How to help a friend become good at Civ?

I have a friend who is... not new to Civ but none the less and bit of a rookie so to speak. We really want him to be able to play at a competitive level with us but he's been very slow to pick things up. I'll also admit upfront I'm probably not the best teacher, having a tendency to get overly competitive, and I'm working on finding a balance between brutally punishing all his mistakes when we play and just ignoring him entirely outside trade (the latter of which just reinforces bad tactics because he ends up getting rewarded for things like not having an army when everyone avoids attacking him, and the like).

Anyway, he's had the game about a year and a half now, and has logged 126 hours of play, but he's still making inexperienced mistakes like trying to use embarked units in battle, accidentally killing barb captured units with an archer, building wonders with an enemy army at his doorstep, etc. and has by his own account never seen the victory screen. I think he'd really like to get good but I'm not sure how to approach teaching him. He seems very resistant to reading any sort of guide, claiming he's the type of person who can only learn from experience and I'm just not really sure how to approach teaching that sort of person.

Anyone have any tips for this?

Well First off, 126 hours is nothing. Especially if they have been spread over more than a year. If he did that in 2 weeks flat then he would probably learn a ton but an hour or two per week is not going to teach him anything. He will forget too much in between sessions.

Civ is a game of knowledge and experience. If you teach him what you know then he will be good. Basically he needs to watch you play a game and be allowed to pick your brain, asking you why you did certain things.

Better yet, he should watch yoruus videos and learn from those.

There is nothing more fun than taking a total noob under your wing and cultivating them into a strong player in the community. A few days with an experienced player can transform some one's game.

I remember getting tommynt on my team one time in a teamer. After watching him in that game I never played the same again. My teamer game play transformed over night.

1sr thing 1st... tell him to watch vids and register here... or ask you questions about stuff he needs to upgrade in his game. In a month, doing those 2 things (asking just a few questions and reading here and watch like 10-15 hours of teaching videos on youtube) I went from an OK emperor player, to dominating Emperor and being close to beat Immortal. (in fact if it was my goal to do it ASAP it would already be done.)

2nd thing (even more important), does he wants that? Because if he dont want that, forget it. you cant do it for him.

And 3rd, patience. You cant ask a noob, cause 125 hours playing of that game is like like only learning the mecanics, so he is a noob, to become a diety player in 3 weeks. It will take time.

CraigMak said:

Well First off, 126 hours is nothing. Especially if they have been spread over more than a year. If he did that in 2 weeks flat then he would probably learn a ton but an hour or two per week is not going to teach him anything. He will forget too much in between sessions.

Civ is a game of knowledge and experience. If you teach him what you know then he will be good. Basically he needs to watch you play a game and be allowed to pick your brain, asking you why you did certain things.

Better yet, he should watch yoruus videos and learn from those.

There is nothing more fun than taking a total noob under your wing and cultivating them into a strong player in the community. A few days with an experienced player can transform some one's game.

I remember getting tommynt on my team one time in a teamer. After watching him in that game I never played the same again. My teamer game play transformed over night.

Click to expand...

I've actually tried getting him to watch a better player a few times (Mad Djinn's stuff specifically), it didn't hold his attention though . I also tried a team match once but again I don't think he paid much attention to what I was doing. I imagine me watching him play and offering advice could help, but he lives a few hours away currently so I don't have many opportunities to stand over his shoulder.

If there was some sort of really abridged, quick paced video guide I could see that working too, but having him watch someone play through a whole game is pretty much out of the question.

I do definitely enjoy teaching him, even if I haven't been very successful, but I worry he's becoming frustrated with his lack of progress.

I'd say pick an early goal and drill it. Practice by yourself first to make sure YOU can do it -- something like "We're going to go Liberty and do a Composite Bowmen rush at turn X" -- X being a turn that you can have 4-5 composites ready by + like 10 turns for leeway. Play the game to that point and see where he's at -- chances are he'll have 1-2 bowmen instead or something. Talk with him and try to help him figure out where he went wrong.

Then start over and try to improve.

The same can be done with peaceful goals, especially Science. Get him used to when he needs to start settling and when he needs to have his NC up by. These don't need to be Deity level goals of NC in the 80s or something but if he doesn't have NC by turn 150 or something then there's a major problem.

But you have to be willing to repeat these games and practice with him.

Then, once he can meet that goal, keep a save around and set a new goal. Then work on that. Etc.

That sounds like a really good idea! Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try that one for sure!

I'd be interested to figure out what consistent "by turn X" goals might be for some stuff anyway.

I'd say watch his game and point out improvements that could be made.

I used to spend WAY too much time building EVERY POSSible wonder I could and it seemed fun at the time but in hindsight it actually wasn't because I was missing out on other nuances of the game like city state quests or barb farming with Monty or early wars against Greece.

