like isnt your commerce and science city the same thing?
i suck at civilization
- Thread starter tipsy09
- Start date
like isnt your commerce and science city the same thing?
The good thing about Civ4 is that buildings to not have maintenance costs, unlike previous versions of Civ. So, it is beneficial to have fewer specialized cities than a whole bunch of cities with no improvements. Or so the logic is supposed to go...after all those cities start getting improvements, I'd rather have the larger empire.
The Great Library, if you get it, gives you extra science through scientist specialists. So, for synergy, place it in the city with your National Epic that gives +100% great person birth rate, or put Oxford later in the same city (to get +100% science on top of the free science the GL provides). For placing Oxford, I typically go to my city list under the Domestic Advisor, and click on science to sort all my cities in ascending order based on beakers. Then, the top city gets Oxford. Same thing with military production: I find my top hammer cities, and select one of them to build the Heroic Epic to double military unit production and pump out troops.
Early on, yes. However, if you found a religion and get a shrine that produces income, then that city will produce more gold than your other scientific city. Or, because you built the Great Library and that city has extra scientists pumping out science, it will produce science better than gold.
No, there are unit costs.
But I wouldn't pay too much attention to them. I would build as many units as are necessary to achieve your goals (and maybe a few more for emergencies). If you start losing money then increase your commerce (or gold) somehow.
Underdawg
King
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144755
Read that. Please. I heartily recommend it. It has a good section on Opening Play.
Read that. Please. I heartily recommend it. It has a good section on Opening Play.
On low difficulties, you will barely notice the unit costs. Once you get above Noble, they start to sting a little more. 
If I had to make a recommendation, ignore unit costs at the beginning while you are learning the other systems, and your pocketbook won't be broken. Just keep your science above 50%.
If I had to make a recommendation, ignore unit costs at the beginning while you are learning the other systems, and your pocketbook won't be broken. Just keep your science above 50%.
SickCycle
Prince
EDIT: I was high or something, I posted Hammurabi had Protective and I dunno..
I think I would go for the dutch, they don't have any early UU or UB so you wont have to think about how to leverage it but they are an excellent civ, with BTS workers will spam cottages after farms so you wont have to manage your workers and since hes financial you will get a good payoff without having to micromanage anything. His Creative trait, where as it's usually seen as a weaker trait will help you grab the resources you need and let you build libraries at half cost to keep your research going which goes well with financial.
I think creative is good for new players because you don't have to worry about popping your borders and city placement as much, you can just plop the site down and there is no detour to mysticism which you may not know to grab for an early border pop.
You can more or less put the Dutch on Auto-Pilot for awhile and still do well.
I'd just finish by saying.. War is your friend Early rushing a close neighbor is one of the most tried and true strategies around. It can be done pretty simply to without having to chop/whip alot of stuff at the lower difficulty.
Grab Wheel > Mining > Bronze or something like that, get a worker as your first unit and when you get bronze just find it on the map and plop a settler down next to it, If you don't know what your doing I'd just use the closest blue circle thats within 2 spaces so you grab it in your borders (Creative makes it easy), I say grab wheel first just to give your workers something to do and you dont have to worry about chop rushing etc. etc. then just research whatever resources you have in your fat cross like Agriculture for Corn/Wheat, Animal Husbandry for Pigs/Sheep.
After your first worker is out then build a warrior or something to let your city grow a bit and make a barracks or another worker then a barracks and then start pumping out axes from the copper you hooked up and just rush someone 6-8 axes should destroy them, keep the cities if they are close to you if not raze them and/or just keep the capital if it's not to far away, try not to get to far away from your base though because its expensive with upkeep. After that just start letting your workers build up and try to keep with the pack as far as techs and military (watch the graph) if you successfully take a close neighbor and his capital you should have no problem out pacing the AI on a lower difficulty.
Read through the comments on some of Sistullis games, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5320091
Aelf also has some but they are higher difficulty, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204202
Download Sistullis guide from who posted it and when you are going to found a city check his city specialization to see what makes good locations for what you want, it's a life saver, I still keep it open on games
You could also use Ethiopia but Organized to me is actually harder to use correctly then Financial in BTS, because like I said I'm not sure how many people have noticed but in BTS workers start building farms but by around the time Iron Working gets on the scene they transition all your farms and just mass cottage spam everything. Organized really only shines with warfare and managing a large empire with expensive civics, and whipping courthouses for newly conquered cities. Which means you have to know when and how to expand, which cities to keep, leveraging civics, and I think to really get everything out of Organized it's more difficult then just letting the new and improved workers cottage spam everything under a financial leader.
