Something just isn't clicking....

[mva5580]

I LOVE this game. I am always so interested to play it, and probably a big reason is that I love history so it just has that kind of connection with me.

And it's like I understand the principles of the game; develope the bfc, utilize resources, certain technologies should be researched before others, get your unique unit asap, culture helping to expand borders, the basics of how to create production cities, commerce cities, etc etc.

But whenever I play this game, and it really doesn't even matter what difficulty level it's on, I always feel like I'm just not playing right. I can hardly ever take over other civs for one thing, it's always as if my military is steps behind the other civs in not only the # of units they have, but they just seem to get the superior units before me. And the other types of victories, while I feel like I could do them (I have won a cultural victory ONCE,) I just have this feeling every time I play that I'm just not as organized and in control of it as I should be. And I think a big part of my confusion lies in wondering which way I should achieve victory. Do people ALWAYS start out a game thinking which way they're going to attempt, or do you just make a decision over time? I would have to think that you have to make these decisions in the beginning of the game because there's just too much going on to do it as you go. And I also feel like whenever I play that this is meant to be a long, drawn out game, but then I read strategies on here and get the feeling like you win or lose in the first hour or two that you start a new game. And I think therein lies a lot of my issues because I start out the game thinking about the long haul, when I should be focusing on getting powerful ASAP.

I enjoy playing this game so much, and I want to be good at it, but as I said something just isn't falling into place. If anyone has guidance, I'd appreciate it, but honestly I think I'm saying this just to vent lol. I want to get better and I just haven't been able to see it clearly yet.

[fugazi]

It's hard to get an image of how you play without saves and screenshots, but here's some basic tips:

-To tech fast, you need commerce. Commerce gets translated into beakers by upping the science slider. Libraries and such up the amount of beakers a city produces out of it's commerce.
-It's best to dedicate a few production cities to building units.
-It's also best to let commerce cities focus on just that, commerce. Cottage the hell out of those cities and let those cottages grow. Full-grown cottages with the right civics are unbeatable for commerce and science.
-Pick a leader that covers up your weakness. I know some of my friends got problems with getting culture in their first few cities, so they love the creative ones.

Maybe you're a build-a-holic like I was and if so think hard about whether you need that building in that city, or if you need workers or units more.

[Fei Kelei]

Originally Posted by mva5580

And I think therein lies a lot of my issues because I start out the game thinking about the long haul, when I should be focusing on getting powerful ASAP.

There it is. Even when I end up going for cultural or space wins, I still start out like I'm going for domination. The game becomes a lot easier when you're twice as big as every other civ because you took out a neighbor early.

[fugazi]

Yes, land is power and as long as you can salvage your economy you can usually leverage your newfound commercial and production output to kill off the little ones.

[JBossch]

Let me guess, you build every building in every city? Along with not having enough workers, building too many wonders, and not whipping enough, this is one of the biggest mistakes players make. Like Fugazi said, figure out what those buildings actually do and decide if it actually helps that city at all. Try posting screen shots or saves if you want more detailed help.

Also, while the long-view is important, the game really comes down to creating short-term advantages which you can then leverage into long-term success. For example, by bee-lining the tech that opens up your UU, then whipping the crap out of your cities to quickly create a stack of them, you can crush a neighbor resulting in a big long-term boost.

[GooglyBoogly]

It can also be worthwhile to go back on earlier saves and try out some what-if scenarios.

What If I had launched that invasion 50 years earlier?
What if I had used that great engineer to pop a wonder instead of saving it for a corporation 2000yrs in the future
What if I had just razed all those borderline cities i captured

etc...

[macmert]

I think hesitation is a big minus in this game... I lost many games just missing the window of oppotunity just thinking "Should I build a bigger SoD? Maybe the bla bla wonder would work better, or a temple here to boost culture..." etc etc... If you decide to do something, just do it... If you are after an invasion, cut the science slider, make money, upgrade units, whip the hell outta cities, then just beat the hell out of your neighbor...