The way I got out of that bad habit was only building wonders that added to the flavor of a Civ, like being Ethiopia and building the great wall, the red fort and Himeji Castle. Or being England and getting The great light house and opening exploration and having the greatest possible navy in the game.

All those little mini games helped me culticate sticking with a strategy and having to balance out the army more.

I will tell you though, to a rookie, understanding the ways of th AI is incredibly important. Without it feels random and you can't strategize. But once you understand why they go to war, what their willing to trade, when their being duplicitous, when they don't want war, etc. The game gets far easier and more satisfying. For example I learned if I'm playing a culure game, the AI never skips a city in between them and your capital. So i can concentrate most my defense it the outer city. I've learned how to tell when an AI is building up for war with me and can coast with a very then defensive army and save my money. Once they attack I can raise an army pretty fast. But I didn't learn all that until I learned the AI ques

Tying to a chair and electrical torture often helps.

Seriously though, I would just tell him to keep playing and be patient with him. You can`t quick-force a guy to learn- Only time and experience can do that.

However, you mentioned some of the mistakes he makes. First thing you can at least do there is tell him those mistakes and if he has an ounce of a brain, i`m sure he won`t repeat them. I mean, heck, I kept killing barb prisoners with Archers until i found out on this forum not to do that and have never made that mistake since.

Ya correcting of mistakes when I know he's making them is already a happening thing. The wonders bit included. We gave him that steam background with the wonders as a joke because he used to build so many of them, and wouldn't abandon a project even if his city was being conquered. He's gotten.... better about that. Still over risks and over prioritizes them, but I haven't seen him try to build the great library in a bit so that is at least a big improvement.

I can't really watch his games much, since he lives a good few hours drive away from me, all I can do is play games online with him and try to get an idea from spy observation, scouting and getting his own account of what happened from him to understand what he's doing.

I like the idea of setting specific "by turn x" goals as it creates a small window in which to take note of his actions as well as setting priorities for certain things in his mind. Like "have x horsemen or comp bows to defend your cities by x turn." We can even set subgoals for these like "get animal husbandry by tech 4." "Boost economy with a caravan." "Settle a city near horses." and "Research horseback riding" all by certain turn counts.

As a note, I think Steam has the "watch game" thing now (not sure if it's still just beta subscribers or not) and I'm pretty sure Civ5 is on there. So, you should be able to even watch single player games that are being done by him, and talk with him through your favourite VoIP program.

http://steamcommunity.com/updates/broadcasting

This may be the "over the shoulder" that you're looking for without having to be right there.

The best way is to watch LPs. Marzobir's LPs are particularly good.

Fr33lanc3r said:

As a note, I think Steam has the "watch game" thing now (not sure if it's still just beta subscribers or not) and I'm pretty sure Civ5 is on there. So, you should be able to even watch single player games that are being done by him, and talk with him through your favourite VoIP program.

http://steamcommunity.com/updates/broadcasting

This may be the "over the shoulder" that you're looking for without having to be right there.

Click to expand...

Thanks, thats good to know about. I'll have to check that out!

Fredgerd said:

I've actually tried getting him to watch a better player a few times (Mad Djinn's stuff specifically), it didn't hold his attention though . I also tried a team match once but again I don't think he paid much attention to what I was doing. I imagine me watching him play and offering advice could help, but he lives a few hours away currently so I don't have many opportunities to stand over his shoulder.

If there was some sort of really abridged, quick paced video guide I could see that working too, but having him watch someone play through a whole game is pretty much out of the question.

I do definitely enjoy teaching him, even if I haven't been very successful, but I worry he's becoming frustrated with his lack of progress.

Click to expand...

It kind of sounds to me like he has a lack of interest in the game. If you are more interested in making him better than he is in learning you are going to be hitting a brick wall. I have taught a lot of people and only teach those people who show a very eager desire to learn and play frequently.

People with a passing interest in civ and play 8 other games are a waste of effort. This is a game that you really have to be into to learn because the games consume so much time.

Practice war, and often.....LPs are great for getting a good understanding of warring but the only way to get efficient/good at it is to actually do it. Oh and don't get in a hurry with attacks. Take time to plot them out and figure out what dude to attack/move where.

I would also recommend playing the mongol scenario. It really helped me a lot in improving my war tactics and enjoy the art of war in civ 5. You can start from a low difficulty and end in finishing the scenario on deity. Although the game is pretty different from BNW, the transition back to BNW will not be that hard.

There are several good suggestions posted. As a Civ player and Soldier for about twenty years and a wargame player for over forty years, one method that works is to reduce the complexity and focus on learning only a few concepts/techniques at a time. Besides level of difficulty there are number of players and city states, as well as the randomness of the map.

I learn a lot reusing a map and changing other parameters one at a time.