It's no use- I can't do it. Epic failure at CivIV

[UnforcedError]

I don't know where this game is going, but I feel a bit better about it although I'm obviously doing a lot of things wrong.

Yes. But if you don't listen to anyone's advice this is not going to get better. Since apparently bernds' post was the only one you read why didn't you try to duplicate his results in the sample game he posted?
Your own game is almost over time-wise. What you're doing now is something that should be done in the BCs, early ADs. Due to the low difficulty conquest or dom could still be achieved with your 1600 ADish save but what do you expect us to say about a 1935 AD game?
Please listen to lymond and accept the fact that you need to get better with the early game.

 

[Robert FIN]

Hmm.. I think you should post another thread where you start a whole new game and you don't have scout moved in the first screenshot. Give us a save, give us screenshots, give us thoughts and give us small turnsets and who knows, maybe someone is even willing to shadow your game. I'm quite sure that lymond and others will check the thread and will help you. Do this. Please. I hope that you don't get me wrong, sorry if I sound negative.

 

[Seraiel]

Why I did what I did:

1) I switched to vassalage for the experience for my military units in the upcoming wars.

Vassalage is ok, but in general is an underaverage Civic compared with Burocracy or Nationhood. It's weak point is basically that the free unit limit isn't high enough (compared to the extra-gold that you can get from Burocracy or from the Gold saved from Nationhood having no maintenance) and that the extra-xp usually is not worth the extra units you'll miss from not running Buro / Nationhood while the extra-xp can be achieved via Theocracy or Stables.

2) Yes. That's my problem. I can't understand how I fell behind.

It's impossible to guess that from an 1800 AD save, that's why I wanted you to post saves of 2000 BC, 1000 BC and 1 AD. Basically not running Buro is already a big disadvantage. A fully cottaged burocratic capital with an Academy can put out enough research for a whole empire and put out as much research as 5 normal cities easily.

4) I had a workboat. I believe it was secretly destroyed by Khymer spies. Is that possible? The Khymer spies did a lot of damage around Thebes and I was forced to attack them following the saved game I provided.

Workboats being destroyed by spies is impossible, because spies cannot swim. I'm not 100% sure, if it would be possible to sabotage an AI-boat from a Caravelle carrying a spy, but I know for certain that AI doesn't do such things.

5) The cities are spaced out because that's where they were when I defeated the two civs early in the game. In addition, I placed some cities to try to block the other civs and/or get some resources. I didn't fill in with more cities because the maintenance is already killing me.

This sounds good, except one thing. If the maintenance is killing you, you have to find ways to generate more money, while also saving some of it, so basically, your empire has to get more efficient.

A fact that's little known below inexperienced players, is, that every point of population costs 1 gold, and that every unit costs 1 gold. There is reason in keeping the cities small and only have as much military as needed.

6) I thought I had enough workers for the tiles. I always try to get the right balance.

The right balance with workers is achieved, when a tile gets improved right then, when the city can work it. Unimproved games are something that should only happen in the very early game or rare cirumstances.

8) I'm trying to generate much needed funds to upgrade my military.

To understand why Markets and Grocers not necessarily result in largely higher funds, you have to understand what I wrote above. Markets and Grocers are mostly buildings that are built for Happiness and Healthiness in mid to late-game, as they're very expensive. Getting a strong economy in first place is achieved by working the right tiles and not having too many units, and not by havings the right buildings.

There are btw. really many posts in this thread, that deserve your answer. I'll neither look at the saves and tell you what you need to know, nor even at the thread you should open, if you don't react to at least some more of them ^^ . It's unbelievably that people are crowding to beg from you to listen to lymond, someone trying to help you.

There a famous german saying, that could fit to you: "Help, someone's trying to help me!" .

S.

 

[bernds]

1) I switched to vassalage for the experience for my military units in the upcoming wars.