Exploring early is another key IMO... In fact it is a fact that has been confirmed by many veterans here, like filling up choke points with settlements or borders, getting key resources etc etc...

Also, I dont know about you but I get my hammer cities very late due to the lack of hammer producing terrain, so if you can get some hills etc, build the second city as a hammer city, priotorize your expansion, like commerce first or hammer first...

I also got a culture victory once, and with Japan I was about to go on a full scale invasion with someone, then the game ended with my cultural victory of course it was on warlord but a win is a win right ?

[mva5580]

Ok guys, here is a game save. Rip me apart lol. It's I guess somewhat early in the game, but at the same time that certainly appears to be my problem so I would wager I could get some help. Thank you very much....

[blitzkrieg1980]

Every game should be played with respect to the map. This is because the map determines what kind of commerce / production / food / resources and neighbors you have.

So your initial thoughts upon starting the game should be "how can I take advantage of this map the best? Food heavy maps lend themselves to specialist heavy economies and food poor maps lend themselves to commerce heavy economies (enough food to feed all your cottages and mines).

Once you figure out who your neighbors are and where they're located, you should start plotting how you can disseminate their empire. Usually your closest rival is the best target as your maintenance costs will be lower than capturing civs that are further away. Always remember that 2 capitals > 1 capital .

Like Fei Kelei said, play the initial game like you're going for an early domination victory, but always remember that you still need an economy to continue getting techs. Having 2 workers per city (I have found) is awesome for getting cities online and profitable QUICKLY. Stack them 1 on top of the other and have them build improvements together. On a normal speed game, I can have a city's entire fat cross up and running in 30 turns. That's with the border pop. In later cities, you can utilize 3 or 4 stacked workers to get your cities FULLY up and running in 10 - 15 turns.

The trick is seeing how to maximize the city itself depending on the land you have. The key is that you always need 40 to utilize all 20 tiles in a city's BFC. Remember that Biology grants +1 to irrigated farms (including farmed resources) so take that into effect when counting .

After you are sure that you have enough to feed all available tiles (2 per tile), then maximize the rest of the city's land. If you have a lot of hills, mine them all. I say forget windmills unless you absolutely cannot feed your population on the food tiles present. If you don't have many hills, then cottage all other non-food tiles.

If you find a city has TONS of food (IE multiple food resources and freshwater grassland or flood plains) those are generally the best GP Farms. Farm all available land, get those food resources up and mine whatever hills you can. This city you can put workshops down on whatever plains tiles there are so you can get multiplier buildings up when needed. After your city grows to the cap, take off whatever tiles you can without starving your citizens and start working specialists. Eventually, you'll be popping Great People.

EDIT: Oh yeah. Once you research Bronze Working, utilize slavery as best you can. Whip workers, units, and settlers. Whip multiplier buildings that fit the city's specialization (IE production heavy cities should get barracks/forges, commerce cities get libraries/markets). But remember not to whip too much in a row or suffer too much for too long. Wait until the goes away and your city regrows, then whip again.

[BurN]

Originally Posted by mva5580

Ok guys, here is a game save. Rip me apart lol. It's I guess somewhat early in the game, but at the same time that certainly appears to be my problem so I would wager I could get some help. Thank you very much....

Ok there is more then one thing "not clicking".

Some big mistakes:

- You need at least 1 food resource in a city. Your city placement is quite horrible. Plan it better.
- You are not generating great people at all.
- Stop building wonders without marble/stone in cottage cities. Build granaries/libraries/markets.
- Stop building wonders in general without marble/stone. If you have marble or stone you can build specific wonders that help your strategy. A quite obvious example would be build GL & NE with marble in your capital or GP farm as a phil leader. What you should not do is build Pyramids and Parthenon with Charle when you have cottages all over the place, have no stone, have no marble, are low on food and are not running any specialists anyways.
- Don't slow build a swordsman in a cottage city (with no food resource mind you). Make units in a military city, which means farms and mines only. Granary ->barrack->units. (courthouse is ok too if maintenance gets big, lets say 5-6 gold)
- Chop all grassland and hill forests.

