Worker: The thousanth told story

[TriMiro]

I'm far from being a great Civ player, but I believe I am doing OK, so here is my advice.

1. You should never let your cities riot. As soon as you reach the happy cap, you should stop the city from growing.
2. I never automate neither the workers nor the governors. Yes it means micromanagement, but I go into the city screen only if the city has just grown or I have completed a new tile and intend to reassign people working (not every turn).
3. Planning is the key for good development.
3 a) Long term: From the very beginning I try to make a plan on what a fully developed city would look like. If the city is going to be a GP pump, go for food (obviously) and leave as much forest as possible. In the case of a regular city, make sure you have just enough food for enough people to work all the 20 tiles and make the rest into mines/cottages. Consider leaving some forest for health as well (initially you would not be able to work all the tiles anyway and by the time you do, you will have limber mills). Windmills are OK for the extra food, but do not build watermills unless you are really desperate (and make that REALLY DESPERATE) for hammers. Cottages are pretty much always better (cottages are by far the most important improvement). Plans are made to change, so be flexible, but it helps a lot to have some big picture in mind.
3 b) Short term (aka what are the first two/three improvements). First go for food, tiles are useless unless someone is working on them and you need food for more people. Second I go for hammers and try to build a mine or two. The third or forth should be a cottage. At the second improvement I also try to connect the city to the rest of the empire. Exceptions to the above are the strategic resources, if you need that iron now, connect it now.
4. What to build where? Well, I guess that depends on the personal style, but here is what works for me. Cottages on flood plains and grass. Mines on hills (always chop forest from hills, the chance to find extra resources comes handy). Plains I prefer to leave with forest; if there is no forest, build a farm or in case you have too much food already, go for another cottage. I never farm grass or floodplains unless I don't have enough food to work all my mines. I don't use specialists and GP much (perhaps I should), I usually don't play charismatic or spiritual so most of my cities are capped at population 4 until the calendar, so early on I have much more use for commerce and hammers than food.
5. If my workers have nothing better to do, I make everything into roads/railroads. I will road a tile with a resource for which I don't have the tech yet, just to save time when I do have the tech.

I may automate workers to just improve roads to RR (I am not even sure if that can be done), and I will do that only after I make sure all my mines and limber mills are done first (manually) and I have RR connections between cities to move soldiers faster.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Game-God
Aaaaah! how refreshing...Ghandi

I haven't played with Ghandi for quite a while since there are so many others that keep coming up randomly..

Starting Stuff:
Mystisism - Mining
Philisophical - Spiritual
Fast Worker - Mausoleum

Techs:
Meditation-Polytheism-Agriculture-Monotheism or Priesthood-Bronzworking-The Wheel-Pottery-Writing

Build Que:
Warrior-Warrior(faster search coverage)Worker-Worker-Settler-Oracle (to get Ironworking or Metal Casting) Second city should go for more a Warrior then settlers right away to maximise expansion right?

What say Ye?

I think Blake has more than adequately talked about city location and improvements so I’ll just add my comments concerning the all important start. There are two likely plays that I can see from here but sadly they compete a little. They are Build worker – Research Agriculture or Grab an early religion. I should add here that the starting location is strong so should be settled there. Just to check I might move the warrior onto the forest hill north of the city to take a look at the treats on offer in that direction. And after that I would settle.

At Noble difficulty, Meditation would work but I would tend to go for Polytheism at higher levels. With the floodplains, it also makes sense to grow so that you can get as much commerce as possible towards the religion. What better thing might you choose but Stonehenge from the start while researching Polytheism.

The advantage of the religion at higher levels is that it will allow growth in the city without a garrison. At this stage in the game, a garrison is not necessary to fend off barbs but take care with your starting warrior. It’s all you have for sometime with my plan.

Second tech, in my book is not, surprisingly, Agriculture but Bronze-working. Since we did not start with a worker, this will allow the worker to be whipped from size 4. If you can arrange to build just less than half of a worker when Bronze is completed, then the switch to slavery and whip can be done instantaneously. If Bronze is taking a little longer then spend a few more turns on Stonehenge but working production tiles. What’s more a large surplus is added back into the Stonehenge build and your super fast worker will chop the rest. The sooner you get Stonehenge, the sooner you will have your shrine (around 1000 years at standard speed should work)

While he is doing this, Agriculture is the thing to go for and then probably Wheel/Pottery. You might also use another worker-whip overflow to give yourself enough production for a few warriors. Then settler.

