[BEGINNER] why am I such a loser ?

[Rubbaduck]

When directed at a beginner, 'learn to read the map' is far too vague. Since the only way to achieve it is through experience, it's almost like saying 'play more civ' - not very helpful.

'Build and work more cottages', on the other hand, is excellent advice - simple, easy to follow and effective. Of course, cottage spam may not always be the optimal choice. But who cares about optimal play when you're struggling to beat Chieftan?

And while the CE/SE distinction is pretty redundant for most high-level players nowadays, these basic economy types are still useful learning tools for lower-level players looking to improve.

I know I should have worded it a bit better, but the point of my post was to tell him no to go for the absolute "I am running a cottage economy, therefore I shall not use specialists at all" kind of thinking, which can be kinda hard to get rid of once you get into it.

And I think 'Play more Civ!' is excellent advice for those who want to get better in playing Civ

And I'm just that kind of abstract person that doesn't consider directly telling people what to do very ofen.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I'm playing a new game, this time with a smaller map, but, poor me, it's slowly taking the same path. Looks like my problem is that I cannot handle war. This time a built a lot of cottages and had a lot of food and hammers. I was scoring at the top but then I declared war against the roman empire because it happend to be in between my cities, limiting them. After this, decay begun. My problem is that I tend to capture cities by moving some stack against them but then start losing most of my units and improvements one after one.

Rome's UU is the Praetorian, which requires Iron. If you let Rome work Iron, they will own you, ruthlessly. In any war against Rome your first priority before you even THINK about moving against their cities, is to whack their iron sources with plunder stacks (either fast-moving chariots or combined stacks that can defend well as they move), get their iron gone and keep it gone. They'll try to rebuild those mines, so revisit the mines periodically to scare workers away and/or re-pillage.

You will also be defending against Praets as they swarm in, so keep healthy stacks of axemen in frontier cities. Defense is higher priority than offense, and what "defense" means is going out to attack their offensive stack while it's in your territory (to give them WW and avoid getting WW yourself, for the many battles you will fight). Once they can no longer blast out Praetorians, take the offensive stack you've built (axes, cats, a few spearmen, horse archers if you can build those, many many war elephants if you can build those), and go on the march. Include archers in your unit build queues so you'll be able to defend the cities you take.

Better yet, fight Rome *BEFORE* they can build Praetorians, or *AFTER* they're obsolete.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi ,

You should probably focus in siege weapons (catapults, trebuchets, cannons...) if you are loosing too many units. Promote them just before the combat, city raider when you are attacking a city, barrage when you are facing a big stack in the field. Collaterage damages is THE weapon that makes you win wars You don't want to loose expansive infantries, build more sieges, and your kill/lose ratio will improve.

Obviously, as the last poster said, facing Rome needs special attention

Cheers

 

[Winston Hughes]

By the sounds of it, you didn't have enough units to do the job.

Next time, try dedicating one city to military production. You'll need somewhere with several hills to mine and enough food to work those mines. Initially, the only buildings you'll need are a Monument (skip this if your leader is Creative), a Granary, and a Barracks. Later on, you'll want to add stuff that boosts output (eg. Forge; Heroic Epic), or that gives you the and necessary to grow the city to work more tiles. Beyond that, it should just pump out combat units. (Note: Unless this city is an absolute monster, other cities will probably have to contribute troops as well).

Also, I'm guessing you're unaware of the power of Siege units such as Catapults (Cats) and Trebuchets (Trebs). Not only are these essential for bombarding the defences of cities you wish to capture, they are extremely effective at weakening enemy stacks thanks to the collateral damage they inflict when attacking. Send a few of them in first, and then let your offensive troops mop up the weakened defenders.

Finally, with regards to stack composition, when invading a rival you'll want something like this:

30-50% Siege units (Cats if pre-Engineering; mostly Trebs post-Engineering).

40-60% Offensive units (Axes and/or Swords with the City Raider promotions are fairly standard early attackers.).

10% Defensive units (Axes and Spears with Combat promotions are solid).

It's also a good idea to bring a medic along to heal the wounded - take a Warrior or Chariot, give it Combat1, and then promote up the Medic line. If you're playing BtS or Warlords, then a Great General can be attached to instantly create an awesome Medic3 healer.

 

[Jaaboo]

I'll offer something up that helped me - the Noble's Club. Read some of the past threads and their conversations, it will help quite a bit.

 

[Lay_Lay]

The game boils down to how much micromanagement do you prefer. I can tolerate Monarch level micromgmt. One must forgo worker automation, and other things like that (getting increasingly advanced and layered), in order to move up to harder difficulty levels.

Perhaps on some theoretical "hardest difficulty ever", the human player must access, analyze, and perhaps tweak each and every variable his empire and world contains. This means, you can't just hit <Enter> over and over, else the AI will destroy you with ease.

 

[Negator_UK]

A problem I've had in the past is spinelessness. I always look at the AI, quake in my boots and try to play nice, then I never go onto the offensive. Civ is a WAR game primarily, so learn to be a predator. Build lots of units ! Good ones, not warriors !

You can't conquer the whole world at once, city maintenance needs to be brought under control. But look at the AI's like they were your next meal and play accordingly - Genghis for starters, Bismark main course, Cathy for dessert etc, etc etc....

 

[erikthecelt]

Welcome to the forum - it is friendly and everyone has tons of advice. Mine is a little different. It doesn't hurt to start simple and work your way up.

Try this: Duel Terra Map, no barbarians, explore with your settler and starting unit until you find the AI, settle on the nearest plains hill, build 6 warriors, with all warriors in one stack, attack the AI city and take it. Enjoy the victory screen.