Keeping focus and mid game wars...

[Preston85]

Long time reader, first time poster

I'm having problems planning ahead after the early period of the game.

My general game goes something like:

1. Get 3 or 4 cities out.
   
2. Depending on what resources are available and my unique unit I try to aim to start war when I get a few of those units, those being:
   Egyptian Chariots (can't remember the unque name)
   Prats/Swordmen
   Elephants+Catapults
   Macemen/Crossbowmen (esp. the chinesse or jap units)
   
3. I continue to expand through war using the early armies hoping they're more advanced/out number the target.
   
4. Once i've done that and war is over research has dropped a lot so go into "infrastructure" mode.

This is where my games start to go a bit un-focused. While i've been war mongering the other countries on the continent have usually caught up in military so unless I go smash mouth (but don't have income/infrastructure to really support it) I end up spending ages building.

The next time I war-monger is later in game at gunpowder/rifle tech level.

Is this normal or do people manage to war-monger inbetween the Macemen<->Musketmen ages? Since you won't normally have a tech superiority is it just through pure numbers and production capabilities? Doesn't that put you significantly behind in infrastructure/tech?

Thanks in advance.

p.s. I'm playing vanilla Civ 4 not warlords thingymajiggy

 

[Cam_H]

Preston,

Firstly, welcome to CivFanatics!

Secondly;

"While i've been war mongering the other countries on the continent have usually caught up in military"

... so I take it you're at Noble or thereabouts? The human is usually better at planning a successful assault than the AI, and while the PowerGraph may have the A.I. catching up, you have the benefit of longer term planning and less predictability on your side. You can have fewer troops, but because you can make better use of seige weaponary and focused targetting of AI cities ... more so on Vanilla ... big A.I. garrisons can still be quite vulnerable.

Thirdly, are you specialising your cities' roles? Unit pumps usually don't need much in the way of infrastructure. You don't have 'wonder addiction', do you?

 

[Preston85]

Ta for the reply.

you have the benefit of longer term planning and less predictability on your side

I think my long term planning sucks, I get stuck in infrastructure mode.

Thirdly, are you specialising your cities' roles?

I try to specialise, I think my city placements arn't to good atm, I read those ALC games to try and get hints and see the dotmaps but I nearly never think of putting them in the same place.

I do cottage spam on river/flat land areas, leaving a few forrests so theres about 4 forrests/hills so it can still produce a bit for markets/grocers ect.

I don't get many good production cities, if they have lots of hills theres usually not enough food. So end up leaving forests on the half-decent places with the most hills and enough food to use them to try and make it a good production place later on with lumberyards.

Unit pumps usually don't need much in the way of infrastructure

Normally units take about 4 turns, with only 3 or 4 cities thats 8 turns to get 8 units... Is that good enough? I don't make much use of slavery, would it be an idea to whip them especially now I think about not finding good production places this could help with that yeah?

You don't have 'wonder addiction', do you?

Not really, depends who I am.
If Hatty (like my current game) I won't go for stonehenge as I get +2 culture already. If I was china, germany or someone like that I usually go for Oracle to try and jump to Metal Casting (low cost forges and pre-req for machinary).
Appart from that I might try chopping for Great Library, after that not many wonders till later on.

 

[JimT]

Ta for the reply.
Normally units take about 4 turns, with only 3 or 4 cities thats 8 turns to get 8 units... Is that good enough? I don't make much use of slavery, would it be an idea to whip them especially now I think about not finding good production places this could help with that yeah?

Three to four cities is fine in the early game. By the medieval age you should have either captured cities or opened up (by razing) more locations for building more cities. Assuming you are not on one of the smaller maps of course.

By this stage (on medium maps), I would normally have seven/eight cities . Allowing three main commerce cities, One GP Farm, one main production city and other hybrids.

Your main productiion city should be producing a unit almost every turn until Gunpowder. When on a war footing you will be running theology rather than organised religion so I would consider producing cheap units in your hybrid/commerce at this point (siege weapons, pillagers and scouts with medic), your best off producing buildings when you get the 25% bonus from organised religion.

Thats me though, I just think one unit per turn is good for a city but not an empire.

 

[Cam_H]

Preston,

I must say that you're not 'sending up any flags' to indicate that there some Achilles' Heel in your general playstyle that you haven't already recognised as a problem.

Personally, I find the period between 'Currency and Code of Laws' and 'Education' to be a great window of opportunity to do some significant 'bottom-kicking', as newly captured cities will automatically get the extra trade route from Currency once they get out of their resistance, and you can start working on their Courthouse or through the Caste System run a Specialist Merchant to offset the financial penalty of sprawl.

This period of the game also has got the advantage of getting your units further City Raider promotions before Chemistry ... if you were unaware, Grenadiers don't get City Raider promotions out of the blocks, but you can upgrade old units with the City Raider promotion (such as Macemen) to Grenadiers. Tokugawa - a sometimes difficult leader to play - really can create a striking position of dominance thanks to Samurai and the City Raider promotion.

