I don't get it

[thecommonnate]

Let me start by saying, civ 4 is the most complicated game I have ever played in my entire life. Okay, with that off my cheast I need help. I suck at civ.

I've been reading and reading around here but every "strategy" tells me to do somethign different.

I play on noble because I can manage everything else, but damn do I get my ass handed to me.

I pick out the financial civs, usually Elizabeth because I am fond of the pilosophical trait too.

I can't get to anything after the BC's without being the last in the pile. I have about two or three cities to my name when everyone else has at least a quater of the continent. How do they have all that money???? They still stay about the same as me as far as techs go...and I run techs at 100 to 90 percent in BC's. I thought financial cities were supposted to help with that kind of stuff.

The one thing that really confuses me though is commerce. I get the +1 commerce bonus for andthing with 2. But thats not helping my gold out, only sciene, WTH? How am I supposted to get gold out of commerce?

I get plummeted with military too, witch is probably one of my more immediate problems. I have maybe two warriors in my caapital city and one in the others, with few sowrdsman spread around if im lucky. I know that its almost nothing, but I don't have any more time to do anything else. I'm too busy with buildings or other units that either don't have military strength or cost way to many shileds.

I seem to do fairly well in culture. I try to get a religon, mostly i go for hinduism, and sometimes I manage to get Judism too. The last game I played I got the best culture on those list things, but I only had three cities, -3 gold per turn, and 4 warriors, one swordsman, and two workers to my name.

So with my story, here are the things I need help with

1.) Expanison without losing all my money
a.) Where do I get the money
2.)What is the point of commerce, I think it does amount to money later in the game but I don't really know.
3.) I NEED A MILITARY.
4.) Maybe a little help on techs.

PS: I don't have warlords.

 

[Tatran]

civ 4 is the most complicated game I have ever played...

Maybe, civ4 isn't the game for you.

I play on noble because I can manage everything else...

Do you win 99% at Warlord? If not go back.

How am I supposted to get gold out of commerce?

Lowering the science slider.

I'm too busy with buildings or other units that either don't have military strength or cost way to many shileds.

Ask yourself what will those buildings provide you in the short run. Do you
really need them?
Use Slavery for whipping whatever you need, workers, military, improvements.

Oh and welcome

 

[itsnotmeee]

do not neglect your military!! in one my recent game, i could not decide which neighbor to attack first: Mao, Mansa, or Shaka. Shaka was a bit far off, so he was off the chart. then there was, Mao, but he expanded too quickly, so i had to pick on the small Mansa(this guy is a threat also later in the game becuz of his crazy teching pace). it was tough taking out those skirmishers with Axemen. while pillaging him and fortifying my troops around his city, Mao declared war on me, followed by Shaka.

It is very important to maintain your military power. One way to do this is to chop/whip in the early game. You can either use those Axemen(if u have copper) to rush your neighbor or you can use them defend your cities(if you're not a warmongering type, but i managed to become a better player after reading this forum and transforming myself to become a warmongerer). Once you think u have enough troops to either attack or defend, and if you have buildings to build, such libraries and granaries, do build them, but dedicated one city to building units(DO NOT neglect your army!). But maintenance can become a pain. so make sure not to over produce and cottage around a bit or you can extract gold from war booty. You can learn more about which type of economy to run--Specialist Eco or Cottage Eco, Food Eco, or Hybrid, by doing some search on this forum. Also it helps to read one of those Succession Games or ALC games threads. I've become a better player becuz of those threads.

 

[itsnotmeee]

The one thing that really confuses me though is commerce. I get the +1 commerce bonus for andthing with 2. But thats not helping my gold out, only sciene, WTH? How am I supposted to get gold out of commerce?

I get plummeted with military too, witch is probably one of my more immediate problems. I have maybe two warriors in my caapital city and one in the others, with few sowrdsman spread around if im lucky. I know that its almost nothing, but I don't have any more time to do anything else. I'm too busy with buildings or other units that either don't have military strength or cost way to many shileds.
--------
The reason why you don't generate any gold for your treasury is because they run science bar at its maximum. Note that that slider is either Commerce oriented or Science oriented. So, if you set 50% on science and 50% on commerce, your research rate might slow down, but you will be converting those commerce into gold(half of commerce into gold and into research). However, just because you run the slider at 50%, doesn't necessarily mean that you'd be making Gold Per Turn(GPT) because you will need to spend those gold for maintenance.

