Nice cold start (save game inside)

[Vampgelus]

Here is something nice the map scripts through out for me tonight. You are Cyrus II and game settings are :

Custom Continents (3 continents), huge, tropical, 17 AI civs, epic speed, with barbs, no tech brokering.

You have a nice starting location, but you are just to the south of northern toundra zone, coast is nearby in the east, the north and the north-west :



Your neighbours are not very peacefull guys, but in my current game, their "skill" surprised me, since i just can't get a techlead on them (reminder : it's noble). I'll let you discover yourself who they are, or just read the spoiler.

Spoiler:

Julius Caesar is to your south, Boudica is to your west, Hannibal is to her west and Suleiman to his west.

I have fun in that game, so i decided to share it, so here you go !

[Vampgelus]

Oops, forgot the file

[Tuberski]

Will it convert to English when I download it?

ACK!

[Vampgelus]

Civ4 is a multilanguage game. If your options are set on english, the game will use the file with an english interface.

[Tuberski]

I know that, but it had never occurred to me to think about it until just now.

ACK!

[Theben]

1st thing I'd do is move 1 tile east (settler).

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Theben
1st thing I'd do is move 1 tile east (settler).

You mean west?

You want to found on that plains-stone here for two hammers in your citysquare. That's great. And it looks like you don't loose out on any resources (and screw that desert-gold anyway)

It's a shot in the dark though, don't know what else is to the west. Still.

[Vampgelus]

Spoiler:

Now that i know what's around, 1 square to the west would be the best option. There is a wheat and coal in the three tiles to the east, but those squares would overlap with two coastal cities. In addition to that, you won't get that gold with the next best city to the west.

Someone tried that game anyway ?

[Seedle]

@Theben: Yeah, moving one square east is goodness. Why didn't I see that? And I think, though I could be wrong, that Vampy has his east and west backwards in his spoiler. East is definetly the better move, imo, and he says east overlaps coastal, when it is west that overlaps coastal.
Anywho, changed it to Marathon and am playing it. Had to resist the temptation to take advantage of the stone+charismatic=stonehenge formula and concentrate on Immortals. Still screwed up though, I hoped the unforested grassland in the cap was horses, it wasn't, and then researched the wheel as my second tech, when I should have gone AH/mining/BW. Built the Great Wall while waiting for my cap to grow so I could whip a Settler for my third city, built the Pyramids while waiting for the culture expansion and horse hookup. (yes, screenshots would be nice, I'll work on it)


Had all my cities build Immortals, rushed Rome. Lost all but 1 battle with less than 50% odds, lost most of them at greater too. Thought Julius didn't have metal, was proved wrong when an axeman attacks an immortal. Figure out the mined desert by Cumae must be Iron, take out Cumae. Julius fortunately only gets one Praetorian built while he has iron, takes 4 immortals to kill. Finish of Julius. Debate whether to raze Ravenna, but I want a city to the north with the clam and fish, so if I raze and rebuild on the river to get the fish/wheat, I'll lose the pig. So I can't get all the resources anyway. While fish/wheat is better than pig/wheat, I don't think it's worth the turns and production lost from razing and then building a settler, so I keep.


Plans: Boudica is weakly defended with one archer a city and spread out, so I'll pillage any metal she has and attack her with my founded cities, while I establish an economy in former Roman territory. She already has walls in one city and her capital is on a hill though, so I'll probably have to settle for razing all her outlying cities and getting her core cities later in the game. Should still weaken her permanently though. Oh, and the great general in my cap is going on an axeman, when I get metal. Yeah, it's strategically better to settle, but it's more fun to have uber-unit.
http://apolyton.net/upload/thumb/90347_whereitsat.CivBeyondSwordSave

[Hauptman]

MUST HAVE GOLD!!!!!

go east.

[Vampgelus]

OMG, i inverted east and west in all of my posts >.<

Well, i'm to lazy to change it, so just take this message into consideration.

@Seedle : I have waited for macemen to declare war on Caesar, making Boudica a friend of mine. Actually i waited for her to ask me to join that war, preparing a huge SoD while waiting. By doing so, i managed to beeline CoL and founded Taoism, which i spread rapidly to Boudica and Caesar.

[Seedle]

Wow, poor Boudica. She had 6-7 cities and no metal. My 18 immortals just raped her outer cities, but Vienne and Bibracte were a bit tougher. My first attempt at Bibracte got screwed by the RNG. Attacked with 15 immortals, lost 12, and killed 2, yes 2, archers,leaving 2 sitting in the city. Now, I can handle losing a massive stack taking a city without siege. I was planning on losing at least 6-8 units in the assault. But to have my entire army raped and not even win? That's just a screw job. So I loaded the last auto save, there's a difference between bad play and bad luck. I tried again a turn later, lost 3 units, quite a turn around. Vienne, even with the city walls, also fell with minimal losses.


I'll send most of my remaining Immortals to go harass Sulieman, wherever he is, while keeping a few back to capture/raze barbarian built cities. With my economy where it is, I don't think I'll be building any new cities until at least currency, but I think 8 is good at this point in the game. And while Carthage will most likely grab the land around Celtia, Roman and Persian lands should be mine for the settling even with a delay.

[Vampgelus]

Hum, Caesar didn't place his citys the same way as he did in my game. Antium was one tile to the north of the riverside spice, so i've made a nice farm there (full farms + globe theater + national epic) while my capital, sitting on the starting square, has ironworks + national park with 8 preserves, so i got a nice amount of GP poping, even with the rest of my empire running CE.

[Seedle]

Ironworks+National Park seems less than ideal. With NP, you can't get the coal bonus from Ironworks, and I'd rather have lumbermills for more hammers than preserves. Won't be an issue for me, I had to clear-cut Rome and Persopolis to get the AP,Hagia, and Great Library. About ten turns after finishing, I found marble in the tundra. More tomorrow, with screenies.

Oh, and to those who wonder why I was building wonders: I already have the most powerful army in the world, and I had three other cities building settlers, and given that I'm at 20-30% science, having 3 cities adding maintenance to my empire seemed plenty.

Why not use those hammers to add to my army and conquer the continent? Because I can't afford to keep any cities I conquer far away, so the barbs will just take up the territory, or worse, over-seas empires. Hannibal and Sulieman are both hopelessly behind, I should be researching assembly line when they're getting gunpowder, I'll kill them then. I need to get caravels though, to check up on the other continents. Nothing like being an era ahead on your continent, only to discover you are an era behind another!

[Vampgelus]

You probably will, i played the hardcore techer, and got only a very slight techlead on other continents in modern ages (2 techs forward or so).