So I have had Civ IV (vanilla) for about 6 weeks, and have in that moved from settler (having never played any civ game before - long time colonization fan though) to Prince level.
The forums have been a great help so thank you for that! (Sulla's games especially helped me understand what was going on and the reasoning for the tips). Slavery was something I never got until I started seeing it in games...then I understood - rushes the build, early game it recovers very quickly and most of all, whats the point of having citizens who are unhappy with the "its too crowded" thing...
What I have found though, in moving up to Prince level, is that the options in order to be able to win the game become more and more restrictive. For instance, early game I had closed borders a lot of the time to prevent people from spying on my military might (i was in the middle of a war)..and my economy was dying. So I was surprised to say the least when I opened the borders I went from a minus 15 to a plus 1......and there are numerous other things like that.
Which of course means, the technological path you follow becomes more and more restrictive. Code of Laws has now become a must if I want to survive economically. Whereas previously I could just get there whenever i felt like it. Doing the fast tech to bronze working, in order to chop rush things has become a must too now.
All in all, the path to victory has become more and more standardised - a rote that you need to follow if you want to win. Also its become much more neccessary to attack to win.
At the moment, though far from a perfect player I score above 15,000 in most games - though that is either with a Combat Civ or a Fin. Civ. (Either of those two I am able to win quite comfortably with....the Combat giving you the advantage at the beginning to conquer two or three civs before 300AD).
Still liking the game a lot, I think primarily because there is always something new to learn. Each game I tend to learn something new, streamline something else, become more efficient at something. Often times I have read advice in the forums about how to do X Y and Z, but when I try to apply it normally it never works - ie if I set out to apply it. Usually what happens is I come to a cropper and try the advice and suddenly like magic it seems to work.
The forums have been a great help so thank you for that! (Sulla's games especially helped me understand what was going on and the reasoning for the tips). Slavery was something I never got until I started seeing it in games...then I understood - rushes the build, early game it recovers very quickly and most of all, whats the point of having citizens who are unhappy with the "its too crowded" thing...
What I have found though, in moving up to Prince level, is that the options in order to be able to win the game become more and more restrictive. For instance, early game I had closed borders a lot of the time to prevent people from spying on my military might (i was in the middle of a war)..and my economy was dying. So I was surprised to say the least when I opened the borders I went from a minus 15 to a plus 1......and there are numerous other things like that.
Which of course means, the technological path you follow becomes more and more restrictive. Code of Laws has now become a must if I want to survive economically. Whereas previously I could just get there whenever i felt like it. Doing the fast tech to bronze working, in order to chop rush things has become a must too now.
All in all, the path to victory has become more and more standardised - a rote that you need to follow if you want to win. Also its become much more neccessary to attack to win.
At the moment, though far from a perfect player I score above 15,000 in most games - though that is either with a Combat Civ or a Fin. Civ. (Either of those two I am able to win quite comfortably with....the Combat giving you the advantage at the beginning to conquer two or three civs before 300AD).
Still liking the game a lot, I think primarily because there is always something new to learn. Each game I tend to learn something new, streamline something else, become more efficient at something. Often times I have read advice in the forums about how to do X Y and Z, but when I try to apply it normally it never works - ie if I set out to apply it. Usually what happens is I come to a cropper and try the advice and suddenly like magic it seems to work.
