Civ 4: buffy mod, noble

[Boris]

After seeing a LUELinks topic done this way, I wanted to document a civ game of my own.

I'll be using the Buffy mod, which combines a couple of other mods designed to improve your ability to see information at a glance, and access it more deeply than in the vanilla game.
I'm playing on Noble which is sort of a breakwater level of difficulty: Neither the computer or you get any advantages.
I'll be doing a standard continents map (two big landmasses separated by ocean, few islands)


I'm pretty much setting only two things oddly, the first is that special resource distribution is balanced instead of clumping like it does more realistically by default: More game-like but more fun. Also, I'm allowing religion choice on doing a religion-giving research because seeing Buddhism and Hindu dominate the world just about every time gets old.

annnnnnnd....

uhhhhh, sure why not. The random draw has made us Montezuma. Spiritual is a crap trait, temples already build cheaply and no anarchy just isn't a big deal based on how often you realistically change civics. Aggressive is ok in my opinion, you get a basic unit strength promotion for free on melee and gunpower units. The HoF noise just means it's not the right settings to be sent in as a Hall of Fame game for CivFanatics. I'm not doing any such thing here so it doesn't matter that my settings won't allow for it.


His special unit is actually kind of cool: You don't need metal to build it, it gets a woodsman promotion for free meaning you defend better in trees or jungle, and already always has his aggressive combat 1 promotion, on top of the usual bonus for attacking cities that default swordsmen have. These things turn into stupidly powerful units for whatever purpose you promote them to quickly. Just about the only thing they fear is axemen, and even then they win sometimes.


His unique building could be gamebreaking in the wrong hands, I guess, but I usually hardly ever whip. I've started skipping slavery entirely in favor of un-buildinged specialists from caste system or faster improvements of feudalism if I've been slow with workers. The good news is that courthouses are just about goddamn necessary so you'll get these things everywhere if you want them or not.


My start location is a little uninteresting for a capital city, maybe as a result of using balanced resources. Trees are always nice, especially trees on hills which I don't feel guilty about cutting for quick production, and there is a lot of food, which kind of plays into the way you're supposed to go with monty. I spend a turn moving south so that my fat cross will also include the pigs down there.


I don't have a strong feel on a lot of the beyond the sword leaders, so I dunno what to make of him at this point. Later it'll become clear he's one of the EXPAND MORE NOWWWWW types like a less threatening Zara Yaqob. The majesty of Babylon is apparently losing with 12 cities to a guy with 5 when the war starts. Actually, his unique unit is a better archer, so he could be a bitch if he were your nearest neighbor and you wanted a quick war.


That spot with the gold and flood plains looks amazingly appealing for a commerce city, unfortunately it's really damn close to Wang Kon (who I apperently never got a picture of, scanning my archive here). Guess we'll have to deal with that.


I hate this guy. he's reasonably aggressive, reasonably tech-happy, expands at a decent rate, and never ever seems to run out of money. he's a lot like a player character really. Notice that Hammurabi has founded Judaism by this point.


Tenochtitlan has some basic farm improvements on the corn and wheat now. With so much food I'm using it as a settler factory. I somehow failed to notice that copper, so I'm going for iron immediately, before animal husbandry or pottery. I have, rarely for me, switched to slavery, but I'm chopping mountaintop trees to get some fast hammers for settlers.


Teotih- fuckit, I'm just gonna abbreviate these crazy Aztech names.
I beat Wang Kon to the best land with Teo there, but he's expanding up into my grill radically. Actually I really should have located it on top of that oasis in retrospect, pig would have helped later food problems, but I guess I felt I needed it closer to home at the time.


Jesus Christ it's a lion get in the - fuck the car won't be invented for several thousand years, so this settler gets itself embarrassingly eaten. This is an object lesson I quit more goddamn games over: Always escort your settlers. Having the barbs eat it is the most embarrassing goddamn time waster.


Iron working reveals I have a deposit right next to my capital, but I don't really need it for the jag's, so this is just kind of a convenience for later. I start cranking them out.


Metal Casting is stupidly time expensive here, but I have a Montezuma moment and decide to go for the military tech anyway.


Just as I have a respectable pile of guys ready to go, Wang Kon cranks an axeman out to counter them. Crap. It turns into a now or never situation for the rush, as he's only gonna make more of those.


