What went wrong!!!

[Blue Boy]

I have been trying to follow various bits of advice on the forums to help me become a better player. Most of my games have ended the same way. I get bogged down and become a middle rank civ with no real hope of winning the game. Reading a lot of other threads I have tried to adapt my game style to go on the offensive earlier.

In the attached game I am Churchill on a Pangea setting at Prine level. As you can see I managed to knock out Brennus reasonably early (well I thought so anyway) and limit Montys influence. Unfotunately this left my economy shattered. Most of my neighbours hate me. Catherine / Hannibal have just declared war on me (again) and I have now slipped considerably behind in techs.

I'm not so much looking for advice on what can be done to win this game (although feel free if you want to). I'm looking for advice on what I could have done better earlier. Am I overusing farms/cottages? Should I have paid closer attention to my economy before going after Monty. Should I have raised some of the conqured cities instead of keeping them? Which cities should I have been using for GP's?? Should my expansion have been handled differently. Which buildings should I be concentrating on.

Cheers

[Shurdus]

It would help if you could post a screenshot of the world with and without recources, and an overview of the tech screen. Then we can tell you how to make more of production and such, evaluate if you maybe went to war too early, how you may have managed diplomacy better etc. I would like to take a look at your game but I do not have civ installed on this compueter.

[AndrewN]

I have taken a look and I think your problem can be summed up in 1 word: cottages. Your economy really sucks for 740AD and the few cottages you have built seem to have been built recently. There is some nice land covered with jungle that you could have cut down and used as commerce cities, all you need are the actual cities to use the land.

London is unhappy, you should not normally allow a city to grow above its happy cap. In this case you have some nice flood plains that could have been cottaged instead of being farmed.

I have no problem with your city placement, most of them are reasonable, but you haven't built enough. The only city I have a problem with is Nottingham, what is this city for? It has a huge amount of desert and no food resource and will contribute virtually nothing to your empire. Once your economy is working then you can settle these poor sites but not when there are better sites.

You are also short of workers. Some of your cities are working unimproved tiles which is nearly always a bad idea while at the same time you have improved tiles that are outside the workable range of any city.

You need to look at the builds in some of your cities, I am not sure you should be building the Parthenon in Vienne, you should start working those cottages you have built there.

[Learningciv]

I will try and help but can I open the warlords save if I only have BTS + Vanilla?

[Blue Boy]

Originally Posted by AndrewN

I have taken a look and I think your problem can be summed up in 1 word: cottages. Your economy really sucks for 740AD and the few cottages you have built seem to have been built recently. There is some nice land covered with jungle that you could have cut down and used as commerce cities, all you need are the actual cities to use the land.

London is unhappy, you should not normally allow a city to grow above its happy cap. In this case you have some nice flood plains that could have been cottaged instead of being farmed.

I have no problem with your city placement, most of them are reasonable, but you haven't built enough. The only city I have a problem with is Nottingham, what is this city for? It has a huge amount of desert and no food resource and will contribute virtually nothing to your empire. Once your economy is working then you can settle these poor sites but not when there are better sites.

You are also short of workers. Some of your cities are working unimproved tiles which is nearly always a bad idea while at the same time you have improved tiles that are outside the workable range of any city.

You need to look at the builds in some of your cities, I am not sure you should be building the Parthenon in Vienne, you should start working those cottages you have built there.

Thanks! I built Nottingham to secure the two insense and one wine resource. I was also running out of space as I had been concentrating on building sword/axes/spears to take out Brennues & Monty. I did have a few more workers but lost some when my economy crashed. I thought most people put farms on floodplains. How many farms is enough for a city like that? Should this have been a potential commerce city instead of a GP city? How many cities should I try to aim for at this stage bearing in mind I was trying to war early?

[futurehermit]

After a successful war you need to consolidate your empire and develop your economy. In the early stages of the game this usually means 1) hereditary rule for vertical growth; and 2) sufficient commerce cities.

After a successful early war, I usually want to designate most of my empire to be commerce cities, meaning grow them as large as possible as soon as possible working as many cottages as possible. 1 strong gpfarm running as many specialists as possible. Some strong production cities working as many good hammer tiles as possible.

Make sure you have enough workers as well. Dave's rule of thumb is a minimum of 1.5/city.

Once your economy is humming along again you can gear up for another war.

[AndrewN]

Originally Posted by Blue Boy

Thanks! I built Nottingham to secure the two insense and one wine resource. I was also running out of space as I had been concentrating on building sword/axes/spears to take out Brennues & Monty.

Yep, that's what I thought. Unfortunately the city dose nothing for you but costs money to support and protect. If you don't have a good site for a city then don't build it, you are not the AI or Neal . But there is some lovely land between you cities that would be better city sitea.

Originally Posted by Blue Boy

I did have a few more workers but lost some when my economy crashed.

Happens, bit of a pain and you need to look at replacing them at some point.

Originally Posted by Blue Boy

I thought most people put farms on floodplains. How many farms is enough for a city like that? Should this have been a potential commerce city instead of a GP city? How many cities should I try to aim for at this stage bearing in mind I was trying to war early?

I (nearly) always cottage flood plains. London has some nice riverside tiles, I would have cottaged them all and mined the hills and then swap the tiles around depending on what was needed. The food tile would be enough for growth, but I don't think there is enough food for a good GP city, I don't recall any good GP site so I would have waited until a good one showed up. I can easily out tech the AI on Monarch without a specific GP city.

As for the number of cities, I can't really answer the question, it is too dependent on the game situation. Plus I am not good at early rushing and don't normally bother. The important thing about cities is not how many but how good they are: remember 'quality over quantity'