Beginner questions..

[Nick Carpathia]

No one listen to Marigoldrain. Do not let him tell you to build warriors instead of workers. This will kill your growth curve, you will fall behind on expansion, growth, and population, and if the AI was not a babbling idiot you would lose.

 

[MarigoldRan]

No one listen to Marigoldrain. Do not let him tell you to build warriors instead of workers. This will kill your growth curve, you will fall behind on expansion, growth, and population, and if the AI was not a babbling idiot you would lose.

But the AI is a babbling idiot! This is why it works! At higher levels, the only way you can win is to take advantage of their babbling idiocy. If you don't learn to do that early, you'll be stuck on Monarch forever.

Hence, tactics like worker-nabbing, choking, early alphabets, etc..

 

[ABCDPuppies]

City specialization? Who cares. 8 cities work as well as 5 efficient cities. You tech slower, but if the comps around you are dead, it doesn't matter.

...

Libraries? Markets? Who cares. Get them after you're at 12 cities. Maybe a library in the capital, but that's all. If you have more cities and population than any other civ, you're winning.

Single-minded focus on highest number of cities without regard to efficiency may work at lower levels, but on Immortal+ you're just going to crash your economy and go on strike or fall behind (unless you're in the unlikely position of being able to just roll over everyone while keeping your economy afloat with gold from capturing cities.)

Placing libraries on the same level as markets and advising not to build them until you reach 12 (!!!) cities is just bad advice. They are one of the most critical early buildings, on par with the granary. Unless you're spamming cottages (a questionable strategy unless you're financial and/or have a ton of rivers) they will be your primary source of early research, both from specialist beakers and scientist bulbs leveraged into trades. They will also be a main source of border pops unless you're creative or happen to get someone to spread you early religion (monuments usually a waste when those hammers could be put towards a building that is actually useful -- i.e., the library.) Not saying you should build them in every town -- not in a pure production city that won't work any commerce tiles or run specialists for example -- but in the majority of games you will want them in most of your early cities before too long.

Finally, this stuff about skimping on workers being some great Deity strategy is just nonsense and is getting a little tiresome, especially when you offer it to newer players as if it were some sort of established fact. True, there will be situations when you are pressed and absolutely have to skimp to stay alive or pull off a rush to grab land. But in the main, the rule on every difficulty is to build enough workers to grow your cities efficiently while avoiding working unimproved tiles, and chop whatever needs to be chopped for your infra/expansion goals. Honestly, for someone apparently so focused on early war it's surprising that you don't appreciate this latter part. Early on trees = production = successful war -- but only if you have workers.

 

[Mylene]

If he would at least advice Horse Archer rushes instead of this nonsense
They are the most common thing to break out early on Deity, and something new players almost never try.
I found that on Immortal i could always catch an AI with it's panties down with HAs, no matter how bad the map is and if i had horsies ofc.

With them you can learn the most important basics..like getting up a library fast (!!! Marigold ) for 2 scientists research + maths bulb + chopping/whipping snowball to create 10 HAs in 5 turns with just 3 cities, and take over the world.This is what new players should be shown f.e., not hoping that a warrior can choke the AI on Imm/Deity.

 

[whats a navy]

Marigold Ryan, if you manage to warrior choke (not likely) on any high level and get your cities with disregard to your economy then you're screwed when you meet Shaka with Mansa as his vassal in the industrial age when you don't have education. The AIs on the other continent will kill you if you use this approach and even if you use pangea you take on one AI and then you are the backwards idiot among the AI.

 

[yatta77]

Placing libraries on the same level as markets and advising not to build them until you reach 12 (!!!) cities is just bad advice. They are one of the most critical early buildings, on par with the granary. Unless you're spamming cottages (a questionable strategy unless you're financial and/or have a ton of rivers) they will be your primary source of early research, both from specialist beakers and scientist bulbs leveraged into trades. They will also be a main source of border pops unless you're creative or happen to get someone to spread you early religion (monuments usually a waste when those hammers could be put towards a building that is actually useful -- i.e., the library.) Not saying you should build them in every town -- not in a pure production city that won't work any commerce tiles or run specialists for example -- but in the majority of games you will want them in most of your early cities before too long.

