Condensed tips for beginners?

[henrebotha]

I am playing a lower level and it is very easy. I am ready to move up a couple of levels.

However, I have a question for as the game progresses in terms of how to use or what to build in my cities. When you run out of buildings, is it just units that you build even though you are pursuit a peaceful victory? I found myself building military units in my commerce cities because I didn't know what else to build.

Also, in terms of techs to research, is there a rule of thumb or a strategy in terms of what I should be researching? I have to admit that most of the time, I go with the recommended options. Is it simply based on what victory I am going for? If I am going for conquest, then military techs are a priority but I should neglect economic ones right? If so, what is the property mix? I'm thinking this will come with experience, but I thought I'd ask.

When you run out of buildings, you can build units, or you can build . I often go for the latter, partly because my commerce cities usually don't have Barracks.

In terms of research... Yeah, it's difficult to explain in a sentence. But don't automatically go for the recommended options. Look at your empire, decide what you need, then go look at the tech tree and see what is the most effective way to get there. For instance, if you are warring early, you will most likely need Currency so that the extra trade routes and the -building can rescue your economy when it crashes; so you can look at the tech tree and see you will need to tech Mathematics to get there.

But you should DEFINITELY NEVER EVER neglect economic techs. EVER. Your economy is the foundation of everything, including war.

 

[yanner39]

When you run out of buildings, you can build units, or you can build . I often go for the latter, partly because my commerce cities usually don't have Barracks.

And then use the gold to purchase units when using the Universal Suffrage civic. That makes sense. Actually I did look at this in the build menu.

In terms of research... Yeah, it's difficult to explain in a sentence. But don't automatically go for the recommended options. Look at your empire, decide what you need, then go look at the tech tree and see what is the most effective way to get there. For instance, if you are warring early, you will most likely need Currency so that the extra trade routes and the -building can rescue your economy when it crashes; so you can look at the tech tree and see you will need to tech Mathematics to get there.

Yes, that is one of the things I have trouble with. Assessing where the empire is at and figuring out what the best course is.

In terms of the economy crashing, can you give an example of what would happen? I mean, I warred and eliminated Ghandi and didn't really see any problems with my economy. It wasn't really a very long war, but if I am not using Universal Suffrage, what could cause my economy to crash? More unhappies who refuse to work?

But you should DEFINITELY NEVER EVER neglect economic techs. EVER. Your economy is the foundation of everything, including war.[/QUOTE]

Thanks again.

 

[henrebotha]

The other use for building is to enable you to push the slider up. It's a more effective way of converting unwanted to than building directly.

By a crashed economy, I mean that the combined weight of your military upkeep, military supply, city upkeep, and civic upkeep causes you to bleed cash at 0% .

 

[yanner39]

The other use for building is to enable you to push the slider up. It's a more effective way of converting unwanted to than building directly.

By a crashed economy, I mean that the combined weight of your military upkeep, military supply, city upkeep, and civic upkeep causes you to bleed cash at 0% .

Gotcha. So essentially, building is done regardless where you place the slider. You could place your slider at 100% and still fill your treasury.

 

[henrebotha]

Sorry for the brief post, I was cut off by the wife. Yes. Anything that gives you is done after the slider, before modifiers (like +50% from Bank). The same goes for . is the only thing that goes into the slider.

What difficulty level are you playing on? I've never experienced economic crash below Noble, and only rarely at that level; but at Prince it will cripple you after your first war if you don't prepare for it.

Also, I've had one or two Noble games where I've had my slider at 100% while still in the black - without building .

 

[yanner39]

Sorry for the brief post, I was cut off by the wife. Yes. Anything that gives you is done after the slider, before modifiers (like +50% from Bank). The same goes for . is the only thing that goes into the slider.

What difficulty level are you playing on? I've never experienced economic crash below Noble, and only rarely at that level; but at Prince it will cripple you after your first war if you don't prepare for it.

Also, I've had one or two Noble games where I've had my slider at 100% while still in the black - without building .

Your answer was fine. I'm playing Settler level. I could played a couple of levels higher, even noble but I just haven't grasp the warring portion of the game. I build my stacks, but I can't get them to attack together for some reason. I select move all units on square together, but I end up attacking one unit at a time.

I select all units, move them to the square next to the target square (usually the city), and then I select all units again, and attack.

