First post- need a bit of newbie help and questions :)

[Ofuh]

Hi guys and girls, new poster here. Been lurking around for a while, finally decided to post. Let me first say sorry for the long ass post that has probably been brought up many times. I couldn't really find any good answers through looking around, and I want a more personal answer that will work for me


I just got back into the game a few days ago. I used to play a long time ago, but stopped because I had got myself hooked on Sim City 4 while trying it again after a few years, and then moved on to another game which I just recently quit.
Anyway,


After reading many posts, and guides etc I've come to the conclusion that I'm doing something wrong and need to change my playing style. When I started up again this week I started on Warlord difficulty because I was going to be rusty after a long break. After a couple games and getting the feel of things again I moved on to Noble which is what I played on before I quit, even though I don't remember how well I did.


I play on Noble, with random civ + enemy civs, no locked alliance, all settings such as sea level and climate on random, map type I usually pick something like fractal to get something unexpected or I cycle through maps I never played. I like to keep things random or new. I don't want to go into every game knowing exactly what my civ or enemies will be and how the map will be set up etc... I suppose that could be a factor in my problem since I have no set strategy or anything, but hey everyone has preferences


Anyway, I always seem to run into some types of problems. Mostly falling way behind on technology. I have come to the conclusion that it because I don't make enough money so I can't stay at a very high research rate for the whole game.


I have read many posts and I understand the general idea is to want to be on the offence a lot, but then not only am I only producing soldiers so I can't get a lot of growth or buildings, but then if I manage to conquer cities it ends up making me lose money because of the maintenance.


But, even if I don't make massive armies and have a lot of cities putting me in debt, I still somehow manage to fall behind on the technology race. Not much you can do when your enemies are sending tanks at you and all you have are some girly riflemen


Having said all that, it is probably my biggest problem. Sure I need to work on my military tactics and many other things, but that comes with practice and time.


I recently tried going for alphabet very fast (which I read on here), and then trading it for the techs that I skipped, but I'm really not too sure if it doesn't end up at the same (for me at least.) When I get to alphabet and trade, I am only able to get a couple of the very early techs out of trading writing. I suppose maybe it is a strategy meant for higher difficulty levels, and on lower difficulty it doesn't do much good as the AI itself doesn't research at such a high rate so I don't have as many techs to get from it.


Any suggestions, help, tips etc will be very appreciated. I know it must be hard to tell me what I'm doing wrong without me giving a play by play explanation of what I'm doing. Maybe I should do that sometime.


Now on to some general little questions that I've been wondering about for a little bit.

- What does health do? I mean, when citizens are unhappy one of the squares will not work, but if the citizens are unhealthy what happens?

- Is there a way to stop automatic city razing, without preventing city razing altogether? I hate conquering little one population cities that get automatically destroyed and then the other civ ends up pissed at me for the rest of the game.

- How exactly is it determined if a city will leave their culture and join another? Several times I had neighboring civs with cities in the 20% where my culture have revolts in them, but they don't end up joining me. Same has happened if my cities were low %

- I'm confused about the concept of "trade routes" such as 50% trade route increase from harbor or 100% trade route increase from a wonder (forget which one) and from free market.

- When massing siege units for taking over cities, is it best to upgrade their collateral damage or city attack? I tend to upgrade their collateral damage, but take very heavy losses since a good number of them end up dying.

- Is it not possible to sell buildings anymore? I remember being able to do it in previous civs but I don't remember doing it in civ 4.

- When upgrading a lot of units for example all the defenders such as archers to longbows or longbows to rifles, is it best to upgrade them or to replace them? Upgrading has a very heavy price tag, so it takes me a good number of turns to get everyone upgraded, and I can't run a deficit research fund since my gold ends up low and I need more for upgrading.

That's all I can think of for now, plus I have to run.

Thanks in advance for your help and time

 

[Tabster]

Hi , I'm a bit new myself but i'll try to help -

You are making it difficult for yourself playing on random , but if that how you want to play you will just have to spend longer learning , but you should be a better alround player .

