I don't want to be Neville Chamberlain!

[mbaker2311]

I play on Noble, and no matter what I do, I cannot generate a score above "Neville Chamberlain." I usually win, but cannot seem to do any better than that. I have won Timed and Diplomatic victories, but usually I win the Space Race, when I win. I have read the sticky, at least, a great deal of it, but cannot find something I am doing wrong. I have learned that I still must do ICS. I have learned that I need to do three things: grow cities while staying solvent, build enough military to fend off barbarians, and keep research pegged as high as possible. Except for brief periods, my research never goes below 80 percent, and is usually on 90 percent or better. The one thing I can see is that my research and the game speed are almost tied... I usually end up researching the final non-Future Tech right near the end of the game. In Civ2, I would get pretty good scores, but have everything researched by 1880 - or even earlier! I once launched the space ship in 1780, though I am sure that's no record. But here, I am always sweating whether or not I will get the final tech researched and my spaceship built before the "Time" victory condition kicks in. I have played without the "Time" victory condition, but then I usually win the game (get my spaceship off) so late that I end up (gulp!) DQ

A note, to parse your answers (hopefully I will get some ) - I do not want military victories, or strategies that work well for my more warlike brethren out there. I try to live peacefully, though inevitably SOMEONE attacks. If you have ways of winning and achieving a score better than ol' Neville, without ransacking all your neighbors, that's what I want to learn.

Lastly, a diplomatic question. Often, even though my neighbor is "Pleased" with me, he or she will still not trade maps, or accept defensive pacts, etc. I often toss them money every few turns, give them a happiness resource if I have excess, etc. The relations text is all green, especially if we share the same religion, and still they won't trade certain things, and even - occasionally - will launch an attack. Is there something I am missing? A wonder that improves trade relations that you must have?

Thanks, in advance, for any help!

 

[Janus0]

1) Your score is largely based on your population, your land area, and your technology advances. If the only thing you want is a higher score, and if you have tech down, and you don't want to conquer, try making larger cities. To do this, the instant you get the last tech you need to launch your space ship, farm over every cottage you own. This will incarease your population dramaticly and thereby increase your score.

2) The highest level of relations is not pleased, it's friendly. Giving gifts of raw gold won't do much to increase your relations, but techs and resources are defenately the way to get that +4 "fair trade" bonus. You need to be friendly for the greatest diplomacy options to work. Also, if a civ is currently attempting to cercumnavigate the globe, they won't trade maps with you. There's usualy a good period between compass and just after astronomy when a number of civs will just completely refuse to trade no matter what your diplomatic status is.

3) Anyone will invade you if your army is weak enough. Watch the power graph and make sure you're not dropping behind everyone. Relations don't mean a thing if they can just annex you.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Also, some leaders are crazily overprotective of their maps (yes, I'm looking at you Toku...). It does strike me as a little odd that they won't even trade their maps (which might only include a handful of tiles you've yet to uncover) for some huge benefit like an expensive tech or your own 95% complete world map.

It's the same with civs that won't trade health/happy resources even though you're prepared to offer them a metal that they desperately need to fend off an invader. "Ok, Toku, so we don't like each other much. But we both hate Alex and he's gonna wipe you out if you don't take the metal. All I'm asking in return is one of your numerous unused happy resources". "No deal, you foreign devil. I'd rather die than see my precious Japanese gold wasted on the likes of you".

I realise that programming AI is v.difficult, but would it really be so hard to get the AI civs to realise when they're being offered a hugely beneficial trade?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I play on Noble, and no matter what I do, I cannot generate a score above "Neville Chamberlain." I usually win, but cannot seem to do any better than that. I have won Timed and Diplomatic victories, but usually I win the Space Race, when I win. I have read the sticky, at least, a great deal of it, but cannot find something I am doing wrong. I have learned that I still must do ICS. I have learned that I need to do three things: grow cities while staying solvent, build enough military to fend off barbarians, and keep research pegged as high as possible.

At a guess, you have one of two problems. Either you haven't worked out how commerce works in CIV IV, or you haven't learned to leverage the whip.

That your research is always at 80 or 90 percent suggests that you aren't establishing a large enough economic base to work from. It's relatively common to expand to the point where expenses call for 50% of the economy, then dig back up out of the whole (your research, remember, is driven by the number of beakers generated, not the percentage of your commerce devoted to research).

 

[Poppis]

A major factor in the end game score is the year you won, earlier the better.

I used to get pretty low scores in my first noble games, usually ranked as Dan Quayle. These were all space/time/diplo wins late in AD 1900+.

