Early game + Economy

[Encanto]

So I'm not grasping this concept completely. Whatever I am doing, I am doing it wrong. I'm having trouble with my early game development, and eventual economy setup. The computer is just flat out completely out-resourcing me, and most of the guys I play with can do the same.

So more or less what I need is information on building a proper economy for early game and to last throughout. Do I just build a trillion farms? Mines? Etc? What are the best places to build cities? Is it better not to be an expansionist? How should I deal with landscape and what should I look for, other than special tiles, when mapping out my empire?

Next to that: Mages? How do they work? I can build adepts and mana nodes, but I can't seem to get past that.

Would love as much information as possible.

 

[Jet]

Here are a few general early economy tips that apply to most civs. Not everyone will agree with these, exactly.
* research Mysticism very early and switch to Godking and Pacifism for a while. Start generating great people very early.
* build an Elder Council and a Market in every city.
* when you get around to it, research Code of Laws and switch to Aristocracy.

You can upgrade Adepts to Mages when they've been promoted to level 4 and you've researched Sorcery.

 

[DaveGold]

Farms are very important to get your capital to full size quickly and produce the first settler. The early civics are not optional; you'll need the right choices between agrarian, god king, city states, religion, nationalism, etc. Markets and elder councils can be essential if you don't have commercial resources. In the medium term you'll need to plan a traditional BTS style economy or use aristocracy, which provides commerce from farms.

 

[mcwill123]

What I'm saying is pretty obvious, but shouldn't be ignored. Build your cities where you can take advantage of the optimum number of resources. Research techs that allow you to utilize these resources as early and efficiently as possible. I normally research Mysticism pretty early, once I have the early techs that allow me to use most of the available resources. Mysticism unlocks some useful buildings and civics that allow your empire to grow.

 

[Encanto]

What about tile working? Do I want just farms? Less mines? Less workshops? Less cottages?

 

[Emptiness]

The answer to what you are asking is complicated and depends on variable factors such as what civ+leader you are playing and the terrain and resources in your starting area. It might be helpful to post screenshots of a few starting areas (along with the details of the game settings and your leader selection), and allow others to suggest settlement/improvement/research strategies for those specific situations. As it stands, without details, completely answering your question would require a great deal of explanation to describe how every possible variable could affect what you should do.

 

[Encanto]

I'm not looking for specific situations though. I'm sure every good player here has a strong idea going in that they're going to start their economy a certain way, and then it changes as they see the map. I'm trying to get the basics down. Example: Why is money so important? Why do I want to grow my city as fast as possible? etc

 

[DaveGold]

Settlers are more expensive in FFH than in BTS and you need more warriors in defence. This suggests getting a good sized capital before you settle a second city. Quick food boosts your city growth and settler production.

Don't skimp on workers, especially if you've got slow workers or slow terrain. Don't be afraid to change civics.

I'm sure every good player here has a strong idea going in that they're going to start their economy a certain way, and then it changes as they see the map. I'm trying to get the basics down.

The problem is that depending upon your map, starting techs, and race you need different basics. If you play the Decius with the Malakim you might want to get Mysticism and try to hatch a great prophet. If you play Decius with the Bannor you might want to get to eduction and lay cottages. If you play Decius with the Calabim you might want to plant farms and build markets. Your map could force you down another path anyway.

 

[Encanto]

I play on erebuscontinents, and I'm generally playing either Calabim or Falun, working up to Mercs.

 

[Pickly]

As Calabim: You'll probably want to get to Aristocracy quickly, as the technologies are on the path to Vampires anyway, plus farms will help with food for those vampires.


For Falun (I'm guessing this is the Lanun) get fishing quickly, and start on pirate coves.

 

[Encanto]

Lanun, yeah. Typo, my bad.

Anyway, I do both of those, but I get outpaced by the computer even on lower difficulties like it's nothing. I'm clearly doing something wrong, but I can't seem to find someone who can give me an accurate answer.

