cant make step up from Chieftan to Warlord without getting stomped on

[FLUKE]

I just dont know where I'm going wrong, I've played about 20 games on Warlord setting and every single time I am getting slaughtered. If I dont get bogged down in some stupid war (not of my making directly), the AI just has these immense surges that leave me miles behind.

I always do the basics, build a couple of settlers quick, chop down forests asap after getting BW, expand without crippling my economy, do the Oracle and get the tech for Courthouses, and this serves me well for the first 100 turns where I am usually in the lead or close to it, then the AI just as I say get this surge or I am swamped by hostile countries declaring war on me (usually religion or refusal of tributes), in these situations I usually have to bribe a friendly country with loads of techs just to get them to declare on my agressors, just so I can stay temporarily in the game. But this of course just kills my tech lead.

I dont even make a good second or solid third , I am getting annihilated

I'm no expert and I dont always make the best of civics I think, and I tend not to micromanage my cities, but I should be able to make a game of it dont you think? I seem to comfortably win at Chieftan level yet Warlord victories are escaping me.

 

[KMadCandy]

I always do the basics, build a couple of settlers quick, chop down forests asap after getting BW, expand without crippling my economy,

I'm no expert and I dont always make the best of civics I think, and I tend not to micromanage my cities

a few thoughts: the "eeps that was hard on my economy" point for expansion comes earlier at warlord level than chieftain. be real sure to keep an eye on that more than you used to. but, the AI expands faster on higher levels. it may be a matter of not yet having a feel for when you'll reach that point.

my #1 rule is play to have fun, and if MMg drives you nuts then don't focus on it of course! however, the "i'm the human and can MM to gain an advantage over the AI/governor logic" factor comes into play more as you move to higher levels.

my gameplay improves as i get better at finessing diplomacy. leveraging favorite civics is a part of that.

good luck and have fun

 

[nullspace]

You really should avoid getting dogpiled by so many civs, no matter what level you play. Don't always refuse to give tribute. You want to have a few friends who probably won't attack you, and giving tribute when asked is a good way to do it. And of course, if you won't gain from fighting a war, make peace as soon as possible.

Also make sure you have an impressive army at all times, which will deter the other civs from declaring war on you. At least one of your cities should be specialized for military production. It builds a barracks, forge, heroic epic, and just enough happiness to work all its mines. Then it spends all its time making soldiers. That should be enough to ensure you don't look weak.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I am swamped by hostile countries declaring war on me (usually religion or refusal of tributes)

Unless you're continually being surrounded by nutters like monty this sounds as though you're not keeping your power rating up. Even warriors will help this, and they're always useful as fogbusters anyway. Equally it's not always a good idea to adopt a religion immediately.

I always do the basics, build a couple of settlers quick, chop down forests asap after getting BW, expand without crippling my economy, do the Oracle and get the tech for Courthouses

Nothing wrong with going for the Oracle but perhaps you're not balancing your builds correctly. If you've got BW then you should be building some axes. Again this helps the power rating on the F9 screen. You may well be expanding just that little bit too fast before you've got some cottages up and running to help finance the economy. This is assuming you've got round to researching Pottery.

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

Even without micromanging, if you have some muscle to back your words, your rivals won't attack you (excluding wackjobs like Monty)

The AI doesn't have as many limiters on it at Warlord, so it techs somewhat better. Watch out.

You don't get as many free units, and cities/unit upkeep cost more. Watch out.

Above all else, have fun!

 

[Gooblah]

I know what you feel like: The same jump was horrible for me because of tech rate, etc.
City specialization really comes into play at Noble and above, but in Warlord it is useful.
Also try forcing one city to build exclusive military. That will really prevent enemies from getting ahead of you in the power graph and deter would be attackers.
If the nation requesting tribute or other things is more powerful/has more friends, its a good idea to go along with it...Then grab a few military techs for revenge.

 

[FLUKE]

hah, well, I am nearing the end of another game that has gone awry, I started out really well, with an aggressive expansion and I quickly became top of the leader board with a couple just below me.