As an experiment, look at your 16xxAD save and examine how much research and production your capital produces with science at 100%. Then switch to Bureaucracy, wait for a turn to let the anarchy wear off, then examine the capital again. That will show you how much you lose by running Vassalage. Researching faster is more important for warring than the odd 2XP here and there; even Tokugawa's longbows don't do so well against Riflemen.

8) I'm trying to generate much needed funds to upgrade my military.

With the windmills? Compare them to a cottage, then compare them to a cottage that has been worked long enough to have grown into a village or a town. In my playthrough I just attacked with your existing military without upgrading more than one or two units (I needed the funds to research Education and Liberalism quickly). That worked fine.

10) Why?

Not sure what this is referring to. If you mean the Charge promotion - how often do you really have a problem attacking catapults? Combat promotions are more generally useful, and if you're attacking cities, you'll want to promote your troops along the City Raider path instead.
If you meant why shouldn't new cities build their own defenders, the answer is that it takes too long. An established city can build a longbow in a turn or two, and in your savegame there were many troops sitting around idly (it looks like you overbuilt spearmen earlier). A new city needs to get up and running quickly so that it stops being a maintenance drain and starts to be a productive contribution to your empire. That means getting the tiles around it improved (sending workboats from established cities if possible), and installing the necessary infrastructure (granaries, lighthouses for coastal cities, and forges in most cases).

 

[joe6778]

Yes. But if you don't listen to anyone's advice this is not going to get better. Since apparently bernds' post was the only one you read why didn't you try to duplicate his results in the sample game he posted?
Your own game is almost over time-wise. What you're doing now is something that should be done in the BCs, early ADs. Due to the low difficulty conquest or dom could still be achieved with your 1600 ADish save but what do you expect us to say about a 1935 AD game?
Please listen to lymond and accept the fact that you need to get better with the early game.

The game I posted was saved prior to me reading his comments.

Someone on this thread said that Noble is easy to win even when you make mistakes. Obviously I don't know all the tricks, but I'm not a total novice either. I have learned a lot here. I have won a game or two on Noble; some going away. So I know some of the basics and I know SOME strategy and tactics.

In this particular game, my choice early on was either build up my civ peacefully from the start and risk being attacked by aggressive leaders, or chariot rush (which I did in this game- I was Alexander after all) in order to put away two early rivals and have less to deal with later. It was the first time I ever did a chariot rush, but I wound up playing from behind from that point on even though I took out two rivals.

Plus, I retried it to see if I had a chance to beat the AI even with my early tech disadvantage. I found that the AI gets obvious advantages even on Noble. I attacked the Khymer (who were no longer vassaled to Shaka), and was then attacked by Shaka. No problem- I was first in military, I had a nearly 2-1 advantage in military units, and I had Japan as a vassal. The Aztecs/Khymer were both researching assembly line but by the time I attacked my first Khymer city, they both already had a bunch of infantry. My cities were all unhappy when I DoWed, and my research was practically stopped while I devoted all my resources on winning the war. Yet they both happily fought on with a bunch of high tech military units- cavalry and infantry to my riflemen and knights. How did that happen? Do other expert players ever face this kind of a situation? How do you deal with it? Is that discussed anywhere? I need to learn about late game strategy and coming from behind. Or is it just about the first 100 turns?

Anyway, my point is that even on Noble, which to you guys is easy, is very difficult for a less sophisticated Civ IV gamer who just wants a little more of a challenge above Warlord.

 

[joe6778]

As an experiment, look at your 16xxAD save and examine how much research and production your capital produces with science at 100%. Then switch to Bureaucracy, wait for a turn to let the anarchy wear off, then examine the capital again. That will show you how much you lose by running Vassalage. Researching faster is more important for warring than the odd 2XP here and there; even Tokugawa's longbows don't do so well against Riflemen.
With the windmills? Compare them to a cottage, then compare them to a cottage that has been worked long enough to have grown into a village or a town. In my playthrough I just attacked with your existing military without upgrading more than one or two units (I needed the funds to research Education and Liberalism quickly). That worked fine.

