Good way to learn?

[KROL]

I'm an old fan of the Civ series. I first played SM's Colonization back in 1994, then Civ II in 1996, and since then I've been playing Civilization games off and on through the years.

However, Civ IV is a bit more of a complex game, and I'm definitely stuttering in the process of learning some of the newer concepts and playing styles. My first game was on Settler, but that was way too easy, so I abandoned it halfway through and moved up to Noble. I was doing really well in that game (top in the score rankings), so I moved up to Prince. Now, I'm having difficulty doing really well.

Barbarians are one of my biggest issues. I can easily conquer any other civ on the game map, but I can't seem to defend my growing empire. Even with an archer garrisoned in each city and an axeman posted as an "offensive sentry" to prevent pillaging, I still get my butt handed to me by barbarians every now and then. This is one area I really have to master. I COULD just play with "no barbarians", but I would feel cheap and weak if I did that.

Another area is economy. I have a hard time building up a really good economy. Having surplus income is a rare thing for me, and after my initial expansion, I end up feeling like I'm falling behind in the tech race. I can still tread water with this type of situation on the Prince difficulty level, but I know it's going to kill me once I move up to Monarch or Emperor.

So far, I've been playing primarily on Epic or Marathon game speed, but I'm considering starting a series of full games on Fast Speed, just so I can get a lot of experience in all the different eras of the game, and so I can experiment with different ways of improving tiles and building an economy.

What would be some good game settings to ensure I get a good learning experience out of this? I'm thinking that since the game will be shorter, I'll need to make the map much smaller in order to keep the pacing balanced. Any thoughts? Keep in mind it's not my military strategy that needs work, it's my empire/economy-building strategy.

 

[KMadCandy]

as far as barbarians go, a small map with nearby civs decreases the total fog of war and therefore the spots barbs can appear. so try for that to reduce the barb hassle.

you mention "an axeman posted as an "offensive sentry" to prevent pillaging". i post some units (chariots, axemen/archers on a forested hill, whatever's spare and has less than 10 exp) on the fringes of my empire to fogbust. gives plenty of warning when they pop up, gives exp if my guys whack 'em, and keeps the inner core safer. you can't concentrate on just protecting your cities literally and expect that to protect your cities, if that makes any sense. you may already be taking care of that, i can't tell from your phrasing.

economy/expansion, yeah, bleh. definitely gets harder as you go higher. for that i have no specific advice.

there are a lot of good articles here to check out if you haven't yet.

 

[KROL]

as far as barbarians go, a small map with nearby civs decreases the total fog of war and therefore the spots barbs can appear. so try for that to reduce the barb hassle.

you mention "an axeman posted as an "offensive sentry" to prevent pillaging". i post some units (chariots, axemen/archers on a forested hill, whatever's spare and has less than 10 exp) on the fringes of my empire to fogbust. gives plenty of warning when they pop up, gives exp if my guys whack 'em, and keeps the inner core safer. you can't concentrate on just protecting your cities literally and expect that to protect your cities, if that makes any sense. you may already be taking care of that, i can't tell from your phrasing.

economy/expansion, yeah, bleh. definitely gets harder as you go higher. for that i have no specific advice.

there are a lot of good articles here to check out if you haven't yet.

I don't want to hide from the barbarians by choosing a small map all the time. I want to able to deal with them under all circumstances. I'm trying to get better.

 

[Cam_H]

I'm thinking that the more you twist the starting conditions around, the more distorted your learning experience is going to be. For a faster game, Normal speed should be fine if you're used to Epic and (yawn ) Marathon.

I'd also think about playing a Spiritual leader with an 'unexceptional' second trait or UU (or UB if Warlords) - Isabella and Asoka are two that come to mind. This will give you a lot of flexibility (no anarchy) but you won't feel pushed into a particular strategic approach (e.g. Cho-ko-nu rush, Quechua rush, Praetorian rush).

If Barbarians are really driving you nuts and you've got Warlords, then Hatshepsut might be the go, as the Warlords version of the War Chariot will make Barbarians all but a non-issue for you. Ramesses' Industrious trait might push you towards a wonder-based approach, which won't give you that 'non-directed thing' that I'm suggesting.

 

[KROL]

I'm thinking that the more you twist the starting conditions around, the more distorted your learning experience is going to be. For a faster game, Normal speed should be fine if you're used to Epic and (yawn ) Marathon.

I'd also think about playing a Spiritual leader with an 'unexceptional' second trait or UU (or UB if Warlords) - Isabella and Asoka are two that come to mind. This will give you a lot of flexibility (no anarchy) but you won't feel pushed into a particular strategic approach (e.g. Cho-ko-nu rush, Quechua rush, Praetorian rush).

If Barbarians are really driving you nuts and you've got Warlords, then Hatshepsut might be the go, as the Warlords version of the War Chariot will make Barbarians all but a non-issue for you. Ramesses' Industrious trait might push you towards a wonder-based approach, which won't give you that 'non-directed thing' that I'm suggesting.

I've played a Normal speed game before, but I'm thinking I want something even faster. How fast is the Fast game setting? Twice as quick as Normal?

 

[Cam_H]

Yes.

It's your game and if you want to play on Fast, that's completely fine.

I just think that you might run the risk of getting frustrated with the tech' pace and the difficulty of running into advanced defensive units when you're halfway through a military campaign. It might not be such a big issue on Prince level, but I fear that you'll be learning more about how to play in a Fast game rather than how to manage a wartime economy.

Best of luck with it!

