Lemur, thanks. I actually knew how computer random numbers worked but I never connected it’s importance as it applies here. Good explaination BTW.
Ok, I’m ready report on the next stage of my Civ game as Washington. It’s 1850 BC and I’ve just founded New York. Quite alot has transpired so I’ll give you a quick rundown of what happened and how I responded.
First, I met pretty much all of my opponent AIs. First was Huayna Capac of the Incans directly to the east. Directly to the west Cyrus of the Persians. If the Pangaea continent is a clock face, my two citys are at about 11 and 12 o’ clock, Persia is at 9 and Inca is at 2. I met scouts from Toki of Japan to the east, Mao of China, asoka of India and Ceasar of Rome all to the south though I haven’t located their borders yet.
The land mass is very ugly, giant jungles to the south filling the middle of the map and desert to my left separating me from the coast. I had quite a bit of luck with goodie huts this game. In addition to the first one mentioned I found one which gave Mysticism and another that gave gold.
Going back to where I left off here’s a somewhat step-by-step progression:
After Mining researching I went to get Masonry in order to capitalize on that Marble. Once that completed that I chose Hunting so I could build scouts and so I could build a Camp on that Ivory resource. That finished quickly and I went stright into Archery so I could defend these cities.
While doing the above my second Warrior completed and I sent him exploring south. The other explores east and due to a bad dice roll gets killed by a Lion…Gah! Right now my biggest concern is finding horses. I see some to the south across a tract of jungle, but it’s not likely that I’ll be able to expand a city to there witout killing my economy.
After building the Warrior my city has grown and I build a Worker to get cracking on those resources. The timing is about perfect and he completes just as those techs are discovered. In short order he quarries the Marble, Pastures the Pigs, Camps the Ivory. Washington is a very productive city and growing like a weed. I’m pretty sure this is going to be my Production center.
After building the Worker I build a Scout. His job is to finish the exploring so I can recall that Warrior to defend my Capitol. I continue my military research. My original plan was to focus more on commerce and production techs, but the resources I’ve gotten (and lack) and the proximity of enemies on this Pangaea map indicate that I simply have to bulk up on military with my early tech edge. This means Bronze Working is up next. Both for military, and so I can uncover copper resources and prepare to chop all these forests everywhere. Additionally the Slavery civic is going to be huge. Washington’s massive food stores are going to allow me to whip these guys frequently.
After Bronze Working is finished I get another break, Copper is discovered adjacent to my Capitol! Sweet. My worker makes straight for it and mines it. I adopt Slavery right away too. The Scout completes and I get started on a Settler since my city is already at a Pop. of 3 and close to 4. It’s important that I find a place to settle it soon, ideally around horses. The scout explores and I find nothing worthwhile militarily, as I said the horse to the south are too far off and I am somewhat penned in to the far east and west.
The Settler completes and I choose to send him north along the river. It joins up with the coast a little ways away and that spot is surrounded with Corn, Sheep and 2 Spices. The spacing is good, so I build New York there. This is looking like my Commerce Center early on, plenty of food and commerce as well as a coastal location. The resources later on should keep this city happy, healthy and rich.
Meanwhile my Warrior goes to fortify New York and my next build is a Archer to defend Washington. In New York I build an Obelisk in order to get some culture built. So far I haven’t had an opportunity to build any buildings or wonders which concerns me, especially with Marble handy.
My next research path, having gotten the key military ones under my hat, is Polytheism. I said I’d avoid religion, but the free Mysticism tech makes this too juicy to pass up. I succeed in founding Hinduism though I do not convert immediately. There’s no money to be made in it yet so why deal with Anarchy. It spreads quickly to New York along the river. Meanwhile, with my worker having finished utilizing all the capitol resources, I send him to New York to farm that Corn. Next I research Writing in order to trade and beef up research with Libraries.
As all this happens above, my Scout finally pays off. He makes his way through the jungle to just outside of the Persian border and he finds Horses! It’s a little ways away from Washington, but not too far for a 3rd city. Additionally there’s Dye and Gold, Gold Jerry Gold! Realistically I won’t be able to get both the horses and the gold with one city due to the spacing, but it’s in the middle of a desert and closer to me than my rivals. It should be there after a while and I can score those horses before Persia. I finish a Barracks in Washington and quickly get another Settler going, the city is already at Pop 5!