Then I tried for domination. I won the game in AD 1535, was ranked as Augustus Caesar, which was only appropriate as I was playing with Augustus Caesar.

 

[Poppis]

Janus0 is right about the power graph.

The AI watches the power graph very closely and will attack you(sooner or later), if you fall down too much in it, even if they are pleased with you.

If I remember correctly friendly civs won't attack you(even if your low on power), but anything below that might.

 

[Elrohir]

I play on Noble, and no matter what I do, I cannot generate a score above "Neville Chamberlain." I usually win, but cannot seem to do any better than that. I have won Timed and Diplomatic victories, but usually I win the Space Race, when I win. I have read the sticky, at least, a great deal of it, but cannot find something I am doing wrong. I have learned that I still must do ICS. I have learned that I need to do three things: grow cities while staying solvent, build enough military to fend off barbarians, and keep research pegged as high as possible. Except for brief periods, my research never goes below 80 percent, and is usually on 90 percent or better......

That's your problem right there. You aren't expanding enough, and are therefore winning a much later date than you should be, and with a much smaller population than you should have: thus, the Neville Chamberlain ranking.

Try this instead: When you're making money at 60% research, expand. If there's open land worth taking, build a protective unit and a settler, and found a new city. If you're hemmed in by AI, build an army you think sufficient to conquer a couple cities from an nearby victim, and take a city or two, then sue for peace. Rebuild your economy, get your research rate up to 60%-70% in the black, then rinse and repeat.

Keep doing then, even when it hurts, and you want to build all those nice little buildings and wonders you can get in the Middle Ages, and instead are building Macemen. Don't worry - except for the bare essentials, IE Granaries, Courthouses, and Libraries and Markets where you're getting more than 10 beakers or gold per turn - only build when you can. Once you're making money at 60%, expansion becomes your priority, not infrastructure, or building your economy. Those things needs attention too, but expansion and your military comes first, OK?

There are times when further expansion isn't worthwhile, however, but those need to be judged on a case-by-case basis. If you're going for domination, invading a whole other continent when you have your own all to yourself is a must - if you're going for Space Race, it's probably not necessary. If you have a significantly larger empire, and are outteching the AI, then it may be better to simply rush towardsd your victory condition - be it Diplomatic, or Space Race - instead of conquering the petty kingdoms that remain. It's a matter of personal discretion on when these cases are.

Eventually you'll realize that the "expand at 60%" rule is more of a guideline than a rule, and there will certainly be times when you instead wait until 80%, or make a run for special Holy City when you're barely making good at 50% - and that's OK. But for now, on Noble, what you need to work on is forcing yourself to expand faster. Because if you're slider is at 80%-90% for most of the game and you're making money at those levels, then you need to expand faster.

Summary: Expand more. More land = more people = more commerce = more beakers = faster research = earlier victory + higher score for higher population.

 

[HiroHito]

the way the score is calculated is completely stupid, I dont even bother checking it.

 

[Silver Marmot]

Once you get used to the game, you'll realize that running your research at 40% isn't as scary as it sounds. I often will have a percentage around that for quite some time, and will still be at the same level as the AIs in technology. Tech-trading really helps.

 

[OceansEleven]

Try going up to Prince. Higher difficulty level = higher score @ end.

I don't care about the 'end' score that much. If I won, hey... I won...

I only set my victories on Conquest, Domination, Diplomatic, and Cultural.


Random. Domination is stupid sometimes. I once met one of the standards (I think it was land area) and then it bumped itself 10%... 10% !!!

 

[mbaker2311]

Thanks all!

I started a new one, as Mao. I don't like the archer special units, but I seem to stay in the green with that combination, though with your advice I will be pushing that down, and then some.

Do you think with this more complex economy/growth plan it is possible to achieve a better score and build wonders and infrastructure? Or is it, never mind the bullocks, just grow and go for the score? I miss the old Civ2 days when I could have my cake and eat it, too

 

[vra379971]

Let me give you a llittle story.

A young man overexpanded massively. I was running 0 -10% research (yeah, you heard me) during the middle ages, Around 1400. Then, somehow I finished the Space Ship in 1971.

How? Three keys. Build the Great Libiary when you can. This thing is powerful beyond belief for its time. It was essentially fueling the midgame research solo. Build the University of Sankore when you can. This has wonderful synergy, with a religious strategy. Heck, you don't even have to found one, just spread whatever comes our way. And you should, as religion gives you access to big happiness benefits you'll need to build anyway. So, if get Sankore, and have those religious buildings down, that's a base 6 beakers max per city, making sprawl work. Third, learn to "workable sqaure" specialize, so you know how to get the best output per sqaure, per city.

