Just got whipped on warlord... help?

[Bladel]

Okay going into this game I decided to try out city specialization, and i know exactly how they work... but still for some reason i cannot do it as if im missing a vital piece of the strategy

Problem A) my first city ALWAYS turns out to be highest commerce, and most productive (in most games)

Problem B) growth vs specialization... how many farms to have worked to continue growth as opposed to how many hammer/money tiles to work

Problem C) GP farm, I can never find a really ideal spot for this... I always end up running into hills / desert, and cannot keep enough specialists to produce out many GP's... perhaps im not giving it enough chance to grow or what, but if anyone could post a SS of an area they used as a GP farm and a little more details on when to develop more speicalists and when to grow would be great

Problem D) Diplomacy, let me explain... i picked a random leader and was the incans on a terra map, my borders were shared by ghandi to the east, caeser to the west, catherine to the north, and the ocean to the south... frederick did not share a border with me, and myself fredrick and caeser were buddhist... so i picked catherine to take out, bribed fred to do the same we each took 2 cities from here, and she had a terrible spot to start and i just used the cities for a naval spot, the deer / fur... during this war i had put my sci slider down to 60 so i could purchase units (i had built the pyramids) me and fred eliminated her, and ghandi had caught up with me in score, and was beating me in tech.... i focused my sights next on him, built up cavalry and cannons on my east border and invaded and took 1 city with almost no resistance, and as i was advancing on the next isabella declares war on me, and gahndi/isabella's cavalry / catapults start hurting my army bad, and it becomes evident i cant take the next city so i try and go on a improvement killing spree which didnt work out to hot, i sign a treaty with ghandi... and protect my east borders from isabella, then caeser (i just took 2 cities from him w/ culture) wars me, and i have to start a whole new slew of military development. by the time i can call a truce with both caeser and isabella im far far far far far behind in the tech race, washington/ghandi/fredrick still in front of me, so i hoped to get washington / fredrick's votes with the UN to win that way.... that didnt work and ghandi won the space race

so yea if you look at how sadly i lost that game and tell me how to improve it (i only got 4 gps the entire game) and some tips in diplomacy and such id appreicate it

*edit* ive read through many guides and still have these problems so links to them prolly wont help

 

[drkodos]

Do you have any saved game files to share? Like maybe start position and then about 20+ turns later and then again @ 50 turns?

What are you building first and researching first?

Not that I am an expert, I am not. I consistantly crush Noble and have handily won the only two Prince games I've played, so I am a middling player at best, but I may be able to offer some insight.

 

[Bladel]

ummm yea, well i normally go for religon bronze working priesthood oracle

slingshot to civil service

pottery writing alphabet

those types of things

*edit* my general building goes worker warrior settler libs, that kind of thing to be honest i dont really have preset goals in mind for buildings and techs often and dont know what are good sequences

 

[Sisiutil]

The capital is usually in a primo spot, so it likely will end up becoming either a commerce/science OR a production centre. But not both. Have a look around before you settle; moving the Setter a tile or two one way or another may make a world of difference in aiding the capital's specialization. Move your Warrior or Scout before moving the Settler to reveal more tiles and resources that may be in the fat cross.

Specialization is not just about tiles, it's about what improvements you make to them, and what buildings you prioritize or even avoid in each city. I recently made a city surrounded by rivers and grassland, with no farms, into a top-notch late-game production centre (thanks to workshops, waterwheels, electricity and the State Property civic).

Nevertheless, tiles and resources are important. Have you tried dotmapping to plan your cities?

As for a Great Person farm, here's an admittedly imperfect but decent version of one from a recent game:

Mostly grassland and farms everywhere, with a few production tiles to rush the occassional build. Normally I would have farmed those cottaged tiles, but I was on a continent to myself and didn't have a lot of good land for cottages.

Regarding your initial research paths--are you researching the worker techs you need to bring your resources on-line as early as possible?

In terms of your diplomacy--in the example you gave, there isn't a specific mistake--it's the combination. Your only friend does not share borders with you, which is fine, but all your neighbours became your enemies! No wonder you ran into trouble. A better choice would be to make a friend and ally of a direct neighbour while you finish off a different one.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

Here are a few tips for specialisation:
An area with hills, a food resource or two and grassland is a good production city. Mine the hills and farm grasslands.
For a commerce city you need mostly flat land with a hill or two for building libraries etc. In these you only farm as many tiles to get 40 overall food. Count the food on each tile and make sure it tallies to 40 after farms. Cottage the rest.
For a GP farm, find a nice spot with a bunch of floodplains, food sources and grassland to farm. Farm everything to support specialists. Build the National Epic here.

