i'm in a rut

[hyacinthgirl]

it's my first post, but i've been reading the forums off and on for a couple of years. well, more off than on, and that's probably what got me here. i *still* play on warlord or regent, mostly because i'm too much of a weenie to move up to a higher level. since i took a six month hiatus and am getting my feet wet again, i am back to warlord on C3C. my problem is that my games are long. long, and ohsoboring. a new game and a new map make me so happy, but right around 1000AD i start to get bored and then the same thing happens every time, it seems.

to change up things, i have started to make more conditions random, like land and civ and age of the planet. but it's the same thing every time. i start out and get a huge lead in tech somehow, then stall in the middle part of tech tree (around metallurgy, i guess?), then rush to get tanks and MA first so i can just blow everyone up and end the game. i win every time. but my scores aren't great, and i'm booooooooored of a domination or conquering victory. plus, this always takes me until the mid to late 1900s, sometimes to 2000+AD... turns are taking twenty minutes each at this point.

i don't really have a particular civ i always play. sometimes i just want to be pink, haha. one thing i have to confess is that i have to disable the spaceship option, because of how far behind i can fall in tech if i get bogged down in a war towards the end. so i guess if that option was on, i'd only win about 50-60% of the games i played.

i'm just so tired of how it gets so uninteresting. and there are so many facets of the game i don't use, mostly all the cool worker commands like fortresses. they seem too "time consuming" in a game where i only get 540 turns. i don't want a worker taking 12 turns or however many to build a fortress when my units can't get between cities and i have no trade routes. maybe i need more workers. is there a general rule of thumb about how many workers is a good number? like, one per city? two? and while i'm on workers, do i have to pay unit costs on captured workers and slaves, even though they're lazy and work half as fast?

i don't know, i guess my civ playing is a wreck. any tips on how to break out of this boring rut and make the game more interesting again? i'm sure i leave lots of questions to be asked, so if you want, ask away and i'll try to answer. you guys seem terribly helpful and i'd like to get better at this. and one day maybe i'll figure out how PTW works, so i stop just logging on and staring at everyone ELSE playing.

(hope this wasn't the longest first post ever, but i get to be a rambly sort of girl )

 

[Brain]

First, the obligatory welcome to CFC.

My recommendation is to try to play on higher difficulty levels. The increased challenge is really worth it and makes the game more interesting. Read through the War Academy to see how to go about winning on higer levels. Try playing variants, or scenarios, or mods.

As for workers, the usual rule of thumb is about 2 per city, or 1.5 if you're an industrious civ. Slave workers are maintenance-free.

 

[brennan]

Welcome to CFC

Build More Cities! Every newbie who posts 'what am I doing wrong' we tell to rush out as many settlers as possible as fast as possible, this stops you from falling behind and makes the game less of a grind. And the second thing is Build More Workers. At least 1 per city. Don't think you need a big military fast because the AI won't attack until there is no more land to settle. Grow, Grow, Grow.

 

[namliaM]

my problem is that my games are long. long, and ohsoboring. a new game and a new map make me so happy, but right around 1000AD i start to get bored and then the same thing happens every time, it seems. ..... and i'm booooooooored of a domination or conquering victory. plus, this always takes me until the mid to late 1900s, sometimes to 2000+AD... turns are taking twenty minutes each at this point.

Try getting a domination or conquest win at warlord or regent PRE 1000 AD. It will prevent you from stalling and taking 20 minute turns. + No worries about spaceships. I nearly did it in an SG I played here with a group on Regent.

to change up things, i have started to make more conditions random,

Random is allways good...

i start out and get a huge lead in tech somehow

Thats because you are better than Warlord. At warlord you get a small advantage over the AI. Try moving up to 'par', that is regent. You and the AI will be equal. This happened to me in the past. Got borred, and couldnt win up higher because of different hangups. Go for regent its very winnable. Myself? I am up to Emporer I think.... Have not tried an epic game in half a year. Only been playing SGs, GOTM and am now starting my first SGOTM.
All are fun, allow you to learn and 'lurk' the boards.

i win very time. but my scores aren't great,

Winning is the point right? Or is that a guy thing?
Your scores will go up if you move up a level (to regent) or more

one thing i have to confess is that i have to disable the spaceship option,

You should really leave all options on. Makes it a little more tentative....
Try building the SS yourself or ... but i said this before ... get an earlier win... 1000 bc would be nice.

i'm just so tired of how it gets so uninteresting. and there are so many facets of the game i don't use, mostly all the cool worker commands like fortresses

I have never ever, well... maybe once or twice, build a fortress... Useless things they are.

is there a general rule of thumb about how many workers is a good number? like, one per city? two? and while i'm on workers, do i have to pay unit costs on captured workers and slaves, even though they're lazy and work half as fast?

