I feel like I'm running in place

[mva5580]

Look, I LOVE this game. I love how deep it is, I love the strategies, hell I love reading here just to see how other people play the game and what happens in the course of games.

But it just seems like, whenever I personally sit down to play the game, things just don't go well. I've read the beginner's guide here, and I really try to employ a lot of the strategies here, but I don't know it seems like I just don't get anywhere. And sadly I'm only playing on Warlord/Noble Difficulty levels. It's like I discover the techs, trying to move forward, but I don't know it's like I can never put everything together to advance in the game and actually take care of things.

I think this might be one of the most important things I need clarified. From the first turn of the game, do I pretty much NEED to decide HOW I want to try and win? It seems to me like this is a decision that must be made immediately, and your entire game strategy must be focused around Culture, Diplomatic, Military, Space Race, etc. Is this essentially true?

And if there's anything else, anything, really I'm open to it. It just seems like I understand the basic premise of what needs to be done but I just can't put it all together in a complete game to feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to. Thank you very much for anyone who can give me some help and try to advance in the game!

 

[Haika]

A point of advice I have is to take a break at certain points, like after you've taken down your first opponent, after you've discovered liberalism, whatever. I don't think many people have the attention span to play a game of civ from start to finish while staying on top of their game. At the end of your session, keep in mind what your situation is, and while you are waiting in the elevator or before you go to sleep, spend a little time brainstorming what possible problems can come up, what advantages you have, what your different options are at this point. Basically, the most important thing is to be proactive and make and advance towards goals, instead of just reacting to every event that happens.

About victory type, I think most of the time you don't decide on a victory until the early to mid ADs. You just don't know enough about the world! If you are tearing it up with your Praetorians on your way to a conquest win, and you run into an ocean separating you from your last two targets, you're going to be for sure. Similarly, if you found the hydra (first three religions) in preparation for culture at the expense of getting bronze and it turns out Monty and Alex are next door, you are going to have an interesting game for sure.

An exercise that I think might be helpful is to play a game until 1AD, concentrating on getting as much land as you can. If you have room, pump out settlers hard, if you don't, start spamming a classical army. Either way, try to have 6 or 7, at least 4, quality cities to play around with. Don't worry too much about teching, but try to get all the basic cheap techs, and maybe move towards alphabet.

Then, look carefully at your tech tree, domestic situations, and foreign affairs. Who are your allies? What is your happiness/health caps, and what's the easiest way to pop them? How far are you from vital infrastructural techs like Code of Laws or Currency? What's the fastest way for you to get them? Are there any profitable n for 1 trades you can pull off? Do you have enough workers? Are there any wonders that would be gamebreaking for you in the near future?

After you get back, concentrate on getting your civilization back on its feet, focusing on getting big, happy cities, and a robust research rate. Then, once you feel like your empire is starting to stagnate from not having any other way of growing upwards, it's time to examine your "allies" and sharpening the swords. I would take a break here again, and look at the situation again. Where's the nearest decisive military tech? Which AI looks vulnerable. How are you going to manage the logistics of your attack? How much preparation do you need for a counterattack? What are your objectives? How long will it take you to produce a big enough army to achieve those objectives?

The cycle of expansion and infrastructure kind of grates on some players, but I find it adds a nice rhythm to the game. One day you can be the warmongeringest Monty that ever warmongered, the next day you can be a benevolent Ghandi spreading religion and building temples.

 

[TheAmazingYant]

I've found myself in the same boat as MVA, narrowly missing my first victory on Noble (I forgot to build one segment of the spaceship, and thus launched two turns after Shaka took a points victory). I've been browsing the forums for the past couple days, just trying to pick up tidbits as I go. I've found Sisiutil's Beginner's guide to be pretty helpful at teaching some of the basics.

I feel that much of my problem is unfamiliarity with the game, despite having owned it since it's initial release (I play a couple games, then put it down for 6 months). I don't know the tech tree very well, so I don't know well which techs are worth racing for, and which ones I can skip. Everyone on the forums seem to know each leader's "personality", and are able to predict how each one will act. I've learned the hard way not to trust Shaka as far as I can throw him, so I didn't make the same mistake twice in that regard. Somewhere on the forums there should be a thread that describes each leader's traits, I know I've seen one for the BtS leaders (Links, please?).

I'm also planning on taking some time to read other players' walkthroughs, to get a feel for how people who are much better at this than I am play the game. I actually was just reading Haika's runthrough, which demonstrates the tactic of using Privateers to leech off your enemies' economies. So that sounds like a fun thing to try out.