Then after the mediaval period a couple of lower ranking civs started getting cautious then annoyed then inevitably declared on me, at the same time.

I repelled them and took a few of their cities before making up but by then, as always my tech lead suffered and a couple fo civs took the lead by a fair old margin, a couple of hundred points at least, as my production of military units just wasnt quick enough so I had to stop building improvements that effect research, universities and the like.

So now I am getting all frustrated, I think the game has me beat and its more of an obsession than a pleasure, my wife was extremely pissed off last night with me playing 5 hours non stop, I think I should take stock and give it a rest lol.

 

[3 EMS]

No keep going. The war hurt your research but when you recover it will be better. Plus you slowed down the civs that you took cities from. Regroup and take out one of those civs. Dont be afraid to do a little tech trading. By end game you will be back on top.

VIVA Flukeville!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Don't worry about not being in the lead points-wise either. You can win space race, culture or diplomatic without being top scorer. Worry about the wife more! You don't want "-1 you refused to give us tribute".

 

[vra379971]

Are you building cottages?

 

[gdgrimm]

Well, if you tend to lead at the beginning, and then run into troubles in the Medieval Era (about then), then my guesses are one or more of the following....

1) You're not maintaining enough military. At Monarch level, I usually have 2-3 units per city, plus a standing army of 5-10 more units. If I have military opponents nearby, I'll often station 3-4 units per city near the border with them. With enough military, you should seldom have wars declared on you (even with Aggressive AI setting), and almost never have to worry about being dogpiled.

2) Poor economic development -- such as not building enough cottages, or not properly setting up a specialist economy. If you're doing a cottage based economy, and are in the Medieval Era, about 80% of the tiles being worked should be cottages. The rest should be specials and/or a mine or two. If you're not working enough cottages, you'll start falling behind the AI in tech pace, because the AI WILL work them effectively.

3) Poor diplomacy. Actually, on Warlord level, you can probably get away with porr diplomacy if the other 2 above are being done right. But you'll have to learn good diplomacy to do well on Noble/Prince, so you might want to start learning now. I suggest you read one of the articles on Triangle diplomacy, or at least learn to choose a side, and then do whatever it takes to keep your allies happy.

 

[hecubus]

One thing that I've found can help out when falling behind in tech is to look for the ones the other civs aren't researching. Aesthetics, or Alphabet instead of Mathematics, for example, or the ever-crucial (imo) Rifling. It may not always be something immediately helpful to you but it does give you a bargaining chip. Also, If you keep good relations with a tech-happy civ or two, you'll be surprised how often they'll straight-up give you a tech just for asking.

 

[FLUKE]

thanks for all the replies, and support!, yes I am building and working cottages but they do take a hellava long time to mature and after I've chopped down all nearby forests I find my hammers dwindling pretty badly for a while.

I do try and maintain a decent military, I think I'm a balanced builder and I do like to get wonders and have a decent culture base and it could be that I'm not specialising enough, my cities tend to be a mixed bag of just about everything.

But anyway, enough of my whinging, my current game is going.....ok. I have rebuilt my military after a really long winded war with 2 civs and trying to keep pace with the points leader was not an option, I am currently about 500 points behind with 85 turns to go, and aiming for 3rd place or perhaps a space race victory if I can get enough hammers. Actually I have noticed that I have an outside chance of a dominance victory as my land has increases quite dramatically. I just have to keep Isabella off my back who is currently in 1st and is cautious (she always seems to spoil my party in previous games).

And yes, I have to study the finer points of diplomacy - its a definite weakness in terms of knowledge and application.

 

[mbaker2311]

Keep at it! I was v-e-r-y frustrated at Noble for quite a while. I like to build, expand, explore, and am not much of a war fan. One secret I learned is, despite the fact that ICS is dead (Infinite City Sprawl, basically, in Civ2 you would build city next to city next to city next to....) you still need to build as many cities as you can, while maintaining your economy. If you have enough cities, you can really lower the amount of coins earmarked to the research rate, and still expand, and thus develop specialist cities. I have a military city, where I build the Heroic Epic and West Point, and I just use it to generate military replacement units for all my cities, crank out a stack for quick response to invasion, and so forth. It has a few basics - barracks, granary, library, theater - but mostly it's there to produce military units.

