Help me become a better civ player!

Now since this thread is more of a discussion about game speed and is pretty much hijacked i'd like to start a new game.

So what settings?

Normal speed?
Just pangea or won't help me that either and should i go something like continents or big and small?

Normal speed, normal size, regular number of opponents, randomly selected.

Huts and events off if you want to be get clean comparisons of your play to that by others. Turning these off also makes the play a bit more predictable - no chance of a "get out of problem" free card. It's not an important consideration, though - leaving them on is fine.

Pangaea is fine; continents and its variations simplify the diplo picture - although there's some risk of ending up isolated. Donut and Inland Sea are reasonable compromises between these. But any of them is fine.

I think that Creative is too strong a trait in the early game to make for good learning[1]. Philosophical tends to distort the costs of producing great people, and expansive fuzzes Worker and Granary costs (which are important early), so I'd take all of those traits off the table. Charismatic and Spiritual are on the fence, there are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Organized, Aggressive, Protective, and Imperialistic I think are fine. Industrious is OK if you don't try to use it :)

Based on your list, my top recommendations would be
  1. Hamurabi
  2. Genghis
  3. Stalin




[1] Those paying attention might notice that this contradicts my usual recommendation of Hatshepsut. The difference is that for players getting started, I think it helps to get the early game problems cleared out of the way, so that they can actually get to the game. At Emperor, it's time to start learning to address those problems. Horses for Courses.
 
Yeah i have seen a couple of those, the vids are a bit blurry and he does not explain very well, in the vids i have seen, I mean the thought process.

Anyway, tomorow i will look into his large library to search some early vids of him, more tutorial style. I made 2 vids too, just the deity AP cheese and a emperor one on a standard map. If i was only as good as my vids looked :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhia0gnzzTc
 
initial thoughts:
You want to make THAT capital a GP farm? It's one of the best bureau cottage capitals you could possibly ask for. I don't even like those caps and I still wouldn't go any other way.

why are you settling soooooooooooooooo far away? Especially when there are good sites much closer to home?
 
initial thoughts:
You want to make THAT capital a GP farm? It's one of the best bureau cottage capitals you could possibly ask for. I don't even like those caps and I still wouldn't go any other way.

why are you settling soooooooooooooooo far away? Especially when there are good sites much closer to home?

omg.... i see the 2 food and the floodplains thinking of a great gp farm but that does not benefit bureau at all. With all that cottaged it probably isn't even worth it to adopt free speech.... ever :D.

Yeah i settled too far, it looked a great spot to block egypt and had nice tiles. But since i was preoccupied with gandhi and right after that with shaka i worked those tiles very late. I lost those 2 FP to culture as well. Besides that, the pig/wheat to the south could have been a just as great GP farm.

I should learn from these two mistakes and writing about it on these forums helps as The former mistake seems so obvious and i have always been settling the way i'm doing now so thats a real eye opener. Eventually i won a domination in 1406AD with almost 200K points.

Thanks anyway, i will soon create this game:

Normal speed - now please don't whine about this speed theres enough litter in this threat already.
Pangea - just simple for now, maybe the next will be continents or big and small.
Small - i figured it's a bit faster and doesn't add or substract anything from the difficulty i think.
Barbarians on - Hope you like that better :D.
Brennus - hope the dun + warlord withdrawer is not to imba to increase my skills.

-edit-
Normal speed, normal size, regular number of opponents, randomly selected.

Huts and events off if you want to be get clean comparisons of your play to that by others. Turning these off also makes the play a bit more predictable - no chance of a "get out of problem" free card. It's not an important consideration, though - leaving them on is fine.

Pangaea is fine; continents and its variations simplify the diplo picture - although there's some risk of ending up isolated. Donut and Inland Sea are reasonable compromises between these. But any of them is fine.

I think that Creative is too strong a trait in the early game to make for good learning[1]. Philosophical tends to distort the costs of producing great people, and expansive fuzzes Worker and Granary costs (which are important early), so I'd take all of those traits off the table. Charismatic and Spiritual are on the fence, there are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Organized, Aggressive, Protective, and Imperialistic I think are fine. Industrious is OK if you don't try to use it :)

Based on your list, my top recommendations would be
  1. Hamurabi
  2. Genghis
  3. Stalin




[1] Those paying attention might notice that this contradicts my usual recommendation of Hatshepsut. The difference is that for players getting started, I think it helps to get the early game problems cleared out of the way, so that they can actually get to the game. At Emperor, it's time to start learning to address those problems. Horses for Courses.

