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**Diadem** · November 25, 2006, 20:56

Hmm, well, first of all: You start with fishing, and you have a fish within your fat cross. That means you start with building a workboat. That's almost always better than a worker. A workboat is much cheaper than a worker, and your city can grow while building one.

Secondly, scout more. Don't be shy about sending that first warrior off into the unknown. You have plenty of time before the barbarians come, and you can always run back once they do.

Next: Why did you research hunting and animal husbandry? You don't have camp or pasture resources within your starting city's fat cross. That means they can wait.

Allright, military is nice, but bronze working is much more important than animal husbandry for that. Animal Husbandry just gives horses. Bronze Working gives copper, slavery and chopping.

You wanted an early religion. That means you start with mysticism and polytheism. Allright. After that get agriculture because you have corn. Notice that if you start with a workboat you don't need agriculture that early, giving you time to pursue a religion.

After agriculture you'd normally go for Bronze Working. However you have stone within your fat cross. That is a good reason to pick up masonry. After that Bronze Working, and then The Wheel to connect your resources.

Using the above I replayed your game, starting with your first save, in 3960 (so two turns of wasted worker building before I could switch to a work boat. But that's no biggie). I played until BC-2040 which is the date of the last savegame you posted here. So we can compare.

I picked up a lot of goodiehuts because of my aggressive exploring. No techs, but experience, some gold, and one turn ago I popped a scout.

After the fishing boats I build a warrior so my city could grow a bit, then a worker, another warrior while growing a bit more, and two settlers. Meanwhile I completely forgot to switch to hinduism. Doh. Guess everybody makes mistakes. I probably didn't play a perfect game anyway. I'm not sure if going for masonry before bronze working was wise, for example. But I think I did pretty well.

Anyway, comparing our games:
We both founded Hinduism. You are 112 beakers away from Bronze Working, which I already have. You have hunjting and animal husbandry, I am 65 beakers into The Wheel. We're pretty much equal in total beakers, but mine techs are more useful

We both have 2 cities, however I have already build a 2nd settler. And my capital is bigger. So basicly I'm a city up. We both have 3 warriors. I have an additional scout though. Furthermore I already have a fishingboats, though admittedly you're only 1 turn away from completing your workboat. You have only explored a small portion of the continent, I have explored most of it.

In short: I'm ahead in almost every aspect

And that is mainly because I started with a fishing boat, allowed my city to grow a bit more before going for a settler, and because I picked smarter techs.

One final advice. The location of your second city seems to be a rather poor one. Why did you pick it? There's no fresh water, no food resources. How will you grow? Check out where I put down my 2nd city, and where my 2nd settler is heading. Are those not better locations?

Attached Files

eliszabeth by diadem - bc-2040.civ4savedgame (110.7 KB, 102 views)

**dacole** · November 25, 2006, 21:49

hmm I think the worker built faster than a workboat I was going to start with mines on the hills I'll look though. Not exactly sure why I put my second city in it's location may have been to get gold again I will look.

**dacole** · November 25, 2006, 22:32

Man ok after looking at your save I am impressed. The building of the worker was a mistake I was under the mistaken impression that your capitol didn't have any culture didn't figure that out until way after the worker was built so I didn't think the fish would come into play until later in the game. By going for animal husbandry first I was hoping to find horses and going by the vals strategy you should post your thoughts there they have going for horses as the first move but it is faster to get bronze working. Of course animal husbandry does give you more for your workers to do as well. I brought the worker back because I was scared when I saw the three other civs thought I needed protection don't think I'm going to do that again though. My second city was because of the gold in that area didn't want saldin to get it. I may have put my second city on the west coast close to saldin to get that gold rather than where you did but I did eventually put a city there put one at the gems to the south first though. Also might have had the city working on a settler rather than a wonder (you had it working on stonehenge) would this have been a mistake? Thanks for the help, is there a way to check the game settings (map size and such) from inside the game? Think I will start another one soon and see if I can improve again...

**Diadem** · November 26, 2006, 00:11

Your palace provides you with culture. 2 culture, to be precise. That means the borders of your capital expand in just 5 turns. That's than anything you can build. So yeah, for your capital you have to look at your entire fat cross when deciding what to build.

Later cities don't have a free palace, so they won't see such an easy border expansion. For them it can be important if a resource is one or two tiles away.

As to Animal Husbandry. Well I'm not saying it's never a good choice. If you have cows (or pigs or sheep) in your fat cross, then it's usually a high priority. Those are very nice resources to improve. And if you are, for example, Egypt, you probably want it asap as well, because your awesome unique unit requires horses, so you want to know where they are asap.

In most situations though, copper is at least as useful as horses are. Bronze Working is more expensive, so it takes longer to research, but slavery and chopping are not to be sneezed at either. You had an excellent food situation in your capital, and also a good food potention for your next few cities. That makes slavery, and thus bronze working, very useful.

Anyway, in this game the major issue is not wether to go for animal husbandry or bronze working first. The major difference between my game and yours comes from four things:
1) I went Work boat first as opposed to worker first
2) I explored more
3) You built your first settler at size two, without even upgrading the fishing boats. Thus it took you a very long time. If you had build the fishing boats first, you would have had a size 3 or 4 city building that settler twice as fast.
4) You picked a bad site for your 2nd city.

The last point is important. Chosing good city sites is a very important part of the game. And too be honest it's not my strong point either. I tend to space my cities too far away. I'm too much of a perfectionist, I hate overlap

The problem with your site is that your city there has no future. It's almost all hills and plains in your fat cross. Just 3 or so normal grasslands, no food resources, no fresh water. No tile gives you more than 2 food, meaning you will never have a city with a decent growth rate. And the moment you start working that gold your city will never grow again.

Yes in the far future you can chain irrigation to get working farms, you can build windmills on those hills, and post-biology you are looking at a very good city. But this is your 2nd city, not your 10th or 20th. You don't want to put your 2nd city in a spot where it won't be effective for another 100 or 200 turns.

Grabbing resources before the AI can grab them is important. But you can't have them in. In this case, you're better off ignoring the gold. Instead, grab that spot with the deer and cows where I put my city. Then further cities to the south, where you have diamonds and other very nice resources.

If you do that, you need iron working and a flotilla of workers to clear that jungle though. Everything always comes at a price, that's civ

Jungle cities can be among the best there are though, once you've cleared the jungle.

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