Help- overwhelmed

[wally4ever]

First of all, I really love this game. I'm not particularly good at it, but I love it. The problem is I can't really focus. I try to make my civilization do everything. I try to found all the religions first, make wonders first, make cities, and research everything. As a result, my economy typically sucks and my army is a disaster. There's just so much stuff to do, and I want to do it all! Does anyone else have this problem (or, more to the point, does anyone know how to fix it)? I've been playing a few epic games on a standard size Pangaea map. I've tried to play as Romans and making a bee-line for Praetorians, just to give myself a specific goal, but then I saw it was several turns in and no one had founded Judaism yet, so I decided to side-track off to that, and everything jumbled together again. I played the three previous civilization games, I had similar problems there, but since there was less to do, it wasn't as big an issue.

Long story short... I always jump out to a quick lead on the culture/research fields, but by the Medieval period, the bottom falls out. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[madscientist]

First of all, I really love this game. I'm not particularly good at it, but I love it. The problem is I can't really focus. I try to make my civilization do everything. I try to found all the religions first, make wonders first, make cities, and research everything. As a result, my economy typically sucks and my army is a disaster. There's just so much stuff to do, and I want to do it all! Does anyone else have this problem (or, more to the point, does anyone know how to fix it)? I've been playing a few epic games on a standard size Pangaea map. I've tried to play as Romans and making a bee-line for Praetorians, just to give myself a specific goal, but then I saw it was several turns in and no one had founded Judaism yet, so I decided to side-track off to that, and everything jumbled together again. I played the three previous civilization games, I had similar problems there, but since there was less to do, it wasn't as big an issue.

Long story short... I always jump out to a quick lead on the culture/research fields, but by the Medieval period, the bottom falls out. Does anyone have any advice?

First of all welcome to the forums.

Second, relax the game is fun and generally takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days to play.

Now, it is difficult to do everything. Some simple suggestions

1) Founding all religions. Unless you plan to make a point (I did this once and posted a game on it) you do not need to found any religions, but getting 1 helps alot. Try for Hinduism or Buddhism only if you start with mysticism and can work a tiel that has at least 1 commerce. Otherwise tech food and military techs and found a later religion.
2) Wonders. They are great but highly adictive. Determine if you really want that wonder. Example, if you are creative, stoenhenge is not worth it. If you plan on adopting Free Religion civic, the university of Sankore/spiral minerat/Sisten Chapel are not worth that much.
3) Keep up in military. Secure a source of horses, copper, iron early. Do not lack
4) Expand at a reasonable rate. Do not overexpand where you science slider is at 10%, but do not be timid and try to keep it at 90-100% either.
5) Target Currency and CoL which are 2 of the best early techs for your economy.

 

[vicawoo]

To keep things simple: build 1 worker per city, have workers build lots of cottages, cities build granary, barracks, units (praets and catapults for you). When you get code of laws, build courthouses in far away cities. Otherwise, more units, kill people, repeat.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Always improve special resources in the city workable radius (especially food resources) before cottages though.

 

[Gone Dark]

First of all, I really love this game. I'm not particularly good at it, but I love it. The problem is I can't really focus. I try to make my civilization do everything. I try to found all the religions first, make wonders first, make cities, and research everything. As a result, my economy typically sucks and my army is a disaster. There's just so much stuff to do, and I want to do it all! Does anyone else have this problem (or, more to the point, does anyone know how to fix it)? I've been playing a few epic games on a standard size Pangaea map. I've tried to play as Romans and making a bee-line for Praetorians, just to give myself a specific goal, but then I saw it was several turns in and no one had founded Judaism yet, so I decided to side-track off to that, and everything jumbled together again. I played the three previous civilization games, I had similar problems there, but since there was less to do, it wasn't as big an issue.

Long story short... I always jump out to a quick lead on the culture/research fields, but by the Medieval period, the bottom falls out. Does anyone have any advice?

Yep, I used to do this myself.

Try a game where you...

* Ignore the three early religions. Go as straight as you can for Code of Laws and Confusianism instead. Make the AIs chase the earlier religions. If you don't get Confusianism either, so be it! Just adapt to the diplomatic situation and convert to the religion that fits your plans best. Focus on worker techs and economic techs instead.

* Build NO world wonders. Instead, focus on national wonders.

* Assign one city to be your military city. This city will build a barracks, a monument, a granary and a courthouse. Besides those, only military. You can build a forge and Heroic Epic later on.

* Use your capital as settler/worker pump. Short time, you gain a lot by not expanding fast. The small maintance costs will make you tech fast for a while, then it quickly fades. Instead of wasting turns founding a religion, try to emphase early growth and expansion. Make sure not to overexpand before you get Code of Laws and Currency.

* When you have explored in a big circle around your capital, try to make a dotmap were your future cities should go and try to figure out how to specialize them and make them your national wonder cities: production cities (Ironworks and Heroic Epic) commerce/science cities (Wall Street and Oxford, I usually put the Oxford uni in my capital though), GP-farm. These will be your core cities in your future empire.

* Learn to prepare to rush your neighbour. Most games I ignore an early religion due to this. If an AI is close by you have wasted precious turns instead of finding horses/copper as soon as possible. When you do rush, learn to focus 100% on your objective and don't let other things distract you. If you do, your rush will often fail. You job is to make X units and then move them from tile Y to tile Z in Q turns. Nothing else.