I went from Lanun to Calabim as a swap because as soon as I got to Basium, I'd be screwed because I had no understanding of resourcing on land.

When I played Lanun, I'd power out as many coves as possible and expand to 2-3 cities fast. I'd rush RoK along the way with resourcing, until I powered to Order, and would swap over once I had the 3 iron wonder. At that point, it was about creating a spot to bring out Basium while fanatacism is researched. On a good start as Lanun, I could set up a powerhouse economy using Falamer by expanding fast and just pumping out coves. Still though, it was a weak military strategy, and I would constantly hit end game with little way to win. I would never have the mana nodes for tower of mastery, and I could never get the great prophets out well enough to make the altar. At that point in the game, my military was far smaller than most peoples.

Still, with proper management I could handle computers up to Prince.

As Calabim, I'm clearly an under-achiever. I'm playing on warlord and I can't keep up resource wise with the computers. I build tons of farms, cottages, mines and lumber mills around all my cities, grab every special resource, but I can't seem to get my cities running fast enough, other than maybe my first two. I was using Aristocracy / Agrarianism. I was out-resourced and out-built, and it seemed the only thing I had any small advantage on was tech. I've tried this about 3-4 times now, and I'm always out-done.

 

[mcwill123]

As Calabim, I'm clearly an under-achiever. I'm playing on warlord and I can't keep up resource wise with the computers. I build tons of farms, cottages, mines and lumber mills around all my cities, grab every special resource, but I can't seem to get my cities running fast enough, other than maybe my first two. I was using Aristocracy / Agrarianism. I was out-resourced and out-built, and it seemed the only thing I had any small advantage on was tech. I've tried this about 3-4 times now, and I'm always out-done.

On warlord, that just sounds really wrong. How many workers do you have?

 

[Encanto]

A freaking ton. Like generally 3-5+ per city.

Also, I like going for an Altar victory, but it seems late game I can't pull great prophets to save my life. I can get the alter to 3-4, but then it's almost impossible to get another one to proc, even with pacifism on. Any suggestions?

 

[Doug Piranha]

As Calabim, I'm clearly an under-achiever. I'm playing on warlord and I can't keep up resource wise with the computers. I build tons of farms, cottages, mines and lumber mills around all my cities, grab every special resource, but I can't seem to get my cities running fast enough, other than maybe my first two. I was using Aristocracy / Agrarianism. I was out-resourced and out-built, and it seemed the only thing I had any small advantage on was tech. I've tried this about 3-4 times now, and I'm always out-done.

Are you building Governor's Manors in every city? You should be cranking those out as the first or second building in every city, then farm everywhere. That should take care of your production problems, and give you plenty of commerce. Don't try to build every building in every city; cities with low or average commerce should get a Governor's Manor and Command Post, then build vampires forever.

 

[mcwill123]

A freaking ton. Like generally 3-5+ per city.

Also, I like going for an Altar victory, but it seems late game I can't pull great prophets to save my life. I can get the alter to 3-4, but then it's almost impossible to get another one to proc, even with pacifism on. Any suggestions?

That's probably too many workers. Extra units can draw down your economy. Also the time spent pumping out all of those workers is time that your cities aren't growing. City size is important to be able to utilize all of your resources. I usually go about 1.5 workers per city. Pretty much all your workers need to do is have one more tile ready to use each time a cities population goes up.

 

[scutarii]

nevermind

 

[Emptiness]

I went from Lanun to Calabim as a swap because as soon as I got to Basium, I'd be screwed because I had no understanding of resourcing on land.

How you play the Lanun or Calabim will be different based on whether you are trying to win the game with that civ, or trying to win the game as the Mercurians after summoning them. Winning as the Mercurians has almost nothing to do with how you develop your tiles. They start allied with your former civ (and so research of your own is unnecessary) and get free Angels when units that follow Order, Empyrean, or Runes of Kilmorph die (and so production is unnecessary). All you have to do is encourage civs that follow one of those religions to get into wars, support your army, and conquer the world. Adopt God King (but switch to City States or Republic once your empire gets large), adopt Military State, build cottages everywhere you can.

