This is my third game of Civ 4. My first game I played as the Incans on Chieftain and learned quite a lesson about economy in this version. I was used to Civ 3 where I would REX like crazy. So after realizing that I shouldn't build or conquer a 5th city until my infrastructure and economy are under control, I quit that game and started new.
My second game was with Egypt on Warlord and I went for the cultural or spaceship victory. I got ahead early and built just about every mid to late wonder out there. I did learn quite a lesson about my defenses when Catherine attacked with a ton of units directly from her galleys. I was under the imression that you needed amphibious to attack from ships. Is this true?
Anyway, I started my third game as a military game using Boudica (traits and UU & UB tend to lend toward warmongering. I want to conquer the world. I'm still trying to figure out military in Civ 4 and I need some advice:
It seems like keeping conquered cities gets really expensive. Keep them or raze them? If I keep them what should I run my science rate at so that I don't fall behind (Warlord level)?
When at war do you always use the war civics? With Boudica - Aggresive, Charasmatic, Barracks, Dun, Stable, Vassalage, Theocracy seems like there are going to be some high level promotions. Say I have 5 or 6 cities, how many should have the military buildings for pumping out units?
What are some of the most powerful unit promotions in the game? With all these potential promotions what should I shoot for? I know I should probably have a couple of medic units, but should I go through the Combat promotions or try to get the guerrila upgrades from the Dun?
What are some of the key wonders I should shoot for when going full military / conquest?
What should I use any Great Generals for? Should the first one go to the academy in my main unit producing city?
Hi
First about amphibious--when a unit attacks from a ship or attacks across a river there is a 50% strength penalty. Amphibious promotion takes away that penalty. So yeah units dont NEED amphibious to attack from bouts but without it unless they waaay outclass whatever they are attacking or have overwhelming numbers so 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever can die for every one defender they kill and still have enough units left to take the city they wont do much good.
As for keeping or razing a city. Early on most cities outside of the enemy capitol wont be worth keeping. Most capitols have multiple resources in their suares and can be productive very fast. Other cities just make a decision, are they a holy city for your religion? Do they have a wonder? Do they have an important resources in their radius? Is the city controlling a strategic choke point? If the answer yes to anyone of those question then it might be worth keeping. If the answer is MULITIPLE yes's for one city then it definitely should be a ciity you should try to keep.
The time to decide if you are going to keep a raise a city ideally is before you even get to it NOT when you finally take it and then see the yes/no on the raize city pop up. If you decide you are going to raize it pillage EVERYTHING you can on in its radius on the way especially cottages the extra gold will help pay for your war.
As for how high your science slider should be. As high as you can without going bankrupt and ending up using units. Now that doesnt mean you need your gold per turn to be positve ALL the time but dont ever end up with a net balance lower then zero.
Dont be surprized if lots of times you see wars where your econmy is going in negative gold per turn and relying pretty much on gold you get from capturing and pillaging to keep you in the black. Just make sure you have a good gold reserve so you can run in the negative for a good long time if necessary before you start out on a long war.
Now as for keeping up with teching. Now as lots of people will point out it is NOT where your are keeping your sicence slider at that really counts. it is the number of beakers per turn you are getting. So it is possible to have a decent tech rate even with a very low science bar but you cant really count on being able to use strats especially early on. At least not be able to set up for em AND go to war early.
On noble diff and lower you shouldnt have too much problem but especially on higher difficulties it is usually one or the other. You either tech like mad or you going to war. Usually you will NOT do both. A lot of ways you keep up with tech despite having sucky beaker output is while at war is before you finish off a civ offer peace/cease fire in exchange for as many techs as you can. Then use those techs you get to trade with other civs you havent gone after yet. Use the peace time to regroup, get reinforcements, plant defenders in cities you have just taken, get those cities connected to your trade network basically whatever needs doing while you have the breather then when peace time expires finish off the civ and get ready for the next one.
As for civics yeah vassalage and theocracy not bad when your at war. BUT for a warmongering civ the techs you need to get those civics arent gonna be ones you will research yourself. Especially with a Civ like Boudica/Celts. Hopefully you will have been in quite a few wars before ANYONR researches those techs and by time they do you can trade for em. If you wait for em before your first war odds are the window for your UU to be effective will be LONG passed.
