No horses, or coal, ever!

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by samspock
My last game I started with Iron in my fat cross, stone to the north, marble and copper to the east (had to conqure to get it) and later quite a bit of coal, oil and aluminium. Inside my borders after I had killed off the nearest rival and took his awesome capital spot (loaded with flood plaines and a gold hill) I had about 4 irons scattered around. What I did not have any of was horses. I had to trade for them and got cut off due to war before I could finish a knight! I am usually missing stone or marble though more so than horses/coal etc.

Well congratulations on your good fortune, overall, anyway; and thanks for substantiating my point about rare horses. Too bad you had to fight to get the rest, I sort of pick up that you, like myself, don't like to fight for the pure love of it.

I like the way stone was handled in Civ3 Conquests. You sometimes had to walk (or fight) a little ways for it, but it was around if you worked at it a little bit. It's clear from what everybody's saying that isn't the case here. Marble, maybe okay to make that rare, the wonders it helps are real game-changers, as I remember and I don't think everybody among real life had a lot of it, though apparently the Greeks and Romans did.

We have generated some good suggestions here, (besides the rants.) A short, casual summary:

No metals, race to longbowmen, they are good a long time for attack and defence.

No coal, maybe a small empire with a few powerful, intersupportive, "vertically-integrated" cities, i.e. small castle gambit, to make up for no railroads.

No UU because it needs a horse; or no horses in general; stop crying, it happens, concentrate on foot troops and/or become a merchant-diplomat. Small vertically-integrated "castle" of cities again appears appropriate.

No oil, hit reset or resign! : Just kidding.

No marble or stone, aim for victory less-based on wonders, or, build up production where the halving for having these goodies are less critical to your timely completions. ("Timely completions," sounds sort of like one of those intimacy clinics. )

No aluminum, try for other than space victory. Could try to mob enemy jets with myriads of prop planes or enemy ironclads with mobs of frigates, if no coal. Uranium and oil allow for modern ships, can race to those if can't get iron clads(combustion/industrialism.)

Check the polar regions for unusual resources not found elsewhere, like silver, furs or my favorite, deer. In some games, at some levels, you might be the only one who wants to build up there.

In all cases, try to negotiate trade for what you need. Some intimidation may be appropriate, especially if you have your UU, (like Arrian and his Praetorians.)

[Unimatrix11]

Starting a spaceship to another world to colonize it with earth's life is fullfilling the purpose of all civilization - how else do you justify its planet-abusing behaviour ?

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Starting a spaceship to another world to colonize it with earth's life is fullfilling the purpose of all civilization - how else do you justify its planet-abusing behaviour ?

Okay, er, I'm not militant about hating the concept of
Spaceship Victory. I don't play with it on at home for SP, but if I do MP and everybody wants it, I'll play. (And read up on it heavy. ) From what you're saying, I get that you feel this stupendous accomplishment is justification for the successful player to win the game. Okay by me.

[Generaldoktor]

Replying to myself again, but on the list above, add to "No Aluminum:"

Race to mech infantry, they can replace modern armor with proper promotions and have good antiaircraft capability to if you have no jets. SAM infantry may also be useful.

[Yosho]

No coal, maybe a small empire with a few powerful, intersupportive, "vertically-integrated" cities, i.e. small castle gambit, to make up for no railroads.

The problem is, by the time you discover you have no coal, it's probably too late to use this stratagy.

(shrug) Railroads aren't quite as key as they were in Civ III anyway. The ability to move units around instanly really help you defend your empire, but you can defend your empire without it if you have to. The extra hammers from hills and forests you get from railroads are more important, but that's not really something you can plan around.

The good thing about coal is, is that if you do have to buy, steal, or "borrow" it from someone, you don't need it for long; just pay them however much they want for the coal for about 40 turns until you've got your railroads built, then you can cancel the trade deal. (At least you can if you have the Hoover dam and don't need coal plants).

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Yosho


The problem is, by the time you discover you have no coal, it's probably too late to use this stratagy.

The good thing about coal is, is that if you do have to buy, steal, or "borrow" it from someone, you don't need it for long; just pay them however much they want for the coal for about 40 turns until you've got your railroads built, then you can cancel the trade deal. (At least you can if you have the Hoover dam and don't need coal plants).

You could do some "tweaking" of your late game expansion plans, even after you come to grips with the fact you're not going to get coal.

Somebody said earlier in reference to "power," you can maybe rely on hydro or go nuclear. Hoover Dam is called Three Gorges in Civ4, update to reflect new real world history since Civ3. (Nobody thought the Chinese would really go through with it I guess when Civ3 came out; it really will be the world's biggest. )

Speaking of which, I really would like to see a thread on the comparative merits of building Three Gorges; (i.e. by the time its done, it's often very late game,) but I think one of the Apolyton "higher powers" was going to do that one, so I'll defer to him.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor


You could do some "tweaking" of your late game expansion plans, even after you come to grips with the fact you're not going to get coal.

Somebody said earlier in reference to "power," you can maybe rely on hydro or go nuclear. Hoover Dam is called Three Gorges in Civ4, update to reflect new real world history since Civ3. (Nobody thought the Chinese would really go through with it I guess when Civ3 came out; it really will be the world's biggest. )

Speaking of which, I really would like to see a thread on the comparative merits of building Three Gorges; (i.e. by the time its done, it's often very late game,) but I think one of the Apolyton "higher powers" was going to do that one, so I'll defer to him.

(shrug) Nuclear power is, almost always, a bad idea. Basically, it's just not worth the risk. I would much, much rather have a coal plant, and if I can't get that, I'll do without power rather then risk nuclear power.

