How Can I Get Out of This Mess?

Hey guys, I purchased Civ IV a few days ago and have beaten it once on Chieften and once on Noble. Now I'm taking a crack at Prince. I am playing as Caesar on continents, standard speed. I am playing with the current patch.

To my joy, I found that I was not even close to any other civ. The area around my initial city (Rome) was full of resources. I therefore went on a rapid, unplanned wave of expansion. Here's a satellite view.



Unfortunately, it's proven to be disasterous. My economy is shot, I'm falling dangerously behind in technology and my cities (More like towns) are not developing. Thankfully, I'm not even close to any foreign powers, therefore I can safely focus my attention on developing my cities. I need your expert help on how to best organize, specialize and build these cities.

I have the following goals:
1.) To win a space race victory.
2.) To have an army capable of waging a distant war to keep my oponents from developing freely.

My technology so far is: fishing, wheel, agriculture, hunting, mining, masonry, animal husbandry, pottery, bronze and iron working, writing, mathematics and construction.

I have six workers at the moment. Here are links to my financial and domestic advisors.

http://europe-history.com/civ/Civ4ScreenShot0012.JPG
http://europe-history.com/civ/Civ4ScreenShot0013.JPG

My largest city is Rome. It's the only city that I would consider "developing well." To the south of that is my newest city: Arretium.



Here's Rome's city view:


Here's Arretium's:


North of Rome is Antium in the west and Neapolis in the east. Pisae is in the far north. (You can't see Pisae in this screen)



Antium:


Neapolis:


Pisae:


Pisae and Ravenna are the two northern cities of my feeble empire. Ravenna is the one on the north east.


Ravenna:


My easternmost city is Cumae. It is to the east of Rome.


I would greatly appreciate all of your advice. Which cities should specialize in what? What should I have my workers focus on? What technologies should I go for? How do I stablize my economy? Should I build any more settlements? If so, where?

 

maybe you can try to build more cottage and improvments. Get you hands on some good ressource like gold, or something that you can sell to other civilizations...

 

I only skimmed over the screenshots. The long and short of it is you need lots of workers and lots of improvements. You are in a position to turn things around because the Organized trait is just what you need for a sprawling empire.

Take advantage of cheap lighthouses in a coastal city or two. Don't build them in every coastal city though, only if you can't get some workers there right away. Two food and a couple gold per coast is nice, but cottages are better.

You need lots of cottages. Money is everything. Immediately begin chopping all jungle and start spamming cottages - except in a city or two.

Specialize one or two cities for production of military units, then focus the others on growth (along with workers.) Take advantage of cheap graneries in cities that can use them (i.e. only cities with enough food/hammer to make use of them quickly, and where happiness won't be an issue 10 turns later.)

If you want to win a space race it's all about money and, again, that means cottages. You need lots of cottages in every game you play, but especially if you want to dominate technologically. You've discovered the downside of rapid expansion - your economy sucks - but it is mitigated by the Organized trait. The only way to make up for it is with infrastructure weighted toward generating cash.

 

Build that economy, any way you can. You might be behind for abit, but you should catch up, fairly quickly. You might also think about, once you get the economy back on track, building a few settlers and consolidating your gains.

With a bit of patience and time you should pull this out.

 

For a quick boost to your commerce, assign all workers in coastal cities to work sea tiles, unless they are working a resource tile.

Build more workers in cities with limited early growth - predominant plains
Use these to build tile improvements - on resources, mines on hills, and cottages on grassland.
Granaries and lighthouse are excellent for increasing population and thus commerce.
I would look to see what religions have been founded and try and get one. - excellent commerce and also culture expansion.

I also noticed the 2 oasis. These are a superb 1st tile for any city due to the 3 food and 2 commerce. Build another city here and work them.

You really need lots of cottages though.

 

Don't know why you're building so many walls. Especially if there's nobody else around. If you want defense, I'd say build units instead. They're a lot more useful.

 

I suspect you're building walls just as a placeholder before building a worker at size 2. If this is the case I'd recommend researching Writing so you can use libraries for this (which are actually useful for the culture and +25% science). Or like Entrinzikyl said just build a unit in your new cities before switching to a worker.

Metal casting is also a LONG tech to get. Do you have Alphabet already? Do you have Currency/Code of Laws? Can you trade for Currency/Code of Laws? These will all help your economy a lot faster than metal casting & forges will.

 

You can build walls? *faints* never built one yet. Never had any problems as i have ample units normally to defend.

I notice some of the walls are taking ages to build anyway. Growth v's production.

Im confused why its taken you to 1700bc to build the second city. I assume normal speed. Although i know some like to grow capital city to 2-3 before building a settler/ workers. Although Rome is up to 7 in size.

I normally space my starting cities with a gap of 4 squares between as its costing me more the further away i place the cities. I couldnt make out the exact terrain around capital to know how sensible the starting locations were.

60% science is not the end of the world although i cant tell if you have a positive cash flow with this.

 

Build and build so you get some points, as well as kill kill kill the enemy.

 

I've built far more than 2 cities. Are the screenshots not showing up?

Hey, does anyone have a saved game replay they can upload for me to watch? I'd like to see other people's strategy.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

 

could you include a save for us to see there easier for you and more usefull to us.

 

How do you save replays?

 

i meant just a normal save game from where your upto

 

You have, it appears, seven cities. They are rather spread out with Rome somewhat in the center. In combination it looks like Pisae, Ravenna, and Cumae are sucking 11 gold total from your treasury. (If you did not have an Organized civ leader you'd probably be a lot worse off.) Pisae needs a lighthouse and a worker to chop forests. Arretium should stop building walls and switch from farming the river plain to farming the flood plane so the city will grow. Stop all wall building. Rome could be producing a lot more cash (looks like at least 6 more gold) rather than hammers for the Hanging Gardens and a lot more food. Rome is unhappy already; so when you build the HG there will just be one more unhappy face. I'd build some temples, but you don't have the advance for it. So build a colluseum and research priesthood soon or you could pop rush to remove the redfaced citizen in Rome. Have you switched to Slavery yet? Is ivory the only resourse available that you could connect for another happy face? Looks like there are lots of trees around to chop.

 

Here's the saved game.

 

Yep i see you have seven cities. Just think perhaps you could of expanded to 3-4 cities faster at start. This would allow your 2nd, 3rd, and fourth city to develop a lot more come 25bc.

 

Might I ask why you have such gigantual distances between your cities? Doesn't that cost you extra by having that, rather than building the cities tighter but adding a few more?

And yes, courthouses seems to be what you should get right now. I have a way of ending up in the same way with city maintenance; and the way to work your way out of that is indeed courthouses.