Judging from what you say its sound like you need to be building more cottages sooner . build " commerce cities " - there are article on this site that discuss these in great detail .

Do you have enough workers ? you should have 1 worker per city at least , plus others building roads linking your cities .

Try not to trade Alphabet . As soon as another civ gets alphabet they will start trading behind your back and you will start to fall behind in tech. race

1 ) Unhealthy cities waste food and therefore grow slower and not a large as they could possibly be. but no real harm is done , it's more important to stop your cities being unhappy than unhealthy

2 ) Cities always lose 1 population when captured , so size 1 cities always destroyed when captured .

3 ) Sorry don't know

4 ) Trade routes for each city can be seen on the main city screen in the box to the middle left . In the box should be a list of cities , with a number of commerce points that particular trade route is worth .it's these number that are multiplied by the bonus you mentioned . roughly speaking the farther away the other city is , and the larger the city is , the more valuable the trade route is.

5 ) I generally upgrade seige engines with city attack , but still expect plenty of loses , attack with cheap low experience "suicide" units first then attack witth your stronger upgraded seige engines next , they should survive and gain experience

6 ) Can't sell buildings but you get gold from unfinished great wonders that have been completed by some one else .

7 ) I myself don't upgrade and if you're short of gold you probably shouldn't either .

 

[automator]

I just got back into the game a few days ago.

Welcome back to Civ. I recently came back from a 6 month hiatus, so I feel ya.

I don't want to go into every game knowing exactly what my civ or enemies will be and how the map will be set up etc.

That's how I feel a game should be played too. I suppose setting certain parameters is good for working on a specific problem (like choosing island map to work on your naval skills), but I too like randomness. Though I do choose my civ because there are certain leaders I don't like to play as.

You've identified your problem, which is a good step. Posting a couple game saves -- say one for after your original settlers drop, then in your first war, then the aftermath -- would help a lot too, so we can all give you more specific ideas of improvement.

So I can offer general ideas:

1) COTTAGES. I always make sure at least one of my first three cities is a wonderful grass and floodplain city on a river, and lay down nothing but cottages. The city is going to have aweful production, so if there's a forest or two I can leave for it for when I'm building a library, I will. Then get Writing for the library, and build it. Have your citizens work the cottage tiles.

2) CoL and Currency. Unless also shooting for one of the early three religions, I take the path to CoL that gets me Currency, so I pick up two techs to help out my economy. If I happen to found Confucianism at the same time, it's just frosting on the cake.

A word on your first war -- the research to CoL is probably going to start happening around the time when you are getting into your first war. Aim your war progress to coincide with this tech line. I find it very nice to be able to finish research on CoL right as I'm finishing my war. That way I can take a combat break to build Courthouses in all my cities, rather than halting military production in my war machine cities to put in a courthouse. Also, remember specialists. If you're trudging through a war that is lasting a little two long and you've had to turn your slider WAY DOWN, find a city with a Library and turn a couple citizens into Scientists -- they'll make up for the drop in tax-based beaker production.

3) TRADING. You're right in thinking that trading is less effective at the lower levels. All you can really do at Noble and below to get ahead of the tech curve is to balance your expansion and build lots of cottages. Otherwise, the Alphabet trade out is quite nice, as it will often fill in the gap of all the old techs you skipped over (often, I'll pick up Fishing, Sailing, Hunting, Archery, Horseback Riding, Iron Working, all the religious techs, and sometimes Metal Working off of a massive Alphabet trade). When you use tech trading, always trade the tech to all empires unless it's a military tech, in which case I wouldn't trade it to the guy you're going to be attacking in five turns. The AI loves to trade, so when you give it to one civ, it's most likely going to make it to the others within a turn.

4) Settlers, Buildings and War Machine. In my most recent game, a Prince, Huge, Epic game as Rome, I came away with a Domination win in the 1890s with only building four cities. My usual way, with any civ I play, is to found three cities (four or five if I have room). Two of those, I choose as my war machine for their production abilities. The other will be the above mentioned cottage city.