I’m guessing that after I have that 3rd city built I should be able to settle down and focus on infrastructure. It’s really close to Persia’s border so odds are good that it’ll be important to plan for potential war. Beef up the defenses. Get some buildings built to start specializing my cities and research the Wheel and build roads. As long as I can continue churning out tech advances with 3 cities this early I’ll be too strong to attack. My eastern neighbor Inca has horses already and just founded a 2nd city alongside Washingtons borders. No expansion possible there any time soon. In the meantime I’ll need to get that scout trolling around to the far south to see what those other Civs are up to.
Sorry for the rambling style of this post, short of screen caps it’s the best I can manage. If anyone’s interested let me know and I’ll keep it up.
I, for one, am enjoying it. Please continue.
I believe Civ4 has a setting that allows you to generate a new random seed everytime you load a saved game.
I don’t have Civ4, and unfortunately probably won’t any time soon (at least not until there’s a Mac version). But I do have some questions:
First, in Civ3 (which I play), every military unit had a separate “attack” and “defense” value, so a 4/6 Rifleman, for instance, is a better defender than a 6/3 Cavalry, but the Cavalry is the better attacker. But from what I’ve read of Civ4, units have only a single “Strength” number. What’s the difference between an offensive and defensive unit?
Second, I’ve read many places of the importance of battering down a city’s defenses. If your city manages to repell the invaders, how do you build your city defenses back up? Is it automatic based on population, or do you need to re-build Walls every time some pipsqueak tries to pick a fight?
In Civ 4, all units have a base strength. Warriors are 2, Archers are 3, Knights are 10 and so on. Every unit has a multiplier that modifies it’s attack and defense strength based on various conditions. For example, a Spearman get a 50% against mounted units. Therefore it’s base strength of 4 is the same as a 6 versus a Horse Archer, but only a 4 against a Swordsman. Archers get a 25% city and hill defense bonus, therefore when defending a city on a hill it’s stregth becomes a 4.5. Some of these bonus can get quite complex, they can be based of inherent unit ability like the examples above, they can be based off the terrain (forests and hills give defense bonuses to most all units like in Civ 3) and they can be based on unit promotions (City Raider I gives +20% bonus on city attack) which are accumulated via experience points. All of these bonuses are cumulative, and under certain circumstances a Phalanx can be getting a 200% bonus, making it nearly a strenth of 20 versus the right attacker. Essentially all battles are situational, which is a very nice improvement over Civ 3.
Very true. City gets defenses in multiple ways. First from Culture score. A city with a high culture score puts up a 60% (more or less based on the score) defense bonus. Additionally you can augment that bonus with Walls or Castles. Terrain adds even more to that. All these bonuses supplement the strength of the defending units outlined above. You much destroy the cities defenses little by little to diminish the units bonuses. They defenses are rebuilt gradually over time. I don’t know what the rate is, but it happens gradually over many turns without the player doing anything.
Therefore a unit defending a city gets it’s inherent bonuses, it’s expereince bonuses, matchup bonuses, and city defense bonuses. You can see how critical it can be to lessen this or else you’re going to lose a lot of units in an attack.
Keep going, by all means 
Reading through your thing, I do notice one thing I should talk a little about: the start of the game. How you handle your very first few turns tends to have a big effect on your relative position. I like to do these types of games without referring to internet strategy forums for the most part (finding it more satisfying to work out my own strats), but I wasn’t willing to do the math myself on this, so a few weeks back I found a thread on CivFanatics that naturally I can’t find now. Basically, the most strictly “efficient” way to start the game is worker-worker-settler, while getting bronze working ASAP and chopping 3-4 forests as necessary. Once you do that, the “best” option spreads out a lot more: you want to get that second city up, you need to protect it (and your first city, and your workers) from barbarians, you want to improve as much as tech and time allow around your first city, you’ll want roads to start connecting things, and you want to find adversaries and resources to start thinking about your first war if that’s your thing.