So my advice is to play some games, get some experience, and think about what you did that worked, and what you did that failed. Should you have settled for peace when you had a neighbor on the ropes so you can go back to infrastructural growth, or should you have delivered the killing blow? The more you play the game, the better you are bound to get. At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

 

[mice]

I think this might be one of the most important things I need clarified. From the first turn of the game, do I pretty much NEED to decide HOW I want to try and win? It seems to me like this is a decision that must be made immediately, and your entire game strategy must be focused around Culture, Diplomatic, Military, Space Race, etc. Is this essentially true?

I don't think you need to decide on the first turn, that's unless you want to.

As Haika said, wait till you see whats going on in the world.

Are you playing Vanilla or Warlords, or BTS ?

Are you cottage spamming? This is important when you start out. Make some good commerce cities and work those cottages. At Noble you will be out running the AI ni tech if you have 5 or 6 good cities with cottages and a couple of production cities to make units.

 

[Ruler]

My thumb of a rule has been once one discovered liberalism start to think about which victory is doable and it's been working for ages.

edit: Too ate for cultural though but I don't like it much.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I'd recommend another way. The Hard way.
You play on warlord/noble? Start game on Prince. AI will take care of You, if some nation will storm You with big army - You know You should pay attention to Your Power graph. If others are taking Your techs, expanding faster, building wonders right before You do - You know which parts of Your gameplay are weak and need to be improved.
Don't go to mad with early expansion, try to run at least 50% science slider. Have some military units. Anything that is unclear to You - search forum. These pieces of knowledge are like bricks in the Great Wall Of a CivGeneral

 

[AnaNg]

I'm by no means an expert at this game. In fact I'm sort of in the boat next to the OP though I'm struggling out of it. This:

An exercise that I think might be helpful is to play a game until 1AD, concentrating on getting as much land as you can. If you have room, pump out settlers hard

Is what i used to do that really seemed to jack me up. Even with room to spread out (though usually with neighbors close by - sometimes not) I would plant a ton of cities because I felt like I had to make this big land grab right away.

What usually happened then was that, even when I would use cottages and such I'd find myself strapped for cash, WAY behind in techs and so spread out that my small-ish cities just couldn't pump out troops fast enough so I was a weak target and continually fighting off Monty or Tokugawa (why do I always seem to end up with one of those two as my freaking neighbor?) for a couple thousand years and getting further and further behind.

My current strategy is to start with no more than 4 cities, usually 3 unless there's some resource that I find late and want it. But generally stay small. I'll focus on some strategic tech path - at least enough for swordsmen and then 1 or 2 of those cities will start pumping those out or alternating sword and axe for some open area/homeland defense.

Only after I feel like those cities are on their way (at least one is cottages, one is usually a GP farm though I don't really focus on too many wonders) then I'll start settling more if there's room or go on the war path.

With this strategy my core seems to support any new or stolen cities better so I can still research quickly and I'm strongly fortified so I generally don't get picked on, or if I do I can easily defend both my cities and my cottages/improvements.

Now, that said, I'm doing MUCH better at early war and am ending up with a pretty decent-sized empire generally with some nice wonders in the cities I take so... it's sort of what you're saying, just going the war route not the settler one.

But again, I'm no expert and I'm still on vanilla.

 

[Friction]

Getting started is a bit easier than you'd think.

No- you dont have to decide what you want to do with the game right out of the gate.

What you do need to do is establish a solid foundation. Worry about just three things for your first plateau:

Growth, Defense, and Expansion. I like the assessment of a previous post in this thread: 4 -6 cities MAX.

My strategy is to create a ring around an area of the map. Imagin that your cities will grow twice before you ascend into the decision of Culture, Diplomatic, Military, Space Race, etc.- Would like them to overlap- maybe! It depends on resources available.

Set up a solid defense- random barbarian invasions are buzzkills- and the AI storming you in the middle of your puberty is a major downer.

Focus on income building technologies- money makes the world go round, and this early in the game nobody should be concerned about happy citizens.

Enjoy.

 

[LlamaCat]

mva or others here, I have a question: are you more math inclined types or creative/language types?

I think that might have something to do with some of us hitting this wall. I really understand your comment about not quite putting it all together.

I've noticed there are people who play this game so well and they write reports or strategy guides that just make me go: huh? I mean, they seem to have these mathematical brains. I'm not that type at all (which makes me wonder why I even like this game).

For example I have read the strategies for the optimal time for using the whip about a 100 times, and I still just don't get it entirely ... there is just too much math and calculation that makes my brain ache. Yet then I will see players talk about their games and refer to very specific tidbits of knowledge that guide them through it.

