I know this is winnable, but somehow not able to turn the corner on this game. I'm working on a specialist economy. I was rushing for cannons but just found out I don't have iron!!!

I think cannons will change the entire game, but nearest iron is 1S of my southermost city. At this stage freddie (southernmost AI) has same power score as me so it's going to take a bit for me to build up enough to take out his nearby southern cities and access the iron.

What would you do?

The sad part is that I had a pretty good lead for most of the game, and somehow mismanaged my economy and early war with freddie such that I was overtaken by another AI in techs and power. Critique any good or bad choices you see (ie.civics, city specialization, etc.)

Draft up some Musketmen, say 2 per city. Between that and the Trebs etc you already have, I think you'll be in fine shape to take Dortmund very soon. You could probably roll in 5 turns (2 Muskets drafted in Athens & Corinth + 4 turns to march from those cities to Berlin).

Frederick vassalizing to somebody is more of a problem than Frederick himself. You might want to just take or raze Dortmund, make peace, and allow him to become somebody else's vassal, maybe Mansa's again. That should be fine as long as you get your Iron. Then you can take out your western neighbors while friendly Mansa doesn't attack you.

- Sparta - it's usually not good to grow into unhealth in a city where you're running specialists. The unhealth is wasted food that could be specialists instead. Especially in Caste System since you can get as many specialists as you want.
- Your choices of Academy / settled specialists / HE are odd. I would have rather seen something like a cottage capital, HE in Sparta or Athens, settled GGs in the same city as the HE, Academy in a better spot. But it's hard to critique without going back to the point in the game where you made those decisions.
- Your idle workers and unimproved tiles are odd.
- Workshops are good with Caste/Guilds and great with Caste/Chemistry, but you don't have any. If you want more units (and if you want to finish the Forge and Moai in Corinth and get it to building the units that it should be building), that's the solution. (That and drafting.)
- When you have a breather (like after getting your Iron), finish your Theatres (cheap, Creative) and build the Globe Theatre, maybe in Athens, for drafting.

You might also want to buy somebody's world map.

- Sparta - it's usually not good to grow into unhealth in a city where you're running specialists. The unhealth is wasted food that could be specialists instead. Especially in Caste System since you can get as many specialists as you want.


I cannot seem to control the unhealth issue. I've build hanging gardens and built all buildings to stop it, but it keeps coming back. Any ideas?


- Your choices of Academy / settled specialists / HE are odd. I would have rather seen something like a cottage capital, HE in Sparta or Athens, settled GGs in the same city as the HE, Academy in a better spot. But it's hard to critique without going back to the point in the game where you made those decisions.

Sparta was meant to be more of a specialist city intially, it just happens to have no buildings left to build and i need warring units. YOur point about academy/settled specialists/ HE is well taken...I am not terrific at speciailzing cities, I often have at least a little cross over (science city building units occasionally,etc.)[/quote]


- Your idle workers and unimproved tiles are odd.

which tiles are unimproved? I thought all worked tiles are pretty much improved.


- Workshops are good with Caste/Guilds and great with Caste/Chemistry, but you don't have any. If you want more units (and if you want to finish the Forge and Moai in Corinth and get it to building the units that it should be building), that's the solution. (That and drafting.)


great point, i never build workshops. Never saw the value of them.

Thanks for all the advice.

whoops, edited when I meant to quote.

In a specialist city, grow to the health cap: then run specialists rather than growing more. you can also read cabert's article "Ways into Health" in the strategy articles subforum.

To see which tiles are unimproved, press Ctrl-Y (I said Ctrl-T, wrong) and leave it on.

I was rushing for cannons but just found out I don't have iron!

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/DeGaulleIronTrade.jpg

Lets take a look at some of your cities.

Athens is working a 2F2C tile. Don't do this. Instead make the 2F2C tile into a specialist. Also Athens is a production city, why are you using Scientist specialists? Right now you need production, so rearrange them.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/Athens01.jpg

Why did you make Sparta into a production city? This would make a great GP farm. Oh well, here's how I would remake Sparta. I would let the city shrink, no need in worrying about the healthiness of this city. Just dump the Merchant Specialist when it shrinks.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/Sparta01.jpg

Corinth makes me cringe. Why are you working the coastal tiles? Why are you working the Plains? These slow you down dramatically. Change them all to Specialists. You will suffer some shrinkage, but that's okay, your empire can't handle the size of the cities they are at the moment. No need to push your cities beyond the empire's limits.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/Corinth01.jpg

Thebes looks really nice, actually. Except change the specialists from Scientists to Merchants. You have a Market Grocer AND Bank here, that's +100% Gold. You only have a Library, Academy, and 2 Monistaries here, which only turns into +95% Science. Even if you had 100% and 100% I would still choose the Merchants right now because your economy needs Merchants. Once you get some more +science buildings you should change them back into to Scientists.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/Thebes01.jpg

Berlin is boardering Germany, a backwards civ. There is no need for more defense here. Germany has the same friends as you (China and Mali) so you can pick away at Germany without too much fear of retaliation. In fact, this gives me a good idea...make Spies and steal techs from Germany! Though probably not with Berlin... Still, with Berlin I'd change that Specialst to a Merchant or an Artist. Also Berlin has an unimproved tile and an idle worker inside it. Remedy this!