 

[Ghpstage]

@Yanner
You need to enable 'stack attack' in the options

 

[yanner39]

Why is this an option? Just curious. Is there an advantage to enabling this? Or disadvantage? I assumed it would be easier. You send in you stack to take a city, or vice versa, and the computer would select the proper defender.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Why is this an option? Just curious. Is there an advantage to enabling this? Or disadvantage? I assumed it would be easier. You send in you stack to take a city, or vice versa, and the computer would select the proper defender.

When he say's options, he doesn't mean the options at game startup but the options in the Options menu. Stack attack doesn't change anything about the core-gameplay. All it does is automate something else (the choice of what attackers to use in what order).

 

[henrebotha]

Why is this an option? Just curious. Is there an advantage to enabling this? Or disadvantage? I assumed it would be easier. You send in you stack to take a city, or vice versa, and the computer would select the proper defender.

There is a massive disadvantage. The AI's logic is vastly inferior to a human mind in determining which unit is the right one to attack with.

For instance, when you are taking a city post-Construction (and you don't have an army of Cho-Ko-Nu), you actually want to attack with your siege units first, despite the fact that they have a 90%-ish chance of death, so that they can deal collateral damage and weaken the defenders enough for your city raiders to take the city essentially unopposed. The computer won't see it this way, and he'll attack with your city raiders first, thereby causing you far greater losses than if you were to deliberately suicide your siege.

If you're playing at Settler level, you don't really need any kind of strategy, and pretty much any help that you're given on this forum will not apply to your situation.

 

[yanner39]

There is a massive disadvantage. The AI's logic is vastly inferior to a human mind in determining which unit is the right one to attack with.

For instance, when you are taking a city post-Construction (and you don't have an army of Cho-Ko-Nu), you actually want to attack with your siege units first, despite the fact that they have a 90%-ish chance of death, so that they can deal collateral damage and weaken the defenders enough for your city raiders to take the city essentially unopposed. The computer won't see it this way, and he'll attack with your city raiders first, thereby causing you far greater losses than if you were to deliberately suicide your siege.

If you're playing at Settler level, you don't really need any kind of strategy, and pretty much any help that you're given on this forum will not apply to your situation.

Yeah, Settler is extremely easy. Actually, I started a new game on Noble. I was playing on Settler to try and figure out mostly the combat and the war. I was reading up on a couple of strategies using stacks yet I wasn't getting the fact that my stack wasn't attacking and I had to manually use each unit.

It's funny because what you described about using the sieges first is what I would do (in the absence of a Stack Attack).

I am trying to figure out what the best way is to war. In the past, I've always played peace games. ie, do I prepare all my stacks first, then attack different cities at once. I know I got caught a couple of times where I didn't bring enough units, and then I was forced to produce more quickly to replenish the stack.

 

[Ghpstage]

There is a massive disadvantage. The AI's logic is vastly inferior to a human mind in determining which unit is the right one to attack with.

For instance, when you are taking a city post-Construction (and you don't have an army of Cho-Ko-Nu), you actually want to attack with your siege units first, despite the fact that they have a 90%-ish chance of death, so that they can deal collateral damage and weaken the defenders enough for your city raiders to take the city essentially unopposed. The computer won't see it this way, and he'll attack with your city raiders first, thereby causing you far greater losses than if you were to deliberately suicide your siege.

If you're playing at Settler level, you don't really need any kind of strategy, and pretty much any help that you're given on this forum will not apply to your situation.

Does it actually do that on Vanilla? On BTS for certain, it sends siege units in first.
You can always send in your siege as a group then follow up with your axes/swords easily, you do need to watch out for promotions though, highly promoted units are often best to send in once the odds go up.
All the option really does is reduce the insane amunt of cliking you would need to do otherwise.

I am trying to figure out what the best way is to war. In the past, I've always played peace games. ie, do I prepare all my stacks first, then attack different cities at once. I know I got caught a couple of times where I didn't bring enough units, and then I was forced to produce more quickly to replenish the stack.

Like most things it 'depends' but, as the AI usually has 1 stack itself using a songle stack to wipe it out early on in a war is effective. Have lots of siege at the start of any planned attack and leep building new units as you go, eventually you'll get used to the numbers if you keep warring a lot.

If you drastically outgun them in tech or strength then multiple stacks to take multiple cities for a fast war becomes preferable, for larger foes a single stack can keep momentum going much more easily.