Here’s something for discussion: Where do you guys stop teching if you are going for a cultural victory? So far I’ve had luck on monarch stopping at assembly line (so my non-cultural cities can spam infantry, which can defend effectively against anything short of modern armor), but that pushes time a little much (I usually win cultural around 1900ish, give or take, which isn’t TOO long before the AIs are getting ready for a space victory without my war machine pushing them). I have a feeling when I move up another level I’ll have to stop to push culture earlier… Rifling I guess, and pray/diplomacy to live through the last few turns? Thoughts?
I think you missed the part where I explained that I suck. Cultural victories only inhabit that etherial recess of my brain that comes alive deep in REM after a 8hr Civ binge.
As for the early game, that’s interesting to note, I’d love to see that thread. I have trouble estimating what the “best” opening is considering I never know what my rivals are managing. If I survive the opening I consider it a good one! Typically, whatever I do, I’m always out front on culture score. It’s figuring out the mid-game where I fall apart.
One more thing, are my decriptions of the progress adequate? Any things I should improve on? If people are interested I want to make it as instructive and/or entertaining as I can.
Well, we’re dying for screenshots over here. 
(It’s too bad you can’t post inline images here like you can at CivFanatics.)
With marble, you should definitely get started on some of the early wonders – Parthenon and The Oracle, in particular. (The AI always seems to rush those two.) Later on you can try for Stonehenge, though it’s already pretty late in the game to get that, and with spices/dyes all over you’re gonna be obsoleting it quick with Calendar, so it’s not a priority. I’d also skip the Pyramids unless you want the cash you’ll get for not building it. 
Also, if it hasn’t been done already, you should research Monotheism next for Judaism; two religions never hurts, and if you build shrines for each, you’ll be swimming in gold!!
You’ll also want to get Alphabet soon to trade for other techs. DON’T trade it away, until you no longer have a monopoly on it.
Persia’s next door? Ugh. Cyrus is sooo annoying. I always take him out first.
Also, how are the relationships between AI civs shaping up? Or is it too early to tell? With Toku & the Incas involved, you’ll really want to keep an eye on that. (On the foreign advisor screen, clicking each AI face will show you exactly how everyone else feels about that civ.)
I remember seeing that, but I can’t find it either.
I’ve completely bought into the idea of building a worker first. Having areas around your early cities get improved as soon as you have an extra population point to work it really does help. Then it’s quicker to build a settler when you get there, or even two or three in a row. And you can knock off the early worker techs while you’re building it: hunting (first - for the scout), mining, and animal husbandry.
I do a scout, then a warrior, then a settler after my first worker though. At least with my current plan.
I’m gonna play a bit more here this evening, I’ll post a summary at the next stopping point.
So far all the Civs simply have contact and that it. No one even has Writing except for me, so there’s not even Open Borders available.
Definately going to build the Parthenon as soon as I stabilize, the rest don’t have huge upside for me at this stage. Great Library and Hagia Sophia are targets down the road.
Worker first isn’t a good strategy unless you are making a beeline for bronze working. If you are going with a religion first (if you are spiritual and have mysticism) or if you are going for the HUGE science output in the capital by going for Civil Service (using the Oracle), you’ll just have a worker that sits around being able to do little.
Settler first can work good as well… as long as you don’t have raging barbarians.
Worker first is NOT the be all, end all strategy as we’ve discussed on Apolyton. And besides, you may only want to selectively chop, as forests are great for health in the mid-end game. 3 forests will basically equal an acquduct (+2 health - 0.5 health for each forest, but it rounds up).
Here is a good thread with a discussion of Civ strategies:
http://www.apolyton.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142027&perpage=50&pagenumber=1
Basically it depends on your Civ and your strategy. If you are going religion first (to get all that yummy cash from your Holy City), it makes no sense to get a worker out first (he’ll have little to do). And on higher difficulty levels, you better put a warrior in your capital!
Only one civ needs Writing to sign Open Borders. They must not like you enough. 
Oh, and also remember your second city pays no maintainance costs. Of course it all depends on terrain and the natural abilities of your Civ. If you have mining, go for bronze working. If not… well, there are other paths you can choose and get an early boost in the game by playing to your strengths.
OK, well, it’s been a VERY interesting series of turns. It’s now 750 AD and everyone expanded like mad! Things took a turn south for me pretty much immediately, but as of now I’ve gotten a little bit closer to back on track.
