How has your gameplay evolved?

[Urtica dioica]

Since I'm new to this game, unlike most folks here, I can remember with horror the way I used to play when I had just started. Here are some of my obsolete ideas.

- Improvement and wonders I thought were pretty cool, but actually aren't: Pyramids, Darwin's Voyage, United Nations, barracks, city walls, colosseum, and granary.

- Improvements and wonders I didn't respect: Colossus, Copernicus' Observatory, Cure for Cancer, aqueduct, bank, university.

- And the reason? When I started out, I thought I should build everything in every city. Turns out that's not so efficient. If you want to build up trade as fast as you can, the way to do it is to build up one city as far as it goes, so the multipliers can add up.

Another symptom of perfectionism:

- "Shields all the way" turned into "Arrows all the way": When you're wasting time building every pointless improvement, you never seem to have the shields you want. You also never have the trade you want, because it's lost to upkeep, but that's easy for a beginner to miss.

- "Caravans are nice" turned into "Caravans are awesome!": Nothing else turns shields into gold as efficiently, and nothing else turns shields into science period. And the extra arrows turn into huge profits with full multipliers.

- "Ooh, I wonder what's in that hut..." turned into... well, fear: I don't wan't my fledgling cities falling to eight more unfriendly cavalry, and I really don't want to pick up Horseback Riding on accident and slow down research for the rest of the game.

- Putting down the first city quick as you can: It makes sense not to wait to start building your empire, but huts are safe and usually pay off when you don't have a city yet. It's also nice to plan a site for your capital with lots of trade, and food to work it all.

- Not appreciating cheats: You may not like exploiting bugs, but as I said here, it can be hard to avoid. Most bugs can actually be used to make the game more interesting. The exceptions, IMO, are: shift-56, manipulating the save file, reading the save file for intelligence, moving a save onto an auto-save slot, reverting to old saves to beat the random number generator, unloading onto a sentried ship, and alt-r (randomize enemy leaders).

What sort of bad ideas have you done away with?

 

[trada]

Since I'm new to this game, unlike most folks here, I can remember with horror the way I used to play when I had just started.

Welcome to the fora.
Seeing newbies like you force me to realize that I'm not one anymore. I wasn't part of the hayday of this forum but I did lurk it. I guess those who started up the renewed activity (Dack, etc) counts as the 2nd wave which I'm part of; and members like Urtica dioica are the 3rd wave of players who are joining up. Good on you

Here are some of my obsolete ideas.

- Improvement and wonders I thought were pretty cool, but actually aren't: Pyramids, Darwin's Voyage, United Nations, barracks, city walls, colosseum, and granary.

I find it interesting that you've 'grown out' of these buildings. They are the very ones I've learned to love the most! Under careful, proper analysis and data mining, one could probably figure out what buildings/WoWs pass the 'worth building' threshold or not. But with every game so different its just not going to happen. Its really up to each player to find what buildings "are the best ever" and which "actually aren't". Another reason to love the Civ.

Pyramids let you grow much faster because they enable governments which directly expand the amount of trade and production you earn for your land. In fact, the designers of civ2 toned down the effect of this wonder (provides a granary for every city) because they thought it was too good!

Darwin's Voyage.. yeah, I can see why you be hatin'. But I get a little happy when I see my civ grab two techs at once Still, I guess from a pure game-ist perspective its not worth it.

UN is fun because it messes with the AI. It secures your survival in the later game to watch the geopolitical landscape unfold..

Barracks!? I used to build them all the time. Then I went through a few years where I rarely did, and finally switched back to having a number of cities Barrack'd out. I guess they are rather expensive.

City walls FTW! Colosseum.. meh... Granary FTW! Seriously, they are like meth to me. Your cities grow 150% as fast! Good? Yes.

- Improvements and wonders I didn't respect: Colossus, Copernicus' Observatory, Cure for Cancer, aqueduct, bank, university.

Although its not my cup of tea, the Colossus is a fave of many civfanatics. Cop's Ob is pretty hot when you have a SSCity. Cure for Cancer? I guess its only moral to build it right? Aqueducts... haha, yeah. Banks and unis are good too. Especially unis.

- And the reason? When I started out, I thought I should build everything in every city. Turns out that's not so efficient. If you want to build up trade as fast as you can, the way to do it is to build up one city as far as it goes, so the multipliers can add up.