The general accepted rule seems to be about 1.5 workers per city, or 3 slaves.
But its not really a matter of workers, its a matter of worked tiles. You should try to get every tile thats beeing worked by a city improved with a road+Mine or Irrigation.
Suppose you have a city with a granary at a river. Producing 2 food below pop 6 and 4 food above.
This means you have 5 turns to improve the next tile. If you are not Industrious you need 4 to irrigate, 3 to Road and 6 to mine. 1 turn stepping on to the tile. Thats a minimun of Step-Irrigate-Road combo = 8 turns. Your 3 turns short. If your mining your 5 turns short. Hence more than or atleast 1 worker per town.

You dont pay support for captured units, ever. Not for Artilary, not for slaves and not for boats (Man-o-War captures boats for england)
Even if you capture a Catapult and upgrade it to a treb.... No support.

any tips on how to break out of this boring rut and make the game more interesting again?

Try
1) Upping the difficulty (atleast) one step
2) Play GOTM or COTM, you will not only be facing the AI but also your fellow CFC-ers
3) Join in on an SG or 2.
One game can eventually take 3 months or be as short as 1 month. Depending on many things. Point is you talk about what your going to do and/or want others to do. And you learn about things in Civ and have fun.

(hope this wasn't the longest first post ever, but i get to be a rambly sort of girl )

Longest post? You should see some of mine...

And WOW an actual girl that plays civ? Not that many around....

I wont welcome you since you have been around for allmost 2 years now....

Just as a side note, one Emperor SG I played (on a pangea) got this result, You can find the full thread here

 

[Brain]

Build More Cities! Every newbie who posts 'what am I doing wrong' we tell to rush out as many settlers as possible as fast as possible, this stops you from falling behind and makes the game less of a grind. And the second thing is Build More Workers. At least 1 per city. Don't think you need a big military fast because the AI won't attack until there is no more land to settle. Grow, Grow, Grow.

I think she already knows this. Her problem is getting borred before the game ends.

 

[Bans]

I too have this problem... End of Middle Age and it gets boring! As soon as cavalry is done everything speeds up and sit and move around SO many units, and well I find myself starting over and over and over... That is if I am not able to win around that point or before...

 

[Brain]

And WOW an actual girl that plays civ? Not that many around....

Well, some of the best Civ players are girls. Moonsinger and Chieftess for example are very good players.

 

[hyacinthgirl]

Welcome to CFC

Build More Cities! Every newbie who posts 'what am I doing wrong' we tell to rush out as many settlers as possible as fast as possible, this stops you from falling behind and makes the game less of a grind. And the second thing is Build More Workers. At least 1 per city. Don't think you need a big military fast because the AI won't attack until there is no more land to settle. Grow, Grow, Grow.

more workers sounds like what'll help me a lot right now. more cities might not help me, i'm pretty good at making a lot of them rather quickly. one question i have about settlers is this: is it better to send one a long ways to settle a "good spot" or try to settle my cities from the capital outwards? i usually lean towards the latter, whenever i try to send someone anywhere to settle a resource-y spot it seems like i get outrun by the AI or it's the only time a barbarian can kill my defense. i've read a couple things in the academy about city spacing, but haven't found a good resource for what direction to build in, or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Brain]

I preffer settling gradually from the capital outwards and only rarely "outstretch" to reach resources. There are several reasons. First, your empire builds-up in a more stable way and the AI can't drop a settler in a gap in between two cities (ver annoying). Second, the cities closer to your capital are going to be the most productive core cities, so it's good to start developing them as soon as possible. Third, many resources are still hidden when you are expanding. You have no idea really if there's going to be coal or uranium in your territory. The advantage of some early resources is going to disapear after a while, but your outstretched cities will remain in their (sometimes) not so advantageous positions.

