Great game but struggling! Help appreciated

[paulcarri]

Hey all

Used to play a fair bit, and i recently got civ v but it wasnt for me unfortunately

So i have dusted off my old civ iv disk and have started playing again..and im having good fun- after 4 years not playing everything feels fresh again.

Its been fun lurking the forums at work too


It seems ive forgotten how to play though!!, i started on an easy level (noble) and thought i was doing ok, but the economy is REALLY bombing and my tech lead is slender

If anyone could advise where to go from here (attached) id greatly appreciate it

Im pondering an agressive expansion, but my UU is already out of date now.

Do you think this position is winnable? Where would you be heading in terms of build, techs, expansion etc?

Thanks

 

[lymond]

First, welcome to CFCdom!!!

Second, it seems like in 4 years you forgot to pickup BTS. Play BTS.

Third, you are in great position and blowing away the AI. Just get Construction and Catapults, build them en masse and go destroyed the world. Cats are OP in vanilla and Warlords for the matter until BTS finally made sense of them.

Your economy is fantastic and your tech lead is not slender. Yeah, with experience you can start blowing away the AIs at this level, but you are not doing badly here at all. 10 cities by this date is pretty darn aggressive already.

I question a couple of settling/improvement decisions like Machu Pichu - that city aint' going nowhere with cottages.

Get BTS, play a game on Noble to acclimate, watch a Let's Play or two and then start moving up levels.

Probably just need to work some on city specialization and worker management for now. I only took a quick glance at this time.

 

[paulcarri]

Hey lymond

I did get the expansion packs, but ive moved since then and not sure where the disks are, i may rebuy them though.

I guess i shouldnt worry about the fact my slider has to be so low then??.

Ill look at catapults, thanks- big concern i had with military is i have loads of quechuas around, but NO cash to upgrade them.

As for the cottages, ill take a look thanks- i have been playing till 2.00am im afraid and it is quite possible with so many units to deal with i just spammed a cottage or two in the wrong place .

As for 10 cities-well i expanded fast because i was worried about being hemmed in...but i am finally running out of space now.


Thanks again, i guess i was looking at the score too much when assessing progress.

EDIT

Thanks for the welcome

 

[lymond]

Lower your slider to 0%. You are making 50 gpt right now which is excellent at this stage of the game with 10 cities. If you need gold, drop your slider. There is nothing wrong with that. You can do that for teching as well. That is why I say your economy is actually quite good.

Also, and I can't remember if you had currency yet - you should be the way as it is a VERY important tech - you can trade some old techs for gold as well. Currency lets you convert hammers to gold as well.

edit: No you don't have currency. CoL is ok too, but I'd go Maths>Currency right now. I'm sure there so gold to be had.

And I would not worry too much about upgrading Qs. That is really a big waste unless you have some nicely promoted ones. Just build better units.

Keep an eye on your cities as much as you can micro. Vanilla especially is terrible with citizen management. Take Cuzco, for instance. Take a look at it and see what you think is wrong there.

That Jungle city is okay for commerce but really needs a farm or two to get going. Library should have been 2 pop whipped. Remember FOOD is king in this game. Try to get food. Pre-BTS mapscrips are kinda bad for food distribution but try your best to get food resources are otherwise farm to balance food and production or commerce.

edit2: Back to the slider thing. Sliders are relative. It's more about bpts (beakers per turn). MOre cities, more scientists, more trade routes equals more bpts. Your slider is low because you are running it low. No reason you can't raise to 100% now or rather do a couple of turns or binary research (100% tax) which gives you 100 more gold, and then run research slider at 100% until Maths is finished. You are doing great. 50 gpt is very very good. You can still expand.

And make sure you are running scientists for even more beakers and to generate Great Scientists.

 

[paulcarri]

Thanks, i really appreciate the feedback and help!

As far as tech is concerned, i went COL because i was hoping courthouses would get maintenance down...

But ill beeline currency now. Believe it or not id forgotten about trading tech for gold!- i did remember the importance of alphabet at least

As for whipping- i used this a heck of a lot at the start but i rarely whip now (i prefer chopping) thanks ill look at it.

Got you on the food, i think i have a bit too much of a cottage obsession, and consider too little the value of specialists that excess food can bring. Ill do a full city review i think.

Thanks again

 

[Cam_H]

OK ... some of my thunder's been stolen since looking at this game, so please forgive any repeated points!

