Any two from financial, philosophical, and spiritual. For techs undoubtably aggriculture and mining. Fishing is super cheap and isn't always immediately useful (roads would be my third choice if only to give my first worker something to do.) I usually don't bother with hunting for a while unless I have deer or elephants or beavers. I appeciate the value of the scouts, but it always seems like im building a bunch of warriors in order to grow my cities that can scout rather than sit around and cost maintenance.
If you could start out with any (except Ind/Phil) trait and tech combo...?
- Thread starter futurehermit
- Start date
popejubal
Emperor
Expansive/Creative
Cheap buildings, cheap whipped workers (I build a lot more workers than Settlers), settle wherever you want and claim resources easily.
As for Starting Techs, I'd have to say Biology and Environmentalism.
Cheap buildings, cheap whipped workers (I build a lot more workers than Settlers), settle wherever you want and claim resources easily.
As for Starting Techs, I'd have to say Biology and Environmentalism.
Lucky Charms
The Contender
How about Fiber Optics. Build the Internet and you're sorted for technology for the rest of the game.
The second, how about Communism. State Property means no distance maintenance, I smell city spam.
Traits for this, Financial and Organised are not needed, there is no need to research anything and maintenance will be low.
I'm thinking Charismatic for warmongering and vertical growth, horizontal growth is covered with Communism.
Spiritual allows great flexibility, so that too.
On a more reasonable note, I like Mining/Agriculture for starting techs with Charasmatic and Financial/Philosophical.
The second, how about Communism. State Property means no distance maintenance, I smell city spam.
Traits for this, Financial and Organised are not needed, there is no need to research anything and maintenance will be low.
I'm thinking Charismatic for warmongering and vertical growth, horizontal growth is covered with Communism.
Spiritual allows great flexibility, so that too.
On a more reasonable note, I like Mining/Agriculture for starting techs with Charasmatic and Financial/Philosophical.
josephstalin
Kremlin Highlander
Traits: financial (cottages) and industrious (wonders)
Techs: mining (BW) and mysticism (religions)
Techs: mining (BW) and mysticism (religions)
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,989
On warrior vs scout starts and worker stealing:
When I stated that scouts can't steal workers, I had flexibility in mind. The situations where opposing scouts can beat you to huts are generally the same situations you have a decent shot at sniping their workers (not always but often enough), and barring a powerful tech from the hut, a stolen worker is superior. Of course, if you're isolated you can just make a scout later.
The other major problem with hunting is that resources it allows are rarely in an initial BFC, making it limit worker utility early depending on the other tech (combo of mysticism/hunting can really hurt sometimes).
On choking:
Generally I shake my head at players who consider a choke "cheap". Sirlin.net discussions aside, the AI gets 90876340987 bonuses at high levels to begin with. If one is to label chokes cheap, then you might as well label war bribes/religious manipulation cheap, along with a ton of other strategies. I prefer NOT playing with my hands tied, honestly.
I'd also like to point out that choking in the wrong situations can be extremely counter productive. Here's a couple reasons it's more balanced than people think:
1. The AI you choke will tend to hate you. No OB, no early trade routes with them, no tech trades, etc.
2. How many AIs do you intend to choke? It gets costly to choke multiple AI's, but starting with difficulties higher than noble (and especially monarch on), choking one AI tends to let a different computer REX out a large share of that land. You might eventually take the choked city, at the expense of creating a fairly monstrous AI nearby. For this reason, the power of a choke and its benefit to the human player varies considerably depending on the situation.
3. Unless you're playing without barbs, the worker stolen has to be escorted home typically. Virusmonster noted this as a problem in his really high score walkthrough and disabled them. Basically, if you steal the worker and want it back at your capitol ASAP, it may be hard to choke the AI.
4. While the AI will spam archers like no tomorrow, it WILL eventually send a settler with escorted archers out, meaning to wipe the sucker out you'll probably have to take multiple cities.
5. Realistically, to make use of a choke to actually wipe out the AI will require the construction tech, which means you're going to have to reinforce the choke and balance the excess costs of units outside the border with research, all the while being handicapped a bit since an otherwise potentially peaceful neighbor is at war with you.
These things make the effectiveness of a choke highly situational.
