AU501 - DAR1: 4000BC-2150BC

[mucker]

OK, here's what I did with the stock game, regent level.

4000 build first city on start location, work the BG to the nw. Start building a warrior.

3950 start researching pottery.

3800 build 1st warrior, start another one.

3650 1st warrior killed attacking barbarians from the goody hut.

Same turn, worker killed by same barbarians.

3550 warrior built.

3200 first unrest, change lux slider to 10%

3050 finally get pottery, start researching writing to get to map making.

3000 build settler, start on new worker.

2800 found 2nd city, 3nw from Constantinople.

2750 finish worker in Constantinople, start on granary.

2630 finish warrior in Adrianople, start on curragh

2310 finish curragh, start on warrior.

2150 realise that my research is too slow so increase it to 80%.

I forgot to save, but there really is nothing to see. just one warrior wandering around still exploring and a couple irrigated squares. The turn after I increased research, I got unrest, had to increase the lux slider to 30%, reducing my research to 70%.

I made first contact with Japan in 2070.

I should point out that this is the first game I've played at regent level (it should be obvious). I think I should go back and work on warrior a bit more.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by mucker
I should point out that this is the first game I've played at regent level (it should be obvious). I think I should go back and work on warrior a bit more.

It takes a while to get used to it when you jump up a difficulty level. You'll get the hang of it in no time. I'd definitely recommend reading through this thread to get some ideas on other things you can do (such as building a worker first so you have no military when the culture radius pops the hut and you don't get barbs from it).

Oh, and by the way, welcome to all the new Apolyton University players! It's great to see some new players in here. When you have questions just ask. Someone will answer.

[Dominae]

Re: Theodora's smile: Part 2

alexman: great narrative! I'm eager to see how difficult this scenario is on Deity.

Originally posted by alexman
She decided to expand as fast as possible to settle all the land available to her, and not to worry about military. There were no other civilizations nearby to threaten her safety, and barbarians didn’t scare her either. She knew that they would be after her money, so she made sure to spend the entire treasury on science funding, so that even if barbarians attacked, they would leave empty-handed.

Was Theodora not afraid of Barbs smashing her Granary project to bits?


Dominae

[Kloreep]

Re: Cracky's first AU

Originally posted by cracky
The second city was built on the wheat in 2750 BC. I tend to go for a CxxxC city spacing, but I'm going to have to 'cram' in some CxxC to take advantage of all the land on what I've realized is a fairly small island.

I'm not an expert on city placement and I think it has a lot to do with style anyway, but I would advise against settling on a food bonus tile. Cities on a food bonus don't get that food bonus in the city tile, effectively eliminating the food bonus from the game unless you disband the city later on. (Cities do get commerce bonuses, though, and shield bonuses will show up once you're out of despotism and have grown the city to size 7+)

Originally posted by cracky
2390: Crap! The Volcano is now active. My two workers are still mining the tobacco for Adrianople. Looks like they're be on clean-up duty in the not too distant future.

Unless you need to work and/or improve the tiles that are polluted, why clean it up immediately?

[cracky]

Re: Re: Cracky's first AU

Originally posted by Kloreep


I'm not an expert on city placement and I think it has a lot to do with style anyway, but I would advise against settling on a food bonus tile. Cities on a food bonus don't get that food bonus in the city tile, effectively eliminating the food bonus from the game unless you disband the city later on. (Cities do get commerce bonuses, though, and shield bonuses will show up once you're out of despotism and have grown the city to size 7+)

Really? Huh. I knew about the extra shield disappearing from a BG not being able to be mined, but didn't know about the food bonus as well. Thanks! On a nearly entirely unrelated note... My trade advisor is advising me that I have horses, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what tile they're on (or more likely, what city they're under).

Unless you need to work and/or improve the tiles that are polluted, why clean it up immediately?

Good point. In fact, I did end up ignoring the pollution for quite a while, while very new cities had a tile or two improved around them. The second time it erupted most of my workers were on Shift-A and rushed right over to it though. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and keep them firmly in hand.

[Rhothaerill]

Re: Re: Re: Cracky's first AU

Originally posted by cracky
My trade advisor is advising me that I have horses, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what tile they're on (or more likely, what city they're under).

Check under your capital city.

[alexman]

Re: Re: Theodora's smile: Part 2

Originally posted by Dominae
Was Theodora not afraid of Barbs smashing her Granary project to bits?

She was very afraid, but she also thought that such a disaster would be unlikely. She was betting on the fact that after the granary had pumped a few settlers, the capital would be safe from attacks because barbarians would attack her undefended border towns instead. There is usually plenty of time by the time the lame barbarians of C3C finally muster enough courage to attack anyway.

As it turns out, she was right. The first ones were not even sighted until after Adrianople produced the first defending Warrior. Nevertheless, barbarians hit twice: Nicaea (5 gold) and Adrianople (1 population), although I believe both of these attacks came after 2150 BC.

[Cort Haus]

Do the barbs not pillage now?

[alexman]

Not when they have an empty city to pillage!

[steven8r]

Cracky, The Horses are under Constantinople. You can hit Ctrl+Shift+M (or could be N--one of the two, the other one gives you Map Options) to remove everything from the Map to see the terrain and resources better.

And yes, Roth is correct. Best not to settle on top of any resources that provide Food or Shields--Commerce is OK as it will 'pass through' to your city.
=================================

Alexman, Nice story

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Steven

[Catt]

Stock Rules. Demi-God.