Don't worry, we've all been there.


To answer your question, one bad idea I've got away with is Chariots. I've tried to love the horse and wheel, really tried. But I just can't. My armies in the last few years have consisted of Catapults, Phalanxes. OK, and Calvary? Luckily I saw right away that they are just pointless.

Another bad habit I used to have was assuming the AI would return peace once we signed the treaties. Fail.


Gosh, I haven't played this game in over a year! Maybe I should fire it up again...

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

Improvement and wonders I thought were pretty cool, but actually aren't: Pyramids, Darwin's Voyage, United Nations, barracks, city walls, colosseum, and granary.

One important thing about wonders is that other civs may build them if you don't. Even if I'm not that interested on some wonders, I always try to build as most as I can just to keep the development of other civs under control.

I agree that City Walls and Colosseum are useless unless in very specific conditions (frontier city under attack by enemy technologically more advanced and desperate to restore happiness and not possessing Religion). It's useless to have Barracks on every city if all your cities are connected by Roads and later Railroads. One or two cities with Barracks, depending on the size and geographical shape of your empire, are enough. Granarys, in my opinion, are important for initial city growth under the most primitive forms of governmente. By the time your government turns Republic or Democracy they can all be sold.

Improvements and wonders I didn't respect: Colossus, Copernicus' Observatory, Cure for Cancer, aqueduct, bank, university.

I always respected Colossus because it's very easy to build (few shields necessary) and it pays off even if for a short time. The same happened with Copernicus Observatory because I quickly realized the importance of science in the game. Can't remember my feelings about Cure for Cancer. I only realized how Aqueducts were important after several cities stopped growing at size 9. I guess it happened with almost everyone. As I said, I quickly realized the importance of science and always built Universities as soon I as I could. Unfortunately, it took a little more to learn the importance of money (I mean in the game, of course) and so the value of Banks.

And the reason? When I started out, I thought I should build everything in every city. Turns out that's not so efficient. If you want to build up trade as fast as you can, the way to do it is to build up one city as far as it goes, so the multipliers can add up.

Yeah, I remember trying to build a Granary, a Barracks, a Marketplace, a Library, a Temple, City Walls, a Bank, a University, a Factory, etc etc in each city! Just imagine all the maintenance costs!

"Caravans are nice" turned into "Caravans are awesome!": Nothing else turns shields into gold as efficiently, and nothing else turns shields into science period. And the extra arrows turn into huge profits with full multipliers.

Caravans are little wonders on their own. Don't forget that Caravans don't pay maintenance costs (shields) and so are perfect for those times when you don't want to build anything (same is true for Diplomats). Besides, Caravans can dramatically speed up the completion of wonders.

"Ooh, I wonder what's in that hut..." turned into... well, fear: I don't wan't my fledgling cities falling to eight more unfriendly cavalry, and I really don't want to pick up Horseback Riding on accident and slow down research for the rest of the game.

Totally agree. Since I never revert to saved games (that's cheating in my book) I have learned to approach the huts very carefully, specially when they're close to undefended cities.

Putting down the first city quick as you can: It makes sense not to wait to start building your empire, but huts are safe and usually pay off when you don't have a city yet. It's also nice to plan a site for your capital with lots of trade, and food to work it all.

Totally agree. In my first games, I always founded my capitol on the very first turn, because I remember reading the "famous" 175 tips for playing Civilization and one of the tips said that you should not waste valuable time that can be used for pumping units and additional settlers. Nowadays, I believe that those wasted turns will later be compensated when a city is ideally placed (on the coast with access to grassland with shields and hills, and special resources nearby).

What sort of bad ideas have you done away with?

One thing that took a while to learn was knowing when to change government. I sticked to Despotism because I didn't realize the benefits of turning into more advanced forms of govenment. When I started to experiment with different types of government I got annoyed because things got worse (paying maintenance shields for units, unhappiness raising, etc...). It took me a while to fully understand the complexity of governments.

 

[Whelkman]

Difficulty level complicates which structures pass the threshold of usefulness, but most of those are wonders. For example, Colossus is a no brainer for many playing under Emperor but it can be obsolete before it is built under Chieftain. The regular structures are far simpler. As a general rule, unless you've already finalized your expansion, building structures just slows you down. Building structures is something to "do" when an empire reaches its second phase. Otherwise, the gravy they offer is better provided by more cities, which take settlers to generate.

