Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
I've gotten to the point where I am winning handily on Prince level using either of my two favourite leaders: Caesar and Elizabeth. As with Warlord and Noble, I was about to move up to the next level...when I realized I still haven't even tried playing a game with more than half of the other civs and leaders.
I recalled Sun Tzu's maxim:
I still don't know much about the "enemies", and as a corollary, that means I don't know much about myself either. So I've set a challenge for myself: play a game of Civ IV, at Prince level, through to victory or defeat at least once with every leader before moving on to Monarch level. This isn't quite the "Random Leader" option, as I'm systematically (okay, alphabetically) working through all the Civs except the ones I've won with in the past. (Which means I'm skipping Washington and Catherine too.) All the games are on standard maps and speed, Continents. Yeah, I need to get around to experimenting with those settings too. One spanner in the works at a time, okay?
Obviously it's taking awhile, but it's been VERY educational. I thought I'd share the on-going results in a thread here. (I thought of posting this in "Stories & Tales", but as my main purpose is to learn strategy and relate/discuss it, I thought this would be a more appropriate forum for it.)
One of the first things I've noticed is how important it is to adjust your strategy and tactics to each leader's traits, unique unit, and starting techs. It's just as important as your starting position and other Civs, and in fact, you have to weave them all together in your approach to the game. (I know this sounds obvious, but if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that it's one thing to "know" something on a purely intellectual level, and quite another to experience its veracity first-hand.)
Arabs (Saladin)
(Okay, I skipped Roosevelt for a couple of games, but came back to him. More on that later.)
This was my first game playing with a Spiritual civ, and that was the biggest eye-opener: it was heavenly, if you'll excuse the pun, to skip that annoying and potentially-costly anarchy as a result of civics changes. The impact is psychological as well: I realized that with a non-spiritual civ, I'll often delay or even avoid civics changes. Usually it's because one or two turns of Anarchy might mean someone beats me to a tech or Wonder, but even when I'm well ahead I have a resistance to making a change even if it might be advantageous in the long run.
It was also interesting to start with the Wheel--it gave my first Worker something to do while I researched Bronze Working. It also gave me a leg up on getting Pottery, which is more important for a Civ without obvious financial advantages (like the Financial or Organizational traits). I fought a successful early war and took out Monty, which is always satisfying.
Then I ran into trouble.
I think my main mistake was in not taking full advantage of the Mysticism tech to found religions. Looking back, I probably should have founded as many as possible to keep them out of the hands of my rivals, then focused on spreading my state religion to my remaining neighbours (Kublai and Caesar) to convert them and ensure good relations. Obviously it didn't work out that way.
I was doing quite well tech-wise, but without any clear financial advantages I had to devote most of my commerce to it, making me very cash-poor. Yes, spreading my religion would have helped with that to--especially as I could have had shrines galore, thanks to the Philosophical trait helping me pump out Great Prophets. Instead, by mid-game, I was struggling to find the funds to upgrade the obsolete units protecting my cities, especially those bordering Kublai and Caesar. Bad. Very bad. I also hadn't gained that much territory by conquering Monty, so I lacked a number of resources for health and happiness.
My relations with Kublai were up and down; I was trading with him for several of the resources I needed when he cancelled all our deals. I was sure he was going to invade, but a few turns later, he came back and offered me the same deals again like nothing had happened. I took him up on it. Then a few turns after that, he declared war.
I can't help thinking there are some clever sub-routines built into the AI--it was as though Kublai cancelled the trade deals to see just how badly it affected my border cities, then re-stablished them to ensure my cities grew but became even more dependent on those trades. After he cancelled the second time, the sudden increase in unhappiness and unhealthiness in most of my cities made it very difficult to produce units or money to upgrade my veterans. Clever boy, that Kublai--diabolical, but clever.
The war was on, and Caesar joined in. Dogpile! It got ugly fast--my Axemen and Swordsmen versus stacks of Catapults, Macemen, Knights, and Crossbows. I had bee-lined to Guilds to get Saladin's UU, the Camel Archer, but with its only bonus being a +25% withdrawal chance, this is a pillaging unit, without much defensive use. No sense pillaging a rival's territory when you're fighting a war for survival in your own. When I was down to only my Capitol and two other cities (from the dozen I had after the war with Monty), the writing was on the wall and I packed it in.
Lesson learned: adjust your strategy to take full advantage of your Civ's traits and starting techs. In addition, it's probably my own fault, but I came away unimpressed with Saladin; I notice very few people report favouring him as a leader/civ choice. That UU is pretty unimpressive--I'm not big on pillaging to begin with--and his traits are better for culture than fighting wars or managing big empires. I think he'd stand a better chance of a cultural victory on a continent by himself, or on an archipeligo map.
Next up: Montezuma! What's it like to play as Civ IV's resident psycho?