With them you can learn the most important basics..like getting up a library fast (!!! Marigold ) for 2 scientists research + maths bulb + chopping/whipping snowball to create 10 HAs in 5 turns with just 3 cities, and take over the world.This is what new players should be shown f.e., not hoping that a warrior can choke the AI on Imm/Deity.

Yes! IMO those are two really wise advices. 100% Agree with both.

- A Library costs less than a single Rifle, and as many as 2 Pretorians. It is good for so many reasons: +25%; +2 for borders pop (and +4 in the end game building them early, in case you care about a victory); +6 from 2 scientists which is likely the best way to stop the growth in your city once your / cap is reached.

- Mounted units rushes (often I end up with few earlier Chariots mixed up in the Horse Archers) are really efficient early-war plans.

Just my 2.

yatta.

 

[Kaosprophet]

No one listen to Marigoldrain. Do not let him tell you to build warriors instead of workers. This will kill your growth curve, you will fall behind on expansion, growth, and population, and if the AI was not a babbling idiot you would lose.

Marigold's advice may not be as bad as it looks if you're playing on epic speed. Things happen a lot slower there, except for troop movements, so it skews the game towards (further) abusing the AI's tactical faults.

Stealing workers becomes more viable over longer distances, since the time to build one vs the time to walk a stolen one back implies smaller opportunity costs on a steal, which means you can get away with it more often. And you have more turns with which to recover from a broken economy (though it also takes longer to actually get the recovery steps done, so that might be a wash.)

Of course, since the default assumption is that we're playing on Normal speed ((unless specified otherwise) that's all rather moot.

If he would at least advice Horse Archer rushes instead of this nonsense
They are the most common thing to break out early on Deity, and something new players almost never try.

Heh. I abused HorseArcher->Knight rushing to death in Civ3, so it was one of the first things I tried in Civ4. Still not sure why I quit with the HA rush part of it, though.

 

[MarigoldRan]

As the title says, he's a beginner. Notice how he's not asking for Immortal+ advice.

The easiest way to beat lower levels is to get lots of shi- and crush computers. Then cottage spam. You win. CITY SPECIALIZATION AND WORKER-RUBBISH DOESN'T MATTER. You tailor your advice to the audience. DUH!! He can learn about all that fun stuff after he's learned the basics, which is:

HOW TO CRUSH THE COMPUTER.

And no, you don't need libraries below Immortal. Except in your capital.

Edit: Start with the Romans and the Egyptians. Get their UU and crush. Easy as pie. You'll learn later that swordsman are just as effective as praets, the only difference being that you'll more of them.

Edit 2: And yes, I happen to know all about Math and pre-chop, overflow, and what-not. And Construction and War Elephants, etc.. Bah! You can win easily on lower levels, by starting with 1 city, and building NOTHING EXCEPT A BARRACKS AND AXEMEN (if there's copper next to it) (ok, maybe a worker, for some chopping, but that's it). It's as simple as that. Advice like city specialization and what-not I think will just confuse beginners.

Edit 3: The strategy is that instead of building up your cities, you let the comp do it for you! Your capital will be a shi-hole, but that won't matter if the enemy capital you've captured is a well-developed piece of gold. The computers love to build workers and develop the tiles next to their cities. So wait for them to develop their cities, and then take it from them. After all, their land rightfully belongs to you.

(Think like a barbarian!)

 

[MarigoldRan]

Marigold's advice may not be as bad as it looks if you're playing on epic speed. Things happen a lot slower there, except for troop movements, so it skews the game towards (further) abusing the AI's tactical faults.

