How come clearing forests/jungle doesn't help research sometimes?

[Q95.bat]

As in building research? Forest chops don't apply to build research - they apply to the next real build, you can use this to build research, chop loads of forests, and use all the chopped hammers in your next build. Especially popular for chopping space parts at the end. Chopped hammers don't decay.

Chopping wood to rush space parts at the end isnt what you want to do if you want to win the spacerace. Chop the wood asap in ancient times you need it to accelerate growth as much as possible.

Do you know the concept of the "snowball effect"? A few extra production early on will multiply and at the time you can build space parts. You will be able to build them much faster. So if your goal is to build the space ships part asap, chop wood in ancient times. =)

 

[Seraiel]

I think you got him wrong, he was probably talking of forrests in cities that are completely set up (meaning save like 4-5 forrests in a handful of cities, of course chop some to build forges, everything that hightens production) .

 

[Q95.bat]

I think you got him wrong, he was probably talking of forrests in cities that are completely set up (meaning save like 4-5 forrests in a handful of cities, of course chop some to build forges, everything that hightens production) .

No no.. the wood is there to rush settler/worker not to build forges
Sometimes units too.. if youre doing war

Look it works like this, if we start with one city and I chop wood and you dont, I get my second worker/settler out faster then you. In return that worker can chop more wood and rush production to get more settlers out. If anyone played Starcraft 2 we can compare it with this. This is the snowball effect and it will keep growing unless you make mistakes or the land is way too unfair.

If you dont know how to cut wood and slave properly, its the same as having very bad macro in SC2. Its the first thing you have to improve, without it you will stay in gold leuage and lower forever. Once you figured it out you might move to plat leuage, whats holding you back then is scouting. And scouting in Civilization is two things, physical scouting with units and cover dark areas but also knowing how to read, and understand the demographics, graphs, and top 5 cities.

Top 5 cities is usually most usefull in 1vs1 games, then you see exactly when your opponent place their second city, you can figure out where he planted (if you play mirror map) how big it is and if/when he slave.

Graphs, mostly good in bigger games, about same as demographics but its easier to see and compare all players. Demographics, you see exactly how much MFG/GNP/FOOD the enemy produce. If food go down, you can see that he slave. If you compare POWER and GNP you can see, if he even can afford to invide your land without going on strike and lose units due to upkeep. If he was too greedy and didnt build enough army. When GNP go very very low, the opponent is either very bad or is doing an "all in" trying to max his armysize for an assult. So to know whats happening its really really important to check these stats every now and then.
Based on the information from your FOOD income you can make a judgement how the future will look, if you have 80 food and your enemy 40 food. Its very likley you will be favoured in a long game. If its the other way around, it might be a good idea to make it short and attack.
And remember, you cant compare production just in MFG, it depends on how much food you have too. 50 MFG 20 FOOD give less production then 30 MFG and 35 FOOD. Sadly it seems like there are way too many players that dont understand this, the average skill level in CIV4 after so many years, is still so very very low.


But, you dont even have to understand this. Just chopping wood at start will make you a better and its very simple. It makes me sad when I hear people saving forrests for whatever reason. If you play "one city challange" there might be a wierd exception or two but not in normal games.
If you can learn how to slave properly, well then you will get even better. If you see a city with -3 health or using unworked forrest tiles it should just make you feel ill or something. Whip..

 

[Seraiel]

I don't wanna offend you, what you write is awesomely interesting, but are you talking of PvP?

In PvE, I play against Deity AI, and I find none of the demographics reading necessary. I know when someone is preparing for a war and I know whom it's going against, I achieve that by having such good relations that it's not me in 90% of the cases, by having scouts near the enemy stacks and see them move, observing when they go to WHEOOHRN, power-graph, even if they go against me, I have friends which I bribe against them if I'm still to weak.

Also, I play Huge Marathon maps and have reached Techs like Biology at 400 BC, it's nearly impossible to chop every forrest till then because there are simply so many of them, even with having 1.5 - 2 Workers / city.

And I did say nothing of "chop forges" which is only required for some things like a GE-Rush, of course chop Settlers and Workers as they stall city growth. Just remember what I've said before, on Deity, all land will be settled till 1500 BC, no more Settler / Worker chopping necessary, then on Huge one has like 20 cities and all of them have 10-15 forrests if it's a good map, those take 12,5 * 9 turns to chop and double the time to improve the chopped land, that's over 100 turns only for chopping and another 200 for improving the land! That'd be about 750 AD then, at that time, Space Race has begun already, especially if you have like 5-6 Vassals doing the research for you!

I usually go by the "chop every Forrest till 1 AD" rule as I usually play for Domination, but I can perfectly understand saving some Forrests for something if there are enough.

Btw, I do find your part about "Snowballing" and "Slavery" a little bit arrogant, it's a like telling me how to walk actually (found no better comparison) .

 

[Q95.bat]

I don't wanna offend you, what you write is awesomely interesting, but are you talking of PvP?

In PvE, I play against Deity AI, and I find none of the demographics reading necessary. I know when someone is preparing for a war and I know whom it's going against, I achieve that by having such good relations that it's not me in 90% of the cases, by having scouts near the enemy stacks and see them move, observing when they go to WHEOOHRN, power-graph, even if they go against me, I have friends which I bribe against them if I'm still to weak.

Also, I play Huge Marathon maps and have reached Techs like Biology at 400 BC, it's nearly impossible to chop every forrest till then because there are simply so many of them, even with having 1.5 - 2 Workers / city.

