Iso Single Player Help

Blockinlick

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
42
I posted this thread in general help the other day...
If you don't read it, don't bother putting your 2 cents in, because most likely you will be ill informed.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=406805

I will have to say that the advice given so far has been a double edged sword.
I have learned plenty of new things that have enhanced my skill but there are some pieces of advice I just don't understand or just plain don't think are viable.

Most notably is the fact that everyone is saying Archery is useless.
I have been playing Noble to work on all of these pieces of advice I've been given and this is the one that confuses me most.
I keep losing to aggressive civs like Genghis Khan because the only units I have available are warriors and let me be honest, they suck d***! [Which is exactly what I expected since I was skeptical about the idea in the first place] I got bronze working really fast like everyone said but that is no good when I have the misfortune of being too far away from any copper resource every time, perhaps that would make the difference. If I had chosen to sacrifice only 2 turns to get archery, I could have defended against the aggressive civs much better and perhaps could have come out on top.

Another thing that baffles me is why people are saying use warriors to scout land.
My 2 cents is that they're too damn slow and the other civs eat up all of the villages and such before you get to most of them.

I'm kinda pissed off atm because I feel I have been misguided. Copper or no copper, that's a chance I have to take, so Imo, Archery is very necessary for early protection and using warriors for scouting is about the most inefficient idea yet lol

However, like I said, I did get very positive results. Most notably that I learned how to use my workers efficiently, instead of automating them and that I learned the importance of working cottages. I also came to the conclusion that some of the better techs I used to Bee-Line like Feudalism aren't worth the wait. Longbowmen are great but not for the amount of research it takes to unlock them. I also learned the importance of getting Writing, Currency, Civil Service, and Code of Laws quickly.

I'm just saying, I played 3 straight games [On Noble] neglecting archers and using Gandhi [Warriors as scouts] and the same exact things happened every time. 1 I didn't find as many villages and lost out on a lot of gold 2. I didn't discover Copper soon enough 3. I got molested in the very early stages of the game because all I had to work with were Warriors. The ironic thing really is that the units that beat me were always archers, Hmmm, that doesn't say something does it? So I would like for someone to explain how these ideas are even viable.
 
there are 2 early game strategic resources, namely copper and the other is horse, revealed by Animal Husbandry.

It is actually very rare to not have any of the 2 in reachable distance (but it happens).

Then there is third one (Iron from Iron working) which is not typically self teched by most players on higher levels (well on Noble you probably will self tech it).

I would suggest you to play without huts, since they make games too random and you will not learn enough with them on (at that time you will stop to care about getting them with warriors so much).

Then there would be great if you look in strategy article part for Sisutil's beginner's guide, which will be very good for start.

After that you can start your own so called "shadow game" here on forums, where you post starting position and let players help you with decision forming for early game,then you can play in small chunks of turns (typically around 30 turns each round).

Some player even can show you how it's done with taking your start and playing it for you to compare their efforts.

And then last but not least you can join some ongoing Games going here. I think this Friday Dalamb will start another Noble's Club game which is purposefully aimed at Noble players learning game, where frequently some higher level players show up with advice and them playing.
 
there are 2 early game strategic resources, namely copper and the other is horse, revealed by Animal Husbandry.

It is actually very rare to not have any of the 2 in reachable distance (but it happens).

Then there is third one (Iron from Iron working) which is not typically self teched by most players on higher levels (well on Noble you probably will self tech it).

I would suggest you to play without huts, since they make games too random and you will not learn enough with them on (at that time you will stop to care about getting them with warriors so much).

Then there would be great if you look in strategy article part for Sisutil's beginner's guide, which will be very good for start.

After that you can start your own so called "shadow game" here on forums, where you post starting position and let players help you with decision forming for early game,then you can play in small chunks of turns (typically around 30 turns each round).

Some player even can show you how it's done with taking your start and playing it for you to compare their efforts.

And then last but not least you can join some ongoing Games going here. I think this Friday Dalamb will start another Noble's Club game which is purposefully aimed at Noble players learning game, where frequently some higher level players show up with advice and them playing.

I have read the guide top to bottom and it has actually helped a lot.

What do you mean, play without huts? Huh?