Sorry totally overlooked your post but i guess brennus is fine too with his 2 borderline traits? I make note of those leaders so i can do those in the near future.
 
Brennus(rather Celtia in general) is considered not very good, guerrilla promotions generally don't give enough help because there aren't enough hills(and woodsman is better because it gives healing for a GG medic). For leaning purposes though, it might be an interesting challenge, but you probably won't be spamming gallic warriors+duns.
 
Thanks, currently doing (2nd attempt) the challenge game 2. I think i'm doing fine, it's 1100AD and just got rid of the first 2nd AI. Starting to get a tech lead on the AI although i missed the free tech from libaralism from someone on the other continent. But i just finished universities in all my major cities and thinks start looking prosperious. I really hope i can be the first one to beat this challange but i still have a long way to go.

I have a question though, i am running bureau, but when and where to do i switch? It happend i can switch to free speech now but i'm affraid i lose commerce. I got like 8 towns soon a couple more but it's not like i have 20 towns since the AI didn't build that mutch. Can i calculate it like this:
Upkeep is 12 less
i lose 24 commerce in the capitol (+the hammers, which should also count since i start using wealth and research more often)
i have a 25% bonus from market (soon it's 100, from grocer + bank), i have 100% research from buildings as well. so let's just take that 100%.

So i 48 - 12 = 36. 36 / 2 (coins from town) so i need 18 towns to make up for it? I only have halve :D.

So i'm pretty much stuck with bureau until i can run emancipation for a while.
 
I wish you luck in the challenger series, and yes, you probably do want to wait for a few more towns before FS. You also want to consider the culture bonus if pushing for the domination limit.
 
whenever i want to know if i should do FS or Bureau i save, check the ecnomy, swap civics, and reload if appropriate. Much faster than making calculations =p
 
whenever i want to know if i should do FS or Bureau i save, check the ecnomy, swap civics, and reload if appropriate. Much faster than making calculations =p

Lol, you also reload when you lose your stack? I can't reload since i'm playing for the hof, like i said trying the challange game 2.

Anyway, yesterday, too late to be playing, i made a big mistake. I was attacking Charlemagne which i had a slight tech lead on and went in with my stack. captured one city and after that i went on and encountered his huge stack of maceman, trebs, crossbows, knights and longbows on a no defense tile. So i figured i could win it but i suicided my army on him.

He took back his city and for piece i had to give the city i just build the forbidden palace in. I just wanted his holy city for the gold i would get but i should have gone for the somewhat weaker Hammurabi instead. So i teched fast to cavelery and wasted him but now everyone has a tech lead on me. I'm still number 1 and can take my continent but that won't be enough for the domination victory.

I also figured it would be good to be on good food with someone on the other continent, so i engaged war with sitting bull. I totally overlooked him and captured my coastal military production city and lost most buildings there. Took it back in 2 turns but damage was dealt :D.

I have not much experience in these late game tactics, cavelery seems so good on monarch and below. But the movement does not matter that mutch since you always need to do collateral damage, even with a city revolt.
 
cavalry is very good but you need to plan your war to end quickly.
AI getting rifling really hurts though ;p
 
Give some cavalry flanking 2. This gives them roughly 60% survival rate against regular rifles and damages the rifles enough for C1Pinch cav to take them out. Cavalry IMO are one of the best if not the best attacking units of the game, rushbuying cavalry is very strong and I've netted a pre-1600 domination win using cavalry rushbuy on immortal.
 
Give some cavalry flanking 2. This gives them roughly 60% survival rate against regular rifles and damages the rifles enough for C1Pinch cav to take them out. Cavalry IMO are one of the best if not the best attacking units of the game, rushbuying cavalry is very strong and I've netted a pre-1600 domination win using cavalry rushbuy on immortal.

I have to agree with all of the above, cav is amazing for war and at that point you should be able to rushbuy or be very close to Democracy. Cavalry is probably my favorite unit to war with, as they're fast, relatively cheap, and ruthlessly efficient.
 
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