Condensed tips for beginners?

[h@@kon]

Hello all!

Short introduction: i'm a hobby civ-player. Not pro as a lot of you . I like playing peacefully, winning by space-race or diplomatic. THEN i started reading posts at this forum, and understand i have to try to change my playing a lot to get the most out of this game. Not that score counts, but mine's always shite. Nowadays, i play Noble. I win some, and loose some, all dependent on my start. I suck at later stages of the game. I love Marathon, and its a shock to me that i see its not considered as a fully functional game...Darn this forum But i love Marathon too much to change.

So, i have some noobish questions i hope someone can enlighten me with, and maybe i can step up to Prince.
Oh, and thank you Sisiutil for this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632
Really got some things cleared up!

My mission: not start micromanagment, but get closer to it by making specialized cities. I will for a start use cottage-economy.

1. I don't really understand the specializing part. Lets say that i have 5 cities, which i see one potential of being a production city. Does that mean that i should not build "not production things" in that city early on? (library, barracks, temple). Or should i still build everything that gives an advance if i have no other things to build?


2. Do i summarize correct when talking about specializing cities:
a) build the cities normally at start, but don't cottage production and science cities.
b) farm production cities at start (at farmtiles early on), but change to workshops later
c) farm science cities tiles


3. Great artist
(i'm playing the first in the Civ IV series):
Is it negative to mix great artist, example wonders who create great artist with a wonder that create great merchant. Should you try to keep only one kind of great artist in one city?

happy for any reply!

 

[Sian]

Hello all!

Short introduction: i'm a hobby civ-player. Not pro as a lot of you .

doubt you can find anyone thats professionel ... just some that like/can handle a bigger challange than others

I like playing peacefully, winning by space-race or diplomatic. THEN i started reading posts at this forum, and understand i have to try to change my playing a lot to get the most out of this game. Not that score counts, but mine's always shite. Nowadays, i play Noble. I win some, and loose some, all dependent on my start. I suck at later stages of the game. I love Marathon, and its a shock to me that i see its not considered as a fully functional game...Darn this forum But i love Marathon too much to change.

problem with Marathon is basicly that units are relatively cheap, and as such when playing an Warmonger game up to a whole difficulity level easier, most people believes that Epic or Normal is the most balanced

My mission: not start micromanagment, but get closer to it by making specialized cities. I will for a start use cottage-economy.

1. I don't really understand the specializing part. Lets say that i have 5 cities, which i see one potential of being a production city. Does that mean that i should not build "not production things" in that city early on? (library, barracks, temple). Or should i still build everything that gives an advance if i have no other things to build?

Theres always something to build ... A Production city should usually stand for the majority of the Military buildup for quite some time (ie. if in doubt, build troopers in Production cities)

2. Do i summarize correct when talking about specializing cities:
a) build the cities normally at start, but don't cottage production and science cities.
b) farm production cities at start (at farmtiles early on), but change to workshops later
c) farm science cities tiles

a: don't Cottage Production cities or Great Person cities (usually you're science% should be above 50%, so you get more out of your bucks from running Cottages there)

b: yes

c: no ... only cities to be farmed extended is Production cities (to a certain degree) and Great Person cities

3. Great artist
(i'm playing the first in the Civ IV series):
Is it negative to mix great artist, example wonders who create great artist with a wonder that create great merchant. Should you try to keep only one kind of great artist in one city?

happy for any reply!

kinda uncertain what you're fishing after in this one, but if its about "polluting" your GP cities, theres some differnt schools of thoughts on this one ... some say put as much GP producing in a single/two cities, and some say keep respective cities clean each city producing their specicic kind of GP ... polluting have the pro that you get faster and more flexible GPs, the Con is that you can pull unlucky numbers out of RNG and get "useless" GP's

 

[h@@kon]

wow, thats fast. Thanks.

doubt you can find anyone thats professionel ... just some that like/can handle a bigger challange than others

c: no ... only cities to be farmed extended is Production cities (to a certain degree) and Great Person cities

Hmmm...in the Sisutil faq it says: (under science-city heading):

"Use surplus food to support Science Specialists, who contribute 3 research points (commonly called
“beakers” or “flasks&#8221 each, rather than having citizens work unproductive tiles"

But it doesn't mean only farming (to get surplus food)? Does it mean a mix between farming and production tiles?