 

[henrebotha]

Does it actually do that on Vanilla? On BTS for certain, it sends siege units in first.
You can always send in your siege as a group then follow up with your axes/swords easily, you do need to watch out for promotions though, highly promoted units are often best to send in once the odds go up.
All the option really does is reduce the insane amunt of cliking you would need to do otherwise.

I have to say, I prefer the insane amount of clicking, because it lets me think and readjust my strategy in between battles if a particular combat does not work out in my favour.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Vanilla AI does not have the sense to send in siege first. And either way, I choose how much siege to sacrifice based on enemy hp totals. I will definitely not send in another Catapult if the enemy Longbows are all at 50% health; but the computer won't know not to do that.

 

[LordValuna]

Say you have 2 items in the queue to build in a city
the item currently being worked on is the pyramids, it has been worked on for 2 turns and needs say 100 turns to finish
the second item in the queue is a worker, it needs only 1 more turn to complete.

Question: is there a way to move the worker to the top of the queue so it will finish
and move PYR to second position in queue so we dont lose that production.

I just switched to PYR and took the loss as I needed the worker for chopping but I was wondering for future use if it was possible?

 

[henrebotha]

If you're playing on a PC, you can Ctrl+click an item to bump it in at the top of the queue, similarly to how you can Shift+click an item to insert it at the bottom of the queue. So in your example, you could Ctrl+click a Worker to insert it above the Pyramids, then click the second Worker in the queue to remove him. (And yes, your invested hammers are carried over to the top unit - you'll see that the moment you insert a Worker at the top, that Worker will now say 1 turn to completion, and the one at the bottom will now indicate the normal amount of turns to build it from start to finish.)

 

[yanner39]

I have to say, I prefer the insane amount of clicking, because it lets me think and readjust my strategy in between battles if a particular combat does not work out in my favour.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Vanilla AI does not have the sense to send in siege first. And either way, I choose how much siege to sacrifice based on enemy hp totals. I will definitely not send in another Catapult if the enemy Longbows are all at 50% health; but the computer won't know not to do that.

Meaning that the longbows are weaken enough that your city raiders should be able to finish the job? NO sense wasting another catapult, right?

Good advice from you both.

 

[LordValuna]

If you're playing on a PC, you can Ctrl+click an item to bump it in at the top of the queue, similarly to how you can Shift+click an item to insert it at the bottom of the queue. So in your example, you could Ctrl+click a Worker to insert it above the Pyramids, then click the second Worker in the queue to remove him. (And yes, your invested hammers are carried over to the top unit - you'll see that the moment you insert a Worker at the top, that Worker will now say 1 turn to completion, and the one at the bottom will now indicate the normal amount of turns to build it from start to finish.)

thanks I figured out what I was doing wrong. I was clicking on the production queue when I should have be clicking (cntrl) on the build worker icon.

thanx

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I am playing a lower level and it is very easy. I am ready to move up a couple of levels.

However, I have a question for as the game progresses in terms of how to use or what to build in my cities. When you run out of buildings, is it just units that you build even though you are pursuit a peaceful victory? I found myself building military units in my commerce cities because I didn't know what else to build.

Also, in terms of techs to research, is there a rule of thumb or a strategy in terms of what I should be researching? I have to admit that most of the time, I go with the recommended options. Is it simply based on what victory I am going for? If I am going for conquest, then military techs are a priority but I should neglect economic ones right? If so, what is the property mix? I'm thinking this will come with experience, but I thought I'd ask.

Most of the time, constantly building new units is quite a good idea. If you feel you have too many units, just delete some of the old, obsolete ones, such as unpromoted warriors and the like. Not all units deserve to get upgraded, unless you are desperately short of troops or need some modern ones in a hurry. An example is if you can see that someone is going to attack one of your cities and you don't have enough modern units in it. If you have a bit of money laid by (always a good idea in BtS), upgrade as many as you can of the obsolete units in that city, regardless of whether they have promotions or not. They'll earn their keep when the attack wave hits the city.

As the game proceeds, you can set citites to generate money, culture or science instead of building things. Always remember that if a city of yours is losing territory against a competitor, you should run a culuture expert or two and also perhaps let it generate culture until it has established/regained its ground.

 

[LordValuna]

deleted moved to other more appropriate thread, may delete, please

 

[yanner39]

Can someone please explain...

I amass my army near the enemy's capital, then I decide to declare way, it boots my stack out of the cultural boundaries, back in my own territory. What happened? I guess there are no sneak attacks allowed?