Actually there’s perhaps too much detail here. With more information from playing I might make some adjustments. Perhaps fit in a warrior earlier in the mix or maybe even build the worker the long way and use the farm and hills for Stonehenge.

[Game-God]

It looks like I have even more to think about than I imagined!

And thats a good thing... right?

So. Blake and all Thank You for chiming in here this is going to be very helpful in my advancement to the higher levels albeit slow advancement...

So let me take this by the numbers where possible to make sure I get the picture.

Dehli should be cottages:
Not sure why this is true. I was hoping to use it as a Great Person farm to some extent for the religions I would find (I have played some and have the saves/pics for things that made me scratch my head). So in creating cottages will that denote that you think I should not make this particular city a Great Person farm? So I should not improve all the food tiles as I have done but instead try to use ONLY those that have the "BEST" food value instead? Just how many of these tiles need to be for food to create a rich haven for Great Persons? I am planning on getting as many religions as possible at this point. ?(check out the other post after this one for the religions I have found)

Bombay Ok worker-wise:
Well great! though I was planning on it being something other than what it is in the future. By moving it to your site 5a-5b I would be able to do more with it also.

1) So you think is is wiser to put cities where floodplains are rather than major resources like metals(keeping them from the AI) and tradeables?
2) Flanking capitol: I guess this one kept with your ideas I usually do this with a 2nd city or 3rd if 2nd has Iron that can make defending even better.
3) That is exactly where I was planning on putting my next city though out of your order it would at least work the same tiles your thinking.
4) I placed this city (Vijayanagra) so as to keep the then important metal away from Joao since he already had horses with chariots that could cremate my Axemen I ws not planning to go to war but maybe just harrase him some. I see that the floodplains will be helpful for growth(is that the Only concern I should have with this setting)?
3) Makes total sense
4) I have need to feed the army for protection against Boudica to the North so I put the city close as was necessary and outside of culture of Joao who found the unhappy city North of mine( I took that from him later to crutch him)
5) Both seem just right to me for growth so I should again place one of those for floodplains (I'd probably go for the coastal route since I like the commerce value of Wonders there.
6) I see a number 7 not 6 so I assume that is the one you mean. I was planning also to get a city close to there(how do you make those cool little idea boxes for city placement BTW). Considering my already placed city idea I would have placed the next city inbetween the pig and sugar to reap both then placved a city just past the Floodplains to the east to encroach into Joao if possible.

Some thoughts and Q's:
1) I have studied your dotmapping and will attempt this with a save of another game today sometime to see if I get the picture some(doubtful as I am slow). The map will be different so I will have to rethink everything, cool!
2) I was planning on getting to all the resources with this Ghansi game like Iron to keep Joao and Boudica from geting any. As you can see from the game save If I take them right up front both of them will be severely handicapped throughout the game to make war with me. (I like to think of it as a preventative) Is this wise even though it would put my cities away from the capitol and each other by great distances? Each would have their own Iron and could make their own forces then without roads.
3) I think the Settler idea is fine, but I have had difficulty in getting more than 8-9 cities total with Noble by the AD1 time frame without getting my tech rate to 0%, so will the floodplains ideas keep this from happening?


TriMiro:
I thank you also for joining in here!
1) I did not build the city that is having difficulty with population growth unhappiness that was Joao's that I took from him and so they are being difficult. I have been letting the population go to 1 point unhappy then whip a unit or building. This was also constrained by the fact that Joao has his capitol just north of this city and it was pressuring mine with culture that was almost completely surrounding it initially. I have manged to back his culture border off some but he still has some of the population as his culture so things are slow going. Normally I do not let a city go more than 1 point into unhappiness in any game so your right here.
2) Now you say to never automate the Governors? I have read what Quillan has wrote and he says just the opposite, What are the arguements for/against both sides I wonder?
3) Leave as much forest as possible? I have ben copping anything in the BFC then leaving those outside of this but in the culture border for defense. Is this a problem and why? (PS I know about Forest Preserves but they come so late I don't use them unless really getting Greenies alot).
4) getting resorces latter on from deforested spots: If this something I should plan on really since I do not even know whether there will be something there or not? This seems like I might be just waiting on a plain ride that has been cancelled, if you know what I mean. If I need the hill or other tile anyways then I should just use it and let the chips fall, or am I missing something?
5) Build extra roads: This could have its advantages but would this not also make things easier for the enemy to use them with proper promotions? This could be a rarity I'll admit but I have not seen the need to so so yet on Noble and lower. Am I missing something here also? and would it be helpfull for the higher levels?

