First Game Over - Questions/Comments Please Help!

[Insuable]

Hello everyone,

I recently completed my first full game, and I wanted to throw out some issues/comments, and try and get some good community advice for how to improve the next one... Please feel to respond to any/all/none of the following, but please reference the number so I will know what you are talking about.

1) Culture!!! As someone who hasn't played since Civ I, I immediately whipped out the "conquer the world strategy," which I think worked better than it should since I was playing the easiest level to start with. But the culture thing hurts on any continent except your own. I've read a few articles about dealing with it but none that did much good. Any advice on how to make those far away cities productive at all? Imagine a three continent world with N. America, Europe, and Australia. I conquered N. America right quick, then took a big chunk out of Europe (those darn Germans had it coming). This was pretty early in the game - I put temples in the cities first, watched the culture expand. They had luxuries, were usually under WLTKD, etc. but for the WHOLE GAME never produced more than one or two shields. This is ridiculous - they spend 100's of years under my rule and were never of any use. I even thought about building a palace there but it would have taken more turns than the game allowed.. Ideas?

2) The game was really bogging down towards the end. It seemed like each turn was taking 5 minutes. All those workers cleaning up pollution, navy roaming around, cities producing stuff everywhere... Is automating workers recommended? What do they do when automated? What about using city governors? Is that reccomended or does it take away too much control? What about turning off animations, etc? Any other ideas to increase the game speed?

3) I didn't complete the tech tree before 2050. Is that unusual or am I just a bad player... i thought I had tech coming really fast, but suddenly the game was coming to and end and I was only about 5 techs into modern times... The slider was at about 80% most of the game.. The only thing I can think of was that I didn't expand fast enough during the early parts of the game, but I'm not sure. i especially feel bad because I was playing on the easy level (I plan to progress up one at a time).

4) How does the right of passage agreement work? In other words, if I sign one with someone, and either I or they are at war with someone else already, is war expected to be declared by the appropriate party? Or, is it only when war is declared on someone AFTER the agreement is signed? Or, is it only applicable when the other nation is the agressor, ie, I have to be attacked for the other nation to come to my aid?

5) Different governments... I went from despotism to monarchy and stuck with it almost to the end - I was worried about the effects my wars would have on other governments.. Is this wise for the "kill them all" strategy? What are some reccomended government progressions? Is the republic or communism worth messing with?

6) I would really appreciate it if each person who responds to this could include one short "if I could give just one important tip, it would be this" tip, just so I can learn from some of you "pros" out there...

Thanks!!!!
Joe

 

[God]

1) You can't really fight corruption. You have your palace in your capital and you can make a Forbidden Palace after you have more cities. The FP works like the palace and can be built anywhere, and will lower corruption and wastage in the cities that surround it, like a palace. I don't usually bother with courthouses in 1 shield cities. They will only make 2 shields after the first. Just build a temple, and then wealth. There's nothing much you can do about it.

2)If you play on a larger map the turns get slow towards the end. I don't like to automate workers, as they go and change mines to irrigation where you don't want them to.. etc... Towards the end you have so many more units that each turn takes longer. That will happen on any sized map.

3) If you play on Chieften its very hard to complete the tech tree. Because on the higher level both you and the AI are getting techs and trading so the techs come faster. On diety AI does all the reseach, very, very extremely fast, and you can get into the Modern Age by ~1000 AD! Only way to get the tech tree completed is to play on regent and above.

4) I think you're talking about the Mutual Protection Pact. Right's of Passage only lets you pass through another civ's territory without being kicked off. MPPs work like you said. If you sign it after a war has started between you and a third civ, then your ally will join in if you are attacked and vice versa. You can sign MPPs mid-war and get the civs to help you, but usually they don't want to fight.

5) I like monarchy and since I fight alot of wars, I stay in it till later when I building spaceship parts or something.

6) One tip would be, on any level above regent, and sometimes regent also, just put your tech slider to 0% and buy all the techs. That works far better than researching yourself for a lot of the game.

 

[Insuable]

Originally posted by God

4) I think you're talking about the Mutual Protection Pact. Right's of Passage only lets you pass through another civ's territory without being kicked off. MPPs work like you said. If you sign it after a war has started between you and a third civ, then your ally will join in if you are attacked and vice versa. You can sign MPPs mid-war and get the civs to help you, but usually they don't want to fight.

6) One tip would be, on any level above regent, and sometimes regent also, just put your tech slider to 0% and buy all the techs. That works far better than researching yourself for a lot of the game.

Thanks for the tips...

You were right - I meant Mutual Protection Pact

Also, when you say buy techs, you mean from other civilizations, right? In other words, you can't just buy them for x amount of gold, etc...? I guess you grow very wealthy with that but you will never have the tech lead, if I am reading that right...

