Spaceship comparison game

[mdbill]

I do that capitalization change too. Another way is to just dbl-click on the save file. Civ IV will run and open it.

[solo]

What do you mean by capitilzation? Something about the filename that needed to be changed?

Anyways, I hope all others are able to load and use the save. I have also played to 1 AD, which is the stopping point we decided on for the first comparison. Spoiler info follows, plus an attachment of my save for 1 AD:

This game, I'm trying something a bit different. Since Isabella is spiritual, I decided on the religious route, and built the Oracle very early to get Code of Laws. Then I waited for the first Great Prophet in order to learn most of Civil Service afterwards.

Early explorations showed we are alone on an long snaky island, so after learning Sailing, a built two galleys and went to look for the AI while researching Alphabet. By 1 AD I had found them all, and had traded for quite a few techs. By that time I had also completed the Great LIbrary as my second wonder. A log of techs acquired so far follows:

4000 Madrid founded
3600 Meditation - Buddhism founded
3320 Preisthood
2800 Writing
2520 hut - barbs
2520 Oracle completed, Code of Laws as the free tech
2360 Sailing
1880 hut (on island to the west) - 38g
1690 Barcelona founded, north of Madrid
1560 Catherine - peace, open borders
1360 Seville founded, south of Madrid
1200 Alphabet, Meditation & Alphabet to Catherine for Agriculture, The Wheel, Hunting & Mining
1040 Kahn - peace, open borders, Code of Laws for Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry, Archery & Pottery (This was quite an unbelievable trade!)
1000 Hatty - peace, open borders
975 Polytheism
950 Cordoba founded west of Barcelona near fish and clams
925 Frederick - peace, open borders
725 Madrid - GP contributes 1025 beakers towards Civil Service
600 Polytheism, Code of Laws & Alphabet to Frederick for Iron Working & Mathematics
575 Civil Service - switch to Bureaucracy; Cyrus - peace, open borders
550 Literature, now that I have Math I will chop the GL
500 Elizabeth - peace, open borders, Meditation & Hunting for Masonry (can trade for this now)
450 Cirmcumnavigation! (using open borders to go through an AI city from one sea to the other!)
325 Code of Laws & Alphabet to Elizabeth for Calendar
275 Great Library completed in Madrid
50 Paper
25 Monotheism & Code of Laws to Cyrus for Monarchy
Code of Laws to Hatty for Horseback Riding

As of 1 AD I have 4 cities, two wonders, and all early techs except Construction, Compass, Metal Casting and Currency, but will be able to trade for these from the AI when they learn them, using Civil Service and Paper. At the moment I have a worker and settler on board a galley heading towards the island to the west where ther is some gold and iron the I want to grab. I need iron quickly to improve my defenses, I think! However, great progress has been made along the tech tree so far.

[uberfish]

I got bored of standard openings and decided to found 5 (yes five) religions in Madrid instead...

But I can't figure out how to post an attachment.

[solo]

Look below the reply window, where it says "Attach File". To the right, click on the browse button. When you have located your save file on your computer then just click on it to upload it, before submitting your reply.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by solo
What do you mean by capitilzation? Something about the filename that needed to be changed?

Yup, I have to change several letters to uppercase before the game recognises it as a valid save - kirk.Civ4SavedGame is OK, but it doesn't recognise kirk.civ4savedgame. Windows itself doesn't seem to care about the capitalisation, so as mdbill has pointed out, double clicking the save will work OK.

Anyway, I'll load my save and mini log shortly. Surfice it to say for the moment that I still seek the holy grail of a good starting strategy for all seasons, so I went for an early second city + cottage spam.

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

I must admit I thought about try to maximise religions, but in the end I wanted that work boat more than I wanted a religion so I worked the three hammer tile rather than the 2 commerce one.

Techs, etc

3640 BC: Meditation (and thus Budhism)
3200 BC: Polytheism (missing Hinduism by 1 turn)
3120 BC: Mining (from a hut I think)
3000 BC: Priesthood
2560 BC: Writing (start a library straight away and on completion allocate 2 scientists)
2320 BC: Wheel
2080 BC: Pottery (start cottage spam)
1400 BC :Alphabet
1200 BC: Bronze Working (start chopping down those forests for cottages. I wish I could wait for Mathematics, but a leader's got to do what a leader's got to do.)
1160 BC: Great Scientist builds an Academy
925 BC: Literature (Maximise production and start building GL)
625 BC: Code of Laws (and Confucianism)
325 BC: Complete GL
100 BC: Civil Service (revolt to Bureaucracy and Slavery)
50 BC: Meet Catherine and swap for Agriculture, Sailing, Hunting, Masonary, Iron Working and Archery

RJM at Sleeper's

[edit] Just noticed that it's poly that plays around with capitalisation; how odd [/edit]

[uberfish]

Settling on the starting spot is clearly best. So is working the fish (we have 2 hammers from being on a plains hill anyway) and researching meditation.

I went straight for religions, Meditation Polytheism Mining Masonry Monotheism. Built stonehenge primarily for the GPP. Monarchy from a hut. Built oracle in 1400 and got Confucianism. Took Theology in 975 with a prophet. Traded for all the boring non-religious techs such as Agriculture and Bronze with Alphabet in 675 and 650. Circumnavigated in about 500 with two fishing boats. Second prophet in 125 built Hindu shrine as this is the only religion that had spread.

