Hello.

I am a *very* low key gamer. I don't play very much (maybe a couple of hours a week tops). I played civ I, civ II ctp, and Alpha Centauri. I was able to *get* all of these games.

Civ IV seems to be a bit beyond me. Granted, I've been playing at the noble level (maybe I should back down a bit), but I cannot seem to keep up once I start getting into the years A.D.. Specifically, as I get into the mid-game, I cannot seem to keep up in the technology race.

I have tried a number of different strategies including racing to tech-yielding wonders, mass-producing great people for tech, specialized tech cities, and trading for tech. My strategies seem to work at the beginning (I seem to be ahead when I talk to my neighbors), then by about 1000 I seem to be just barely even, and by 1700, everybody is ahead of me.

Is there something about mid to late game playing I don't know? Am I not specializing my science city(ies) enough?

I think I don't know how to manage Civ IV cities sufficiently well. I can't seem to keep them healthy (and thus max out their size), and I don't know how to trade off growth for specialists, and I'm sure that part of my problem is that I let my workers develop improvements on auto instead of with micro-management.

Suggestions would be great.

thanks
SJN

SJN,

Firstly, welcome to CivFanatics! :D

If I was DaveMcW, I'd be inclined to say; "Cottages!!!" ... investing your citizens' time in developing Cottages in your commercial cities is typically a good strategy for a standard game.

It's going to be challenging to specialise your cities too much while you have automated Workers who are inclined to make hybrid / Jack-of-all-trade cities.

There could be lots of reasons for your predicament - maybe your empire is just too small? Curious civic choices? Undirected technology paths (e.g. slow to get Code of Laws, Civil Service, Education)? Others?

Perhaps post a game? :)

If tech is your problem, well it's time to work on comerce. Cam H is right about the cottages, also don't forget about court houses, markets, grocers, and trade routs. And once your income is good, time to increase that scientific reaserch, build librarys and other science buildings in your cities, and don't forget about Oxford University and scientist speacalists.

If you're loosing the tech race, there could be several underlining reasons why based on some sort of shortcoming with your current strategy - without seeing an actual game you're playing, it's difficult to pinpoint the exact reason... if you're losing the tech race that badly there's likely several reasons.

Let's put that aside though. There's several ways to get tech... trading, stealing (BTS), lightbulbing, but the most basic way is to research it yourself. So the bottom line here is that you're just not producing enough beakers (research).

There's several ways to produce beakers for research. In a CE, you convert commerce to research with the sience slider. In an SE, you convert city population to science specialists to produce research. In either case, the civics/improvements/buildings/etc go to maximize research production. In a CE, you want money... lots of money. Cottages, high science slider, universal sufferage... great CE types of play. In an SE, you want to maximize food for population and specialist returns. Farms, representation, pasifism, etc are great SE types of play. In either case, you want your commerce (CE)/research (SE) cities to have your libraries, universities, etc.

As Cam H also pointed out - empire size can have a huge impact. In a CE, converting 100% of 50 commerce is less than 50% of 200 commerce. Steady, controlled expansion can solve a lot of problems and make up for lack of city specialization to a degree. Ideally, you want the best of both worlds - city specialization and steady expansion (though it's probably not necessary to perfect it at noble) - there's a great thread on horizontal/vertical expansion if you search for it that discusses this concept.