First 25 Turns? Please Explain or put me out of my misery.

[JDmac]

Sorry first off for not posting this in the newbie forum, but it's really more of an opinion question for experienced players. I skipped from king to deity and got my a$$ handed to me right quick. Now that's to be expected since I am new at Civ, though I've played loads of TBS/RTS games over the years.

Am i missing something?

I've played enough of the game so far as to have a concept of the importance of resource managment and tech climbing, but for some reason the other civs in deity (and online) seem to show up on my doorstep 20-25 turns in with armies I couldn't build if all I did was build armies from turn one. Plus it seems that thier finishing wonders and mid level techs at the same time.

Once I'm set up I can run a game just fine, but it feels like I'm missing something in the beginning. So long story short;

What do you feel is the most efficient way to spend your first 25 turns?

I would prefer general strategy, but civ specific would be great too.

and please remember; I know I'm a noob.

 

[vapaach]

Well,i`d suggest first to Capture the nearest or weakest Civ`s capital and destroy the civilization. At Deity it is almost impossible to win without destroying atleast 1 civ. And remember, sometimes warriors are good enough even against archers.


Then when you have done that, you have atleast two cities and atleast two capitals. Now you can:

- build a huge army and capture more cities for domination victory

- switch to democracy and start getting ahead in tech for technological victory

- build a lot of cities for increased tech,culture and gold for more production, tech, money and culture
(i know it sounds really good but it can be difficult to protect a lot of cities if you go to war)

- Start building wonders,temples and cathedrals and switch to monarchy for cultural victory

- Switch to democracy, start building markets and helpful wonders to get a lot of money for rushing and economical victory

All of those ways are effective, so it is really hard to point one out. But if your civ grants a boost towards a certain victory, then i would go towards that victory.

Also, remember to get your units upgrades from the barbarians, and go search for the artifacts early. And if you run into an enemy city with great defense, use spies to disrupt them. And if you use fundamentalism when in war, remember that you really easily get behind technologically.

 

[vinstafresh]

When you discover that you're alone on a big stretch of land, try putting a city on a region with water on both sides (a so called choke point) and defend that city with all your might. The land behind is quiet so you can take your time settling and building buildings in stead of units.

My first 25 turns are as follows, mostly as the Japanese (or Chinese for a quick victory):

Found the city and switch to production only. This will produce a warrior on the 3rd turn. Find a barbarian hut for experience and gold (or unit). On the 5th turn you get your second, follow the first. Attack barbarians from hills if possible to reduce casualties and skipping a turn healing. On turn 8 you have 3 warriors out there. Unite the 3 and form an army. Destroy every barbarian village you encounter. If you find a capital before 2200BC, find a hill and attack. Beyond that, don't bother, since they'll have multiple archer units and a backup warrior unit. Unless you're really lucky, you won't pull it off. When the 4th warrior is done at turn 10, switch to science only in the capital. The +1 food on sea regions bonus for the Japanese makes the city grow. Switch tech to pottery and after that, masonry. Masonry gives you a free city wall and at 100 hammers, it costs as much as a wonder to build. Huge bonus! Usually that's around turn 17/18. If you're lucky you've found a friendly village who gave you bronze working and you can start fortifying with archers. Be thankful for the people who attack for boosting your archers with promotions like that

Once you discover mathematics, stack your cities with catapult armies and attack your attackers from within the city limits. Don't go for the military techs right away, but focus on the techs which give bonusses for all your cities, like irrigation, engineering, industrialization, coorporation, religion, literacy.

Another tip: don't build a settler yourself early in the game, but use your 100 gold settler for that. If you're stuck at around 88 gold or so, switch from science to gold for a few turns until you get the settler. After that, switch back to science and build a road to your new city and buy an archer to defend it.

 

[Psikao]

I know you are noob and I'm noob too. So I follow these steps from this guidemade by Flyingbunnys: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282488
It's pretty good, helps me alot.

 

[JDmac]

yeah i found flyingbunnies guide after i posted this.

Great stuff! I haven't tried it yet but it all makes a lot more sense to me now.

Thanks a lot guys i appreciate the help.

-JDM

 

[vanatteveldt]

I don't think the key to winning on higher levels is efficient warfare.

Ultimately, your edge on the AI is certainly on the battlefield: the AI does not know how to wage war efficiently, and that is generally how you will be able to beat it.

However, you can certainly win immortal/deity without waging war in de BC's (assuming you are not totally boxed in, as in limited to two cities or something). The key to playing high level civ is in empire management, and in the beginning the key is in gearing up your "empire" to be able to do something useful. Generally, that means maximizing the number of improved tiles and especially resource tiles your citizens are working, as I think DaveMcW's advice always is: use workers to make maximum use of your capital, and use settlers to claim nearby resource clusters.

If you can get a couple cities with decent commerce+production set up, you have a good basis for conquering other civs if you are so inclined.

This is by no means the only way to win at higher levels: there are examples on this forum of games eschewing settlers and worker techs for maximizing early wonders (eg obsolete's games), and games showing ultra-early rushes. However, the most general approach to beating the higher levels is to become extremely comfortable with the mechanics of the game, and maximizing the production of your own empire given the terrain and other external factors.

I apologize, I accidentally got stuck in the revolution forums. The above is probably not at all sensible for civrev. Sorry!

 

[someguy486]

Extremely helpful Japenese guide vinstafresh. With Germans I like to build two seperate warrior armies and get them enough experince from barbarian villages (after the first attack wait a few turns for another barb to show up) and right after they are both elite rush the iron working tech. After that it should be easy to take your closest neighbor's capital with the two legions. Remeber to keep them alive though, because when you get to knights they will upgrade to knights.

 

[JDmac]

Wow these forums are FULL of useful info.

I'm now ripping it up on king and still getting trounced on deity, so it looks I'm an emperor for a few days

Thanks again everyone.