Extremely frustrated...

[Darkhrse]

I've subscribed to this thread coz I'm curious to know how you're doing. Do give an update on your foray into the Warlord level.

Incidentally, I've just begun a Play By E-mail (PBEM) game you might be interested in. I suspect we're all going to be newbies in that game. Do give it a try and we can have some nice clean fun. The best way to play Civ IV (or any other game with multiplayer option, as you well know) is to play with humans instead of AI.

Here's the link.

 

[gdgrimm]

About the diplomatic victory.. that's how things were, basically. Washington was being a jerk, and pretty much hated me. The Mongols and the Japanese were both pleased with me. I had Free religion, gave them gifts, etc. But they always abstained.

Did you check to see what the Mongols and Japanese thought of Washington?

Winning an election is partly about getting people to like you, but it's equally as important to get those people to dislike the other guy who will be running.

In your particular game, you probably could have gotten the Khan over. Washington tends to be well liked, but you probably could have gotten Khan to go to war with Wash., thus souring that relationship.

Sometimes making sure that civ's have religious differences can help, but Washington doesn't worry too much that. If the tables had been turned, though (i.e. you were Washington, and your primary diplomatic opponent was Isabella) getting the Mongols and Japanese to convert to a religion other than Isa's would have been a sure fire way to make her hate them, and vice versa.

 

[Sullla]

I'd just read a bunch of the RCB1 game stuff from Sirian / Sulla, so I wanted to try the whole hydra thing. Obviously on Chieftain it's far easier to do, but since I'm a newbie and Sulla / Sirian seem to be Civ gods, I thought it was okay.

Civ gods? Clowns would probably be more accurate!

Good luck Dieters, congratulations on your success. You'll keep moving up in difficulty with more practice!

 

[limaike]

You mentioned getting hemmed in early- you got to go for a land grab- hem your neighbours in first, establish a continuous cultural area that you can expand behind at your leisure, when you can afford it (NB never open borders till you've filled in your bagsed land). But be sure to grab horses and copper as well.

Put cities down really close to your neighbours if you must- the point is to put pressure on them early, but be sure to stack those cities with defense, and also crank culture in these cities.

Research hunting early, if you start with hunting tech then produce a scout before you produce your first defense. You have to know where your neighbours are and what the land looks like- then cut them off asap. If there are no convenient bottle necks to block, make sure you carve out a large slab anyway.

Also, send scouts out with settlers to protect against animals and to keep their 2 move. Speed is vital in the early game.

That's all i can think of for making the land grab- anyone else?

 

[Sisiutil]

More on the land grabbing: you may want to found a city on what's may constitute a less-than desireable location because it will allow you to control a "choke point"--a narrow archipeligo connecting two larger land masses, for example, or a pass through a wide mountain range. Combine that with no Open Borders agreements, and you can very effectively cut off a rival civ, giving you time to backfill the rest of the territory.

An advantage of the archipeligo choke-point city is that it frequently doubles as a "canal", allowing naval units to go through it and avoid having to circumnavigate the rest of the continent. Just make sure to bulk up the defenses (units, improvements) of that choke point city.

By the same token, in a wide-open area, I've noticed that the AI civ prefers to found cities near as many special resources as possible, which (usually) makes sense. The more of these you squat upon with your own cities, the less ideal location the AI will likely settle for (heh, pun intended) when building its cities. As with Wonders, even if you're not particularly keen on the resource in question, it may be worthwhile to grab it just to deny it to the AI.

The inverse is also true: you can often dupe the AI into founding its cities on crappy tiles (desert, tundra) if there are plenty of mediocre resources nearby.