Condensed tips for beginners?

Cultured said:

Hi guys,

I've read a lot of people on these forums talk about the importance of technology trading (which is pretty obvious of course), but I find that the AI are hardly ever willing to trade at a 'fair' rate (measured by research beakers required for given techs), even when I'm on quite friendly terms with them. This is kind of frustrating as it's obvious that any rational leader trying to win the game would be very inclined to take a 'fair' two-way trade in the great majority of situations, but whatever, I suppose they aren't meant to represent other human players.

My question is, do you guys routinely take the worse side of a deal just to keep up in the technology race? And if so, how bad a deal will you take? Or is there something I'm missing?

(For clarity: I'm playing on Monarch level, on the original Civ IV i.e. no Warlords/BtS. Also I'm talking about techs that seem to have roughly equal strategic value, not trying to give someone Divine Right in 1850 or whatever.)

Thanks,

Cultured

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I used to hate getting ripped off so badly, and consequently tended to trade very little technology. However, as I gained experience, I learned that this is a recipe for disaster. Sure, on low levels you can go solo and tech everything you ever want for yourself and never trade it away, and still end up way ahead in the tech race.

But at the higher levels, if you are out of the tech trading, you are probably out of the game (unless you already have everything you need, like planning a Keshik rush for early conquest). Think about this: An Oracle or winning race to Liberalism seems great to get a free tech, right? That's just one tech, though. Now think how many free techs you can get with trading. Think of them as free techs, because in fact you give up NOTHING... you still have access to the tech you traded away.

Of course, you need to assess whether the AI getting this tech earlier causes harm to your strategy, but be assured they will get it eventually, perhaps by trading with another AI.

If you still can't stand getting ripped off, trade the same tech to several different AI, and I assure you that the amount of beakers you gain is much more than the amount of beakers any single AI gains from you. It also prevents anyone else from making a gain trading away that technology.

This is one other good reason to trade you techs at cut-rate prices: the AI will only trade techs with each other if they can get something they want. If YOU have already traded Alphabet to Asoka to get Ironworking, then nobody else can trade Alphabet to Asoka to get Ironworking or anything else... and probably nobody else has anything good enough yet to offer in its stead, and so 6 AI manually tech Ironworking while you are going on to bigger and better things.

Try beelining alphabet on a map where you can meet a lot of AI by that time. On Monarch level that should let you trade Writing to get the back-fill techs you want, and then get you Ironworking for alphabet (plus just about everything else known in the world). Recall, that once the AI have alphabet, they can trade techs with each other, though. And THATS where you really lose out if you won't trade techs. 2 or 3 civs can work together and get a big lead on everyone else.

If you find yourself behind in tech, look what techs the AI do not have yet... those will be worth most in trades. Being first to one tech can catch you up quite quickly.

And if you still hate getting ripped off... kill them all with modern armor while they are still defending with muskets. You'll be that far ahead.

that's true, it's better kill them all though it takes a little longer...
When i started playing in noble was really a mess.i just keep on game 2 turns , so the mess was short time (they tiddy up quickly for me).In the second try it was 3 turns and so on. In every try i changed the way i played before to find the way to stand.
Now i'm proud of me i'm the second on the civilization list in the game (at the right corner down) i'm over montezuma!!!! in both, list and map.
Anyway i'm not the best still commet big mistakes.
i don't mind be "ripped off" if i really need the tech the other has, but i change techs for money easily than for my tech's, i'm good with money i use to be the richest civilization.
so here are my recomendations:
-take it easy and be patience, if at the beggining u are 1 turn on game keep trying and look for your way to play.
- care the money and love it, cause with money u can buy everything that u need: friends, army & update it, city improve, tech's...
- be plenty of soldiers, army is the best way to don't be sweeped off.
good luck

So, I'm currenly playing my first ever global highlands map as Brennus (warlord diff.), and I'm having some severe problems.
Early on, not that much happened: Korea wiped early and I lost one of my city sites because my only neighbor Bismarck just had to capture a barb city that spawned there (he later even culturebombed it) But, overall things went pretty well. I expanded decently, beelined Machinery and spammed Windmills to make my cities actually grow a bit, popped Gems (riverside) and Gold in mines (and I'm pretty sure there was a third one as well), got two +3 relationship modifers with Bismarck and adopted his religion so he went up to friendly... not too bad.
But then, things became worse and worse. First, Bismarck started to either demand (his power has been about two times my power for most of the time) or steal my new techs, so I started falling behind. Then, I discovered that he had a huge empty backyard, so I had no choice but rexing there to prevent him from becoming a monster. This totally wrecked my research (at one point I was at 0% with only +1gpt), so I fell back even more. Later, I met Isabella. She hates my guts right from the start for not being Buddist and is huge. While I do have a few techs over her, all she is willing to trade me for it is junk like Aesthetics or Theology which I don't want.
So, is this still salvageable? And regardless of that, what were my main mistakes?

mistakes?
probably a lot, the game should be over already.
first and biggest, not enough workers,
then not enough focus on food. you need to build this work boat for this unimproved seafood!
Then using either slavery for more production or caste for better choices of specialists (like an artist for a border pop, and you're spiritual, you could just have done it for 5 turns until your borders are popped, no need for monuments).
then (but it's more a choice than an error) you could have killed Bismarck centuries ago.
All in all, you should have had a plan to win, something you obviously do not have.

salvable, maybe.
easy to do so, no.

