I think BTS is harder

[Glazedhammy]

I used to be able to win on, sure you will laugh, warlord difficulty in the warlords expansion, but now in BTS even on chieftan I get left in the dust tech wise and never get more than 6 cities on no jungle donut before the ai rushes around me and cuts me off.

I have noticed by reading posts in here that most people seem to play on monarch so I am wondering how you all mange to breeze by the computers and not get left in the dark ages.

The early game I normaly build a barracks until level 2 population then switch to settlers and never stop produceing them until i get boxed in, the AI having the tendency to move across the entire world to build a city on my border, even if there are no resoucres there.

So once I have the 6 cities or so I have 100% tech and get to watch as i slip down the ranks. Eventully somone decides to attack me and I lose. So what gives? If the game is easy on monarch, how can I prevent myself from being the lowest ranked civ on the map? Keep in mind I want to keep 18 civs and no jungle donut.

 

[Proteus]

BtS is harder than vanilla, people say maybe one level harder.
But to get beaten on lowest diffiiculty sounds hard

It sounds to me like you expand too fast too early.
Unlike Civ III and before you pay for the upkeep of cities and not for the upkeep of buildings.So if you just spam settlers and build cities with them and don´t try to make your cities profitable (via workers and buildings) you will get into negative income very fast and therefore be not able to spend money on important things like research

Depending on the map size and game speed it is very normal to play for a long time with 5 or even less cities before one expands further.

 

[desemondez]

I just took out my civ iv to play when BTS came out .... haven't touched it for almost a year, but that doesn't mean I was any good back then.

I've been reading up alot on the War Academy section on this site and there are TONS of helpful tips there. After a good deal of reading I decided to play some games and lo and behold, i managed to win by quite a comfortable margin on Warlords difficulty ... Destroyed 3 other civs through conquest by 1930~ish and won a Diplomatic victory by 1940~ish.

What i'm trying to say is the game really isn't too difficult at the first few difficulty levels, and if you find yourself losing you must be doing things really wrong. As mentioned, the War Academy can help you out or alternatively if you have questions I think those that are more knowledgeable in this forum will be more than willing to help you out.

 

[ShredZ]

You dont need barracks first, get yourself a worker. It sounds like you would have 5-6 cities with none of the terrain imporoved? Thats not good (putting it lightly). Take the best of the terrain (resources), and build 4 cities.

Working your terrain and not building too many cities should already put you up one level of difficulty.

Choosing techs in the right order, and build a bunch of axemen will put you up another.

There are a ton of strategy articles here, or you can tag along and watch an ALC game unfold (or just go read a previously played one).

GL~

 

[desemondez]

What's an ALC game?

 

[lonechicken]

Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I've noticed that it's harder to play a "template" style than before. Pre-BTS, I was able to use the same pattern for any leader and do relatively well or win. Now, I feel like I have to play to the strengths of my chosen leader much more to keep up with the top civs during the game.

Anyone else noticing this?

 

[ShredZ]

What's an ALC game?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234553

 

[Glazedhammy]

Well yes as a matter of fact i do leave all forests and only build farms and suchlike on those extra resource tiles, with a minimum of roads. I also never use hamlet-villages. Why? Because there still is not an option to replant forests. Moe ironic now in fact in that the events actully says something like a fire destroyed a forest, would you like to pay to replant... Um k so it knows its possible but you still cant do it? Dumb...

I did get a mod that suppossedly lets you terraform and plant trees, blacksun mod thing, but i am not sure it works correctly as I see no tech with a little tree planting icon. I know it worked in warlords, just not sure it works right in bts. Of course I always lost before 1700 or so and I never got terraforming so who knows.

 

[Drakan]

The early game I normaly build a barracks until level 2 population then switch to settlers and never stop produceing them until i get boxed in, the AI having the tendency to move across the entire world to build a city on my border, even if there are no resoucres there.