 

[phoinix]

wow, thats fast. Thanks.




Hmmm...in the Sisutil faq it says: (under science-city heading):

"Use surplus food to support Science Specialists, who contribute 3 research points (commonly called
“beakers” or “flasks&#8221 each, rather than having citizens work unproductive tiles"

But it doesn't mean only farming (to get surplus food)? Does it mean a mix between farming and production tiles?

It is better to have food resources to get that extra food, and replace working useless tiles such as water or production tiles (after all we are aiming for a science city, not a production city, which means either have many scientists or a lot of cottages and science multipliers) with scientists. Getting many scientists would however require either many science buildings or caste system. Of course scientists, other than beakers, also produce gpp, and a great scientist is always welcome. So you could consider getting some great people birth rate multiplier as well, either as leader trait (philosophical), civic (pacifism) or wonder (parthenon). I had a very educating game recently, where I learned first hand some stuff about micromanagement and a hybrid economy with Elizabeth. Micro management isn't as hard as it sounds. If you understand the mechanics and follow the advice of the members, it gets easier. Another thing to note is that NO civic is useless.

Bottom line: try new things in your games.

 

[Sian]

Another thing to note is that NO civic is useless.

Serfdom begs to differ

---

H@@kon : be aware that its first in midgame (if ever really) that there starts to be a big differnce between Commence and science ... primary things having a say weather or, is a Shrine, a GP farm which can be repurpused into a Moneycity when GP's not that hot anymore ('round the time where you get Rifles IMHO) and weather you're going to take a stab at Cooperations or State Proverty

 

[Hyperion96]

c: no ... only cities to be farmed extended is Production cities (to a certain degree) and Great Person cities

Extensive farming in the science city could be linked to a SE (specialist economy) where most of the science comes from science specialists

 

[Takagi Hiro]

Just a random tip, as this has happened to me on a few occasions. I play on Noble difficulty by the way.

Anyway, if you are lacking militarily, do not open up your borders, especially to aggressive AI. They will use this chance to see how strong your military is, and suffice to say, you WILL be attacked if they're stronger than you. And to give an example...

I was playing as Qin Shi Huang, and I decided to be a pacifist. No fighting for me. So I put one axeman in every city, just to keep the people happy. All was going well. Had great scientists coming out of my science city about every 5-10 turns. As I had founded Taoism, and had the Apostolic Palace built, I figured it was time to spread my religion to my next door neighbor, Pacal II. Signed the open borders agreement, and all was good. Until our peace treaty ended, that is. Here comes the chariots, catapults, and axemen, and I'm caught with my pants down. I'll let you use your imagination to figure out how that went.

The AI is smarter than in other games, that's for sure.

 

[Sisiutil]

The AI knows your military strength thanks to espionage points, regardless of whether you have open borders or not. If you only had 1 Axeman per city, you were looking very weak to the AI indeed.

 

[kcd_swede]

Serfdom begs to differ

---

H@@kon : be aware that its first in midgame (if ever really) that there starts to be a big differnce between Commence and science ... primary things having a say weather or, is a Shrine, a GP farm which can be repurpused into a Moneycity when GP's not that hot anymore ('round the time where you get Rifles IMHO) and weather you're going to take a stab at Cooperations or State Proverty

Serfdom is useful in advanced era starts where you have multiple cities that start at size 2 or size 4 (Renessaince start and Modern start respectively), and those cities have lots of infrastructure in-built (graneries, courthouses forges etc), and you start with several workers. In this situation, getting the tiles developed quickly is a key advantage. Just don't stay in it very long after you have developed your best tiles.

I can't envision other situations it should be considered, though.

 

[h@@kon]

Thanks for all your answers. Tried one game with new approach, did end up with a larger scientist city than ever before, and was better in the game considered how few cities i had. (went for pyramid early, but that destroyed my game methinks...Only had 3 cities in 500 AD).

Going for a new marathon, no archipilago this time. Some new questions arose...:

1. Should i always strive for a city 21 population?

2. I find it hard to get enough food in production cities to get them to grow. Do i have to manually micromanage in between production to let them grow? (change from hammer tiles to food tiles).

3. What do you consider a good produciton city (how many hammers)? (maybe stupid question because of other elements).

4. Same question with science. How many science points is a "good" science city? (the reason for this question is that i am very good at the beginning of games, but tend to loose to the AI in the latter years (1750 AD and out). It seems they manage to research better.

