crouchingtiger
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2006
- Messages
- 4
Been reading the forums for a few weeks, first post here. Very appreciative of all the great discussions that I think have greatly improved my game. Would welcome any comments from experienced players on the issues I raise below...
Background: Have only played Civ IV about 12 times, but have played the previous 3 editions quite a bit. For time considerations, I usually play on Small map size with random map, no tweaks (e.g. this means there are normally 4 other civilizations). Normal game speed. I won my first couple games on Noble with no problems (but unimpressive scores) researching essentially randomly and with no understanding of any of the subtleties of religion, specialists, great people, etc. I moved onto Prince and now have settled on Monarch after having gone through this forum quite a bit. I've now won on Monarch 3 out of the 5 times I've played. I've been playing primarily Spiritual leaders and my tendency is to build up culture/science and with the occasional strategic military push. Having said that, I tend to finish off my games militarily if I've built up a large tech advantage (in practice, this normally means Infantry vs. Rifleman or Tanks vs. Infantry). On Monarch I find that I generally end up with a very slim tech advantage around the 1800s which I think suggests it's about the right difficulty level.
That brings us to my last game which was unlike my previous, in that I won by Conquest. Even more unusual for me was that my economy was in shambles most of the game (at least by "traditional measures".
Playing as Caesar, with Montezuma, Hatty, Isabella, and Tokugawa. Small, Lakes map (one land mass with some reasonable water). Monarch.
I had a reasonable start position with hills and enough food to work the mines early, meaning decent production. My goal was to grab iron as early as possible and start cranking out Praetorians. Due to some unfortunate city placement, it turned out that I had to settle my 4th city, quite a ways from my capital in order to grab iron. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I was able to keep it away from Monty. However, even with Caesar being Organized, my city maintenance costs were pretty ridiculous and so I was researching at 40% while running a huge deficit in the early game until I got a couple libraries and specialists going.
Hatty was to my north, and she was also just a couple unfortunate squares away from having access to iron, Thus, around 100 BC, I sent my stack of 6-7 Praetorians+5 chariots and they were able to take several of her biggest cities quite quickly (even against archers with two promotions). This earned me the Hindu shrine, which both Monty and Toku had converted to. Isabella, to my east, was Buddhist and antagonistic with virtually everyone. Monty, to my northwest, got early longbows so I decided to avoid him first. Monty helped me finish off Hatty, and then I made the unusual move (for me) to move right along to Isabella. I had some catapults by this time, so I was able to sneak in and capture her city where she had built Chichen Itza, which made her subsequent demise quite fast. She also had no iron, so it was primarily archers and the occasional axmen defending. Toku got in on the action, capturing one of her cities.
By this time, I had by far the most land, but by far the worst economy. In fact, my GNP topped out at +18 (!) and that was at the end of the game! For most of the game, it was running at anywhere from -20 - 0. Monty was slightly ahead of me techwise, but my specialists were doing OK (plus, I chopped the Great Library). I demanded both Currency and gold from Monty and he accepted both times (!). Having done that, I settled in for the inevitable war with him by loading up on catapults and more Praetorians. The battle with Monty concluded in about 1500 AD with the key battles being between my Praetorians/catapults going up against his Macemen. A little bit of strategic diplomacy ensured that I didn't face Toku and his Samurai (which I assume would hack up Praetorians pretty badly) at the same time. After that, it was cleanup against Toku with only the very occasional loss to a Samurai (by this time I was using mostly Macemen/Elephants/Crossbowmen). Final conquest victory game in 1685, score was about 65000.
A few questions/observations:
1) I was unable to benefit maximally from my early war with Hatty since I did not have alphabet yet so I couldn't get any techs out of that! On the other hand, I felt that alphabet was not the best tech for a warmongering focus? I think that was wrong. Obviously I ended up researching it after I realized this and was still the first to have it.