It's a little tough for me to dissect your game much further from what you've outlined. Generally I keep an 'even' number of forests for cities due to the bonus - but if you've got no health problems, build a mine. If you have looming stagnation problems, see if windmills can help. Plan your food usage so you avoid stagnation or avoid messing up irrigation chaining. There's admittedly a lot of advice on CivFanatics pushing players to cottage everything , and while cottages that eventually become towns are great, they're not great if they're not being worked because you've not got sufficient food to work them!

You might consider posting a game at a point where you feel that you're about to become stuck in "infrastructure mode", and perhaps some kind souls might be able to offer advice on how to avoid the rut that you see yourself collapsing into.

As noted earlier however, you do seem to have a good handle on the game, so it might just require occasional pauses in your play to review the state of affairs from time to time.

 

[Preston85]

I've just started a new game to try and "fix" the problems.

Playing Hatty, plan is get horses, kick some butt

Started with this:
Hatty @ 3000BC

So plan looks on yes?

I've done my best dotmaping, not much to see yet but hopefully I've put them in good locations.

Caesar is very close so prime for some chariot spamming before he gets Prats.

Capital is looking good as a production city (to me it is). 6 hills, 2 elephants and pleanty of forests with a food resource and a couple of flood plains to get enough food to work them all.

Location 2, I would of liked to get the stone in to its fat cross but I can just see some coast line so hoping for a coastal city with fish/clams can claim the stone. Its also on a desert (still has 2 deserts in its cross) to reduce wasted squares. Definate currancy city to me with the food resources and river close by.

Location 3, i'm not sure what to make that one. 2 food resources, lots of forests and a few hills. I'd say with the capital being a production place to make this location another commerce city and useing the forests to rush oracle+Great Library. GP farm? I've never used them before, usually just cottage spam.

Once I have those three city's and horses hooked up i'll spam some chariots and take Rome as my 4th city.

Researching hunting for those Elephant resources. Once i've took Rome I'll find Mansa hopefully and by then will have trained Construction for Elephants and Cata spam against him.

Does this plan look like a good start? The questionable thing is the oracle/GL thing, as this would mean diverting research... I always start to get nervous about warmongering when down to 60%/50% science and start to feel like i'm losing focus as I try to keep science up through cottage spam while wanting to kill something

Thanks again, at least I know i'm not doing anything really obviously badly. I've played lots of other strategy games but Civ 4 is by far the most complex and mind-bogling so far, so much to remember and take into account. It's just correcting those problems, there might not even be any problems and i'm just seing something that isn't there...

EDIT:
I maximised Civ again and saw my warrior was 1 tile away from the coast so moved it, there was indeed a fish resource to the left of the mountain tile.

 

[miller4242]

I would make your 2nd or 3rd city to be able to grab one of those Copper resources. Try to discover more land, do another dot map, and post it here again. Everyone will be able to give you some more feedback based upon what other resources are near and where your opponents are at.

 

[Cam_H]

The capital is in a good spot. Gold, cows, and elephants are a super combination. On top of that, a few hills, flood plains, winding rivers. All good stuff.

I agree that the copper should not be disregarded. Miller posted while I was messing around with an alternative dot-map and made the very point that was on my mind.

My thoughts were something like this;

(Sorry - image removed due to server-space limitation)​

Alternative city #2 is moving away from your competition, which is bad from a land-grab perspective, but good from a protective aspect. It touches a river bend, and has good food and production potential.

The #3 city is a little less clear to place, but another location with winding rivers, a few flood plains, forests, and access to horses and wine should not be sneezed at.

Hope this helps - or at least is food for thought. Best of luck!

 

[Preston85]

Ta for advice, can't get on Civ atm but will think about it. I'll get a few chariots out to scout, might find some barbs to attack and get xp from before sending them against Caesar.

Sorry, should of made it clear but C and the purple is Caesar who's capitals fat cross is only 2 squares from mine. So placing that 3rd city you suggested would have to be once Rome is destroyed. Hence putting the other city's right near that river to link them up since I plan to attack Rome first, providing me with the space for your suggested 3rd city.

I'm playing on Balanced map(hence theres lots of resources, I think I should of used a standard balanced map for this which is what I normally play), standard side with normal coasts. When I clicked the extra go to move the warrior and found the fish, I should of mentioned 2 other civs showed themselves.

It seems (from direction they came) that the russian woman (can't remember her name off top of my head) is to the north and has lots of jungle to deal with) while Mansu Mansa is to my South.

 

[miller4242]

Very odd. I can't remember ever seeing two capitals that close together. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but being dropped that close to Rome is going to be a rough one.

One plan of action would be to chop rush a settler to grab that copper south of you. I would place the city 1S of the copper. This will grab the copper, deny it to the Romans, and minimize conflicting "border tensions."

 

[Preston85]

Ok, did a few more turns, I decided to research iron working next to see:
a) if I had it so don't need copper.
b) see if Caesar has it.

North
Cathrine is up here, you can just see her border.
Lots of jungle for her to work through so should keep her down for a while while I splat Rome. Expanding in that direction should keep her pinned into the jungle.
She is also buddist so could use her to keep my north safe while I go east.

