MqsTout
Warlord
I honestly thought that cities were always 2 food 1 hammer, no matter where they were?
Civ 4 Dummies - Game 1 - Hannibal - Chieftain
- Thread starter Yorgi
- Start date
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Nope, it's even possible to get a 3h city tile, if you settle on something rare like plains hill stone.
futurehermit
Deity
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I would recommend just settle in place and get a couple workboats out while teching BW.
SteelCityBlade
Chieftain
+1.0000000
This discussion has become Micromanagement 101. I thought we would discuss simple strategy for the noob. Micromanagement is covered superbly in all its inane detail on other threads. Simple strategy. Build where you start. You should never need to choose another site to build your 1st city at the lower levels. We are discussing playing at the lowest level. We should attempt to describe the reasoning in that regard not in why we want 1 more gold than a slice of bread on our 1st few turns. I say again Simple Strategy for the noob. Putting your city on Auto Management and concentrate on Discovery. Tech mangement, buy cheap techs that support your city cross or happiness. These choices are what I as a new player would find more useful and understandable.
Then again Yorgi may be teaching how to go to the next level. This could be a discussion on Micromanagement for beginners.
Then again Yorgi may be teaching how to go to the next level. This could be a discussion on Micromanagement for beginners.
JammerUno
King
City location isn't micro, and settling on plains hills is a part of that. At chieftain, it's best to focus on techtree, units, infrastructure, and various game dynamics like open borders, strategic resources, etc.
Fro now I wouldn't complicate thigs beyond; settle in place and get out some workboats working the highest hammer yield tile available.
Fro now I wouldn't complicate thigs beyond; settle in place and get out some workboats working the highest hammer yield tile available.
This city will have a lot of food and commerce but with little production. It will be good for your economy and science. I would research Bronze Working for the Slavery civic. Settle in place. Build workboat. Or work on devoloping those food resources to get out a few settlers and workers. Make my second city a production one. In the long run let this city focus on commerce and science. Let subsequent cities build units for war. Also, you have more than enough food to cover the the hill, oasis and plains tiles. This is probably one of my bad habits that keep me at my level but I would be tempted to keep those forests for lumbermills later on. Replaceable Parts I think.
After you settle the city you can open the city screen. Select a workboat (or whatever you decide to build) in the build que. Then you will be able to select different tiles to see which one gives the best possible combination of growth/production to get that first build out.
When you build that first city you are going to have a really high science rate, I think. Going for an early religion might be a possible move here. You have a financial leader and your on the coast. With all the money you can generate from religious buildings thrown in you will be ahead in tech and be able to afford large armies. I usually play marathon speed so I can't give values for normal. On marathon my initial science rate (for non financial leader) ranges from 9 to 11. With 11 beakers I stand a good chance of founding a religion. At 9 beakers my chances aren't so good.
Scouting and finding out who the enemies are would help here.
I say, for now, settle in place and start working on the food to spit out some settlers and workers.
After you settle the city you can open the city screen. Select a workboat (or whatever you decide to build) in the build que. Then you will be able to select different tiles to see which one gives the best possible combination of growth/production to get that first build out.
When you build that first city you are going to have a really high science rate, I think. Going for an early religion might be a possible move here. You have a financial leader and your on the coast. With all the money you can generate from religious buildings thrown in you will be ahead in tech and be able to afford large armies. I usually play marathon speed so I can't give values for normal. On marathon my initial science rate (for non financial leader) ranges from 9 to 11. With 11 beakers I stand a good chance of founding a religion. At 9 beakers my chances aren't so good.
Scouting and finding out who the enemies are would help here.
I say, for now, settle in place and start working on the food to spit out some settlers and workers.
- Great start location
- You should build your first city on the plains hill as it will produce your workboats / workers and settlers faster
- There is just as little chance of there being a resource on the starting tile as there is 1E.
- This isnt your fault, but a nit pick at using random civs and maps - Hannibal, one of my favorite leaders, on a Pangea map is just
, because of the UB. An extra trade route grows in commerce as the city does, starting off at +1 
and growing to well over 10. With extra trade routes in your cities, maintenance costs are significantly countered making expansion easier, plus the increase in maintenance costs as the city grows is countered by the growing trade routes. The best way to see the advantage of trade routes is to play an archipelago map with Hannibal and to build coastal cities only, the Great Lighthouse, and cothons in every city. Depending on the city size, and 
rate, you will be able to see your GPT increase by 1-5 for each one built.