 

[hyacinthgirl]

But its not really a matter of workers, its a matter of worked tiles. You should try to get every tile thats beeing worked by a city improved with a road+Mine or Irrigation.
Suppose you have a city with a granary at a river. Producing 2 food below pop 6 and 4 food above.
This means you have 5 turns to improve the next tile. If you are not Industrious you need 4 to irrigate, 3 to Road and 6 to mine. 1 turn stepping on to the tile. Thats a minimun of Step-Irrigate-Road combo = 8 turns. Your 3 turns short. If your mining your 5 turns short. Hence more than or atleast 1 worker per town.

see, those are the things i just haven't wrapped my head around yet, thinking ahead. why would i have 5 turns to improve? this whole paragraph just really confuses me, haha. i am figuring that i need more workers from here on out, but i don't know what to make of how to use them best.

and haha, yes, a real girl who plays civ. i know i'm not the only one. i would figure a game like this would be more appealing to women than a game like counterstrike or something. my other favorite PC game is warcraft, but for the very girly reason that i think the little things the orcs say are SO CUTE. kind of like how even though i really like everything else about civ, i can't escape the subtly adorable aspect of teeny people running around in teeny cities on my screen.

 

[Brain]

see, those are the things i just haven't wrapped my head around yet, thinking ahead. why would i have 5 turns to improve? this whole paragraph just really confuses me, haha. i am figuring that i need more workers from here on out, but i don't know what to make of how to use them best.

That paragraph had me confused a little too. What he means is that it takes 5 turns before your city is going to grow. When it grows the new citizen should work on an improved tile. Therefore, you need to improve the tile before that new citizen is born. However, I think plugging in actual numbers here is too complicated in a real game and it's a theoretical exercise at best. Just try to keep about 2 workers per city. That's all you really need to know.

kind of like how even though i really like everything else about civ, i can't escape the subtly adorable aspect of teeny people running around in teeny cities on my screen.

I wish my wife would see it that way too. She thinks all I'm doing is moving some little guys with shovels around.

 

[Drakan]

Welcome to CFC ! Yeop, move on up the diff notch.

I spent a whole two years stuck in Emperor because I just couldn't be bothered to move on up. When I moved to Deity the game seemed totally different, had to relearn how to play and win again. Sounds as If the level you are playing is way to easy for you. Some of the best civ players at CFC and Poly are women.

I wish my wife saw the game as you, hrmmpph !

 

[namliaM]

That paragraph had me confused a little too. What he means is that it takes 5 turns before your city is going to grow. When it grows the new citizen should work on an improved tile. Therefore, you need to improve the tile before that new citizen is born. However, I think plugging in actual numbers here is too complicated in a real game and it's a theoretical exercise at best. Just try to keep about 2 workers per city. That's all you really need to know.

Thats more or less what I am trying to get accros.... But a little more... actually.

It is not only in numbers and in totals. You need this and that. We could say you need 4 workers per city. The land would be well developped but in republic you would be burning gold on upkeep.

Second point. With a granary around you grow faster => need more workers.

Third. Try to improve tiles before they are needed

Four. Try to do it efficient, Dont waste move running from one side of your empire to the other.

Five Think about it. Do I need mines? Or Irrigation? If you are on nice grassy lands you need mines and a lot of them. Mines take longer => More workers.

Six Look at your lands. Do you have some Jungle or Marsch to clear? => More workers.
Try settling a town in the middle of a Jungle having "only" 2 workers for it.... It will take you the rest of the game to get it up (In a figure of speach offcourse) I believe clearing jungle is 18 turns. 20 tiles. Thats 360 turns just to clear. Then you need to mine/road (9 per tile) thats another 180 turns. Yep that is the whole game....

Seven <not in my original post but>On workers, read this PDF article for more information on worker moves.

Eight Subtle OK but.. Notice Granary under 6 pop = 2 food, over = 4. These are nice numbers to grow with. 5 is nice as well (for both).
4 food at under 6 pop is bad very wastefull and screaming for MM.
6 food over 6 pop till 12 is even worse


@hyacinthgirl You are good at expanding at Warlord... You have a 10% (I believe) advantage over the AI. Sure you win! Try to step up to the plate. Go Regents (even) or Monarch (giving the [rather dumb] AI [aka AS => Artificial Stupidity] a small advantage). I think you will find yourself in a hole. And you have to dig out of it, which is a lot more fun than beeing on top all the time...