I can only feel my way through strategies like that and it's gotten me to Prince level and that's about it. I doubt I will ever do better, and that's fine. I really think this game lends itself to a certain type of learner or thinker.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

I like to approach the game entirely as a series of real time decisions, beginning with the very first decisions that I make; where to build my first city, where to move my warrior or scout and what to research next (keeping in mind the traits and bonuses that my leader brings to the table). I survey the resources available and make all of my decisions accordingly. I do best when I approach the game in this manner from the beginning to the end. Here are some of the mistakes that I try not to make:

1 - getting fixated on completing a certain wonder (in some cases that wonder will really help me, in others I would have been better off building more infrastructure or units. There are some experts like Obsolete who have designed their gameplay around building wonders. But I don't have the level of skill required to play that way).

2 - bee-lining for a certain tech (I think this is especially true in BTS - but even in Warlords I need to be really careful with it. The AI doesn't do it. This makes it pretty tempting. Again, I might move in a certain direction with some sort of a plan, but I try and stay as flexible as possible. The AI has a way of hitting me hard, i.e. with Knights and such, when all I have is horse archers as I'm just a few turns away getting cavalry).

3 - clicking to quickly out of habit (I only recently opted for a standard of never replaying, i.e. going back to and earlier game save. It has forced me to think more carefully about what I'm doing. I don't spend half an hour on a single turn. But when decisions need to be made, I do much better when I think, even if only for just a few seconds, first - I also recently changed to normal speed after playing entirely on marathon. It has taken some getting used to, but I notice that everything happens more quickly, so I need to pay closer attention. On marathon I found myself clicking end of turn as many as 4 or 5 times without any decisions to make.

4 - automating workers (I've experimented with this. I'll have several stacks (groups) of 3 or 4 workers. I've seen 2 seperate groups on the same tile doing opposite things, i.e. one group is building a farm and the other a cottage on the same tile at the same time - what more needs to be said).

Playing at Noble level in Warlords isn't that bad. Noble is the level where there are no advantages for the human or the AI. But the AI knows all the rules perfectly. I, on the other hand, need to go to the Civilopedia to double check things all the time. I still make mistakes as a result of not knowing all of the obscure facts and rules of the game. Like you, I also get somewhat discouraged when I see people writing how easy something at Monarch and above. But I have too many other things that need attention in my life, i.e. wife, kid, house, lawn etc.. to put the amount of time I into the game that I would like to put into it. But I do love this game.

 

[futurehermit]

Try to focus 100% on a specific objective. For example, if you're going to axerush then make sure you are building lots of units quickly and not taking a break to build a library or a shiny, pricy wonder. If you are going to go for a wonder, make sure you put it to use right away and build your objective around it. E.g., if you get the great library, get into caste system and pacificism and run a lot of scientists in that city right away. Figure out what you're going to do with the great scientists.

Basically: focus. Pick your objectives, keep them short, and execute. If you do a little of this and a little of that you get nowhere (imo). Same goes for city specialization. If it's a production city, why do you have a cottage on that tile? If it's a commerce city, why are building a barracks there when it needs a library?

Expand, expand, expand. Land is power. Don't cripple your econ to expand (although you can in some instances), but don't ever stop expanding until you have enough land to win comfortably. Don't delay currency and col (and construction if you need it for conquering) and don't hunker down to build stuff (other than workers/settlers/defenders or military units) at the expense of expanding your empire. Later in the game if you have a large enough empire you can dictate your victory condition. If you have too small of an empire it can be difficult to win unless you planned cultural from the beginning.

 

[Slash47]

I know what you mean MVA. I had exactly the same problem but now I beat emperor/immortal AI's. You will to!

There are some rules that ALWAYS apply for me when I play civ:

- Never in any way help make the nr. 1 civ more powerful. NEVER. Also, that civ should always be your enemy, never your friend, because you cannot trade or wage war side by side with the civ that is beating you (for obvious reasons).

- Always have a powerful military. I know some guides to cultural/diplomatic victories don't state the use of an army, but this is a very hit and miss kind of aproach, which will have you restarting a LOT.

- At 4000 BC, my goal is always a domination victory. This always gives me the strongest foundations for any victory.

- The best way to invade another continent is by invitation.

- Only ask for help if you have to, not because it's handy. Never ask the number one civ for help, you might as well lose the war. On the other hand, when an ally asks you to go to war with them, it's always very beneficial to do so.


These are some basic rules that have little to do with how to run a CE, when to go for which wonder or what your build orders should be but they helped me loads.

