I need some SoC help

[PrinceFerdinand]

I am new to the forum but not to Civ. Ive read most of the War Academy. In my most recent game i have tried the specializtion of cities and the only one i could get to work right is the GP farm.

I hear alll about the cottage spam and i end up doing it in most of my Commerce/Science cites. I usually have about 4 Commerce/Sci cites, 1-2 productions and one GP farm. For some reason i am always dropping down to below 70% sci rate.

I Thought my problem was overexpanding and i slowed that considerably to waiting till i was at least a 3 population to build a second city and make sure i had a surplus of commerce before i expanded but it always seems to be in the red.

Any thoughts or other threads that would help???

 

[Divaythsarmour]

70% research rate is pretty good. I've dropped to as low as 20% for a half dozen turns and still managed to stay ahead on techs. In fact I've had games where I rarely get above 50% and still stay ahead of the AI (on Prince difficulty). It's possible as long as you have lots of cities and build plenty of libraries, universities etc..

 

[PrinceFerdinand]

welll heres the problem i got civ 3 less than lets say.... 4 months maybe before civ 4 came out. so i just played on cheiftan because i was new i got civ 4 like a year ago played for two months than moved to new house and lost the game or so i thought

it turned out it was in the wrong box and i only found it 2 months ago
now i dominate on chieftan ( not saying much, i know) but i always struggle in tech on Warlord and i get dominated on noble so i could be classified as a noob

I just need to keep that sci @100%

Or i could just become a war monger instead of going for space race and diplomatic like i usually do

ThoughtS??

 

[GenghisPanda]

In warlord - below, I don't bother building more then two cities. That's just because I despise Expansion, for some reason. Have never really liked having 6-8 cities that were built my settlers. And in most cases, I'll have oodles of cash flowing in at 100% research. Although, make sure you have banks\markets\grocers, they double your income when combined. I had 170coin\turn at 100% research the other day. Oh, and make sure to have Great Priests to keep your income flowing.

 

[ohjames]

In the first half of the game you can generally expect to be losing money all the time.

Augment your coffers by pillaging, conquering, selling techs/resources or demanding tribute.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

welll heres the problem i got civ 3 less than lets say.... 4 months maybe before civ 4 came out. so i just played on cheiftan because i was new i got civ 4 like a year ago played for two months than moved to new house and lost the game or so i thought

it turned out it was in the wrong box and i only found it 2 months ago
now i dominate on chieftan ( not saying much, i know) but i always struggle in tech on Warlord and i get dominated on noble so i could be classified as a noob

I just need to keep that sci @100%

Or i could just become a war monger instead of going for space race and diplomatic like i usually do

ThoughtS??

Ferdinand,
I'm not exactly an expert myself. But I've been playing Civ 4 for a couple of years. There are some very good quotes on these threads by people who are a lot better than I am. The one that stuck with me, goes something like this "100% of a small amount of research can still be less than 20% of a ton of research." It's the number of beakers (scientific research) in each of your cities that really counts. You can increase scientific output by building libraries, running scientist specialists, building universities etc.. If you have 5 cities with libraries at 60% research, you'll be teching faster than if you have 2 cities at 100%.
I hear what you're saying about war. I've tried to win space or diplomatically without warring. I never had any success either in vanilla Civ4 or Warlords playing that way. The biggest reason is that ultimately, you're going to need more land and cities to out tech the AI. The AI will surround you and choke off your growth at the very least. And if you're weak on military, they'll attack you for obvious reason.
Try expanding more. Allow you're research slider to go lower, while you take a few more cities. You can allow it to go as low as 20% as long as you stop your expansion and take some time to work on infrastructure (i.e. worker improvements, cottages, libraries, temples, courthouses etc..). You'll eventually recover on the research slider and then you can expand some more.
You don't need to keep that slider at 100%!

 

[PrinceFerdinand]

Thanks Divaythsarmour!

yeah i do expand a good amount but it always seems to put me more in the red but i think ive found a map that keeps me from expanding too fast while still being able to expand

Achipleigoes reallly make you look for premium land so im getting more out of my cites i think im going spend some time on this map to find a good strategy i can use in other ones

 

[Morgrad]

Listen to Divaythsarmour, for he is wise (or at least wise enough to listen to wise people!) Of course, if wisdom is the prerequisite, maybe you shouldn't listen to me......

Where your science slider is set is completely irrelevant - the total output of your Civ in beakers is what matters. 50% of 500 commerce is waaaay more science than 100% of 100 commerce (like.... 2.5 times as much, even).

One thing to keep in mind: 1 commerce equals *either* one science *or* one gold *or* one culture (then filtered through your multipliers). If we ignore culture, as it's not what we're really talking about here, that means if you can find other ways to add science or gold, it is *better* than playing with your slider, because it's a net add to your economy.

For example, instead of having a guy working a cottage for 1 commerce, soon to be 2, at 100% research, you could instead make him a scientist for 6 science - the equivalent of 6 cottages or three hamlets. Lowering your slider to make more money (or not lose money) doesn't change his beginning output of 6 beakers - he's always at 100% science!

Another example: sacking enemy cities. If you can whup a nearby Civ, and they have 5 cities that each give you 100 gold when you conquer them, that's 500 gold added to your economy *in addition* to what is already there.

Another example: trading resources. If you havd 3 cows and 2 pigs, you have 2 cows and 1 pig too many! Sell them for gold-per-turn to your rival civs. +30 gold per turn for resources you aren't using can be converted to beakers or culture with the slider - another net gain to your economy. Just understand that the deal might get cancelled if you make the civ you're selling to grumpy.

Trade routes are another way to add raw commerce that is independent of the tiles you work. Even tiny routes at 2 commerce each, if multiplied by 10 cities and cranked through 100% multipliers becomes 40 more beakers or gold per turn.

Regarding specialists and city specialization: unless it's very early in the game, it's not a good idea to run scientists in cities with no multipliers to science. Don't run merchants in cities without money multipliers. (Unless, of course, you have to for whatever reason).

I tend to make my commerce (read: cottage) cities into both types of commerce - so I build science and gold buildings in them. Some people disagree with me and think you should have science-dedicated commerce cities and gold-dedicated commerce cities.

Production cities shouldn't have any commerce-multiplying buildings unless you have a very specific reason (i.e. I often end up with a University in at least one production city, just to make the 6th so I can build Oxford). You should have one thought about production cities: how do I get as many hammers out of this city as possible, as fast as possible, for as long as possible? Don't make a cottage in production cities. Don't run non-production specialists.

To sum up: don't worry about the slider, worry about the economy. Find every way you can to improve any part of your economy, because that will help the other, even if indirectly.

 

[PrinceFerdinand]

well guys after following your advice i won the space race in 1984. i used almost the same strategy as... I cant remember his name... in the imposible thread or something like that i had to big cites and i had a lot of pumping out of them and merging them into cites. i had a ton of in my capital and second city. i didnt use any cottages near my big cites just workshops, watermills, and mines. i used cottages in my border cites and focused on culture and even though i didnt have many cites i had like the 3rd most territory

Also i was prepared to move my science slider down but i never needed to. i did this on warlord and archipeligoes thank you for your advice it took me like 50 turns to make the space shipfrom 1930 to 1984

 

[Divaythsarmour]

Excellent!