If all else fails.. use Praetorians
(Rome)
I think I would go for the dutch, they don't have any early UU or UB so you wont have to think about how to leverage it but they are an excellent civ, with BTS workers will spam cottages after farms so you wont have to manage your workers and since hes financial you will get a good payoff without having to micromanage anything. His Creative trait, where as it's usually seen as a weaker trait will help you grab the resources you need and let you build libraries at half cost to keep your research going which goes well with financial.
I think creative is good for new players because you don't have to worry about popping your borders and city placement as much, you can just plop the site down and there is no detour to mysticism which you may not know to grab for an early border pop.
You can more or less put the Dutch on Auto-Pilot for awhile and still do well.
I'd just finish by saying.. War is your friend
Early rushing a close neighbor is one of the most tried and true strategies around. It can be done pretty simply to without having to chop/whip alot of stuff at the lower difficulty.Grab Wheel > Mining > Bronze or something like that, get a worker as your first unit and when you get bronze just find it on the map and plop a settler down next to it, If you don't know what your doing I'd just use the closest blue circle thats within 2 spaces so you grab it in your borders (Creative makes it easy), I say grab wheel first just to give your workers something to do and you dont have to worry about chop rushing etc. etc. then just research whatever resources you have in your fat cross like Agriculture for Corn/Wheat, Animal Husbandry for Pigs/Sheep.
After your first worker is out then build a warrior or something to let your city grow a bit and make a barracks or another worker then a barracks and then start pumping out axes from the copper you hooked up and just rush someone
6-8 axes should destroy them, keep the cities if they are close to you if not raze them and/or just keep the capital if it's not to far away, try not to get to far away from your base though because its expensive with upkeep. After that just start letting your workers build up and try to keep with the pack as far as techs and military (watch the graph) if you successfully take a close neighbor and his capital you should have no problem out pacing the AI on a lower difficulty.Read through the comments on some of Sistullis games, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5320091
Aelf also has some but they are higher difficulty, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204202
Download Sistullis guide from who posted it and when you are going to found a city check his city specialization to see what makes good locations for what you want, it's a life saver, I still keep it open on games
You could also use Ethiopia but Organized to me is actually harder to use correctly then Financial in BTS, because like I said I'm not sure how many people have noticed but in BTS workers start building farms but by around the time Iron Working gets on the scene they transition all your farms and just mass cottage spam everything. Organized really only shines with warfare and managing a large empire with expensive civics, and whipping courthouses for newly conquered cities. Which means you have to know when and how to expand, which cities to keep, leveraging civics, and I think to really get everything out of Organized it's more difficult then just letting the new and improved workers cottage spam everything under a financial leader.
If all else fails.. use Praetorians
(Rome)
Definitely.
- Don't build any health buildings in cities that are nowhere near unhealthiness (exception: an aqueduct in a healthy production city if you want to go for the Hanging Gardens).
- No early barracks in cities that won't produce units, though I tend to eventually build barracks everywhere at later eras.
- Unless maintenance is very low (like for Charlemagne), courthouses are important - even in the capital now for the espionage bonus
- No science buildings in cities that mostly produce hammers unless you need them to be able to build Oxford.
- No religious buildings in production cities that are happy unless I need them for cathedrals or culture
- No financial buildings in cities that produce mostly hammers and little gold. A bank in particular is very expensive - you want that 50% bonus to be worth the hammers spent on the bank.
- Forges I initially limit to cities where they're worth the extra hammers and won't force me to build health buildings for nothing, but I systematically build them if I have 8-12 cities, with one or two extras in case I lose cities in war. Same for banks - I'll build 8 in my best cities gold-wise to get WS, and same for Universities.
- Even if you play a peaceful style, you need to keep military units a priority over pretty much everything, including wonders. You can live without wonders, but wonders help little if you get attacked and have spent years building wonders instead of troops.
To play peacefully and don't get smashed, you pretty much need to keep a good lead in tech and a very strong defensive army and walls, castles and the likes (offensive units are less important for this style, I find, though in warlords I liked to keep some as deterrents and to fight back a bit, at least.).