Here is a lost of notes I made for myself to keep looking over while I was playing
_______________________________________________________________________
Notes

City Management

. Specialize Cities
. Chop forests early = faster production
. Don't automate workers - make cottages
. Level cottages up
. The most important early resources are: copper, horses, and iron, stone and marble, and either gold or silver.
. Get pottery asap to build cottages
. Don't build cities if research is below 60%

. Figure up how many farms you'll need.
Excess after 2 - Deficits = # of Farms [If positive, none are needed]

Flood Plains +1
Oasis +1
Plains -1
Grass Hills -1
Desert Hills -2
Plains Hills -2

. Try to leave some forests unchopped for healthiness
. Remove Jungle tiles
. Specialists help produce more Great People, use them to slow growth also

Military Management
. Fortify units on important tiles that could get destroyed
. Best early units are UU's, Axemen, and Chariots
. Right drag odds trick
. Destroy improvements [Mainly cottages]
. Don't forget to promote units
. Make use of siege units
. Stealing workers?
. Have settlers ready when going to raze a city in a bad location
. Bribe other Civs to go to war with each other before you do, weakening them.

Tech Management
. Oracle Slingshot Trick
. Focus on Bronze Working and Currency first

Buildings Management
. Forbidden Palace and Versailles = extra capitals [Essentially]
. Use Granaries to grow cities

Initial Choices
. Start with a civ with Warrior first -> Worker -> Settler
. Cut off peninsulas and don't offer open borders until you've claimed it.
. Pay close attention when a tech is almost researched, so you can lower your research % to make a profit for the same amount of turns.
_______________________________________________________________________


The parts that are confusing me are

1... The figuring out how many farms you need is more complex than it seems since I saw plots that were Hills/Plains/Forest and such, so how do those figure in exactly?

2... I don't understand how "Stealing Workers" works.
 
I use warriors to explore because scouts die too easily. Also scouts can't attack, more chance of levelling up a warrior to level 4 than a scout.
Sometimes you don't get horses or copper within reasonable early settling distance (usually I do in my games, maybe 90% of the time). Personally I prefer to look for iron if that happens instead of archery. Or trade to get copper (if possible).
 
"Stealing workers" means declaring war on a neighbor when he has a work at his border. You can then capture the worker on the same turn, and it will become your worker. In vanilla CIV you can even move the worker on the same turn. You can then generally make peace in 10 turns or so.

To answer your other question about Archery, trust us, most good players rarely self-tech archery, especially not at Noble. They can do this because they know how to suppress barbs with warriors and how to keep the AI from attacking them. Barbs only spawn in tiles that you can't see, or tiles that are more than two tiles from any of your units. To keep the barbs at bay, you should be "fogbusting", meaning that you should station warriors out in the wilderness so that barbs can't spawn there. Most players fortify them on wooded hills, or in the woods, or just on hills so they have a defensive bonus. Just let the wandering barbs attack them; they'll gain experience that way.

It's true you can't rely on warriors forever, that's why the guides say to prioritize Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working. Most players try to secure horses or copper with one of their first three cities or so. Chariots and axemen are much better all-round units than archers.

I play on Emperor mostly and my early strategy is for techs is usually: One or two ood techs first (Ag, AH, Fi), as appropriate based on resources in my capital, followed by production/defensive techs (Mi, BW), followed by economic techs (Wr, Po). The exact order depends on the map. My early production in my capital will be something like Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler -> Worker -> Warrior -> Settler.

Have fun!
 
Block - First, note that a lot of good players play without huts. You will find most of the forum games posted here have huts and events off. On higher levels, AIs start with 2 scouts so you rarely get many huts anyway. The nice thing about warriors are they are cheap and actually pretty good at defense against early barbs like archers. Place them on forested hills around your empire and they will spawnbust (prevent barb spawning) in a 5x5 tile radius. Warriors hold up fairly well to archers when fortified on hills.

This does not mean you don't try to get copper, horses or iron as soon as you can. For one, building better units increases your power rating which can help you not be a target. It really depends on who your neighbors are. If Monty, Shaka or Nappy are right next door then I will probably prioritize getting a strat resource up asap and rush them. Archery is generally always very much a last resort if I don't have one of the strat resources in a reasonable settling distance. Usually one of them are though.