Ideas: I like what you have written here also and in fact trying to blend most of this intogether with Blakes usage/placement ideas will be an artform all in itself.

Couerdelion:
Again; Thank You here!

I have saved some of the games playout time with my first religions shown below.




This would be all the religions I was planning on going for but could maybe get Christianity if no one else gets it first before switching over to another tech path for defense??

I made 3 warriors from the get-go to look around more and they did quite well (I mostly got lucky with a tech for a Goody Hut!)

Instead of building my own worker up front I stole Joao's! this worked fine and then I took one of his 2 cities which crutched him pretty good. I see that he still has the ability to get Iron to his eastern side so I would like to control this resouce if possible, but Blake has thought of my City locations being abit wrong so maybe this is not a good Idea.

Missed out on Stonehenge someone else was on that like flies on S***. But I did manage to get the Oracle which I took writing with since I was already on Iron working and needed to get Code of Laws for things to work out right.

BTW has anyone played with the game save I made after playing until 400 AD? I would like to see if you think things are working or if I am speeding my way to an early grave in some fashion?


Thank You! to all for the input and today I will play a different game to get a fresh idea from what you have all said for starting location, worker stuff and build ques/techs.

[TriMiro]

1. Waiting for one rioting person makes sense only if you whip immediately and if a captured city has rioters: whip immediately.

2. In Civ 3 I was able to do overall 20% better than the auto governor, in Civ 4 the governors may be better but I doubt they can beat a person. The governor never plans ahead. If a city is at the happy cap, the governor would stagnate it, but would miss the fact that by the time the city grow, it would have completed a temple for example. To be honest, in Civ 3, if playing Monarch, I did use governors to minimize micromanagement.

3. Forest is good for a number of reasons. In the early stage it provides hammers, before you get workshops and then consider carefully (limber mill + RR > workshop). In mid game it can provide crucial boost in health (with a lot of religion you have a lot of happiness, so you do need a lot of health). In late game forest preserves can make a difference ensuring that you get the GP for the corporations (if you have patch 3.13 do use corporations). Forest is also good for defense. I am not saying you should not chop, on the contrary: DO chop; however, you should plan your chop (I always leave some forest).

4. Every mine has a small chance of discovering a resource even if there is no resource there now. It happened to me several times that I would mine mountains that have no resources and are outside the fat crosses of my cities and several (or several hundred) turns later gems or silver or even iron would suddenly appear. Those would have not appeared without the mine. If the workers have nothing better to do, mine all mountains.

5. I have never seen the AI use the commando upgrade, it would be highly unlikely for the AI to amass sufficient commando force for roads to play against you (I have to see what it would take for a human to do that). Anyway in general you want to attack and not defend. In defense, you would get crucial advantage since you would be able to maneuver better.

Here is save of mine, this shows "my style" of playing. It is probably not "optimal", but it works for me. Best examples are Moscow, Novogorod and Seoul.

[Game-God]

Originally posted by TriMiro
1. Waiting for one rioting person makes sense only if you whip immediately and if a captured city has rioters: whip immediately.

2. In Civ 3 I was able to do overall 20% better than the auto governor, in Civ 4 the governors may be better but I doubt they can beat a person. The governor never plans ahead. If a city is at the happy cap, the governor would stagnate it, but would miss the fact that by the time the city grow, it would have completed a temple for example. To be honest, in Civ 3, if playing Monarch, I did use governors to minimize micromanagement.

3. Forest is good for a number of reasons. In the early stage it provides hammers, before you get workshops and then consider carefully (limber mill + RR > workshop). In mid game it can provide crucial boost in health (with a lot of religion you have a lot of happiness, so you do need a lot of health). In late game forest preserves can make a difference ensuring that you get the GP for the corporations (if you have patch 3.13 do use corporations). Forest is also good for defense. I am not saying you should not chop, on the contrary: DO chop; however, you should plan your chop (I always leave some forest).