Joe

I forgot to add - I like the handle - have you seen Navy Seals? The line where Charlie Sheen is about to be shot and he says "God..God..Come in, God." The bad guy says "your God cannot save you now" and promply has his head blown off by "God," who turns out to be the team sniper? Priceless...

 

[eighty]

1) I don't know if there is a relationship between culture and corruption or not, except that culture expands your borders which could provide better tiles for your people to work. There is a relation between happiness and corruption. If u get a city to "we love the king day", it lowers corruption (see civpedia for how to do this) I would say make sure that the far away cities are linked to your trade routes so they can get luxuries. That means happier citizens, and the happier the people, the more of them who are working tiles. And that means more shields, even if the shields are being eaten by corruption, you can still get more and hopefully some of them will be real shields. Connecting cities is one thing you can do no matter how bad the corruption is, because it uses workers (unless it is your first city on a new land, then you need to hurry a harbor).

Try communism for large corrupt civ at war or democracy for peace (unless u have universal sufferage and lots of lux)... Consider moving your palace. If it is at the fringe of your civ it is useless.

2) to automate workers, use "shift-a" if u don't want them to tear up old improvements; the civilopedia refers to this as "virgin" land, look up hotkeys and see how else u can control automation. If u insist on using them manually, make a stack of them. Click on the stack. Then press "j" and click where u want them all to move and they will all move to the selected tile. This saves much time, and can also be used for other types of units. If you have a mixed stack and a selected unit with "j", only the same type of unit will move at once. I usually turn off all animation. Sometimes at war I animate battles so I can tell what is happening easier. I usually use the governor for citizen moods because it saves time and also prevents disorder from happening because the governor notices when a city is about to go into disorder and rectifies it before it happens.

6) If u put tech at 0%, put one citizen as a scientist. That way u will still make the minimum required of beakers (at least 1) to get the tech in 40 turns.

69) don't smoke crack

 

[ChickinSht]

1) Don't bother trying to build a productive empire on another continent. The only thing those far away cities are good for are population and territory ie bigger score. You could build a forbidden palace, but why bother. I usually just build it on my home continent, on the other side of my palace.

2) Sucks. Happens in every strategy game ever. Just avoid playing huge maps with 16 civs.

5) Republic will get you more money, production, etc... But military costs are prohibitive if you plan to conquer the world, and don't even mess with war weariness. Personally, I don't think there is one best government for anyone. Despotism sucks, but other than that, your favorite gov. is dependent on your play style. Try them all out and find what works.

6) My favorite strats:

a) As EVERYONE will tell you, set tech to 0, and buy buy buy. You will make tons of money, it's the only way to survive on Monarch and above, and below monarch, it's still a good way to go if you're not number 1 yet.

b) Horsemen in the ancient age. Build them, love them. They're cheap, fast, retreat and can overwhelm any opponent easily. All you need are horses, which are pretty much everywhere.

c) Resources are you best friend and your worst enemy. If the enemy has ANY resources, take them away. Even if it means suiciding a unit or two to pillage the roads, do it. Strategic resources mean no more nasty units they can make. Luxery resources means they have angrier citizens. If you don't want to take out all their resources, just take out all roads leading to their capital. Set up a nice little defensive position, let them hammer you with all their good units, and know that once those boys are dead, they won't have any more.

 

[Insuable]

Thanks for the advice guys, keep it up...

One more question... Does the maximum attainable score change by difficulty level? I scored 781 on my first full game and if I had another 30 turns or so I might have conquered every city on the planet.... It seemed like the max might have been 1000 on that level, but I have seen scored posted in the 3000 range... Are those guys just awesome or are they playing the hardest level (and are still good)??

Joe

PS. My veteran battleship, attacking a friggin regular Caravel, was damn near sunk.... Sometimes these things are just too much fun...

 

[EdwardTking]

"I conquered N. America right quick, then took a big chunk out of Europe (those darn Germans had it coming). This was pretty early in the game - I put temples in the cities first, watched the culture expand. They had luxuries, were usually under WLTKD, etc. but for the WHOLE GAME never produced more than one or two shields. This is ridiculous - they spend 100's of years under my rule and were never of any use. I even thought about building a palace there but it would have taken more turns than the game allowed.. Ideas?"

(1) Build Barracks so units start veteran.

(2) Attack until elite.

(3) Use elite to attack when victory certain.

(4) Eventually you will get a great leader.

(5) Build a Forbidden Palace in one turn with a Great Leader.

 

[Zouave]

"The game was really bogging down towards the end. It seemed like each turn was taking 5 minutes".