First off, as ISiddiqui pointed out only one person need writing. Of course as soon as I revisited the game everyone and their brother was asking for open borders. I granted it to all of them.
Lets try and move along chronologically. It’s going to be tough since so much is happnening each turn. We’ll see if I can explain things adequately. From where I left off before I was hoping to found a 3rd city near some horsies!
So, my Settler builds and I bring my Scout back towards where I hope to found. One turn later that bastard Persia founds a city right where I was aiming. Pisser. Looks like no horses for quite a while. I decide to choose a location just off to the northeast that’s close to an Oasis, along the Ocean within range of a Whale and borders a Incan city that’s just south. The Incan is clearly expanding into me but he’s left a tract of land along the northern coast to exploit. Sadly, in the process my Scout stumbles into a Barbarian and dies. Having shitty luck there.
In my Capitol I decide to get going on a Library to jack up my research an touch and I set the new city to build a Obelisk to gain a cultural foothold. While doing so I realize I have the Capitol undefended since I stole my Archer to escort my Settler and the Incan has a Warrior nearby. Playing it safe I cancel Open Borders with him to expel that unit while I take time from the Library to build a Spearman. The incan mentions that he and the Indian hate each other. Useful info at this stage.
As all this is occuring I discover the Wheel, research and discover Pottery in short order and get cracking on Iron Working. I’m ignoring many cultural and religious studies in favor of military again, but considering I don’t have Horses I’m hoping to uncover some Iron. Sadly when it’s finished I realize I have no Iron nearby! This is bad. I’m way behind in units, and I have no horse or iron units available. Better be sure to play nice. I agree to all the Open Border requests that come in and I make a trade of Polytheism for Sailing. Suddenly I’m getting requests to cancel deals. Mao hates Persia, Toki is starting trouble with the Indian, and the Incan has adopted Hinduism and loves me. Sweet!
I end up losing another Scout to a Barb, really having bad luck there. I decided it’s time to start spreading my religion. It wasn’t part of my original plans but none of the Civs have been pushing for religion. I get Hinduism spread to all my cities and my two neighbors, Inca and Persia and before long they’ve adopted it. More exploring shows that I’m entirely hemmed in to the south by Persia, Inca and Rome. Looks like I’m going to struggle to get a large number of cities, good thins my current 3 are growing obscenely fast.
I finish the Parthenon in Washington which is great and I choose to get cracking on another Settler. If I’m getting surrounded, I’d better gain another citiy while I have a chance. I notice that along that little tract of land on the north coast I can go far enough east to get a 2nd city in the gap. I also see that Inca’s horses are adjacent to my ideal site. When it’s built I send my Settler there to hopefully get my hands on that via Cultural pressure.
In all my cities I make sure I have Libraries built and resources improved upon. I shift my research to Alphabet and Mathmatics. I’m going to require Construction to get War Elephants if I get into a scrap. Caesar decleares war on India along the way, strange since they aren’t bordring at all, but it works for me. I also add Temples in my cities to keep the populations happy.
Things are really looking sketcky at a point here. I’m losing money, my research rate is lowered, and I’m getting overwhelmed. I haven’t gotten a Great Prophet yet so my rampant hinduism isn’t as fruitful as it needs to be.
Then I catch a break. Thanks to th Parthenon I get a Great Artist in Washington. This is huge since I just founded the outpost Philly along that tract close to the much stronger Incan Capital. Yummy, Culture Bomb!!! I send him up there post haste and drop the mofo. I’m disappointed that the horses didn’t flip but I do take alot of territory from the Incan, who incidentally LOVES me due to the religion. In a few turns I catch a break though and those horses flip afterall. Finally a decent military resource. Now I’m putting some serious pressure on the Incan.
I again notice that I’m not making enough money and I need to do something about that ASAP. First off I notice that I’ve failed in getting cottages built. My attention to all those resources and roads had me overlooking cottages. I build as many as I can manages immediately. Second, I build a settler to go get my hands on that Gold resourse I saw a while back. It sucks that it’s located in the middle of the desert. Too far from the coast to build there and there’s only one decent land square to build but it’ll require me to overlap a handfull of tiles from both Washington and New York. In the end I decide it’s worth it since I don’t expect these cities to reach a Pop of 18 anyways and for now i’m not losing anything.
