Hi guys, I've been playing Civ4 casually since it was released, but lately I've been trying to master the game before Civ5. Maybe master is isn't the correct term, but I'd like a stronger grasp on Civ4 strategy.
I've beaten some Noble and even Prince games, but it's not a sure thing. I lost 3 Noble games today, and I'm getting to the point where I have questions without answers, so here I am.
I can't remember what civ I played in my first game, it was a few days ago. However, I did choose the arboria map because I wanted to try something a bit different. One thing I had always noticed is that I settle 3-4 cities and then I'm content with those throughout the game until I take some from the AI. Expanding is going to be the theme of this post. I actually wrote notes about everything I did in my last game, but I decided that I'd ignore all the smaller issues and focus on getting better at expanding. Anyways, my arboria game. There was actually quite a few decent spots to plan a city near me, and I ended up over-expanding. OK, I loaded the game. I'm Sumeria, and I have 5 cities at 980 BC. All in really great places, by looking at this game I'd feel I was in a really strong position. The problem is I'm at -1 gold a turn with 0% research, and I lost most of my military to strikes. There really was just no good money resources near me, and I hadn't quite had time to get to cottages yet (I tend to focus on food first). Here's the city-count of the various AIs: 4, 6, 5, 3, 4. As you can see, the AI is very close to me in city count. And if anything, I have the best resources on the map. There's no gems or anything like that which I'd consider a big money making resource. This is very common in all of my games, the AI can afford massive 20-city empires while I can't. If I want to compete, my empire is just a fraction of the size of their's. I'm totally clueless as to what major money making strategy I'm missing out on... I build cottages, usually focusing on one city near money resources. I (later on) build courthouses and get the various "money techs." The problem was that this is so early in the game I couldn't avoid bankruptcy, so how does the AI with equal number of cities as me do it? In general, their city is way more improved than mine, they have their entire empire already maxed on improved tiles and I don't see a single worker in the World Editor, is this just part of the AI's advantage? If so, what is Deity like, the AI can build 5 fully evolved towns per turn? I'm still working on improving all my resource tiles, I can throw down a random farm here and there but I'm nowhere near being safe enough to start massing up cottages. This is with 7 workers for 6 cities.
So, the cliffs notes is: How do I keep up with the AI in expansion, and not go broke?
Game 2 & 3: I was experimenting with some other quirky map types, I don't think I have saves. Expansion was again, a problem. Justinian always had 2-3x+ map control than I did, and often stifled my ability to expand early on at about 3-4 cities. I had nowhere to expand and ended both of these games when I had 4 cities to his 10+.
Game 4: This is the last game I did, on Pangea. I took notes on this, and have many questions from it, but again, expanding was my biggest problem. I played the Dutch on Noble. Everything started great, I started near Shaka who I deemed as a threat, so I chariot rushed him early, and took his capital. This was such a huge move for me, as his capital was absolutely amazing. I'd tell you how much money Ulandi is making right now, except I'm not sure why it won't tell me. When I go into the city view, there's a stack of coins which I swore was the count of how much money you got per turn from that city. But it shows at 0.00 even with research at 0% (so the coins are at 100%). Bizarre. Anyways, I have two tiles with money bag + 4 coins, a couple other money bags, +4 coins from many coast tiles. My goal of this game was to stay alive with money, and even with a financial leader on Noble I don't make as much as I think I should (breaking even at 80% research currently at 1075 AD). I stopped playing at 1075 AD since Asoka just started plowing so far ahead of me. Yes, I could continue playing, but I atleast like to keep close to the AI. Once I get far behind I lose interest.
Asoka was like Justinian in this game, controlling over half of the map. I expanded quickly, and what I felt at the most opportune times, but only ended up with 4 cities before I had Asoka blocking me to the west and the north, and Sitting Bull to the east. I played on 4 cities for awhile, until I realized that Asoka had over 10 cities. I create a location I didn't like at all, and culture bombed it to eventually force a Native American city to revolt to me. These cities aren't very good at all, but I felt like I needed more. But then I started wondering, is it worth making 10-20 coins less a turn for cities that are going to suck? At this point, Asoka has twice as many cities as me (12) all in really good spots, except for one questionable city.
So, that's about that. How do I afford to expand, how can I keep up with the AI and not go broke, and is it really worth it found cities not in optimal resource areas and take a maintenance hit, only to be able to grow and produce very slowly?
