Armchair Civ
Sunday, October 01, 2006
In the beginning...
The great city of Mecca was founded by the Arabians in 4000 BC. We are devout, religious folk and over the next few centuries have founded both Hinduism and Judaism, both within the confines of our own holy city. Our people are strong willed and their influence has spread rapidly to the English to the south. Their leader, Queen Victoria has wisely decreed that Hinduism is the true path to enlightenment.
So I ended up taking 30 turns instead of 20. All I was really doing was moving guys around to explore, so it actually may make your turns more eventful. I usually build a worker before a settler, but our religious focus kept us from getting the early worker techs, so instead of making one and just have him twiddle his thumbs, I started on the settler first. He's almost done, and I think the best place for our next city is the red dot on the map.
Why there? Since we're going to try to win through culture, we're going to want to pump out lots and lots of great artists. Food factories are the best places for this. The fact that we're philosophical makes this even stronger. The red dot location on the map is interesting for a few reasons.
When our city expands, there will be NINE flood plains within our fat cross. That means a hell of a lot of food. Unfortunately, flood plains are also a place of disease, and every 2.5 flood plains = -1 health. This means that our city there will already begin 3 health in the hole and will probably be at the health limit immediately. So while this could potentially be a huge food depository with artist specialists around every corner, it's going to be a nuisance to try to keep our health levels up there. Another big bonus to this spot is the fact that there are two gold spaces. Money resources early game are very strong, and these will feed our research for a long time. So despite the risks, I think we should go for it, just to see how obscene this place will become late game.
I think our third city should be at either the white dot or the blue dot. The white dot would be good because it would keep Victoria from expanding toward us and boxing us in. There are also lots of grasslands, making this potentially a good commerce center. Because it looks like we're in a desert region, a nice grassland area would give us some versitility. Unfortunately, I have a feeling this place will be settled by the time we get our second settler out. The blue dot would also be a really nice place to setlle, just because there are three health resources there, allowing us to grow a lot better in that flood plains area.
So from where we are now, I think the best plan would be to start on a worker immediately after the settler is done. By the time he pops out, we should be done researching Animal Husbandry and he'll be able to hook up the cows to give us a much needed health bonus. We should probably start another warrior in Mecca for protection, though there's already one hanging around to the north that you can move down if the barbs start coming or the people start getting pissed. In the flood plains city, we need to get an obelisk up there ASAP, or else our borders won't expand. I'd probably start with that city working the forested hill for 3 hammers/turn to get that thing cranked out. As far as the plan after Animal Husbandry, I'm not really sure. I'd like to get started on the Oracle wonder ASAP so we can get either Code Of Laws or Theology for free, giving us another religion. We still need Priesthood to do that. It's also really important for us to learn Mining so we can take advantage of the gold in our second city. Bronze Working would also be really good soon, so we can be better prepared for when the barbs start coming. We need to know if we have copper around anywhere soon so we know if we'll need to fall back to making archers for defense. I'll leave it up to you as to what we get started on.
Longer term, I think the only world wonders we need to focus on are the Oracle, the Hanging Gardens (more health), the Sistine Chapel (more culture bonuses from specialists), and the Parthenon (increased great person birth rate), in that order. We should try to build these things in cities other than the flood plains city in order to keep the culture bonuses spread out. Eventually, we will build the Globe Theatre and National Epic in the flood plains city to increase it's efficiency as a great person farm. Tech wise, after taking care of the early basic stuff, we'll want to hone in on Mathematics and the three art techs at the top of the tech tree screen. Also either Code Of Laws or Theology a little later, which one depending on the one we don't get free from the Oracle. Overall, the other techs are more important.
I'm a little concerned about our location and how Victoria has us backed up. Ideally, it would be good for us to have at least nine cities. We may have to go to war with her eventually.
So I ended up taking 30 turns instead of 20. All I was really doing was moving guys around to explore, so it actually may make your turns more eventful. I usually build a worker before a settler, but our religious focus kept us from getting the early worker techs, so instead of making one and just have him twiddle his thumbs, I started on the settler first. He's almost done, and I think the best place for our next city is the red dot on the map.
Why there? Since we're going to try to win through culture, we're going to want to pump out lots and lots of great artists. Food factories are the best places for this. The fact that we're philosophical makes this even stronger. The red dot location on the map is interesting for a few reasons.
When our city expands, there will be NINE flood plains within our fat cross. That means a hell of a lot of food. Unfortunately, flood plains are also a place of disease, and every 2.5 flood plains = -1 health. This means that our city there will already begin 3 health in the hole and will probably be at the health limit immediately. So while this could potentially be a huge food depository with artist specialists around every corner, it's going to be a nuisance to try to keep our health levels up there. Another big bonus to this spot is the fact that there are two gold spaces. Money resources early game are very strong, and these will feed our research for a long time. So despite the risks, I think we should go for it, just to see how obscene this place will become late game.
I think our third city should be at either the white dot or the blue dot. The white dot would be good because it would keep Victoria from expanding toward us and boxing us in. There are also lots of grasslands, making this potentially a good commerce center. Because it looks like we're in a desert region, a nice grassland area would give us some versitility. Unfortunately, I have a feeling this place will be settled by the time we get our second settler out. The blue dot would also be a really nice place to setlle, just because there are three health resources there, allowing us to grow a lot better in that flood plains area.
So from where we are now, I think the best plan would be to start on a worker immediately after the settler is done. By the time he pops out, we should be done researching Animal Husbandry and he'll be able to hook up the cows to give us a much needed health bonus. We should probably start another warrior in Mecca for protection, though there's already one hanging around to the north that you can move down if the barbs start coming or the people start getting pissed. In the flood plains city, we need to get an obelisk up there ASAP, or else our borders won't expand. I'd probably start with that city working the forested hill for 3 hammers/turn to get that thing cranked out. As far as the plan after Animal Husbandry, I'm not really sure. I'd like to get started on the Oracle wonder ASAP so we can get either Code Of Laws or Theology for free, giving us another religion. We still need Priesthood to do that. It's also really important for us to learn Mining so we can take advantage of the gold in our second city. Bronze Working would also be really good soon, so we can be better prepared for when the barbs start coming. We need to know if we have copper around anywhere soon so we know if we'll need to fall back to making archers for defense. I'll leave it up to you as to what we get started on.
Longer term, I think the only world wonders we need to focus on are the Oracle, the Hanging Gardens (more health), the Sistine Chapel (more culture bonuses from specialists), and the Parthenon (increased great person birth rate), in that order. We should try to build these things in cities other than the flood plains city in order to keep the culture bonuses spread out. Eventually, we will build the Globe Theatre and National Epic in the flood plains city to increase it's efficiency as a great person farm. Tech wise, after taking care of the early basic stuff, we'll want to hone in on Mathematics and the three art techs at the top of the tech tree screen. Also either Code Of Laws or Theology a little later, which one depending on the one we don't get free from the Oracle. Overall, the other techs are more important.
I'm a little concerned about our location and how Victoria has us backed up. Ideally, it would be good for us to have at least nine cities. We may have to go to war with her eventually.
