Improving my multiplayer

[Unix]

Greetings fanatics!

I’m a long time lurker first time poster. I’m looking for advice on the type of multiplayer games that I play with my clan. We typically get together a few times a week and play a game for fun. I’ve tried searching around for an answer to this but I couldn’t find any posts that gave advice for this exact kind of play style.

We play with all 18 slots full of AIs or human players, typically about 7-10 human players. We disable huts and turn off tech-trading/brokering. We play on a huge fractal map with low sea level, temperate (if I’m lucky), and balanced resources with no mods.

I typically like playing as William Van Orange due to his financial combination with creative. It seems like creative is nice since it lets you plant cities and have the boards expand quickly to REX your surrounding land before neighboring civs claim it. I also like financial because I’m usually able to get a decent tech lead by cottage spamming or getting that lucky riverside goldmine early on.

I’m just looking for advice on what I might be able to do to better make use of the game settings that we play on. I would prefer us to have tech-trading on but that is a losing battle. Like I previously said I choose creative due to being able to gobble up land quickly before my neighbors get to it. My typically strategy is to tech boom and get infantry/rifleman before my AIs and then roll through them with cannons/rifleman while they still have catapults. I really enjoy playing peacefully and if left alone I’m typically about to get to about 1K beakers of research per turn while the other human players only have about 500-600. I’m not very good at the warmongering side of the game, but as long as I don’t get an angry human player next to me (we try to be good neighbors), or a Shaka/Monty neighbor things seem to be all right.

Can anyone provide any tips on what I might be able to do to better myself in these multiplayer games? I’ve been thinking of recording one of the next ones we play, it’d probably be pretty boring but I don’t see many multiplayer let’s play CIV games so I figured why not.

Thanks very much!

 

[Keilah]

civ4 multiplayer with AIs:
-expand as much as possible while trying to stay safe from humans
-eat the free lunch that is an AI before the other humans do (this is what you are missing out on.)
-lay low until you have an overwhelming advantage
-roll out

 

[Unix]

Thanks very much, sounds like sound advice.

The creative trait has been helping me claim a lot of land early on. As far as taking out AIs quickly. I've tried to go with Darius for a decent trait combo and immortal rushing the AIs, I just loose the benefit of creative that route.

We only play on noble so a Quechua rush probably wouldn't be feasible. There is one thing I just can't comprehend... we've got a player who generally plays Zara of Ethiopia… I don't know what he does, but he somehow manages to have a huge empire really early on. Later on in the game he mass upgrades troops to Oromos and has a massive attack force, but early on I'm not sure how he secured such a great position and lead.

There is also another play who always rushes the oracle and found Confucianism with it. Whenever he's able to do that he always manages to secure an amazing tech lead by doing so. Still not sure how he works that out, they aren't really willing to give up their secrets.

Thanks for the great advice so far!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Tile micro will dominate everything else unless tech trades are on. You can easily afford a dozen cities BC and still tech quickly on noble (if you have currency can probably break 100 beakers/turn). Oracle is indeed useful but not insurmountable.

Nothing upgrades into oromos, so their likely origin is the draft.

 

[2metraninja]

Zara is creative and expansionist - two very powerful traits, which have very good synergy too. Zara have also 5-6 good buildings to build at half price. Oromos are nice, as they keep their virtues even after upgrading.

Confucianism means Code of Law, which is 1 tech away from Civil Service, which means Bureaucracy, which means 50% more beakers for him compared to anyone else early on You can look up for "SC slingshot" for detail description how to do that best.

 

[Unix]

Thanks for the heads up about Civil Service being directly after Code of Laws. I'm typically able to tell that while I'm in game but unless I've got a game going and am thinking about what to do that doesn't normally stay at the front of my memory.

Also my bad, I meant that he mass upgrades his Oromos all around the same time. Whenever I'm spying on him and can infiltrate cities, I always see him hoarding Oromos like Twinkies in a nuclear winter.

Also, TMIT just gave me Civilization advice, check that off the bucket list!!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Zara is creative and expansionist

Zara is CRE/ORG, still strong but only on high difficulty and not as good as Sury who does carry CRE/EXP. On noble I'd rate ORG pretty poorly as maintenance just doesn't get bad easily. Although the UB could be worse, it is still pretty bad.

Confucianism means Code of Law, which is 1 tech away from Civil Service

He'd still need math (BTS pre-req on civil service), and to actually tech CS...and going bur before currency is very questionable as it will lock down expansion too long. Still, the religion is useful for the happiness in MP and caste is a valid option if the war threat is not immediate (or if running SPI which works well with temple for additional ). This guy will be somewhat vulnerable to rushes/chokes though, so pressure on him if nearby is a good thing.

Also my bad, I meant that he mass upgrades his Oromos all around the same time. Whenever I'm spying on him and can infiltrate cities, I always see him hoarding Oromos like Twinkies in a nuclear winter.

Oromos have an odd timing but they're definitely a bigger threat in MP than SP. Even so, while they resist collateral they are not immune. They ARE immune to first strikes and have a ton of first strikes themselves...this makes the obvious counter to them knights, which have a higher base str and ignore first strikes. Yes, oromos can take formation, but knights (which are available earlier and chariots/HA upgrade to them) can take pinch once you have gunpowder...or you can simply go combat and use a little collateral to get favorable odds. Obviously cuirassers are better than knights for this timeframe but harder to reach in no tech trade games so that's situational.

Still, knights should generally win. A formation oromo will fight them at 9 +9(.25)= 11.25 strength. That will lose to a combat II knight even before collateral, so you shouldn't struggle unless he goes all-out on the drafts. The end conclusion is attacking Ethiopia in the gunpowder era...especially if he has nationalism too...is extremely difficult. However, you can still easily defend against oromos using catapult + knight + possibly a little of your own drafting as needed. Despite their power they will still struggle heavily against even basic muskets with CG I and fortification, unless they have siege help...but knights flank siege and siege can't be drafted .

 

[2metraninja]

Yeah, all good points from TMIT - seems my memory does not serves me much well too