2) Similarly, even though Praetorians were the dominant unit in the game for almost 2000 game years, economically the empire couldn't even break even unless running at 10%-20% research (and sometimes not even at 0%). Part of the problem was that I didn't have Code of Laws yet to build courthouses. Is this another consideration that warmongers usually have? Again, I changed tactics to focus on getting CoL after realizing this.
3) Would I have been hurt far more on a larger map? I'm thinking I would not have been able to push as quickly as I did on a larger map and so I may not have been able to cripple other civilizations sufficiently before really running out of money. In fact, if I hadn't luckily picked up the Hindu shrine, my economy would have been even worse off than it was.
4) How in the world do people do warmongering without the Organized trait? Even if you raze, doesn't that leave the space open for other civs to expand to?
5) Perhaps point #2 is incorrect and actually catapults are (by far) the most important unit in any (?) game.
6) When Monty's macemen seemed like they were going to be a problem, I chickened out and spent some time researching Machinery and a couple other "medieval unit" techs. In hindsight, I think I could have and should have held on with Praetorians (upgraded to Combat I plus 25% against melee), beelined to Chemistry and gone to Grenadiers directly. I think I wasted a bunch of turns here. Not only that, after I researched Liberalism, I used it to get PP to shore up the economy a little bit when I think it would have been better spent on Gunpowder. Thoughts? Certainly, in the open field, Macemen dominate Praetorians, but I had the benefit of a lot of catapult support.
7) I had stone early so I built (chopped) the Pyramids on a whim and ran representation. Waste of time/energy? Or, critical for making my few specialists hold up to be able to research Alphabet/CoL in a reasonable period of time?
8) I still ended up by far with the most culture (obviously not that impressive against Monty/Toku considering that Hatty/Isabella "bowed out" early). I couldn't resist my tendencies and ended up building libraries, temples, monasteries, etc. in many of my cities. Total waste of time again?
Anyway, all in all, this was one of the most fun and satisfying Civ games I've ever played. The constant economic tension and the intense fighting with and without the strongest units was great. Just not sure whether the strategy was too hare-brained to be viable under different circumstances (larger map, etc.). Sorry for the longish post, any and all comments appreciated!
Background: Have only played Civ IV about 12 times, but have played the previous 3 editions quite a bit. For time considerations, I usually play on Small map size with random map, no tweaks (e.g. this means there are normally 4 other civilizations). Normal game speed. I won my first couple games on Noble with no problems (but unimpressive scores) researching essentially randomly and with no understanding of any of the subtleties of religion, specialists, great people, etc. I moved onto Prince and now have settled on Monarch after having gone through this forum quite a bit. I've now won on Monarch 3 out of the 5 times I've played. I've been playing primarily Spiritual leaders and my tendency is to build up culture/science and with the occasional strategic military push. Having said that, I tend to finish off my games militarily if I've built up a large tech advantage (in practice, this normally means Infantry vs. Rifleman or Tanks vs. Infantry). On Monarch I find that I generally end up with a very slim tech advantage around the 1800s which I think suggests it's about the right difficulty level.
That brings us to my last game which was unlike my previous, in that I won by Conquest. Even more unusual for me was that my economy was in shambles most of the game (at least by "traditional measures".
Playing as Caesar, with Montezuma, Hatty, Isabella, and Tokugawa. Small, Lakes map (one land mass with some reasonable water). Monarch.
I had a reasonable start position with hills and enough food to work the mines early, meaning decent production. My goal was to grab iron as early as possible and start cranking out Praetorians. Due to some unfortunate city placement, it turned out that I had to settle my 4th city, quite a ways from my capital in order to grab iron. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I was able to keep it away from Monty. However, even with Caesar being Organized, my city maintenance costs were pretty ridiculous and so I was researching at 40% while running a huge deficit in the early game until I got a couple libraries and specialists going.