 

[wally4ever]

Thanks for the help everyone... I'm definitely going to try some of that... Tomorrow I'm going to try and play a game using the plan Gone Dark just set up.

 

[dragomaster]

wery good points from Gone Dark.

the thing is too play from the leaders starting techs.

If you dont start with mystesism. just forget about all the first three religons, even if you have mystesism you realy need a title with minimum one commerce and with only one commerce pic polyteism so you can have a chans on monoteism if you fail on hinu.

If you start with hunting consider to build anouther scout with a high hammer title.

If you start with mining or agriculture or wheel, worker first. even without thes techs from start can mean worker first. adopt to the map and BFC.

Wonders are great but all wonders is not needed pic only one in the begining of the game. do you have marble/stone, are you creative, is the map crowded, are the nearest neigbour far away, are the neighbours agressive, are they peacemongers. this is the questions you need to ask yourself. and is importent before picking an early wonder. in the mid game you can build wonders. but don't over do it. cous you goal shold always be to have the tech lead. so you can owerwhelm your neighbours with advanced troops.

Do as Gone dark say but one early wonder can be needed so don't scip this part. and as I say, pick one or no one after this questions. are you creative, is the map crowded, are the nearest neigbour far away, are the neighbours agressive, are they peacemongers, will barbs be a problem, will you have alot of costal citys.

Bad english I know, read it as you please.

 

[Willem]

If you start with hunting consider to build anouther scout with a high hammer title.

Even that's not necessary. A single Scout is more than enough to expose enough land to plan your city placement out with. And chances are you're going to pick up more units by popping Goody Huts. Even if I don't start with Hunting, I'll rarely build a Scout. About the only time I will is if my current explorer unit gets killed.

 

[Willem]

I try to found all the religions first,...

It's foolish trying to go for all the religions. About the most that you want to have is 2, maybe 3. More than that and it gets difficult trying to spread them all. You'll need to have one city that does nothing but build Missionaries. And your Great People production is going to be tied up trying to build Great Prophets for all the shrines.

 

[dragomaster]

a worker first is not always good becous of reserch time to worker techs. I do most often build worker first. however in my last game I had marble, wheet and cow in BFC. I started with Hunting and Mining, all hills in BFC had forest. two turnes from start popped a map directly north of capital and saw that i had a greate opertunity to go on a goody hut spree with my first scout. so i switched from worker to a scout in capital. I was thinking like this, a worker took 28 turns, agricuture 29 turns. Ok i sacriface my early groth with about 7 turnsfrom built worker. one turn is already wasted becous agri take 29 turns. so thats 6 turns. after the farm is done he will be asleep in more than 10 turn wating for the next tech witch will be AH so wating with a worker wasn't so bad after all. It turned out good i found three huts with my first scout poped AH and cash in those three huts. my outher scout found three more huts and he poped fishing, map and cash. it turned out great, i didn't even sacrifice growth i earn growh when The AH hut pop made my worker able to improve the cows directly after finishing the farm.

It is not always those gambels are good and that is what make civ great. calculate and make a desition.

 

[Gone Dark]

Do as Gone dark say but one early wonder can be needed so don't scip this part.

I almost edited my post to say one or two early wonders might be in order if you have the appropriate resource and/or are IND, but then again, the OP states he suffers from IWBS (Impulsive Wonder Building Syndrome ). I used to do that as well. The best way to get rid of it is to learn to play with no wonders at all.

 

[vicawoo]

a worker first is not always good becous of reserch time to worker techs. I do most often build worker first. however in my last game I had marble, wheet and cow in BFC. I started with Hunting and Mining, all hills in BFC had forest. two turnes from start popped a map directly north of capital and saw that i had a greate opertunity to go on a goody hut spree with my first scout. so i switched from worker to a scout in capital. I was thinking like this, a worker took 28 turns, agricuture 29 turns. Ok i sacriface my early groth with about 7 turnsfrom built worker. one turn is already wasted becous agri take 29 turns. so thats 6 turns. after the farm is done he will be asleep in more than 10 turn wating for the next tech witch will be AH so wating with a worker wasn't so bad after all. It turned out good i found three huts with my first scout poped AH and cash in those three huts. my outher scout found three more huts and he poped fishing, map and cash. it turned out great, i didn't even sacrifice growth i earn growh when The AH hut pop made my worker able to improve the cows directly after finishing the farm.

It is not always those gambels are good and that is what make civ great. calculate and make a desition.

How is it possible for agriculture to take more time than building a worker?

Early scout is an ok gambit, probably for BTS. But that city sounds like it's begging for worker turns.

 

[wally4ever]

Thanks for the help everyone! I'm having better luck now... I played a couple games, and I managed to win a conquest battle on Warlord, which I've never done before... I tried playing as the Incas, and their unique unit has helped make me more bloodthirsty to start games. I've been able to annihilate a civilization before 3600 BC... I still make tons (too many, probably) wonders, but I've been designating a wonder city, that does very little other than produce wonders, with no wonders anywhere else

 

[dragomaster]

How is it possible for agriculture to take more time than building a worker?

Early scout is an ok gambit, probably for BTS. But that city sounds like it's begging for worker turns.

have you ever played marathon speed? all worker techs take longer time than building a worker. thirty turns is the base cost if not you capitol have bonus production or civ have bonus on producing workers. no gold coins to work means agriculture cost 31 turns. try it you'll see.