In general: Specialize your cities, be sure to have food in your cities and stop building so many wonders.

Cheers~

[Cashew]

There's no panacea for being bad at a game. If you want more help you should come with a specific problem instead of saying you just don't "get" anything.

[Yesod]

If you strip you cities down to one unit, you have 15 total...Ramsess has single archers guarding some of his cities.

I think you need to put more thought into what you're doing. Not: "Which strategy I read about can i use next.", but actually think about tactics from the current games standpoint. For example, city placement. Don't do like some people are saying and simply place each city around 1 food resource. Try to find instead how to figure out the total food that a city will require to work the maximum amount of tiles. They're just telling you that as a general rule, having done the math plenty of times (I hope). The key to this game is being able to think critically.

Probably the biggest issue will be war. You said you don't know how many troops to bring ever, so you might be best off trying to take cities with the minimum, then using the world builder (great tool to "debug" your strategy) to add more if you fail (reload first). I'll tell you off rip, once I get siege weapons, I only carry enough melee to protect them and finish off defenders. I tend to build units in threes, then fives, then nines, then fifteens: five swords/axemen with 9 catapults should roll through most civs easily, for example. Once the war starts, nearly all the cities (I always give em barracks) build archers (for garrison) and more catapults.

Good luck, the current game you have an enormous lead in. Win or lose, I would up the difficulty to noble and stay on it . You'll learn faster that way and keep yourself from building strategies around the extreme handicaps. For example, even up to prince level, if you build 5 warriors in your capital, you can take your closest neighbor's capital before 3000 B.C.

[blitzkrieg1980]

Don't do like some people are saying and simply place each city around 1 food resource.

No way! Of course not! CTRL+Y to check out tile yields while you're building your settler. Look for an area of the map that has land that you can utilize. While you're looking at the map keep in mind what the tile will look like once it has an improvement on it. IE if you see a freshwater grassland corn tile, you will see 3 on it initially, but you know that when you farm it and come biology, it will net you 6 total. When you see a plains hill, initially it will be 2 (or 3 if it is a forested plains hill) but you know when you mine it, it will be 4 and once railroad comes along you will have 5.

There is an excellent article on maximizing your city's output.
HERE IT IS

The point is, you try to choose your city settle spots based on the best output they can provide with regards to one of 3 basic things: (production), potential(science/gold), (everything....literally). You must remember to take into account the tiles that will be available in the BFC once the cultural borders pop. Once you have a city spot that has a lot of or potential, you need to make sure you can feed all the workable tiles in the city. That article above explains in much better detail than I could ever go into right now.

Once you understand the importance of city placement, city specialization is important too. The better you specialize your cities, the more ass you will then kick. Here are a couple awesome articles on city specialization:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php
and
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

Those and realizing the power of slavery ie whipping your workers/settlers/early military and multiplier buildings (like library +25% / market +25%) will take you up at least 2 difficulty levels. I know i know... I used to hate using slavery b/c of its social 'bad name' but it's just a game, right?

[mva5580]

Originally Posted by blitzkrieg1980

No way! Of course not! CTRL+Y to check out tile yields while you're building your settler. Look for an area of the map that has land that you can utilize. While you're looking at the map keep in mind what the tile will look like once it has an improvement on it. IE if you see a freshwater grassland corn tile, you will see 3 on it initially, but you know that when you farm it and come biology, it will net you 6 total. When you see a plains hill, initially it will be 2 (or 3 if it is a forested plains hill) but you know when you mine it, it will be 4 and once railroad comes along you will have 5.

There is an excellent article on maximizing your city's output.
HERE IT IS

The point is, you try to choose your city settle spots based on the best output they can provide with regards to one of 3 basic things: (production), potential(science/gold), (everything....literally). You must remember to take into account the tiles that will be available in the BFC once the cultural borders pop. Once you have a city spot that has a lot of or potential, you need to make sure you can feed all the workable tiles in the city. That article above explains in much better detail than I could ever go into right now.