Hatty was to my north, and she was also just a couple unfortunate squares away from having access to iron, Thus, around 100 BC, I sent my stack of 6-7 Praetorians+5 chariots and they were able to take several of her biggest cities quite quickly (even against archers with two promotions). This earned me the Hindu shrine, which both Monty and Toku had converted to. Isabella, to my east, was Buddhist and antagonistic with virtually everyone. Monty, to my northwest, got early longbows so I decided to avoid him first. Monty helped me finish off Hatty, and then I made the unusual move (for me) to move right along to Isabella. I had some catapults by this time, so I was able to sneak in and capture her city where she had built Chichen Itza, which made her subsequent demise quite fast. She also had no iron, so it was primarily archers and the occasional axmen defending. Toku got in on the action, capturing one of her cities.
By this time, I had by far the most land, but by far the worst economy. In fact, my GNP topped out at +18 (!) and that was at the end of the game! For most of the game, it was running at anywhere from -20 - 0. Monty was slightly ahead of me techwise, but my specialists were doing OK (plus, I chopped the Great Library). I demanded both Currency and gold from Monty and he accepted both times (!). Having done that, I settled in for the inevitable war with him by loading up on catapults and more Praetorians. The battle with Monty concluded in about 1500 AD with the key battles being between my Praetorians/catapults going up against his Macemen. A little bit of strategic diplomacy ensured that I didn't face Toku and his Samurai (which I assume would hack up Praetorians pretty badly) at the same time. After that, it was cleanup against Toku with only the very occasional loss to a Samurai (by this time I was using mostly Macemen/Elephants/Crossbowmen). Final conquest victory game in 1685, score was about 65000.
A few questions/observations:
1) I was unable to benefit maximally from my early war with Hatty since I did not have alphabet yet so I couldn't get any techs out of that! On the other hand, I felt that alphabet was not the best tech for a warmongering focus? I think that was wrong. Obviously I ended up researching it after I realized this and was still the first to have it.
2) Similarly, even though Praetorians were the dominant unit in the game for almost 2000 game years, economically the empire couldn't even break even unless running at 10%-20% research (and sometimes not even at 0%). Part of the problem was that I didn't have Code of Laws yet to build courthouses. Is this another consideration that warmongers usually have? Again, I changed tactics to focus on getting CoL after realizing this.
3) Would I have been hurt far more on a larger map? I'm thinking I would not have been able to push as quickly as I did on a larger map and so I may not have been able to cripple other civilizations sufficiently before really running out of money. In fact, if I hadn't luckily picked up the Hindu shrine, my economy would have been even worse off than it was.
4) How in the world do people do warmongering without the Organized trait? Even if you raze, doesn't that leave the space open for other civs to expand to?
5) Perhaps point #2 is incorrect and actually catapults are (by far) the most important unit in any (?) game.
6) When Monty's macemen seemed like they were going to be a problem, I chickened out and spent some time researching Machinery and a couple other "medieval unit" techs. In hindsight, I think I could have and should have held on with Praetorians (upgraded to Combat I plus 25% against melee), beelined to Chemistry and gone to Grenadiers directly. I think I wasted a bunch of turns here. Not only that, after I researched Liberalism, I used it to get PP to shore up the economy a little bit when I think it would have been better spent on Gunpowder. Thoughts? Certainly, in the open field, Macemen dominate Praetorians, but I had the benefit of a lot of catapult support.
7) I had stone early so I built (chopped) the Pyramids on a whim and ran representation. Waste of time/energy? Or, critical for making my few specialists hold up to be able to research Alphabet/CoL in a reasonable period of time?
8) I still ended up by far with the most culture (obviously not that impressive against Monty/Toku considering that Hatty/Isabella "bowed out" early). I couldn't resist my tendencies and ended up building libraries, temples, monasteries, etc. in many of my cities. Total waste of time again?
Anyway, all in all, this was one of the most fun and satisfying Civ games I've ever played. The constant economic tension and the intense fighting with and without the strongest units was great. Just not sure whether the strategy was too hare-brained to be viable under different circumstances (larger map, etc.). Sorry for the longish post, any and all comments appreciated!