First you can trade techs with Isabella. doing so, you'll be in the lead score-wise.
second, you didn't focus enough on food, nor on commerce.
And you didn't milk your friend Bismarck.
Just ask him for his 610 gold, and he'll give them to you. thus you can move the slider all the way up to 100% and get printing press in 1 turn.
you can also sell him 1 extra resource for 12 gpt, and exchange 1 other for his sugar (always good to have more happiness).
I just switched your tiles to more commerce and food to grow, and with this you're making 522 bpt which is not grand but still 10x what you had to begin with.
Of course it's not sustainable, but who cares?

try for space, you can do it.

I'd love to get some tips on my mistakes too in a recent game. It was on Warlord, and in the end I slightly lost out to a space race. Was 12-15 turns too late, and I was running at 100% research for yonks. Simply wasn't big enough, as a 30-city China romped to the win.

I'll copy my post from the topic. Sadly nobody seems to read it any more. At least nobody have replied.

I got an error when trying to upload the savefiles here too, so please refer to them in the linked thread.

Pangaea said:

I played another game yesterday, on Warlord this time. Started as Germany. I probably made a mistake in not trying to take down Rome ASAP. I blocked the copper, but they were piling out archers, which my axemen couldn't quite deal with. So it took a while before I got his head on a platter. This meant I didn't get as much land as I would have liked, though I did settle Scandinavia and in the end got Spain too.

At some point half the world declared war on me, which was a mouthful I can say! Just as I managed to defend against Russia, and got peace with Arabia, China and a couple others, my previous solid ally France attacked from the other side. And then Greek launched me from the south (and I lost a nice village). In the end I almost snatched win from a massive 30-village China through space, but they got there first. If I hadn't thought I could have won a dipomatic by building the UN perhaps I could have gotten there first. Live and learn. Diplomatic seems tough unless you're big and can muscle votes around (like the real world).

It wasn't a great game, and I probably made piles of mistakes. I'd like to learn though, and as the end-game is so slooooow I'm not too keen on learning them by errors all the time.

I'm not sure what screenshots I should post, but here are a few saves. Would be nice if somebody could have a look and say some of the worst mistakes I made, so I can learn and hopefully do better next time.

I tried to build my 2nd city to be a great people farm, but don't think I succeeded very well. Just wasn't quite sure how to deal with the whole thing. But had it in a good spot I think, and built a pile of farms there.

It should be said that due to a freakin' random event I had to go to war with China shortly after building the UN, so that shot any chance at diplomatic. Though I probably wouldn't have made it even without it as China and Russia was sort of allied and both are huuuuuge. Before that I got decisions slightly in my favour, but after I got booted as the Secretary General and never got back in. Even after gifting away piles of technologies to try to appease people.

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Pangaea said:

I'd love to get some tips on my mistakes too in a recent game. It was on Warlord, and in the end I slightly lost out to a space race. Was 12-15 turns too late, and I was running at 100% research for yonks. Simply wasn't big enough, as a 30-city China romped to the win.

I'll copy my post from the topic. Sadly nobody seems to read it any more. At least nobody have replied.

I got an error when trying to upload the savefiles here too, so please refer to them in the linked thread.

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I checked the end save.
There is no way you can compete with 6 cities vs a 30 cities china, except (maybe) a massive representation powered scientists game.
big mistake was to stay so small IMHO
There is no way you can compete in the late game if you missed the early steps.
You should try to get a head start in those games.
Playing the earth scenario, you can know in advance where the civs/cities are.
I suggest trying a warrior rush on france and spain to begin with.
After that, loads of workers, cottages and going for the next guy (rome can be pretty easy if you start early), to get at least 12 or 15 cities in 500 AD.
After that, tech as fast as you can, while keeping your neighbours happy (a dead neighbour is always happy )

I posted an early german save for earth in your other thread.

I always seem to have trouble in early game as far as where to settle and what to produce, I'd greatly appreciate it if somebody would give me some tips :]

For your first city, you rarely go wrong by just settling in place.

You should prioritize Bronzeworking and Animal Husbandry, so that by the time your first produced settler is ready, you know where copper and horses are. Try to settle your second city so it has access to one of those and a food resource (assuming those resources didn't start inside the cultural boundaries of your capital).

After that, you want to make cities that fit into one of three broad categories: production, commerce, and Great Person farm.