As Calabim, I'm clearly an under-achiever. I'm playing on warlord and I can't keep up resource wise with the computers. I build tons of farms, cottages, mines and lumber mills around all my cities, grab every special resource, but I can't seem to get my cities running fast enough, other than maybe my first two. I was using Aristocracy / Agrarianism. I was out-resourced and out-built, and it seemed the only thing I had any small advantage on was tech. I've tried this about 3-4 times now, and I'm always out-done.

Aristocracy + Agrarianism is great, and all you need to do is farm everwhere (sometimes I will cottage plains tiles instead, so as not to lose the , but for the Calabim this is unnecessary as the Governor's Mannor ensures that your cities will have decent production output even without working any tiles that produce s) - but you need to get to Aristocracy first. It is easy to fall behind before you get there. Unless you have early access to many high- tiles you should get to Education quickly and build cottages to help you tech to Aristocracy, otherwise you'll be playing catch-up with your farm trying to compete with the AI's Villages and Towns.

The AI will always out-produce you. Beating the AI is not about producing more units than them, but rather about using the units you do produce in better ways. As the Calabim you have access to Vampires, which can Feast on your population to gain experience without the risk of combat. Rapid population growth in your cities (thanks to extensive farming + Granary/Smokehouse/Breeding Pit) will allow you to Feast more often, allowing your Vampires to gain experience quickly, making your Vampires much stronger than the units fielded by your opponents. Your army might be smaller than those of your opponents, but it will be much better. The ability of your Vampires to summon units can help make up for any shortfall (Spectre Fear can keep an attacking army at bay, as well as potentially splitting up an attacking stack into more manageable chunks).

Lumbermills are not very good. At higher difficulty levels, where can be a major limiting factor, they may be necessary, but whenever possible you should be chopping down forests (to speed production of necessary buildings, especially ones with a production bonus when possible) and replacing them with better improvements. If you must save some forests for reasons, make sure to save ones that are adjacent to (not diagonally) a river so that you get the one ; Lumbermills that are not adjacent to a river are truly abysmal. Frankly, I question the wisdom of even researching Archery until after you have Feudalism. Unless you are in a really bad situation you can probably defend just fine with Blood Pets and skipping Archery will get you to Vampires that much sooner.

Here are three 10-step strategy guides for the Calabim:
Doug Piranha's Calabim Tips
Ekolite's Calabim Tips
readercolin's Calabim Tips

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Also, I like going for an Altar victory, but it seems late game I can't pull great prophets to save my life. I can get the alter to 3-4, but then it's almost impossible to get another one to proc, even with pacifism on. Any suggestions?

Producing lots of Great Prophets is mostly a matter of using Priest specialists and avoiding the pollution of your pool in cities that are going to be producing Great People. Pick 1-3 cities that will be your producers, and maximize the number of Priest specialists they can assign (by constructing buildings that provide Priest slots). If you build wonders, then build wonders that offer a bonus toward a Great Prophet on your Great-Prophet-producing cities and build any wonders that offer other bonuses in cities other cities. Be sure to spread out non-Great Prophet wonders among your non-Great-Prophet-producing cities, so that no one city will be able to accumulate enough points to beat out your Great-Prophet-producing cities at some future time. In the later stages, when the time between Great People gets long, consider switching to Theocracy to allow even more Priest specialists to be employed, so as to reduce the production time. Finally, conserve your Great Prophets: if you know that you are going for an Altar victory don't build more than one religious shrine and don't settle your Great Prophets. If you end up with a Great Prophet but don't yet have the tech to build the next stage of the Altar, save the Great Prophet until you can.

 

[Encanto]

I don't usually pump out that many until I can get them out in really fast turns.

I'm still not quite sure why gold is so important. I recently tried rushing to one of the "produce by gold" civics, which turned out pretty good. Is this what I'm aiming for?