It's so ridiculous that it's considered cheap. "The AI isn't programmed to handle it". Hah. The AI isn't "programmed to handle" human tactics in general in civ 4, that's why it gets such insane bonuses to compensate.
What's next, calling parking your siege/CR SoD outside of a city instead of in, inviting the AI stack to capture it and then wiping it out with ease cheap? The AI certainly doesn't seem to be programmed to handle a tactic that can potentially allow a 4-1 kill ratio at tech parity. That can be a lot more game breaking than some choke, too. At this rate you could make a case that few people go through a game without doing something "cheap".
That's why I hate hearing that word in games, at all, ever. Some things might not be balanced correctly, but I'd say having prats or quechas is a much greater advantage than the ones afforded via chokes in many situations, making the argument that "choking" is cheap but playing inca/rome somehow isn't seem ridiculous.
Edit: All this and I never even mentioned some other points about chokes: your starting warrior has to live (which is not a guarantee, even if you're careful), the enemy has to be reasonably close, and you have to actually bump into enough animals/xp hut to hit lvl 2. That's a lot of ifs.
The AI also has to have enough forests so that you can actually reach the worker when it moves. This is not true for 100% of starts, and in some rare scenarios you may not even be able to scout this ahead of time.
Finally, while a woodsman II warrior is decent against archers, it's not 100%. On high levels the AI has access to some decent bonuses and will spam archers with alarming ease, improvements or not (and pillaging flatland resources next to the AI capitol will generally get you killed). If all you're using to choke is that one warrior, the AI will eventually attack it with 3 archers or so, and woodsman II still leaves a warrior behind an archer until you count fortification bonuses. 2 archers will win almost every time. Certain AI's will attack the choke more aggressively than others (aka shaka and such), meaning you'll have to sell out to hold it. As I already mentioned, this comes with some potential expenses...
For these reasons, I steal workers fairly often, but only rarely commit to a choke.
When I stated that scouts can't steal workers, I had flexibility in mind. The situations where opposing scouts can beat you to huts are generally the same situations you have a decent shot at sniping their workers (not always but often enough), and barring a powerful tech from the hut, a stolen worker is superior. Of course, if you're isolated you can just make a scout later.
The other major problem with hunting is that resources it allows are rarely in an initial BFC, making it limit worker utility early depending on the other tech (combo of mysticism/hunting can really hurt sometimes).
On choking:
Generally I shake my head at players who consider a choke "cheap". Sirlin.net discussions aside, the AI gets 90876340987 bonuses at high levels to begin with. If one is to label chokes cheap, then you might as well label war bribes/religious manipulation cheap, along with a ton of other strategies. I prefer NOT playing with my hands tied, honestly.
I'd also like to point out that choking in the wrong situations can be extremely counter productive. Here's a couple reasons it's more balanced than people think:
1. The AI you choke will tend to hate you. No OB, no early trade routes with them, no tech trades, etc.
2. How many AIs do you intend to choke? It gets costly to choke multiple AI's, but starting with difficulties higher than noble (and especially monarch on), choking one AI tends to let a different computer REX out a large share of that land. You might eventually take the choked city, at the expense of creating a fairly monstrous AI nearby. For this reason, the power of a choke and its benefit to the human player varies considerably depending on the situation.
3. Unless you're playing without barbs, the worker stolen has to be escorted home typically. Virusmonster noted this as a problem in his really high score walkthrough and disabled them. Basically, if you steal the worker and want it back at your capitol ASAP, it may be hard to choke the AI.
4. While the AI will spam archers like no tomorrow, it WILL eventually send a settler with escorted archers out, meaning to wipe the sucker out you'll probably have to take multiple cities.
5. Realistically, to make use of a choke to actually wipe out the AI will require the construction tech, which means you're going to have to reinforce the choke and balance the excess costs of units outside the border with research, all the while being handicapped a bit since an otherwise potentially peaceful neighbor is at war with you.
These things make the effectiveness of a choke highly situational.
It's so ridiculous that it's considered cheap. "The AI isn't programmed to handle it". Hah. The AI isn't "programmed to handle" human tactics in general in civ 4, that's why it gets such insane bonuses to compensate.
What's next, calling parking your siege/CR SoD outside of a city instead of in, inviting the AI stack to capture it and then wiping it out with ease cheap? The AI certainly doesn't seem to be programmed to handle a tactic that can potentially allow a 4-1 kill ratio at tech parity. That can be a lot more game breaking than some choke, too. At this rate you could make a case that few people go through a game without doing something "cheap".
