Post your terrible start and 4000 BC save Here

[Arrian]

I might build city #2 on the coastal plains hill northwest of Washington (4-7-7 on the keypad), actually.

Then the river/cows site, yeah. Maybe that first. It kinda depends on whether there are neighbors you're worried about grabbing that site.

I'd punch out 2 workboats whilst getting things like Animal Husbandry (that city is gonna have a LOT of food!). In order to do it quickly, I'd work the forest hill tile for a bit. I'd then want mining, BW and masonry (for the quarry!). Agriculture can wait (or do the Americans start with Agr?). IMO, so can pottery.

That's a solid setup for a CS slingshot. With marble, the Oracle is really cheap. Super growth/decent commerce from the seafood. Thank goodness you're ORG - you get cheapo lighthouses, so even cities on the desert coast (built on desert tiles, work forest tiles while building LH's) can be decent quickly.

-Arrian

[playshogi]

I got the link to my saved game awful start that mention in post #8 above posted. For those who want to try an emperor level awful, awful position. Please let us know how you fare if you try it. Anybody who can win without reloading is a super Grandmaster Civ player.

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?....Civ4SavedGame

EDIT: In order to load the game, you have CFC HOF mod 1.52 installed.

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php

[mutax2003]

Your save game doesn't load, error in the mod directory name.

[mutax2003]

Originally posted by unamablebuiler
Thanks mutax

guess my relative inexperience shows , it was my first game on prince



The way i see it the best city site is on the river to the SW

so i would need bronze working and pottery and not a religion?

Either the bronze working or religion are valid for prince level. Bronze is better for chop rush and early axemen rush, but religion can give you extra incomes and better relations with your convert AI civs, so depends on what goal you have in minde.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by unamablebuiler
this start is pretty shocking its only pricne though

Resource poor. It probably means you are alone. Head for the oceans early.

[gus_smedstad]

Monarch difficulty, Ice Age, standard size, standard speed.

While the surrounding terrain isn't bad - the area to the northwest is nice, and that warrior is standing on a gold deposit - this wins some sort of prize for bad capitol locations. I didn't move from the starting location. The only redeeming thing about this start is that it's on a plains hill.

[axi]

Tundra starts are generally bad. But this one, albeit a good starting position, has a big pita right at your doorstep. And he gets to grab a better location than you.

[axi]

screenshot

[UnOrthOdOx]

Were those some wierd settings on that one, Axi?

Never seen someone that close before.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by gus_smedstad
The only redeeming thing about this start is that it's on a plains hill.

Either a bug, or multiple late-game resources are in the city radius.

[mutax2003]

Axi, I tried out your save. Japan is close by next door, so that will put throw a wrench in your expansion plan, the peaceful kind at least. However, when I play on monarch or emperor, I subscribe to the warmongering approach and like to rush and kill off a neighbouring civ or two early. Since Japan can't get any closer, it just make my job of killing them much easier. Here is what I did:

Settled in place, which forced Toku to move in order to settle his city. Since Japan was so close, my initial plan was to do an archer rush, so I research hunting first. With archer rush, I still chopping in order to get my army built fast, so next I research bronze working. Imagine my surprise when I found a bronze source in my city radius. I changed my plan to axemen rush instead, so I sent my worker to built a mine. Just as when the mine came online, Toku sent out his first worker. With my warrior that was camping near the border, I declared war and grabbed his worker.


With two workers, I chopped the barrack and my two axemen, one for home defense and one destined for the forest near Kyoto. As my axe approached his city, Toku got his archer in additions to his two warriors. So I fortify the axe and waited for reinforcement. Meanwhile, Toku sent out warriors after my mine, and shock promoted axe easily killed them off. Finally, that axe died to a Japanese archer on open plain, which I wasn't expecting, so my other axe finished off the wounded Jap archer. With all the chopping, my axemen kept streaming in, until I have 5 axe, and Toku had 3 archers. I thought the odds still wasn't in my favour, so I moved a warrior into an adjacent forest tile as a lure, foolishly Toku attacked and killed the warrior with an archer, then my axe moved in to finish off the wounded archer.

I had 5 axe to 2 jap archers, to ensure victory, I moved the home garrison axe in. With 6 axemen and 1 warrior I attacked, incredibly the two Japanese archers killed 5 of my axemen and only lost one archer; however, the last archer was almost died (0.9 health), so I attacked the city with my warrior and won barely (0.0 health). Kyoto captured, the Japanese civilization has been wiped out. Despite Kyoto being so close to Rome, I decided to keep it since it has silver resources nearby.

My next plan is to scout out the land, attack the other neighbours if I find one close by. Otherwise, I will switch to build mode, and settle some new cities. Attached is the save file (by the way, vj day stands for "victory over Japan day".

Originally posted by axi
Tundra starts are generally bad. But this one, albeit a good starting position, has a big pita right at your doorstep. And he gets to grab a better location than you.

[ToughBoy!]

Hey all. New to the forums. Here's a pretty disgusting start! I think I have you all beat!



A little closer up...

[mutax2003]

Here one start I had on emperor, highland map, playing as the Egyptians. It is not so much the resources, but the map and difficulty level in general. Try at your own risk, I am not responsible for any adverse effect resulting from losing the game and frustration, which can lead to drop in self esteem, depression, and the strange desire to try the start again with different strategies.

[Blake]

mutax2003, resizing screenshots is your friend.

[mutax2003]

Good point, I have resized the pic (see above).