Civ 4 (original) Beginning to dominate Warlord, time to level up?

[Calvin Beck]

Processing…processing…processing……….

 

[War Master in Training]

Yeah it's a bit. Thing to keep in mind is that is only as useful as the stuff it makes

 

[soundjata]

City specialization is not a good concept to learn empire development.

Food is king indeed:
You want to incorporate as many specials as you can, as fast as possible, in order to increase the power of your empire (citizens )

You also want to be able to control the game strategically, by having cutting edge technologies.
comes from which is the reason why you want to plant a few cottages on the way.
(I like the rule of thumb from @bigbamboo : 2 cottages/city is a reasonable goal when looking at early war games)

is a "residual" resource that does not matter until you have a decisive weapon to build. (examples: an archer to defend the city, a cuirassier to some nearby civ, a united nations to govern the world, etc...)

From there on, every city pretty much develops the same way: > >

Only mature cities deserve some special buildings that will give a good return on investment.
- Example one: a library in the capitol because it has lots of commerce
- Example two: a national epic in some city that has lots of food.

This does not mean that the capitol is condemned to producing science only, or that the national epic city has to prioritize great people production all the time.

City specialization belongs to the realm of anecdotal tactics and should not be much of a concern when leveling up in this game

 

[mycophobia]

Optimal strategy it may not be, but city specialization is very much a core design tenet of the game, far from being mere "anecdotal tactics"...plus it's fun!

 

[War Master in Training]

Good to know that I should continue to prioritize learning other strategies than advanced specialization and that my city development is getting closer to optimal.

 

[sampsa]

My 5 cents: forget city specialization, consider empire specialization. What I mean is that most of the time instead of one city doing A, another city doing B for the entirety of the game, cities should all first reach goal A (for example reach military tech x) then reach goal B (for example produce so many troops that you win). Cities can have slightly different roles, but the specialization is not static.

For example a city can be suitable to work a lot of cottages, but later the pop can be used to whip units. Or a city with weak cottage potential can work and and build wonders, wealth or failgold. In the 2nd phase it can use those to produce units or whip, depending which one is better.

 

[mycophobia]

I don't think the term specialization necessarily implies such inflexibility that you'd have a city fulfill the exact same role the entire game, I've bulldozed cottages in favor of SP boosted workshops in many a game for a really blunt and simple example. But unlike sampsa and other posters here I wouldn't have a snowball's chance at Deity at my current skill level so I'm admittedly a bit out of my depth here...

 

[Calvin Beck]

I really appreciate all of the feedback. I'm trying my best to incorporate all of your suggestions in my gameplay. I'm going to try noble for my next game, still with vanilla. I'm not a noob, but I can see now that I've been playing like one for a long time. I wish I'd joined here sooner. Learning a lot. Thanks.

 

[Calvin Beck]

BTW, mycophobia, I couldn't get your growth popup to work. You said "in a new or existing mod..." Does this mean I have to select "load a mod" in the game menu for it to work?

 

[mycophobia]

BTW, mycophobia, I couldn't get your growth popup to work. You said "in a new or existing mod..." Does this mean I have to select "load a mod" in the game menu for it to work?

No, that was before I found out about the CustomAssets folder, you can ignore whatever I'm saying about mods in that post. You should be able to just take:

[folder where Civ IV is installed] > Assets > Python > Entrypoints > CvScreensInterface.py
[folder where Civ IV is installed] > Assets > Python > CvEventManager.py

and copy them into:

[your Documents folder] > My Games > Civ4 > CustomAssets > Python > Entrypoints > CvScreensInterface.py
[your Documents folder] > My Games > Civ4 > CustomAssets > Python > CvEventManager.py

And then make the changes specified in the post to the files you copied. If you've done that and it's not working, is it giving an error message or anything?