Production cities should have plenty of hills, for mining, and some good food sources so they can generate the food surplus needed to work the mines. For example, an irrigated corn tile produces 6, which means that working it allows you to also work two plains hills (which produce no food on their own). Ideally you should have 4+ workable mines in this city. It's even better if you have access to a strategic resource like copper or iron, since those generate extra hammers when worked. This city will never be very good at research since all of its worked tiles focus either on hammers or on food; thus, you needn't bother with buildings like libraries or markets here.

Commerce cities just need to have plenty of grasslands or floodplains -- tiles that are at least food-neutral before they are improved. Their goal is to run as many cottages as possible. Extra food resources are a bonus but not strictly necessary. You will want a couple of hills or other hammer sources for buildings, though. Basically you build lots of cottages, and keep the city's population as high as possible so it can work them all. These cities will be good at research, so try to build all of your research-multiplier buildings here first.

Great Person farms need food so they can run lots of specialists. And...that's about it. They only need hammers to build the National Epic; otherwise they can slowly chug along building basic infrastructure. Any population points that aren't dedicated to growing the city should be allocated to specialists so you can pop out Great People as quickly as possible.

You only really need one Great Person farm, so once you've built that, all of your remaining cities should ideally be either production- or commerce-oriented. Though I often end up with a few unspecialized cities that were settled solely to get more happiness resources into my trade network. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the city can hold its own.

Thanks for the tips :] I'll keep them in mind

Any advice on when and how to best automate workers?

It often gets very boring to build stuff manually after a while, but I haven't so far dared to fully automate workers. Though I tend to put a lot of them on trade network at some point, for example when I get access to railways. But are there any good ways to let them manage the cities themselves? I know there are some options for the governor, but haven't touched those - apart from the odd whip. Are they safe to use?

If you don't use the emphasize buttons, it's better to never automate workers, because it's like not giving them any instructions.
If you really want to automate workers check themeinteam's article about fast playing.
The buttons are safe to use and in fact are very useful if you don't check your cities every turn.

Where may I find that article?

Checking every city every turn is not quite my kind of dish. The game is slow enough as it is, at least on Earth 18, which I have played so far.

Also, what are the shortcuts for sending all produced units to one city? I saw that in a video, but there was no mention of how to do it.

Thanks I'll give it a read.

Pangaea said:

Where may I find that article?

Checking every city every turn is not quite my kind of dish. The game is slow enough as it is, at least on Earth 18, which I have played so far.

Also, what are the shortcuts for sending all produced units to one city? I saw that in a video, but there was no mention of how to do it.

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Don't automate workers without using the emphasize buttons is what Cabert is saying. The improvement decisions made for the workers often gives new meaning to the term "Artificial Idiot". Directing your workers is one of the biggest advantages you have in the game.

I don't think Cabert is advocating checking every city every turn. Few people have that kind of patience and it doesn't help much. If you use the emphasize buttons the computer will usually make rational or semi-rational decisions about which tiles to work. I only check a city if it goes into unhappiness or is ready to build something new. My only complaint about the selection inside the city is great people. Computer has a mania for priest specialists.

In the strategy articles section is an article entitled "TMIT's Guide to Speed Civing". It's helpful and gives several tips, including your question about waypoints.

It makes a certain amount of sense to go for priest specialists; they produce hammers and gold, which are both very useful. They just also produce Great Prophets, which are close to the worst of the lot assuming you aren't founding your own religions. If you do end up with a Great Prophet, odds are good you'll burn them on a Golden Age (which any Great Person can do) or settle them.

Ataxerxes said:

Don't automate workers without using the emphasize buttons is what Cabert is saying. The improvement decisions made for the workers often gives new meaning to the term "Artificial Idiot". Directing your workers is one of the biggest advantages you have in the game.

I don't think Cabert is advocating checking every city every turn. Few people have that kind of patience and it doesn't help much. If you use the emphasize buttons the computer will usually make rational or semi-rational decisions about which tiles to work. I only check a city if it goes into unhappiness or is ready to build something new. My only complaint about the selection inside the city is great people. Computer has a mania for priest specialists.

In the strategy articles section is an article entitled "TMIT's Guide to Speed Civing". It's helpful and gives several tips, including your question about waypoints.

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Just to be sure. So just clicking the automate button on a worker is a bad idea, period?

When I have my cities fairly developed it's just too tedious to manually ask them to build a road here, or put up a farm there, etc. Would be ace if the game did this without being too ******ed about it. Of course I do it manually in the beginning, when I don't have 20 cities (or 50).

It's not such a bad thing to automate trade routes, but you shouldn't have them automate improvements. They'll do really stupid things like farm over a cottage and then cottage over the farm. A huge part of your early-game advantage comes from having workers that aren't drooling imbeciles.

Will they do stupid stuff like that even when I have ticked the two worker boxes in settings? Not remove forest and leave old improvements (iirc)?

Pangaea said:

Will they do stupid stuff like that even when I have ticked the two worker boxes in settings? Not remove forest and leave old improvements (iirc)?

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No, by checking those boxes they will generally behave themselves. But they may "improve" unimproved tiles in ways you don't want.