I add Lighthouses in all of my coastal cities. So far 'm really far behind militarily. I have all the techs but no units and only one Barracks. On the upside both Washington and NYC are cranking out 45 beakers. Then I gain another great person from Washngton, this time it’s a Scientist. Good deal, and I really put it to good use by burning him for a Academy in Washington boosting my beaker count to 70 per turn!
While all that settles in, I’m making headway with Techs. I’ve got Metal Casting and Code of Laws. The latter gets me to found Confusianism. Kind of pointless now since almost all the Civs are using Hinduism. I also now have to get Horseback Riding with my new resource. Literature, Music, Currency and Compass get added to the pot as well. All in all, my research strategy is haphazard at best at this point. They are coming in quick and I don’t have a solid goal. Thankfully I miles ahead of everyone else, but I’m not exactly plowing ahead to a domination victory as a result.
I decide that I need one more city and there’s only one place left to put it. There’s a little tiny tract of land between an Incan outpost and the Incan city I already border to the north. It’s totally surrounded on 3 sides by Incan cities. I whip a Settler in NYC to get it built fast before the window closes. Then I catch a HUGE break and produce another Great Artist. My second culture bomb is on it’s way against the Incan. Chicago is founded and the bomb set off. I get TONS of land flipped over to me including a Cow and some river property. The Incan, who still loves me, has to be suffocating now. At least 2 cities are in peril of flipping over to me before too long. All I need to do is grow those outposts and defend everything and wait.
Along the way the Inca tries to buy Iron working off of me, I sell it for 440 gold. Might have been a bad choice, but the money gets my research back up to 100% while those cottages and gold mine get established.
Too much is happening right now to get a good picture of where I stand. I have no enemies, and my two neighbors love me. Those culture bombs put my outposts on strong ground and I expect to flip a city soon. I really need to beef up my military units and specialize these cities with more buildings. I’m working on the Great Library and I’d kill for a Great Prophet one of these days damnit. These next runs will be a period of calm. Beefing up infrastructure again. The expansion phase is done. There are wars I need to let play out. I need to analize my cities and make sure I get every drop of production and research out of them. I really need to gunpowder and iron soon if I want to get those SEALs far enough ahead of everyone else to stampede the map.
i’m sure this means nothing to you guys since things are getting so complicated and my descriptions are scattered at best. Certainly I’ve missed opportunities along the way and I’d better find a direction instead of bouncing around my research and production. Hopefully this will be a success story. No doubt playing Pangaea is a MUCH different dynamic. Since I’m used to playing continents it’s common to only have one neighbor and everyone does a better job of researching things. Really it’s slowed my expansion, but it’s slowed everyone elses research.
See what I mean? Cyrus is a jerk. :wally
Scouts don’t last very long once Barbarians appear. When they do, it’s a good idea to hurry them back home, or commit them to “suicide” missions. In my current game, one of my scouts (out of about 6) managed to survive enough animal battles to gain Woodsman II and Guerilla I. I upgraded him to an Explorer and had him survey a far corner of the map, but then he got trapped when Isabella & Haptsheput cancelled Open Borders on me!! Right now he’s fortified between a small barbarian city and one of Izzy’s cities – I fear he won’t last long once I declare war on Isabella in a few turns.
It’s cool that you got the Incas on your good side, but don’t turn your back on them. Ever. If you can bribe them into fighting a few wars for you (Persia first, hopefully) so much the better. Oh, and you shouldn’t neglect your military either. (I know, it’s tough making choices.)
Yeah, Persia loves me too. All my neighbors are hunky dory. Important. Plus with all but one Civs being hindu I probably won’t be getting attacked anytime soon. Should give me enough time to beef up the defenses and gain some resources.
Pardon me if my suggestions are uninformed, but do you have any religious Wonders, and/or priest specialists? If you want a Great Prophet, you need to work towards that.
And the flip side of almost everyone being the same religion as you, is that that also means they’re the same as each other. If they start looking for a war, they’ll have to find it somewhere. Thoughts on getting everyone to gang up on the last heathen nation?