The 60% rule is an old rule that has been put to bed, but is still mentioned in some of those old articles. The better rule is to get at least 6 or more cities by 1AD. After your required worker/strat techs, beeline to Pottery, WRiting. Once in you can start lowering yours slider to 0% for a time to generate gold to fuel expansion. STart running scientists in you cities to produce lucrative beakers while doing this and to get that first GS to build an academy in your cap - or settle it. The 0% or binary science trick does take a little bit of getting used to, but it is very effective in allowing you to expand sufficiently, which is VERY important in this game. The 60% rules is junk as it often means you will not get the requisite number of cities you need, especially on higher levels. Binary also helps if you are expanding via the sword as well.

If you run a shadow game the folks here can really help improve your game a lot and provide more specific advice.
 
I have read the guide top to bottom and it has actually helped a lot.

What do you mean, play without huts? Huh?

Here is a lost of notes I made for myself to keep looking over while I was playing

Check the "No tribal villages" option on custom game. You'll thank yourself for it later when you learn how to play without that as a crutch. Also, I'd suggest checking "No random events" too. Some people like them as something different, but they introduce too much more luck into the equation, IMO.

There's one important tip you'll want to make sure you're very clear on, and that's the fogbusting mechanic. No barb unit can spawn within 2 tiles of any player (or AI, I believe) unit. So think of your warrior as being in the middle of a 5x5 box that is barb free. If you think of it that way, unless you're smack in the middle of a pangaea map, you can likely spawnbust barbs with 3-4 warriors by properly placing them - ideally in forested hills where they are less likely to lose if one spawns outside the fogbust zone and attacks.

That should give you plenty of time to settle the necessary cities to claim copper, horses or iron. AG or BW or both should always be in your very early tech order (except perhaps on some archipelago maps where you're less likely to need military resources...even then, BW is important for the whip). Most games I tech one or the other within my first 2-3 techs - they're that important.

Also, you might want to refresh some of your advice. Two things that stuck out big time to me were no new cities if you drop below 60% research, and the initial builds of warrior/worker/settler. I would definitely change those points.

On the first, the way I look at it is don't settle new cities if you're losing gold or barely making any gold at 0% research. At that point, time to make sure I have or can quickly get to alphabet, currency, COL, or possibly monarchy (for hereditary rule, allowing for larger cities).

On the second, 90% of the time you'll want to build worker first & then grow before first settler. My suggestion for now is to build a worker first in all games until you improve, then introduce advanced thinking into the process. Have the worker improve food tiles first (corn/pig top the list) and try to grow to size 3 or 4 before the first settler. While growing, I usually build warriors, but sometimes buildings or wonders might make sense.

Military advice probably needs work too - I've almost never placed units on key resource tiles. Destroying cottages isn't good if you plan to take the city - pillaging is a waste in that instance. And forget about Versailles for now - that's an extremely situational wonder with a dead-end tech.

If there's a game you're having problems with, post the 4000 BC save. If it's at noble, i guarantee someone can show you how to easily deal with barbs without archery. Great wall can sometimes be an option. I like to build it if I am IND or have stone, just to make it easier to play lazy. You'll definitely benefit from seeing others shadow your game and seeing how they would approach it - that'll give you a lot better tips.

EDIT: Damn you lymond - you typed faster!!! Anyway, all my advice looks repetitive to his, so take that as two opinions suggesting the same thing means it's probably a good idea...
 
Destroying cottages isn't good if you plan to take the city

Good point, Mich. I kinda glossed over that section. Yeah - If you are going to pillage cottages, think about whether or not you will keep that city after you take it. Cottages take a long time to mature so if you are pillaging hamlets, villages or towns, that years and years of maturing those cottages have done. If you take the city, that is instant commerce for your empire. If you are going to pillage, pillage their strategic resources to keep them from building advanced units or other resources that can be rebuilt easily.
 
I wouldn't consider Gandhi to be a very good rushing civ. I wouldn't say mediocre, just not absolutely brilliant. I mean, if you've got a nice, hammer rich start and someone nearby (within 10 - 20 tiles) who's pretty weak I'd happily give it a go. But trying it against natural warmongers like Genghis Khan, who has a very high unit prob. is probably going to be painful. To you, not him. Unless you're very experienced and can pull it off. And given your traits a tech advantage is more likely as Gandhi.

Rushing is very situational. I wouldn't recommend it in every game. Unless you're really good at using slavery, it often requires hammers you just don't have at that stage in the game. You need to finish your army by the 60th- 70th turn, and if it doesn't work you can easily bankrupt yourself early in the game.

