amphib is avaliable from scratch but you have to get a triple promoted unit to get it, strength 1 + 2 then amphib. iirc anyways.

Good question, here;s my reasoning: Because it's 1 vs 1, no AI game, we have to do all our research ourselves. That means gold is important and that gold/silk spot will benefit my income. This will keep my research up and maybe even limit the impact of the increased upkeep from a 3rd city.

The few CIV4 games I played solo I was really focussed on food and hammers in true Civ3 style which resulted in the AI cruising away after the early game because my science slider went down and down. I'm convinced that if that happens against Rik I'm doomed.

So that's why I was thinking about gold first, cows later. My capital is doing quite alright hammer/food-wise so churning out a second settler shouldnt be a big problem anyway.

Would love to hear what you guys think bout this reasoning. :)

Food is power in civ4, the more food you have the higher you can grow your pop, the more pop you have the more gnp/mfg you can generate. If you start slacking cos your cities are too big then you can hire specialists, often early game these are better than cottages anyways as it will take cottages longer to develop.

In any civ4 game vs AI or humans you want to expand and grow as quickly as you can. Once you research BW there isnt a unit that can effectivly destroy your army till xbows which are often lightyears away. Therefore you don't have to worry about falling slightly behind as in the long run your cities will be growing for longer/be bigger.

remember that you can attack from a boat without amphib promotion, just at horrible odds (IIRC).

Pre-amphib combats are fought at -50%, IIRC, so that's what I meant by "from scratch" - the actual promotion is good if you really mean to go that way, otherwise questionable.

it also gives a bonus when attacking across rivers but yeah unless your going to use it to the max other promo's area lot better.

Spoilers 'r us! :) How many tiles between you and our beloved?

9 tiles, so that's 4 turns of movement and amphib assault on 4th or land on 4th and attack on 5th.

By land it looks significantly longer, maybe 12-14? And on foot it'd take the full length in turns. Best case scenario from the screenshot is 11 but I doubt that would happen.

I miss the regular updates to this thread [cry]

turn 68
We're at turn 68 now. Nothing much happened mostly because of the influx of droves of barbs. I managed to sneak a scout through and make contact with Rik but Rik sent out an axeman and I moved our my scout and ended up next to a barb warrior that was hding in the fog: End of scout. I did get a quick glance at Rik's land, included a screenie.

I cranked out a settler and went for the gold spot mostly because I think techs will be important in this game and we have to research everything by ourselves. I researched upto IW to see where all the interesting resources are and they're most;y closeby. Now I plan to do some research towards techs that will benefit the research rate. Beijing will build/whip a lib, and I'll build a lib in the 2nd city as well. After the lib I'll settle the NE region and we'll see from there.

Stangely Rik hasnt built a 2nd city yet but he isnt expanding his military either. [confused] I've been pulling away in score the last turns as well as in the demographs. I wonder what he's up to. I;m contemplating building a workboat/galley just to pilllage his sea food tiles and generally annoy him.

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