Not sure what this is referring to. If you mean the Charge promotion - how often do you really have a problem attacking catapults? Combat promotions are more generally useful, and if you're attacking cities, you'll want to promote your troops along the City Raider path instead.
If you meant why shouldn't new cities build their own defenders, the answer is that it takes too long. An established city can build a longbow in a turn or two, and in your savegame there were many troops sitting around idly (it looks like you overbuilt spearmen earlier). A new city needs to get up and running quickly so that it stops being a maintenance drain and starts to be a productive contribution to your empire. That means getting the tiles around it improved (sending workboats from established cities if possible), and installing the necessary infrastructure (granaries, lighthouses for coastal cities, and forges in most cases).

Interesting. I thought charge gave my units a chance to retreat before they got killed when attacking.

I built windmills instead of mines later on because my cities needed food AND hammers. I always build cottages early on but some cities were stagnating.

I thought I read that vassalage works well for aggressive leaders.

Was I doing anything right? Something to build on? Any signs that I learned something for my time spent here?

The topic for my thread says it all. After hours and hours spent trying to better my game, I can't even win on Noble consistently. I want a challenge but it's obvious there is so much I'm not getting. I keep making the same mistakes and getting frustrated in the process.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: Deleted a bunch of posts that either were outright uncivil or discussed such posts. Generally: if you do not feel you can discuss someone else's posts in a civil[ized] manner its best to step away from your keyboard for a while. Discussing another user (as opposed to another user's posts) is almost always going to be against the rules here.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Robert FIN]

Hmm.. I think you should post another thread where you start a whole new game and you don't have scout moved in the first screenshot. Give us a save, give us screenshots, give us thoughts and give us small turnsets and who knows, maybe someone is even willing to shadow your game. I'm quite sure that lymond and others will check the thread and will help you. Do this. Please. I hope that you don't get me wrong, sorry if I sound negative.


Dear Joe, I'm not expert but I have important things to tell ya. They'll help you if you can ask it right way. You told us that you posted shadow game in these forums. I want that you make another one. Please Joe, answer to the post in this quote. If you do like I said in the quote post, you will make breakthrough. If you don't, you will lose on noble again or it just takes multiple amount of time. Please all what I ask is new thread with your thoughts of the specific game, screenshots and a save file and small turnsets. That's all. In the case you cannot take screenshots, I am always happy to help. Thrust me, learning to civ is like learning to ride a bike. At first you just fall down a hundred times but when you get the point its really, really, really easy. Lymond and others can even ride whitout hands. Let them show you some new tricks to you in new thread. They'll be happy if you give them thoughts and screenshots so they see why you did fall again with the bike. I know that pros like lymod may feel really critic at first but they are just trying to help, strict teachers are the best. If your answer is yes you will beat noble. If your answer is no it will take time. If you don't answer, I am a little disapointed . I hope I didn't sound too negative, understand that I try to help ya ! EDIT: Sorry, mr. Moderator, I didn't saw your post before sending this. I'll check the part of rules, but I don't feel that I've been unfair. I might have sound aggressive, but I didn't meant to be. Again just wanna help you, Joe ! EDIT2: Checked the rules, changed some parts of this post.

 

[Doshin]

Joe, if you are more of a visual learner, you may want to watch a youtube series (7 videos) by Sulla linked here. They provide a very good introduction to the game's fundamentals, and point out many of the mistakes rookies often make.

 

[Jastrow]

Was I doing anything right? Something to build on? Any signs that I learned something for my time spent here?

The topic for my thread says it all. After hours and hours spent trying to better my game, I can't even win on Noble consistently. I want a challenge but it's obvious there is so much I'm not getting. I keep making the same mistakes and getting frustrated in the process.

I think everyone here gets that. What is not clear is if you get where the problem is. Somewhere in your posts, you said you have also invested a lot of time in chess, so let me make an analogy to that...

What you are doing here is the equivalent of bring endgames to your grand master chess trainer, where you already stand poorly, and asking him to show you how to play them better. He can do that, and that will help your game a little, no doubt.