You don't need every building in every city. That would be a waste of time. Your production cities should be getting forges, barracks, and possibly a granary or temple to keep the population healthy, happy and working. But only if you need them. A temple does no good when you have seven smiley faces but only four frowny faces. Likewise, your city that is kicking out just four hammers but a ton of commerce will want a library, market, etc.

Sure I need to work on my military tactics and many other things

Meh. Maybe. Probably not. The AI isn't the brightest when it comes to war. As long as you remember to mix your stacks and send plenty of seige weapons, you'll be fine.

What does health do?

Take the number of health points and subtract the unhealth points. If you get a negative number, that's how many food are "sacrificed" to sanitation problems. Not a problem until your cities get big, by which point you have access to the food resources and buildings to combat them.

Is there a way to stop automatic city razing

You cannot capture a city unless its population is less than 2. Either let it grow to two before capturing or accept the diplomacy modifier. Hopefully, if you're razing a civ's cities, it means you're going to war to either take them out or beat them so badly that they'll never think about hurting you ever again. If the latter, why care what they think of you?

How exactly is it determined if a city will leave their culture and join another?

In your city screen, in the bottom left corner, there's a little percentage bar that shows you the ethnic breakdown of the city. The lower percentage of your nationality in the city, the higher percentage chance of the city revolting and swapping teams. For enemy cities, you can mouse over a tile to see the percentage of that nation's nationality living there. Fortifying units in a city and building culture buildings in a city can prevent culture switching.

I'm confused about the concept of "trade routes"

So am I. My understanding is that a city has a base of one trade route available. This can be altered by buildings (e.g. Airport gives +1 trade route) or technology (e.g. Corporation gives +1 trade route). The game will calculate an income for this by "connecting" that city to the farthest potential trade city; the farther away it is, the more you earn. To be considered connected, a domestic partner must be connected by some combination of coast (with sailing), ocean (with astronomy), rivers, or roads. A foreign partner must meet those criteria as well as you having an open borders agreement with them. A percent bonus to trade routes increases the profit from the route (+50% to a route that normally gains +2gpt makes it a +3gpt route)

When massing siege units for taking over cities, is it best to upgrade their collateral damage or city attack?

It's best to have a mix, and use them in order. I like to first attack with one or two city raider promotions to soften the main defender. Then a number of collateral damage promotions to hurt all defenders. Those that survive through defeating the defender or withdrawing will be coddled until they are highly promoted (having an artillery with three CR and three damage promotions is awesome).

Is it not possible to sell buildings anymore?

Can't do that or disband cities any more. On the flip side, buildings no longer have any maintenance costs.

When upgrading a lot of units ... is it best to upgrade them or to replace them?

Upgrade what you can afford to do as you need to. I only upgrade those that have promotions I couldn't get on a brand new unit. For example, once you hit gunpowder, City Raider is pretty much out of the picture (except for artillery and tanks), so upgrading a City Raider III maceman to a grenadier is a great idea. Also, those level 6 guys you've been developing for a while are worth upgrading, since it takes a lot of battles to gain that many XP points. I won't, unless I'm flush with cash, upgrade a level 2 unit, since I can build the equivalent in two turns.

Enjoy.

 

[Ofuh]

You've identified your problem, which is a good step. Posting a couple game saves -- say one for after your original settlers drop, then in your first war, then the aftermath -- would help a lot too, so we can all give you more specific ideas of improvement.

I'll try that. I'll play a game and save it every once in a while and upload the saves.

1) COTTAGES. I always make sure at least one of my first three cities is a wonderful grass and floodplain city on a river, and lay down nothing but cottages. The city is going to have aweful production, so if there's a forest or two I can leave for it for when I'm building a library, I will. Then get Writing for the library, and build it. Have your citizens work the cottage tiles.

I'll try that too. I recently started not automatic my workers and instead making sure to have more cottages, but I have not yet tried creating cottage cities. I will do that next game.

2) CoL and Currency. Unless also shooting for one of the early three religions, I take the path to CoL that gets me Currency, so I pick up two techs to help out my economy. If I happen to found Confucianism at the same time, it's just frosting on the cake.