Here's the save if anyone wants to play with a Quintuple holy city. I doubt it's the optimal approach to Space, but it's fun enough that I'll probably play it out even if we go with another save.

[solo]

RJM,

Thanks for the explanation. It appears to be happening to all files being uploaded, ie. all become lowercase. Unfortunately, capitalization isn't the only thing Windows doesn't seem to care about.

You have the best beaker total so far, with a total near 100. Your earlier cottages and Academy are making a difference. My current beaker count is only about 60, and I am still missing an Academy in my capital. Madrid will produce another GP in about 5 turns, but if this one is not a scientist, my own Academy may be delayed too long.

[rjmatsleepers]

Uberfish's approach is interesting - all those religions! I prefer to establish a second city before founding the later religions. There are two reasons for this. Firstly it enables me to build the special building in a "non-science" city which means there is no rush to build the income producing buildings (particularly the bank) in my science city. Secondly I like to keep the Great Prophet points separate from the great scientist points to give me a greater ability to manage my Great People.

Despite the smaller number of beakers, Solo has used trade to learn more technologies than I did. Similarly, once Uberfish has traded with someone - Kubla Kahn(?) - for the 2 outstanding technologies, he will (apparently) have a commanding tech lead.

Both of you will catch up on beakers once you start spamming those cottages and build an academy / great library (and you must get a Great Scientist at some point, Solo ).

I'm not sure whether my save has enough extra beakers to make up for the lower number of techs.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Swiss Pauli]

Been busy but managed to squeeze in a couple of hours here and there.

Built Henge and Oracle and the plan in to settle the southern island for its marble and seafood.

Not met anyone else yet. Was heading to mine the gold when Iron was revealed, so I relocated Seville to work that first.

Looked at solo's and rjm's saves, but not uberfish's. Of the three, I'd say solo's ahead. Cathy has settled the western island in rjm's game.

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=76188_Swiss_Kirk_AD-0001.Civ4SavedGame

[rjmatsleepers]

Swiss Pauli's save has some interesting points and his comment about Cathy's colony in my save is well taken.

In his save, I would be inclined to let those 2 scientists work the mines for a turn (it does them good to get out of the ivory tower sometimes ) Working the final mine would give a settler in 1 turn at the cost of a couple of stored food.

I tend to leave the hill forests around my science city and build windmills when they become available. I like to have all my worked tiles producing commerce, but Swiss Pauli's approach certainly produces a lot of hammers.

RJM at Sleeper's

[mdbill]

I'll try to get to 1 AD tomorrow, so I don't hold y'all up. I'm gonna try a non-standard opening too. I want to take advantage of the extra health (if that's possible), so I figure large cities. With the snaky continents I see that's gonna mean working water tiles. I'm gonna try Colossus for a change and then avoid Astronomy. G.Lighthouse will be mandatory. I'm also thinking Oracle to get Metal Casting. Build/chop a forge and assign an engineer. Use the Great Engineer(s) for maybe Pyramids and/or G. Lib. and also Oxford.

Here's hoping there is copper.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers
Swiss Pauli's save has some interesting points and his comment about Cathy's colony in my save is well taken.

In his save, I would be inclined to let those 2 scientists work the mines for a turn (it does them good to get out of the ivory tower sometimes ) Working the final mine would give a settler in 1 turn at the cost of a couple of stored food.

I tend to leave the hill forests around my science city and build windmills when they become available. I like to have all my worked tiles producing commerce, but Swiss Pauli's approach certainly produces a lot of hammers.

RJM at Sleeper's

I think I'm still waiting for my GS for an Academy and, unusually, I decided to defer Wheel and Pottery, so it was mines or an idle worker. My economy's a bit rubbish, so I'm not in a hurry to settle. I think I should have put Barca 1 square south to work 2 fish and use it for pop-rushing then GPP factory.

I look forward to seeing MDBill and uberfish's starts.

[mdbill]

Grr. No copper. What's up with that? there's always copper. Well, I'm going for Colossus anyway. My 2nd city magically popped out a Gems in its hill/mine. That could be huge. Oracle did get me Metal Casting. My first GProphet will go for CS.

[mdbill]

At 1 AD I have 5 cities sizes 9, 6, 5, 2, 1. One is at the Iron/gold spot. Should probably settle that stone/fish next...or the marble.

I just got my 3rd GP. It's a scientist and will probably make an Academy or maybe rush Education which I'm just about to start researching....(you decide?)
The first GProphet went to CS (750 BC), and the GE built the GLibrary (275 BC). This means I have plenty of forests left for the Oxford.

Colossus in 475 BC.
I missed the GLighthouse and Pyramids. I'm not used to missing the Pyramids, so, for something different..and since I'm not trying to get Astronomy this game, the plan is to go for Constitution (for representation). Another target might be Biology. You don't need Astronomy for that either.

I think I have all the techs everyone else has except I don't have HorseRiding and I'm a couple turns short of Paper. However, I do have two biggies: Metal Casting and Philosophy (running Pacifism, Heriditary rule, slavery, bureau) Two AI have currency so that's coming soon.

I've circumnavigated and met everyone.

If I played again, I would try harder for the GLighthouse. I think that would have been super sweet.