11 Wildly Popular Strategies To Avoid

[fung3]

IMO the Oracle is vital to a win on Monarch level. You simply cannot afford to fall too far behind on the tech tree. I research writing while building it. I choose code of laws as my free tech. I now have 2 established religions (Gandhi). I build monastaries in every city for the research boost. This always closes the the tech gap. I can trade code of laws for several lesser techs as well.

Sounds like a touch of wonder addiction

I have chalked up 5 out of 5 wins on monarch level and I have never built the Oracle ever. I have also found myself 3 techs behind at times. No problem, I have still won and led on tech, commerce, production, military and points at the end of the game. It is simply wrong to say that any one tactic is essential to avoid a loss. That's what makes this game good IMO.

For example;
After warring on Alexander for a while he eventually sued for peace giving me 5 techs and a pot of gold to help ensure a lasting peace. Brute force and moderate research investment can still result in a tech lead. There are many paths to victory

 

[Steve2000]

ndthsmdy If you want the title of your thread changed, you just need to send a PM to one of the admins asking them to do it for you.

Hope you finish your article soon - it is good reading.

 

[SlipperyJim]

I'm curious about State Property. I find that even when I expect State Property to be useless (ie FP and Versailles at opposite ends of the empire and Courthouses in every city) it still works wonders when I switch. I can set research high or I can set it low and rake in tons of cash to rush build the latest and greatest units for an offensive (demand a tech for peace and the rush practically pays for itself). Of course, this requires universal suffrage....

State Property is a "no upkeep" civic, that's why. IMO, the "no upkeep" is far more important than eliminating the distance penalties. Even more so, now that v1.52 has increased the civic costs.

Increased food for workshops & watermills is an added bonus. Not critical, but nice to have. Food is power, comrade!

 

[Veritass]

I very much enjoy starting each game as random as I can. I have restarted a game just because I got Roosevelt and I already played one as Roosevelt. I like having a random map size and not knowing how big the world actually is or how many other civilizations I will encounter; I think it is much more realistic this way. On one map I suddenly find it is a tiny world with only one other civilization: time for a new strategy. On another map I find that the world is vast and I need to watch much more carefully for barbarians: time for a new strategy.

I want to be forced to try new strategies, so I agreed with the original post to not get addicted to any particular leader or strategy.

 

[Bezhukov]

"IMO the Oracle is vital to a win on Monarch level. You simply cannot afford to fall too far behind on the tech tree. I research writing while building it. I choose code of laws as my free tech. I now have 2 established religions (Gandhi). I build monastaries in every city for the research boost. This always closes the the tech gap. I can trade code of laws for several lesser techs as well."

Perhaps if you hadn't blown all those resources building the Oracle and chasing religions you wouldn't suffer a tech gap in the first place...

 

[split-k]

This is a great article, ndthsmdy , if anything, for pointing out that every strategy has a flaw/trade-off. I especially like the part about the chop-rushing settlers. Chop-rushing like mad can work well on prince, but on monarch it's a different story. I found myself chopping out too many settlers and neglecting development in my monarch games. As a result, I was always hopelessly behind in tech.

It can't be stressed enough that Civ 4 emphasizes quality over quantity. 50 turns into the game, you can either have a bunch of chop-rushed , size 2 cities, or you can have half as many that are twice as big. That's the same total population points but the economies are completely different. Instead of having sacrificed growth for settlers, the capital could be near its happiness cap and have:
- The Palace +8C (easy to neglect this one)
- A library (+25% science)
- A monastery (+10% science)
- Halfway or more to an great scientist, which can make an academy (+50% science). Virtually a freebie.
Now that's a lot research.

Other benefits of reduced chop-rushing include:
1) Cottages get an earlier start because workers have more time to build them.
2) Health benefits from the forests.
3) Lumbermills later in the game are fanatastic.

 

[Danghis Khan]

I avoid chop rushing early in the game as I found it one of the best ways to rush wonders or buildings under organized religion. (I know there was a mention of the disadvantages to this in this thread but that's my own self-confessed addiction), but why get the bare minimum out of a tile already producing at least some hammers, when you can use it for those wonders that you deem important later on. Very useful if you're Industrious too!

 

[Danghis Khan]

Oh, BTW thanks for this thread, it's given me a lot to think about as I move up in difficulty.

 

[fung3]

I avoid chop rushing early in the game as I found it one of the best ways to rush wonders or buildings under organized religion. (I know there was a mention of the disadvantages to this in this thread but that's my own self-confessed addiction), but why get the bare minimum out of a tile already producing at least some hammers, when you can use it for those wonders that you deem important later on. Very useful if you're Industrious too!

Agreed, if you're Industious and building the Pyramids for example and you're hooked up to Stone with a quarry then the chopped forests are worth vastly more.

 

[Barruk]

A modest defense of chop-rushing settlers:
1. As has been true since Civ 1, a strong starting lead in prodcution & territory can almost never be overcome by the AI. The first 50 turns are the most vital of the game; the choice is whether you have 3 cities of two or one city of 4. I'll take the 3 cities of 2 any day.
2. Unless your lucky enough to have copper, stone, and another vital strategic resource near your capital, you're going to want to connect to these ASAP. Chop-rushing a limited number of workers and settlers is the most effective way to do this at the start of the game.
3. Everything has it's limits. I like to leave 4-5 forest squares in my capital city radius for health, etc.... and generally avoid mass deforestation.
4. This strategy, and any strategy is strongly dependant on map type, leader style, etc. I never play the same leader twice in a row and almost never the same map size/style twice in a row just so I'm having to constantly learn new strategies.

