How do I stop turtling?

[Snowygerry]

What you just said made me realize something important.

There seems to be a point where, if you wish to succeed on the highest difficulties, Civilization 4 stops being a game and becomes a statistical min/max exercise. Cities are no longer seen as such, they become units of production potential within efficiency ranges. Buildings are defined as their opportunity cost (as you described forges), and everything is reduced to the hammer investment required.

It's still a game, just a different game, more like chess where some "moves" are simply "suboptimal" - that's why such emphasis is placed on where to settle the first city, for example.

A casual player may think "Screw that plains hill, I want to live on the coast..." and on the highest levels that may just be enough to lose the game right there

It need not be like that though, there's always a "comfort level" where the you can still afford long periods of peace, suboptimal decisons and then pull ahead again with a few successful wars.

Another fun "variant" is to simply turn all victory conditions off, including time, but not domination or conquest.

Now you're forced to wage war, but you can take all the time you want to go about it...

I don't want to ruin the enjoyment, but I would like to progress... tricky!

Another way to "progress" is ofcourse to try one of the many mods and scenarios - many offer increased challenge without necessarily upping the difficulty level.

 

[Donald Duck1]

Indeed it's a different game, so play it at the level where you can play it the way you like. I haven't tried to play beyond monarch, because there I can do the min-maxing stuff without having to worry about AIs and barbs more than I like. Maybe someday I'll want a real challenge and go for deity, someday. Oh, and I disable diplomatic victories because I find them silly.

As for ways to stop turtling: I first chose to go for a strategy of an early war to capture a neighbor, and then go space with the extra cities. The early war brings focus into the game, and helps setting priorities. Later, it felt like a waste to spend all those hammers on an army that is serving no purpose after the war ended, so I tried break-out strategies, and I'm still having lots of fun with that.

And if conquest/domination victory is not you preferred playing style, playing a couple of such games anyway could give you a better sense of how to militarily deal with run-away AIs in your preferred games. The shadow games for 1st 100 turns are a massive help too, a good start makes the rest of the game a lot easier.

 

[Orion Pax]

There seems to be a point where, if you wish to succeed on the highest difficulties, Civilization 4 stops being a game and becomes a statistical min/max exercise. Cities are no longer seen as such, they become units of production potential within efficiency ranges. Buildings are defined as their opportunity cost (as you described forges), and everything is reduced to the hammer investment required.

I think you articulated that dynamic very well. I do agree with folks that it can still be a game just a different one, and that it sounds like there is plenty of improvement that can be made that is not reductionist and still fun.

That said, I do find myself often weighing how fun it is to have to cleave to only certain strategies to succeed. At some point it can kind of lose much of its sandbox feel. (To more of a race in the sand?)

And especially when one considers what makes the higher difficulties more difficult: increasingly unequal starting points and larger game-long bonuses. So you have more limited gameplay to compete with seemingly arbitrary bonuses. Some days I feel like taking that challenge and get a lot out of out-microing the AI. Other days I’m like: why have all this other stuff if we shouldn’t use it? To me that feels like a bit of a design flaw, but YMMV of course. Still love the game though.