Quad Gold

Since everything in the first row shown (Literature, Calendar, Construction, Currency, and Machinery) has been researched, anything in the second row (Drama, Engineering, or Code of Laws) can be researched, but nothing in the third column (Music, etc) can be.

Or in other words, no Tech Bee Lining is allowed. Techs must be researched in order.

I did not find the four gold resources to be that important. Without food, I couldn't work all of them, so the third and fourth gold never mattered until later in the game. At which point, nothing about the start really matters.

I played this map (at least) three times. And by the time I was on the final play through, keeping all four gold in the fat cross of my capital was no longer important.

Hemming in my opponents (Brennus, in this case) mattered more.

I took out the residents of my home continent (made them my Vassals) in the order I met them (Celtic, German, Egyptian). But that is a rather boring detail post game... to me, at least.

So, let me share the above Foreign Advisor Relations screen with you. About half the Civilizations in this game are my Vassals and I am stacking up the wars.

First, since I had way more power (number of troops, if nothing else) than the other Civilizations, it didn't really matter what I did, as there was no danger of a meaningful counter attack.

Second, I have found the other Civilizations do not want to make Peace or Capitulate unless we've been at war for over ten turns. Well, it doesn't take that long to take over a city. And most of my adversaries Capitulated after I took a single city (especially if that city was their capital). So, declaring war well in advance allowed them to surrender faster.

Third, back when warring was more difficult (against my first two opponents: Brennus and Frederick), declaring war slightly in advance of my need allowed these two jolly fellows to send their troops across the border into my territory. And thus, minimized any war weariness that is caused from fighting on foreign soil.

In short, I don't get much from a sneak attack, so I'm not bothering... at the moment. One never knows how these things will change with time.

Here's the land-grab view of a city I called Two Fish. It's actually a fairly nice city of this genre. I was happily settling cities with a single fish and a hill, so this had twice the potential (two fish and two hills).

I call it the land-grab view, because one of the major reasons for settling such a city (in my so ever humble opinion) is ownership of the surrounding land tiles. Crap land is, after all, still land. And control of land is a key game play mechanic, which goes into scoring and determination of victory.

The thing to note is how quickly the city turned a commerce profit.

Also note (as I would have never done this), late game, my automated workers built watermills on the river, which are pretty nice plots, better than the mines. So in hindsight, I may have been better off building this city one square to the south-west (and thus, capturing both sides of the river).

As I tried to evaluate whether this sort of limited resource city works or not (as in, is it ultimately beneficial and should I do this in the future), the beginning point of my analysis was the commerce potential. And the main reason for this was because during the point in the game when this sort of city is settled, commerce is at a premium. Let's be real, these are not Second City locations. We are talking late REX (late rapid early expansion, so the end game of that mode of play) here.

But beyond commerce, these cities also produce stuff. And even without the Dyke or Maori Statues (both discussed below), whipping and conscription (discussed even further below) allow this type of city to produce an adequate supply of military units.

Thus, I expect to settle the Arctic in future games whenever I can come up with at least one sea resource and a hill or two in the Fat Cross.

Preferably, by a river, those Water Wheels are nice.

At some point, I should note that I am playing the Dutch. And their Unique Building is the Dyke (replaces Levee, available with Steam Power), which provides +1h (an extra hammer) on ocean tiles. For the late game, it really is an awesome Unique Building. But on the other hand, by the time it comes into play, the game should already be decided.

And for complete coverage, my Maori Statues city, which acts much like a Levee (or a second Levee), so +2h (two hammers with both the Maori Statues and a Levee) from ocean tiles.

17 ocean tiles x 2 hammers each = 34 hammers, just from the ocean.

Not bad.

The Whip Explained

It took me a long time to understand the mechanics of slavery. But it's not that hard. And now that I do understand it, I'm not quite sure why it took so long to wrap my mind around the concept in the first place.

The first whip in a city costs a variable amount of population (usually, one, two, or three, and I think one gets 30 hammers per population, but clearly not an important point to me) and causes +1 unhappiness for 10 turns.

And that last (the unhappiness) is the important thing to remember, the whip causes:

+1 unhappiness for +10 turns

And if the current unhappiness from whipping (conscription, and events, I think they all use the same unhappiness counter) is zero, the calculation is simple enough: +1 for 10.

On the other hand, if it has only been five turns since the whip was used, a city will be currently at +1 for 5, and the new unhappiness must be added to that.

Existing:  +1 for  5
This Whip: +1 for 10
New Anger: +2 for 15

Five more turns was added to the existing value. So if one whips again in two turns, the new unhappiness is +3 for 23 turns (and it's a full +3 unhappiness for all of those 23 turns).

Existing:  +2 for 13
This Whip: +1 for 10
New Anger: +3 for 23

Thus, unhappiness can quickly get out of hand. The trick (and this is the whole of the trick) is to never whip, while suffering unhappiness caused by the whip.

And I'm no expert on Conscription, but I believe it works on the exact same mechanic with the numbers only slightly different: costs two population for +3 unhappiness for 10 turns (probably with different population costs depending upon the unit, but I know not).

But by the time one can Conscript, my cities are usually pretty happy, so it doesn't matter as much.

Anyhow, that's what I know about Slavery and Whipping. But I plan on playing Montezuma next (the Wizard of the Whip), so I may have some updated info in my next post.

Honestly, the above is likely as close to a walk through as I want to get: just throwing out a few ideas, as to what I learned. And not a heck of a lot more.

I played this map three times.

Quad Gold: Game One

Here is the save from the first game.

Initial Save
003-quad-gold-4000BC

Final Turn (Game One)
003-quad-gold-game-one- AD-1595

All the initial saves are the same in the Quad Gold Series, so I will not repeat them from play-through to play-through.

And though it's been a while, as I recall, I was killing it on the first game and victory was a certainty, so I decided to quit. One thing is for sure, the next (non Quad Gold) game I played was on monarch.

Quad Gold: Game Two

While playing the Quad Gold map a second time, I lost heart.

Here's the final situation.

And the question is: Is the Egyptian city of Giza worth fighting a war over?

Probably not.

I mean, sure, why not?

But then, since that's the type of spoils I was looking to capture, it was clear my mind was in the wrong place.

So, I replayed the map again (for a third time) with the aim of REX'ing (playing the rapid early expansion phase) better.

Final Game State (Game Two)
003-quad-gold-game-two-AD-1150

LogFile (Game Two)
This is the log file from BAT's (or is it BUG's) auto-log feature. One of the things I want to do (long term) is pull game average statistics from my games (when are the Pyramids typically built, when is Liberalism typically discovered, and so on). Thus, these files may be of interest to another for similar (or divergent) reasons.
003-quad-gold-game-two-log

Game Notes
So if you really want a detailed play-by-play walk through, this is it. There are no pictures, however.
003-quad-gold-game-two-notes

Quad Gold: Game Three

The third time is the charm. This was a game to be proud of.

Final Game State
Domination Victory
50,000 odd points
003-quad-gold-game-three-AD-1907

Auto Log
003-quad-gold-game-three-log

Game Notes
003-quad-gold-game-three-notes

Finally, the Replay, which I may stop including, as I believe all information may be included in the final save.

Post Game Replay
003-quad-gold-replay

And that's that!