As much as I enjoy telling a story in AU games, I just won't have the time to do so for this one.

Since this was the Power of Seafaring and we're playing a seafaring civ, I decided to move the settler NW to the coast, sacrificing a bonus grassland to the city tile but keeping a 4-turn settler / 2-turn worker pump and settling near the lake for the "free" aqueduct. The initial worker moved SW to the grassland, to irrigate towards the cattle. Science was set at 100% towards Pottery (12 turns, IIRC, by working the fish). First build was a worker for 2 reasons: (1) I didn't want a military unit for "barb-from-hut" reasons; and (2) I wasn't ready to prebuild a granary and didn't want a curragh (don't know if a curragh qualifies as a military unit that could enable barbs-from-huts).

In 3650 bc Mount What-a-Pain-in-the-Ass erupted but did little damage as the lava flowed SW only. I noticed that the goody hut survivied the eruption and instructed the newly built worker to be certain to secure the knowledge of lava-proof buildings, but the worker failed me. He was rewarded with maps of the region, which provided additional evidence that we might be on a island [and I'm with Rhotheraeill -- what's with all these hut-settlers when I only get a map? I wanted a hut-settler dang-gummit ).

After the worker build and the hut was safely popped, I built a curragh and started a granary or a pre-build for the same (the overall research time on Pottery was, not surprisingly, more than 12 turns -- the luxury slider need some attention).

By 3200 BC the first curragh was on its way; a granary was underway; and two workers were chopping forests to speed the granary.

In 2950 BC I discovered Japan with the initial curragh -- sticking to coastlines, it had headed north, then west, then south, then east when green borders were visible. At the time, I could trade Alphabet and Pottery, and Tokugawa could trade The Wheel, Cermonial Burial, and Warrior Code. I elected to pass on any trades. I hoped to discover additional civs before trading and/or that many civs were relatively isolated meaning that withholding techs for some time could be very profitable.

The inital curragh continued east to circumnavigate our island and get a sense of the world. Research on Writing began at maximum effort -- it initially only shaved a few turns from a 50-turn pace, but I hoped that by investing beakers early, as the empire grew, the early investment would allow for a decent reduction from an otherwise expected 50-turn pace.

With the knowledge that we were isolated on a small island, I rued just a bit the efforts at pump building -- all was not wasted for we would need a lot of workers to clear marshes, forests, and the jungles to our west. I completely mangled the initial pump set-up allowing the capital city to grow to 7 before it pushed out a settler -- I was negligent about mining and generating necessary shields to get a pump going.

I forgot to take many screenshots and only have one from 2800 BC (one from before the 2150 BC cut-off of this AAR thread). I took the screenshot because my curragh had spotted barbarians to our SE -- I would have to slip a military unit or two into the early builds.

Catt

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Catt
Since this was the Power of Seafaring and we're playing a seafaring civ, I decided to move the settler NW to the coast, sacrificing a bonus grassland to the city tile but keeping a 4-turn settler / 2-turn worker pump and settling near the lake for the "free" aqueduct.

Interesting. I'll be very much enjoying to read your further DARs as you seem to be the only one not to build the capital on the starting spot. You are also playing on the same difficulty as me

-MZ

[Catt]

Originally posted by Master Zen

Interesting. I'll be very much enjoying to read your further DARs as you seem to be the only one not to build the capital on the starting spot. You are also playing on the same difficulty as me

donZappo also moved to the coast. He chose to forego the "free" aqueduct but settled next to the cattle from turn 2 -- I was torn between taking the lakeside spot or the cattle-side spot and ultimately chose the lakeside spot because: (1) I wanted early commerce for science; (2) I didn't need immediate shields because I didn't want to build something that could yield barbs from the nearby hut; and (3) I'd have access to the cattle's shield within 10 turns. My counter arguments (and it was a close call!) were: (1) little commerce was lost; (2) a visible hut meant barbs were in play and a few early scouting / defending units would be welcome (making shields more valuable); and (3) moving directly west would expose more of the map.

I've been calling them AARs when they should be called DARS!

Finally, looking forward to your game as well Although limited for time, I'm excited to play another AU game and happy to find others playing as well!

(and very happy that someone of MZ's skill and renown is drawn to AU enough to offer up to AU his first game in SP since the C3C beta!!)

Catt

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Catt

Finally, looking forward to your game as well Although limited for time, I'm excited to play another AU game and happy to find others playing as well!

(and very happy that someone of MZ's skill and renown is drawn to AU enough to offer up to AU his first game in SP since the C3C beta!!)

Catt

Yeah, time is usually the major limitation in getting involved with Civ, that and having a lot of demo-game burdens. Fortunately Dominae did post a link in the ISDG forum and thanks to that, a number of our crew have begun playing this AU, many of them for the first time (this is only my 3rd AU).

I have also been very absent from the strategy discussions of C3C as well as the AU Mod which is the reason I decided to play: to learn from all of you which HAVE been playing C3C all this time.

-MZ

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Master Zen


Interesting. I'll be very much enjoying to read your further DARs as you seem to be the only one not to build the capital on the starting spot. You are also playing on the same difficulty as me

-MZ

Oh contraire!!! MZ, I built the capital on the coastal spot to the NW as well. Now I'm only playing at emperor, but I've found it VERY USEFUL to have built the capital on a coastal tile... not only have I been researching techs ahead of where it seems others playing at emperor have gotten them, but I was able to build the Great Lighthouse in my capital, beating the other civs to it. I trust that should give me an edge a bit later on.