Balancing civillian/military production

[jamespetts]

I haven't played Civ IV a great deal (two goes through to the end, one on Chieften and one on Noble, both time victories, and a few false starts on Noble), and one thing that I don't seem to have mastered yet is the right balance between civillian and military production.

Some of the games in which I didn't get very far on Noble were ones in which I'd emphasised civillian production, and then got thoroughly beaten by AI civilisations in a war that they'd declared. In the Noble game that I did win, I was only able to keep my empire intact after doing well in a war against Ceasar only to have Isabella invading me with leigons of Gunships thereafter by diplomatic means (getting Bismark to declare war on her, and then eventually paying her to stop attacking me, after she had conquored one of my smaller cities).

Although I tried to keep a good number of sensible defensive units in my cities, and a few spare units in case of attack, I always seemed to be unprepared for the wars, and didn't even have enough units to attack the marauding cavalry/gunships until I had switched over to wartime production and garnered many more units.

At the end of the game, the graphs showed that I was ahead all of the way on points and culture, but a long way behind for the whole game on power.

That makes me think that I'm not balancing my production properly between military and civilian uses; does anyone have any tips in that regard?

 

[Nares]

Try taking the initiative and starting the war on your terms. The trap with building is that you end up building a lot of structures you don't need.

Also, it's important to fight wars. The AI will build troops while at peace due to its inherent programming. Some AIs are programmed to build more troops, others less, but all will build at least some. So, they're getting ahead of you in terms of military power while you're busy building Libraries in cities that produce only a handful of beakers (getting a low return for the investment of hammers on that building). This holds true throughout the game, growing even more apparent as you move up in difficulty.

Simply put, some cities (based on terrain and improvements, mainly) are suited for particular tasks. Learning how to read the terrain (by deciding what improvements could go where, and what kind of output of commerce/hammers that you can get from it) is probably the biggest single learning step in the game.

That said, what you're asking about can be addressed through appropriate specialization. One or two production cities (these have a lot of hammers, but low beakers, and probably should never see a Library or Market for the entire game) can produce all the troops you need.

Commerce cities are a bit trickier, as commerce is a split resource (between science/culture/gold, depending on what you set your research and culture rates at). There's tons of threads and articles regarding these cities (production cities are easy to pick and easy to plan, since they serve a singular purpose, whereas a commerce city can fill one or more of multiple roles).

Basically, it sounds like you're building unnecessary buildings in cities that are ill suited to them. A Library(/University/Observatory) in a city that produces five or six beakers is a waste. What you're losing by building these is the hammers devoted to the building not being spent on military units. As I said, you really want to get into earlier and more wars in order to stunt the AI.

 

[jamespetts]

Useful tips about city specialisation: thank you

But as to wars: if it stunts the AI, then doesn't it also stunt me? Is it not often the case that, while I'm fighting a war with somebody else on my continent, another civilisation on another, more peaceful continent, is rushing ahead in the tech tree, unpurturbed by the economy of war, and getting ever closer to winning the space race?

 

[ownedbyakorat]

The trap with building is actually that you end up building a lot of buildings that get razed when an AI decides it doesn't like you and drops off a few galleons of cavalry next to one of your weakly-defended coastal cities...

 

[theimmortal1]

Defend border cities stronger. Always try to keep some cash to upgrade units.

You are talking about real late wars, my games never get that far. My advice would be to stay on slavery to be able to whip units. But if you are talking in the modern era then thats not feesible.

 

[pigswill]

My general advice is keep a regular eye on the power graph; try to keep in the upper half (or even top); if you notice your relative power is slipping then quickly build some of your best units to restoreyour power. Its better to have your building program interrupted by producing units in peacetime than taking drastic measures once you've been invaded.
My experience is relatively limited but up to now I've found (on noble and prince) that if I stay up in relative power I don't have to bother with stacking units on the borders (though if you're not doing anything else with them you may as well).
There is of course the whole diplomacy issue to consider as well. As I posted elsewhere Isabella is a fanatic' if you have the same religion and reasonable power you should be safe, if you have a different religion then she'll probably attack as soon as she has a chance of winning so convert or take her out early.
The advantage of taking the initiative and going to war yourself is not so much to stunt your neighbours' growth because if you have Mansa and Gandhi on another continent then you'll keep losing to a space race victory. The advantage of going to war is to gain more territory so you can establish more cities so you can build more barracks and universities and banks and beat Gandhi to a space race that way (or just build up a huge invasion fleet and annihilate him).

 

[jamespetts]

Maybe I should try winning a domination victory one day...

 

[DaveMcW]

You can win domination on a pangea map without any civilian buildings. Though I recommend researching Code of Laws before your science rate drops.

 

[Gumbolt]

I tend to judge my military needs on largest military by using demographics. If my closest rival AI has 500,000 and i have 400,000 i will try to build more military in less key cities. This strategy of continually checking demographics, early wars, expanding aggressively with 50-60% science slider seems to pay off as the AI tend not to attack the strongest military on map

When i first started on monarchy i was continually finding with 13 or so cities near end game my military was considerably below par sometimes half the other AI. I seem to of kicked this issue into touch. yes you need production cities pumping out military but it helps to have other cities chip in if your starting to fall behind.

Its safe to say if you have taken out 2-3 AI around your borders your less likely to be attacked and the extra cities can be used to build defences. Attacks by sea can often be fended off by strong navies and vigililance

 

[Older than Dirt]

You do not have to capture cities to cripple an AI civ. Capturing workers and destroying improvements will stifle the civ until you can bring up enough units to capture cities worth keeping. An early war or two may be very useful in assuring you of room to expand and securing needed resources (esp. bronze or iron) or keeping resources away from your opponents. There usually is at least one aggressive civ neighbor whom you are going to have to destroy sooner or later and it is much easier to do so sooner - or at least cripple it badly.