I have not played this game in several months, so I'm a little bit lost on some of the finer aspects of Civ IV. I recently cranked the game back up and started a game (Noble Difficulty, Epic speed, Standard sized, 3-Continent map as the Inca).
For a while things were looking up, then I stupidly sent the Quechua unit guarding my capital out to provoke an attack from a barbarian archer unit menacing the area, setting up the Quechua outside my city. Long story short, despite archer units normally being bad at attacking, the Quechua lost and my capital city was razed. That really put me behind in the score department compared to my neighbours Alexander and Caesar. After taking over the city of Mauryan that the Barbs had set up in the rubble of Cuzco, I determined that the best way to catch up to my rivals was to simply eliminate them, leaving me in sole control of the continent.
This worked well at first, and Caesar (the weaker of my rivals) was wiped off the face of the earth in little time. However, I turned to Alexander to discover that he had a much higher power rating than me. I started to produce a ton more troops to attack him, only to run out of money and have my units start striking. At first, I merely changed the tiles that my cities worked in order to prioritize commerce, however, this drastically slowed down my unit production, so I set my cities back to a more balanced system, and lowered the amount of commerce spent on research.
This worked...for a while. Then I noticed that now, not only was I making only slow progress against Greece in the Power graph, Alexander was leaps and bounds ahead of me in technology- He was in the medieval period, and using longbowmen, which would cause serious grief to my already outnumbered forces should I choose war.
Now...on the the point of this thread: What exactly is the best way for me to catch up to Alexander in terms of military numbers, AND keeps me from ending up as some primitive, savage nation compared to Greece?
Should I stick to my plan of taking over the continent before I encounter the rest of the world, or just live with Alexander and try a more peaceful victory? (by the way, Alexander is currently pleased with me)
What is the best way to dramatically (or at least substantially) increase my commerce without taking big hits in unit production or food output?
P.S. Tell me if you need additional information, of course
From left to right:
the western part of the known world
the eastern part of the known world
the score graph
the power graph
For a while things were looking up, then I stupidly sent the Quechua unit guarding my capital out to provoke an attack from a barbarian archer unit menacing the area, setting up the Quechua outside my city. Long story short, despite archer units normally being bad at attacking, the Quechua lost and my capital city was razed. That really put me behind in the score department compared to my neighbours Alexander and Caesar. After taking over the city of Mauryan that the Barbs had set up in the rubble of Cuzco, I determined that the best way to catch up to my rivals was to simply eliminate them, leaving me in sole control of the continent.
This worked well at first, and Caesar (the weaker of my rivals) was wiped off the face of the earth in little time. However, I turned to Alexander to discover that he had a much higher power rating than me. I started to produce a ton more troops to attack him, only to run out of money and have my units start striking. At first, I merely changed the tiles that my cities worked in order to prioritize commerce, however, this drastically slowed down my unit production, so I set my cities back to a more balanced system, and lowered the amount of commerce spent on research.
This worked...for a while. Then I noticed that now, not only was I making only slow progress against Greece in the Power graph, Alexander was leaps and bounds ahead of me in technology- He was in the medieval period, and using longbowmen, which would cause serious grief to my already outnumbered forces should I choose war.
Now...on the the point of this thread: What exactly is the best way for me to catch up to Alexander in terms of military numbers, AND keeps me from ending up as some primitive, savage nation compared to Greece?
Should I stick to my plan of taking over the continent before I encounter the rest of the world, or just live with Alexander and try a more peaceful victory? (by the way, Alexander is currently pleased with me)
What is the best way to dramatically (or at least substantially) increase my commerce without taking big hits in unit production or food output?
P.S. Tell me if you need additional information, of course
From left to right:
the western part of the known world
the eastern part of the known world
the score graph
the power graph