The obvious exception is building wonders to prevent list overflow.

 

[Urtica dioica]

Pyramids can let you switch to Republic or Democracy earlier, but that's their only real benefit. I've found Pyramids really don't come much faster than research, and you need Republic for a spaceship win anyway. Maybe in certain cases they're worth the time, but that's a lot of settlers or chariots you're not building. One idea this gave me was to steal Pyramids early, and sell the palace to finish Colossus. Switch right to Democracy and don't bother rebuilding!

I'll concede that barracks might be OK if you build them in a couple cities that are devoted to rushing units. Too bad they go obsolete so often.

City walls? Costs money, and the best defenders in this game are offensive units. Would you rather take on that scary veteran catapult with a phalanx or a catapult of your own? If you want fortifications, a well-designed empire can use fortresses to good effect.

I just don't get arguing for granary AND Pyramids. Representative government obsoletes granaries altogether, and before that settlers help you grow better than granaries.

Colossus is absolutely the best wonder in the game, because of trade multipliers and re-homed caravans. It dies at Electricity, but that's only a few techs away from spaceships. The only drawback is that it's so hard to beat the enemy to it, when they often get it c. 3200 BC.

The happiness wonders, such as the Cure, have an overlooked advantage: their effect is computed after military unhappiness. Build the Cure, and as long as you take care of red suits, a size 1 city can keep as many units as it has shields.

Catapults have a purpose, but don't ignore chariots; they can attack twice in one turn. That often means the difference between taking the city and letting the enemy buy reinforcements.

 

[Whelkman]

The happiness wonders, such as the Cure, have an overlooked advantage: their effect is computed after military unhappiness.

Smartest comment I've read in some time.

 

[Valen]

Colossus is absolutely the best wonder in the game, because of trade multipliers and re-homed caravans. It dies at Electricity, but that's only a few techs away from spaceships. The only drawback is that it's so hard to beat the enemy to it, when they often get it c. 3200 BC.

This may fall in the realm of cheating, but I think it's a gray area. If you frequently save the game, you can deny the colossus to your enemies.
Wonders are awarded to the AI civs. They don't earn them. If you reload and replay a turn where an enemy got the colossus (or any other wonder) chances are they won't get it.
Since the AIs don't have to work for their wonders, I have no qualms about denying them that unfair advantage.

 

[Judge_Deadd]

Originally, I just built *one city*, and sticked with it to the end of the game. "Hmm, it's already 2000 AD and I still have to fight enemy tanks with catapults?"

I built all the improvements, and only when the money began running low, I sold them away.

I never switched from Despotism, because I was terrified by the concept of "unit maintenance costs". You're not gonna get MY precious shields!

Of course, nowadays I know better. (I hate micromanagement tho, so I usually build just 3 cities and stay with them. Sorry I always seem to get a spaceship victory this way.)

I really don't want to pick up Horseback Riding on accident and slow down research for the rest of the game.

Huh? What do you mean?

If you want fortifications, a well-designed empire can use fortresses to good effect.

I must say I never really understood the point of building fortresses. The enemy can just walk around them, and if you're in Republic or Democracy, the units in them will cause unhappiness (and let's not forget the shield maintenance cost).

 

[Whelkman]

The number of light bulbs required for advancement increases with each discovery. Discoveries also take longer at high levels, both in raw cost and compared to other civilizations.

At the Chieftain level, the player has a 2.3x light bulb advantage over the CPU, meaning that the CPU must come up with 2.3 bulbs just to match the output of the player's single bulb. By Emperor, however, the CPU has a 1.4x science advantage, so the player can fall further behind with each advance. In this scenario, researching "throwaway" technologies like Horseback Riding and Pottery can create a substantial technology deficit when compared to the CPU.

 

[HylandPaddy]

One thing that took a while to learn was knowing when to change government. I sticked to Despotism because I didn't realize the benefits of turning into more advanced forms of govenment. When I started to experiment with different types of government I got annoyed because things got worse (paying maintenance shields for units, unhappiness raising, etc...). It took me a while to fully understand the complexity of governments.

Same with me, always in despotism, never really understood other govs.
Until I came to this forum and decided on a bit of REVOLUTION!
I always go for Republic + womens suffarage now, far better economy + research.
CIV ROCKS!

