Hey guys, been reading the forums for a long time, but for whatever reason I can never get good at civ. Really sad thing is, is that I played civ, civ 2, civ3 and now civ 4 an insane amount, and I just dont know how I get better. I can beat warlord easily if I do a pratorian rush, and I just started to realize that the time to attack if playing romans is when you have pratorians, and once they have served their use, you should have taken over at least one civ if not two.

Anywho I degress. I started a prince game as rome, all was going well, made an expansion into the spanish territory and nearly took em over, they have only one city left at the fair right of the map. For the longest time, I was at least a few hundred points ahead of catherine, then she started to zoom past me points wise. Next thing I knew she was a few hundred points ahead of me and now only needs to get one more space part. What Im wondering is, is how do I lose? I started off good and towards mid game I was still strong, then some how got behind tech wise, even though I tried specializing my cities.

Heres the save game, its at the point where catherine is about to win the space race and I have just taken over the aztecs.

Another quest is, is how do I know which city to specalize in what? I have a hard time understanding that...

Thanks for all the help guys, any points would be great.

Nothing yet eh?

No one has anything to add?

I'll give it a go, since no one else has.

I've been playing Civ IV for about 2 months now and I'm winning consistently on Noble--probably make the move to Prince in a game or two.

I haven't had a chance to look at your game--I'm at work (shhhhhh). But I like playing as Caesar as well and doing an early Praetorian rush. Inevitably, though, I find that during those early wars, I fall behind the AI civs; my tech rate goes down as my upkeep increases from the distant cities I capture. (I raze some, but another AI inevitably settles there. :mad: ) By mid-game I'm usually back on par, and by end-game I'm usually ahead, but once the Praetorians are obsolete, achieving that takes some careful planning and strategic choices.

A few things I do that seem to help:

- Cottages. Caesar lacks the financial trait, so building a lot of these early on is crucial. They should come into full financial bloom by mid-game, then your income is back on par and your tech rate can go back up.

- Religion. As a conquering warmonger, religion is low on my list of priorities. I usually end up founding Confucianism, but only because I'm after those crucial courthouses CoL allows you to build. But Religion is important for finances, happiness, diplomacy, and even science (+10% for a monastery), so I usually try to capture at least one holy city as part of my Praetorian rush. If that religion has already spread to another civ I did not have time to conquer, so much the better--it make it easer to get along with them until I can finally pull ahead on tech and crush them.

- Military. My motto is once you see longbowmen and/or macemen, it's time to put the Praetorians out to pasture. Sue for peace, pull back your elite units, and stockpile gold once you can to finance upgrades. I love it when my beloved Praetorians' level 3/4/5 ancestors pull out a can of gunpowdered whoop-a** on some hapless longbowmen...

- Rivals. You won't be able to easily knock off rivals without your cherished Praetorians, but you can still set them back. In my current game, after conquering the Greeks and Incans, I still shared the continent with the French, Chinese, and Americans. Napoleon and Huang were falling behind me in several respects, but Roosevelt was ahead tech-wise and, with that Industrious trait, was guaranteed to beat me to the mid/late game wonders I wanted. I couldn't conquer him with upgraded macemen against his dug-in longbowmen--but I could HURT him. Several catapults and knights later, I'd pillaged most of his territory--crippling his economy--and had managed to pry away his capitol and one other city. He fell from 1st place down to 4th, while I jumped from 3rd place to 1st by the end of it all, as painful as it was. Now I'm upgrading to riflemen, cavalry, and cannon to finish him off. Once I get tanks, it's Nappy's turn...

As for city specialization, that is a whole topic unto itself and dealt with in other threads here; have a look around. I will say that one advantage of the Praetorian rush is by the end of it, you usually have a number of established cities that are prime for specialization. (In my current game, the former Incan capitol has become my prime production city.)

I don't know if this helps, as it's mostly generalized observations rather than being specific to your game. I'll try to load it up when I get home and have a look.