Hydro power is fine, but it can't be built in all cities.

[Brizey]

Having resources be somewhat scarce is the whole point of having resources. And resource scarcities have definitely changed the outcome of real world history:

-horses in the west
-iron in the far east
-tin in the mediterranean
-oil in the southern hemisphere

[uberfish]

I usually have coal plants everywhere anyway 50+ turns before Three Gorges or hydro plants are available since they build quickly once you have the factory up. So three gorges ends up having the effect of '+2 health to non-river cities late game' in practice, making it one of the weaker late game wonders.

At high difficulty levels games finish before global warming has a chance to kick in, and pollution isn't the huge micromanagement annoyance that it was in Civ2, so there isn't much downside to just building coal plants everywhere in civ4 and using that added production to build health improvements.

[samspock]

I think in general that you tend to be missing something or another. If you are lucky it will be something that you can work around/trade for. I have started a few games lately that did not have any copper nearby. It was not much of a problem since I did have iron. It just took a little more time to make a good fighting base.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by uberfish
I usually have coal plants everywhere anyway 50+ turns before Three Gorges or hydro plants are available since they build quickly once you have the factory up. So three gorges ends up having the effect of '+2 health to non-river cities late game' in practice, making it one of the weaker late game wonders.

At high difficulty levels games finish before global warming has a chance to kick in, and pollution isn't the huge micromanagement annoyance that it was in Civ2, so there isn't much downside to just building coal plants everywhere in civ4 and using that added production to build health improvements.

(shrug) Well, once you have your factories built the tech, you have to choose if you're going to build coal plants everywhere, or make for the Three Gorges dam. It's not worthwhile to do both. Building coal plants everywhere right away gives you that +25% right away, but if you've got a decent sized empire it also costs you more hammers then building the Three Gorges once will, and of course there's also the health factor.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Brizey
Having resources be somewhat scarce is the whole point of having resources. And resource scarcities have definitely changed the outcome of real world history:

-horses in the west
-iron in the far east
-tin in the mediterranean
-oil in the southern hemisphere

I just would like the scarcity to somewhat reflect the real world; coal is not a rare mineral, except in Civ4. Using coal, which not all civs mastered equally (real-world) or at the same time, is covered by the cost of acquiring the technology. The scarcity of tin is covered very well, by the way, in Thamis' variant, "The Ancient Mediterranean" which was one of the most enjoyable ways to play Civ3 and is now being developed for Civ4.

Uranium, (weapons grade of course,) is way too common in Civ4, but that may be a game device to ensure everybody gets the bomb when somebody gets it.

The disappearance of horses from the Western Hemisphere so that the Meso-American civilizations never encountered them until the Europeans brought them is a fluke of biology, or climatology, that is still unexplained. I suppose it is okay for Civ to try to duplicate that, with horses and other resources, but it didn't happen all that often. Horseback riding right now in Civ is a very lengthy tech to acquire early in the game for most civ science operations and being a dead-end tech, is de facto even more expensive. I think they could have scattered around horses a little more and I may try again to tinker with the "world-builder" (the last time it crashed the game,) to ensure this, at least for SP games in my home.

I don't understand your comment about iron in the Far East. I believe it was fairly common even there, but some real-world civs were slow to develop the technology.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Yosho


(shrug) Nuclear power is, almost always, a bad idea. Basically, it's just not worth the risk. I would much, much rather have a coal plant, and if I can't get that, I'll do without power rather then risk nuclear power.

Hydro power is fine, but it can't be built in all cities.

There is another thread where an experienced player comments that nuclear meltdowns ALWAYS occur and it just depends on how quick you build the plants as to when you get yours. He also commented that they are as ugly in game terms as advertised.

I don't like nuclear and never did; I never built the plants in Civ3 or CTP. But in this game, you get behind the AI fast if you don't have some kind of plant to speed further your factories or Three Gorges, speaking of the latter...

Originally posted by Yosho


(shrug) Well, once you have your factories built the tech, you have to choose if you're going to build coal plants everywhere, or make for the Three Gorges dam. It's not worthwhile to do both. Building coal plants everywhere right away gives you that +25% right away, but if you've got a decent sized empire it also costs you more hammers then building the Three Gorges once will, and of course there's also the health factor.

I guess we're going to talk about Three Gorges, though I think Velociryx was going to do that on a future segment of his strategy thread series; and I planned to defer to him. I've decided in a couple games to defer ALL power plant building to try to race to Three Gorges, but this is tricky strategy. The AI, or God forbid in a MP situation, the other human players; can get way ahead of you in production, if they decide to divert resources to acquiring those dirty coal plants earlier. You better make sure you got the hammers to get that puppy done before late, late game. I can vouch it takes TWO, count-em TWO Great Engineers to finish the thing using that method, making it the equivalent of a "Golden Age" and it can only be built in a city with running water.

Choose that city carefully my friend and do not dally. This is one big project and...for every five guys that decides to go ahead with building the coal; there's one other schemer with a big production jones that is trying to race you to finish it and even if you get "cash back," the game might very well be on the line if you get no da- n dam and have no plants late game either

By the way, the guy that said pollution is not all that severe in this game is absolutely right. Building the dirty coal can be a viable alternative strategy to a Three Gorges race. In games where you've coerced a lot of trade, you can end up with so many health pluses (including my beloved deer ) that the dirt don't matter, not even for Ironworks, factories or the works. Maybe they should have made health resources scarcer, or less effective.