Intermediate tips for a Civ3 junkie?

[solistus]

[EDIT: forgot to mention, I'm playing C4W. Bear that in mind.]

Hey all,

I've been reading this forum for a while, finally got off my arse to register and post.

I played a lot of Civ3 (and some Civ2 way back in the day), and picked up Civ4 recently with high expectations. Those expectations have been utterly exceeded; I was worried Civ4 would be dumbed down Civ3, but from what I can tell it has created an even deeper game behind its seemingly simple exterior. I'm just starting to break into that depth, and I could use some pointers.

I won my first game on Noble last night, via points. I took out a neighbor around AD1000, and had a tenuous grasp on the point lead. I stayed mostly peaceful through the rest of the middle ages. Around AD1400 I was less than 100 points in the lead, but my tech and economy were starting to blossom. I started a bunch of wars between the other major powers by bribing their rivals to declare on them, without getting involved at all myself. That seemed to work pretty well at keeping anyone from invading or surpassing me, but I wasn't particularly beloved. I developed nukes by around 1800 and decided to have some fun. I pumped out a couple dozen nukes and, well, made some enemie
s rather quickly In the end, I won with a comfy points lead by nuking and razing my opponents' major cities to oblivion, but another 50 years or so and I was probably done for; a couple rivals had enough left to field some nice big armies, and my defense was beginning to falter.

Based on that experience, I have a few questions about how to improve my game and hopefully break into the post-Noble difficulties before too long. I've split them up into micro and macro for convenience (you'll see what I mean). I'm sure most or all of this is available elsewhere, but I've had trouble finding it (the condensed tips thread is over 30 pages long now, not very condensed!).

MACRO:

1) What game lengths do most people prefer, and how differently do they end up playing? I played this last game on Marathon, which was a lot of fun but took _forever_ in the later game. Marathon is definitely nice for managing complex wars in the early game, where the rapid pace of turns in Normal makes it difficult to do more than launch a single invasion attempt before one's army is obsolete. However, post-industrial gameplay took FOREVER and winning by points was kind of frustrating.

2) In Civ3, my strategy was to straight tech. The AI seemed to love to fall behind on tech while maximising economy; I could trade about half my tech lead over time for 100% of all the other civs' economic surplus, thus having both a ridiculous tech lead AND a dominant economy to pump out buildings and units. This seems a lot less effective in Civ4, since a strong economy is key to staying alive against a more aggressive (and militarily competent) AI. How should I balance teching with economy? Under what circumstances should I cut back on tech speed in order to, say, beef up an army?

3) I virtually always play as Financial. Turning any 1 commerce tile to a 3 commerce tile with a cottage seems ridiculously unbalanced. Since a lot of experienced players use non-Financial leaders, I assume it isn't, and I'm just a lot worse at exploiting other traits. What are some of the better traits and how can I take full advantage of them?

4) How do trade routes work? All I know currently is that they are good and probably boost commerce somehow. What exactly do they do, and what strategic considerations do they raise?

MICRO:

1) In this last game, I started microing my workers. I could feel the improvements early on, as I was able to direct my first cities' economies better than the AI would have to generate early tech and hammer advantage. However, by the time I had 4 or 5 cities, I gave up and automated them all. I know it's always _better_ not to automate, but is there a point at which it's no longer a big deal? Or, to put things differently, what are some effective ways of maintaining control over your economy without manually ordering around dozens of workers every turn? Also, aside from road networks, grabbing resources and cottaging or farming based on the plan for the city's economy, is there anything special I should be doing with my workers?

2) I've read some threads and guides about whipping, but I'm not sure exactly how to take advantage of it. I assume whipping is only a good idea in high food cities, where the pop loss is unimportant, correct? How do I (ab)use the overflow mechanics to get more benefit out of whipping?

3) How should I go about mounting an invasion? Currently, my strategy is to make sure I have at least 2 or 3 defenders on all cities that might get attacked, build a stack of the best offensive unit I can build and send 'em toward the nearest enemy city. Obviously, there's a lot more to combat than that; what are some steps I could take toward more strategic war fighting?

4) How should I decide what to focus a city's economy on? Right now, I pretty much cottage every city with a decent natural food supply and farm those that would starve or remain small if I cottaged.

