Hello,

I'm now playing on Prince - played Civ 2, 3 and 4 vanilla and I loved them all (couldn't go back to 2 and 3 now though) and the "just above midway" difficulty level seems to be my limit, and I'm generally happy with that. It's a challenge on Prince, I only win about 1 in every 4 games.

Anyway....to me, the worst part of Civ is the late era(s) micromanagement of military units. Say I play on anything more than standard\normal - I end up with probably hundreds of units. managing them is a pain - locating them is a pain too (more so than in previous games). Maybe I'm missing something. For example, is there any way to just find all tanks (for example) and select them all at once?

What tips do you guys have to easing the pain of micro management of units when you have hundreds of the buggers?

I know this has been answered before, or at least talked about, but I've searched and read about 30 pages of the forums and I can't find anything substantial. Any thoughts appreciated!

cheers!

As far as losing units, the f5 button helps you categorize and locate your units. It has a little map that u can click on to access each unit to.

How about using numbers to signify groups of units (ctrl + number)?

I kinda think that the number of units represented in civ4 is a bit out of control. Having 25+ machine guns + anti tank + infantry + sam infantry in a stack can easilly be wiped away in one turn.

Reaching this point of the game always makes me wanting to restart, and i try to rush for a cultural win asap by spamming end of turn and focusing on producing culture.

I'll try to arrange little divisions at strategic points on my landmass in case of invasion. A stack of Y Infantry and Z artillery on the East side, the same on the West.... maybe a few groups of tanks placed to back them up. I'm usually OCD about it in that I'll try to make all stacks symmetrical in promotions... if one stack has a triple promoted bombard artillery, the other stack will have it as well. Every once and a while, I'll get attacked and invaded very late game, so it helps to prepare.

In the late game, I turn on quick combat on defense as well. I reccomend using stack attack if you aren't already, and finally start using rallying points as well as continuous building.

This gets my military to 1 or two key points, and then each turn my main management is what I want each city to build. Hopefully by this point you don't need to manage your workers any more either making the game much easier.

I havn't had chance to try this yet but, In my last game (2player hotseat) the inevitable end game nuclear war reared its ugly head.

I wanted a way to activate all my ICBM's. I have the excellent CivIV reference guide created by dj_anion http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236346

On the back there is a very handy section called 'keyboard and mouse shortcuts'
one of which says:

Ctrl C activate all same type units

I love late-game wars! They're my favorites! That's one reason why I don't want to go for an early win.

Here's how I manage things. I distinguish between three groups: attackers, passive defenders, and active defenders. I pick two (sometimes three, occasionally four) cities to house one each of the latter two categories in peacetime. The active defender city is centrally located, and my fast units can get to any city on the map (with railroads of course) in one turn. If I've got such a broad front (including coastline) that this is impossible, I build two active defender forces and located them strategically.

Usually I'll have only one attacker force, but occasionally it gets divided for a double push. Passive defenders, of course, occupy and protect my cities, and all I need to do to manage them is make sure they're properly upgraded and that there are enough of them.

Active defenders consist of tanks, joined by mech inf and modern armor when those become available. Promos on the tanks are Combat and Bombard. No City Raider as that's not what they're for. Same for MA of course. Promos on mech inf are Combat, and maybe Pinch, maybe Ambush.

Attackers consist of a mix of tanks, marines, and artillery, promoted later to MA, MI, and mobile artillery. Promos on the tanks/MA are City Raider and Bombard. Bombard is REAL important for the way I play, as I typically don't sacrifice artillery much, replacement tanks can get to the front lines much faster. Not as important once I get mobile artillery, though.

Anyway, this makes management pretty easy, as all I have to remember are at most four cities. All the units for attack or active defense will be there. (And in a pinch, of course my attack units can play active defense, although their promos aren't as ideal for this.)

I also hate nukes. I always ban them in the UN if I can.

Stacks, stacks, stacks.

Hello,

I'm now playing on Prince - played Civ 2, 3 and 4 vanilla and I loved them all (couldn't go back to 2 and 3 now though) and the "just above midway" difficulty level seems to be my limit, and I'm generally happy with that. It's a challenge on Prince, I only win about 1 in every 4 games.

Anyway....to me, the worst part of Civ is the late era(s) micromanagement of military units. Say I play on anything more than standard\normal - I end up with probably hundreds of units. managing them is a pain - locating them is a pain too (more so than in previous games). Maybe I'm missing something. For example, is there any way to just find all tanks (for example) and select them all at once?

What tips do you guys have to easing the pain of micro management of units when you have hundreds of the buggers?

I know this has been answered before, or at least talked about, but I've searched and read about 30 pages of the forums and I can't find anything substantial. Any thoughts appreciated!

cheers!

- Make big stacks.
- Military advisor can help you find lonely units.
- Use quick combat in offense/defense.

But let's be honest, late game warring is always tedious no matter what. :mischief:

Thanks, I might try the individual unit per city thing - all defenders in one, all attackers in another etc.

Is it me or was late game military better in Civ 2?