I've fiddled around with the Luchuirps a bit too, trying to get the best pre-merc game, but it was the same as the Calabim, I just couldn't put out a proper economy.

How do you handle the drain on your city by specialists? Each specialist I want to put removes a tile, which either cripples my production or puts me into starvation. Do I make a few food tiles and sack production completely? Do I sack food too?

Edit: I also have trouble pulling a unit to 15 to bust out Brigit. Still trying to accomplish that too.

 

[DaveGold]

I'm still not quite sure why gold is so important. I recently tried rushing to one of the "produce by gold" civics, which turned out pretty good. Is this what I'm aiming for?

In FFH you can often use a pool of money for upgrading experienced troops and purchasing mercenaries. Both can be very effective when used at the right times. Having a few hundred for trades and events can be useful too.

How do you handle the drain on your city by specialists? Each specialist I want to put removes a tile, which either cripples my production or puts me into starvation. Do I make a few food tiles and sack production completely? Do I sack food too?

One difference in Civ4 from Civ3 was the increased need to specialize cities. It's a good idea to continue this in FFH. Your national epic should be driven by food or wonders. Your heroic epic should produce units non-stop. Dedicate cities to border culture, settler/worker production, wonder building, religious income, great people, coastal trade, shipyards, or anything else you feel necessary.

 

[Emptiness]

I'm still not quite sure why gold is so important. I recently tried rushing to one of the "produce by gold" civics, which turned out pretty good. Is this what I'm aiming for?

Gold gold is far less important than commerce commerce. Make sure you are not confusing the two.

Gold is used primarily to upgrade units, but also in trades, and as you noted also for rushing production under certain civics. Gold rushing can be useful, and can make up for having low production output in your cities (such as when using an Aristograrian economy, and/or when you cottage hills rather than using mines), but generally you should not sacrifice research to get gold to rush buildings. As long as you have enough gold to upgrade your experienced units when you need to, you don't really need more gold. The other things you could accomplish with more gold can be achieved in other ways, and by not spending that gold you have effectively allowed yourself to spend that commerce on research instead.

How do you handle the drain on your city by specialists? Each specialist I want to put removes a tile, which either cripples my production or puts me into starvation. Do I make a few food tiles and sack production completely? Do I sack food too?

Unless your leader has the Philosophical trait (or you are playing the Sidar), you probably don't want to base your economy around specialists - at least not until you have a firm grasp on the non-specialist economy of the game. As you noted, assigning a specialist has an opportunity cost - you miss out on the benefit of that specialist working a tile. If the next available tile has an output lower than what the specialist can produce then it's a good deal (and probably also an indication that you are not developing your tiles). Otherwise, you should only assign a specialist if you have some compelling reason to do so - if you need a Great Prophet to build a holy shrine or if you need a Great Merchant to boost your income, to give two examples.

If you do choose to focus on specialists, then naturally you will need plenty of food output to support them. That means lots of farms, and likely mines in the hills for your production. Your city growth rate will also suffer, so seek out Sanitation (relatively) early so as to further increase the output of your farms. If you choose that sort of economy it is important to get the most you can out of your specialists, so make sure to use civics that boost your rate, when possible, and civics and wonders that increase the effectiveness of your specialists.

Edit: I also have trouble pulling a unit to 15 to bust out Brigit. Still trying to accomplish that too.

This is trivial with the Calabim - just have one Vampire continue feasting until it reaches level 15. For other civs it is easiest done with a hero: once your hero has earned all of the free xp it can, seek out an enemy civ (barbarian units only provide normal experience up to 100 xp, and so are worthless after your hero has gotten their free 100 xp) and continue to earn xp fighting their units. Be sure to send enough support to ensure that your hero is not overwhelmed. Two ways to accelerate experience accumulation are to join a Great Commander to the unit, and/or to cast Valor (Law III) on the unit. Each of those adds +1 to the experience earned in combat, and they are cumulative. Also, consider that if your leader has the Charismatic trait your unit will need fewer xp to reach level 15.