I don't actually lose a single Jag attacking into the city, it cuts off his supply of copper and renders the axeman threat a thing of the past. My capital is losing population as I whip them into becoming more Jaguars.


If that all you have to brag about, maybe you should have stayed home today.


Seoul has some axemen already ready, such that I don't have enough jags, so I just terrorize the countryside and take down any new towns Wang Kon tries to build. Near the very top an axeman is actually menacing one my jags, hiding in a jungle so he can't get an easykill on it.


He has no metal, how is he building these fucking things. Notice in the lower left this stack dead center has a settler in it, gonna have to waste a few jags to take it down so he can't expand.


Fuck this, I'm Montezuma, crack down and have it be known the beating will continue until morale improves!


The barbs are up to primitive men with clubs now, which means they'll enter my borders and try to eat all the delicious gold. I spare a jag or two from the war to go put a stop to that.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[Boris]

Where did he find time to make all these damn axemen. The one one the left is now advancing in on me, and there are a couple guarding his capital. Fortunately, I brought a lot more than a couple of Jags.


Honestly I maybe just should have razed this, but it's a capital site, at least had a couple of food tiles and a lot of forest around. Better me than the bots though, something I will hold to more and more as the game goes on.


There, now I have a little bit of a buffer to build in, but there isn't a lot of awesome land around me. There's enough, but it's gonna be difficult early on.


Jewism makes it to the Aztecs, I haven't even seen another religion yet (You'll see why later), and I could use the happiness at this point, and conversion is anarchy free for a spiritual leader, so I go ahead with it.


Not knowing where he is yet, and thinking that it's the first step to possible good relations, I let him on in.


Oops, I guess he found time to like Wang Kon at some point, oh well it's a minor relations hit comparatively.


Metal Casting finally finishes, but more importantly I'm looking to try and figure out what the best fit for a city is here, The gold and gems are nice, but useless if you can't also feed the city, fortunately that nearly invisible corn tile in the center will help.


A player would totally go to war to get the freebie settler cap here, and sue for peace quickly. The bots don't like to wardec unless they're ready to go all out at you though, so you can relatively safely move settlers around like this.


Tlat goes up in the hills, and I can see the barbs are getting comfortable down south.


JAGUAR SPAM WAS HERE, AXEMAN IS A LOSER.


Forges are great for getting a hammer or four per turn early on, the happiness from the gold and gems is nothing to sneeze at either. Unfortunately it's left me with a lot of backfill to take care of.


One of the big problems with Seoul is that I really have no idea what to do with the damn place the whole game, it's not got any hills for production, cottaging the hell out of is is a break-even proposition, there isn't enough food to make it a good GP farm. I just kind of wind up doing whatever I want. Also my fifth town, and last one for a while, is ready down south.


Whoops, Hammurabi is a little closer than I bargained for.


Notice I'm losing money pretty badly even with just five cities right now. I decline the more expensive option here and just take the short term research gain.


I've taken some weird tech paths this game. I went for polytheism and aesthetics to get the Parthenon, figureing I'd turn my capital into a GP farm with those three food resources. I go with literature before I have the alphabet somehow.


Teo is becoming a hell of an economic city now with all the cottages. Also notice the Parthenon building in my capital.


Looking for more good city sites, I find Joao has beaten me to the best land down south, oh well. The land between the mountains means there are a lot of useless tiles wherever you build, so I hold off for now.


Did everybody know Wang Kon already? Anyway, I turn him down, Jewish bro or not he's too close to my borders to be snooping around.


I sigh as Hammurabi bum rushes the marginal land between the mountains.


I figured it was better I blow this up now than have Hammurabi get it later. It turns out the asshole had zero compunction about building in the same spot despite how bad the terrain here is. Also notice I complete the Parthenon: Hello 50% Great Person bonus.

SEE YOU NEXT POST

[Boris]

Now I'm in a common bind here. The two nearest civs are the same religion as me. Going to war is a pain in the ass with even more unhappiness than usual. Still, I'm not going to help the guy snapping up all my land.


Yet you're still pleased with me, for now.


Monarchy finishes and I elect to become King rather than Cheif immediately. The bonus happiness is really helpful. Du Galle joins the Jewish block making the continent one big happy family. I now have nobody to go to war with outside the faith, damnit.