 

[MrCynical]

MACRO:

1)Epic and particularly Marathon are somewhat easier at any given difficulty level than Normal or Quick. They allow much greater use of military units, and warfare is an area the human can generally make use of to pull ahead of the AI. I'm also of the opinion that certain other things (slavery, cash rushing, chopping, building things in one turn from scratch by normal means) don't scale consistently to marathon, and the human can make better use of them. Generally, since I prefer long games on huge maps, I like Marathon mode - I've never got anywhere near the time victory. The latest I've ever finished was 2014, and that was because I decided very late to go for a cultural victory for a change.

2)I don't quite follow this bit; tech and economy are basically synonymous for most purposes - do you mean tech vs. production? Generally it's best to specialise cities, so have a few devoted to building military, another for wonders, and some more with cottages or scientists to provide the tech. Cutting back on tech speed won't really translate into more military unless you're getting cash to upgrade units (often worth doing) or ripping up your improvements (normally a bad move).

3)Financial is without much argument the strongest of the traits - I suspect it's that the stronger players just get bored with it or find it too easy that makes them avoid it. Philosophical is the only other trait that even gets close. Charismatic, Aggressive and Industrious (low difficulty levels only) are all quite strong as well.

4)Trade routes generate commerce based on a number of factors - how big the cities concerned are, whether the trade route goes to a foreign civ, whether they are on different continents, how long they've been at peace and so on. The exact number of them you get depends on techs, civics and wonders.

The computer makes the best trade routes possible depending on your civ's circumstances. There are many factors than can limit which cities it can form trade routes to though, which may put a limit on it. You need a trade connection (road, river etc.) between the cities to trade. For trade routes to foreign cities (which generate much more commerce than those between your own cities), you need open borders with the civ, which may be a problem for diplomatic or colonization reasons. The Mercantilism civic severs all trade routes to foreign cities, but gives you specialists in compensation for the lost commerce. There's also the issue that the AI might get more from trade routes to your cities than you get from trade routes to theirs.

MICRO:

1)Once all resources are connected, all usable tiles improved, and roads and rails constructed on every tile, you've done all there is to do. Roads and rails which are not vital to the trade net, and don't improve resources are the lowest priority, and can be left to automated workers (though be careful with the settings).

2)Whipping is highly effective in the early phase of the game in virtually all cities. It's obviously easier in higher food cities, but unless a city has virtually no surplus, I'd still use it to get units and basic infrastructure faster. As to the overflow mechanics, I know there's an article on the subject in the war academy, but it might be a little out of date.

3)Siege units are the most obvious thing you haven't mentioned here - they're immensely important for both removing the city defense bonus and softening up the units with collateral damage. In the early stages you can probably get away with a single type of unit stack, but from the Medieval era onwards hard counterunits are practically unavoidable, necessitating a mixed stack to minimise casualties. Macemen may be the city attacker of choice in the middle ages, but you still need pikes to counter mounted units for example.

4)What is the terrain best suited to? A city with loads of hills and barely enough food to use them will never make much of a commerce city, but it'll make a great production powerhouse. Generally I only farm the minimum of tiles necessary to work all the others in the city radius, except at great people farms, or if I'm running an economy based on specialists.

 

[cabert]

Mr cynical answered all your questions pretty well, but I have 5 minutes left, so ...

macro
1) if you're going for military wins, epic and marathon are a lot easier. Also, if you play huge maps, it makes sense to use them.
For cultural (or time!) wins, quick is the best.
Overall, normal is the most balanced IMHO.

2) Sometimes it's good to have money in the bank.
Short list of uses for gold:
- $rushing. More so, if you're playing a financial leader, you can get an army going fast this way. Or you can use gold to buy economic items, to make more even gold/beakers.
- upgrading. The AIs have a good discount on this and can upgrade any unit, without second thought. The human player can't because it's not cheap at all. But some units benefit greatly from it. For example, upgrading a city raider 3 maceman to a CR3 grenadier certainly is worth the expense.
- sabotaging. Since you're playing warlords, you need piles of gold to sabotage the enemy's iron (no more cannons), or aluminium (slower spaceship parts), or copper (slower space ship parts) or coal (no more production boost from the Ironworks) or uranium (no, you won't nuke me)...
3) Traits are very different, and not necessarily easy to compare. You didn't mention great people, so I guess you did not yet use them to their full power.
Having your great people sooner is huge = philosophical makes a real difference. Charismatic also is great, happiness being the most limiting factor early on. + your troops are fast learners, making sustained wars turn in your favor. Creative is great for land grabbing. There is an article about traits you could certainly benefit from.
4) to add on what mrcynical said, you must know that the bigger (population wise) your city is the bigger the trade output is.
+ some techs give you additional trade routes + some buildings/wonders give you additional trade routes.
Strategically speaking, you really want to have more trade routes when you have open borders with foreign civs.