That's why I hate hearing that word in games, at all, ever. Some things might not be balanced correctly, but I'd say having prats or quechas is a much greater advantage than the ones afforded via chokes in many situations, making the argument that "choking" is cheap but playing inca/rome somehow isn't seem ridiculous.
Edit: All this and I never even mentioned some other points about chokes: your starting warrior has to live (which is not a guarantee, even if you're careful), the enemy has to be reasonably close, and you have to actually bump into enough animals/xp hut to hit lvl 2. That's a lot of ifs.
The AI also has to have enough forests so that you can actually reach the worker when it moves. This is not true for 100% of starts, and in some rare scenarios you may not even be able to scout this ahead of time.
Finally, while a woodsman II warrior is decent against archers, it's not 100%. On high levels the AI has access to some decent bonuses and will spam archers with alarming ease, improvements or not (and pillaging flatland resources next to the AI capitol will generally get you killed). If all you're using to choke is that one warrior, the AI will eventually attack it with 3 archers or so, and woodsman II still leaves a warrior behind an archer until you count fortification bonuses. 2 archers will win almost every time. Certain AI's will attack the choke more aggressively than others (aka shaka and such), meaning you'll have to sell out to hold it. As I already mentioned, this comes with some potential expenses...
For these reasons, I steal workers fairly often, but only rarely commit to a choke.
Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
Very good post TheMeInTeam, I agree with most if not all of your points. I think any tactic is fair and as long as I can do something in game I consider it valid. I still use bhuric's patch since those changes are not intent as modifications to the rules of the original game, just fixes.
Also regarding worker stealing, it might very well be that this is a tactic I've not become sufficiently proficient in to pull off but I have to say playing on Immortal as I am right now I haven't been in a game yet where I even considered doing it, I've always felt the cost is too high. Is it even used on the higher levels? Do deity players steal workers? As I said I'm not very familiar with it but it would be interesting to know some of the expert's opinions on it.
Also regarding worker stealing, it might very well be that this is a tactic I've not become sufficiently proficient in to pull off but I have to say playing on Immortal as I am right now I haven't been in a game yet where I even considered doing it, I've always felt the cost is too high. Is it even used on the higher levels? Do deity players steal workers? As I said I'm not very familiar with it but it would be interesting to know some of the expert's opinions on it.
Jazzmail
King
Since coastal start was given at 50% odds and rivers aren't garanteed either, agriculture and fishing become poor choices.
Iincidently, I nearly ALWAYS get a good coastal starting location on hemispere or continent maps, normal size, 6 to 9 opponents, but nevermind.
mining is easy: it leads to BW
hunting is nearly always beneficial, so I'll take that too.
The traits are a no-brainer.
mining/hunting/financial/charisma
Iincidently, I nearly ALWAYS get a good coastal starting location on hemispere or continent maps, normal size, 6 to 9 opponents, but nevermind.
mining is easy: it leads to BW
hunting is nearly always beneficial, so I'll take that too.
The traits are a no-brainer.
mining/hunting/financial/charisma
Ravellion
Prince
Hunting and mining, Creative and Charismatic.
Why: Hunting and mining means agriculture, animal husbandry or bronze working are all within one research choice (I really hate having pigs in my fat cross, and nog being able to work them unless I research 2 techs). Also, I like to start with a scout.
Creative: cheap libs, early culture.
Charismatic: for everything that charismatic does.
Why: Hunting and mining means agriculture, animal husbandry or bronze working are all within one research choice (I really hate having pigs in my fat cross, and nog being able to work them unless I research 2 techs). Also, I like to start with a scout.
Creative: cheap libs, early culture.
Charismatic: for everything that charismatic does.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,989
When DaveMCW did obsolete's "financial trait with 8 cities wonderspam" game over, instead using a CE, one of his early moves was to steal a worker and choke. Of course, he had Quechas
.IIRC I've seen obsolete snipe workers in other games too, and I myself will do it although I only play emperor.