5. If i work a village to Town, will i still get that income if i change the working to another tile?

 

[Silu]

Thanks for all your answers. Tried one game with new approach, did end up with a larger scientist city than ever before, and was better in the game considered how few cities i had. (went for pyramid early, but that destroyed my game methinks...Only had 3 cities in 500 AD).

Congraz, you found one of the biggest newbie traps in this game, the Pyramids-with-the-cost-of-expansion trap Present in players of almost all difficulties (Yeah, I was one of those for a long time). Pyramids without Stone is a big gambit and without Stone or IND it's usually pure madness.

1. Should i always strive for a city 21 population?

Not at all. The way the happy and health caps work, plus the fact that the city tile is "free food", the game strongly encourages to make more smaller cities than few big ones. Consider overlapping food resources if you only have few (having them in 2 city areas so you can change whichever is using it for growing).

2. I find it hard to get enough food in production cities to get them to grow. Do i have to manually micromanage in between production to let them grow? (change from hammer tiles to food tiles).

Yes, from time to time you probably should micromanage to grow them as big as they can and then change to stagnate -time

3. What do you consider a good produciton city (how many hammers)? (maybe stupid question because of other elements).

Early game, something like 12 base hammers is good. 10+ is decent. Hard to get these early on if food is scarce sometimes. Later stuff like windmills, watermills, workshops, levees and the like can make a decent production city almost anywhere.

4. Same question with science. How many science points is a "good" science city? (the reason for this question is that i am very good at the beginning of games, but tend to loose to the AI in the latter years (1750 AD and out). It seems they manage to research better.

This varies a lot with the available land, current era and how much you specialize. Generally you shouldn't worry much about the absolute values, rather that you're taking all the research you can. "Good cities" can produce anywhere between 20 and 2000 per turn

5. If i work a village to Town, will i still get that income if i change the working to another tile?

You always need to work it to get the income. You can change it to be worked in another city if you wish (if there's overlap) and not working it doesn't "decay" it back to a Village.

 

[bestsss]

The AI knows your military strength thanks to espionage points, regardless of whether you have open borders or not. If you only had 1 Axeman per city, you were looking very weak to the AI indeed.

The AIs don't need the espionage to know your military strength. The AIs use it totally free of charge.

 

[asdad]

I havent played in a long time, so I picked a random leader at a lower difficulty and ended up in a bizarre situation.
Usually the early part of the game involves lots of whipping and keeping your cities at the happy-cap. However, I ended up with relatively few food resources and very high happy/health caps due to the difficulty, leader bonuses and resources. Does it still make sense to keep the cities at 4-5, where the food/hammer ratio is best or is it better to grow the cities to max sizes (outgrowing AI by several pop points)?

 

[adrianj]

I havent played in a long time, so I picked a random leader at a lower difficulty and ended up in a bizarre situation.
Usually the early part of the game involves lots of whipping and keeping your cities at the happy-cap. However, I ended up with relatively few food resources and very high happy/health caps due to the difficulty, leader bonuses and resources. Does it still make sense to keep the cities at 4-5, where the food/hammer ratio is best or is it better to grow the cities to max sizes (outgrowing AI by several pop points)?

You sometimes hear players talk about Horizontal vs Vertical expansion.

In the early part of the game you'll generally expand horizontally - that is more cities that are small, either settled by yourself or claimed from the AI through war. Size 4-5 cities are quite common here - in my games they often yoyo between sizes 2 to 4 with a 2-pop whip whenever possible.

The game then moves into a vertical expansion phase where you start to grow these cities in population provided there is food available. The key tech for this is Monarchy and the Hereditary Rule civic and some reasonably cheap units like archers (or warriors if you haven't learned hunting or do not have copper or iron) (lets not confuse things with a Pyramids/Representation game...)

To answer your question - no I don't think it makes sense to keep cities at size 4-5 for most of the game.

Food is the key for any city. Unless you *really* need a specific resource, I'd recommend to never settle a city that doesn't have a food resource or at least floodplains in its workable area.

 

[PriestofSyrinx]

This is how I play my way to a good economy by 0ad

Use only when your capital is on the ocean coast!