See here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169213

 

[DarkFyre99]

I play on Noble, and no matter what I do, I cannot generate a score above "Neville Chamberlain." I usually win, but cannot seem to do any better than that. I have won Timed and Diplomatic victories, but usually I win the Space Race, when I win. I have read the sticky, at least, a great deal of it, but cannot find something I am doing wrong.

The key to a high score is population and territory. If you want a really high score, the best way is to have at least 40% of the world's population and territory. Technology helps, but if you're winning the space race you've got that as well. World Wonders aren't worth nearly as much points, so don't bother Wonder whoring.

I have learned that I still must do ICS.

ICS is a very bad strategy for CIV. Each new city you have increases the maintenance in all your cities, and as your empire grows, a city's distance cost becomes minimal compared to the number of cities cost.

Go for quality instead of quantity. Six good cities is much better than nine mediocre cities in the same amount of area.

I have learned that I need to do three things: grow cities while staying solvent, build enough military to fend off barbarians, and keep research pegged as high as possible. Except for brief periods, my research never goes below 80 percent, and is usually on 90 percent or better.

A rule of thumb for research is that you never want to go above 70%, and drop below 50%. Keeping it at 80%-90% means you can afford more cities.

The one thing I can see is that my research and the game speed are almost tied... I usually end up researching the final non-Future Tech right near the end of the game. In Civ2, I would get pretty good scores, but have everything researched by 1880 - or even earlier! I once launched the space ship in 1780, though I am sure that's no record. But here, I am always sweating whether or not I will get the final tech researched and my spaceship built before the "Time" victory condition kicks in. I have played without the "Time" victory condition, but then I usually win the game (get my spaceship off) so late that I end up (gulp!) DQ

Research speed isn't about what % your science slider is at. It's all about how many beakers per turn your cities produce. Two cities at 90% isn't nearly as good as four cities at 80%, which isn't as good as six at 60%. But six cities at 60% is usually better than eight cities at 30%, thanks to the maintenance costs of having many cities.

A note, to parse your answers (hopefully I will get some ) - I do not want military victories, or strategies that work well for my more warlike brethren out there. I try to live peacefully, though inevitably SOMEONE attacks. If you have ways of winning and achieving a score better than ol' Neville, without ransacking all your neighbors, that's what I want to learn.

Well, military conquest is a great way of expanding your empire...

But there is something that you didn't mention that is essential to any efficient empire, especially if you're going the peaceful builder route, is city specialization.

You need to specialize your cities. The "jack of all trades" cities you're used to in previous civs won't work in CIV. It takes far too many hammers to build all the buildings you need in each city, so specializing each city to perform a function for your empire is the better route. Plus, the addition of national wonders allow you to further enhance already specialized cities, for maximum effect.

In the quintessential Six-City empire, you'll usually have the following cities:

One Capital - Because your capital will usually be a much bigger city than the rest of your empire, and often has both good production and a lot of potential commerce, this will probably be your only "jack of all trades" city. Besides providing the bulk of your early research, it'll also be a secondary production city. Edit: Another reason for your capital to be a "jack of all trades" city is the Bureacracy Civic: +50% production and +50% commerce.

One Military Production city - This city, often the second city you found, will be your military production city. It's sole purpose is to keep cranking out highly promoted units as fast as possible. The only tiles worked should be hammer tiles, and the necessary food production tiles to support them. Don't build a single cottage here! The national wonders Heroic Epic and West Point are both built in this city.

One Wealth city - This city's purpose is to produce gold for your empire, primarily to pay for maintenance costs so that your science cities can focus on science. Wall Street will eventually be built in this city. Ideally, this will be the city with the shrine of your state religion , but you also want to build a lot of farms to support as many merchant specialists as possible. If you found Buddhism or Hinduism, this city will be your capital.

One Super-science city - This city's purpose is to crank out as many beakers per turn as possible. This is where Oxford University will be built, and ideally where you built the Great Library. You want a lot of grasslands so you can cottage the entire city. Ideally, you want a few bonus food tiles, so that you can run a few scientist specialists as well, especially when you approach you happiness cap.

Two secondary science cities - These cities are also heavily cottaged, and like your super-science city crank out the beakers.

If you expand beyond six cities, you'll probably want to add a Great Person Farm , which is heavily farmed to support a large number of specialists and has the National Epic built in it. A secondary production city (or two) is a good idea, dedicated to Wonders or military (depending upon your needs), while the rest will be secondary science cities.

