How do I stop turtling?

[Henry.K]

Hey everyone!

I've lurked these forums for years, but finally made an account today. Played C4 vanilla forever when it came out and recently picked up BTS; Fourteen years late is better than NEVER, right?!

The expansion add-ons are fantastic, however the question I have is not so much about the game but the player. Jumping back into civ made me realize I have some very bad 4X habits. Beyond the Sword is so freaking good that I want to become a more well-rounded player to fully enjoy everything on offer.

I have this innate bias to avoid war and diplomacy with other civs. This has my games constantly defaulting to:
-Administrating a smaller number of non-specialized, large cities with little/no tile overlap
-Focusing way too much on city improvements while completely minimizing military
-Only interacting with other civs if I need a resource for happiness or a wonder
-Emphasizing tech over everything else; getting all without a direction/goal

Every game is becoming the same and it's getting rote. I'd like to play more fluidly and intelligently, however my mind has a tough time justifying spending hammers on units when there's good buildings to be had. It's almost as though I play Civilization like I would play Sim City. Because of this, I can't seem to progress past Prince difficulty and I KNOW it's due to a lack of proactive aggression.

Perhaps part of this is because I don't know the timings as well as C5. In that game, once crossbows were available I went for it - same with frigates. It might be because I lack the knowledge of how to efficiently take a city, and am afraid of wasting units because of it. Not sure.

Has anyone else had this problem?
If so, how did you break the habit?

Big thanks in advance!

 

[Zygmunt]

I see what you're saying. Why build a good unit that takes 10 turns to build when you still need 7 of them to take an enemy city? I'd much rather go after buildings but a good amount of units to garrison your cities is still necessary to prevent a "this world is too small for the both of us" DOW by a neighboring country

 

[lymond]

I Why build a good unit that takes 10 turns to build

Units never take 10 turns to build

 

[lymond]

If so, how did you break the habit?

Big thanks in advance!

Simple answer is it comes down to learning how to play the game. Becoming more familiar with the deep complexity of the game. The best way to do that is utilize ...and participate...in the Strategy & Tips forum here S&T

Great place to learn and get advice from experienced players.

First key concept to learn in this game: Granary is the only building you need...and absolutely the most important. Everything else is situational to unnecessary.

One can play peaceful oriented games, but the key to success with Civ IV is to grab more land which means killing some peoples. We can help you learn how to do just that....

 

[Henry.K]

lymond: I took your advice and checked out the S&T section. I find that a great deal of the advice relates to specific in-game examples. What I need are some tips on how to think about Civilization 4 in general, so I can apply it to every situation. Would starting a shadow game be a good idea?

Zygmunt: That's exactly the rut I find myself in! Build just enough units to keep a war declaration at bay and no more. One can only play that way for so long though, and I've reached that point

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Watch Civ4 games on youtube.

 

[lymond]

Would starting a shadow game be a good idea?

A shadow game is one of the best ways to learn the game. At minimum you can pick up some basic concepts and skills that you can apply to most games - even if it just focus on the first 100turns or so, while also getting the answers you seek. A shadow game is your game/your thread, so you can ask any questions you like as you play a long. I recommend using normal settings.

 

[krikav]

Regarding shadow game, I remember that @OldDude's games where especially good, slow and deliberate and loads of people advicing.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/shadow-game-for-an-old-dude.636725/
Can't remember what an other recent game was, but it was someone playing Egypt and was in semi-iso with Zara.

But best is probably to start your own and take it a step at the time. But keep this game separate from games you play offline so you can keep the pace slow and not get carried away.

 

[krikav]

Has anyone else had this problem?
If so, how did you break the habit?

Yes. What you write is exacly how I started out playing this game too. And I end-turned through alot of games on very low difficulty along those lines.
Not sure what it was that got me to break the habit though...

Perhaps I started to go on axe-rush rampages and realized that you can tech a whole lot faster if you start with 10 cities instead of 2?

Understanding how siege worked took qutie some time for me to figure out too. I think I had 1-2 catapults for every dozen units at the beginning, but the ratio should probably be closer to 1:1.
Bombard to 0% defence, send in 1-2 catapults promoted with collateral for suicide, then finish off with catapults promoted with city raider.
That is... unless your city raider catapults already have very high odds after the bombardment, no point suiciding your collateral catapults then.

 

[Henry.K]

sylvanllewelyn: I've certainly done my fair share of that. Only yesterday I was watching "Absolute Zero" (my favorite) in a deity game; ever seen his stuff? The issue I have is that he explains none of the rationale behind his decisions. In my opinion he's an elite player, but I have no idea why he makes the choices he does. "FilthyRobot" was great at explaining his high level thought processes in Civ 5 and "Quill18" did the same for Civ 6, but for Civ 4 I can't find a youtuber willing to put in the time to do so.

lymond: When you say "normal settings", do you mean leaving goodie huts and random events on? If so, then that's the way I usually play anyways.

krikav: Hahaha! Exactly! Without aggression I'm always left with whatever few plots I can settle. Ten cities would give me a whole lot more options and flexibility compared to two. Speaking of catapults - do you still prefer them even once trebuchets become available?

 

[krikav]

@Henry.K By the time I have engineering, I almost stop building catapults. The ones I have left I use as suiciders while they last. Sometimes though I build a few more.
Collateral damage depends on the base strength of the siege unit iirc, so catapults do give you better collateral damage per unit, and they are much cheaper too.