1. Your first unit should be a workboat (if seafood is near by) if you're on the ocean/coast/ lake. This is so you can get a good growth to start with.
2. Research mysticism to build stonehenge! (Culture & Great prophet)
3. Research what ever you see fit to your surroundings (I usually research Sailing then masonry then some of the agro/industry techs)
4. When you have found your second city (perferably on the coast) build the Great Lighthouse in that city when you have about 2 or 3 pop. (depends on your surroundings)
5. After you have researched Bronze working, do all of the religon techs up until monotheism.
6. during this tenture, you will have produced a Great Prophet in your capitol. DO NOT USE HIM YET! Wait till you see Theology become avaliable for research. Then use your Great Prophet to find Jesus!! ( I once got Christianity in 1100bc) XD
7. Hopefully the city the great light house was in got the Holy City, so now build units/buildings to your liking in this city.
8. Unless you will get the next great prophet soon (ie 20 turns or less) DO NOT BUILD ANY OTHER WONDER EXCEPT "Moai Statues and Apostolic Palace) IN YOUR CAPITAL!. I had a 95% chance of great prophet, and I got (an early game worthless GP) Artist :/

Once your next prophet is found, build the church of the nativity and pow! You can now make a profit at 100% research! (Depending on your location/number of neighbors/if those neighbors have religions already)

Future tips: If you like long games/you like playing on continents/Peaceplayer, watch out for the national wonders you build in your holy city. This is so you can build your Wall Street there (More Christian Gold!) Also, make sure you also find Islam first, so you can build the Spiral Minaret int that city as well!

Also: Elizabeth is the prefect way to do this method! But its a great way no matter who you choose.

 

[Sian]

one-trick pony ... try to learn other ways instead of only running a (honestly) highly suboptimal because it happens to work at the level you are (... i guess ... Noble?)

 

[Cowabunga]

Thanks Sisiutil.. Another quick question--- is there a counter or away to attack the fighters protecting a city?? I like using the s. bombers for cities not on the coast but have not found away to attack the pesky fighters.

One way that I have successfully attacked fighters protecting a city is to attack either the city (cultural bombardment) or the units with jet fighters. The jet fighters are almost never lost, they shoot down enemy propeller fighters alot, and worst case just attack the top unit or the city.

 

[beest]

I always end up in a situation were I've just eliminated my neighbour, maybe crippled a second one, blocked of a huge piece of land for myself, I have about 3-5 cities....but many more need to be build, but then the problems start. I'm lacking in tech massively, economy stalling. No way I can build new cities in that situation. I then start running scientist everywhere, buld some techs, running some cottages, if I wasn't already, but generally I stay behind in tech. Sometimes I trade some techs, but generally AIs don't trade tech and if you're behind there's nothing to trade anyway. Sometimes it recovers if cottages mature, but often not. So.....what is going wrong here?

 

[adrianj]

I always end up in a situation were I've just eliminated my neighbour, maybe crippled a second one, blocked of a huge piece of land for myself, I have about 3-5 cities....but many more need to be build, but then the problems start. I'm lacking in tech massively, economy stalling. No way I can build new cities in that situation. I then start running scientist everywhere, buld some techs, running some cottages, if I wasn't already, but generally I stay behind in tech. Sometimes I trade some techs, but generally AIs don't trade tech and if you're behind there's nothing to trade anyway. Sometimes it recovers if cottages mature, but often not. So.....what is going wrong here?

I guess the trick is to not be too greedy. If the AI city you're taking is no good, raze it. Often this might be every city except the capital - and if it is particularly far away even a capital could be razed. You can always settle it yourself there later. This applies more to an early rush strategy where you've gone to war without having researched pottery or writing.

If you do have Pottery, then perhaps take more time to develop a commerce city. This city enjoys the benefits of not being whipped too often and actually has as high a population as your happy cap allows, all working good commerce tiles. It doesn't fit so well with a rush though, where chances are you'll want every city devoted to whipping out units.

Further on in the game, never underestimate the power of Alphabet and Currency simply for building Research or Wealth (particularly BtS, where it is more powerful than Vanilla/Warlords). An outlying city building wealth can at least pay for itself - so while it may not be developing infrastructure, it is likely still growing and blocking off land to be settled later.

 

[donnyz89]

whats a good guide for figuing out the how many farms I should build on a particular city site? I feel like a lot of times I build too many and my city grow too fast. and how fast should I let my city grow?

and how to manage cities with a balance of hammer/coin/food? should I specialize or just do everything?