As always, you want to tailor things depending upon which Civ and Leader you're playing. For example, depending upon your leader, you might not want two secondary-science cities. For example, if you're playing an Industrious leader, you might want a production city dedicated to producing wonders, while an aggressive leader will go with a secondary military production city, and a Philosophical will build a Great Person Farm.

Lastly, a diplomatic question. Often, even though my neighbor is "Pleased" with me, he or she will still not trade maps, or accept defensive pacts, etc. I often toss them money every few turns, give them a happiness resource if I have excess, etc. The relations text is all green, especially if we share the same religion, and still they won't trade certain things, and even - occasionally - will launch an attack. Is there something I am missing? A wonder that improves trade relations that you must have?

The AIs have personalities. They have various priorities (Isabella, for example, is a religious nut) and some are downright paranoid. Good luck keeping all the other civs happy... you're often better off picking two to befriend, and leaving the rest to hang. Usually, these will be the same religion as you.

Tossing gold at them also won't make them happier than you. The best way to make them happier with you is to gift them technology, tech trades that are heavily in their favor, adopt their state religion, and adopt their favorite civic.

The key to preventing your neighbor (even a friendly one) from invading you is to have a strong military . Look at the Power graph on the Graph/Demographics screen (F9 I believe). If your power is close to your neighbors, they probably won't attack if they're pleased with you.

Thanks, in advance, for any help!

Your welcome. Hope this helped.

 

[mbaker2311]

Thank you, again, all. It's really too much! I am expanding like mad, and keeping my research between 50 and 80, usually nearer to 60. If it goes over 80, I have three cities build a settler team. For me, that's defensive unit, offensive unit, worker and settler - a ready made city. Though one thing still puzzles me. Many of you have said that it is not the percentage geared toward research, but rather the number of beakers created. While undoubtably true, I also notice that when I move from 90 percent to 60 percent, something that takes me 5 turns to research now takes me 11. So, percentage does matter? Just not as much as having many large cities producing beakers, I guess?

 

[DarkFyre99]

Thank you, again, all. It's really too much! I am expanding like mad, and keeping my research between 50 and 80, usually nearer to 60. If it goes over 80, I have three cities build a settler team. For me, that's defensive unit, offensive unit, worker and settler - a ready made city. Though one thing still puzzles me. Many of you have said that it is not the percentage geared toward research, but rather the number of beakers created. While undoubtably true, I also notice that when I move from 90 percent to 60 percent, something that takes me 5 turns to research now takes me 11. So, percentage does matter? Just not as much as having many large cities producing beakers, I guess?

It's all about maintaining a balance between gold produced and gold spent, while producing as many beakers as possible.

There are many gold sinks in the game. The primary two are maintenance on cities, and maintenance on units.

Maintenance on units is easiest to reduce: keep the number of units down, and keep them in your cultural borders. Of course, you don't want to have so few units that your neighbors think you're an easy conquest.

Maintenance on cities is harder to reduce, and comes in two components: distance from a capital, and the number of cities you have, and they increase based on the population of the city. The easiest way is to build the Courthouse building, which halves the maintenance in your city. Keeping your cities close to a capital (your Palace, the Forbidden Palace, or Versailles) helps keep the distance cost down, and State Property civic eliminates it completely. Finally, keeping the number cities you own down helps reduce the number of cities cost.

Gold can also be spent on rushing buildings and upgrading obsolete units to modern ones, but you usually only want to do that with veteran units. It's often easier, and far less expensive, to build a new unit to replace an obsolete unit than it is to upgrade it.

Gold is produced in a variety of ways. First and best is shrine income. Some specialists also produce gold, and certain wonders as well. Finally you can convert commerce into gold. Buildings can increase the amount of gold a city produces.

If the gold you spend exceeds the amount of gold you can produce, and you have no gold saved at all, your whole empire shuts down economically. That's not a good thing.

Finally, there is the number of beakers you produce. There are many sources of beakers: commerce converted into research, specialists, and Wonders. Usually, your biggest source is the first one, which is why you want to keep your science slider high. Buildings can also enhance the amount of beakers a city produces.

Over expansion is the single greatest threat to a working empire. Lowering the science slider naturally reduces amount of beakers produced in each of your cities, which in turn naturally slows down your research, sometimes to the point of stagnation. Adding a city can increase your beaker production, but only if the potential research from the new city exceeds the beakers lost from your old cities, because they had to swap beaker production to gold production to help pay for the increased maintenance costs. Learning to do that is tricky, and takes experience.

Let's take the classic six city empire. Numbers are completely meaningless except as illustration. Your research slider is at 70%, and your happiness cap is eight.