Archery only really becomes useful if you really don't want to or can't realistically rush. Even though you may never build all that many Archers. They're cheap and recieve defensive bonuses in cities. Sometimes, that's all you really want. It's certainly your only option if you don't have any strategic resources.
 
All suggestions noted. I would address each suggestion separately but there were so many, I'll just give them a shot in game, then reply with my results and thoughts later.

One thing I do want to address is this... someone said [I can't find the quote] that the reason I got rushed was because I didn't know how to be friendly with my neighbors and keep them from rushing me. The funny thing is, me and Gengis shared religions, completed a trade, and weren't bordering each other. What more could I have done? lmao.

I understand that I got rushed because he saw that I only had warriors and was vulnerable, but obviously, us having a good diplomatic stand with each other didn't change that lol

I'm thinking that I was just unlucky to not have found Horses or Copper in time. I also had the misfortune one game [I was playing on a large map with 6 AI's] of have 5 of the AI's close on all sides, so I couldn't expand beyond my 3 cities. I had Animal Husbandry , Bronzeworking, and The Wheel, so all I needed was copper or horses and I would have been peachy.

I still don't understand the "Shadow Game" idea. What do you mean?
 
check out ALC29 France, if you want to see how the shadow games work. There's a lot of good stuff going in this forum that will help you a lot.

Genghis, Monty, Shaka, Napoleon, Rag and Alex. These guys are "psychos". If they are near you early game there is a good chance they will attack you despite your diplo. It doesn't mean you can't get them to Friendly (and they can make good attack dogs), but I usually gun for them with an early rush or later with cats. Part of the issue is power rating and the human always starts at a relative disadvantage in this regard to the AI. If you don't find horses or copper it generally a sign that you need to self tech IW sooner than later to get some advanced units. Without seeing your game though, it's hard to say what is going on.
 
check out ALC29 France, if you want to see how the shadow games work. There's a lot of good stuff going in this forum that will help you a lot.

Genghis, Monty, Shaka, Napoleon, Rag and Alex. These guys are "psychos". If they are near you early game there is a good chance they will attack you despite your diplo. It doesn't mean you can't get them to Friendly (and they can make good attack dogs), but I usually gun for them with an early rush or later with cats. Part of the issue is power rating and the human always starts at a relative disadvantage in this regard to the AI. If you don't find horses or copper it generally a sign that you need to self tech IW sooner than later to get some advanced units. Without seeing your game though, it's hard to say what is going on.

Where would I find ALC29 France and what is it? Youtube? In these forums? Is it a member? A video? DETAILS! lol
 
currently 2 threads below this one
 
I'm thinking that I was just unlucky to not have found Horses or Copper in time. I also had the misfortune one game [I was playing on a large map with 6 AI's] of have 5 of the AI's close on all sides, so I couldn't expand beyond my 3 cities. I had Animal Husbandry , Bronzeworking, and The Wheel, so all I needed was copper or horses and I would have been peachy.

You need to claim your strategic resources sooner. Barbs will enter your territory once there are 2(number of civs) cities on the continent. If you don't have copper or horses in your capital's BFC, it needs to be claimed with your second city.
 
I wouldn't consider Gandhi to be a very good rushing civ. I wouldn't say mediocre, just not absolutely brilliant. I mean, if you've got a nice, hammer rich start and someone nearby (within 10 - 20 tiles) who's pretty weak I'd happily give it a go. But trying it against natural warmongers like Genghis Khan, who has a very high unit prob. is probably going to be painful. To you, not him. Unless you're very experienced and can pull it off. And given your traits a tech advantage is more likely as Gandhi.

Rushing is very situational. I wouldn't recommend it in every game. Unless you're really good at using slavery, it often requires hammers you just don't have at that stage in the game. You need to finish your army by the 60th- 70th turn, and if it doesn't work you can easily bankrupt yourself early in the game.

Archery only really becomes useful if you really don't want to or can't realistically rush. Even though you may never build all that many Archers. They're cheap and recieve defensive bonuses in cities. Sometimes, that's all you really want. It's certainly your only option if you don't have any strategic resources.

Are you kidding? Gandhi is great at rushing. A good strategy with a heavily forested capital is to go worker first, research bronze working, use 2 chops to build a second worker while researching a food tech, improve that food, then use that plus a forest chop or two to get your first settler. Congrats, you have first dibs on any city site you want, giving you a great window of opportunity to axe rush. If anything, the fast worker's 3 moves markes it far better than regular workers at this growth strategy. If you don't want to, settle a powerhouse location and grab all the good city sites.