It hardly matters on Chieftan, but on higher difficulties, playing either Hannibal, Willem or Jauo on pangea maps is giving yourself a great disadvantage.
- You should build your first city on the plains hill as it will produce your workboats / workers and settlers faster
- There is just as little chance of there being a resource on the starting tile as there is 1E.
- This isnt your fault, but a nit pick at using random civs and maps - Hannibal, one of my favorite leaders, on a Pangea map is just
, because of the UB. An extra trade route grows in commerce as the city does, starting off at +1 and growing to well over 10. With extra trade routes in your cities, maintenance costs are significantly countered making expansion easier, plus the increase in maintenance costs as the city grows is countered by the growing trade routes. The best way to see the advantage of trade routes is to play an archipelago map with Hannibal and to build coastal cities only, the Great Lighthouse, and cothons in every city. Depending on the city size, and rate, you will be able to see your GPT increase by 1-5 for each one built. It hardly matters on Chieftan, but on higher difficulties, playing either Hannibal, Willem or Jauo on pangea maps is giving yourself a great disadvantage.
Too bad you didn't get hunting as a starting tech. On chieftain I would even go scout first to get all the goodie huts with possibilities of popping techs and even settlers if I am not mistaken.
About settling in place or not. I would settle in place even though settling on the plains hill gives an extra hammer at start. There is a bigger chance that settling in place nets you some extra hills which you would want with this much food. And then there is also the chance of a hidden resource. But this is one hell of a start. Nice write up so far.
About the flanking you could mention that flanking II units now can damage siege engines which is incredibly usefull. Also flanking II gives 50% retreat chance, which means when you loose a fight with that unit it has 50% chance of surviving. Not bad at all.
About settling in place or not. I would settle in place even though settling on the plains hill gives an extra hammer at start. There is a bigger chance that settling in place nets you some extra hills which you would want with this much food. And then there is also the chance of a hidden resource. But this is one hell of a start. Nice write up so far.
About the flanking you could mention that flanking II units now can damage siege engines which is incredibly usefull. Also flanking II gives 50% retreat chance, which means when you loose a fight with that unit it has 50% chance of surviving. Not bad at all.
1E is obviously better than in place. If plains hill is copper - the better for us, we'll whip a ton of axemen almost immediately and rush 1-2 neighbours. They'll barely do any resistance or maintenance issues on chieftain.
I mean, with all this seafood and forests you don't really need early production - you can whip a lot.
EDIT: 1 see i was a bit self-contradictory, i'll explain.
my point is that you only need more production in the very beginning, when you build your first worker or WB (i think worker is even better here, to chop WB's out faster)
when you have at least 2 fishes improved, you no longer need hammers.
this and actually i hope that THERE IS copper on plains hill - to get axes faster and bash some heads.
I mean, with all this seafood and forests you don't really need early production - you can whip a lot.
EDIT: 1 see i was a bit self-contradictory, i'll explain.
my point is that you only need more production in the very beginning, when you build your first worker or WB (i think worker is even better here, to chop WB's out faster)
when you have at least 2 fishes improved, you no longer need hammers.
this and actually i hope that THERE IS copper on plains hill - to get axes faster and bash some heads.
MqsTout
Warlord
I tinkered with this save game last night. It's a slavemaster's dream. I never left slavery.
Jaaboo
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2008
- Messages
- 485
My advice is to not be stingy with the whip. Learning how and when to whip helped big time for me when I was still on Chieftain. Don't be afraid of slavery - I know the real person playing the game goes, "Oh hell no, I'm much better than that!" but in terms of the game its an important civic.
Hey all, first I want to apologize for being absent for a few days. I am leaving for the GDC in San Francisco tomorrow, and a big deadline for work came up that I had to scramble to finish the past couple of days before I leave.
So I think this thread has lost its focus quite a bit in getting too detailed (my fault too!
) so I am going to reign everything in here and make some thread assumptions and goals:
ASSUMPTIONS
- You have difficulty winning on Chieftain, Warlord or Noble difficulty
- You automate workers
- You don't manage tiles in the city, they just work whatever tiles the governor chooses
- You don't understand commerce & trade routes
- You frequently choose whatever the governor suggests your city builds
- You generally are afraid to declare war
- You don't know what an "axe rush" is, let alone how to do it
If you don't fit into at least one of the above assumptions, then the remainder of this thread will probably be boring for you. Feel free to stop by and check it out and help out if we need a tidbit of info or to double check my info accuracy, but honestly it's slightly disheartening when people say things like "beat it in 2 hours" and leave spoilers with how easy it was. If you are that good, do you need to be posting your awesomeness in a thread like this? The point of the thread is to help newbies who are struggling with the lower difficulties or who want to learn more, not serve as bragging rights for a ridiculously easy speed run of a difficulty 5 levels below your usual.