 

[HylandPaddy]

I must say I never really understood the point of building fortresses. The enemy can just walk around them, and if you're in Republic or Democracy, the units in them will cause unhappiness (and let's not forget the shield maintenance cost).

Forts are brilliant.

If you say that enemies can just walk around them then your obviously not utilising them properly. Their great for halting an aggressive neighbour when two continents are joined by a tiny piece of land, giving you just enough time to send reinforcements.

They are also cheaper and faster than setting up a city to defend the troubled frontiers of your civ. because of turns used up by irragation ect. and the possibility of an ambush on that lone settler.

use republic + womens suffarage to reduce military unhappiness.

So let your enemies send waves and waves of armies against your fort, while your cities flourish behind it.

 

[Tenochtitlan]

I must say that I have never appreciated the Hoover Dam, but then it solves the problem of cities with very low shield at a low cost. It's one of the most important wonders to me now

 

[Khilak]

Hoover Dam rocks!

 

[MXB]

Interesting question! Having played since 1991 I imagine I must have changed as I got older and wiser. Reading about how others play (or misplay) Civ also influenced me as well.
I think the biggest change is that I used to minimize gold as much as possible. I've learned that it can be very powerful. I guess it's just my anti capitalism/business prejudice that I got from watching idealistic 80's TV.
OTOH I think I'm also in a comfy groove/rut. I play Civ to cheer me up sometimes and it's nice to do the same old things. Like an old shoe.
Recently I started a game trying out the barbaric smallpox method I'd read about. It sort of seems to work but I can't be sure as I gave it up since it was no fun. I wanna build a beautiful Civilization. That's what the game is about after all.

 

[Tristan_C]

Interesting question! Having played since 1991 I imagine I must have changed as I got older and wiser. Reading about how others play (or misplay) Civ also influenced me as well.
I think the biggest change is that I used to minimize gold as much as possible. I've learned that it can be very powerful. I guess it's just my anti capitalism/business prejudice that I got from watching idealistic 80's TV.
OTOH I think I'm also in a comfy groove/rut. I play Civ to cheer me up sometimes and it's nice to do the same old things. Like an old shoe.
Recently I started a game trying out the barbaric smallpox method I'd read about. It sort of seems to work but I can't be sure as I gave it up since it was no fun. I wanna build a beautiful Civilization. That's what the game is about after all.

Does anyone know what this "barbaric smallpox" method is?

 

[trada]

Does anyone know what this "barbaric smallpox" method is?

City spamming. Also known as Infinite City Sprawl (ICS). Smallpox is where you build tonnes of small cities that operate as army factories and largepox is where you build fewer but bigger cities. ICS is considered to go against the spirit of the game because cities aren't meant to be spammed.

 

[Tristan_C]

Hahaha, then in that case, my gameplay has not evolved, but regressed full-circle. When I played this game as a little kid, I did a crude implementation of ICS since I couldn't really build and manage large cities. I developed those skills (and patience) over the intervening years, but now that I'm playing the higher difficulties, I'm back to my old tricks, spamming cities and cranking out military.

 

[trada]

It has been considered ICS is the only way to win at Emperor or higher. So Tristan_C you aren't alone with your ways. Actually I'm yet to see somebody win at Emperor without it! Hell, it is sure possible but very, very tricky. When you get to Emperor+2 you aren't getting anywhere without ICS.

I have a house rule I play by to ensure I don't slip into ICS and that is this. I can only have as many cities as the average size of my top three. And a maximum of eleven cities. Seems to work OK.

 

[Tristan_C]

Gotta admit it would be exciting to live in an ICS civ. Everyone's a kid, living fast, dying young... we mate constantly and pack the brats off into settler units.

 

[Dandenoth]

It has been considered ICS is the only way to win at Emperor or higher. So Tristan_C you aren't alone with your ways. Actually I'm yet to see somebody win at Emperor without it! Hell, it is sure possible but very, very tricky. When you get to Emperor+2 you aren't getting anywhere without ICS.

I can confirm. I have yet to win a game at emperor where I have not dotted the landscape with cities.

As far as game play evolving... It hasn't very much. I still primarily shoot for a military victory in all my games. Only now, I'm just better at it somehow...