Your game would however be helped much more by addressing why you got into such a poor ending in the first place. Possibly because you did not follow basic rules in the beginning, such as "devellope piece with an eye on the center", "dont loose time moving the same piece twice in the beginning", etc...

What the posters here are trying to get you to realize is that in order to be in the type of positions you are currently showing in this tread, agianst a nobel level AI, means you are missing some very, very basic guidelines from the beginning of the game. Addressing these will help you much, much, more than learning how to deal with these situations...

 

[bernds]

Was I doing anything right? Something to build on? Any signs that I learned something for my time spent here?

Well, as I said, I thought your game was in an unloseable position. So it's not quite as gloomy as you think. One of the difficulties I have (at every new difficulty level) is to avoid thinking that things are going badly, when the situation is actually OK. It looks like you're suffering from the same problem.

 

[joe6778]

I think everyone here gets that. What is not clear is if you get where the problem is. Somewhere in your posts, you said you have also invested a lot of time in chess, so let me make an analogy to that...

What you are doing here is the equivalent of bring endgames to your grand master chess trainer, where you already stand poorly, and asking him to show you how to play them better. He can do that, and that will help your game a little, no doubt.

Your game would however be helped much more by addressing why you got into such a poor ending in the first place. Possibly because you did not follow basic rules in the beginning, such as "devellope piece with an eye on the center", "dont loose time moving the same piece twice in the beginning", etc...

What the posters here are trying to get you to realize is that in order to be in the type of positions you are currently showing in this tread, agianst a nobel level AI, means you are missing some very, very basic guidelines from the beginning of the game. Addressing these will help you much, much, more than learning how to deal with these situations...

I have posted shadow games before. The last one I posted a couple of weeks ago the comments kind of faded out after a few turns and I wasn't getting much feedback.

I have watched a quite a few excellent videos on the first 100 or so turns, and I think I have some of the basic theories down although I'm still making some mistakes. But the real problem I'm having is late game- when I'm first in most categories and a rival DOWs me, or I start falling behind in tech, or when a rival vassals other rivals and won't trade with me. I could be going along building up my civ and building military units as well, but then along comes those stacks of doom. That kind of stuff.

BTW- I played my game out as Alexander and won a conquest victory. It kind of looked hopeless for a while though. The breakthrough came when I developed industrialism (tanks!)

 

[Robert FIN]

@Joe; You still didn't kinda answer my post. Why not start new shadow game from the start? I promise we'll help you from first turns to victory. Sorry for missing the older shadow game.

 

[lymond]

But the real problem I'm having is late game

No, Joe. As others and I have stated ad nauseum, your issues lie in the early game. You still are not creating a strong foundation in the early game, as well as making mistakes. Things will become much easier for you later once you figure that out. You are fixated on the late game and things like tanks, when often on Noble you should not even reach those eras.

You continue to have problems on Noble yet continue to ignore any of the advice given to you here. We don't need excuses from you or why you did this or that. We need you to listen. Basically, throw all logic you currently have out the window - with the golf clubs

I have posted shadow games before. The last one I posted a couple of weeks ago the comments kind of faded out after a few turns and I wasn't getting much feedback.

I've mentioned this before in some of your shadow threads, but shadow/learner game are a two way process. You need to give as much as those that want to help you.

Rather you play on real fast and just post of a save with no commentary and no screenshots. Folks simply get discouraged or disinterested if you play too fast and don't really listen.

Instead:

1) Create an account at Imgur.com. You can use Yahoo or Google account to setup in second. Upload screenshots there and copy the text from any one of the 2 fields labeled "BBCode...". Copy text into spoiler tags. Good screenshots are of your cities, surrounding land, resource screen and tech screen.

2) Get advice first. Ask questions if you don't understand. Play a small turnset. Stop at any point you are confused or unsure of the next move. Turnsets can be as small and as frequent as you wish but keep them short - no more than 20 turns.

3) At the end of your turnset, post the save, couple of screenshots (anything you think will be helpful), and some commentary on your thoughts at that point. What you think you should do next? tech next? build next? We will feed off that and tell you if you are right or wrong, and why that is so.

