Advice Needed

[saintly_saint]

Hi All, I'm playing a regent game with 4 AI, and warm,wet,standard sized terrain. I am Egyptian.
I need help with the game eg. advice on how to improve it, my money, and science. PS: this is my first real shot at ICS and I'm not sure how well I did it, cuz my cities all seem to be tiny and incapable of growth.
Thx All in advance.

 

[saintly_saint]

here's the screen

 

[saintly_saint]

what the hell, the screen doesn't show w/e it's "http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/screen_saintly_saint1.jpg"

 

[Salte]

From what i can tell u havent irrigated a single tile around your cities. This is why they are rather small (they dont get enough food to grow quickly). Once u change your gov. from despotism u should irrigate some of the grassland to enhance growth.

Also i see you are building nothing in a few of your cities (wealth), this is usually a waste this early in the game. U should be building granaris (for faster growth), barracks, libraries or temles (depending on how u plan to play the game) or military units. Or u should be pumping out settlers to grab some of the open land to the north.

 

[valamas]

Build lots of workers, for you current CIV say 20. Set them all to automatic. Get 5 of your wealth generating cities to build 4 workers each.

Research construction and get cities not adjactent to a river to build an aqueduct. Cities next to a river will not allow you to build an aqueduct as it is not needed, so build them in any city that is 4 and above. Cities next to a river can grow to 12, cities without a river can only grow to 6.

 

[saintly_saint]

Salte: the cities that are producing wealth are doing so because A: they are only produicng 1 shield a trun and B: i need the wealth cuz i lack money to keeppp up with reasearch. Also if you notice that I'm not irrigating cuz of the desp. limit that was removed just 2 turns ago, but apart from that how is my city placement do you have any particulawr comments on that topic?

 

[Krayzeenbk]

You don't need to irrigate much, except on plains. As for wealth, do you mean to say that El-Amarna is producing only 1 shield?? You have very few terrain improvements for 10AD, you should turn any 1 spt cities into worker factories instead. A screenshot will not let us help you with your science and such, we will need a saved game.

 

[saintly_saint]

A save

 

[saintly_saint]

btw I myself don't see neither the screens neither the saves why?

 

[saintly_saint]

I am running Vanilla 1.29f

 

[superslug]

You'll generate more income in the long run by switching the wealth cities to workers (only 10 turns max under bad corruption) and then build a stink load of roads. You should also grab all the territory to the north.

Then, you'll have the resources for the next war.

 

[saintly_saint]

in everyone of my previous games I always made alot of roads and workers, but the income was still always bad even horrible compared to the games i've seen

 

[superslug]

Were you focusing on riverside and citizen worked tiles?

EDIT: Don't compare to other people, just yourself. You're the only player you're really trying to be better than, right?

 

[saintly_saint]

of course, towards the end of all my games all the tiles are roaded and irrigated/mined as needed and yet even with banks and markets in all of my cities i still don't even come close to the other players, and in response to the edit: It's not that i'm trying to be better than anyone itz that i realize that it's possible so I want to know how its done

 

[Salte]

Originally posted by saintly_saint
Salte: the cities that are producing wealth are doing so because A: they are only produicng 1 shield a trun and B: i need the wealth cuz i lack money to keeppp up with reasearch. Also if you notice that I'm not irrigating cuz of the desp. limit that was removed just 2 turns ago, but apart from that how is my city placement do you have any particulawr comments on that topic?

Your city placement looks ok, this is not what is dragging u down.

Even in despotism plains can be irrigated to produce two food instead of one. Also u should build more roads, and when in despotism u should have mined some om the grassland. When u place cities so close to each other u will work a lot of the tiles, and therefore need to make them useful.

Cities with low production will not give u much gold if u switch to wealt (u can check how much by switching them and see how your income changes). So instead use whatever prouction they have to something useful.

 

[saintly_saint]

ya I considered it the same i just badly need gold

 

[NewbieHere]

I think you're placing your cities a little too close to each other, this limits growth because tiles are not allowed to be worked on by more than 1 city. Also, never leave cities undefended, there are a few there. Then, change your gov type to something that has lower corruption (republics, for example), which i think is the cause of your low-money problem, if it's not, spend less money on science (no more than 60%).

 

[superslug]

I don't know why your links aren't working but I dug out the .sav and took a look anyway.

First let me say that I don't think being at Feudalism in 10ad is bad. Actually, that's rather good, since you're keeping pace with the AI in tech, and apparently territory.

Most important: GRAB THE FREE LAND BETWEEN YOU AND BABYLON/FRANCE. I know caps text are discourage here, but I can't emphasize that enough. You should set all your cities to workers/settlers.

I did spot an area that may be too late to salvage this game but where you could benefit. The AI seem to hate you. I sold Construction to the Japanese and used the cash to establish embassies with everyone. I then checked to see if they'd be interested in ROP's. They all wanted like 16-17gpt for the deal, which was bad considering roughly equal territory.

You see, one trick that can be used in Republic (assuming the human keeps his nose clean) is to use ROP's as a defense, meaning less need for units equaling more gold. If your reputation is good and your territory is more than there's, the AI will even pay gold sums and gold per turn on occasion for such deals. I believe that ROP's are a true secret of success.

Keep in mind this is just a thought from looking at one turn of a save though...

EDIT: Just remembered, while some places might be better than others, build your FP. Having it anywhere will lower your overall corruption.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

@NewbieHere: Do not keep defenders in all your cities.

@superslug: ROPs are not the secret to success. I used to sign as many as possible for the small gold and the improved attitude, but after being raped by the AI for my capital and one core city which was razed (there were 2 AIs raping me), I've learned that, at least on high levels, having unnecessary ROPs is not worth the gold at all. Of course, you could keep defenders in all your cities to stop that, but that would cost you more than you would get from the ROPs.

 

[Bamspeedy]

1. This is not ICS. This may be a 'dense build', but certainly is not ICS. A dense build (8-12 tiles/city) is a more preferable approach than ICS (7 or less tiles/city), IMO, because you get to enjoy more of the game by building some improvements and it has a longer life span (for ICS you want the game pretty well under control or won during the middle ages, for a dense build you can stay competitive pretty late in the game). I see some spots where there are tiles that will never be used by any city.
Can any city use that cow southwest of Hieraconpolis?

2. More workers! From what I can see, you have 20 cities, and I can only see 2 workers. With more workers, you will have more roads (for commerce), more irrigation (growth), and more shields (build more stuff and faster). With more terrain improvements done, several of those cities would not be 1 shield/turn cities.

3. Even in despotism, irrigating wheat helps (by Thebes). In most situations irrigating a bonus resource is better than mining (especially when it comes to settler production). Very high food/low shield locations are sometimes an exception (floodplain cities, since you have to irrigate the floodplain tiles, then mining wheat when possible may be needed).

3 (a). Probably explains the above, but don't use automated workers if you are. It's understandable if you have 75-100+ workers, but not so early in the game and when you have so few workers. Look at Lisht. There are normal/bonus grassland tiles that have been irrigated, yet the cow nearby is ignored.