Hi - as a player who has recently made the jump from Noble to Monarch I can understand the trouble you are having. First thing is by looking at the Info Screen (F9) you can inmediately see the problem Catherine is all over you in terms of GNP and as a result is miles ahead in tech. Jsut look at her cities and all the towns around them and you can see where the money is coming from.
The other major thing I noticed in the Victory Conditions screen (F8) you are actually just ahead of Catherine in terms of land area but you only have about half her population again a major cause of the tech and production gap.
You need more cities - just look at all the wasted land to the north of your capitol, you could have three decent cities in that space.
The thing I found hardest about playing at a higher level is focus - pick a goal and work towards it. On the higher levels you cannot be master of all things eg you can't chase all the wonders without loosing out in other areas. Also as you said you need to specialize your cities, and pick the techs you research carefully don't pick them because the game says so pick ones that will give you an advantage - beeline to powerful techs and then trade for the ones you missed.
Also I know the writing was on the wall but why build the space parts? Your best bet for victory would have been war with Catherine although with her tech lead it would have been hard.
Hope some of this helps. BTW you said you were playing on warlord and jumped to prince have you tried noble? I found Noble is a good level to develop stratergies.

Im sorry, yeah I meant to say I played noble. Okay thanks for the input guys I appreciate it. North of my capital, its all tundra and such for the most part, so didnt realize I should build cities up there. Also as you can see I have a ton of towns all over the place, specially around my captial, so I was making decent money, are you saying I should have more in all my other cities? I guess Im having a hard time learning how to specialize for my cities, when and where, I know a city that has a lot of hill will be good for production, but does that mean I should also build farms so I can get enough pop to work those mines? All the cities I conqured needed to be building culture buildings because of catherines culture always creeping in on them, so that was tough.

Still somewhat lost but thanks for the input guys.

When I said the north I meant one city on the tundra working the silk and two cities where Catherines costal cities are (I assume she settled these late game - but may be wrong).

As for cities you basically want enough food (ie farms) to be able to work every decent (non tundra ice etc) tile. In a commerce city it should be all cottages (except resources) and farms but only enough farms to work all the cottages. Production cities as above only enough farms to work all decent tiles everything else mine or workshop or lumbermill (again except resources). The only city that should have more farms is your GP farm which should be all farms (again except resources).

Also when building things in your cities think about what that city is specializing in - you don't want a barracks in a commerce city and you don't want a library in you prod city. Pick a prod city as your military city which will build military all game long (expect prod buildings, west point and heoric epic) this will give you decent military without really having to think about it.

You will end up with some mix cities but you want as many specialized cities as poss. The consensus on the forums seems to be 3-4 commerce cities per prod city and one GP farm per civ - again it depends on your game plan but regardless tech is important.

Okay awsome tips ty so much. When you say GP farm do you mean great people city, and if so then that city should be all farms cept for the obvious? How do I tell when a city should be constructed to be just a GP city? Also how do I know how many farms I need to be able to work all the cottages or mines?

Thanks agian.

OK yes a GP farm is a great person city - basically the idea is to have lots of food so you can have specialists (who produce +3 GP points/turn) also you want wonders there as they also produce gpp points. You can also specialize you GP farm to produce different kinds of GP this is covered in loads of detail in various threads.

Each population of a city takes 2 food each pop can either work a tile or be a specialist. So for a "normal" prod or commerce city counr how many tiles you want to work (not including the "free" middle tile) times that by 2 and that is how much food you need. So from the city view add up how much food you get from the unimproved tiles and you can see how much sort you are and how many farms you need. Remember you may want to factor in the effect of biology (+ 1 food per farm) as it takes a while to get to max pop also remember need civil service before you can "chain" farms. I'll have a look for a few threads that discuss these issues further.

Good forum articles.
Catherine Cottage Spam stratergy (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147012) - very interesting even if you don't follow to the letter stil worth reading to show the power of cottages.
A Guide to City Specialization and land improvements (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158482) As it says again very interesting.
Great People Points Explained (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146174) If you want to know how to only get certain types of GP to suit your masterplan for wolrd domination.
Hope these help.

