I Hate Warmongers!

[DaveMurray]

Sometimes the conventional wisdom is questionable though. I see time and time again people saying "chop everything everywhere no matter what", and whenever I experiment with that I needlessly cripple my Iron Works city and the NF wonder is nerfed, and all the other cities are kept at below 13 in growth when 4 trees could boost them to 15 for greater industrial-era horsepower per-city. It's simple raw experience that taught me to ignore that advice and leave more trees where it made sense to do so (IW and NF) and continue to clearcut where it made sense (border cities, coasts) and "leave a few" in most other places (for growth).

Point being I wouldn't take "what everyone says" as religious dogma, but any piece of advice deserves at least a few trial games to see if it's worthy.

It's very easy to get health in this game. Tons of infrastructure improvements, and you can trade for the resources that you don't have or you can get them gifted to you from the "help out a good friend option." In 90% of my games, I'm worse then a broke collage student when it comes to mooching stuff off the AI, either it be resources or money to upgrade my stacks. But yes I will agree that any piece of advice deserves a few trial games. For every situation that a piece of advice is good in, there's probably a situation where it was the wrong thing to do.

NP comes too late to consider saving forests imho though.

 

[Jaaboo]

It's more indicative of a creature who lives under a bridge.

This has been my thought this entire thread. I do not believe anyone serious about improving their ability to play this game could ignore every piece of advice rendered thus far. Even if it was just too much, following just a few salient points (build & work cottages being point #1, is it that hard?) would allow him to compete on Noble at the least.

I am far from the best player. I have won a few games on Monarch but often boredom, laze or just plain ol' bad choices still makes it more comfortable/fun to play at Noble or Prince. The point being is that back in NC 3, Kublai Khan, I was excited to get my first Noble win. Now I feel like Noble is too easy due to the slow tech rate (for gods sake people, trade with me!) I haven't turned into some super Civ 4 player, I just learned a bit more about where everything comes from. How to make beakers, how to make hammers (well that's easy), how to wage war (that Kublai game really helped there.) There's a lot of advice that I have skipped, or I forget, or I just fail to put in place, and yet, with all my impatience, I can easily string together a win on Noble.

Maybe PreLynMax doesn't have a lot of time to read the replies he's garnered. Maybe he's a pre-pubescent little ahole who just spouts of some bs to stir up replies. But if he's not a troll, then by osmosis if nothing else his game should be getting better.

 

[Skallagrimson]

It's very easy to get health in this game. Tons of infrastructure improvements, and you can trade for the resources that you don't have or you can get them gifted to you from the "help out a good friend option." In 90% of my games, I'm worse then a broke collage student when it comes to mooching stuff off the AI, either it be resources or money to upgrade my stacks. But yes I will agree that any piece of advice deserves a few trial games. For every situation that a piece of advice is good in, there's probably a situation where it was the wrong thing to do.

NP comes too late to consider saving forests imho though.

I probably need to work on diplo more. I can't get much of anything as a gift from the AI even at Pleased, and to go to Friendly requires feeding them high-cost techs for free, and f*** that.

So you never build NP? And you haven't moved up a level?

 

[cabert]

I probably need to work on diplo more. I can't get much of anything as a gift from the AI even at Pleased, and to go to Friendly requires feeding them high-cost techs for free, and f*** that.

So you never build NP? And you haven't moved up a level?

Whenever I want a good NP city , it's because I'm playing a low level, where I can use liberalism for biology, so I can use the city long enough for its quality to matter.
Very often my NP city is a late captured AI city with a few trees left.

 

[Dirk1302]

I probably need to work on diplo more. I can't get much of anything as a gift from the AI even at Pleased, and to go to Friendly requires feeding them high-cost techs for free, and f*** that.

So you never build NP? And you haven't moved up a level?

But you can trade for the health resources can't you? Ais don't have to be friendly to trade resources. I seldom build NP either btw, often comes too late to matter, besides i never have any forests left.

 

[Zack]

Seriously, people. You need to stop trolling this guy. Just because he's bad at the game doesn't mean he can't get better. Hell, I used to have trouble at Warlord difficulty. Everyone did (Well, if they started with Civ 4 and aren't a civ III veteran). I'd try to help a bit, but all I can say is that the axes are more than enough to fend off an invasion made of mostly melee units. You aren't woefully behind, you're ahead of Alex in power. Just send a bunch of axes over to meat his stack o' doom.

He's posted this crap in other forums, and he doesn't listen to very good advice given to him. I wouldn't troll him if he would listen to advice and tips. Though I have probably been to harsh, with no reason to do so. Sorry, man just try to listen to advice and no one would say anything bad.

 

[Zack]

I remember feeling ecstatic when I got my first Warlord win.