Hope my first post was helpful and sorry for any bad English

 

[Black_Waltz]

My advice would be to take a step back. Stop worrying so much and enjoy the game from almost a roleplaying standpoint.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I think this might be one of the most important things I need clarified. From the first turn of the game, do I pretty much NEED to decide HOW I want to try and win? It seems to me like this is a decision that must be made immediately, and your entire game strategy must be focused around Culture, Diplomatic, Military, Space Race, etc. Is this essentially true?

No. It helps, but it isn't necessary.

(Disclaimer: commentary below refers to ancient era starts, and may not be applicable in other settings).

Why is it not necessary? Because the fundamental problems that need to be addressed in the early going are the same (how can I raise the happy cap? how do I expand my borders? how do I defend myself?).

It helps, in that the goal gives you something you can use to judge the choices that the game presents to you.

However, its a very distant target to aim for, especially when you don't have very much information about the map. Much easier to find a reasonable objective at a comfortable distance, and figure out how to work toward that.

I tend to think that, at normal speed, 1000 BC is about where your first goal should be. In other words, you should have some sense for what your civ is doing that far ahead. The information you have at the start will be the main basis for choosing this goal.

As you gather more information, you may find that you ditch that goal for another. My gut says that by 3000 BC you should be pretty confident what things are going to look like in 1000 BC.


As a rule, people here love picking at other people starts (see any ALC: six pages of discussion over where the scout should move prior to setting the first city). So what I would recommend is that you post a sample start, and invite comments.

Here are the elements that I would include:
1) screenshot of the initial starting position, with the grid and the resource markers turned on.
2) a description of your play up to 3000 BC or so (especially justification for your choices)
3) the goal you chose for 1000BC (ish)
4) and outline of your play to that point
5) description of the situation at that point, and where you think you should go next.


One further suggestion: concentrate on the broad strategic strokes, rather than the tactical details.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

Try to focus 100% on a specific objective. For example, if you're going to axerush then make sure you are building lots of units quickly and not taking a break to build a library or a shiny, pricy wonder. If you are going to go for a wonder, make sure you put it to use right away and build your objective around it. E.g., if you get the great library, get into caste system and pacificism and run a lot of scientists in that city right away. Figure out what you're going to do with the great scientists.

I should print this and tape it to my monitor.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

So far, there's a lot of good advice in these posts from some great players. Some of it I'll just compile to support my own 'ideals'.

• As LlamaCat alluded to, we all think very differently, so some of the approaches you'll read will leave you more confused than before you started. KMadCandy, the 'permanoob', has a warning to take her posts with a grain of salt, and it's something I think you should mentally do with everyone's posts, because not every post is going to jive with your mindset (or even make sense).
  
  If you start reading something that makes your head spin, don't kill yourself trying to 'get it'. The strategy could be built around unmentioned (read: assumed) elements you haven't been introduced to yet. Or, it could simply be a strategy you subconsciously don't agree with or like.
  
  
• Apply advice to your games like salt & pepper to your food -- in moderation. If you try to absorb too many new things into your game at once, you're probably going to find yourself more lost (That happened to me.)
  
  
• On that note, Guardian_PL gave good advice, imho. Play on a higher level to see which of your weaknesses shines most. Then get back on your level and focus on improving that particular element. Keep doing that over and over -- working on small pieces of your arsenal at a time [instead of trying to overhaul the whole thing at once].
  
  
• Similarly, futurehermit hit the nail on the head ... focus. It's very easy to get distracted or to do something merely out of habit. When you start down a road [building, conquering, researching, etc.], make sure you know why you started down the road, how you intend to finish it and then see it through.
  
  Likewise, if you find yourself getting lost, tired or bored, you might want to take a break and come back to the game after clearing your head or getting some sleep.
  
  
• Take VoiceOfUnreason's advice extremely highly. Posting a saved game is like inviting flies to honey when you need help.

And now for my 2 :

'Manmade' economy.

For the most part, you can either get Pottery to work cottages or Writing to build Libraries (for Scientists). Once you get to the expensive techs (like Alphabet, Aesthetics, CoL, IW, Math, MC, Monarchy), you need to have a gold mine [or two], Cottages or Scientists to give you the boost you need.

The faster you can get your economy online, the better off you will generally be. One of my biggest original flaws was trying to get every cheap Stone Age tech before setting up a viable economy, but this can leave you behind fairly quickly.

After getting the necessary Worker and Defense techs, start thinking about your economy and how you're going to set it up. (In some situations, it's possible to advance to Writing and set up a Specialist Economy with as few as 4 techs.)​

Whipping & Chopping.