Cities with a lot of science (cottage farms and some coastal cities, usually - especially when I play as the Dutch), or for the GL it can also go in the GP farm for the two free scientists. My rule of thumb for Oxford (and the first Academy) is to place them in the city that produces the most
(same for other academies), unless I plan to need the slot for another national wonder there (I often want Wall Street at the same place I could put Oxford). For Great Scientists, it's also necessary to calculate if an extra Academy is worth it, and if the GS wouldn't be more worthwile settled as super specialist in your science city where its effect will be multiplied.Many wonders are useless or close to depending on your game style and which civ you're playing.
I'm not a terrific player overall (I'm stuck at Noble on BTS, used to play Prince for a challenge and Noble for games in the comfort zone) but I tend to go for only a few key early wonders unless I'm so much in advance I can afford to have one or two "Wonder cities". Which ones very much depend on your civ/leader, your style and your strategy. As the Dutch and following a peaceful strategy (I focus on Diplomatic, Cultural or Space Race/Time victories) I favour the Great Lighthouse and the Oracle first and pick Code of Laws as free tech, then use the Great Prophet to get Theology and build the AP. If the circumstances are favorable, I will build the Great Wall (since BTS), and for defense (shorter wars against you, or more costly) I find the Statue of Zeus interesting. For later Wonders I pick what I need depending on how my game is going, and occasionally what I can't afford to let some rivals have (I don't want to let a civ nearing cultural victory get Broadway/Hollywood/R&R and the Eiffel Tower, for instance). Typically, I have a few early key wonders, a few ones mid-game and most of the late game ones.
I think this is my big problem. I often get off to great starts in my games (I'm still trying to win at Prince), but then the AI catches up to me well before gunpowder. No matter how good my relations are with my neighbors (and they're usually very good since I often control the early religions), they end up declaring war and smashing me. Very frustrating.
@SickCycle: Hammurabi is Agg/Org, no Protective trait. His early archers are strong, but they don't get the City Garrison and Drill I promotions. I was considering recommending the Dutch as well, but I haven't played them yet, so I didn't want to give a recommendation on them. But I am enjoying my Hammurabi game right now.
The extra buildings you can build don't cost extra maintenance/gold per turn, but they do detract from your overall production. So, like others posted, I will not produce banks and stuff like that in my military production cities. The one exception are markets and grocers: those can provide up to a +4 happiness or health bonus. If I need that to run extra mines, then they are going up in that city, even if the +25% gold bonus is so small its nonexistent.
In Civ, the best defense is a good offense. Build walls/castles only in a few border cities, unless you have a Wall/Castle UB. Produce plenty of military units for counterattacking--I use the AI declarations of war on me to take a city or two from them. I've won a Conquest victory and several Dominations without declaring a single war in the game. Aggressive AI helped that one...and the forever crazy Monty, who will declare war even if you are twice as strong on the Power graph.
Speaking of which, watch the power graph. If you are falling behind, start building more units. The AI typically pick on and attack the weak guys on the power graph.
The extra buildings you can build don't cost extra maintenance/gold per turn, but they do detract from your overall production. So, like others posted, I will not produce banks and stuff like that in my military production cities. The one exception are markets and grocers: those can provide up to a +4 happiness or health bonus. If I need that to run extra mines, then they are going up in that city, even if the +25% gold bonus is so small its nonexistent.
In Civ, the best defense is a good offense. Build walls/castles only in a few border cities, unless you have a Wall/Castle UB. Produce plenty of military units for counterattacking--I use the AI declarations of war on me to take a city or two from them. I've won a Conquest victory and several Dominations without declaring a single war in the game. Aggressive AI helped that one...and the forever crazy Monty, who will declare war even if you are twice as strong on the Power graph.
Speaking of which, watch the power graph. If you are falling behind, start building more units. The AI typically pick on and attack the weak guys on the power graph.
