Ancient Era Tips

[eotinb]

In the Sulla walkthrough, the Gandi AI developed two religion (Buddishm & Judiasm) in the Ancient Era. Can someone explain the advantage/benefit of taking that approach?

1. For each religion that you found, you can build the appropriate shrine (with a Great Prophet) and get +1 gold for every city that observes that religion.

2. Even without the shrine, the map fog is removed for the radius of cities that observe a religion you have founded, allowing you to see what your friends (or enemies) are up to.

3. Every religion you found is one less for the AI to establish and reap the benefits from.

(The rest of the advantages are true for any city that has more than one religion in it, regardless of whether you or the AI founded it, but obviously if you founded more than one, you're gonna spread your founded religions to your cities to get the shrine income, so you will want to be mindful of these advantages)

4. For each religion present in a city you can build a temple (+1 happy face, +1 priest allowed), a monastary (+10% research, expires eventually), and a cathedral or equivalent (+2 happy faces if same denomination as state religion, +50% culture, +2 priests allowed). Multiple religions means multiple bonuses (and since buildings don't have maintenance like in civ3, the only cost is the opportunity cost).

5. I thought I had some more, but I can't remember. But the smell of fried brain is making me hungry...

 

[The Apple]

In the Sulla walkthrough, the Gandi AI developed two religion (Buddishm & Judiasm) in the Ancient Era. Can someone explain the advantage/benefit of taking that approach?

Suprisingly, it seems like the more religions the merrier.

At first, you'll only get a happiness bonus for your state religion, but once you learn the Freedom of Religion civic you get a happiness bonus for each and every religion in your cities - the more religions, the bigger the bonus, and the happier your people.

In addition, if you are the founder of more than one religion you can create shines for each religion. So for instance, if you found Hinduism and Buddhism, and spread both to all your cities, say of which you have five, you'll now get ten gold in tribute instead of just the five you'd get for founding/spreading just one religion (assuming you've built a shrine for both).

Furthermore, instead of just building one monastary/temple for your state religion, you can build multiple monastaries/temples, one for each religion - giving you more science, culture, and priest specialists than if you just built a monastary/temple for your state religion.

In fact, the only downside I can think of for having as many religions in your cities as possible, is if you wage a war against one of those religion's founding civlizations you'll end up with more war-weariness than if that religion was not present. Though this last point isn't something I'm sure of, it's just something I've read here on occasion (and am too lazy to confirm it).

 

[Rillion]

One drawback from founding too many religions is that the more religions present in the city, the harder it is to spread another one to that city. I was playing around in a game and kept discovering new religions, quickly had founded 3 religions (hindu, judism, & catholism). Also a neighbor had founded buddism. My capital (and founding city of hinduism) is on one side of my kingdom and the new religions were founded more towards the middle, opposite side (where buddism was founded) so my newer cities on the far edge already had 3 religions in them and my hindu missionaries kept failing to spread my state religion into them.

The theology civic might help here if you can get it up early enough (through the Pyramids). Besides the bonus to XP for troops, it prevents the spread of non-state religions into your cities, so you can safely continue to spread your state religion, even if you found later religions.

 

[dh_epic]

The great news is that there's a wide number of strategies. Grow then work, or work then grow, or avoid workers for a while. Get many religions, get one religion, piggyback on another religion, or avoid religion entirely. I've used each of these strategies and succeeded. I've also used each of these strategies and failed.

I've produced a worker before I could even use it, because I didn't have the techs to really have him do anything useful. (Mining or Agriculture...) I've also had this result in huge early growth.

I've avoided producing a worker entirely until I hit alphabet, and grabbed some of those ancient era technologies. I've seen this give me a huge tech lead, and I've seen this choke my economy due to a lack of infrastructure.

Can't say I've been able to monopolize a lot of religion at higher difficulties, but I've made huge cash from having lots of religions. I've also made huge enemies.

I've avoided religion entirely, grabbed other key techs and wonders, made good money, and made no enemies. I've also avoided religion and watched as other civilizations speed ahead due to organized religion (and other religious civics).

I think a good general rule is to look at your civ's starting techs and traits.

- Mining allows you to get to bronze early
- A financial civ will want cottages sooner
- Mysticism gives you a great shot at the oracle
- A philosophical civ will want more food and farms
- Work Boats don't stop growth the way workers do -- so fishing can be a great starting tech, if you're near fish
- The pyramids gives complex civics to an 'organized' leader -- a low maintainance police state in the ancient era!
- An aggressive civ is in good shape for an axe, or sword, or horse rush.

And remember... there's a lot of paths to writing. Figure out your civ's best path, and take advantage of the stops along the way.

 

[Bevertje]

If you combine these tips with some of the old Civ 3 tips (micromanagment, adjusting the tech/tax slider every turn, etc.), you should find yourself in a good position emerging into the Classical Era.

