I hate to say this version of civ is beginning to frustrate me.

the pace at which tech's are unlocked is signifigantly faster than civ 3 (especially once you set up a science based city)

it becomes difficult to even SEE your military units, given the fact that the scale is way different from civ 3
(improvements were small and reflected their nature, units were easily seen regardless of the terrain) now the improvements cover up everything

I got into a stalemate on my continent (at peace with my neighbors, having converted them to taoism) this is where the tech pace started to annoy me.

at one point I had advantage by spawning macemen.. 20 minutes later I'm spawning redcoats??

if you don't go for EARLY warmongering, at what point to you decide to accept your tech level and start spawning units? if you spawn them nonstop most will end up outdated if your not sacrificing them to take over territories


I'm used to a specific tempo:

early ancient.. archer rush followed up by horsemen or swordsmen

next age you tech to knights for offence, and move your way towards calvary while gunpowder units hold the frontier.. take over your continent

next you get to calvary and riflemen, your defense units are suddenly very good on offense as well.. great time if you havent yet to infiltrate another continent (ideally taking over some of the territory of someone you convinced your allies to attack) ICS and start shipping over units

I usually entrench and then hyperpower to flight and tanks, using transports to mass troops on the other continent..

procede to annihilate at your whim.

anyone else want to contribute opinon?

NaZ

an early rush should be with axes/praets, archers really suck for that.
For me it goes like this:
Axe rush
Mace+cat rush
Cavalry/Riflemen+Cannon rush
Tanks rush
Modern Armour rush
I normally only go for Cavalry and Axe rushes to get extra land if I'm going for a 'peaceful' victory.

Play marathon.

Mine goes like this:
Axe Rush if Copper Present. If not, procede to IW for Sword Rush.
Mace+Catapults
Grenadier/Catapults/Cannon
Riflemen/Cavalry/Cannon
Infantry/Tank/Artillery
Modern Armour

I find Epic to be a better pace, Marathon really takes too long to build things and makes me sleepy.

Yeah well that's why I only play CivIII.
CivIV is just all advanced and a sad attempt to improve it.

Mine goes like this,
Axe/Sword or Praet/Praet rush.
Axe/Sword or Praet/Praet rush and pillagers.
Axe/Sword or Praet/Praet rush and pillagers and catapults.
You should kill of your neighbors before they get gunpowder. You'll need that for the other continents(s).

wow quite a few replies.

yeah I looked at playing the other game speeds.. but thats just attempting to work around a fundamental problem.

techs advance so fast that military units become obsolete before they can be effectively utilized.

so far I've only had 2-3 cities in my initial 5-6 that are able to produce military units in effective fashion

by the time I crank out 4 catapults 2 spearman and 6 swordsmen I'm already starting to produce macemen and VERY quickly after that more efficient units.

case in point my game today I was attacked my montezuma.. his first wave was chariots and axemen.. the very next wave 2 turns later were KNIGHTS and macemen. by then I already had redcoats but 3 turns before that I was capped out at xbows and macemen.

I'm used to having to manage an offensive campaign for quite a long time before being able to signifigantly upgrade.. the warrior to swordsman gambit in civ 3 is a very good one.. and you don't switch to medieval infantry or knights etc until you've finished out that age..

or you rush with archers which do become obsolete but your 2nd wave is swords etc or you tech up and hit them with knights and trebs

also at this point.. other than early warmongering is there ANY point to midgame unique units?? by the time I had gotten redcoats it didnt matter I was only a few techs away from tanks... whats the point? but if you dont produce military you get invaded.. so you're constantly dealing with outdated units or paying out all your gold to constantly upgrade

-rant-

NaZ

I love playing epic speed on continents, clearing the continent and going cultural. Reminds me of the actual reign of Asoka of India. Epic speed allows you to get a good number of units before they are outdated. Also, try going to war without having an obscene number of units. That way, you can take advantage of a potential tech lead without letting the AI catch up. Or mass produce cheaper units, such as macemen, upgrade them with city raider 1 and 2, then drop science slider down to 0 for five turns, and upgrade them all to awesomely uber city raiding redcoats. Its almost cheating :)
-jcw

I have no problems with mid-game units becoming obsolete too quickly playing Marathon speed. If you get into a war and you have just researched Rifling, you will be using Riflemen for a long time.

A lot of people are citing marathon as an alternative to extend the lifespan of units.. perhaps I will have to give it a shot. on normal the tech pace is just insane (and yet I still tend to have to trade for many techs)

this is a case of "more" not being better.. we dont need 8000 techs to enhance everything.. civ 3 has a nice balance between advancing strengths and time to research

NaZ

You really need to play slower game speeds, that's all.
On marathon, techs are researched slower, improvements built slower, buildings constructed slower, units trained slower and so on.

Essentially, everything is slower except one thing; unit movement/attack.
If before, you had 20 turns from getting maces to getting redcoats, you now have 2 or 3 times as many turns, allowing you to do far more military campaigning in that maceman era.