4. Every mine has a small chance of discovering a resource even if there is no resource there now. It happened to me several times that I would mine mountains that have no resources and are outside the fat crosses of my cities and several (or several hundred) turns later gems or silver or even iron would suddenly appear. Those would have not appeared without the mine. If the workers have nothing better to do, mine all mountains.

5. I have never seen the AI use the commando upgrade, it would be highly unlikely for the AI to amass sufficient commando force for roads to play against you (I have to see what it would take for a human to do that). Anyway in general you want to attack and not defend. In defense, you would get crucial advantage since you would be able to maneuver better.

Here is save of mine, this shows "my style" of playing. It is probably not "optimal", but it works for me. Best examples are Moscow, Novogorod and Seoul.

1) I definitely agree that getting the city off rioting quickly is best but with the amount of population being still mostly Joao's people (forget his civ) I have not found an equitable solution to this problem that works very well. Consider taht there are 80% or more still beliving in Joao, until I build some religious buildings like temples and shrines and such I can get nothing done including build units or other needed buildings/Wonders.

2) That the Govs do not plan ahead is new to me. I would have thought they needed to plan ahead for tile improvements to work but I guess not. thanks.

3) I just do not see ripping up the forests outside the Big Fat Cross unless I "need" a resource. If they are on a hill and there is no resource on that hill also then I will leave it for Preservs in case a city needs some health help. So I agree with you on that point.

4) So I really need another resource like copper or iron in the late game? I might use them if Corporations are in use like Mining Inc., but other than that they really do not seem to be of much use to me, or am I missing something here?

5) I have only seen it once but it caught me off guard at a distant city of mine(have not been compacting them like Blake suggested earlier) and I lost the city to the raiders. I play alot of random leader games so sometimes I have the protective trait and need to maximize its use there for leaving forests and having no roads near my borders are the best defense I have found since the extra time it takes the AI to get through the border stuff gives me more time to build an extra unit or usually two per each city close to the attack point. Agreed this has limited uses since I am usually on the offensive in most games.

I will check out the save later tonight when I have time to play around again. so thanks for the posting It will show somethings you have done.

[demon59]

4) So I really need another resource like copper or iron in the late game? I might use them if Corporations are in use like Mining Inc., but other than that they really do not seem to be of much use to me, or am I missing something here?

An extra copper or iron resource can still be useful as trade goods.

[TriMiro]

3) I just do not see ripping up the forests outside the Big Fat Cross unless I "need" a resource. If they are on a hill and there is no resource on that hill also then I will leave it for Preservs in case a city needs some health help. So I agree with you on that point.

If a tile has no resource and you mine it, then there is a percent chance that a resource would appear. Copper and Iron may make little difference, but Silver and Gems do. If any of those also happen to be in the Fat Cross of a city, the boost is significant.

If a forest is outside the fat cross, then it does not give health and happiness boost. The only use you may have for that is to chop it (for a few hammers).

[Game-God]

Originally posted by TriMiro


If a tile has no resource and you mine it, then there is a percent chance that a resource would appear. Copper and Iron may make little difference, but Silver and Gems do. If any of those also happen to be in the Fat Cross of a city, the boost is significant.

If a forest is outside the fat cross, then it does not give health and happiness boost. The only use you may have for that is to chop it (for a few hammers).

I thought that all the resources were placed when the map layout was generated by the game? Are they randomly placed after the game has been running for X number of turns? Thats kind nifty if it is that way since I could still get something I really need much later on. The reason that I thought they were allready in place is I tried looking at a couple maps using the World Builder and saw several resources just sitting close to a city that were not even found yet such as Oil and Coal when I was not even out of the classical era.

[Game-God]

Originally posted by demon59


An extra copper or iron resource can still be useful as trade goods.

this is true, but would not an Iron ore hill be useless to any other civs later in the game? I have attempted to trade Iron and such with the other civs late game time frame but they would have nothing to do with it, and some of the civs had NONE? it seems puzzling that they would refuse to trade for a resource that they needed. I don't really remember whether they had some from other civs though. Maybe they were filled up.

[Arrian]

My general thoughts:

Delhi has the terrain to be a commerce monster. I would have improved it much the way you did, though I'd have probably ignored the plains tiles in favor of more floodplains as Blake said.

