In my first monarch game (rainforest), I quechua-rushed two neighbors, then go on to win space race(by a mile). So I decided to beeline to Diety :D I didn't win, but I learnt quite a bit. Any comment that could help me improve my play is welcomed. :)

My general civ 4 play style is:

18 civ/huge/epic: I like to torture my CPU and make it squeak :p. If map is small, I always ended up going for dom win, which takes too long to play.

All victories type except diplo. my diplo skill is still very poor. I refuse all demands and favors. I refuse all loop-sided trades. I would not answer your call to arm. I would not stop trading with someone just because you don't like him. If Monte and/or Toku are in the game, it means war.

In fact, most of the time I go straight from no religion to free religion.

Huayna: Ind/Fin is good yes? quechua rush rocks!
No barb: just less micro for me. But I think I would have an advantage otherwise because of quechua.
No villages: I usually don't build any scout. Reduce variance a bit.
No vassal: messed up my conquest sometimes.
Tech brokering: mostly due to my diplo skill.

So onto my practice game, quechua rushed and found that AI capital is defended by 5 archers. Took the capital but dead broke. Open editor and realized the starting unit advantage the AI has :eek:.

I tried to turn on advanced stat (1080 pt) and switch may type to archipelago. Managed to quechua rush easily. So the starting AI bonus is negated by advanced start?


Anyways, the actual game begins

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176255&stc=1&d=1209957701

Look at those gems, so pretty :eek: Here is how I did the pre-build. Picked mining and fish tech obviously. Good? Bad? Puke?


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176262&stc=1&d=1209955058

Lately on I found that I'm all alone on an island. It's quite big for one player, but I would much rather quechua rush and grab some more land early. It has lots of grass area, which is nice for CE. Unfortunately, it has little river site and not enough hill. I only managed 1 production city the whole time. The food source is also too spread out. Later on, the lack of strategic resources hurt my wonder production capability quite a bit.

Early year...

Wheel->Pot->AH->BW->Writing->Math. I was going for the extra chop. Didn't chop much until then. Afterward Poly->Prist->Monarchy. Chopped Oracle, went for the most expensive tech Feudalism. Wasn't expecting to meet too many civ early on so delaying alpha. Still managed to traded math for IW.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176266&stc=1&d=1209956730

I think I made my first big mistake here for not switching to Serfdom early. There isn't enough food resource in any city so I couldn't use the whip much at all. I had enough trouble making growing the cities after busting the happiness cap.


Middle age...

I then went for MC and built colossus, then Aesthetics->Literature. Built/chop TGL around turn 160. But I'm doing something wrong because I only managed 1 GS(academy) on my way to Liberalism (1 library scientist assigned). :confused:. Moreover, I lost every single wonder race after this point (lack of special resource hurt). So the industrial trait is wasted?


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176268&stc=1&d=1209957675

Yay for not falling behind in tech. Too bad I haven't met the two largest civ yet. Later on I found out that I failed to manually select 18 civ so there are only 11 in the game.


http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/8728/civ4screenshot0009yn0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


My score has not rocked bottom so I was happy. But I made a huge mistake settling the top right city before settling at the sugar site. The two other cities not shown blocked the AI from settling in my land. But the top right city is more or less a freebie. I should had settle the sugar land early to get a head start on my GP farm.

Peter and Toku hate me. But they have their hands full. I also back filled my tech through Peter. I should had built more galley to explore the world, but I only had made 1 the entire game...


http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176256&stc=1&d=1209954145


Paper, then it took me 20 turns to research education, traded for philosophy. The lib race was so painful without bulbs (I would need 3 GS right?). Beat the AI by 1 turn (yes, I did several reloads to make it work) :p Those were all the cities I had the entire game. At this point I'm so behind in military production that anyone can walk in and take on my quechuas(a few longbows). But nobody did and there weren't any spies either(I also assigned no spy pt). :lol: And yes I still refuse all tribute demands.

I wasn't sure how to play at this point. I had the tech lead but I couldn't protect it. Tried to go for Taj but I was beaten. So I used education to back filled the southern path and went for Constitution->Democracy. Back filled some more and went for biology. Went for assembly and medicine. Found Sushi Co. By then 3 other AIs had achieved tech parity with me. Their advantage would continue to grow and I could do nothing about it.

Modern age...

So my last shot at this is beeline for internet. Things are bleak because

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/4831/civ4screenshot0004uv7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/312/civ4screenshot0002bk2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

No I am not advanced anymore! What ya talking about? :mad: All of the AIs decided to screw me over and I couldn't get any more tech trade after electricity. Funny thing is all the world powers were pleased with me. Some of the biggest civ decided to gift me (useless backward) tech like divine right and communism. I of course refused the first time because I thought it's another tribute attempt...

GP farm has lots of food, but still making NE...

I had to painfully doing all the research myself. Not good because I ignore the flight path and people are building spaceship parts. So I saved two GE, finally arrived at Computer and found that...

Internet is a project, you may only rush produce building or unit :cry:

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/1610/civ4screenshot0011ol2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/575/civ4screenshot0012gr6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I traded for copper and started on Internet. But 5th turn afterward, The Internet has been completed in a far away land. My score at this point is 2100, middle of the pack. All civ with higher scores are going for space race.

AI started nuking each other, but went to win space race by 1760. Oh well.

So, comments? Is the game doable? Or should I just re-roll. I failed to get away from those gems. What's diety AI's production and research bonus bonus anyways?