(Also, you should maybe work with your research paths. If I'm in the middle of the classical era and think I need more land, I'll start building barracks and forges and researching directly towards machinery, civil service and construction. Also, I will train a bunch of swords. When I get construction, I start producing catapults en masse. When I get the rest of my techs, I set research to 0% and start mass producing maces and use the gold to upgrade the "pre-build" maces (swords). I am ready for a campaign only some ten turns after researching the tech.)

definately going to have to try slower game speed.. its always the dilemma to tech up or fight.. in civ 3 once I get my continent and steam power.. I tend to relax the offense to rail up then press again.. very quickly I have infantry and entrench out onto another continent. usually use diplomacy to reduce the # of enemies and while they're busy i'm hyper teching dropping factory coal plant marketplace bank wall street etc to get my cities up into the 35-70 production range and keep them happy so when I get tanks I can just drop tons of them on the enemy.

scale just seems different I dont know if i'm off base and frustrated or have a very valid critique of how firaxis de emphasized warmongering

Try the SevoMod. I like the pace better. I play the "equivalent" of Marathon. But the pacing is much better.

If you are playing Normal now, I suggest trying Epic next instead of jumping to Marathon.

I'd say that it takes from 50 to 100 turns for a newly researched unit to become obsolete.

Definately go epic before marathon. I love marathon now, but it will seem sooooo slooooow if you're used to normal speed.

I run most of my games at normal speed and don't run into the problem you're describing.

I suspect you're researching military techs exclusively--is this the case? I can't see how else you're running into this. I usually trade off between military and civilian techs. The AI doesn't bee-line to military techs like a human does unless it's under attack, so you're usually safe to stick with the age's dominant military units for several turns as you pursue other goals.

Other than that, you may need to adjust your overall gameplay. It sounds like you're trying to force Civ III strategies down Civ IV's throat, and it ain't workin'. I ran into something similar--I came from Civ II and when I tried to build cities everywhere and roads to get rich, my economy crashed. :sad: :lol: This version of the game was deliberately designed to negate previous strategies and tactics that bordered on exploits (which is not to say the game doesn't have some of its own). As a result, I found, you have to discard the baggage you bring from previous versions and approach this game with "beginner's mind".

There no this kind of problem. You problem is that you do not know how to produce enogth units to attack and how to execute attack fast enoght so they do not become absolute.
If you look on succession games you will find games that finsihed in 1600-1800AD and had time to use varaity of different age of units.

by the time I crank out 4 catapults 2 spearman and 6 swordsmen I'm already starting to produce macemen and VERY quickly after that more efficient units.

You either have poor production or, as stated above, are researching only military techs. No need to beeline for the techs that give you better units, as that hampers your cities. For example, you could grab civil service before metal work to get macemen earlier, but you'd be missing out on the production bonus from the forge.

well a couple of points,

thanks for the constructive criticism, it will actually help my game.

reviewing my own save I realized that if I choose to warmonger I should avoid spawning missionaries and spreading religion.. obviously a waste. also to maximize warmongering I should avoid producing any of the non warmonger related wonders.

I generally had been playing as the russians and I beeline to bronze working.. but If I dont want to axe rush someone to death due to distance or whatever then I beeline to code of laws and civil service.. though I need to enhance my game so that I can produce the oracle wonder to result in the slingshot.

what kept happening to me is between trading and having a commerce based city (usually my capitol) generating over 100 beakers per turn right about/before the time macemen approach.

the result was yeah I was beelining military techs civ 3 style to gain advantage.. but kept running into the problem I discribed.

I guess just like having to focus on my civ 3 warmongering I'm going to have to re-evaluate my priorities of opening and decide to either axe rush or sword rush or delay a little. research construction earlier to get the catapult stack going so that when I spawn macemen I'm ready to go.

thanks for the feedback I'll use it in my next game and search this forum for other warmongering strats

NaZ

I run most of my games at normal speed and don't run into the problem you're describing.

Same here, normal speed is slow enough, yet things work out ok. I suspect too many people in here are playing the low levels where they have tech bonuses and don't even realise it.

No-one has yet mentioned upgrading units. If you've got a bunch of CR3 axes/swords you spend cash upgrading them to CR3 maces and later upgrading highly promoted maces to rifles/grenadiers then infantry so your best units don't become obselete.
Spreading religions if you've got their shrine is a good boost to income so may be worth continuing.
Edit: I'm not sure there's great value in stockpiling units until you're ready to use them (so if you're not going for early axe-rush just build a few axes as barb-bashers)

pigswill I think you may have saved my game by pointing out the obvious!! I was hesitant to spend the gold.. but having looked at the tech tree some more I realized you dont get to cash rush until some time later..

thanks

NaZ

Also have enough worker in your backyard to help improve and grow your new cities quickly to counter the growing expenses. And connect front line with road so that your army can go to war quickly.

well no shortage of workers on my part.. I generally prefer to have atleast 1 per city.. though I'm finding that sometimes is a little bit too much