As for diplomacy, make sure your power score is high. You got unlucky with having Isabella near you, because she is quite annoying. Whenever you're bordering a maniac like her or Montezuma, make sure your border cities are well defended.

 

[Bladel]

thanks to everyone for their tips and advice and especial Sisiutil for the screenshot, perhaps i was just truly unlucky that game as i had NO spot having near as much food around me, ill be sure to be keeping screenshots for myself this game in case i need them

 

[Sisiutil]

For the GP farm, look for what seems to be undesireable terrian: deserts and/or jungle.

Deserts may have a river running nearby, in which case, floodplains. Having to take a couple of unproductive desert tiles is an even trade if you can snag several floodplains. Keep an eye out for an oasis as well. They can't be improved, but they provide a decent amount of food and commerce.

Jungles conceal grasslands, which is exactly what you want for a GP farm. Look for rivers nearby for irrigation. The nice thing about jungle is that the AI avoids settling in them early in the game, so you could snag what looks like a poor spot at first, but with Iron Working and an army of Workers, have a very good GP farm before long.

As CC said, try to make sure there is at least one food resource within the GP farm's fat cross. I try to have a production resource (or at least a hill and some forests) so I can build a couple of Wonders there.

 

[pigswill]

In this game were you sharing religions with Isabella? If not she'll attack once she's drawing level power-wise. It's worth remembering that in Civ 4 Isabella is a fanatic, Monte and Alex are psychos and virtually everone else will kick you when you're down. It sounds like your problem in this game was you chose the wrong way to catch up with Gandhi;if you left him alone and picked on Isabella or Ceaser he's not likely to have attacked you unless you were losing bad (keep checking the power graph). The way to catch up with Gandhi is to eliminate the aggressive types and use their territory to expand your cities,commerce and research.
Edit:You could also eliminate the aggressive types first then eliminate Gandhi.
PS Sisiutil's screenshot was of course post biology.

In terms of specialisation if your first city is highest in production and commerce then you didn't specialise your first city (and it also had the best resources). You decide based on a city's terrain if its going to have mines or cottages, every city will have some farms/food resources to keep it growing. Production its farms and mines, commerce farms and cottages, general city a mix of cottages,mines and farms. Hope this isn't too basic.

 

[Bladel]

Well i just won my first game :-D :-D space race... with 9 turns to go, basically it was me alex julius and saladin on an island and unforutnately jul and alex were good buds and i couldnt pit them against each other

i finally paid off saladin to attack alex, while i destroyed caeser who i shared borders with in 3 places and was encroaching on my territory and the way i built up my army i took 3 cities in 1 turn, and proceeded to crush his other four......

mansa and ghengis shared an island

peter had an island to his own

in the end mansa had the higher score but i managed to beat him in production speeds and beating him to the space elevator

my GP farm was still a joke, and i had SO many problems with barbs in the early turns (apparently it was up to me to explore the whole continent ) and my first city was by far the highest commerce, and second or third in production

anyway how do you get to get all the space race techs faster? or is it just a matter of bee-lining and getting your way faster? (im going to aim for domination / conquest but if i cant win and dont get enough UN votes then ill need this)

ive also had some ideas about nukes.... basically i friend everyone, get ungodly amounts of them and hit everyone at the same time on the same turn and just raise hell... anyone tried?

 

[Sisiutil]

Nukes in Civ IV kind of suck, and I'm glad about that. They're incredibly expensive and underpowered. Plus using even one makes everybody hate you. I only used them in one game just to experiment. Didn't like the results. I'd stay away from them.

If you're going for a space race win, you can really benefit from warmongering early in the game to carve out a big empire for yourself. By the time you reach space race time, your cottages should have matured to towns so you can run at 80-90% research, and you'll have several large cities all capable of contributing beakers, and lots of them. Then when it comes to building spaceship parts, you should have more cities with elevated production capacity compared to all your rivals. Build Ironworks, the Three Gorges Dam, and the Space Elevator, and you're laughing.