Times to Axe rush: When the enemy is close, when the continent is crowded, settling for the copper puts you in the path of your target, and the territory you'll clear out won't simply be snatched up by another civ.

Times not to axe rush: When the enemy is far away, you have lots of land that can be roped off, turns 90 onwards.
 
Okay, I noticed someone said this:

Check the "No tribal villages" option on custom game. You'll thank yourself for it later when you learn how to play without that as a crutch. Also, I'd suggest checking "No random events" too.

I don't have that option, it's probably a Warlords feature or something. Remember that I am playing Vanilla.

Anyways...

I played another noble game and to give me some breathing room to brush up on what I have learned, I played a large map with only 5 opponents. Mansa Musa, Napoleon, Tokugawa, [The German guy with the bronze hat, I forget his name lawlz], and Hathorsehockyput [Thats how I pronounce her GD name, alright? lol].

I got along with Mansa very well as usual and even scored some very good deals off of him [He offered me 750 Gold and Engineering for Theocracy, wth? lol]

I had "Pleased" with Napoleon all game.
I had "Cautious" with Hathorsehockyput all game

Tokugawa didn't like me at all lol. I think it was because I cut him off from the other side of the map early on and he couldn't expand for the longest time. We did have open boarders at one point but the dumbs*** ended it. He then rushed me with Horse Archers and Samurai's a little later. It caught me off guard but it was when I was halfway through building up my defenses to plan an eventual invasion [He had a city on the other side like a sitting duck that I couldn't help but want to snatch.] So I did a poor job of defending but just as things seemed like I needed a last resort, I talked to the German and Mansa, surprisingly, both of them went to war with Tokugawa [No one likes him it seems lol] which gave me a much needed break from the constant waves of Samurai's and Horse Archers coming at me. It bought be time to properly defend my borders and then some to take that city I was planning on invading lol.

Then, ingeniously, I decided to talk Tokugawa into a peace treaty which cost me 800 Gold [Out of my 1800, so it was meh lol]. He at first wanted his city back for a peace treaty and I'm like, naw screw that lol, so I offered 800 Gold and surprisingly he accepted. Nappy and Mansa then continued to screw him over for another 20 or so turns. In the end I profited but I did lose a lot of farms and cottages in the process.

I then continued to play that game for about another 400 years and save/stopped. I felt like I was doing good but the scoreboard says otherwise. The entire game I was trailing behind with only half of the score the leader had. I honestly don't know where I went wrong or why my score was so low, I had about 7 great people, build about 3 world wonders and 5 national wonders, my population was, if anything, TOO large [Constant mad people], I made countless trades between EVERY civ, even Tokugawa after the war, My city levels were high [Or so I thought, my capital was 21 and my other cities were between 10 and 15] as well as their culture [I was consistently in 3rd place in the "Most cultural survey" things] and I managed to take a city in a successful war.
Hell, I even snagged Bronze, Horses, Corn, Pigs, Sheep, Cows, and Iron before I even settled my fourth city [I only had 6 total when I stopped]. Also, Every time the "Wealthiest survey" came up, I was #1. It's not that I was saving up too much gold, it was actually that I had so much gold coming in, I didn't know what to do with it, hence why I bought and traded for so many techs and even upgraded my initial warriors to Axemen -> Musketmen -> Riflemen because I had the dough to do it. I did sell Tokugawa Engineering for 750 Gold [Ironic huh?] after the war, FAR after it was "New", that helped.

So my question is, what more could I have done to increase my score? It's baffling me tbh. I generally use my score as a "How good am I doing" type of reference. I felt like I was doing great but my score says I sucked ass lol. Why?
 
Score means jack by the way. I would get BTS as soon as you can.

Again, we can't do much without a save. I recommend progress through a learner-shadow game slowly and get advice along the way - with standard maps.
 
Score means jack by the way. I would get BTS as soon as you can.

Again, we can't do much without a save. I recommend progress through a learner-shadow game slowly and get advice along the way - with standard maps.

I don't think a save would do the BTS users any good tho, right? 1 pic = 1,000 words...
 
^^^not sure what you mean...I can load vanilla games. Pics are good though
 
derp! I guess I convinced myself that I couldn't and never tried. I'm not smart.
 
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