Stealing workers becomes more viable over longer distances, since the time to build one vs the time to walk a stolen one back implies smaller opportunity costs on a steal, which means you can get away with it more often. And you have more turns with which to recover from a broken economy (though it also takes longer to actually get the recovery steps done, so that might be a wash.)

Of course, since the default assumption is that we're playing on Normal speed ((unless specified otherwise) that's all rather moot.



Heh. I abused HorseArcher->Knight rushing to death in Civ3, so it was one of the first things I tried in Civ4. Still not sure why I quit with the HA rush part of it, though.

And yes, I'm an epic player. As a result, the game I'm playing might be a little different from yours. But since pretty much all the advice on the forums is geared towards "Normal" players, I've decided to give "Epic" players more love. (pun intended).

 

[Inso]

As the title says, he's a beginner. Notice how he's not asking for Immortal+ advice.

The guy has clearly stated that he wants to become very good at the game which would mean beating higher levels. And then you give (bad) advice for beating the lower difficulties where there is more scope for doing unorthodox things because the AI are a lot easier.

Having lots of workers early on (1.5 per city is a nice general number) and quick libraries to generate beakers and great person points are two extremely fundamental concepts for efficient early game play on any difficulty level. There really is no getting round this.

 

[Mylene]

Must be a troll, he can't be serious about how to "teach crushing the comp" on lower levels and epic speed, while peoples try to look for advice that gets their game ready to play a real Civ challenge.

 

[ABCDPuppies]

Yeah I'm sorry, I guess I don't see the point of teaching people bad habits just so they can steamroll the Noble AI and get an ego as apparently oversized and misguided as yours marigold.

Look, it's a strategy game. This is a strategy forum. OP asked for advice on strategy. The one-dimensional 'strategy' you offer works at best in limited circumstances and even then is sub-optimal in many ways. It's fine to point out that you can roll over the low-level AI just by spamming cities and troops, and even to recommend this as an exercise to get used to warring; but to present this as an actual strategy with no mention of its drawbacks or the merits of the alternatives is just misleading, and frustrating from the point of view of those of us who would like to help new players get better by understanding what solid play actually consists in.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Must be a troll, he can't be serious about how to "teach crushing the comp" on lower levels and epic speed, while peoples try to look for advice that gets their game ready to play a real Civ challenge.

And you must be a snob. "Real Civ challenge?" Isn't any game that you start with a "real civ challenge?"

 

[MarigoldRan]

The guy has clearly stated that he wants to become very good at the game which would mean beating higher levels. And then you give (bad) advice for beating the lower difficulties where there is more scope for doing unorthodox things because the AI are a lot easier.

Having lots of workers early on (1.5 per city is a nice general number) and quick libraries to generate beakers and great person points are two extremely fundamental concepts for efficient early game play on any difficulty level. There really is no getting round this.

I don't agree with this. On Immortal, there's a lot of times when you don't want to be building libraries because you have to be building units to rush. And settlers to not get blocked. At some point, I agree, libraries and workers have to be put up. But I don't agree with the orthodox position: get them out FIRST. I think they're more important things to produce FIRST.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Yeah I'm sorry, I guess I don't see the point of teaching people bad habits just so they can steamroll the Noble AI and get an ego as apparently oversized and misguided as yours marigold.

Look, it's a strategy game. This is a strategy forum. OP asked for advice on strategy. The one-dimensional 'strategy' you offer works at best in limited circumstances and even then is sub-optimal in many ways. It's fine to point out that you can roll over the low-level AI just by spamming cities and troops, and even to recommend this as an exercise to get used to warring; but to present this as an actual strategy with no mention of its drawbacks or the merits of the alternatives is just misleading, and frustrating from the point of view of those of us who would like to help new players get better by understanding what solid play actually consists in.

Yes, this is a strategy forum. And I gave a strategy. At higher levels, he can learn more nuanced strategies. But at lower levels, spamming cities and troops is a perfectly acceptable and efficient strategy for winning. It has its drawbacks, but one of its advantages is that for beginners it's probably the easiest to learn. Think of it as a "crutch" strategy to get you up to Monarch, at which point you'll have to learn other things.

