[SPOILERS] naufragar is in for a penny

[naufragar]

Forgot to add, is this a bug? Or a random event that I missed the pop up for?


An extra +1 culture for the barracks in my core isn't going to affect anything (I don't think). But still curious.

[JR4]

Forgot to add, is this a bug? Or a random event that I missed the pop up for?

The culture doubles up after 1000 years. So it`s not a bug, just a nice reward for getting up buildings that produce culture early.

[Elum]

For trade routes the deficit is simply the total value of your received routes from other civs minus the total value of your routes in other civs, I think. Domestic and foreign trade works differently. Domestic routes can be repeated, like your island, but foreign ones cannot. A good trade partner should give you 3c trade routes or its kind of pointless and you could be providing more value than you receive. Trade route value calcs are on civfanatic but generally larger cities and greater distance is king.

Great reports and solid play by the way 

[Mardoc]

Forgot to add, is this a bug? Or a random event that I missed the pop up for?

The culture doubles up after 1000 years. So it`s not a bug, just a nice reward for getting up buildings that produce culture early.

And, it really is 1000 years, not a specific number of turns. I think it's the only mechanic in the game that actually cares about the date rather than the turn number.

[naufragar]

Thanks Elum and Mardoc. That's kinda hilarious. So if you world builder in a monument on turn 0 it'll only take a couple turns to double? I actually do seem to remember noticing the culture increase, but this is the first game I've been really paying attention.



Mackoti has an axe and chariot grouped together. I guess there's a city going down there next turn. He's going to make a big crescent from my ENE to my North. Lots of bad angles. You can see Harmony Valley about to get whipped for a library. I have a terrible happy cap of 7. I desperately need to raise it. I'll get access to gems eventually, but it's a long way off. I have one calendar happy available. I have wines at my palace.  (Mack has hooked up 7 luxuries, I believe. Two mining, two animal husbandry, three calendar. Potent stuff.)

Ignore the archery tech selection in the above pic. I'm one turning Mysticism and then Archery. I basically got fed up building barracks for culture. I've had a few Hinduism spreads, but I'm not going to be able to get to Meditation and monasteries in time to do anything. Then I want archery because I've been putting it off for way too long. Basically, Mackoti (and Rusten, whose power has skyrocketed) have frightened me with their tech rate, so I have to think about what toys they could get. They don't have iron yet (I think). But when they do, I'll want archers. Archers on hills behind walls are very cost effective against swords. Mackoti already has Calendar and Currency, so I have to wonder when he'll grab Construction, too. The answer to cats is cats. A slow mover stack with swords/axes, spears, and cats is really nasty to deal with without collateral of my own. That said, I want metal casting before construction, so the tech path is probably something like Myst, Archery, Metal Casting, Construction? Still want monasteries and horse archers, but needs must.

Also, I think Adrien resumed putting EP into me. We're at 48/44. If he's trying to hide his graphs from me, we'll have to deal with that.

[Dark Savant]

Thanks Elum and Mardoc. That's kinda hilarious. So if you world builder in a monument on turn 0 it'll only take a couple turns to double? I actually do seem to remember noticing the culture increase, but this is the first game I've been really paying attention.

1000 years at standard speed is 25 turns early on.  Also, I think there's an exception for the palace.

It plays a role in a cultural win; the culture from early wonders doubles early enough to be significant.  The Sistine bonus also gets doubled.

[naufragar]

Interesting. Thanks Dark Savant. Shows how often I go for cultural victories.

And thanks JR4! Sorry I missed you in the earlier post!

Speaking of culture wins, smart players able to win this should really take culture seriously. (See Pb18.) With the distances involved, there's little guarantee you'd be near enough to your rival to stop a spaceship. Makes culture appealing perhaps.

[naufragar]

I'm always superstitious about showing pictures and giving my thoughts about my Mackoti border, but this bears comment, I guess.