When do you shoot for it? Right away or do you get a couple early techs first and then go for it? I don't want to be stuck with no roads or improvements for the whole time it takes me to get there.

4) Settlers, Buildings and War Machine. In my most recent game, a Prince, Huge, Epic game as Rome, I came away with a Domination win in the 1890s with only building four cities. My usual way, with any civ I play, is to found three cities (four or five if I have room). Two of those, I choose as my war machine for their production abilities. The other will be the above mentioned cottage city.

You don't need every building in every city. That would be a waste of time. Your production cities should be getting forges, barracks, and possibly a granary or temple to keep the population healthy, happy and working. But only if you need them. A temple does no good when you have seven smiley faces but only four frowny faces. Likewise, your city that is kicking out just four hammers but a ton of commerce will want a library, market, etc.

I really need to start having specialized cities. I just have cities where I try to do everythign in them. But what about buildings with good culture bonuses such as monestaries or libraries? I always try building those as I want a large culture area so that my cities don't get swallowed by another empire's culture.

Meh. Maybe. Probably not. The AI isn't the brightest when it comes to war. As long as you remember to mix your stacks and send plenty of seige weapons, you'll be fine.

That's kind of what I meant. I still tend to do stacks of one type of unit. I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself. Need to work on that and have a balanced stack. But I also meant from everything down to where to attack from and placing units on hills/forests. Couple times I found myself sieging a city from grassland to then realize I had a forested hill right next to it that I could have used as an attack point.

Take the number of health points and subtract the unhealth points. If you get a negative number, that's how many food are "sacrificed" to sanitation problems. Not a problem until your cities get big, by which point you have access to the food resources and buildings to combat them.

So let's use random numbers for the sake of an example. Say I'm producing 10 food/turn and I have -4 health. I will only produce 6 food?

You cannot capture a city unless its population is less than 2. Either let it grow to two before capturing or accept the diplomacy modifier. Hopefully, if you're razing a civ's cities, it means you're going to war to either take them out or beat them so badly that they'll never think about hurting you ever again. If the latter, why care what they think of you?

Ah I see, I didn't realize cities lost 1 pop when they are conquered. It makes sense now. I usually don't raze cities though unless like you said it is to take them the hell out. Like in the last game I played, was attacked by Caesar who had a much more powerful and advanced army than me and the guy I had a defensive pact with. When I conquered his cities I razed them because I knew he would take them right back if not. When I knew he was losing I started capturing them instead, hoping for domination victory. Since the two other players that were left were pleased/friendly to me and friendly to eachother, I also couldn't have one attack the other so thy would have ganged up on me and I couldn't of taken them both at once.

So am I. My understanding is that a city has a base of one trade route available. This can be altered by buildings (e.g. Airport gives +1 trade route) or technology (e.g. Corporation gives +1 trade route). The game will calculate an income for this by "connecting" that city to the farthest potential trade city; the farther away it is, the more you earn. To be considered connected, a domestic partner must be connected by some combination of coast (with sailing), ocean (with astronomy), rivers, or roads. A foreign partner must meet those criteria as well as you having an open borders agreement with them. A percent bonus to trade routes increases the profit from the route (+50% to a route that normally gains +2gpt makes it a +3gpt route)

Sounds complicated EEK!

Upgrade what you can afford to do as you need to. I only upgrade those that have promotions I couldn't get on a brand new unit. For example, once you hit gunpowder, City Raider is pretty much out of the picture (except for artillery and tanks), so upgrading a City Raider III maceman to a grenadier is a great idea. Also, those level 6 guys you've been developing for a while are worth upgrading, since it takes a lot of battles to gain that many XP points. I won't, unless I'm flush with cash, upgrade a level 2 unit, since I can build the equivalent in two turns.

So, what should I do with all my outdated units? I figure if I keep them they will only serve as easy XP if I end up getting attacked. Should I just delete them? This brings up another question. How do I find out how many free units I can have?