 

[Galileo44]

In terms of economy, i would guess that you are not specializing enough. Even warmongerors use many cities specialized for only commerce. These are best placed in grassland areas, either for sustainable cottages (Cottage Economy), or for extra food to run specialists in a Specialist Economy(SE). Specializing cities to only economic duties will help you keep up in the tech race.

 

[KROL]

In terms of economy, i would guess that you are not specializing enough. Even warmongerors use many cities specialized for only commerce. These are best placed in grassland areas, either for sustainable cottages (Cottage Economy), or for extra food to run specialists in a Specialist Economy(SE). Specializing cities to only economic duties will help you keep up in the tech race.

That's what I need practice with, amoung other things. That's why I think I'll play a bunch of games on fast mode, so I can get some practice organizing city specialization.

 

[KMadCandy]

I don't want to hide from the barbarians by choosing a small map all the time. I want to able to deal with them under all circumstances. I'm trying to get better.

i don't see how you read that i was encouraging hiding from barbs from what i typed. it wasn't what i meant.

you mentioned playing on a much smaller map. my first paragraph was pointing out that a smaller map with nearby neighbors will decrease the total fog of war, which gives the barbs limited places to spawn and harass you. that's not hiding from barbs, that's a fact of civ life, the more activity that goes on the less places they can hide.

my second paragraph was giving a few details about the way i handle barbs. i could not tell from your phrasing if you do fogbusting in the way that i do. if you stick only close to home with your sentry (which is how i read your method), you won't do as well protecting your core as you will if you have a sentry patrol at home and a sentry patrol out at the borders. that type of fogbusting will help you on every type of map, whether you have close neighbors or are isolated. it's not hiding, it's being proactive. it's not related to using a small map at all, it works for every speed, every map, for me. YMMV.

of course you're trying to get better. i hope that you do, and i was trying in my way to type things that might help that process. good luck.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

I agree with the smaller map idea. There will be less space for barbs to hide, as well as the fact that the other civs will have to battle barbs sooner as well. This only goes towards helping you deal with barbs yourself.

 

[Evanesce]

I find that Small maps, 4-5 civilizations is a good way to start out. As Tyranus said, barbs will have less hiding space, but it's also good to have less civs so that you don't have to deal with a huge amount of diplomacy (instead, you can focus on other things, like city specialization and infrastructure).

Switching the speed to Fast is probably a bad idea (though it is your game). I would just go with Normal; as said, after playing on Epic and Marathon, Normal should seem plenty fast enough. From here, don't choose a victory to go after; however, for every city you build, give it a certain job (Great Person farm, cottage center, production city) to get specialization into your system.

 

[cabert]

small maps are way too easy IMHO.
OTOH large and huge maps are way too hard

Standard maps are the best for learning, just because they are the most balanced, with the least corrective measures to adopt.

Try to practice on 3 domains, by running 3 different games, starting over the same map a few (10?) times :
- surviving : play on very hard settings (like deity, agressive AIs, raging barbs), not aiming for victory but mere survival. What is it good for? Fogbusting will be a second nature after that, and keeping a low profile too.
+ you'll never again forget to build units
- fast teching : give yourself a tech goal (I'd select liberalism, because it's an usual goal), and look how you can get it the fastest (different trading strategies, SE/CE, more cities vs less cities, war vs no war, different civics)
- expansion : try to have as much total population as possible in 500AD. No need to be in the green economically, no need to be safe on the power curve. Just expand and grow! (different strategies there including how to be happy and healthy, how important it is to found cities on food rich spots, slavery or not slavery, ...).

When you get comfortable with those notions, it's time to go exploring the GotMs forum, play an old game (one with results already!), read the spoilers, replay it, read more spoilers, ... until you feel you understand how it was done by the best players (it's no use reading one of the weakest scoring spoilers, of course!).

 

[geofelt]

Building the great wall will stop the barbarian problem. They can't cross your borders even to attack an undefended city.

 

[KROL]

Yeah, I'm probably going to go buy the Warlords expansion soon enough. Then I'm sure the Great Wall will be my favourite wonder by FAR. No barbarian invasions? HOO-YAHH!!

So anyway... Thanks to all who responded to this. I played a couple of Quick games up until about 500 AD just to get a hang of economy-management, then I went back to the Marathon-Conquest gameplay.

I won a game on Prince level in the year 500 AD (approximately) by conquest. Scored something like 47000 points.

Yesterday, I played through an entire Marathon game on a Standard map on Monarch difficulty level, all in one sitting. I won the game in the year 800 BC!! However, I was puzzled to find out that my score was only about 10000.

Considering how easily I spanked Monarch setting, I'm thinking of moving on to Emperor for my next game.

Question: does ALL combat become more difficult with the higher difficulty levels? For example, where an axeman with City Raider II and Cover can beat the pants off a garrisoned archer on Monarch level, would I probably lose the same combat on Emperor or Immortal level? In other words, will I need to use absolutely overwhelming force to take each small scrap of land?

 

[KMadCandy]

Question: does ALL combat become more difficult with the higher difficulty levels? For example, where an axeman with City Raider II and Cover can beat the pants off a garrisoned archer on Monarch level, would I probably lose the same combat on Emperor or Immortal level? In other words, will I need to use absolutely overwhelming force to take each small scrap of land?

the combat odds for the units stay the same, but the AI gets discounts on the cost for researching technologies and building units/infrastructure as difficulty goes up. they also start with more (like at diety they start with 2 archers, 2 settlers, and a worker).

so, that particular battle would have the exact same odds on any difficulty level, if the units were exactly the same. but on emperor/immortal the chances are lower that you'd be facing just one archer when you get there.