Best Way To Learn Difficulties?

[RakeWorm]

What is the best way to move up in difficulty level? Should I progressively go up as I begin to dominate at an easier level, or jump to a higher level in a sink or swim method? I've had a lot of games I've played in the past that were best learned by a specific method.

What's the most effective way for Civ?

I always win on Warlord, so I'm trying to decide if I should bump it up to Noble or go higher on my next day off.

 

[Htadus]

I say jump to Monarch and play in such manner you remain in the top half of the ranking and expand freely untill you drop science to about 30-50% and recover via developement of improvements, gpt resource trades and trade routes.

Remember GP's and essential National Wonders. Have a plan toward endgame and follow through.

 

[lymond]

I'd play Noble first. Read the War Academy and spend some time on the Strategy & Tips forum. Prince level can be skipped. From Monarch up, things start to really ramp up.

 

[RakeWorm]

I've read about 75% of the articles in the War Academy, and my game is improving at a very rapid pace. I just don't have that much time to play, and when I do it is often with family where we have a PA and its not a typical game, in that sense.

Right now, my largest difficulty is transitioning into gunpowder military efficiently. I always have such a huge army by the time gunpowder hits, and it is frustrating for it to become obsolete. I need to become much more efficient at how many units I upgrade, and how many I let go.

 

[jordiflor]

Right now, my largest difficulty is transitioning into gunpowder military efficiently. I always have such a huge army by the time gunpowder hits, and it is frustrating for it to become obsolete. I need to become much more efficient at how many units I upgrade, and how many I let go.

What do you do with such a huge army? Sounds like you have an standing army, doing nothing. You need a good army to conquer your neighbors, and a huge army to do that final punch that will led you to Conquest or Domination. So I think you should better time your unit spamming momentum.
Anyway, you need to upgrade your melee and archer units to riflemen and your cats & trebs to cannons. To do so you need lots of money. If you are tech leader, you can sacrifice two-three turns of research to fill your treasure for upgrades, or if you manage to get a GM, send it for a trade mission.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, if you have an army that big it should be put to work destroying AIs. Upgrade the experienced units. CR II/III Mace make very nice Rifles. Same for Cat/Trebs>Cannons. I prefer mounted warfare myself though.

The other options is to maintain a smaller army if not fighting early, manage diplo, and focus on teching to a strategic advantage with something like Military Tradition. Whip out a bunch of Curs or upgrade phants/HAs and go out a stomp. Win.

 

[shakabrade]

A year ago, I was winning 30% of my immortal games. After finding this forum, I decided I'll play deity till I win it (sink or swim). Some 20 defeats in a row later, I started swimming and winning regularly on deity and always on difficulties below.

Things you wanna read are kossin's Daily Round and strategy articles, you wanna watch TMIT's lets play civ4 videos on youtube. And you'll need to learn diplo, probably most important thing in the game. I'd suggest you to play on Monarch and higher level even now, simply because on noble and prince you'll accomodate to strats and way of thinking that don't work on higher levels and will have to unlearn almost everything. I say all this given you want to become good Civilization 4 player. If you are more of a casual player, just move up one difficulty level.

 

[RakeWorm]

What do you do with such a huge army? Sounds like you have an standing army, doing nothing. You need a good army to conquer your neighbors, and a huge army to do that final punch that will led you to Conquest or Domination. So I think you should better time your unit spamming momentum.
Anyway, you need to upgrade your melee and archer units to riflemen and your cats & trebs to cannons. To do so you need lots of money. If you are tech leader, you can sacrifice two-three turns of research to fill your treasure for upgrades, or if you manage to get a GM, send it for a trade mission.

I do need to time it better, as well as not hesitate. I typically do quite well with early rushing and wartime after a rush, but I tend to nervously hesitate too much before going all-in with a conquest attempt. I've had some games were I miscalculate my advantage and it wrecks me. I need to get over myself and just learn from failure.

Yeah, if you have an army that big it should be put to work destroying AIs. Upgrade the experienced units. CR II/III Mace make very nice Rifles. Same for Cat/Trebs>Cannons. I prefer mounted warfare myself though.

The other options is to maintain a smaller army if not fighting early, manage diplo, and focus on teching to a strategic advantage with something like Military Tradition. Whip out a bunch of Curs or upgrade phants/HAs and go out a stomp. Win.

I also strongly prefer mounted warfare. I think I need to start destroying AIs more than vassalizing to avoid the stupid culture problems vassals lead to.