Thanks both of you for answers.

 

[automator]

You know this game Ofuh, you'll be rocking Prince in a week. Before you take my words as gospel, two points:

1. I'm a Prince player testing the Monarch waters now. That means I'm no pro, there are folks here who have a MUCH better understanding of this game than I.

2. I don't play against humans. I think I started 2 games when Civ4 came out, but it was too slow and I didn't like being tied to my computer until the game was over. I expect strategy would differ when going up against humans.

But to answer your new questions:

automatic my workers

Automating workers, especially in the early game, is an awful idea. They will not specialize your city, so you'll have cottages in your city that should be a production-centered workhorse and mines in a city that would be great for commerce. When I get tired of manipulating my workers (usually right around the time rails come in), I might set them to building trade routes so they build roads and connect resources that randomly pop up, but never full automation.

When do you shoot for [Code of Laws]?

Most games I try to have 3-5 cities and the ability to build axes before I go for CoL. Also, having workers with no work is pointless, so I'll have Wheel, Pottery (for the oh, so important cottages), bronze, AH and Farming if I have animals or farming resources, and Hunting if I have Elephants or game animals roaming my area. Then I choose a path to CoL. If Marble is readily available and I have a strong production capitol, I'll usually research Priesthood and Writing and build the Oracle, then use that to get CoL free. Other method is if I have a good shot at taking Judaism I'll take the religious path, otherwise I take the math route that goes through Currency. In the meantime, I've got 6-8 Axemen carving their way through my neighbors.

Couple times I found myself sieging a city from grassland to then realize I had a forested hill right next to it that I could have used as an attack point.

That's really about all you need for strategy. In modern war there's strategy that will speed up your attacks, such as using an army of nothing but Modern Armor and Stealth Bombers, but through the bulk of the game it's about having a mixed stack and moving methodically through the enemies territory.

I just have cities where I try to do everythign in them. But what about buildings with good culture bonuses such as monestaries or libraries?

The lower your level is, the easier it is to have multipurpose cities. As you get higher in levels, you start to notice that multipurpose cities fail at everything they try to do. Sure, have your capitol start as a decent production base that also churns out decent cash and science. But don't keep it that way, or set all your cities up like that. It's better to have a city that will pump out a military unit every turn than three cities that each take six turns for a unit.

Culture is important in two cases: When you're going for a culture win and when you have a border that will not be moved by war. If it's a culture win you want, build all them culture buildings you can muster inside the 3 cities you've chosen to groom into legendary culture. In the border case, you shouldn't have too much problem with culture flipping. If you happen to plant a city that's wrapped up by the AI's culture bubble, an extra couple culture points probably won't help. But if it's a border that keeps moving back and forth, or there's a resource on the border that you'd like to keep a hold of, by all means spend a dozen turns building a monastery. Also, remember that monasteries give a 10% bonus to science.

Say I'm producing 10 food/turn and I have -4 health. I will only produce 6 food?

Bingo. You only need to worry about health when your city is maxing out population for it's food ability. In your example, that -4 health just dropped your city's max from 5 pop to 3 pop. In a production city, it can mean a difference of a lot of hammers, and in a GP farm it can mean the loss of a couple specialists. When you see your population touching the food max because of unhealthiness, put in a health building (I like grocers for the commerce bonus).

Sounds complicated EEK!

Trade routes are complicated. I've played since the release, and I still don't understand. There's a huge thread discussing trade routes somewhere here, or in the War Academy. The gist is that there's a potential trade route between two cities if you can travel between the two of them (or if there's a road, if it's overland). Trade route bonuses are always good.

So, what should I do with all my outdated units?

1. Move old units into your core cities for the happiness. New units should guard your border. Normally, you need one unit in a city to prevent extra unhappiness. Under Hereditary Rule, every unit gives you a happy point. Unless something goes horribly wrong, your core city shouldn't be attacked, so it doesn't matter if it's the 20th century and it's being guarded by a warrior.