• Upon taking The Pyramids in Mecca, I'd seriously look at Representation as a more developed form of government than Hereditary Rule.
  
• Just to reinforce the point that's been mentioned, you are in Slavery and there's no whip weariness. This is arguably the most powerful civic there is.
  
• lymond's already mentioned the citizen allocation in your capital, so no need to tell you that it needs attention.
  
• Try to fine-tune the roles of your cities - you've got some nice spots, but several cities aren't commerce oriented or production oriented, but could work well as either one or the other.
  
• New cities at this point should probably be building Granaries rather than Workers or units which can be popped out quickly from cities with larger populations.
  
• Workers need to be better used - lots of road building going on to cities that are already connected by the coast and therefore are receiving your empire's core resources, while in the meantime resource-rich tiles are unimproved. Look at developing riverside Grassland tiles before non-riverside Grassland due to the +1.
  
• What on earth are those Settlers doing in Germany?

Hope this is of some help. Best of luck.

 

[Tall German Joe]

Thanks, i really appreciate the feedback and help!

As far as tech is concerned, i went COL because i was hoping courthouses would get maintenance down...

But ill beeline currency now. Believe it or not id forgotten about trading tech for gold!- i did remember the importance of alphabet at least

As for whipping- i used this a heck of a lot at the start but i rarely whip now (i prefer chopping) thanks ill look at it.

Got you on the food, i think i have a bit too much of a cottage obsession, and consider too little the value of specialists that excess food can bring. Ill do a full city review i think.

Thanks again

the reason currency is so important isn't just for tech trading. currency does LOTS of stuff: 1.) gives you a bonus trade route in every city, which usually gives you, in total, depending on how many cities you have, bonus commence per turn equivalent to working multiple gold mines (really! it's really that much total!), 2.) lets you build wealth in cities that don't need any more infrastructure (important for increasing your research rate via city specialization - more of an advanced skill, don't worry about this yet) , 3.) lets you sell old techs for tons of gold from the AIs, as you say, which is very important for jumping out ahead in tech, and finally 4.) lets you build markets, which is kind of a junky building on its own but can be helpful in specific circumstances.

 

[paulcarri]

@cam

lol @ the settler, i was going to settle a tile there but germany beat me to it (im going from memory, im at work)

and i guess i really need to look at what my workers are doing thanks. My biggest weakness is when i have tonnes of units to deal with each turn i sometimes click before i think .

@Joe Thanks, cant believe ive forgotten that!

About river tiles (grass and floodplains)... my thoughts have been that cottage is better than food- because later on towns sound very productive and huge money.

From what ive read, massive excess food, plus specialists may work out better?
__

I guess its expected that id make a lot of mistakes as its essentially like the first time ive ever played, but its reassuring that people seem to think a win from here is still a possibility.

 

[lymond]

Riverside cottages are great, but you have to ask yourself what the purpose of the city is. find some write-ups on city specialization if you forgot what that is.

In the case of that jungle city with all those commerce resources, I can see it easily being a commerce city with some riverside cottages. However, grass cottages are food neutral so it is hard to grow fast on just cottages. Ideally you actually have a good food resource, but that is not the case here. So a farm or two will help you grow a bit faster to work more commerce styles and whip in a granary and multiplier buildings. Then you let it grow. You can possibly cottage those farms later when the city has grown sufficiently.

to think a win from here is still a possibility.

that'd be inevitability. Only way you lose this is just not doing stuff right from here on out.

 

[paulcarri]

hehe im actually considering a restart, and seeing if i do better with the extra knowledge gained from here - maybee on prince im not sure

thanks all of you, ive learnt a lot just on this thread-

 

[paulcarri]

well i did restart putting all the advice into practice this time...and wow..200AD and im absurdly ahead now and about to go on a rampage with catapults and macemen.

Im going to play the game to the end to learn key techs etc, im just curious

Would people advise jumping straight to monarch next?

 

[CivMcNut]

I enjoy playing on Monarch, that seems to be the level where you get a pretty good challenge out of the AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

that'd be inevitability. Only way you lose this is just not doing stuff right from here on out.

Sounds like most 4000 BC games aside from a very few exceptions. It's just a question of how much one does that "isn't right".

<3.

 

[paulcarri]

This game was a domination win in 1580 AD, have moved up to prince for my second game- but on a smaller map!! towards the end i had about 50 workers to manage and got knows how many cities.