Thanks for reading, I'm sure I'll have more questions soon
I've beaten some Noble and even Prince games, but it's not a sure thing. I lost 3 Noble games today, and I'm getting to the point where I have questions without answers, so here I am.
I can't remember what civ I played in my first game, it was a few days ago. However, I did choose the arboria map because I wanted to try something a bit different. One thing I had always noticed is that I settle 3-4 cities and then I'm content with those throughout the game until I take some from the AI. Expanding is going to be the theme of this post. I actually wrote notes about everything I did in my last game, but I decided that I'd ignore all the smaller issues and focus on getting better at expanding. Anyways, my arboria game. There was actually quite a few decent spots to plan a city near me, and I ended up over-expanding. OK, I loaded the game. I'm Sumeria, and I have 5 cities at 980 BC. All in really great places, by looking at this game I'd feel I was in a really strong position. The problem is I'm at -1 gold a turn with 0% research, and I lost most of my military to strikes. There really was just no good money resources near me, and I hadn't quite had time to get to cottages yet (I tend to focus on food first). Here's the city-count of the various AIs: 4, 6, 5, 3, 4. As you can see, the AI is very close to me in city count. And if anything, I have the best resources on the map. There's no gems or anything like that which I'd consider a big money making resource. This is very common in all of my games, the AI can afford massive 20-city empires while I can't. If I want to compete, my empire is just a fraction of the size of their's. I'm totally clueless as to what major money making strategy I'm missing out on... I build cottages, usually focusing on one city near money resources. I (later on) build courthouses and get the various "money techs." The problem was that this is so early in the game I couldn't avoid bankruptcy, so how does the AI with equal number of cities as me do it? In general, their city is way more improved than mine, they have their entire empire already maxed on improved tiles and I don't see a single worker in the World Editor, is this just part of the AI's advantage? If so, what is Deity like, the AI can build 5 fully evolved towns per turn? I'm still working on improving all my resource tiles, I can throw down a random farm here and there but I'm nowhere near being safe enough to start massing up cottages. This is with 7 workers for 6 cities.
So, the cliffs notes is: How do I keep up with the AI in expansion, and not go broke?
Game 2 & 3: I was experimenting with some other quirky map types, I don't think I have saves. Expansion was again, a problem. Justinian always had 2-3x+ map control than I did, and often stifled my ability to expand early on at about 3-4 cities. I had nowhere to expand and ended both of these games when I had 4 cities to his 10+.
Game 4: This is the last game I did, on Pangea. I took notes on this, and have many questions from it, but again, expanding was my biggest problem. I played the Dutch on Noble. Everything started great, I started near Shaka who I deemed as a threat, so I chariot rushed him early, and took his capital. This was such a huge move for me, as his capital was absolutely amazing. I'd tell you how much money Ulandi is making right now, except I'm not sure why it won't tell me. When I go into the city view, there's a stack of coins which I swore was the count of how much money you got per turn from that city. But it shows at 0.00 even with research at 0% (so the coins are at 100%). Bizarre. Anyways, I have two tiles with money bag + 4 coins, a couple other money bags, +4 coins from many coast tiles. My goal of this game was to stay alive with money, and even with a financial leader on Noble I don't make as much as I think I should (breaking even at 80% research currently at 1075 AD). I stopped playing at 1075 AD since Asoka just started plowing so far ahead of me. Yes, I could continue playing, but I atleast like to keep close to the AI. Once I get far behind I lose interest.
Asoka was like Justinian in this game, controlling over half of the map. I expanded quickly, and what I felt at the most opportune times, but only ended up with 4 cities before I had Asoka blocking me to the west and the north, and Sitting Bull to the east. I played on 4 cities for awhile, until I realized that Asoka had over 10 cities. I create a location I didn't like at all, and culture bombed it to eventually force a Native American city to revolt to me. These cities aren't very good at all, but I felt like I needed more. But then I started wondering, is it worth making 10-20 coins less a turn for cities that are going to suck? At this point, Asoka has twice as many cities as me (12) all in really good spots, except for one questionable city.
So, that's about that. How do I afford to expand, how can I keep up with the AI and not go broke, and is it really worth it found cities not in optimal resource areas and take a maintenance hit, only to be able to grow and produce very slowly?
Thanks for reading, I'm sure I'll have more questions soon
is always equivalent to gold
. The differences between commerce and gold are explained in 
if you're not playing BTS). Also, you will hear other players talking about how the number of science
(aka "beakers," but technically they're flasks) is more important than %