2. Delete excess obsolete units. Those fog-busters you used to prevent barb spawns are extra and worthless. Kill them. Caveat: Keep obsolete seige engines. Even a catapult will cause a little collateral damage in the Modern Era. If you click on the financial screen (little coin symbol in the top right corner), you'll see where your money is coming from and where it's going. If your unit maintenance cost is high, getting rid of old units can be a great help.


Good luck on getting back into the game. When you have some spare time, read through the War Academy articles. Post a few game saves for review. Whatever it is, have fun with the game. That's the point, not to prove that you can win at Diety with aggressive civilizations and raging barbs. Just play whatever level you like. Eventually you'll get too good and become bored with it. Then you move on to the next level and the learning curve is set back. Then you get good and become bored and the cycle repeats.

 

[Ofuh]

Thanks for the response, really appreciate it.

Started a game last night that I intended to periodicallly save while using things you said such as specialized cities and going for code of laws, but turns out for some reason everyone started really close. I had nowhere to expand after my second city. It ended up getting sucked in England's capital, revolting and then joining them. I said screw it and quit.


Just another quick, kind of pointless question.

What do people here usually play on for the globe type? I usually go with the default (can't remember any of the names) where the map continues forever east-west but has poles at north south.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I thought I'd expand a bit on the health thing. You're number one concern with health issues (when you've got more people and some buildings then you're health limit currently allows) you'll need at least a surplus of 3 food instead of 2 to be able to grow another population point without going into starvation (when a pop grows it consumes two more food, so it takes 2 away from your surplus that is growing your city, but the increased pop also raises the unhealthy number by one, subtracting another food from the surplus). You don't want starvation to start happening for very long and you need to very careful of what the AI auto-manages your city into if it's in starvation. Now, Wasting food on a health problem is never great, 'cause if nothing else you could be whipping and turning that food into production if you can't use more citizens. IMO, you need to keep checking on each of your cities every turn, make sure you know when they're gonna hit a happiness or health cap so you can plan on what you're gonna do to avoid the penalties. A couple turns don't hurt much, but it's much better if it's a couple turns 'cause you're planning a pop rush for something that'll help the city get even bigger after.

Specializing cities is another enormous tool for this game and it's really not complicated, but don't automate your workers. IMO, if you're automating your workers you're probably just trying to play way too fast. Take the time to try and create a short range plan and execute it. That means coming up with a detailed idea of a worker build order. Where you're heading on the tech tree and what you can do to get there fastest. These short term plans do need a long-range one to go with them however. For instance, if you want a space victory, the pyramids to get representation for a gp city to crank of scientists for a couple academies and lightbulbs is great. If you're trying to get a domination victory, then maybe it's just beelining up to civil service and machinery for maces. If you decide you're gonna shoot for a religion, have a plan for how you're gonna get a great priest and have a way to spread it.

I don't play as aggressively as automator does (although to play on Monarch I, and I think most, tend to have to), and I like a slightly larger core, 'cause I really love having a monster food city for a gp farm. IMO, it's invaluable for early science and to keep up with the AI's science curve in general. A couple early GS's and a library can really help out 'cause I have a hard time getting my cottages up and running as early as some.

Just as a general kind of strategy for me personally, I really want 1 major production centre, 2 major cottage towns, 1 gp farm, and a 2nd hilly town (production, but maybe not fantastic) for a pretty much non-stop unit production. After that through conquest or whatever, almost everything gets commerce prioritized (whether through cottage or specialists or later windmills and such).

I also agree that on noble, tech trading isn't that much help. Usually, just getting a little more comfortable with chopping and pop rushing can take a player from struggling with noble to killing it. I'd also say, playing epic or marathon takes the difficulty down significantly and to get used to paying good attention I'd say playing small and standard maps helps, 'cause you don't get bogged down as quickly with so much happening. I know you like random, but I really think creating a couple games that force you to play a certain style and focus would help a lot. Crowded maps with all the land connected for some serious warfare. Isolated continents for science.

BTW, I'm just like the two of you in that I've been playing for a couple weeks after taking at least a 4 month hiatus from the game.