It has been conclusively proven in the many strategy threads on chop-rushing will give you a stronger start than almost any other method.

If anyone wants to write a strategy thread on acheiving consistent monarch+ wins with no chop rushing in the beginning, I would be happy to read them!

 

[Alcatraz]

A modest defense of chop-rushing settlers:
1. As has been true since Civ 1, a strong starting lead in prodcution & territory can almost never be overcome by the AI.

Played a space race against Mansa Musa yet?

 

[goraemon]

Alcatraz: Barruk is right in saying that a lead in territory gives you an advantage for the rest of the game and, truly, can almost never be overcome by the AI as long as you maintain it. There are exceptions but as a general rule, it's true. I can attest to it on at least emperor, and probably immortal too although this level hasn't been fully tested yet.

See the following threads for proof:

One
Two

 

[fung3]

Played a space race against Mansa Musa yet?

Yes, on Monarch. Won Space Race with Caesar and with Qin. Mansa is tough and I have not progressed to Emporer yet, but on Emp I think he would kick my ass.

I also nailed him with a cultural victory on noble.

Mansa is a tough opponent though !!!

 

[Alcatraz]

My point was that Mansa is capable of beating you even from a significant disadvantage in land mass and population. He's not a difficult opponent if you agressively block his growth and/or take him down early, but if he's still a viable civ in the later stages of the game, your early size lead is going to go down the drain.

 

[fung3]

Misunderstood - apologies.

In my last game against him an Monarch he had a quality, well defended civ in the later stages of the game. I kept a close eye on his progress with a spy but I still beat him comfortably to the Space Race. My main advantage was owning a huge territory that I took from first Alexander and then Washington.
Though Mansa was still pretty strong my civ was an unstoppable juganaut by the late game. Additionally Mansa was lacking aluminium, a vital resource for SR victory

 

[goraemon]

My point was that Mansa is capable of beating you even from a significant disadvantage in land mass and population. He's not a difficult opponent if you agressively block his growth and/or take him down early, but if he's still a viable civ in the later stages of the game, your early size lead is going to go down the drain.

As my previous post and its corresponding links demonstrate, this is completely wrong.

 

[split-k]

sorry, dupe.

 

[split-k]

For practice with land-grabbing, I've been playing a terra map, monarch, normal speed, 7 civs, where at some points, besides chopping out settlers, I chopped out a barracks, some archers, and even a library or two in the border cities just so I could get some immediate culture going and room to breath.

I didn't have any iron but I had horses and bronze so I chopped a few horse archers and took one of Ceasar's cities before he had a chance to build praetorians. Then I beelined to construction and took a couple more of Ceasar's cities with cats and axemen and picked up his iron mine. But by then none of these were chopped. Luis declared on me and failed an attack so I turned around and took one of his cities, switched to his religion, and now we're pals. I boxed Mansa in and he's half my size but ahead in tech as usual.

Now am in the lead with land area - larger than Elizabeth who's #1 overall and has been quietly developing on the sidelines. Half her cities are coastal - luckily someone beat her to the Colossus - and it looks like she's getting ready to colonize the new continent...

Anyway, chopping isn't a good or bad strategy. It depends on your terrain. If your land is half forest and you have 5 neighbors, chop like mad and expand. Still, in the short-term, e.g., during a war, I'd rather be the one who has a few size 4 cities than twice as many size 2 cities - they're working the same number of tiles but produce more quickly, cost less to maintain, and are easier to defend. Then I'd leverage that advantage to take a couple of those smaller cities

This is on monarch, which is still a struggle for me more often than not.

Goraemon I checked out the REX pages - interesting - especially the second one with the roman saved game. How many units did you go through to get there?

 

[GhostBoy]

Since there's been a bit of talk about the pros and cons of Stonehenge, I thought I'd chip in with a personal experience from a recent game. If you intend to go the religious route, Stonehenge could still serve you well despite having the religion for your borderexpansions. My problem was that even though I founded three religions (hinduism, judaism and taoism), I didn't have a Great Prophet untill 1000-something AD. Having built a few other wonders meant my Great People were all different sorts, and I didn't get the gold boost I had been counting on from the Shrines until very late in the game.

Being Financial on an Islands map, I had plenty of commerce that allowed me to compensate and switch gears midgame, but on a different map it would have been a crippling setback. An Academy doesn't work nearly as well when you are forced to run 20% science.

Oh, and thus came my first post on the forum. Yay.

 

[Andrei_V]

Heh. I am also anxious to see a strat for Emperor/Inmortal, which would not include chop rushing first workers/settlers. The quality vs quantity isn't an issue, since if you have no early luxury resources, you are stuck to cities of size 3 until Monarchy. Or until you chop down the Pyramids and switch to Representation for +3 happy.

So the choice is real simple: either you limit to 1 or two cities of size 3 (capital is 4), or you expand enough to get 4 or 5 cities, working cottages exclusively, otherwise the maintenance costs kill you. In the latter case, if you want some production as well, you MUST chop forests.