That being said, I'm also guilty of this thread becoming a discussion of things more complicated than what it was intended, so I apologize for that. Good KISS reality check for me. Ok, moving on to goals for this game:
GAME GOALS
- Conquer at least 1 rival civilization to learn how to run a basic war
- Do not automate any workers for the entirety of the game
- Learn how commerce & trade routes work and utilize them in our empire
- WIN!
With that, I will be playing the set of turns and post the summary in extreme detail tonight. Sorry to all the newbies out there for the thread hijacking into Micro 101 (which, as I said, I was guilty of too! ). We're back on track!
So I think this thread has lost its focus quite a bit in getting too detailed (my fault too!
) so I am going to reign everything in here and make some thread assumptions and goals:ASSUMPTIONS
- You have difficulty winning on Chieftain, Warlord or Noble difficulty
- You automate workers
- You don't manage tiles in the city, they just work whatever tiles the governor chooses
- You don't understand commerce & trade routes
- You frequently choose whatever the governor suggests your city builds
- You generally are afraid to declare war
- You don't know what an "axe rush" is, let alone how to do it
If you don't fit into at least one of the above assumptions, then the remainder of this thread will probably be boring for you. Feel free to stop by and check it out and help out if we need a tidbit of info or to double check my info accuracy, but honestly it's slightly disheartening when people say things like "beat it in 2 hours" and leave spoilers with how easy it was. If you are that good, do you need to be posting your awesomeness in a thread like this? The point of the thread is to help newbies who are struggling with the lower difficulties or who want to learn more, not serve as bragging rights for a ridiculously easy speed run of a difficulty 5 levels below your usual.
That being said, I'm also guilty of this thread becoming a discussion of things more complicated than what it was intended, so I apologize for that. Good KISS reality check for me. Ok, moving on to goals for this game:
GAME GOALS
- Conquer at least 1 rival civilization to learn how to run a basic war
- Do not automate any workers for the entirety of the game
- Learn how commerce & trade routes work and utilize them in our empire
- WIN!
With that, I will be playing the set of turns and post the summary in extreme detail tonight. Sorry to all the newbies out there for the thread hijacking into Micro 101 (which, as I said, I was guilty of too!
). We're back on track!MqsTout
Warlord
You sound snobbish
I'm a veteran of the whole franchise, including Civ4, and I never play higher than noble (sometimes I even drop down to Warlord for some games). I want no more challenge than it provides, and sometimes even then it's just not fun. Remember, for the vast majority of the game players in the world, difficulty does NOT create fun; rather, it detracts from it.
The mechanics of the game are very hard to wrap one's head around. A few games at Chieftain difficulty is good for that. This comes from someone who's currently in the process of teaching the game to a few of his friends who've never played any turn based strategy before, let alone Civ. I recommend you try it; you'll see their struggle and frustration.
Well come to Bay Area. The allergy has been killing me.
GAME GOALS
- Conquer at least 1 rival civilization to learn how to run a basic war
- Do not automate any workers for the entirety of the game
- Learn how commerce & trade routes work and utilize them in our empire
- WIN!
I'll try to answer the first question. Built 3 warriors before you start building anything else. And use 2 food 1 hammer tile to do the job. (yes, city micro) if your city grow to 2 in the process. changed to oasis and a 1f2h tiles to keep the warrior out fast enough. send your first warrior out and find your first neighbor, the use that warrior circle around the neighbor's border and scout. when all 4 warriors arrived, declare and heading to his capital, and use sheer number to kill him. This should work on your level. Try it out and report back.
capnvonbaron
Democratia gladii
In regards to the worker from a hut thing... I just got BtS and started my first chieftan epic game with Alex a few days ago just to get a feel for the changes from vanilla. Popped two settlers from huts and had three cities before 3000BC as well as several techs and bunches of gold. Needless to say the game was basically over at that point. The two cities I made with the settlers provided support and I wonder-spammed in Athens. I think I missed two whole wonders until the middle ages when I quite due to boredom. Hut popping can make a huge dif on chieftan.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
Hall of fame games typically see people run around with their starting units collecting workers/settlers everywhere en-masse'. On marathon even using the settler for this is a good idea ----> you'll probably get a worker or settler, and in less turns than you could possibly build one.