 

[Ofuh]

Thanks for the detailed answers guys, or girls.

I can already feel myself improving in many areas.

oopsy poopsy you bring up a point that I have been meaning to ask. What speed does everyone usually play on? I usually play on "normal" does it really make a difference at what speed you play? I thought everything was at a proportional speed to the number of turns there are.

Played two games last night. One went well but I had a bad starting point which lead to a very slow start. Ended up winning domination as the 100 turn left countdown was going over the halfway point.
Game started slow, didn't have any copper or horses. I was locked in by Hannibal and only had room for maybe three cities. To top it off half of my land was solid jungle. I managed to barely get an iron mine in my boundaries. Waged a war on Hannibal. Was taking out his smaller cities until I got construction and I sent in catapults to crack open his capital. Ended up capturing all his cities except for one other side of the map that I couldn't get to fast enough and he ended up vassaling with someone and I couldn't afford a big war right now over one little crappy city on the other side of the map. Went through a couple wars with other civs and realized I need to turn off vassalage. Several times I was about to conquer a civ's last city that they end up vassaling with someone else.

Looking back, I could of improved by being more aggressive and having a better starting area- although that isn't really my fault.


The second game didn't go well at all. I started good, had two decent cities set up, whipped a couple buildings, founded confucianism, chopped my way through a couple wonders. Was well in the lead of the two neighboring civs. I made a couple axes and attacked frederick, took one of his cities but then that's where I became careless. I had created a settler a few turns ago and built a city next to three gem mines, but I didn't escort him. A couple turns later that city gets razed by barbarians. I don't know what it was with that game, I didn't have raging barbarians on but I was constantly under attack by them. I had about two barbarian warriors pillaging my resources, I got very careless and sent out a unit from my city garrison to kill them. More end up coming from the other side and they take my capital. After making a couple axes I retook the capital and saw barbarians created a city where I had earlier planted one on three gold mines. I sent a few axes to take it, but as I get there Asoka's axes end up taking the city for himself. That pissed me off a bit and I called it quits.


I will play a couple more games and let you guys know how it went. This time I will try to get some saves every now and then to upload. I get into it, and forget to save it to look at my progress. I already see that I am improving. I am now able to keep up, if not be slightly ahead of the tech race. I started making more mixed stacks, and my cities are starting to become more efficient.

 

[automator]

Well done. Congrats on the Domination win, especially with a strategic resource lacking starting area. Getting over that hump is hard, since not having bronze means waiting another 20 or so turns in hopes of Iron, and 20 turns is enough time where you could've sent out your first Axemen war party to destroy a city or two.

I usually play on "normal" does it really make a difference at what speed you play?

Basically the slower speeds (epic and marathon) just feature more turns distributed through the game. Things cost more in terms of hammers and beakers, but GP give more when you use them in "rush" mode. The difference in play, and in difficulty, comes in transit and combat ...

Since the AI is pretty bad at waging war (they tend to blow their load in the first few turns, then send individual units out after that), it's the part of the game that humans can excel at. Since time is drawn out, then, you have more time to make a timely war. Epic and especially marathon draw out the length of time where a certain technological level of war is useful. If you've noticed at Normal speed, as you get to finishing your first Axemen-based war, they AI will probably have Longbows, against which Axemen can't stand up. Then once you get your Maceman army going, you barely get into the war before Musketmen show up. Slower game speeds eliminate that problem -- you can usually pull off a couple full on wars with Axes before Longbows shut down the war.

Regarding the barbarian problem you had in the second game: Barbarian units and cities randomly generate in any "fog" on the map (any area no currently visible to your units or city). The AIs units and cities also break up the fog, so an area without your units and without the AI units is a cesspool of Barb spawn. Barbarian activity also increases through the game, so it can seem like they are "raging" if the year is 1000 AD and there's still a chunk of fogged land for them to spawn. Use fog busters or always escort your settlers. If you want to have fun with Barbs, choose the Terran map -- sets it up with an "old world" where you and the AI live, and a "new world" continent populated only by barbarians. By the time you research Astronomy (which is a key tech in that map), the barbs have pretty much the whole continent populated with cities of size 16, gaurded by Grenadiers and Rifles, and swarming with more units. Sometimes they even build wonders over there.