Your "ideal" situation would be..start location with nice hills and forests around. Some food would be nice but you REALLY want those forests. Plant your city and bee line bronze working. The celts REALLY have it bad on this point since they dont start with mining so it's even more important they get BW ASAP so dont let starting with mysticism tempt you to try for a religion if you want to go to war. Get a couple of scouts out then a warrior to defend your city if you wanna be safe then a worker. Get your scouts working to find your closest neighbors and to grab all the goody huts they can hopefully you will get some techs and gold to have a reserve so you run in the red when your war starts. When you get BW if your worker is out switch to slavery and hopefully there is copper somewhere close if there is you're set if not then it is gonna be hard. If there is resaerch wheel so you can get bronze connected to your capitol (this depends on difficutly on lower difficutlies everybody gets like wheel and aggirculture in addition to their starting tech but on like warlord and higher all you get is your civs 2 starting techs and thats it) Chop/whip a settler send them off to go get the bronze (dont forget to escort em with at least a scout)
While your settler is off chop whip a second worker then get a barracks going. Hvae your workers "prechop" all the forests nearby. That is have em chop until one turn away from actually clearing then stop and move to next forest. As soon as copper city is setteld and you have wheel available connect your copper. Once your copper all connected go back to your prechopped forrests around your capitol. Chop/whip your baracks then a stack of 5 or 6 axemen and promote em to city one. If this done quick enough hopefull that is enough to take your closest nieghbors capitol and raise any other cities they may have built by then unless they are VERY expectional cities. After first neighbor all destroyed and his capitol now your newest city defended get your stack to hook up with your reinforcemtns you were building while first stack was off and do same to next neighbor.
If it all goes off without hitch you now have 4 cities 3 of which are capitol city locations plus you have
3 empire's worth" of building space
While all this is going on you have been researching IW and NOW this is where Celtics can REALLY shine. Their UU can be built with copper so you dont NEED to hunt down iron now you can start making CR galicwarriors for taking cities and gurellia gaelics for pillaging.
Early on promotions you most want will be CR for your city attackers and gurella2 gaelics are nice for pillaging. At this point your 4th neighbor might have 3 or 4 or more cities and you wont really be able to afford to keep any of em unless they have a wonder you really want. Use your gurella gaelics to use hills if any around to rush in quck and pillage strategic resorces and steal workers if they can while your CR stacks makes it way to the cities to take em out. If by this time they have tons of well defended walled cities too tuff for sowrdsmen to take easy. Army ant their whole civ
. Pillage EVERY thing to keep em in the stone age. Resarch alphabet so you can demand techs in exchange for peace AFTER you pillage and raised everything you can.
After that it really all depnds on where game is at this point. which all depends on map difficult and even what types of civs your neighbors are. And this is all just "ideal" start LOTS of things can go round when trying an early war. Like NO bronze close by or closest neighbors getting axemen/chariots before your first axemen stack gets to em.
As for wonders. National wonders like herioc epic and west point are really nice. But again those are "side" techs that really dont interest war monger much so usually you will trade for em or demand em isntead of research em yourself. Ironworks is also very handy to put in a city to crank out units.
The only really nice world wonder is pentagon which is very late in game. All other wonders...think of wonders as big shiny buildings OTHER civs build to have in their cities all ready for when you go and take em hehe
. Really if you are warmongering then usually you wont have time to be building anything else. If a city not building units to add to war machine then it either a cottage city building commerce building to help finance army and wars or it set on commerce or research.
That is the one thing about civ4 especially on higher levels. Many strats can work but you have to PICK one and plan for it whole game and stick with it. If you want to be a builder and just do one or two early wars for building space fine but after that build and not plan on anything more then warring on defense. If you plan to keep warring then dont plan to build much yourself and just take what the other civs build for you.
With great generals since academys dont come early now in BtS either sttle em in your main production city or attach em to a unit to make SURE you get a level 6 unit for west point. Now west point wont be available early and usally you get more out of GG in long run by settling him in production city (and settling multiple GG's WILL stack) I mean it is not totally unheard of with between multiple GG specialists westpoint, heroic epic (or iron works),academy, pentagon, and theacracy,vassalage to be pumping out 18 plus exp unit every turn out of that city late in game. But again that kind of the IDEAL unit producer and not something you should count on and dont really need. A heroic epic city, barracks, and 1 settled gg specialist to make CR2 swordsman,macemen and barage cats, trebs really can be all you need to conquer world
Anyways hope this helps a lil bit
Kaytie