 

[MCan]

Hey. I play on noble. I dont think Im any good yet, but I can get cultural victories on marathon. I usually get alot of wonders. Maybe its the low difficulty I play on, as Ive read that is very hard to build wonders. I think its because I dont use slavery, and often Oracle metal casting for the forges. I havent played multiplayer, but I could just have bigger more productive cities to build wonders. No idea if this helps, but hope it does!

 

[ABCDPuppies]

Yes, this is a strategy forum. And I gave a strategy. At higher levels, he can learn more nuanced strategies. But at lower levels, spamming cities and troops is a perfectly acceptable and efficient strategy for winning. It has its drawbacks, but one of its advantages is that for beginners it's probably the easiest to learn. Think of it as a "crutch" strategy to get you up to Monarch, at which point you'll have to learn other things.

It's fine to offer messy, easy strategies that only work at lower levels; rolling over easy AIs can be fun and even instructive (for a bit.) But my whole point is that when addressing newer players with such strategies you should present it as such, which in this thread (and others) you did not do. And that's why I responded. You also seem to be conveniently editing out your claim, again, that few workers is a tactic used by "Deity-level players" but that's another matter.

 

[MarigoldRan]

I'm playing at Immortal, and what I'm finding is that: yes, eventually you want libraries and 1.5 workers per city. But at the beginning, that's not do-able. Or if you do it, it comes at a HEAVY Opportunity Cost. At these difficulties, you have to war early to catch up. The reason why early wars work so well is because the computer AI is too busy building cities and workers to build a heavy military, so you have to take advantage of this window of opportunity.

Hence, the HA rush. But think about it: let's say you have five cities. Compare the two scenarios:

You follow "standard" advice and get 8 workers and 3 libraries. That's 480+270=750 Shields.
You build only five workers and no libraries. That's 300 Shields.

The remaining difference is 450 shields, or NINE HORSE ARCHERS.

This is why the standard advice of getting 1.5 workers/city and libraries is misleading. You simply can't afford it early. I agree, at some point you want more libraries and workers. BUT NOT AT THE EARLY GAME.

 

[ABCDPuppies]

Is it possible for you to have a rational discussion without YELLING THINGS in CAPS as if people are idiots who don't get what you're saying? To me this is very distasteful. In fact, I'm finished; you're impossible to talk with anyway because you won't pick a position and stick to it.

First you say you're giving cheesy advice for beginners on noble; then you're saying what works on immortal or deity. First you say don't get libraries til 12 cities; then when I object to that you say delay libraries in some cities early, maybe, if you're rushing (duh.) First you make this long thread about no workers til alpha, now you're claiming that sometimes 1.5 workers early is too much (duh again.) In each case, the one issue is completely different from the other. So you say something crazy, and then when people make a reasoned objection you change context and respond to a completely different argument than the one they were making. It's ridiculous and 100% unproductive.

So like I say, I'm finished responding to your posts, at least until you demonstrate you're capable of having a rational discussion in a civil tone, because this isn't going anywhere.

 

[Mylene]

At these difficulties, you have to war early to catch up.

The reason why early wars work so well is because the computer AI is too busy building cities and
workers to build a heavy military.

You follow "standard" advice and get 8 workers and 3 libraries. That's 480+270=750 Shields.
You build only five workers and no libraries. That's 300 Shields.
The remaining difference is 450 shields, or NINE HORSE ARCHERS.

This is why the standard advice of getting 1.5 workers/city and libraries is misleading.

On IMM it is easier to do the old lib thing, the AIs will almost never be able to stay close if you have the correct bulb strategies.

No, cos you are playing Epic.

Standard for a HA or similiar rush is more like ~4 workers and 1 library.
You build the library before you can even build the HAs.

The advice is for new players, and has nothing to do with early rushes.

Just to take the wind out of your nonsene again, and like above poster iam not sure why i still bother