*For some other things it's fun to be on the botton* *ahem* Sorry! Could not resist... but in civ? Not so....

Have you ever heard about/had a 'Settler Factory'? Probably not...
Have you read thru the War accademy ever? Good read and a lot of pointers.

@Brian... about the women... Yeah Yeah I know.... Bla bla... But still what is the girl-boy / woman-man ratio? 10 - 1? 100 - 1 ?? You tell me....

Spoiler For Hyacint only :

After all the remarks about wife's ....

Wanna get married ??

 

[onomastikon]

Hyacinthgirl, if you have been playing this game for that long a time, it is bound to get boring. Yikes! However, I would definately suggest playing on Monarch or Regent, and try going for a Diplomatic victory. You may also want to try playing largish Archipegalos, since that makes making contact and resolving conflict a bit harder.

 

[Brain]

Try settling a town in the middle of a Jungle having "only" 2 workers for it.... It will take you the rest of the game to get it up (In a figure of speach offcourse) I believe clearing jungle is 18 turns. 20 tiles. Thats 360 turns just to clear. Then you need to mine/road (9 per tile) thats another 180 turns. Yep that is the whole game....

But that's not the way it works in a game. You don't just put 2 workers to work next to every city. The 2 workers per city is an AVERAGE. In a real game you actually keep large stacks of them to do tasks quickly. Once those tasks are finished you move to other cities.

 

[namliaM]

*Sigh*

(In a figure of speach offcourse)

 

[jm chen]

I went through the same thing. The first time I was in a rut, I:

1. just tried killing everybody as fast as possible. It's a totally different game that way.
2. started playing archipelago instead of pangaea. Ditto.

So, after doing that at Warlord, I moved up to Regent. Then Monarch. Then I stalled at Monarch. So I:

3. Started reading Succession Games to get tips that would help me win on higher levels.
4. Started playing lots of variants (which I learned by reading Succession Games anyway.) One City Challenge, Always War, No Military, stuff like that. It teaches you lots of new strategies and shakes it up so you're not so bored anymore.

Good luck!

 

[gmaharriet]

and haha, yes, a real girl who plays civ. i know i'm not the only one. i would figure a game like this would be more appealing to women than a game like counterstrike or something.

Brennan and I are "girls" too. I'm also surprised there aren't more women playing Civ.

Many of the guys say their wives/gfs complain. My husband can't figure out why I spend so much time at it either, but I fail to understand his love of fishing.

 

[namliaM]

I fail to understand his love of fishing.

Who can understand that? Geez... Fishing?

Well to each his own apprearently....

 

[Pacifist]

sometimes i just want to be pink, haha

LOL - I thought I was the only one that ocassionally decides what Civ to play based on color. My color of choice isn't pink though
Wish there was a color option in the Civ selection screen so I'm not stuck on picking the same Civ when I want to play a certain color.

In regards to your current situation, I think everyone's suggestions to make games more interesting are well put.

As for myself, I don't regard stepping up in levels as a way to make my games less boring. More challenging, yes, but not necessarily more entertaining.

In regards to scores, I'm not particularly interested in that aspect of Civ and have not made any attempts to improve it so my scores aren't that hot either, just enough to win Win or lose (score-wise) though, I sometimes continue to play well over the time-limit

To me, I find more enjoyment playing the earlier eras (when you're still exploring & finding resources). Battles tend to keep me entertained in the middle eras. Late in the game, having grande cities and the challenge of keeping peace relations with most my rivals keep me from quitting and turning in the towel.

-Pacifist-
"Sure God created man before woman, but then again you always make a rough draft before creating the final masterpiece" -?


an aside:
"my other favorite PC game is warcraft, but for the very girly reason that i think the little things the orcs say are SO CUTE. kind of like how even though i really like everything else about civ, i can't escape the subtly adorable aspect of teeny people running around in teeny cities on my screen" -hyacinthgirl

Something the Civ developers might like to keep in mind