Once you understand the importance of city placement, city specialization is important too. The better you specialize your cities, the more ass you will then kick. Here are a couple awesome articles on city specialization:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php
and
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra...ialization.php

Those and realizing the power of slavery ie whipping your workers/settlers/early military and multiplier buildings (like library +25% / market +25%) will take you up at least 2 difficulty levels. I know i know... I used to hate using slavery b/c of its social 'bad name' but it's just a game, right?

Thank you all for the tips so far, and yes you are so right about slavery, I've actually stayed away from it in-game because of what it is in real life, lol. And obviously that's a big mistake as most anything I have seen/read talks about using slavery to accelerate production/growth. Guess I'm just going to have to use it!

I appreciate all the tips, they will help I'm sure. Gonna be a long weekend of playing I think.

[blitzkrieg1980]

No problem, man. I used to think I'd never get passed Warlord, now I'm moving to Prince

[Skallagrimson]

Originally Posted by BurN

- Stop building wonders in general without marble/stone. If you have marble or stone you can build specific wonders that help your strategy. A quite obvious example would be build GL & NE with marble in your capital or GP farm as a phil leader. What you should not do is build Pyramids and Parthenon with Charle when you have cottages all over the place, have no stone, have no marble, are low on food and are not running any specialists anyways.

Building wonders doesn't always mean you're *BUILDING* wonders. Pre-Currency it's a poor man's "WEALTH". Post-currency it can still be used as "WEALTH" if the wonder being built is a "nice to have" (and not a complete waste of time like Chichen Itza--think midrange nice to have like Mausoleum of Mausalos).

This can be a strategy to keep the economy afloat in an early REX.

Originally Posted by BurN

be sure to have food in your cities

That's a bigger biggie IMO. Food glorious food, and without it, angels fear to tread.

[feralminded]

Yeah you need to focus on the core tactics of the game before worrying too much about strategies. Like nearly every city needs a food resource and then some. You don't need wonders and plan for the ones you want. Build units in the cities that are best suited to it ... etc etc.

I (with tons of community input) produced a fairly comprehensive guide of core tactics that will help on any level. The first point is a big statement about food. I know its labeled for Emperor but most of it will apply at any level. Worry less about SE/CE/RE/EE/Whatever E ... and focus on the fundamentals for a bit.

[mva5580]

I wanted to update on my situation. I thought a bit about how I played, changed a few things around, and I have now won 3 games in a row, 3 different ways! The first game was a timed victory. The second was a domination/land victory w/ Ottomans, I won by like 1920 AD and had a score of 18,000, # 1 on the leader rating list. And then last night I won a cultural victory in 1860 w/ The Greeks, score of 11,000, rating of Churchill. I understand that it's still on Chieftain and not a whole lot to be proud of in the big scheme of things, but for someone who felt totally lost on how to win at this game just a month ago on the same level and now I feel like I could win by just about any victory condition (outside of diplomacy, still not too sure about that one,) I couldn't be happier. Another victory or two on Chieftain and I'll be ready to move up!

[gskyes]

Good to hear. Now that you understand the basics and feel for the game better, read up on the sample games here on the strategy forums. The ALC by Sisiutil games are great, but unless you have loads of spare time, I would skip the discussion; they get pretty long.

Don't try to mimic everything they do exactly, though, because every map is different and things will now work out the same. But after reading many different games, I have found that my basic understanding of situational strategy has really increased.

One thing I would say to practice the most is warfare. Once you have eliminated 2 or 3 neighbors and made their land yours, the game is basically won and you can go for whatever victory you want.

[CornPlanter]

Congrats But I'd say move to Warlord immediately. Chieftain will give you some really wrong impressions on particular things, like usefulness and usability of some traits, buildings and techs. It's good only for understanding basic mechanics of the game.