A year ago, I was winning 30% of my immortal games. After finding this forum, I decided I'll play deity till I win it (sink or swim). Some 20 defeats in a row later, I started swimming and winning regularly on deity and always on difficulties below.

Things you wanna read are kossin's Daily Round and strategy articles, you wanna watch TMIT's lets play civ4 videos on youtube. And you'll need to learn diplo, probably most important thing in the game. I'd suggest you to play on Monarch and higher level even now, simply because on noble and prince you'll accomodate to strats and way of thinking that don't work on higher levels and will have to unlearn almost everything. I say all this given you want to become good Civilization 4 player. If you are more of a casual player, just move up one difficulty level.

I've found the sink or swim method to work best for most games, with the exception of Broodwar. I'm coming very late to the Civ party because my computer was broken for years, so I was restricted to console games. I do want to become a very good player at some point in the future.

I don't recall his handle, but I was watching some guys videos where he was doing a "First 100 Turns Series," but I'll check out TMIT's videos as well.

I also need to learn the diplo for specific AI's, I don't know all their tendencies yet.


Thanks for the feedback, everyone. If this response was too long with quoteblocks and I should use spoiler tags next time, let me know.

 

[jordiflor]

I do need to time it better, as well as not hesitate. I typically do quite well with early rushing and wartime after a rush, but I tend to nervously hesitate too much before going all-in with a conquest attempt. I've had some games were I miscalculate my advantage and it wrecks me. I need to get over myself and just learn from failure.

Do you know the power of siege suicide? Bring with you throwaway catapults and do not hesitate anymore

 

[RakeWorm]

Do you know the power of siege suicide? Bring with you throwaway catapults and do not hesitate anymore

Indeed, I use siege extensively. My miscalculations I was referring to was regarding just how many siege I'll need to keep on rolling through someone's territory. I also need to improve my skills on managing wartime economy. I've read many guides in the War Academy on it, but I need to reread some of them and take notes - I tend to forget some things when I'm actually in a game.

Besides needing to just generally improve at everything, I think my huge problem is improving my gameplay once gunpowder is hit - for some reason my entire game suffers from then on. I still win, but it is not smooth sailing and I end up using nukes or space race as a crutch on some games that go on too long.

I finally have a day off today, so I'll be watching some of TMIT's videos.

 

[Pisskop]

Play them. Pick the civ you feel the most comfortable with, or a solid civ like Rome, and pound away. Scratch that, do not 'pound' away but first experiment with the game until the AIs new bonuses make sense to you.

 

[Verarde]

I would say playing them is an excellent way to learn how they work. If you are looking for something a little more in-depth in terms of number crunching though, check out this post. I keep it bookmarked, and it's excellent.

 

[bhavv]

Since you like mounted combat (and from looking at your avatar ), I think that Darius would be the best way for you to learn higher difficulties. Immortals are one of the top rated early rush units in the game, and the combination of FIN and ORG traits will give you the strongest economic boost on higher difficulties.

 

[RakeWorm]

Yeah, I love playing with Darius. I use him in over half my games, probably.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. We'll see how this goes.

 

[bhavv]

Hannibal is another good leader for mounted combat, FIN + CHA means you still have an economic boost but get promotions faster, and Numidian Cavalry are just awesome UUs. Kublai Khan is another great choice, you lose Fin and Org, but get Cre. This is a good way to learn the more advanced specialist economy tactic for non Fin leaders, using fast libraries and scientists to tech Currency and CoL while your economy temporarily tanks due to expansion and conquest.

I've really been getting into playing Justinian on Immortal recently, but whenever I get a good start with production and gold, I never have horses nearby The hippodrome and cataphract are massive bonuses for a mounted combat game, build a hippodome first in every conquered city and maintain a 10% culture slider, and you get +4 in every city! You have absolutely no economic advantages in the early game though, so you have to learn to manage without any of those first (I reroll the map until I have gold and flood plains, which then causes me to lack horses lol). I'm finding that just building 3 or 4 cities, then oracling theology to run theocracy gives me a huge boost to break out with horse archers, and then I'm still learning how to go from there up to cataphracts asap.

 

[RakeWorm]

Yeah, micromanaging my economy is where I need to improve a lot. As I get better and better at war, my economy tanks earlier and earlier. I have a hard time letting a ceasefire happen when I need to and regrouping. I hate stopping my army when they are on a roll.