*no picture*

Munich is working an unimproved tile. This is a no-no, especially so late in the game with a sleeping worker in that city! After changing some things around...

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/Munich01.jpg

Argos is working on an unimproved whale tile. Argos is building a Musketman, a unit which can be built from another city in your empire leaving Argos to focus on improving Argos. Also, you have a monument in the building queue while having a religion AND already on your 2nd ring. This is redundant and unnecessary. You need a workboat (which honestly could come from Corinth instead) and city improvements. Also windmills on desert hills are rather weak; I changed that citizen to a Specialist. I chose to make the Workboat come from Argos for simplicity sake, but for most efficiency I would make it from Corinth.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/Argos01.jpg

After just a few city tile changes, look at your money slider! There, that looks a lot better, doesn't it?

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/EmpireOverview01.jpg

You can drop the Science slider down without too much of an impact on your science, and get a bunch of gold for upgrading your current units if you wish. Otherwise you can use the commerce for Science, which is also fine. Though to be honest, I would tick up the Espionage slider one or two notches and focus on Germany. You can easily get yourself some quick techs if you snag them from Germany.

Now the empire look:

Freddy has 4 GPT he's willing to trade...so lets get some more cash! That is until we decide to kill him. *grin*

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/FreddyTrade01.jpg

Also, someone suggested trading for a map. Screw trading, you have friends and groveling is free:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/MansaTrade01.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/MansaTrade02.jpg

Also while we're extorting Freddy, let's go all the way:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/southpw/FreddyTrade02.jpg


Okay, civics. You have very few cities making use of Caste System, and you are low on production. Slavery would be a better choice here, in my opinion. Also don't worry too much about running Pacifism right now you have a lot of infrastructure to build, and an army to build. In my opinion a change to Organized Religion is warranted.

Get your workers out there and improve those tiles! You have a few unimproved tiles, and a few workers sitting idle. That's a big no-no in any economy. Also stop making Muskets in cities that need to build improvements. Instead make your defensive units in higher production cities and leave the new cities to improving themselves.

Here's a save of my changes. I did NOT move your workers. I did NOT change civics. I forgot to change Berlin's queue. I did NOT set espionage to Germany. I did NOT start building Spies. But other than that, I think everything else I discussed was done without ending the turn. I hope this helps!

Edit: One other thing I just remembered. Techs! You can trade around a lot of techs to other people. Justan and DeGaulle both want Chemistry, and Mansa Musa wants Steel. All three of these guys aren't in "We fear you are becoming too advanced" mode yet.

I meant Ctrl-Y when I said Ctrl-T before.

Kesshi - I just read and studied your post. A lot of your comments are regarding general housekeeping of cities, but given that I was behind on techs, why are you focusing in so many cities on merchant specialists, instead of scientists?

Kesshi is the only one who can answer for Kesshi, but I think that it's because you're then able to up your science slider.

Ignorant Teacher is exactly right.

There's a lot of math involved, but having Merchants in Rep is superior to Scientists up to a point. I probably crossed that point in your game, but didn't feel like going back through EVERYTHING and redoing it just for another 2% (made up number) improvement on your economy. Also many of your cities had more +Gold% than +Science% because you're in that awkward time post Guilds/Banking and Pre Astronomy. It makes sense to get 3Gold 3Science out of a Specialist, rather than 6Science. Also, in a SE, I feel that Great Merchants are superior to GS in the long run. They take a while to build up, but for each Settled Great Merchant, you receive the Gold, the 3 Beakers, AND 1/2 of another Specialist (effectively +3 more Science, and +1.5GPP per turn.) Again, this is in the long run, because it requires growth and growth takes time. Also, this is not 100% true, either. If you have many major (base) Science cities, then it is worth it to get Great Scientists and spam Academies. I also like Merchants because a GM helps out with Food RIGHT NOW regardless of everything else where as Academies require infrastructure and build-up to be useful. Simply put, Great Merchants are more useful in the short run AND in the long run than Great Scientists for most scenarios of a Specialist Economy.

Simply put, Great Merchants are more useful in the short run AND in the long run than Great Scientists for most scenarios of a Specialist Economy.

This is nothing like a summary of your post. It's a leap from the few arguments you made to a sweeping conclusion.

This is nothing like a summary of your post. It's a leap from the few arguments you made to a sweeping conclusion.

If you disagree, feel free to post the reasons why. I've been wrong before, and if I'm wrong here, I'd like to know about it.