FIVE minutes?? That is lightning speed for the Modern Era. It usually takes a lot more.

Crazy corruption is one of the major problems with the game. Go into the Editor and make temples and cathedrals corruption reducers; increase your number of optimum cities, and use the coruption slider that came with the 1.21 patch.

And play Civ 2!! It is still much better and more fun than Civ 3.

 

[God]

Originally posted by Insuable
Thanks for the advice guys, keep it up...

One more question... Does the maximum attainable score change by difficulty level? I scored 781 on my first full game and if I had another 30 turns or so I might have conquered every city on the planet.... It seemed like the max might have been 1000 on that level, but I have seen scored posted in the 3000 range... Are those guys just awesome or are they playing the hardest level (and are still good)??

Joe

Yeah, difficulty level does affect score. 1000 points on chieften, would be 4000 on monarch and 6000 on diety, for example. You multiply by 2 for warlord, by 3 for regent, by 4 for monarch, and so on.

You can get 3000 points on chieften. Check the HOF for high scores. Aeson scored 62,000 on diety! People have got average of between 5000-10,000 on regent, but Bamspeedy has a game where he is going to get about 40,000 points! There are some high scores in the HOF, and they keep on getting higher. 100,000 maybe possible on diety.

 

[Insuable]

Originally posted by EdwardTking

(1) Build Barracks so units start veteran.
(2) Attack until elite.
(3) Use elite to attack when victory certain.
(4) Eventually you will get a great leader.
(5) Build a Forbidden Palace in one turn with a Great Leader.

I think that's a brillant idea... can't believe I didn't think about that one myself... I guess I would have to sell my first one or just wait until I needed another palace somewhere else... in my last game they were in cities right next to each other - is that a mistake?

I can only imagine what that would have done to my last game if I used that strategy...

Thanks!
Joe

 

[Insuable]

Originally posted by God

Yeah, difficulty level does affect score. 1000 points on chieften, would be 4000 on monarch and 6000 on diety, for example. You multiply by 2 for warlord, by 3 for regent, by 4 for monarch, and so on.

Good, I feel better. My next question is about the whole tech slider to zero strategy... One of the fun parts of the game at my end is conquering the world with a force that several tech steps ahead of everyone else (Tanks v. cavlry, etc..). Is that possible with this strategy? What's the main objective? In other words, what do you do with all of that money other than buy techs? Just buy resources, luxuries, etc? I wanna blow stuff up!!!

Oh! And Zouave mentioned changing the number of "optimum cities." What exactly does that mean? Does the game change things if you have too many or too little?

Joe

 

[God]

Its fun to have the tech lead, but its hard to mantain especially over regent. On regent you can still get a good lead, but after that the AI is much too fast. They research faster than you, so even if you do all your research on your own, like on chieften, you'll fall back. Many people decide to use no research at all and buy all the techs. It works out better. Ofcourse you don't need to buy all the techs. Not on monarch. You can research some before the AI if you plan it out.

The money left after buying the techs can be used to get resources or luxuries. I don't usually bother as I have a decent sized empire with adequate amount of luxuries and resources. I use alot of my money to upgrade units. Like save up tons of cash and upgrade my knights to cavalry. Also use money in Monarchy to rush a spearman or a temple.

Otherwise money is used when I desperately need a nuke, or I feel like wasting money. More often that not, in the end of the game I have more money than I need at all. At the most I need about 8000 gold. I'll usually have twice as much which is useless, but hey, I'm a miser.

The optimum city limit is the number of cities you get before rampant corruption sets in. Also once you go over the limit you can build the Forbidden Palace. Don't worry about going over the limit. Its not going to hurt you at all, plus you can build the FP which helps alot.

You get different amount of optimum cities per map. Huge maps get 32 optimum cities IIRC, while small get 12. Large gets 24, and standard 16. Not sure about a tiny map.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Good, I feel better. My next question is about the whole tech slider to zero strategy... One of the fun parts of the game at my end is conquering the world with a force that several tech steps ahead of everyone else (Tanks v. cavlry, etc..). Is that possible with this strategy? What's the main objective? In other words, what do you do with all of that money other than buy techs? Just buy resources, luxuries, etc? I wanna blow stuff up!!!

I only recommend the tech slider to zero strategy on levels higher than Regent only. If you do this on chieftain you will never get to the modern era, because the AI is so slow in doing research. Do your own research on chieftain, only trading the for the first few techs that the other civs start with that you don't have. Republic is probably the best government in the game if you want science. Republic makes far more money than communism or Monarchy, only a little less corruption than Democracy, with much less war weariness than democracy. Democracy is nice for the faster workers and if you will not be in any wars. Alot of players stay in Republic the whole game, rather than switching back and forth between democracy and monarchy everytime there is a war.