MrWhereItsAt
Warlord
Another reason you should have at least a couple of strong commerce cities is because of the options for specialisation available with, well, specialists. If you have one city with lots of commerce, you can put Libraries, Banks, etc in there to maximise both gold and science, but if you really want to maximise one of them, you use Merchants or Scientist specialists. If you have at least two cities, one for science and one for gold, you can more quickly get the two cities into the ONE role that each has by building the improvements more quickly, and you concentrate on one type of specialist. Quicker setup, earlier returns and more efficient. You can have two cities with Wall Street built in one and Oxford University in the other in half the time (roughly) it would take one city to build both.
johnny5000
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2006
- Messages
- 97
Another thing that I found to help learn how to play better is to not build any World Wonders. Yes, you can win without them!
Just focus on the basic buildings and build up your military.
If you get tempted to build a wonder, build a military unit instead.
Seriously, try a few games without wonders. You'll be tempted to build them, but don't let yourself. Not even one small one that you're sure to build before anyone else. None. Not one wonder. Don't build any wonders.
Just focus on the basic buildings and build up your military.
If you get tempted to build a wonder, build a military unit instead.
Seriously, try a few games without wonders. You'll be tempted to build them, but don't let yourself. Not even one small one that you're sure to build before anyone else. None. Not one wonder. Don't build any wonders.
SickCycle
Prince
lol Yeah, I just noticed I said that, I dunno what I was thinking, I just got BTS awhile ago I was thinking of Sumerian 
.
I've been playing around with early espionage and the ziggurat its kinda cool, gives you +4 I think it is to espionage where a courthouse gives +2 and comes with the oracle so I've been doing an oracle slingshot to alphabet and then grabbing the great wall after to nab the great spy it comes with it's fun, then using that to send cities into revolt before I attack to drop there defense to 0%
I just started a Monarch+BetterAI game with the Dutch, about to hit Steam and get the Dike but so far they are amazing, the East Indian lets you sneak attack in enemy waters so thats cool and it's a big_small map so I cant wait to get the dike going, I'm already leading in production that will just send me over the edge.
But back on topic.. I just moved up from Noble awhile ago then to Prince and found myself going straight to Monarch and from what I can remember all this talk about banks and specializing might be a little over the top right now if he's just starting out lol
You just gotta learn the basics and kinda get an idea for the AI's, play a few games then read a few strategies, try to implement a few of the ideas or read up on some of the AI personalities and try to work it into a few games, then go back read a little bit more and play a few more games, just focusing on those more specific strategies you read up on and just see what you like to play with.
Why I tried to give him a specific strategy or a broad stroke of one that he could try out, try the rush out and after you kinda get a feel for it or maybe just let the workers spam cottages maybe go for something different, play a Industrious leader and play around with a specialist economy just grab the Pyramids early and run Representation, you could even grab the Oracle and try to use it to get Code of Laws early and you basically just run a bunch of scientists and you can drop your science slider down pretty low and still out tech the AI.
I'm keeping them basic, why I said to use a Industrious leader instead of a Philosophical.. since you can't be both
You should really just read up on some of those games I posted, Sistulli and Aelf taught me how to play and they don't even know it
.I've been playing around with early espionage and the ziggurat its kinda cool, gives you +4 I think it is to espionage where a courthouse gives +2 and comes with the oracle so I've been doing an oracle slingshot to alphabet and then grabbing the great wall after to nab the great spy it comes with it's fun, then using that to send cities into revolt before I attack to drop there defense to 0%
I just started a Monarch+BetterAI game with the Dutch, about to hit Steam and get the Dike but so far they are amazing, the East Indian lets you sneak attack in enemy waters so thats cool and it's a big_small map so I cant wait to get the dike going, I'm already leading in production that will just send me over the edge.
But back on topic.. I just moved up from Noble awhile ago then to Prince and found myself going straight to Monarch and from what I can remember all this talk about banks and specializing might be a little over the top right now if he's just starting out lol
You just gotta learn the basics and kinda get an idea for the AI's, play a few games then read a few strategies, try to implement a few of the ideas or read up on some of the AI personalities and try to work it into a few games, then go back read a little bit more and play a few more games, just focusing on those more specific strategies you read up on and just see what you like to play with.
Why I tried to give him a specific strategy or a broad stroke of one that he could try out, try the rush out and after you kinda get a feel for it or maybe just let the workers spam cottages maybe go for something different, play a Industrious leader and play around with a specialist economy just grab the Pyramids early and run Representation, you could even grab the Oracle and try to use it to get Code of Laws early and you basically just run a bunch of scientists and you can drop your science slider down pretty low and still out tech the AI.
