Advice for my last Civ 4 game

[Greeneyedzombie]

if your economy is in shambles, you need to have more cottages.
you should research/build grocers and banks asap.
You can never have enough commerce cities. You only need a few production cities. the rest should be focused on commerce and research.
Build yoiur cottages as early as possible.
Build courthouses in your newly conguered cities.
Maybey if you post some saves of your game, we can give a more detailed advice.
Easiest would probably to go for space race.
Sell some cheap techs for money to keep the research going.

 

[seanm924]

ok heres an update and my saved game.

1st off, i have decided that i can keep playing civ 4 and swim and all that stuff cause it works.

Anyway.

Now its about 1500 AD, and i totally put my economy back together. I am making money @ 60% reasurch, which sucks, but its a lot better. I got some more key techs and took the lead from the Egyptians and am winning by about 50 points.

So every things cool except the Romans decide its not. Rome was never that good until that last 200ish years when they rapidly rose in points and started demanding things. Now I alway tell the AI to go to hell when they demand stuff. Apparently Caesar doesn't agree. He has declared war on me, which sucks, but I think I can kick his ass if i can mobilize fast enough (i never redeuced my military after the last war, and I have gunpowder now)

Should I fight and all out war, or just fight with the units I have? Here is the saved game.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I took a look at your save.
your citie placement seems ok.
you have a lot of undeveloped land, you need a lot more workers. you only have 11 now, and they can't keep up. so you need more. Best would be to double them and pair them up. each pair working to improve 1 city.
Your running caste system, while you only have 2 specialist. It would be better to run slavery to build up your cities.
Your cities itself ar really underdeveloped. Your at 1600 and yoiu still haven't build graneries and markets. its no wonder your economy is in shambles. the good thing is that they at least have a library.
You didn't research machinery/enginering/guilds and banking. Why? machinery will help with production and growth for your grassland hills with windmills.
Enginering will help you move your troops quicker on roads.
Banking and guilds will help your economy.

Berlin is running a priest. Why? its better to put him in the field helping growing the citie.
Hamburg is building the forbidden palace while it doesnt have the basic buildings like granary, market. and it is to close to your capitol to have the forbidden palace.
Munich needs chain iragation to help the citie grow, and work al its tiles.
Cologne needs a few more farms to grow to full size while still working those mines.
Frankfurt needs more farms, to reach its full potential, and is a much better place for the forbidden palace. its on the other end of your empire.
gordium is working plain towns, those plains should be farmed, and the grassland tiles should be towns. its building the versaille, while the citie itself is undeveloped.
arbela is working lots of unimproved tiles.
parsagarde same as arbela.
All your cities don't have graneries and markets. you really need to build those if you want your cities and empire to grow.

I think the main problem for you to strugle so much, is that you don't develop your cities fast enough. graneries you should have as 1 of your first builds in new cities. then libraries (alfabet comes earlier than currency) or markets and courthouses. if you do it right, you should have some cities before 1AD with at least markets/libraries and a granery. wich should help you support a growing empire.

as for your war with the romans, I think you need more units or upgrade your axeman to maceman. (wich I think you can't cause you don't have machinerie)
Maybey you can take some cities of them, but your up against longbowman, wich you need maceman and trebuchets (enginering) for.

But keep it up. Its good to know you won't quit. Improve your cities and land earlier and you won't have any problems keeping up and beating the ai.
Soon it will be tanks vs longbowman.

 

[seanm924]

I made a beline for liberalism remember? I skipped a whole lot of techs i needed.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I made a beline for liberalism remember? I skipped a whole lot of techs i needed.

Still if you would have developed your cities earlier, you can have liberalism + those techs a 1000 yrs earlier. skipping techs don't always means you are teching faster.

 

[seanm924]

What do you mean by develop my cities earlier? Is there a guide on this forum on how to do that?