I think that's a brillant idea... can't believe I didn't think about that one myself... I guess I would have to sell my first one or just wait until I needed another palace somewhere else... in my last game they were in cities right next to each other - is that a mistake?

You are only allowed to build 1 forbidden palace, so place it wisely. You can't sell it, the only way to get rid of the FP is to destroy the city. The forbidden palace is like getting a whole new palace, so you want it as far from the original palace as possible to get the maximum benefit from it. This is because of distance from the palace/FP corruption factor. If your palace is at one end of a continent have the FP at the other end, or if your palace is already in the center of a continent, try to get the FP on another continent. If you accidently built the FP right next to your palace, hopefully you can get a leader and rush a new palace somewhere else.

Like has been said before, use shift-A for automating workers. Using shift-A means the workers will not change any improvements that are already done (won't change mines to irrigation, or irrigation back to mines). Maybe have a few workers that you are manually moving around to do any special projects that need to be done, that wouldn't get done by automation. After all your land is improved the workers will go back to a city and sleep so select these units and decide what needs to be done to them (disband, or 'join' city). Make sure you leave some around to clean up any future pollution you may get.

I like using governors (to control happiness only). Don't have it deciding your production though, or you will be building swordsmen in the modern era! Some players like to micro-manage their core cities (most productive) and let the governors control the less important, high corruption cities. I usually micro-manage just the city(ies) that are building wonders, so that they are at maximum production so I can complete the wonders quicker.

I turn off all animations, except sometimes I allow for enemy animations so that I know what my enemy is doing (alerted to any incoming armies from some other direction, etc.)

 

[ChickinSht]

Originally posted by God

Otherwise money is used when I desperately need a nuke, or I feel like wasting money. More often that not, in the end of the game I have more money than I need at all. At the most I need about 8000 gold. I'll usually have twice as much which is useless, but hey, I'm a miser.

Don't listen to this blasphemer. Money's only good for one thing: spending. Just like in real life. If you've got a ton of money saved up, all techs, maps and resources, it's time to buy some donuts or a tank or sumthin.[dance]

 

[God]

I'm a miser, refuse to spend money on units. I'm not going to let my citizens get days off!

 

[alexander dumas]

You should keep 1000 gold on hand to get the maximum benefits of Wall St.

 

[ChickinSht]

Well DUH! But sometimes you just gots to throw your money around, act real big and all. Those Babs think they're so great, just wait till they see my brand new cathedral. It's got a plasma TV and everything.
All I gotta say is I'm a proponent of Dionysian methods over, say, Miseronian.

 

[Insuable]

1)This is more of a situational one...

There is a city under attack by the zulu... they have 4 swordsmen and one archer, all regular, standing on a mountain next to my city. In the city I have 3 immortals and one horseman, two elite and the other two (including the horsemen) veteran. Heres the rub: Do I attack? I know that units defending on a mountain get a bonus but how much?

In other words, I have units that attack 4 and defend 2. I can either wait, and have their defense, boosted by being garrisoned in the city, go up against the 3 attack of the swordsmen, or I can send the immortals against them (attack 4 vs defese 2 +mountain bonus).

What do you think? I have heard various opinions on the bonus for defending on raised terrain. Oh, and is there a bonus to attacking from it? In other words, if I had an immortal on a mountain attacking a swordsman on plains does my uit get an attack bonus???

2)I'm playing my first game on warlord and am not doing well.. I think I pissed off the AI, because they all seem to hate me.... I think I forgot to declare war before I attacked the Babs... Does the AI get mad if you declare war and attack on the same turn???

Joe

 

[ChickinSht]

The short answer? No.
The long answer? Hell no.
Don't attack anything on a mountain unless you have to. You're in the city, you have better defense. This game favors defense. A LOT.
Once, I fortified two damaged samurai on the enemies only iron resource, a mountain adjacent to their second largest city for over 12 turns. Did they ever attack those samurai? Hell no. I don't know the exact number, but mountains give huge defensive modifiers.

 

[Insuable]

Ah yes,

The Zulu paid dearly for that lesson... There is mountainous terrain all around those cities... so I would keep my knights there as much as possible and either attack from them or defend them as appropriate... boy did that change things around. I think I only lost 4 units to their 20 or so. Now, instead of demanding tribute from me (what started the war in the first place), they are paying me to be at peace with them!!!

Is is definite that there is an attacking bonus (ie you attack someone on plains from a mountain)?? It sure seemed like it... Those pesky impis were slaughtered by Knights attacking from a mountain, and they were fortified in a city...

Joe