I think I would have built a coastal city on the desert hill southwest of Delhi. There is some solid terrain there, and you could take a shot at the G.Light or Colossus.

I probably would have put a city on the plains hill southeast of Delhi. That gets horses, wheat, cows, wines and a bundle of floodplains. That placement does, however, leave 1 floodplain tile unused, and I do hate that. Still, that's a monster city.

Bombay is tough. I'd probably have put it where you did, to keep it on a river.

Founding order:

1) Delhi, obviously.
2) Plains hill city to the southeast. This gives horses for chariots, which are great for barb control. It's also just a really nice place in general.
3) Coastal desert hill city or Bombay. Debateable.
4) The loser of 3.
5) At this point, what the Portuguese are doing would matter. I might stop building cities and crush them instead, then resume peaceful expansion.

-Arrian

[Game-God]

Originally posted by Arrian
My general thoughts:

Delhi has the terrain to be a commerce monster. I would have improved it much the way you did, though I'd have probably ignored the plains tiles in favor of more floodplains as Blake said.

I think I would have built a coastal city on the desert hill southwest of Delhi. There is some solid terrain there, and you could take a shot at the G.Light or Colossus.

I probably would have put a city on the plains hill southeast of Delhi. That gets horses, wheat, cows, wines and a bundle of floodplains. That placement does, however, leave 1 floodplain tile unused, and I do hate that. Still, that's a monster city.

Bombay is tough. I'd probably have put it where you did, to keep it on a river.

Founding order:

1) Delhi, obviously.
2) Plains hill city to the southeast. This gives horses for chariots, which are great for barb control. It's also just a really nice place in general.
3) Coastal desert hill city or Bombay. Debateable.
4) The loser of 3.
5) At this point, what the Portuguese are doing would matter. I might stop building cities and crush them instead, then resume peaceful expansion.

-Arrian

I had thought of the coastal city when deciding position for the 2nd city site but I went with the northly position to acquire some extra copper in case of war (been caught with my pants down more than once).

I would probably keep with the thought of taking Joao's 2 cities first up then move in on Boudica so she cannot become a power house later with that Wild A** attitude of hers.

but I am still up to using some of the stuff here on a new map and starting from scratch to see what everyone thinks before moving on. (yesterdays map got used quickly when I would not be able to wait for others to play) Life got in the way, anyone got a cure for that...

[TriMiro]

I thought that all the resources were placed when the map layout was generated by the game? Are they randomly placed after the game has been running for X number of turns? Thats kind nifty if it is that way since I could still get something I really need much later on. The reason that I thought they were allready in place is I tried looking at a couple maps using the World Builder and saw several resources just sitting close to a city that were not even found yet such as Oil and Coal when I was not even out of the classical era.

You are half right. A number of resources of each type is placed "randomly" (well according to some rules) at the initialization of the map. However, more resources can appear later in the game. Get a worker on a hill without a mine and drag the mouse cursor over the build mine icon. You should see something like: "Build mine small chance of discovering gems gold or silver". If you have the tech it also works for iron and copper and coal.

It happened to me on couple of occasions that there was no silver anywhere on the map and it appeared suddenly in the industrial era. That might have been a bug (there should be silver somewhere from the very beginning), but I have seen resources appear randomly at any time.

[Game-God]

Originally posted by TriMiro


You are half right. A number of resources of each type is placed "randomly" (well according to some rules) at the initialization of the map. However, more resources can appear later in the game. Get a worker on a hill without a mine and drag the mouse cursor over the build mine icon. You should see something like: "Build mine small chance of discovering gems gold or silver". If you have the tech it also works for iron and copper and coal.

It happened to me on couple of occasions that there was no silver anywhere on the map and it appeared suddenly in the industrial era. That might have been a bug (there should be silver somewhere from the very beginning), but I have seen resources appear randomly at any time.

Thats fantastic! I like randomness in this game as it seems more realistic to me then.

[Arrian]

One note that is pretty important:

You only have a chance of discovering a resource if you ACTIVELY WORK THE MINE. Just building it isn't enough.

I typically have 1-2 discoveries per game.

-Arrian

[rah]

Yeah, I usually get a couple a game. Always a treat especially if it's a resource you don't alreay have.

In one MP game, my second city was my copper city with food specials and lots of hills. so it became my primary hammer city. 2 additional coppers and a gold appeared during the game in the city fat cross. SWEET.