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

don't know if there is a guide for it.
But I consider your cities undeveloped for the folowing reasons. its 1600AD and al of them don't have granaries, markets. Further I think you only just builded courthouses. Your cities could have been a lot bigger. most of them should have reached size 15 or higher.
People mostly build granaries as soon as possible. It will help growth, and increase your production through slavery. The faster a citie grows, the more tiles it can work. More workable tiles means more production and commerce.
The next building is ussually a library. It comes much sooner otherwise it is possible to opt for markets or courthouses depending on your need. If you need culture its probably a library. But if it is a large drain on your economy a courthouse is better. After your city has a library and granary depending on the city you build either markets or courthouses, depending on what is possible. Those with already some developed tiles benefit most of markets (wich increase the happynis cap) other cities its better to build courthouses.
Coincidently this build order is also the order most buildings come availible in the tech tree most of the times.
Those buildings are considered the most basic buildings needed for your cities to grow. You can substitute a library for monestaries, wich are cheaper to build and provide the same amount of culture. But you only need one monestary per religion you have. the rest is an extra you don't need, but wich I only build when I don't have anything better to build. Like those markets/libraries/courthouses and graneries.
So I say again, its 1600AD and your cities don't have most of these buildings. Wich I think you should have in your core cities well before 1000AD. pref sooner.
your economy and research would be much better with these in place. and your empire stronger.

hope this helps a bit. just keep on playing and learning.

 

[bardolph]

Ok. I've looked at your save game. You are definitely in position to win this game. Here's my advice:

1. Switch your civics!!! Definitely switch to Hereditary Rule and Slavery. The + modifier you will get from HR will allow your cities to grow, and you will need slavery to whip out important buildings (and take care of the unhappiness in Persepolis). Don't bother with Nationhood until you build more barracks.
2. Learn how to trade with other civs. The whole point of beelining to Liberalism is so that you can trade for all the techs you missed on the way. You should be able to get Drama, Music, Machinery, and Compass this turn. This will also allow you to instantly upgrade your melee units to Macemen. Next turn, trade for Engineering, Optics, and whatever else you can get.
3. Trade for resources. You have 2 extra silk. You can pick up Sugar from Montezuma, and give him a silk in return.
4. Stop building the Forbidden Palace in Frankfurt, and Versailles in Gordium. Both of these wonders need to be built as far away from the Capital as possible, and not near each other.
5. Run 3 Priests in Berlin. This will generate Great Prophet points, which you need to build shrines in the Confucian and Buddhist Holy cities. You may also want a shrine in your Taoist Holy city. These shrines will generate great income for you.
6. Most of your cities are in decent shape, though you could use more + buildings and granaries. Munich has a serious food shortage, which you would only be able to fix by farming over villages in the south. Best is to cottage your forest grassland tile, then leave this city alone. Persepolis has a problem, which will disappear temporarily once you adopt Hereditary rule, but you should definitely whip out some + buildings and a Granary here.
7. Build Missionaries. For now, focus on Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist missionaries. Spread them to your own cities, then foreign cities. Once you get your shrines up, this will pay off big time. Plus the extra + you get from Free Religion will allow your cities to grow.
8. As for your war with Rome, meh. Looks like you have things under control. After you trade for Machinery, you will be able to upgrade to Macemen, and after you trade for Engineering, you will get Trebuchet. Alternatively, you can just stall for time, declare peace, and build up your economy with Missionaries and Shrines. Or you can do both.

You should be able to win the Space Race, if you choose. You can also conquer your continent, and try to invade the other continent for Domination. Or you can negotiate your way to a Diplomacy victory.

Probably Space Race is easiest, however.

 

[selfexiled]

City development in general just means population growth and infrastructure of your cities (ie the granaries and such). Also playing around with tiles that you are working (working tiles according to the task of the city), I usually work the tiles that give the most food first! This way I can reach a higher population faster and even if it overcrowds I can easily whip away the issue and get some production out of it.

Alot was already mentioned about what your missing so I won't repeat it
But,
No barracks? For the most part I get one for nearly every city (border cities and production cities) that extra XP will definitely help as it looks like your easter cities are need some military bolstering.