The thing is that when you have alot of CR3 trebs, you don't really need to soften up defenders a whole lot more, when you get 80-90% odds at the first go, you just go for that!


The starndard settings that are consensus on the forums are normal speed, standard size, no huts, no events, all other settings default.
Huts/Events add a layer of randomness that can add flavour but isn't that conductive to learning standard practice.


Have you watched Lains civ4 youtube videos? He explains quite alot of his thought process.
You can scroll through a bunch of nobles club games too. I try my best to write alot of how I think when I play those.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-bullpen-sixth-cycle.666505/

 

[lymond]

^^^what krik says....I mentioned normal settings as I don't know what settings you play usually. Some come on here for help but have played huge/mara games on there own for a while, which really skews things. Yep, most here play without huts/events on, but it is especially good not to have them on for learning.

I'd add that Pangaea maps are probably best for learning just so you do deal with unusual things like iso/semi iso, and diplo stuff can be discussed early on.

Yep, Lain and AZ are good. You can pick up a lot of tips from them, but note that the play on Deity so there some specific things one needs to do to play at the level that does not always apply on lower levels - like teching Archery. But the key things you will learn from them, especially Lain, is optimal city placement and focus on important things early game.

As a general note on warfare, as there is much to be learned and discussed in that regard, I'd just say that one does not really need to keep a lot of units around at peace time. Unless doing some kind of early rush, I mainly have a few warriors out spawnbusting and eventually put one in a city that needs it for MP. When the time comes to actually conduct war one can get an army out fast.

@Henrik75 is apparently quite new to CFC, at least as far as actually posting. However, he is an advanced player who already has a lot of let's plays on YT. I've only watched a bit but he does appear to explain his decision making. I think he mainly plays Deity but has some IMM games in there as well:

Henrik75 YT

Henrik also has a lot of LPs from recent Noble's Club games over on S&T on YT, so you can watch those and compare or get tips for playing the NC game.

 

[lymond]

I just took a peak at this particular IMM Sury game by Henrik75 that you might take a look at:

IMM Sury

Henrik plays purposely fast here, but he does explain some stuff well, and actually the speed helps for those less patient. You can get some early tips here on decision making and city placement.

 

[Henry.K]

krikav: I saw one player who used catapults as throw-away units. He'd take the CR promotion, and basically throw 3-4 of them at a city to soften it up before capturing. Would that be less efficient than bombarding first? In my recent games I find that the timing for war always comes before I get construction, so quite often I'm left just hucking swordsmen and hoping for the best

lymond: Good point! I never thought about Deity difficulty being less relevant due to the more extreme measures required. Thanks for letting me know about Henrik - he's great! That two hour play-through you linked is nuts, as though he could beat Immortal in his sleep Could I get your opinion on a strategy I just saw? It's a Monarch tutorial from "LeftAdjoint". On part 8 of 8 he manages to get liberalism on turn 100 using bureaucracy, caste system, and pacifism to get three great scientists. He uses one to create an academy in his capital to leverage bureaucracy, then two to bulb the last techs for liberalism. Is this a common strategy which has a more in depth write-up on here? It seemed like such an efficient tech path.

Thanks to the help I've received so far, I'm getting a lot more comfortable with decisions up until civil service. Knowing that I can safely ignore a whole slew of technologies has really helped! Once the mid-game rolls around I'm a bit more hazy on which techs to prioritize. Any specific paths I should be focusing on, or important goals to work towards?

PS: I tried creating a shadow game, but for some reason I can't get my Mac to take a screenshot... I tried the MacOS shortcuts, but all those produce are black images. I tried disabling the Steam overlay and that didn't work. I tried using the screenshot function in Steam and that didn't work, changed the shortcut too without success. If anyone reading this plays BTS on Steam with a Mac please let me know. Thanks

 

[krikav]

@Henry.K How to use, and when to use catapults depends on so many factors. Sometimes throwing them away is best, sometimes it's best to bombard.
But when you are just throwing them away, then it's better to promote them with colatteral and not CR.

 

[Snowygerry]

Has anyone else had this problem?
If so, how did you break the habit?

I decided to play a few games and always declare war when a friendly AI asks me to - suddenly things become very interesting, you're 'forced' to go to war without being prepared and often without a tech advantage, you will get into impossible situations, but you get comfortable with being at war quickly

 

[krikav]

@Snowygerry Thats a fun and nice RP-variant to break the habit!
"My trusted ally recuires aid, I'll go to war!!"

 

[Kaiman]

Units never take 10 turns to build

 

[Lennier]

PS: I tried creating a shadow game, but for some reason I can't get my Mac to take a screenshot... I tried the MacOS shortcuts, but all those produce are black images. I tried disabling the Steam overlay and that didn't work. I tried using the screenshot function in Steam and that didn't work, changed the shortcut too without success. If anyone reading this plays BTS on Steam with a Mac please let me know. Thanks

Try quitting and reloading. For some reason whenever I minimize the game (on my old Mac) the screenshots start being black like that.

 

[Melchizedek]

By all means explore all styles, but I know for a fact that a 'turtling' style can win at least up to Emperor. It isn't optimal, of course. I just don't think you should hit a wall at Prince.