Adjusting sliders and micromanagment isn't necessary in Civ4 because all excess food, hammers, science, ... is carried over. Thanks Firaxis!

I like your guide for the beginning of the game, when can we read the sequel?

 

[gmaharriet]

This is the most genuinely helpful thread I've read over the past several days. Thanks, ndthsmdy!!!

 

[narmox]

I could use more academies...

Actually I found it better to found one academy and keep adding scientists and super scientists to that city and make it a science powerhouse, rather than make academies everywhere.

With one academy and a few super scientists I can, early on, get one city generating 60-100 beakers, where with multiple academies (and no super scientists) I get a few cities with 10-30 beakers each.

 

[ndthsmdy]

I like your guide for the beginning of the game, when can we read the sequel?

I don't think I could even try to sum it all up the way I did for Ancient. This game gets exponentially more complicated the further you go

I can, however, throw out a couple random observations about Classical:

1) Compared to Ancient and Medieval, the techs as a whole are not that earth-shattering. Looking carefully at what the techs give you and discarding the not-as-essential ones may allow you to skip a few and get into some of the juicy Medieval techs sooner.

2) Mathematics is a massively important tech, because it is *required* to get to Construction (catapults), Currency (markets), and Calendar (hooking up plantations). It's rare that I haven't grabbed it early.

3) In the games I've played, the AI has usually been more concerned in Ancient with getting their own house in order than bugging me. Entering Classical is usually about the time you get deluged with missionaries, tech trade opportunities, and open border requests. I've used entering Classical as a good opportunity to assess my foreign situation and decide who I want to open borders with, who I want to cultivate as a friend, who (if any) I want to get ready to attack, etc.

4) There is only one military addition in Classical (unless you have Ivory): catapults. They are pretty much essential if you want to attack someone, at least at the higher levels. On the other hand, though, if you spend a long time in Classical, you'll still be sitting on the same swordsmen, axemen, spearmen, archers, and horse archers you built in Ancient. This means a) if you neglected your military in Ancient, you have a good chance of recovering as long as you don't wait too long, and b) if you did build a good military in Ancient, getting to catapults can be a good time to rush if you're next to Gandhi and he's too busy building fast workers or something Or you can beeline to the Medieval military techs while accumulating commerce and attack after you upgrade. Bottom line is: Ancient military units will be around for a while, so use this knowledge to your advantage.

5) If Ancient is about nurturing your leader traits and resources, Classical may very well be about acquiring some sort of balance. Now that the AI is paying attention to you, you need to make sure you're not too weak in a way they can exploit (because they will). Also, going too hard in a certain area of the game gets more and more likely to get you into trouble. If you're Expansive and think to yourself, "Wow, I have these sweet big cities--I'm going to build even more!" you're probably going to tank your economy (and your tech pace by extension). Same with being Aggressive and building too much military. Founding a religion and trying to nurture that can really screw you if you take that too far too. This game seems to be designed so that you will really be punished if you try to leverage your strengths at the expense of other areas. When you expand anything (your territory, your religion, your military--even your culture), you have to ask yourself, "What is this going to do to the other aspects of the game?" Your strengths should still be your strengths, but enhancing your strengths *will* make your weaknesses even weaker. So you need to think about that the next time you go for your fourth wonder in a row or build your third missionary before 2000 BC.

 

[lastchance]

Let me try my hand at Ancient Era Tech Breakdown:
Resource Techs:
Animal Husbandry
If you have horses, go Husbandry - Wheel and start finding people to invade. Nothing stands up to Horses + Archery until Iron comes around, and if you're fast enough, you might catch someone without copper. Otherwise, hold off until it's important to get extra health.
Agriculture - Important
Very, very important for growth when you have fresh water. +1 food per square is huge early game.
Pottery
Cottages are good, Granaries are good. Not
Mining - Important
If you have stone, gold, iron, or copper, get it.
The Wheel - Important
Roads are always important. Connecting your resources to your cities is needed. Unless you have no resources (which means you lose anyway) this is probably one of your first 5 or so techs.
Fishing -
Get it if you can fish, otherwise don't get it. Not having to pay food for work boats is a nice deal. Also good for the fasttech.
Masonry -
Double quickness of Oracle, Stonehenge, and Walls. Huge with Marble and Stone. Otherwise, hold off.