 

[solistus]

Thanks to both of you for the great responses.

I think I'm going to focus on faster routes to victory for a while. I war, but only to cement myself for a long Renaissance-modern era peace stretch (till modern military and nukes, anyway... that's just too much fun to pass up), and I pretty much always go Time or Spaceship victories, both of which last a looooong time.

Regarding tech, as I've started specialising more effectively, I have a very hard time choosing to work on production towns, as I always want to focus on SE or CE towns for the tech. I was initially referring to cutting back the science slider for cash, which I guess is usually only worth doing if you need some cash quick... I guess a better way to frame this question in Civ4 is, how do you decide when to go for a production vs cottage or farm city (other than obvious terrain-driven decisions)? On a similar note, for terrain that is decent but not spectacular in terms of both food and commerce, how do you decide whether to make cottages or farms?

I think I need to practice more non-financial leaders; my playstyle is too dependent on (ab)using a financial CE.

I think I've got a feel for the effect of trade routes now. I'm gonna value those trade route bonuses a little higher now, as it seems to bring in pretty decent commerce.

Should I (almost) always switch to Slavery and whip out early buildings, then? I always hate to lose population, but I guess it probably doesn't take long for an early Granary or Temple to pay for itself in terms of city growth. I haven't mastered the details of whip overflow yet, but it's certainly helpful to get a nice boost on the next construction project. It seems like whipping incentivises turning your capital into a GPP farm, as early game is when whipping is most useful and high food output means you can whip fairly often. How long does the happiness penalty last on Epic/Marathon?

I'm not very good with GP yet, I'm afraid. My default is to rush a tech. Early on, if I have a city that could really use the bonuses I sometimes make super specialists. If I founded a religion and plan on spreading it (or already have), the religious special building can be quite nice. I only culture bomb on culture victory attempts, as I have never yet managed to flip a relevant town.

Another thing I'm noticing is that most experienced players seem to keep expanding later than I do. After about 1000AD, I virtually never build a settler, even if I find decent unpopulated land, unless I need to expand my borders to snag a key resource. I'm really bad at judging the costs and benefits of a late city that will probably never grow fully; I usually play with a smaller number of 'uber' cities and the only small ones were the result of bad placement and/or war-related shenanigans.

 

[Dark_Ownage]

Well heres a tip for you! get help!
http://www.civanon.org/

 

[DaveMcW]

Don't whip in your capital. You will regret it when you are trying to crank up science and have to deal with unhappiness.

 

[Elkad]

whipping in your capital is fine. Main point with whipping is (other than in panic situations), try not to have more than 1 whip penalty at once. So every 10turns on normal, 15 on epic. Your city should have time to return to max size while you wait for the happy penalty to clear.

cottage or farms.. depends on the game you are playing. If you are running a specialist economy, with things like representation to power up your specialists, you'd farm. if you are playing financial, your default would be to cottage. (even on financial, you want one super-food-powered specialist city to generate great people).

With a non-financial leader, the cottage vs specialist decision is a little trickier, especially if you have border troubles.. farms are fast, the city grows up fast, and then you switch to mass specialists.. cottages are ultimately better, but the city grows slower and is vulnerable to pillaging.

 

[Dark_Ownage]

whipping in your capital is fine. Main point with whipping is (other than in panic situations), try not to have more than 1 whip penalty at once. So every 10turns on normal, 15 on epic. Your city should have time to return to max size while you wait for the happy penalty to clear.

cottage or farms.. depends on the game you are playing. If you are running a specialist economy, with things like representation to power up your specialists, you'd farm. if you are playing financial, your default would be to cottage. (even on financial, you want one super-food-powered specialist city to generate great people).

With a non-financial leader, the cottage vs specialist decision is a little trickier, especially if you have border troubles.. farms are fast, the city grows up fast, and then you switch to mass specialists.. cottages are ultimately better, but the city grows slower and is vulnerable to pillaging.

thats why i try to build that special building that makes everyone happy no matter what

 

[cabert]

thats why i try to build that special building that makes everyone happy no matter what

globe theater is a national wonder
meaning that
1) you can only have one of those, meaning that your other cities will still have unhappiness problems
2) you can only get one more national wonder in the city (except OCC). In your capital, you very often want oxford university or iron works or wall street...

Globe theater is great to build in a captured capital (often high food, and high foreign culture)