I recommend starting on on Pangaea maps with Normal settings. The civ/leader does not matter. Try to post starts that at least have a decent food resource like wet corn or pigs.

Here is an example of some other dude's shadow game currently in process to give an idea of running it better:

Gotrilliten

Also, play and follow the Noble's Club game. Here is the current one in process:

NC Mehmed

 

[Robert FIN]

110% agreed with this ^^, thanks for doing the instruction, lymond.

 

[joe6778]

No, Joe. As others and I have stated ad nauseum, your issues lie in the early game. You still are not creating a strong foundation in the early game, as well as making mistakes. Things will become much easier for you later once you figure that out. You are fixated on the late game and things like tanks, when often on Noble you should not even reach those eras.

You continue to have problems on Noble yet continue to ignore any of the advice given to you here. We don't need excuses from you or why you did this or that. We need you to listen. Basically, throw all logic you currently have out the window - with the golf clubs



I've mentioned this before in some of your shadow threads, but shadow/learner game are a two way process. You need to give as much as those that want to help you.

Rather you play on real fast and just post of a save with no commentary and no screenshots. Folks simply get discouraged or disinterested if you play too fast and don't really listen.

Instead:

1) Create an account at Imgur.com. You can use Yahoo or Google account to setup in second. Upload screenshots there and copy the text from any one of the 2 fields labeled "BBCode...". Copy text into spoiler tags. Good screenshots are of your cities, surrounding land, resource screen and tech screen.

2) Get advice first. Ask questions if you don't understand. Play a small turnset. Stop at any point you are confused or unsure of the next move. Turnsets can be as small and as frequent as you wish but keep them short - no more than 20 turns.

3) At the end of your turnset, post the save, couple of screenshots (anything you think will be helpful), and some commentary on your thoughts at that point. What you think you should do next? tech next? build next? We will feed off that and tell you if you are right or wrong, and why that is so.

I recommend starting on on Pangaea maps with Normal settings. The civ/leader does not matter. Try to post starts that at least have a decent food resource like wet corn or pigs.

Here is an example of some other dude's shadow game currently in process to give an idea of running it better:

Gotrilliten

Also, play and follow the Noble's Club game. Here is the current one in process:

NC Mehmed

1) I'm not familiar with imgur.com and I'm a bit confused on how to use it. BBCode?? Text into spoiler tags??

The last shadow game I started, I did just what you suggest: I posted screenshots/saves from my game and only took a few turns between posts. I didn't get much feedback after a few posts.

 

[lymond]

1) I'm not familiar with imgur.com and I'm a bit confused on how to use it. BBCode?? Text into spoiler tags??

Once you upload an image, just click on the image and you will see a pop up. Above the image you will see several fields of text. 2 are labeled "BBCode....". Copy either one of those and simply paste it into your post...ideally in spoiler tags.

The last shadow game I started, I did just what you suggest: I posted screenshots/saves from my game and only took a few turns between posts. I didn't get much feedback after a few posts.

That's not what I saw

 

[joe6778]

Spoiler :

I got Victoria. My opening actions would be research AH>SIP>Warrior move NW>produce worker.

 

[Dubioza]

Hey Joe! Attach a starting save, it'll be easier to get info like which tiles have fresh water and stuff, and to gaze in the fog for more info, like is that beginning of a river 2N & 2N1E of settler or does it go on?

Also, the settings? Noble? ...? Mods? SiP is ok, but when you start next to a river you want to get all the riverside tiles you can in your capitol. In this case it may not be possible, but still...

Warrior has 3 options, NW, SW or SE - more could be said with thoroughly looking at the fog. If this is noble I might risk few turns to scout with settler as well to find the best spot.

Good luck!

 

[lymond]

Joe - again, read that first link I gave you to see how to post a new game. Your getting closer though. Good job on the pic.

Start a new thread for your game. It will get more attention rather than buried in this thread.

I'd rather you not start with plains cows though.