DO NOT use swordsmen to defend your cities! They're not made to defend. They're better off going on the offense(raiding a city). Build Axemen instead because they have the 50% bonus vs. melee unit. So, they're made pretty solid defenders, as well as offenders. As for teching, military-wise, try to prioritize Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry. Hook up any nearby horse/copper and build some units with it to ward off barbarians.

 

[DaveMcW]

You get gold by reducing your science rate to 80% or less. If you have lots of cities and cottages, this will not hurt your research.

 

[Hackapell]

I play on noble because I can manage everything else, but damn do I get my ass handed to me.

Yes, I am making the transition from warlord to noble as well and constantly I find that "Noble" is code word for "Prince" It's only really bad early on; if you can dig yourself out of that hole, you sould be fine.

I pick out the financial civs, usually Elizabeth because I am fond of the pilosophical trait too.

Huh. The financial trait is awesome, but why philo? makes the economy question too prevalent(SE vs. CE). on that note, Elizabeth is awesome pre-warlords. one word-redcoats. If you survive that long, the game is in the bag.

I can't get to anything after the BC's without being the last in the pile. I have about two or three cities to my name when everyone else has at least a quater of the continent. How do they have all that money???? They still stay about the same as me as far as techs go...and I run techs at 100 to 90 percent in BC's. I thought financial cities were supposted to help with that kind of stuff.

Use cottages, esp. along rivers. don't be afraid to ReX(Rapid Early Expansion) to get what you need. War often and crush the tech out of your rivals(pointy stick research). To form an army, whip when you need to quell pollution or unhappiness. that whip will often produce 3 units from that 1 whip. use sparingly, though; it does become addictive. aim for a 12-15 unit army initally, and always add reinforcements.

The one thing that really confuses me though is commerce. I get the +1 commerce bonus for anything with 2. But that's not helping my gold out, only science, WTH? How am I supposted to get gold out of commerce?

as someone said before, it has to do with your slider. open up your city window and hover over your gold output to get a summary of where that gold is coming from.

I get plummeted with military too, which is probably one of my more immediate problems. I have maybe two warriors in my capital city and one in the others, with few swordsmen spread around if I"m lucky. I know that its almost nothing, but I don't have any more time to do anything else. I'm too busy with buildings or other units that either don't have military strength or cost way to many shileds.

Try this; If you absolutly need the building, whip it as it nears conclusion. the hammer overflow will go to the next build, which will speed that up. Also, try to guard your cities with axemen, if you decide to forego archers, and not swords. swords should be used to conquer only.

I seem to do fairly well in culture. I try to get a religon, mostly i go for hinduism, and sometimes I manage to get Judism too. The last game I played I got the best culture on those list things, but I only had three cities, -3 gold per turn, and 4 warriors, one swordsman, and two workers to my name.

culture is OK if you can get away with it, but it's better imho(in my humble opinion) to instead let other people found religions and build wonders, then take them with the 10 swords I built instead of the wonder.
some wonders and religions are useful, so don't totally ignore them, just fit them into your strategy(space elevator not optional for quick space race, for example).

So with my story, here are the things I need help with
1.) Expanison without losing all my money
a.) Where do I get the money
2.)What is the point of commerce, I think it does amount to money later in the game but I don't really know.
3.) I NEED A MILITARY.
4.) Maybe a little help on techs.

PS: I don't have warlords.

1) settlers near rivers for extra
a.)cottages, and lots of them. also helpful are courthouses and pointy sticks
2) to get more tech faster, which you cn then trade with your rivals so you have more power.
3) build/whip it instead of buildings.
4) techs? well they=power, but seriously, it depends on your strategy. cultural may want to head down the religious path. military, should look to BW/IW and construction. space race, should prepare belines to lucrative tech that lead to rocketry that cn later be used to backfill. And diplo, well, just aim to convert to the majority religion and be an insufferable panderer.

I guess kinda what I'm saying is plan a strategy, and the go for it as best you can. good articles for more strategy are in the war academy and Sisutil ALC' and aelf's Immortal Challenge. otherwise, experiment and have fun



oh and BTW welcome to CFC

 

[Bhruic]

1.) Expanison without losing all my money
a.) Where do I get the money
2.)What is the point of commerce, I think it does amount to money later in the game but I don't really know.
3.) I NEED A MILITARY.
4.) Maybe a little help on techs.

Ok, some of this is going to be counter-intuitive, which is probably why you are having troubles.

