Preface: Ye Gods, skytower power abound! Sorry, I like big posts.
Well, fellas. Thanks for the more-than-warm welcome. It seems as though a lot of my problems are sort of self-created. I do want to respond to a few things, though.
First, my saves are all pre-v1.22, so I doubt it'll work with anyone's current game. Patching shouldn't be a big deal, but I can be so damned lethargic sometimes. =D
Newbie Civer: That's what I try to do. CxxxC, staggered either to the left or right so all cities interlock. It leaves some space in the center, and I don't remember ever accounting for that.
Aabraxan:
The reason I go with most aggressive and Raging Hordes is likely because of my extensive Civ 2 Experience. I used to put everything at max and go hog-wild. I'll keep in mind that it has a larger impact here.
I'll give a bit more info on the specific game -
Details said:
I was on a huge map, Random land mass (Which ended up as Pangaea, 70% water, I believe), seven other opponents. My opponents were Rome, Carthage, Germany, Byzantium, Portugal, Russia, France, and Egypt (is that eight? I guess it is).
My first run of the game was pretty awful - As I said, six-way gang-up. During this version, my army was comparable to everyone else's, I had the easy culture advantage, and nearly double the cities that everyone else did. Byzantium got on my bad side, and I took them out quickly (they were the weakest civ), but then Carthage got a bit big for their britches, and started demanding techs from me. I refused, and they declared war, pulling Germany and France into the fray.
So, that's when I first visited and read a couple articles. So, my second run went a bit better - I started spacing my cities one closer, and it made quite a difference. I had 16 cities by 1500 B.C. or so, but again, Carthage got a bit too high-and-mighty and this time, they had Knights. I had three armies (One Ancient Cavalry/Horseman Army, two Knight Armies) wiped out from full by Knight stacks that came quite literally out of nowhere (T'was my own fault for leaving them with but a single Hoplite for defense, but hey - I thought 17 HP was a rather decent amount for defending).
So, enter my third run - The one I'm working on now. Again, spaced my cities closer, took Byzantium down to four cities, took Portugal down to three cities, and I started bribing the other lords early so as to get them to Polite. I got a string of goodie huts early, earning myself both Polytheism and Mathematics early on which I traded to fill in all of my science holes and to get a bunch of cash.
In this version, my military was unmatched, and they still ganged up on me. Of course, I re-loaded, and began counter-measures early, as I said - Started bribing these dudes, and it's turned out well thusfar. Apparently, Carthage is on good terms with everyone else, so I can't enter into military alliances with any of them - The best I've been able to do is bribe them all to Polite, but they haven't attacked me on this third go-around yet, so I'm doing decently thusfar.
So, it's about 660 AD right now, I'm studying Gunpowder, and I just built Sun Tzu's War Academy and Leonardo's Hut, and subsequently upgraded all of my warriors and horsemen to Medieval and Knights, respectively, and I'm moving all of my Knight and Ancient Cavalry stacks with a line of Hoplites, keeping mostly to mountains where I can be within two spaces of a Carthaginian city. They have oodles of Numidian Mercs, and just finished the Knights Templar, but Carthage (The capitol) is within two cities of his border with me, and I think I can charge in, grab the capitol (I ended up with both Lisbon and Constantinople from my bouts with Byzantium and Portugal), and my only other fear from there will be France. I'm still on Despotism, amazingly, but it's working for my military endeavors. Right after I cripple Carthage, I'm going to flip to Republic or Monarchy (I'm really leaning towards Monarchy due to how military I have to be - Hell, maybe even Feudalism), and I'll go from there. My workers are going slowly around my core, but they've finished my capitol, and I just dropped a Forbidden Palace in Constantinople (The other side of my empire), which sent production into overtime. I guess that's how I'm still competing with Despotism.
Okay. With that out of the way.
Specialist Farms? I'm not familiar with that at all - I assume those are the cities that are too far out to produce anything due to corruption, but most of those cities are always on the front lines (Captured Cities), and always on military for defenses, as my back lines are busy producing city improvements.