Du Gaulle came asking for open borders (being the furthest one away, I said sure) and Hammurabi keeps converting my towns, which is still more useful than a pain in the ass, for the moment at least.


I have been so Montezuma this game that the whipping altars actually seem like a damn good idea. That and the fact they'll help with my horrific money pit of an economy, which is about to sink me to 50% research.


Fortunately just as my research goes down, the great library finishes, meaning I have free scientists in my great person farm.


To which I add some normal scientists. At this point in the game, 12 beakers times whatever bonuses is nothing to sneeze at. Eventually it'll be too small to matter, but for now it's quite nice.


And then the city pops a great artist thanks to the parthenon's weight toward great artist. Crap. I briefly consider culture bombing a little city somewhere near Hammurabi, but decide just to take the golden age instead. Also alphabet is about done so it's finally trading time.


Hammurabi only has marginally decent stuff, and the techs I have are way too good to trade him.


Du Gaulle helps me with some backfill and gets a nice trade, increasing how much he likes me.


With the Parthenon and four specialists going, I pop a great scientist insanely quickly, and use him to make an academy to push the local science output even higher. Also with a market finally done in Teo and whipping alters everywhere, I'm making a decent amount of money again too.


More backfill trades where I think it's crap, and Du Gaulle thinks he's getting a steal. Everybody wins.


Notice in the lower right hand corner there is a city count for each player (you can't see the names here, but...) Hammurabi is the guy with 10, which at this point is totalllly tanking his economy and he's becoming backwards as hell next to me, with no techs to trade.


Same with Joao who has nine cities and no money, which is kind of unusual for him.


Hammurabi sticks more damn cities up in territory that was too marginal for me to bother with.


Sick of his shit, I cancel our open borders. I think you can see where this is heading.


I don't like Du Gaulle enough to do this crap trade, but it turns out he does like me.


As nice as my Jaguar and Catapult army are, it's time to head to the middle ages, as I target machinery for research.


Our continent is too concerned with expansion, science, and military to bother with artsy shit apparently.

UNTIL NEXT TIME...

[Boris]

Machinery finishes and we're into the middle ages.


The quest generator says we need to build a bunch of stables, so I promptly decide to blow it off. More importantly, the GP farm turns out another great scientist which I settle in Teo, the economic powerhouse.


Eh, it was die in the cave or die because I whipped you into insta-building more Jags


An overview of my five cities at this point. All of them are making money, at least. I'm beginning to run up against health caps, which aren't as big a deal as happiness. It just subtracts 1 food you would have otherwise had for each sickness exceeding health. Also, note my huge stack of Jags and Catapults at the bottom.


God damnit, Hammurabi.


Note that there was no whipping or chopping that lead to an overflow to get here. I've just reached the point where the city produces a unit a turn anyway, which is why I tend not to be fond of whipping population into units after the rush phase.


I had more trouble getting the game to select and keep researching civil service, I swear. This is a golden tech because it both makes it possible to string farms along out away from rivers, and enables mace-men if you have machinery and a metal resource, which are kind of your go-to medieval unit.


I elect to skip the little shit 1 pop towns I'd just destroy in the marginal land area. They don't have enough military units to harass my countryside, so I'll just sweep them on a second wave. I take my first wave army and head south.


The event generator seriously thinks I'm just made of money. I'm poor again because my huge army has left my borders, meaning all those units have support costs now.


I would like to discuss how your head will look on a pole.


I thought for sure I'd be alone on this, with everybody sharing a religion they're usually all friends. Turns out, Du Gaulle is totally up for this war thing.


The cost is kind of steep, but he's not exactly a research whore so far, and war will slow him down even more, so no big deal.


Portugal can fuck off, you're next up.


I figured the land between the mountains would be a good place to start, but Hammurabi has either been whipping population or the jungle has been keeping food intake too low for this town to grow. If I capped it now, I'd just automatically destroy it, so I ignore it and turn south.


jpg compression makes this kind of hard to read, but the French have taken and destroyed some shit city of Babylon's. Always bribe others to join your war if possible!


Finally a city that might be worth taking, at least to destroy. The Cats have two functions in this game: bombarding away defenses of the city (which would make each defender far harder to kill) and then causing collateral damage to all the units guarding it in suicide strikes, making it so your infantry can take the city with no losses. Ideally the only thing that should ever die are siege units, but the RNG isn't always your friend.