THANKS for the suggestion to change to marathon speed.. I'm having a much better time of it. drew egypt at random and am currently enjoying a campaign against the mongols where I hit their capitol with 5 cats 5 war chariots a spearman and 2 axemen.. quite successful!! its nice to know that macemen are several techs away.. I'll probably have wiped them out by then.

thanks for everyone's input! :goodjob:

NaZ

well no shortage of workers on my part.. I generally prefer to have atleast 1 per city.. though I'm finding that sometimes is a little bit too much
This is probably another indicator that you're not researching enough civilian techs. I never suffer from an over-abundance of workers until I'm well into the middle-game. This is part of the reason I go on an early war campaign with Axes: to snag as many free workers as possible. I often pair them into teams so they can finish their improvements even faster. They're always busy improving resource tiles, building roads between my cities and the territory I'm invading, chopping forests and jungles, and, of course, spamming cottages.

They don't start running out of things to do until the middle ages are nearly over. Then railroads come along and I'm glad I kept them all.

As for religions, when I'm warmongering, no, I don't bother much with researching religions; it's easier to let another civ do that and then capture the holy city. Then, as Pigswill mentioned, the gold from a shrine can be very helpful (wars are expensive!), so having one city spamming missionaries is not a bad idea. Remember religions are useful diplomatically as well.

Anyway, I'm glad the forum and posters have helped and that you're enjoying the game more.

And yeah, Egypts War Chariots are FUN.

thought I'd post where I'm at currently in this campaign.

in order to secure iron (having none in my territory) I proceded to DOW the mongols and wipe out their capitol with 6 chariots 5 cats 2 axes and a spearmen (fearing calvary) after that they fell pretty quickly. having wiped out the mongols and secured my territory, I have shifted my workers towards economic enhancement. I produced the great library and the national epic, aqueducts and focused on terrain improvements that would bring in happyness bonuses.

any input on the game currently would be appreciated. after securing my empire I plan on wiping out the americans being stronger than ghandi at the moment.

NaZ

Had this very same problem when I played on 'Normal Speed',
I found myself not using some of the units due to the ability to tech
to fast.

Switched to 'Epic' and I've never looked back, not only do I have
time to use every unit, but the AI can't spawn 2+ defenders in a city
each round you have it under siege.

Thus, my advice is go 'Epic' not only because of the tech pace,
but for the overall experience.

It is said many times, but to strict the point: play epic. I think (considering other civ versions) epic should be like normal speed. Marathon if you want a real slow game (not me), normal if you want to play quick. Quick seems only fun for duel maps and multiplayer. However normal play is more difficult then epic, so take that into account when choosing your difficulty. I think Firaxes has done a good job, since you can choose the pace you like. Too bad it has an impact on difficulty though.

One other thing that may be happening is that you're focusing too much of your cities' infrastructure on research and/or commerce.

Try more of an equitable mix of production cities and research cities. You'll find that you can crank out enough units to make a worthwhile army that isn't obsoleted so fast.

Should make sense... if you only have a couple of cities making units, by the time you make enough of them, your research cities have pushed your tech level way up.

Wodan

Same here, normal speed is slow enough, yet things work out ok. I suspect too many people in here are playing the low levels where they have tech bonuses and don't even realise it.

Do you have any tech bonuses on Noble?

Do you have any tech bonuses on Noble?

No, Noble is as close to even with the AI as you can get.

old thread.. let it die. reality is that playing on normal speed can make it difficult to make the most use of units produced in any era pre modern... oh well such is the way it is with the game.. all other games played are at epic speed to make more use of units before they become obsolete. lesson to be learned for noobies I guess. Prince level is a decent challenge, makes me a little jelous of the abilities displayed by aelf for winning 2 successive emperor's level games displayed on our current forum. I have taken a 4 week break from this game but followed his threads exclusively. lessons to be learned that for sure.

let this thread die

NaZ

Prince level is a decent challenge, makes me a little jelous of the abilities displayed by aelf for winning 2 successive emperor's level games displayed on our current forum.

There are people who win on Deity. I've never been a Deity player :( Closest I got to was Demi-God in Civ3, and that's only with Greeks. Seriously, there are players who are way better out there, man. Prince is a good difficulty for casual gamers who have better things to do in life ;)

I rarely play on normal and only when I join a mplayer game in gamespy. I found the best way to produce units on quick and normal is with the whip. Cities take far less food to grow in normal and quick than they do in epic and especially marathon. Switch to Hereditary rule and use a super food city to whip units every 1.5 turns (it works out to average 1.5 turns because the overflow will sometimes complete a unit the next turn.)

If you can build the Globe theater there, even better. Or if you whip 2 units from each of your cities you'll have a ready made army.

Use the whip early, Draft later and use gold to upgrade your veteran troops

Ok, I think we should all just stop replying to this thread. Sorry I posted just now even though you wanted the thread to die, NaZ :blush:

well ppl keep posting so I guess the point is a good one. on the normal speed science research outpaces military so that was the frustration in the first place. I dont ever play on normal now against the ai.. but blazing against people.. such is the way it goes.

NaZ