And on the topic of Vassal states ... I turn them off unless I want a challenge. I don't like having a vassal myself most of the time, and it gets pretty messed up when you're just about to destroy a civ and they capitulate to your technologically advanced "friend". This "friend" declares war, and you become overwhelmed with units on a front you had let relax, because, well, it bordered your buddy! Then your relations with said friend go down the tubes because you're in a war with them. When I want an extra challenge, I'll turn on the vassal states.

 

[Ofuh]

Lol I played the terra map today, while randomly picking maps. I didn't know what to expect. When I explored and found another continent with a whole barbarian civ, that was pretty damn cool.

I don't know if it was the fact that everyone was on a smaller island, thus the AI couldn't have a huge civilization or if I really have improved that much, but I dominated like never before. I took out my neighbor hannibal in the first axe war. I moved on to Louis after a few turns. He ended up surviving as a city on a lone 3 tile island right off my coast. Got a couple early techs that I missed as payment for a peace treaty. By this time I was starting to get ahead of the game. I oracled feudalism. I got civil service but didn't have iron so I couldn't pump out maces. A few turns later an iron deposit appeared in the territory I conquered from Louis. As I was getting military tradition, I declared war on Bismark and made short work of him. Next came Wang Kong. By then I had several level 4 and 5 cavalries. Damn charismatic really makes things easy. He was a walk in the park, but he had settled the group of islands off the coast. So I couldn't finish him off right away. By that time I got several level 6 cavalries, even a level 8 one I think. I was taking towns left and right. Then Shaka suffered the same fate. I finished off Louis on his lone Island, then moved on to the Turks who were the only one left. Killing them took longer than the others. He too had settled the islands. By that time I had transports. Loaded up a couple transports and mopped up the islands. Couple turns pass by and conquest victory I was way ahead in technology. I seriously thought I had been playing on an easier difficulty until I checked and it was still Noble. Whether or not the map type made the AI weaker, I definitely am improving. I can't wait to start my next game and see if I was just lucky. I forgot to save again. I get too caught up in the moment and don't think of it. And then once war breaks out I save every couple turns in case I am careles and accidentally send a unit to his death or some other act of carelssness. Also, once finished with the game I don't feel like sifting through the save files for hours trying to figure out which ones are saves to keep track of progress, and which ones are "security saves"

Again thanks for the input guys, esp automator. It's really helping

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I'll second that the slower the speeds the easier for the human. A lot of the tools that help keep up with the AI get better as the speed slows down. Obviously war is number one, 'cause humans can do that so much better and larger windows of tech supremacy certainly help that. Also, pop rushing and chopping (although the argument for the hammers over a marathon game from a forest might actually nerf the long term benefit of early production from chopping).

I'm not sure how you popped feudalism with the oracle, that seems like it must've been pretty late, but congrats. How long does a game take for you though? I still think if you can play out two full games in a night you're playing really fast. Do you check your cities to make sure they're working the right tiles? If so how often? Are you paying attention to when cities are going to grow and when they'll need a new temple or health building? Are you still automating workers?

The thing about terra on noble is because it's so crowded, it's a lot easier to just keep rolling over the AI and using the capture city gold to keep your economy working. Although, I can't see your game, so I could be totally off. Sounds like your starting to feel like you're getting a handle on it, which is always fun. It won't be long before you decide you need to move up a level and then everything'll change again.

Prince is really where trading, diplomacy, navies and a lot of the game mechanics that just don't seem to help all that much at noble really start to come into play.

Also, if you don't want a lot of "security saves" you can just use quicksave (shift-F5), it'll overwrite itself, but it'll save you having a ton of extra saves and you can save regularly whenever you want and rename it for easy reference.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

As a relative noobie, I really appreciate this thread. I'm just on the cusp of moving onto noble...should be interesting.