Resource/Killing:
Hunting
Scout + Spearman + Camp. Spearmen + Archers = defense. Without Hunting, you're pretty soft. Needed for Archery.
Archery
Archers are good. First Strike is nice, and if someone declares war on you, you need these to survive until Iron/Horses kicks in.
Bronze Working - Important
Fighting a early game war without copper, iron or horses is not fun at all. Probably the most crucial resource early game.
New Idea: Forest Chop. Very, very nice with forest + mining civ. Can really help for the first 20 or so turns, allowing one to get 2 city (and worker) quicker than almost anyone else.
Iron Working - Fighting a Medieval war without Iron is probably the dumbest thing you can do. Still, with copper and horses, one can hold off.
Horseback Riding - Horseback riding can be lethal as Horse Archers are fast and tough for a quick early strike.

Religion Techs:
Mysticism - Important
Obelisks are pretty much the only way to expand your borders early.
Meditation
Founds Buddhism. If you want to go the religion route, you want to get others to convert. Important early.
Priesthood
Oracle is very good if you have Marble and/or Wonder Traits. The early tech can really help if you go for something that has a lot of turns to research.
Polytheism
Founds Hinduism
Monotheism
Founds Judaism, Organized Religion is a step up from what you already have.

I'm way too tired to do more, I'll try to expand it later.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Don't be afraid to go balls to the wall to get the tech for your UU--especially if you want to go to war. The Mongols are four steps from Keshiks, and if they have Horses available, then they can practically storm an unprepared neighbour. The Horse archers will put them on their heels until you get your Axemen ready to take down their Spearmen--assuming that your Keshiks didn't cut their resourse supplies to ribbons...

 

[dh_epic]

LastChance, what's so great about the game is that you're both right and wrong. I see where you're coming from, but if you play in other ways the other techs become more valuable. I think you're right about the ones that you do value, but you're wrong about the ones that you don't value.

Pottery lets you build cottages -- which provide huge cash by the end of the game.

Priesthood lets you build the oracle, and opens up the path to writing. If you take the religious path, priesthood is a must. The oracle has some HUGE strategies. The closest thing that Civ 4 has to an exploit.

You simply can't avoid hunting, unless you're lucky, or you hooked up copper early. Hunting puts you on the path to archery, and the ability to build scouts can be huge if you can pop some "free technology" goodie huts.

Mining is important just to get to bronzeworking. But still, the ability to mine a hill is something valuable even without resources. Boost your productivity early.

Animal husbandry opens up both writing and horseback writing. I've mopped up the game by making this the second tech I research.

Fishing is the fastest path to pottery, writing, and the alphabet. This can get you off to a GREAT start.

I've had success with every single path. The key is knowing what you have (traits, starting location, resources), and figure out the best place to go from there (religion, cottages, great people, conquest)...

 

[lastchance]

I think you're right. Fishing near water really gave me a big boost last game, and Oracle is very, very good.

You're right about hunting. Archers are needed early game for defense when enemies come at you.

Cottages are very good. Not as important as farms, IMHO, but definitely important enough.

Husbandry is only useful with horses. But, if you have horses, you can really run over one or two civs.

I agree with Mining, but I don't find mining hills to be useful enough compared to farms or cottages or roads, but I agree in that Bronze Working is tech.

 

[dh_epic]

The key is that you can grab one or two resource techs and speed off to alphabet, and trade for the rest. The only question is which one or two you'll grab.

That should depend on what techs you start out with, your traits, and what resources are nearby.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Actually, I find that the AI has no intention to deal anything worthwile...

 

[tmarcl]

The theology civic might help here if you can get it up early enough (through the Pyramids).

You can only get Government Civics from the Pyramids. Everything else has to be researched separately. So, in order to get Theocracy early on, you'd have to beeline for Theology.

Marc

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Besides, that also gives you a good chance at founding Christianity. That's been nasty when I play with the Mongols...

 

[Skari]

I've only seen one Great Person of any of the other types in that game. I could use more academies...

Try caste system

 

[petey]

Another key in the Ancient Era is to begin to nurture relationships with other civs. If you can get a couple of friends early on and build those relationships, it translates to a lot later in the game. If you can spread your religion to a couple, then use them and give them a few gifts early on and they'll be with you for the rest of the game.

Also, if you make them stronger, you can use them as allies to attack the people you've chosen as your enemies.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Try caste system

I did, and it still kept kicking out Great Prophets...

I did eventually get wonders that contibuted points towards other leaders, but I still get more Great Prophets than I need...

 

[atog]

Here is the $40 question:

At what city size should I put growth on pause to make my first worker?

Extra credit:

First settler?

to both question. i say it depends on how many flood plains or similar square that could give 3+ food or 3+ production. if you got none, i'd say starting at population 1 and wait 25turns. that's the earliest you can crack out a settler or worker.

in other cases, if you actually gain production speed having more population, i say build some defense first. probably you'd want a defending unit right away for noble+. haven't been there yet.

for your first city, build settler asap. so your second city can keep working on settler when your first city build a worker (or vice versa)

i love to see the number of cities exponentially growing.