PP vs RIK - Civ4. *** PP's spoiler ***

[digger760]

good to see its still going.

[BCLG100]

Perhaps go, priesthood, monarchy oracle Feud then CS?

[ProPain]

wouldnt that be priest, CoL (oracle), maths, CS ??

BUt that's something I've been playing around with. TEsted it on the CDZ earth map and that worked really well.

[ProPain]

Well turns have past and basically nothing much happened for a while. We fought barbs, researched towards CoL & Maths and started on the oracle

Turn 91- 600 BC
We finish the oracle ( see pics) and go into anarchy to switch to bureaucracy. The F9 is preanarchy. Will post one after later. Basically the research wont go up that much as my capital's cottages are way underdeveloped. It should do wonders for production though

[Lt. Killer M]

hm, and which tech did you pick from the Oracle?

[socralynnek]

Wow, your GNP is much higher than his. Maybe he overexpanded and has too much cities?

[ProPain]

@Killer, I took Civil Service tech from the Oracle. I solely build the oracle to get CS and switch to bureaucracy. Playing on a small map I thought bureaucracy would be more powerfull than on a normal map because you can build less cities.

@Socra, I wonder about that as well. I'll post a few screenies that show a weird spike in my GNP around these turns. Basically I hit the 80+ when finishing the Oracle & picking CS. I went into anarchy after switching to bureauycracy and the next turn I had 106 GNP, one turn later it dropped to 88GNP. What's so strange is that nothing changed in my city setup. I compared city screens before and after the drop and my income stayed the same, I didnt switch tiles and F2 also didn't change.

The last turn I had a GNP of 88 and Rik had 54 (iirc). So still a huge advantage techwise. I'm thinking to try and build the Great Library in Beijing as well to up beaker production even more.

Rik has expanded in roughly the same pace as I did. He found his 2nd city a few turns after mine but he got his 3rd one online last turn. I still have only 2 cities but plan to build the 3rd one and 4th quickly.

[ProPain]

Weird GNP drop

Ok here's my F9 screenies from 575 BC;550 BC;525 BC. Note the drop in GNP between 575 BC and 550BC. (600 BC preanarchy is a few posts up)

I changed nothing in my city/citizens setting s whatsoever. Very much puzzled. Would the 106 spike have something to do with the free CS tech perhaps? Or is the drop a delayed maintenance issue for bureaucracy. Last assumption isnt supported by the F2 screenie however.

Added a landoverview as well.

_____________________________575BC______ 550BC_____ 525BC



EDIT: I just figured out it has to do with the fact I was researching Masonry. If I move my research to another tech the GNP makes the 106-88 drop. First I thought this must be related to the known prequel techs but selecting horse riding also causes the drop but I know all prequel techs for that as well.

Now I'm wondering if this could be related to 'no. of civs that know this tech'. If so that could give a lot of insight in what Rik has been/is researching (basically making researching alphabet even more useless than it is alrdy in a 2 player game) also spikes/drops in Rik's GNP could indicate research switches and tell me if he's researching different techs than I am.

[ProPain]

Time for a big update!

So is the game still alive. Yes it is! Slowly but surely we're plodding on. Let's get you all up to speed.


Getting into the AD's

IN 25 AD the world looks like this:



Rik has 4 cities diplo tells me so I need to speed up expansion a bit. I just started research on alphabet. Although this appears to be useless in a 2 player game the espionage makes it an interesting choice still. If only for defensive purposes: wouldn't wanna have Rik with City Visibility because I neglected espionage.

The barbs continue to be a big hassle throughout the game as the screenie shows. Thanks again Killer! Rik has built the Great Wall in 450 BC so his life has prolly gotten a lot easier.

Rik is still blocking my trade. It's more a nuisance than a real problem but I'm running into the health cap because I can't access fish and clams. There's another clam at the other end of the continent however (yellow arrow) so I plan to settle there as well.



On the F9 screens it shows that Rik has built up a huge population. Strangely he's (and has been) behind on commerce and the production seems rather balanced when compared over more turns. I'm convinced that a tech lead will be crucial in a 1v1, better units we'll be decisive in a war. So I started the Great Lib to maintain the GNP/tech advantage.

A screenie from after Alphabet was done showed me having a comfortable tech lead:

[ProPain]

The Naval War

Around 150AD the Naval wars started. I built a few triremes to lift the blockade of Beijing and thanks to a very lucky first battle a managed to get a short lived period of Rik free waters. Because it was a unique moment in time I made a screenie of it



Rik wasn't amused though, he came back with a trireme SoD and ever since then Beijing has been blocked by 5 triremes. In my overzealous attack I missed an opportunity to raze Hangzou. Rik only had one Axeman in it but when I noticed Rik already had his trireme SoD in view and I had to run.