved tiles!
  
• Until Guadacanal (someone figure out a name to match our naming scheme?) pops it's borders in 2 turns, there's not much to be done. Pasture the cows, most importantly. Put farms around the lake, and cottages or workshops (when we unlock them) on the remaining grassland. I predict this would be a great Globe Theatre city.
  
• Cuzco.. well there's lots of trees and food here, but not much else. This might be a good spot to get a wonder or two in? Try and chop out a Library (Edit: Don't forget we're CRE: Don't use more than 2 forests), and get 2 scientists in there, or alternatively 2 merchants (once we get CoL).
  

It's worth noting that with FIN, a cottage and a scientist are basically the same in terms of beakers, but a cottage will grow to be much more valuable than any specialist. We want as much research as possible, and we also want to get Academies in our best commerce cities. I think with the next couple of turnsets we need to divide our worker labour between chopping buildings, and getting valuable improvements on the ground - and keeping them worked. Our two maturing hamlets should be a priority in that regard.

Good luck Dhalphir. We are off to an *excellent* start, and this is a good chance to test your micro-management skills. See how far you can push the economy, in particular.

[Tasunke]

I agree that any exploration should be eastward first ...

The warrior in Arabia can try to slowly make his way back around to our north/northwest. But any future scouts should go eastwards

I agree that the next city should be immediately to our north, and I would add that cities after that should fill in to our East. Particularly along that nice Eastern river, and at the spot with Stone/Horses/Sheep in between. There is a nice Wine/River/Horses spot fairly close to Guadalcanal and Cuzco.

I am not certain that we should wait until Hereditary rule is in ... although in either case we should probably try to start maturing some riverside cottages above all else, in order to help fix our GNP problems. Don't forget to leave a small path for post-civil-service farm spreading though.

After Monarchy I think its just a choice between the trade commerce from Currency and the maintenance reduction from Courthouses. If we get the stone city sooner than later we should probably go Monarchy -> Masonry -> (???)

After we get both Currency and Code of Laws we should probably pick up Construction and then go for some pure military techs. (I'm thinking HorsebackRiding and IronWorking).

Although ... I suppose if we wanted to waste some hammers on monuments at some point we could go Aesthetics for the Statue of Zeus ^_^

[Dhalphir]

Wow, lots of advice for me. I'm sitting down to play these turns in about an hour, I'll read it all carefully.


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[Dhalphir]

Taking a look at the save here. Only got 16 turns to play this time, so less opportunity for me to mess things up.

Renamed Guadalcanal to Tarsonis, and Cuzco to Korhal.

I agree with Hart that expansion is out until we have HR. Our cities have a very low happiness cap and we need to resolve that so our cities can work some cottages to rejuvenate our economy after our rush. We took two cities in the space of ~20 turns with our war on Inca, so we really didn't halt expansion so to speak, we just achieved it another way besides settlers.

My first order of business was figuring out the distribution of our military between our cities. Our fastest growing cities will need the most happiness.

In order from west to east in our empire

Shakuras - size 2, 6 bonus food per turn. This is our production city and we want it able to work as many mines as possible.
Aiur - size 5, 6 food per turn when working farms. also has 8 turns of whip anger.
Hiigara - size 5, two unhappy faces already, can get 5 food per turn
Tarsonis - size 3, currently 3 food per turn but will pick up the cow and northern wheat when it expands borders. We need lots of military here because we will whip it constantly and also it will still grow like a weed.
Korhal - size 2, still in revolt, but has wheat and double clams, so it will grow fast too.

My plan for Shakuras is to let it finish an axe then whip a granary to completion, overflowing into a barracks which it will then slowbuild to completion as I mine the surrounding hills.

Aiur, I will follow Hart's suggestions, finish the library, use two scientists, and slowbuild a settler to stave off growth without having to use avoid growth.

Hiigara, again, will finish the axe slowbuilding, then put two turns into a library before whipping it, to let the whip anger wear off.

Tarsonis has 9 turns of whip anger, which lines up almost perfectly with the library completing in 10. By the time the library completes, it should have expanded borders and picked up enough bonus food to grow enough to then whip a granary.

Not really sure what I'll do with Korhal until it comes out of resistance. It has a lot of food and the two water tiles are intact for it to work immediately, that will give us a bunch of commerce and food. I'm thinking about chopping the Oracle out of here - not really sure about that. We have 8 forests to chop, that's 160 hammers out of the 225 that the oracle needs, but Korhal doesn't have much production besides the forests unless I build a mine here. Even then, it'll be 10+ turns before the oracle finishes. I think that might be out.