I like to build my first city as a wonder producer, so near some hills and hopefully a food resource or two. This one is a mix of food, cottages and mining. The next one is my military city. I build it anywhere there're hills, even if it's not a great growth location - though it should eventually get to be 15-18 in size. The third city is my research city. One hill, maybe two, but the rest grassland and or flood plains. This one gets cottaged to death. After that, a city to produce settlers and workers, and then a few secondary research/cottaged cities.

As far as dipomacy, I have noticed if you tithe early, you are less suseptible later. Grant them Iron Working, or Horseback Riding.. in a few turns, you'll have macemen, so who cares? Anyway, good luck!

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Perhaps it might be worth posting a save of your (next) game around about 100 AD - 500 AD, or even 1000 BC, for people to have a look at? That way it's easier for us to see what the state of your game is like and offer more specific advice.

EDIT:

and after I've chopped down all nearby forests I find my hammers dwindling pretty badly for a while.

Surely you should have some decent mines up and running by then? Is it just more a case of inappropriate city placing?

 

[Diamondeye]

Don't chop all of your forests, keep some of em if you have lots... 4 forests in the BigFatCross is ideal to me... this also grants the city +2 (+.5 / forest)

 

[El Koeno]

Surely you should have some decent mines up and running by then? Is it just more a case of inappropriate city placing?[/QUOTE]

I agree, forests are never the prime source of hammers for me, at least not for building an army: that gets built by a special unit-producing city, with just farms and mines.

From the sound of it, city specialization is your main problem. Don't just build cities on the places the game suggests, think what type of cities you want, and then look for suitable places. I think there should be some nice guides for this available from the strategy section.

On diplomacy: Once you've got a religion, make sure others have that same religion (or adopt one of theirs). Whenever your religious buddies come knocking for help, give them what they want. Whenever you're at war, make sure they join in, the war will be way easier (your opponent will be less concentrated), and you'll get a bonus with your buddies, easing future wars even further.

On war: are you using proper tactics? With a decent army, a tech lead and good tactics, you should be able to hammer your opponents.

EDIT: don't feel bad for not being an uber-player like some of these forums, by the way. Most of the players here are not that good (like me), and have had to use strategy guides to get their play at the level it's at.

 

[magicalsushi]

It sounds to me like you've already absorbed quite a bit of the strategic advice on these forums, Fluke, so I'm not sure what you could be doing wrong. As other have pointed out, city specialisation and rampant cottaging are both important. Some other possibilities:

* Building too many wonders?
* Not making efficient use of Slavery?
* Not practicing Triangle Diplomacy?
* Not getting the most out of the traits and UUs/UBs of the leader/civ you're using?

Other than that, all I can say is the usual: build more military. If you're ahead in tech but still have to bribe other nations to fight for you just so you can survive for a few years longer, it sounds like you've neglected your military. It's a deterrent as much as an actual defensive force - if you have a decent army, you won't even need to use it.

Those are the things I had to learn to do to get to Noble level. However, I micromanage like crazy, which probably helps a bit (when I don't do it, I totally suck). My biggest hurdle when I first started playing was learning about which military units are counters for each other, but after 20 games I imagine you're up to speed on that!

 

[FLUKE]

Just for interest, I have started building up stronger military - I think this was the main problem, now I build a speciallised city with barracks, stable and eventually Heroic Epic and possibly Pentagon, that, along with converting to the most popular religion (cop out?) has helped enormously.

 

[El Koeno]

Just for interest, I have started building up stronger military - I think this was the main problem, now I build a speciallised city with barracks, stable and eventually Heroic Epic and possibly Pentagon, that, along with converting to the most popular religion (cop out?) has helped enormously.

Good to see you're doing well!