And I did say nothing of "chop forges" which is only required for some things like a GE-Rush, of course chop Settlers and Workers as they stall city growth. Just remember what I've said before, on Deity, all land will be settled till 1500 BC, no more Settler / Worker chopping necessary, then on Huge one has like 20 cities and all of them have 10-15 forrests if it's a good map, those take 12,5 * 9 turns to chop and double the time to improve the chopped land, that's over 100 turns only for chopping and another 200 for improving the land! That'd be about 750 AD then, at that time, Space Race has begun already, especially if you have like 5-6 Vassals doing the research for you!

I usually go by the "chop every Forrest till 1 AD" rule as I usually play for Domination, but I can perfectly understand saving some Forrests for something if there are enough.

Btw, I do find your part about "Snowballing" and "Slavery" a little bit arrogant, it's a like telling me how to walk actually (found no better comparison) .

Im not trying to insult anyone! =)
Yes I talk about PvP but production works the same way singelplayer. Are you interested in streaming your games sometime? TwitchTV/3dTV or something? Id love to join and watch how you play it.

Players are at diffrent levels, theres nothing wrong with that its about having fun anyway. But if players have a goal, and the reaction they produce give the opposite effect its kinda...
I could show you the result in the difference between how we manage our civ if you come online and play 1vs1 with me on a mirror map/mirror civ.

And arrogant or not, I see it every day.. over and over, the average skill level amog us Civ4 players are very low. Its not good or bad, it just is. I belive this is due to a rather low number of active players. And that we dont have any big "pro scene".
You need to play VS good players, to become a good player. AI is another story, they have their flaws and the same flaws too every time. ; )

 

[Seraiel]

Im not trying to insult anyone! =)
Yes I talk about PvP but production works the same way singelplayer. Are you interested in streaming your games sometime? TwitchTV/3dTV or something? Id love to join and watch how you play it.

I'm more the writer-type of guy I write a Writeup about every game of mine that makes it into HoF and that I find good enough to share with the others, so namely those, in which I achieve something, I haven't achieved before. You can find them in my Sig, is a lot to read, but it's all illustrated with pictures and in Replay #3 I also used bold and underlined so one can basically fly over it (one will miss some fun by that though ) .

Players are at diffrent levels, theres nothing wrong with that its about having fun anyway. But if players have a goal, and the reaction they produce give the opposite effect its kinda...
I could show you the result in the difference between how we manage our civ if you come online and play 1vs1 with me on a mirror map/mirror civ.

I've played PvP for over 10y of my life, games were DAoC, Warhammer, AION and RIFT. I've spent over 6y only in DAoC PvP in international high-rank-groups. I know that style of play . As I get older, I find to have more fun in the challenge of PvE with it's insane bonusses and also it's stupidity and the possibility to know what will come next if one has read articles from code-readers. It's something totally different to what you prefer. I find reading the perspective of PvP players always very exitatory, but I've left that part of myself sleep for over a year now, and I have no intention on going back . I find that PvP is more about "being a true warrior" and "paying attention to what happens and what is important" but the challenge of the "focus" one needs in PvE is unbeatable imho.

Atm., my main goals are to have fun with Civ 4 and also to get better at it, mainly on Marathon Huge as I like the epicness of those maps. Once I've mastered those, I will continue furtheron to standart / normal sized maps and other leaders and become a more variable and adapting player, but there are no thoughts of "fighting against human players" , I've had that already (for a great part of my life ! ) .

My MMO-Type was "Achiever / Killer with partly Explorer" . I'm quite new to strategy games, but not new to Computer-games at all. I now that you'll smile at that one, but I "achieved" the complete awards of Starcraft Single Player Campaign, and I still fear the achievements of "In Utter Darkness" .

And arrogant or not, I see it every day.. over and over, the average skill level amog us Civ4 players are very low. Its not good or bad, it just is. I belive this is due to a rather low number of active players. And that we dont have any big "pro scene".
You need to play VS good players, to become a good player. AI is another story, they have their flaws and the same flaws too every time. ; )

You cannot compare Civ 4 to games like SC 2. Blizzard is for the young ones wanting to compete, yet, you'll find that Civ 4 has a very nice community, not in MP, but in SP. You can count on that I approach every game with some professionality, as that's just how I am, still, I begin new from time to time (I play Civ for not even half a year now) and start as a N00b. I wouldn't judge the "Civ 4 Scene" to be on "low-lvl" , actually I was impressed by the research some have done, by the games some have won and by the effort some have put into something, without those, I'd be still stuck at trying to beat Prince.
Try to beat Kovacsflo Domination Victory on Marathon Huge, it's at 500 BC, try to beat WastinTimes 3.2 Millions, try to hold your place in Religious longer then a weak against SunTzuWu . Getting a good players is about having ones own goals. You don't have to play vs good players, you have to play with good players. Note that in Golf, vs does not even exist, if one player cannot continue playing, points are equally devided between both. You might wanna give that thought a thought sometime.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

To be fair to the non-choppers, most MP games are played on quick speed, which nerfs chops and buffs whips. Put it this way, on normal speed, chopping a forest is 5h/turn, while quick speed is 3.25h/turn (I'm including the turn of walking onto the forest in the calculation). On the other hand, it's much easier to stack whip anger on quick speed, and you can spend a greater fraction of your turns taking advantage of the insane food:hammer conversion ratio of granary-powered whips.

Chopping is still incredibly useful, but I've found that going for food techs/improvements first, and chops slightly afterwards, is the better decision.

FFA games are also a bit more conservative than duel games, as while going for an early rush is more likely to find an unprepared opponent, there is almost always going to be someone who can expand peacefully to almost as much as land as a rusher (and they'll be alot more developed).

And that's some good heuristic advice about what patterns on the F9 demoscreen correspond to what strategies your opponent is taking. Though I can never get the time to look at that AND manage all my workers/citizens on a blazing turn timer