Rushing your builds isn't a requirement, but it can go a long way to getting you off on solid footing. Try not to whip for just 1 pop. If possible, whip for 2 pop the turn before the whip would've become a 1-pop whip. Try to whip when the city is set to grow in 2 turns to minimize food waste and economic impact. Whip low-food cities with caution.​

City Specialization.

Even when you only have 4 cities, it's still possible to specialize your cities. In most of my games, I try to settle 4 cities with the following "missions":

• Production city to build only a Granary, Barracks & military units. This city typically has a military/metal resource but can also be a high-food city for whipping.
• High Food city to build Settlers & Workers. This is typically the Capital but doesn't have to be. Build 2 or 3 extra Settlers than what you immediately need to facilitate CoL/Currency REXing later (This city will likely become a GP Farm or Science City, so you don't want to divert it too long just to expand later).
• High Food / Commerce city to run Specialists or Cottages. This city is a prime candidate for the GPFarm/Oxford/Wall Street city later.
• Production city with Granary and Barracks for Wonder-hogging and supplemental military production. This city typically has a secondary military/metal resource.

Once I've founded those cities, they typically retain those roles for the entire game. They may not retain the title of #1 whatever city, but since they are suited for their original roles, they're usually less-suited for other roles.​

Warmongering

Sadly, it's sometimes unavoidable. I'm still not very good at it, but what I can tell you is that you primarily need good intel on your enemy -- what military resources he has and where they are, which units he's already built and if plausible what he's researching. Knowing all this will help tremendously in focusing your efforts. After that, try to win swiftly, because the BtS BetterAI is damn good at defending itself (read: turtling).​

IMHO, those are the fundamental elements. I think if you can grasp those, then you're well on your way to moving your games right along.

If you want more exact advice (like math and stuff), there are plenty of in-depth articles in the War Academy.



-- my 2

 

[LikeMike]

I am in a similar position as mva. In my last game I wanted to try a Praet rush. I wasn`t in a very good starting position but managed to get iron with my third city, and just as i finished my first praet, shaka declared war on me and came with a huge stack (swordmen, cats and his UU). I barely managed to hold him off, but a few turns later he always returned with bigger stacks. I have no idea how he managed to build so many units and still have a tech lead against me.

Well, other than that game I do pretty well in the first 3 difficulty settings. My problem is: after a while I get lazy. So some of my cities run into unhappyness, I forget to change civics, I forget to spread my religion or some stuff like that. Also I am not too familiar with the tech tree, so I hardly ever plan ahead and just grab, which seems most useful for now.

Well I found this beautiful reference chart here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236347

and plan to use it much more in my next game. With it I want to plan, which techs I want, and which I need for what kind of wonder or unit. And I guess taking a break is a good hint as well, so I don`t get too lazy too fast.

And I still have to find out, how to build a good military to stay safe, while not falling behind techs too fast.

 

[LlamaCat]

Noble is the level where there are no advantages for the human or the AI.

Not true. AI gets major advantages even on the lowest levels. This is kind of a myth and I'm not sure how it started. This is an important point to keep in mind if you are struggling even on Noble, especially in terms of your economy. If you want to move up to the higher levels, you have to start thinking in terms of how you can take advantage of things to overcome these advantages.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I have no idea how he managed to build so many units and still have a tech lead against me.

...

And I still have to find out, how to build a good military to stay safe, while not falling behind techs too fast.

The AI gets to cheat a lil, so that may answer the first part.

As for the 2nd question, how specialized were your cities? Once I started devoting a city (usually my second city) to nothing but military production, I found it much easier to keep my military up while still focusing my other cities on growth and expansion.

I'm not the best warmonger, but these rush tactics seem to work for me:

• Have a Settler, Worker and escort ready and waiting the turn AH/BW/IW comes online, so you can immediately begin moving when the strategic resource is revealed.
• Pre-build Warriors (up to -1 turn) in every city's queue just before your Copper/Iron is hooked up. This allows you to have 30-40% of the Axeman/Swordsman already built, which further allows you to whip nearly each city to jump-start your rush on turn 1 of the resource access. (This can also be done with Axeman-to-Maceman)
• If you're "rushing" Macemen, build Catapults or stack defense while waiting for Construction/Machinery/Civil Service

 

[LikeMike]

Well the one big mistake I made was, that I did build my iron city a little too far out, so that I had to wait till it expanded to the fat cross. Other than that I had 2 cities in close proximity, both with only barracks and granary, and a culture producing building, i think a temple. those two were producing military non stop, and during the war my capital did so as well.

All in all I guess I was too slow, and had some bad luck with my starting position and my next door neighbor. I guess I`ll try a praet rush again, this time without the mistakes I did before.