I started a prince game as rome, all was going well, made an expansion into the spanish territory and nearly took em over, they have only one city left at the fair right of the map. For the longest time, I was at least a few hundred points ahead of catherine, then she started to zoom past me points wise. Next thing I knew she was a few hundred points ahead of me and now only needs to get one more space part. What Im wondering is, is how do I lose? I started off good and towards mid game I was still strong, then some how got behind tech wise, even though I tried specializing my cities.

In my experience (I'm probably just ahead of you on the curve - having only recently started feeling effective on Prince - also, I have no experience with quick speed), score is grossly misleading. Instead, I look at the demographics graphs, especially GNP and Power.

If you look at those charts, you'll see that around 1000 AD Catherine's economy (GNP) got a serious jump start, and you never responded, and she simply ran away with it. My guess is that her towns started maturing and she hit Banking.

Other points - why are you founding religions, if you aren't going to make them part of your strategy? You control the holy city for five religions, but the only one that has spread at all is the one you captured from Monty. At the very least, every city in the world should have Confusianism and Christianity; Antium, with a bank, grocer, market, and Wall Street would then be clearing about 120 gold/turn all by itself, regardless of where you had the sliders set. The other three religions, if spread around, would have been pulling in another 40 gpt.

It looks like you used Rome as your GP Farm? Possibly reasonable, but most often that's a bad call. The problem here is Bureaucracy, it multiplies production and commerce in your capital by 50%, but does nothing for farms. If Rome is the best place for your farm, and that's how you want to use it, then you should build the palace somewhere else to move the capital.

You missed an opportunity to improve your commerce by founding cities to take advantage of the fish off the west coast. You don't get penalized for overlapping cities. There are also a lot of improved tiles NW of Antium that aren't in the fat cross of any cities, which is less than maximally efficient.

It's difficult to make out what you were thinking with your civics changes - it looks to me as though you immediately jumped to whatever new civic was available right away, without regard to whether it would help (this is me guessing based on the log - I can see when you discovered techs, and when you changed civics, but not what the map looked like at the time). If the new civic isn't part of your plan, though, you shouldn't be switching to it.

It also looks like you invested a lot - a whole lot - of hammers in wonders when you should have been building Praetorians to take over the world - seriously, the pyramids, and stonehenge, and the oracle all after you had scored Iron Working? (also, notice that you've already founded three religions by the time you built Stonehenge. You didn't need obelisks anymore).

Actually rome was my commerce because of all the towns surrounding it. I also did start a early war with isabella, took over everything except one city in which I couldnt get to do to borders. By the time I had finished off Isabella, it was a drain on my resources as my units had a much harder time taking and defending those cities. So I sat back, built up my economy and realzied that I was far behind catherine, so without any other choice i moved in on the Aztecs, in which I took over. Catherine just looked way too strong to try and attempt a war with, as she was much farther ahead in tech then I was.

Spreading religions is somthing I need to work on obviously. What I dont understand is that if she was gaining a huge lead on GNP because of her towns, how many do I need? Several of my cities had towns, and rome had a bunch of em all over.

Thanks agian for the insight, I really appreciate it. If you could, do you think you could great a list of things that I should be working on, kinda like a 1 -10 list?

Thanks so much

I disable Space Race Victory in every game I play nowadays.

Makes the game a lot less annoying.

Yeah but I would like to win agiasnt anything and everything ya know? But I hear ya, it is annoying.

I read the article about city speciliation, great read, only thing I have got a good grasp of is how to factor out the farms needed, he was talking about +1F and such and add all those up. Just didnt come out clear, maybe Ill have to load up a game and take a look.

When he talks about +1F he means tiles which produce 3 food giving a net gain of one food (2 to thr pop working the tile 1 left over).

As for knowing how many cottages/towns you need then the answer is simply as many as it takes to be no 1 in gnp (certainly at prince level). If you are getting out commerced then you need more cottages or other commerce producing tiles. You can check this on the Info Screen (F9). You may fall a little behind early on due to the AI tech bonuses but you should catach up and over take.

Also one thing I have noticed and you mentioned is wars gragging you down. Don't get too concerned about wiping out another civ leave them with a couple of rubbish out of the way cities (they will pose no threat in the future) take there good easy to get cities then get them to pay for peace before war weariness gets to bad.