I'd imagine it's a little more situational on immortal, but doing this could slow down and opponent from REXing into your resources. If you intended to kill them anyway, you might as well take some workers. It's especially fun if you can get peace, because the AI will often make another one and start improving in the same spot you stole the last one
.I'd imagine this would get QUITE hard on deity, and chokes would of course be just about impossible there since the AI gets 2 cities to start with.
The AI handles many things badly, but there is no elegant solution.
If I refrain from stealing workers/camping, this renders the AI practically immune from early harassment... which is a legitimate tactic in itself.
The AI tends to focus their attacks on a single city... whether I turn it into a fortress or let them capture it and waste their troops with CR siege, I'm always benefiting from their predictability.
Don't even let me get started on diplomacy...
This sort of thing isn't a big problem really. While I'd actually like to see some warmongering AI steal workers, execute a super-fast rush etc, this would create many unwinnable games.
Judging from the complaints about 'unbalanced' barbarian uprisings, most players don't like these.
I won't go out of my way to exploit AI stupidity (e.g. no founding a corporation only to spread to an AI and watch it cripple itself), but things that happen during normal gameplay... happen.
Even a mediocre player is heaps better than the AI, only some don't realise it:
With 9 AI opponents, winning 1 out of 10 games would make one equal to the average AI. Many players who never went above Noble could probably win 1 out of 10 Emperor game.
If I refrain from stealing workers/camping, this renders the AI practically immune from early harassment... which is a legitimate tactic in itself.
The AI tends to focus their attacks on a single city... whether I turn it into a fortress or let them capture it and waste their troops with CR siege, I'm always benefiting from their predictability.
Don't even let me get started on diplomacy...
This sort of thing isn't a big problem really. While I'd actually like to see some warmongering AI steal workers, execute a super-fast rush etc, this would create many unwinnable games.
Judging from the complaints about 'unbalanced' barbarian uprisings, most players don't like these.
I won't go out of my way to exploit AI stupidity (e.g. no founding a corporation only to spread to an AI and watch it cripple itself), but things that happen during normal gameplay... happen.
Even a mediocre player is heaps better than the AI, only some don't realise it:
With 9 AI opponents, winning 1 out of 10 games would make one equal to the average AI. Many players who never went above Noble could probably win 1 out of 10 Emperor game.
Ok, you spend 5000 hammers on the internet and I will spend 5000 hammers on axemen.
DaveMcW
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2002
- Messages
- 6,489
I'd rather draft with Nationalism and Robotics.
not terribly usefull without gunpowder / rifling is it? Or is it buildable anyways as those are prereqs for robotics? Assuming riflemen aren't draftable without gunpowder i would go for gunpowder and nationalism, if riflemen are buildable without gunpowder then rifling + nationalism. Getting size 8 cities can be rough...
To be serious though financial / creative and mining / agriculture.
Cookie Crumbs
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2006
- Messages
- 485
Mining+Agriculture: give food+production, the two most important things early game, and generally farmable food sources are more common. In BtS you're almost guaranteed fresh water as well.
Organised+Expansive: if you're coastal, you get cheap harbours/lighthouses. If you're inland, you still get great benefit from cheap courthouses/granaries. The cheap courthouses are important if you want to landgrab/go for war after CoL. Philosophical is a good choice if you can leverage it since GPs can help you get out of a lot of situations but I can't so I won't include it.
Organised+Expansive: if you're coastal, you get cheap harbours/lighthouses. If you're inland, you still get great benefit from cheap courthouses/granaries. The cheap courthouses are important if you want to landgrab/go for war after CoL. Philosophical is a good choice if you can leverage it since GPs can help you get out of a lot of situations but I can't so I won't include it.
vale
Mathematician
You need rifling to draft the mechanized infantry (or even infantry units).
So if you are going for the drafting of uber units, it would be nationalism and rifling.
So if you are going for the drafting of uber units, it would be nationalism and rifling.
AfterShafter
Deity
The combo I'd most like to start with would be pro/org with hunting and... Fishing or agriculture - either would make me happy. Of COURSE they left pro/org out of the bloody game 
r_rolo1
King of myself
You know you need rifling for Mechs, don't you?
futurehermit
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2006
- Messages
- 5,724
Well the activity has slowed down on this thread so I think I am going to declare Charismatic/Financial and Agriculture/Mining the winners 
Anyone want to go play some Hannibal of China games?
Anyone want to go play some Hannibal of China games? 