1) Money is useless. That's right, you don't need money at all in the early game. Trying to get some isn't worth it, and running a deficit (negative gold per turn) is perfectly fine. Money is really only useful for (a) upgrading units, (b) trading with other civs to equalize trades (with Currency) and (c) buying buildings (with Democracy). But none of those are going to be important in the early game.

2) Commerce can be thought of as a basic unit that you can turn into other things. You can either turn it into research, gold, or culture. That's accomplished by the various sliders. If you lower your research, you'll be putting less of your commerce into research, and more into gold.

3) Well, yes, you'll need a military. Unfortunately, you didn't make it clear what you are building instead. You said "buildings or units without military strength". That's not very clear. First off, you need to figure out if you want a military for offense or defense, because different units are good at different aspects. If you want offense, then Axemen and Swordsmen are good. If you want defense, then Archers are valuable. And what buildings are you focusing on early?

4) Well, techs is a whole other story. It depends on the situation you are in, and what you are trying to accomplish. For example, if you want to be able to expand more, then Code of Laws is good, because it allows you to build the Courthouse. Also Currency is good, because you get Markets, and you can trade gold with other Civs. If you want military, then Bronze/Iron Working are good, as well as Construction for Catapults. You'll need to be a little more clear as to exactly what problems you are having.

Bh

 

[thecommonnate]

Thanks for all of your help.

Sorry for all of the bad spelling in my first message, I was in a hurry when I wrote it.

As for the game, thank you for the input. I had absolutely no idea that the tech slider at 100% would actually put ALL of the money into tech. I thought that it was just the max. money I could have going into one slider. That should really help.

It might take awhile to get over me lacking the military, but I'm going to try.

I'm going to try to get warlords and BtS when it comes out, in hopes that some of the new strategies will help me out.

Anyways, thank you.

 

[itsnotmeee]

Just don't worry too much about losing some gold each turn since you're better off trying to maximize the research. Sooner or later, it will come the time where you will need to lower your slider, maybe by 10% or so and see some income flowing into the treasury without affecting much of the research capacity.

 

[narmox]

One other thing that's slightly been touched on - you probably try to build everything in every city. Wrong!

That's an old habit I had (from previous Civ games), where each city HAD to be a powerhouse and have everything in order to have a good empire. In this game however, if you've got for example a city that's really good at production but has bad commerce around it, why even bother going for libraries and markets in that city? It's probably better to get it fit with a barrack (and in Warlords, stables) to crank out military units, and leave other more commercial cities to build markets and libs and whatever else is needed to keep advancing in technology.

city specialization really is a big thing, in this game..

Narmox

 

[thecommonnate]

Yeah, I just spent awhile on another game (with Mali) and I did A LOT better.

I've been first for a long time, only recently I've been de-throned by Egypt, but only by maybe 10 points.

I still need to produce more military units, but I'm getting by.

This is still the most complicated game I know, but it's working at least.

I think I'm going to go to war with Egypt to freshen up on military skills. The countrys on another continent and I'm about to get cavlry (sp) so I'll have to figure out some tactics.

If I can get my military skills up, I'm sure to do a lot better.

Thanks again.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Don't attack War Chariots with axes if you are going to take on Egypt. (Warlords)

 

[oyzar]

he allready said he didnt have warlords. Though he also said he had cavalery so shouldnt worry about chariots .

 

[thecommonnate]

The war went pretty well. It wasn't long at all. I built the Taj Mahal right before I started so that helped a lot. I took one of the most important cities, held out for awhile, and called a fair peace. I managed to get back on the top, if only by a few points.

I think I can safely say that I understand it a lot more then I did when I worte this. Thanks

 

[itsnotmeee]

The war went pretty well. It wasn't long at all. I built the Taj Mahal right before I started so that helped a lot. I took one of the most important cities, held out for awhile, and called a fair peace. I managed to get back on the top, if only by a few points.

I think I can safely say that I understand it a lot more then I did when I worte this. Thanks

The scoreboard doesn't really mean much. Just don't focus too much on it. You can start out at the very bottom and be at the top if you play the game right. There's more important things to do than just being on top of the board.

 

[Ecofarm]

Do you get workers out fast enough? Three cities should be no problem economically. I go worker first or warrior then worker if I have 2 nice tiles to work pre-improvement. If I start coastal, workboat. Without fishing, I like to move inland and 2nd city builds workboat first. If you cannot declare war before catapults, do so when you get a few.