On Monarch and above, the AI is
massively out-expanding me. For Regent and below, I can have two or three cities by 3000 AD (Oftentimes supplied by a goodie hut for a city or settler), and as I said - On Regent, I was at sixteen cities by either 1500 or 1000 B.C. On Monarch, and on the handful of higher games I've played, I don't stand a chance. It's not even a matter of having an expansion phase, I can't even get started before they out-class me in every area.
For instance, I played a Zulu game, Monarch, Archipelago, Max Opponents on Least aggressive. My scout hit a goodie hut that turned into my second city on the third turn, so I thought, "Hot damn, I might have a chance this time!" So, here's what I do - My first few turns for any new city are usually Warrior, Settler - Under most circumstances, the warrior takes between 5-10 turns, and the settler takes between 10 and 15 - Which puts me almost exactly to where my cities pop up to level 3. So, my settlers come shooting out of the gates as soon as I can get them. But on Monarch, things seem to go slower. My cities seem to take longer to level up to 3, and I can oftentimes pump out two or three scouts/warriors or a barracks/archer/walls before I can start on the Settler. So, long story short - I get up to the other part of this massive continent I'm on (Some Archipelago!), I run into the Arabs, who just happen to have three more cities than I do (This was around 1000 B.C. or so), despite my accelerated start. I thought that they just got lucky, and sent a Galley over to the next continent, only to find the same situation with the English. I sent my scout further out, and Babylon was doing the same thing. They were all ahead of me. And that was discouraging, to say the least.
On higher levels than Monarch, it only gets worse. Their city counts and tech researches start becoming exponential over mine, and the game becomes a "How long can you survive before these dudes get tired of you?"
To answer your bullet-list:
1. Many. Probably 50 or so in all three versions of this Grecian game I'm running.
2. Like I said, it depends. I'm usually light on the military, particularly after a war, and I always let the AI initiate - But during these games, I usually kept 2 Hoplites per city. When they AI declares, I flip into war-mode, and start producing Swordsmen or Horsemen or Knights, depending upon the situation-at-hand.
3. Ideally, I like to. But on higher difficulties, I don't get a chance to. I have to build massive militaries just to stave off attacks, and my cities lack for it. Later in the game, improvements like granaries, barracks, harbors, walls for my core cities that they'll never each, and so on aren't necessary.
In kind, a dilemma: Let's say that I don't have enough workers or military units, usually. But my military expenditures are always maxed, and I begin losing money to troop upkeep. So, problem: I either sacrifice my science to keep my head above water, and lose ground there, or sacrifice my military, and start getting attacked. This is perhaps my largest problem - My workers are constantly at work, and I'd like to field more, but it's a catch-22 for me.
4. Governments... I usually bee-line for Monarchy, and pick up Republic in a trade a bit later. This game, I've been all three, and none have worked out ideally. My Despotism cripples my Wonder production (Yes, I'm a wonder addict. I'm the dude who builds every last one of 'em - Except when the AI beats me to 'em, which is often). Monarchy has been the best for me, but with my workers being as slow as they have been, the switch is extremely hard to justify. I'm just now getting to the point where it'd really end up being profitable, and I can't afford the 6-turn Anarchy during a war of this size. Republic has been trash - My empire isn't large enough to make it worthwhile, Production goes down when I switch, and I can't do War Weariness this game. In most cases, it's my ideal Government (Democracy has never really worked for me, strangely), but this time around, I'm just too military to be able to support it.