Notice that even with all the defenses gone and the defenders softened, my odds against a specialized counter-unit are still only just above even.


God look at all that desert. There is definitely a better place to have put this town, so we'll blow it up for now.

NEXT POST AHOY

[Boris]

My first great general (which you get from killing units, attack or defense,) appears, and I settle it in Seoul because I know it will only be making units until this war ends, whereas my capital might need to do a wonder.


Like I said, my teching in this game is weird, normally I'd have grabbed compass and optics asap to do the 'first to circumnavigate the globe for +1 water unit movement' thing. As it is, I don't think I get these until the middle of the Renaissance!


Teo here will have food problems for the whole game. Really shoulda built it one tile to the right so it would have pig availible too for some quick food boost. As it is, I need to build health granting buildings so it'll keep growing. Also I guess I finally decided to keep on of Hammurabi's cities.


I backfill some of my own half-decent land. This one has a lot of tree tiles for production, plus some crab and pig for food.


I AM AN AZTEC AND WHAT IS THIS? I elect to continue my war of aggression.


De Gaulle finally decides he's had enough war for now and goes home, fortunately it was enough to upset Hammurabi forever. Joao has a buttload of money which will be important in a little while, because I'm losing 26 gold a turn at this point.


I pop my third great scientist, and I'm actually not sure where to settle the academies for maximum benefit anymore.


My second wave army conquers the land between the mountains, marginal as it is, I'm already losing so much money that 'better me than the AI!' is in full force.


While Philosophy itself isn't a very useful tech, it leads to some rather sweet things like Liberalism, so normally I'd be loathe to trade it. In this case however, WAR FUNDS!


These are the only two cities I wind up keeping. The Jag wave conquers Babylon with no trouble, and takes another decent costal city too.


Fucking longbowmen, those tough bastards signal that I really should have ended my medieval war quicker generally, but at this point I just want to exterminate Hammurabi so he'll quit re-expanding into my face.


Good for them. Hammurabi tries to take Babylon back with a lone swordsman to no effect.


Sippar here is sitting on some decent terrain except for the desert and mountains, but two thirds of it will be blocked by Joao's cultural boundaries immediately, so I just raze the damn thing and make plans to come back later.


My second great general pops, and I put him in the capital this time, even if I do switch away from it at some point, it's making the bulk of my armies right now, probably because I have the bureaucracy civic going for the 50% gold and hammer increase in the capital.


Finishing education puts me in the Renaissance.


I don't need to backfill that badly anymore Du Gaulle, go research it yourself.


Even my second wave armies are reaching their limits of exhaustion now, fortunately I only have three more crappy towns to destroy to eliminate the Babylonian threat. also notice the 61 gold a turn deficit.


I knew there was at least one decent spot among all this crap land. After clearing out a bunch of bad Babylonian towns, I thought this would have access to both the corn and banana for good growth rates. The banana is too far away. Whoops!


We're hitting that point where research requires a whole economy instead of some specialized towns, so universities start to go up everywhere. Fortunately three beakers a turn from even average towns adds up. Also notice liberalism researching.


Hey, I actually got it first! I choose the printing press for free to help my increasingly horrible economic situation. Also I conquer and just destroy this little barb town, which you'll see again later.


What civics you use can really have an impact on the character of how you play the game. Up until now, I've had a fairly average spread: Monarchy is good for everybody, Bureaucracy for more units beats Vassalage for better exp'ed units, imho. Slavery is fine because I've got reduced unhappiness for whipping everywhere, which has actually been useful for getting buildings set up faster, but we're getting past that point in the game, economy is for later really, and organized religion has been fine for more hammers toward buildings when I'm not whipping. However, I don't care about keeping my neighbors happy anymore, what with the 500 year war, and research is what I'm topping the charts at, so I switch to free religion and free speech to boost research and cash respectively.


Seeing as we're warmongering all to hell, I decide to beeline to riflemen next.


Yeah I guess this is fine now, might as well backfill.


Joao decides to conquer some truly shit land just to annoy me, and my FOURTH great scientist pops.


Thats right, the richest country on Earth will be broke in 15 turns.


I start the forbidden palace (acts as a second capital to reduce maintenance in surrounding towns) down in Babylon to hopefully ease up on the money vacuum.


Farewell Hammurabi, I will not miss...

TILL NEXT TIME.