As for disabling space race this was a thought I had when I first started playing on noble - seemed impossible to beat them before they launched. But now I am winning on Monarch with all victories enabled (expect time - but thats more to do with the annoying x turns left msg).
In short Sagboy you are right to get a "proper" victory you have to face the possibility of space race defeat.

Actually rome was my commerce because of all the towns surrounding it.

OK, let's start there - because it's probably a really bad sign if your commerce cities looks like a GP farm.

First drill: figure out the largest number of towns Rome can work. Towns on grasslands can support themselves, so that's easy. Towns on plains, or grasslands hills, can't support themselves, so need surplus food from somewhere - farms, floodplains, food bonuses. When you've figured that out, try to figure out the largest number of hammers Rome can generate.

The more advanced version of this drill is to break it down by era - how many towns can you work before biology gives you super farms? How many towns can you work before you farms spread irrigation.

This thread has an example. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=161595)

Once you've done Rome, do the other cities as well.

What I dont understand is that if she was gaining a huge lead on GNP because of her towns, how many do I need? Several of my cities had towns, and rome had a bunch of em all over.

You need as many as you can get. Take a look at your game, notice that Rome is mostly farms, and Russia is mostly towns. That's a huge difference right there.

A perfect commerce city as 20 towns around it. That doesn't happen very often, but that's what you are aiming for.

Okay guys, been trying out the stuff you were talking about, things seemed to go well at first but then got beat because I didnt have a military and the ai used me as its own personal beatch.

The included save shows what I was all doing, so ill give it a quick run down. Rome started off to be my commerce city, and was brining in I think a lot, but it was also doubling as my production city during my brief war with ceaser. I didnt reallyt have a production city so i founded one way south near the americans. Trouble with that, was I had to build up the population on that city before I could really use it. The city south of london was also becoming a commerce city.

Question I have is, is how do I build up my commerce city while building up a military? Maybe I started to late building military units? Also was the placement of my cities and the improvments on them a vast improvment to what I was doing in my other game?

Once agian thanks for the help guys.

Question I have is, is how do I build up my commerce city while building up a military? Maybe I started to late building military units? Also was the placement of my cities and the improvments on them a vast improvment to what I was doing in my other game?

In answer to your first question: there are limits to how much specialization you can allow yourself in the opening. Necessity generally demands that your first city be a hybrid, because your immediate need is, well, everything. My current thinking with regard to the next few cities is that you can't really begin specializing them for commerce until you've got production cities on line.

So for instance, having founded Nottingham, you should probably have built a barracks in it, that it could lend support to your military now. Later on, you could come back and re-improve the land, and dedicate that site to commerce.

In short: survival comes before specialization.

The immediate error I see is the lack of a city to the west of London. A city gives two surplus food, which is enough to run mines on two grassland hills (3 hammers each). The pigs give four surplus food, enough to run mines on two plains hills (4 hammers each). An iron mine on grassland feeds itself (4 more hammers). If you place a city on a plains hill, that city generates 2 more hammers). So that hill on the coast, two tiles west of the pigs, would support a city that would generate 20 hammers per turn at size 6, before you even dropped a forge in.

A barracks there will support all the military you are likely to need in the opening, at which point you can resume you commerce focus in the other cities.

(Alternatively, you could place the city between the pigs and the coastal hill, which would give you access to more hills to mine, if you could find enough food to work them all. This placement would also leave room for another city to the west. You would have to accept the overlap with the capital, and would lose the naval base and the benefits of a harbor.).

The second thing I notice is that you've got a lot of unworkable improvements around London. If your workers are improving tiles outside your fat cross, it's likely a sign that they are bored, and you should be trying to expand to give them something useful to do.

Thirdly, it looks to me as though your local neighborhood is disappointingly under explored. If you don't know what food resources are available along the coast, you are handicapping your ability to locate cities. Besides, that's something useful for your workers to do :)

One final idea - it would have been easier to evaluate your start given a save before the fall of Nottingham. Pulling the previous autosave might have been a better choice than using your current position.