 

[Zack]

"I think you need to find a new game to play. " That's just something that makes their people who post it feel better about themselves

He was saying how he hates the game mechanics... I posted a very useful strategy guide to try to make his gameplay experience more enjoyable. I definitely didn't say it to make me feel better about myself. I'm sorry if that's the impression you got. I will be the first to admit that I am nowhere near the top here at CFC. I was fed up at his whining and his not listening to advice. I made an arrogant comment and I feel like a jerk now . I will make sure it doesn't happen again. Prelynmax, seriously try to listen to advice, it will help your game a lot and help you be able to put the smack down on Alex.

 

[Crusher1]

Think War! It will improve your game tremendously! War creates Huge empires and forces the player into better planning and overall empire management. Any monkey can create 6-8 cities and hit enter until they win via space - diplomacy - or cultural.

FIX BAYONETS and charge baby - charge!

 

[Zack]

And lets YOU decide when you want to go to war, not the AI.

 

[ppciv4]

quote: They are mindless, skillless souls that contrubute nothing to society except to brandish thier muscles to the rest of the world.


Yes we are, like what we do with proud to women.

 

[DaveMurray]

I probably need to work on diplo more. I can't get much of anything as a gift from the AI even at Pleased, and to go to Friendly requires feeding them high-cost techs for free, and f*** that.

So you never build NP? And you haven't moved up a level?

No I build NP, I just never plan for it to be in one of my main starting cities as those forrests have already been chopped to oblivion. It's usually like, "Oh I can build NP now, which random city has to most forests in it's BFC?" I'm never like, "This city I founded at 1000BC has tons of forests around it. I'm going to save them for the NP."

 

[nanomage]

as for me, i'm adopting quite "environmental-protecting" policy. not that i do not chop, but when chopping, i must always know clearly, WHY i chop.
for example: it's 1500BC and i must have this oracle ASAP.
or: i really need this settler to block cathy from settling my land.
or: i need this riverside grassland cottage to work right now.
If i do not see clear purpose to chop, i'd better leave the forest.
and yes, and often find myself having quite many forest tiles around my main production city and GP farm, so NP in it makes sence.

 

[Harv]

I have some more suggestions if you are frustrated:

1. Open Worldbuilder and make yourself a buncha tanks! Take that!

2. If you have Warlords, play a scenario called "Barbarians." This should teach you some of the basics of warfare without having to worry about city management.

3. I still recommend the Earth scenario! Playing Earth eliminates the exploration part of the game and therefore simplifies it.

4. If you hate your luck, play a "Custom Game" and turn on the option "New Random Seed on Reload." Otherwise if you reload your game, you will get the exact same rolls.

 

[Skallagrimson]

No I build NP, I just never plan for it to be in one of my main starting cities as those forrests have already been chopped to oblivion. It's usually like, "Oh I can build NP now, which random city has to most forests in it's BFC?" I'm never like, "This city I founded at 1000BC has tons of forests around it. I'm going to save them for the NP."

I actually look for mid-food forested locations for IW and high-food jungle locations for NP. It's a much easier combo to fit into most maps. You save massive worker-turns knowing not to jungle-clear a future NP site, and in the mean time just put the NE there and tolerate a few less specialist flips prior to bio. After NP comes online the free specialists get turbo-charged. And then any high-food locations with neither trees nor jungles, GT draftville.

I come off sounding religiously anti-chop, but that's actually only in two specialized locations: Iron Works and National Park. Everywhere else I do include chops early and often, although I don't consider it the primary source of production as many do (as it adds to the worker requirement, flushing down the toilet).

 

[UWHabs]

I don't know about not chopping a jungle location. Sure, it'd be a good national park site, but clearing jungle always yields very good land, making it too valuable. I mean, sure, grabbing 10 specialists off the National Park is nice, but I'll take 10 grassland cottages instead, especially if I can get those cottages started in the BCs.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Again with the assumption that workers are free.

 

[6K Man]

I try to make my National Park city up north where there are lots of otherwise marginal Tundra forests. I guess the jackpot would be a tundra forest city on the coast with 3-4 seafood tiles... you could drop NP and NE there if you found it early enough and with Caste, have the mother of all GP farms.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Any monkey can create 6-8 cities and hit enter until they win via space - diplomacy - or cultural.

Uh... time to up the level if all you need to do is found 6-8 turtle up and win a space/diplomacy/cultural. Seriously... if it's that easy, you need to move up a level.

Nothing is easier in this game than winning a properly prepared war. The AI has no chance against a prepared human player. I'd say the hardest way to do things is to REX 8-9 cities, turtle up and try to win that way.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Nothing is easier in this game than winning a properly prepared war. The AI has no chance against a prepared human player. I'd say the hardest way to do things is to REX 8-9 cities, turtle up and try to win that way.

I tend to do a hybrid of those two extremes.

1) I REX 10 to 12 cities usually (huge map)
2) Rebuild the economy
3) Provoke a DoW by some idiot like Shaka or Stalin, go on the offensive, take that empire down, so up to about 20 cities.
4) Turtle up, rebuild the economy again.
5) Late war against whoever else is left on the land mass, take about 10 more cities.
6) Instead of launching overseas wars, turtle up the land mass and win space race.