So once I have the 6 cities or so I have 100% tech and get to watch as i slip down the ranks. Eventully somone decides to attack me and I lose. .

Choose a civ with a good early offensive unit (or else any civ you like). Build only two cities. Build granary-worker-settler-worker-barracks on city #1 and on city #2 granary-worker-worker-barracks.

Have your scout moving around searching for your nearest neighbour/target.

Build 10 offensive units (axeman, horsearcher, quechua etc...).

You beeline to the one tech that gives you that early offensive unit. Once you have it turn tech slider to zero research.

Meanwhile two workers will be busy building a road to your nearest neighbour while your other two workers once they have mined, farmed the basic tiles will be busy chopping forest tiles to accelerate unit production in your two cities.

Your ten units will go out in a conquering spree. Eventually you will have conquered 2-3 civs (ten cities plus) having only built two cities yourself.

The reason you didn't research was to save as much money as possible for the unit strike when the mantainance costs get out of control. Anarchy (changing civics and state religion) help to create turns in which you don't spend money. Pyramids and the Schwedagon Paya are two wonders that help you doing this.

You can do this even on Deity level and win.

 

[bonafide11]

Well your problem is your early game settler spam. It's nice to get your first few cities out, but you shouldn't outexpand your economy. It sounds like you're building too many settlers before your economy is ready for it. Also make sure to build plenty of workers for your cities. If you're settler spamming, you're skipping out on the workers. Without workers, your cities are stuck working unimproved tiles so you're not getting anything out of your cities. You should have at least one worker for each city. Also, don't neglect your military because the AI will notice you slipping in the power meter and it won't be afraid to take advantage of your weakness. One more thing to keep in mind is you need to specialize your cities. Have a military city, commerce city, science city, etc...

 

[Xiahou Mao]

Well yes as a matter of fact i do leave all forests and only build farms and suchlike on those extra resource tiles, with a minimum of roads. I also never use hamlet-villages. Why? Because there still is not an option to replant forests. Moe ironic now in fact in that the events actully says something like a fire destroyed a forest, would you like to pay to replant... Um k so it knows its possible but you still cant do it? Dumb...

I did get a mod that suppossedly lets you terraform and plant trees, blacksun mod thing, but i am not sure it works correctly as I see no tech with a little tree planting icon. I know it worked in warlords, just not sure it works right in bts. Of course I always lost before 1700 or so and I never got terraforming so who knows.

Well, you reveal your problem here. You never build Cottage improvements. You need those in order to keep up on technology (unless you use a Specialist Economy, which is a more advanced option you shouldn't worry about now).

A newly built Cottage is just +1 Commerce, yes. But over time it becomes better, until as a Town it gives +4. Then later technologies like Printing Press and civics like Free Speech will boost it even further. A forest, meanwhile, gives you just +1 Production, unimprovable for a long time. While it lets you build things.. slightly faster, wouldn't +4 Commerce going into your tech be better?

When you go out and build 6 cities, you start suffering city maintenance. Your Research% likely drops a lot. If you have lots of Cottages, it won't have to drop as much, because you'll generate far more Commerce than normal. At, say, 70 or 80%, you'll make enough gold to pay off the maintenance costs, whereas without Cottages you might need to drop to 30 or 40%, or worse.

So go and build Cottages. That's the missing part of your gameplay. Well, don't build Barracks at the start either, exploring units will do better early on. Find the goody huts!

 

[futurehermit]

On lower levels BtS has been made more difficult. On higher levels it has been made easier.

 

[Jaja]

Actually, I agree with the authors post to some extent. When I played Civ4 & warlords, I could clear out a map of Prince without swetting. I almost always spawned in the industrial age. In BtS my main feeling is that the settlers have become more expensive. On marathon noble they cost 1004 hammers. That is a heckuva lot when you spawn your empire. I haven't checked the earlier games yet though so it might just be a brainghost. The AI appears to have the same problem though as even the most fruity areas of the map don't get colonized until the modern area, this on a archipelago area.