I recalled Sun Tzu's maxim:
I still don't know much about the "enemies", and as a corollary, that means I don't know much about myself either. So I've set a challenge for myself: play a game of Civ IV, at Prince level, through to victory or defeat at least once with every leader before moving on to Monarch level. This isn't quite the "Random Leader" option, as I'm systematically (okay, alphabetically) working through all the Civs except the ones I've won with in the past. (Which means I'm skipping Washington and Catherine too.) All the games are on standard maps and speed, Continents. Yeah, I need to get around to experimenting with those settings too. One spanner in the works at a time, okay?
Obviously it's taking awhile, but it's been VERY educational. I thought I'd share the on-going results in a thread here. (I thought of posting this in "Stories & Tales", but as my main purpose is to learn strategy and relate/discuss it, I thought this would be a more appropriate forum for it.)
One of the first things I've noticed is how important it is to adjust your strategy and tactics to each leader's traits, unique unit, and starting techs. It's just as important as your starting position and other Civs, and in fact, you have to weave them all together in your approach to the game. (I know this sounds obvious, but if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that it's one thing to "know" something on a purely intellectual level, and quite another to experience its veracity first-hand.)
Arabs (Saladin)
(Okay, I skipped Roosevelt for a couple of games, but came back to him. More on that later.)
This was my first game playing with a Spiritual civ, and that was the biggest eye-opener: it was heavenly, if you'll excuse the pun, to skip that annoying and potentially-costly anarchy as a result of civics changes. The impact is psychological as well: I realized that with a non-spiritual civ, I'll often delay or even avoid civics changes. Usually it's because one or two turns of Anarchy might mean someone beats me to a tech or Wonder, but even when I'm well ahead I have a resistance to making a change even if it might be advantageous in the long run.
It was also interesting to start with the Wheel--it gave my first Worker something to do while I researched Bronze Working. It also gave me a leg up on getting Pottery, which is more important for a Civ without obvious financial advantages (like the Financial or Organizational traits). I fought a successful early war and took out Monty, which is always satisfying.
Then I ran into trouble.
I think my main mistake was in not taking full advantage of the Mysticism tech to found religions. Looking back, I probably should have founded as many as possible to keep them out of the hands of my rivals, then focused on spreading my state religion to my remaining neighbours (Kublai and Caesar) to convert them and ensure good relations. Obviously it didn't work out that way.
I was doing quite well tech-wise, but without any clear financial advantages I had to devote most of my commerce to it, making me very cash-poor. Yes, spreading my religion would have helped with that to--especially as I could have had shrines galore, thanks to the Philosophical trait helping me pump out Great Prophets. Instead, by mid-game, I was struggling to find the funds to upgrade the obsolete units protecting my cities, especially those bordering Kublai and Caesar. Bad. Very bad. I also hadn't gained that much territory by conquering Monty, so I lacked a number of resources for health and happiness.
My relations with Kublai were up and down; I was trading with him for several of the resources I needed when he cancelled all our deals. I was sure he was going to invade, but a few turns later, he came back and offered me the same deals again like nothing had happened. I took him up on it. Then a few turns after that, he declared war.
I can't help thinking there are some clever sub-routines built into the AI--it was as though Kublai cancelled the trade deals to see just how badly it affected my border cities, then re-stablished them to ensure my cities grew but became even more dependent on those trades. After he cancelled the second time, the sudden increase in unhappiness and unhealthiness in most of my cities made it very difficult to produce units or money to upgrade my veterans. Clever boy, that Kublai--diabolical, but clever.
The war was on, and Caesar joined in. Dogpile! It got ugly fast--my Axemen and Swordsmen versus stacks of Catapults, Macemen, Knights, and Crossbows. I had bee-lined to Guilds to get Saladin's UU, the Camel Archer, but with its only bonus being a +25% withdrawal chance, this is a pillaging unit, without much defensive use. No sense pillaging a rival's territory when you're fighting a war for survival in your own. When I was down to only my Capitol and two other cities (from the dozen I had after the war with Monty), the writing was on the wall and I packed it in.
Lesson learned: adjust your strategy to take full advantage of your Civ's traits and starting techs. In addition, it's probably my own fault, but I came away unimpressed with Saladin; I notice very few people report favouring him as a leader/civ choice. That UU is pretty unimpressive--I'm not big on pillaging to begin with--and his traits are better for culture than fighting wars or managing big empires. I think he'd stand a better chance of a cultural victory on a continent by himself, or on an archipeligo map.
Next up: Montezuma! What's it like to play as Civ IV's resident psycho?
ALC! 
Since I am a warmonger by nature, he's awesome. His UB is way too strong (that's why there is a bad event just for Monty for supposedly balancing its power.) With Monty I could conquer half of the world in BC. The consequences in one of my games: I used liberalism free tech for Assembly line on Emperor level, so imagine the permanent scars remnant AI suffered so as to be slow in teching.
