[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world

[Sullla]

Hey WilliamLP, you've been running a really great thread and playing a strong game from a fairly weak opening position (jungle everywhere, seafood start, etc.) Congrats on some excellent work.

So now of course here's the part where we get to nitpick something relatively minor: I don't think that razing and replacing Sam Walton was the best decision. You captured a size 4 city with three very useful buildings intact (granary, lighthouse, market). It was razed in favor of planting a new city a tile southeast:




The new location picks up the grassland silks tile, true, but that's not a power tile at all. The yield is only 2/0/4, which is no different from a standard village tile at this point in the game. Since you already had a silks resource hooked up elsewhere in your territory, I don't think that it was all that important. Your new city will have to start again from size 1 and build its own granary and lighthouse; I would estimate it will take about 15-20 turns to reach the same point in development as the city that you razed. Plus, you are also now out the cost of a settler, and the new city has to expand borders to get the clams tile in range, instead of it being usable immediately (plus the clams need a lighthouse to go from 4 food to 5 food). AND you razed a city that had your religion in it, costing you -1 gold/turn in your shrine city.

Obviously this is a judgment call, but I do think that you would have been in a better position to keep Sam Walton. In any case, I hope it gives you some food for thought. Best of luck.

[WilliamLP]

Obviously this is a judgment call, but I do think that you would have been in a better position to keep Sam Walton. In any case, I hope it gives you some food for thought. Best of luck.

Hi Sullla, thanks for the post and the food for thought. It's an honor! I'm a huge fan of your work and my interest in Civ IV comes quite directly from your reporting from PB2 onward, your YouTube series, and so on.

Also, I love the critique, I'm hoping there's more of this kind of thing in the lurker thread after the game is over.

[WilliamLP]

So Occam's Razor applies to Boldly's build-up, and the simplest explanation is the correct one.




He took two cities and there are tons of wounded 'phracts around, including at least one more big stack. I'm glad he's keeping open borders with us just because I enjoy moving the scout around and reading the unit names. Needless to say, pikes seem like a pretty good idea right now for when this is over.

Unlike me, he knows how to run a committed and decisive war.




I whipped out the 7 universities for Oxford which was pretty expensive but mostly lower worth tiles - and we'll grow back quickly. It may alarm someone looking at CivStats. We'll get a great person next turn. If it's not a scientist (scientist is 31%) I'm questioning now whether to run a GA right away or wait for some regrowth first. And then, probably to trade some food and pop for great people now that I've run arithmetic on how efficient it is.

I dialed back research to 0% this turn, just because running science the turn before 7 universities finish feels pretty silly. I'm sure the timing of my large moves could be a lot better.

I admit, at this part of the game I'm weak on goals and direction - I haven't actually played this far into Civ IV very much, and when I have it was usually a stomp against the AI at this point.

Here's a shot of the west seas, since we may be the only team who has explored much of it thus far:




We'll settle 2W of the iron by Instant Noodles next turn. 1S of that might be better but it's more vulnerable to being boated by Bandit.

I've seen one galleon of Retep's so far. I'm getting a paranoid feeling that the Moai city should run Caravels for a while - if I were Retep, sending some boats over to make sure we don't have a stake in the islands might feel like a good thing to do to win the game, especially since he has few defensive needs at home.

[Plunder]

If we have some worker turns left, maybe we can build a canal with forts to connect the east and west ocean with eachother.

[WilliamLP]

If we have some worker turns left, maybe we can build a canal with forts to connect the east and west ocean with eachother.

Thanks, I hadn't considered that was possible!

[Plunder]

Kuro moved some Horse archers into the range of our new city. They are all within range of our 2 movers, 96% odds. I suggest to clean them up. (otherwise we loose our new city, so it's not really a choice anyway)
Also, Boldy declared on Kuro when I was logged in! O.o No idea what he wants, getting the ice-wasteland units from Kuro??? Or snatch some big cities from kuro before our noses? that would be.... bold....

[WilliamLP]

I killed Kuro's 4 horse archers at 96%+ odds. I'm not sure what he was thinking moving them into certain death. At this point I get the feeling Kuro is looking to be out of this game, also from a post in the general forum that he wants to play in a new PB game.

I started the advance again. This time we have 15 cats, 4 maces, 2 xbows, and a bunch of obsolete axes, along with all the 2-movers, so I think this will be able to break through. (Especially since he just threw 4 striking units away for nothing.)

Yeah, I don't know what Boldly is doing with the war - he might just want to move his Triremes around to get a better view. I haven't seen anything to indicate he's thinking about a big boat move. Admittedly I should be scouting his northern cities though, just in case.

We got a Prophet this turn. I actually thought about it, and decided to hold on the GA until the next great person. It might be the wrong move, and knowing it now, it would have been better to use our scientist for a bulb earlier. But... for better or worse I bulbed Printing Press and we'll finish it this turn. I figure the 12 turns of golden age will always scale with our size, and so it isn't critical to start it sooner, and if we let cities grow after the university mass-whip we can convert more food / pop into GP points.

We settled Vermicelli:




It won't pay for itself for a while, but it could be decent eventually.

[Qgqqqqq]

Are all your trade routes foreign?

[WilliamLP]

Are all your trade routes foreign?

I believe they still are... We have open borders with Boldly and Molach which is a lot of trade cities.

[WilliamLP]

From the general forum.

I'd like to join as well. Except I'll be teaming up with Kuro.

I seriously suggest you don't do that.

Oh man, shots are fired!