Your capital is size ten. It is working three food tiles, three production tiles, and four commerce tiles. It has +4 food, +14 hammers, and +20 commerce. It is producing +6 gold and +19 beakers thanks to a library. Maintenance is -4 gold (-0 distance, -4 cities, no courthouse)

Your military production city is size eight. It is working four food tiles, and four production tiles. It has +3 food, +20 hammers, and +4 commerce. It is producing +1 gold and +3 beakers. Maintenance is -2 (-1 distance, -3 cities, courthouse)

Your Gold production city has the Shrine to Confucianism (+6 gold), and is also size eight. It is working five food tiles, a production tile, and supporting two merchants. It has +2 food, +5 hammers, and +4 commerce. It is producing +16 gold thanks to a market, and +3 beakers. Maintenance is -2 (-1 distance, -3 cities, courthouse)

Your Super Science city is size eight, and plays host to the Great Library. It is working one food tile, a production tile, and six commerce tiles. It also has two free scientists. It has +3 food, +5 hammers, and +32 commerce. It is producing +10 gold, and +32 beakers thanks to a library. Maintenance is -2 (-1 distance, -3 cities, courthouse)

Science city #2 is size six. It is working one food, one production, and four commerce tiles. It has +3 food, +5 hammers, and +20 commerce. It is producing +6 gold and +16 beakers thanks to a library. Maintenance is -3 (-1 distance, -2 cities, no courthouse)

Science city #3 is size five. It is working one food, one production, and three commerce tiles. It has +3 food, +5 hammers, and +15 commerce. It is producing +4 gold, +14 beakers. Maintenance is -4 (-2 distance, -2 cities, no courthouse)

Your military and civic costs are -5 and -13 respectively.

Net: +43 gold, -35 gold, and +87 beakers. Since you're at 70%, you might be able to afford a new city, so you do so.

With your seventh city, the number of cities maintenance costs in all your cities increases, by -2 gold, which increases your total maintenance costs to -43. Your new city also has a maintenance cost of -5 gold (-3 distance, -2 cities) which brings it up to -48. You're now running in the red, which causes you to decrease your science slider to 60%. This costs you -10 beakers in exchange of +8 gold.

You will need to either work four new commerce tiles (average of 5 comemrce at 60%) before your research regains its old levels... and new cottages need a long time to mature before they even reach that level.

Thankfully, between science #2 and #3, and your new city, you have the potential to work another eight commerce tiles, so once your new city and new cottages mature, you will have more research than when you started. Another option would be to scrounge up another +5 gold from somewhere (by building new courthouses or selling resources to your neighbor) to return your research level to 70%.

Now you immediately add an eighth city. Number of city maintenance costs increases by an average of -3 in all your cities, and the new city adds an additional -6 maintenance, for a total of -18. Since you have to drop your science slider to 40% to pay for all this (at a -20 loss of research,) you now have to add another twelve new commerce tiles before research can return to its previous levels. Unfortunately your new city only has the potential to work six new ones at this time, so despite adding a new city, you're actually hurting your research in the long run. You could also try to scrounge up more gold to increase your science %, but that isn't as easily done.

 

[Raern]

Thank you, again, all. It's really too much! I am expanding like mad, and keeping my research between 50 and 80, usually nearer to 60. If it goes over 80, I have three cities build a settler team. For me, that's defensive unit, offensive unit, worker and settler - a ready made city. Though one thing still puzzles me. Many of you have said that it is not the percentage geared toward research, but rather the number of beakers created. While undoubtably true, I also notice that when I move from 90 percent to 60 percent, something that takes me 5 turns to research now takes me 11. So, percentage does matter? Just not as much as having many large cities producing beakers, I guess?

It's important to understand that Research % is the percentage of an actual number being diverted to research.
-If your empire is making 1000 commerce per turn, and your research rate is set to 90%, you get 900 beakers per turn. (Ignoring all modifiers.)
-If your empire is making 1500 commerce per turn and your research is at 60%, you'll get 900 beakers per turn.

When you mouseover techs in the tech tree you can see how much they cost in beakers. They're not measured in time, simply bought in a currency of scientific units.


Your research rate is totally irrelevant if you're getting enough beakers out to keep research going. Shifting the percentage will have an immediate effect. However 90% of 1000 is worse than 60% of 2000. As such a large empire can do better in science despite having to spend a lot more on maintaining cities and keeping the science rate low.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

i cant believe people think those "scores" matter. the system is completely messed up. you should just ignore it.

 

[mbaker2311]

Well, thanks, but I prefer my game. But you keep playing yours, I'm sure it suits you.