I'm keeping them basic, why I said to use a Industrious leader instead of a Philosophical.. since you can't be both
You should really just read up on some of those games I posted, Sistulli and Aelf taught me how to play and they don't even know it
This is a very common trap that most players get into. The end up only playing like 1 out of 4 games past gunpowder because once they fall to 3rd or 4th place and give up. This is why diplomacy is so critical in the game. You must use religion and diplomacy in the early game to build strong relationships with two other civs in the game preferably one builder and one agressive one. When they ask you for something, even if it's rediculous, always say yes. Don't trade with their enemies. Don't let them attack each other. Form an axis between the three of you!
CONVERSELY you should use religion to create ENEMIES as well! Ensure that the people you want to attack have a different religion than you and your allies. When your agressive allies go to war, pile on, even if you are not ready. The only way to come back from behind is to create conflict and imbalance through diplomacy. The best way to do this is to join your allies wars and make sure nobody is neutral. It's way more effective than the suicide rush.
Once one of your allies is fighting a strong enemy, take advantage of it! Send spies into enemy territory, one of them should be with your allies attack stack to monitor the combat. The other spies should check the garrisons on all the enemies cities. Find the worst defended city, send in your galleons full of units or a fast stack and run in and TAKE IT! You can quickly bring a powerful enemy to its knees if you attack undefended cities when they're busy against your ally.
Once you really start using the diplomacy, to create conflict as well as peace, your wars will really start to pay off and it makes the game more fun.
Thanks for the tips Greggbert! I've read a bunch of stuff here on spies and I realize I am not using them even close to their potential. Heck I haven't even figured out how to steal techs yet.
I know it's been said a thousand different ways on these boards (I'm quite the lurker), but I'll go ahead and say it (again) that it is annoying when the two civs I'm trying to build my diplomatic triangle with are both "Pleased" with me with lots of big green numbers, but they suddenly decide they like one of my less defended border cities and the entire continent devolves into war in a heartbeat. Now I end up having to play a tedious game of pumping out units to counter their huge stacks of death that they should have been using against our (previously) common enemies. By the time I take back my cities and start bringing the hurt to them, the damage is done and I'm so far behind I'll never recover.
From what I've read, the key is to keep a much larger military than I am typically inclined to do (still have the old Civ 3 mentality, only been playing Civ4 for about a month). Still, I personally find it very hard to convince myself to pump out military units when I could have a shiny new wonder instead! My wonder-lust has lost me many a game.
Funny thing is if I pull it off and build the uber-Civ, I tend to find the later ages somewhat dull. Guess I'm just too hard to please. LOL
I am currently trying to develop a more aggressive early play style FTW.
Something i had learned to do to limit the "lets all kill the human" games is when you dedicate 1 city to just units. If I'm not building something to raise the health or happiness cap or gives military production a boost it's building units. Obviously this is after the initial economy is set up. Its always churning out current units.
I'll have other "production" cities that dabble in units and wonders and spies but that one city is just for units. You'll find that you end up with 6-10 units in all your cities that are up to date. You'll also have troops stationed around, be it knights of resource "guards". It's really the only way i stay on the top half of the power graph.
If i have a tech that will give a good upgrade that is close to popping I'll kick over my production cities to wealth (the one exception to always units) for a short while for that initial upgrade cost or start the "musketman" which will finish as a "rifleman" to get the most out of those hammers.
If your low on the power graph even +5 no minuses AI will attack you. After that first the rest will jump on the wagon. Kind odd first time you see + 5 in green and a -3 this war makes us unhappy AI refusing to talk to you ...
I'll have other "production" cities that dabble in units and wonders and spies but that one city is just for units. You'll find that you end up with 6-10 units in all your cities that are up to date. You'll also have troops stationed around, be it knights of resource "guards". It's really the only way i stay on the top half of the power graph.
If i have a tech that will give a good upgrade that is close to popping I'll kick over my production cities to wealth (the one exception to always units) for a short while for that initial upgrade cost or start the "musketman" which will finish as a "rifleman" to get the most out of those hammers.
If your low on the power graph even +5 no minuses AI will attack you. After that first the rest will jump on the wagon. Kind odd first time you see + 5 in green and a -3 this war makes us unhappy AI refusing to talk to you ...
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