Mackoti moved his axe/chariot 1SW and added a horse archer. Because of a wandering Cairo chariot, I had to pull my chariot back to Assassin's Redoubt (chosen for a sad bit of flavor text, hopefully not prophetic). I would've liked to moved that chariot to the western front, but I can't take the chance, even if I doubt Mr. Cairo would snipe a city on the other end of my empire from him. This is not the first time that chariot has been a pain. If Mackoti wants to found a city where that stack is, I'm intrigued. It has a good food in the plains wheat, but I've been putting culture into my own wheat for a while. I know that it is proportionally easier to hold tiles closer to your cities, but all the same, that seems a let's say bold placement. My GNP is respectable: ranked 6th while saving gold. Our MfG and Crop Yield are meh. Mackoti's power is rising again (or had already begun rising two turns ago when the graphs picked it up, I should say). I'll have to sim to see if his stack can wipe mine out. I doubt it. I promoted the spear to Combat 1 for safety's sake and it has a 15% fortification bonus. His axe can obviously kill my chariot. I have several axes in queues because they're what I will would need to hit a stack in my territory. The most annoying thing he could do is just kill my chariot with his axe and stop his attack there. I'd have to retreat because I can't bring my own axe up in time. I don't see him doing that, because all he gains is some xp on the axe and costing my 35h, and putting me on my guard.

If Mackoti has a settler and two workers in the fogged forest 1NW of his wheat, he can found next turn, which would bump my units. I'd prefer not to comment on how I'd react to a city planted there as opposed to the much more neighborly hill 1S of his wheat. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I had a settler in this shot at the start of the turn, headed to the hill 1NE of the deer. I always knew this would be exposed, but now with this Mack force in the area of operations, I've turned it around to go somewhere else. I don't have the units to protect it and my older colonies. I hate hate hate ceding the area between me and Aretas. It's just so much damn land for Mackoti, but I would need workers there to instantly chop out granary+walls and then enough units to stop it from being instantly overrun.

Also pictured: me being an idiot with worker turns again. I built the road my axe is on thinking that the road plus the lake in my culture would give a trade connection to Assassin's Redoubt. As you can see, this is not the case.

I should say, I'm pretty confident I live to turn 100. Rusten would need to take out my island city to assist Mackoti with wiping me out that quick.   The reason my blood pressure is skyrocketing at the thought of Mack's potential city placement is its proximity and because it grabs the hill my units are on, enabling him to always look into Harmony Valley.

[naufragar]

Mackoti declared war on Rusten this turn. I forgot to check if there was any war weariness yet. How, if Mackoti is fighting Rusten, does he have time to send more troops to my border?


I thought about it for a while and decided to retreat off that hill. With two axes in striking distance, I could lose both the spear and the chariot. While that wouldn't be enough to really threaten me, I might need all the units I can muster soon. I've set my research to Horseback Riding, which is annoying. I desperately need Metal Casting for forges, not least for their bonus happy. (Mack's capitol is size 12. Mine has a happy cap of 8.)

I've queued up chariots with an eye toward auto-upgrading them. Does research kick in before production, so if a chariot and HBR complete at the same end of turn the chariot is changed to a horse archer build? I seem to remember it does. I guess I could stop being lazy and test it.

Rick continues his aimless wanderings. He's had a good life, especially in comparison to his FfH cousins.


This pic isn't relevant to me at all, but it does show Adrien founding cities. (There's a worker roading under the nearest skirmisher. I assume Adrien settles that hill 1W of the cow.) Rick already passed another of Adrien's settlers. This is just impressing on me my need to expand. The trouble is, while I'm not exactly out of land, I'm out of land that is either good or not intimately close to a neighbor. I have one settler on the move and another finishing next turn, but they'll both be coastal, which won't do any wonders for my MfG. Another reason I need Metal Casting ASAP: this empire wants workshops. I'm no long top tier in MfG or Crop Yield. Now I'm very much middle of the pack. The problem is that those numbers will only go down relative to others as they catch up to my Imperialistic self.

I might've trapped my chariot in BGN lands.


The city to its SW ("Vote Roy Moore") already has a library. The tile 1W of his spear is coast, so if his north is anything like my south, the land runs out up there, and the culture will close up behind my unit. I'll try and find a way through. Chariots are a little more obtrusive than scouts when it comes to war decs for trespassing. Speaking of which, I sent Plako a shiny gold coin. Didn't feel like trading fish for fish, but I have to declare war on him again next turn, and I hope he interprets this as me paying the toll.  

[Cornflakes]

Your understanding of the queue upgrade is correct ... but only when the unit in the queue is obsoleted by the tech. I haven't played Civ4 in a very long time, but I'm fairly certain that HBR does NOT obsolete chariots and thus the chariots wouldn't be eligible for queue upgrade (I don't think Chariots are obsolete until Knights).