5. Wonders... lemme check. Athens has the Hanging Gardens and Temple of Artemis. Lisbon (Captured) has The Oracle and The Great Wall, Sparta just finished Sun Tzu's Art of War, Argos just finished Leonardo's Workshop, And Constantinople has the Forbidden Palace. Oh, and Thessalonica has The Statue of Zeus. I got Ivory early on, so I figured it'd give me a military boost. Like I said, I want to build all of the wonders, but I realize that it isn't necessary, and I focus on the stuff I really need - Temple of Artemis was my first, and it's a Godsend. In games where I don't get any Luxuries (And there's a lot of 'em), the Temple of Artemis is a requisite. My cities don't have time to build Temples individually, and with unhappy citizens popping up at City Size 3, it makes it hard to function without it. I keep my luxury at 10-20% usually, and split the rest between taxes and science, keeping science maxed where I can. Hanging Gardens is another one that I over-value, it was better in Civ 2 than it is here. I try for The Colossus and Pyramids, Oracle if I do have time for Temples - And usually, if I'm ahead in Science, I'll beat every other Civ to every wonder after Ancient.
Insofar as Byzantine, they were the strongest pre-war, but I took Adrianople and Constantinople quite easily, and all he had was four other cities. So, he started with six. I was absolutely baffled. They're all archers and spearmen, it seems, but every five spaces in my territory is another Byzantium unit, and it's almost freaking me out. 40 or so turns after my war with Byzantine, Portugal attacked me, and I had everyone gang up on them, and that's when the wave after wave of units started marching through my territory. I didn't think four cities had that kind of production value, but go fig.
Your three points on military - I usually don't touch the AI unless they initiate. And as I type this, that sounds really backwards to me too, actually. So yeah, they get to build unfettered, really. I try my best to use artillery, but they're too slow to keep up with my Horsemen/Ancient Cavalry/Knights, and they usually get left behind. I like the fast-moving units over Swordsmen and such, as they get to retreat, and I can just cycle them if they get injured. I do use Regulars, and quite a bit. But most of them promote to Veteran during the first few combats with opposing regulars, and then on up to Elite from there. And now that I have the War Academy, nothing I build will be regular anymore. So things are looking up in that regard.
As for map settings - It varies. My ideal setup is usually Huge, Continents, Wet, Warm, 5 Billion. This time around, I think I went entirely random, and I just got an odd pull.
Northern Wolf: Thanks for the link! That'll help. I usually don't invest in offensive units until I'm attacked, I might change that strategy up here soon.
Nergal: Ooh, that looks helpful. I'll give that a try. Now, as for that first scenario, he irrigates the cattle first? Generally, my first priority is to road out the three spaces to get to the location of my next city. This reduces the time it takes for me to get there by a lot.
Edit: Wait, river. Nevermind. =D
Hm, so he builds a Granary first? That seems counter-productive if Settling as quickly as possible is the priority. I can see why you want one, but it doesn't seem like the right timing. Plus which, I've usually already got three cities by the time he has his first settler. Maybe I'm doing things backwards.
Ahhh, Settler factory. Sorry for the commentary, but I'm kinda baffled by this style of play. When I build my capitol, it's always been my absolute number 1 priority to get a Settler, get it out, and get my second city.
Couple other things: I never rush anything while under Despotism. I assume that it comes with some sort of PR hit due to the "These are OUR people" schtick. Am I misinformed there? Because my cities often sit at size 6, which is another problem, but when I'm on 30 turns to a Temple, it's hard to keep that down.
vmxa: Well, that's kinda where my problem comes from. I shouldn't be having problems with six opponents on Regent, but I'm obviously doing something not-quite right if I can't compete on one of the easier difficulties.
And yeah, I usually go Warrior/Settler or Warrior/Warrior/Settler, right out of the gates. Mostly because of two things - Unhappy citizens at higher game levels, and because when I go over the histograph at the end-of-game, the AI drops their first city ASAP as well. I assumed that's how I beat them to the punch.
Maybe it was Ancient Cavalry or a UU from some random civ, but whatever it was, it wasn't a horseman. =D
I'll give these a try, fellas. Thanks for the help! If you have any more tips based upon what I gave here, I'll be more than happy to receive 'em.
Edit: Couple other things. What
do you do in situations where you don't see luxuries, or Iron, or horses? And I take it Reputation isn't big on your guys' lists either? Also, I've never seen options for buying or trading world/territory maps or contacts. Fluke?
-ø
).