South East
Rome is really to close, its the perfect first target. It is on a hill and 20% culture bonus already... Archer + 2 Warriors, but I don't have chariots yet so its a choice between horses/wine/elephants north of rome (would have to road to it) or the earlier planned point on the same river Thebes is on.
War Chariots or Axemen?

South West
Mansa is down here somewhere. Not sure how far his peninsula goes and how far into he is but looking at coastline and the tundra he looks like in a situation like Catherine. Would be my next target after Caesar.

No idea where Alexander is, his person was in the north east so could be up there near Catherine.

Does this help at all? I guess I should of done another 4 turns to show Iron... If it pops anywhere between me and Caesar I guess that would be the second city spot.

Its a custom balanced thingy map so I think everyone is on the same continent and resources are all over the place.

 

[Cam_H]

Preston.,

I admit that I don't play the "customed balanced thingie" maps so I'm not sure what to expect in terms of where Iron will pop.

In light of your extra information, I'd be inclined to grab Horses as a priority and start pumping out War Chariots. They're not quite as good as Axes because of the lack of City Raider promotion, but they're 25 to an Axe's 35. I'd look at getting out four of them quickly by founding at either H1 (see below) or H2;

(Sorry - image removed due to server-space limitation)​

You could even consider founding on top of the Horses in the proposed H1 fat-X instead of the proposed site. You won't have to build a Pasture, you'll lose the Cows but get the Rice, and it connects to Thebes via the river.

Four War Chariots almost certainly will not be enough to take Rome (Archers on a hill!), but they will be able to steal a Worker and frustrate Roman attempts to expand their empire. You can pick off any Archers or Archer-Settler pairs that might come out of Rome, and start building your units' promotions while grinding Caesar into standstill. In the meantime, pump out some more units and settle near the Copper. You may lose one or two units while developing your SoD, so be prepared to replenish. Knock out or sit on that Cornfield - Caesar will whip continually while it's there.

Given that you're four turns from Iron Working - you should be prepared to adjust your plans to include Swords if you think that will work.

Worry about Mansa and Catherine after Code of Laws and/or Currency.

 

[Electryon]

I don't know if anyone is still reading this thread, but I'm glad to hear that someone is having a similar problem to mine. After stumbling around in the game for a while I studied all the early growth and early strategy posts. Now I can get off to a good start, but my game tends to lose focus after the early years. I haven't yet figured out how to figure out who to attack and who to ally with to keep expanding. I think some of this advice will help

Lately I usually play Japanese-Noble-Standard-Continents

 

[Sisiutil]

This sounds like a problem I had with the game when I started and still struggle with.

I just didn't like the Medieval units, mainly because I didn't know how to use them. Between the ancient era and the arrival of gunpowder units, there seemed to me to be a confused jumble of units in the game, especially compared to the simple units and their counters of the early game. Add to this the fact that some ancient-era units are still viable and it confuses things more. Also, the medieval units aren't such a huge jump in power (unlike their gunpowder counterparts) so getting to them first doesn't mean you've got an overwhelming advantage. To this, add the fact that the AI will bee-line to Feudalism and Longbowmen, who are to cities as barnacles are to ship hulls, and any medieval war is a tough slog.

The ancient era, in comparison, was simple: build your stack of Axemen and go kick some butt.

In many of my early attempts at Civ IV, I'd just turtle through the medieval era: hunker down and build, try to get to gunpowder, then build Grenadiers, Rifles, Cannon, and Cavalry (not necessarily in that order) before your target does. Then go warring. If I saw that a medieval era war was necessary, I'd dither.

Now I realize that a medieval force requires more planning, more careful composition, and more patience, because you're just going to need more units and the war is going to be slower than it would in the early or late game. I still have to fight off the urge to dither, though.

 

[Cam_H]

Electryon,

(a.) Welcome to CivFanatics!

(b.) If you post a saved game, perhaps someone might be willing to check it out and make some suggestions. As the Japanese you can pretty well attack anyone with Samurai in the mid-game!

 

[lilnev]

Medieval wars are all about the catapults. Sure maces are better than swords, elephants are nice if you have them, etc. Bring along some city raiders for the mop-up, a few mixed troops for field defense, and some garrison archers. But the heart of the medieval army is the catapults.

That said, I think a big part of the medieval slowdown is the temptation to do other things. Many buildings are becoming available, and it feels like every city wants Granary, Forge, Library, Courthouse, Barracks, Lighthouse, Market, etc. Happiness caps go up with Calendar resources, forges and markets, HR, etc so cities want to grow. Which means more tiles have to be developed, jungle cleared, etc. That can be a fine and reasonable phase of the game -- particularly if early expansion has hobbled your research, you may need some retrenchment until cities can grow and cottages mature -- but don't get sucked in too deeply. Is that market really more valuable than the catapults you could be building instead? And don't feel like you need a tech edge (Grenadiers vs Longbows, say) before you can go warring. Catapults are your trump.

peace,
lilnev

 

[manu-fan]

I don't know if anyone is still reading this thread, but I'm glad to hear that someone is having a similar problem to mine. After stumbling around in the game for a while I studied all the early growth and early strategy posts. Now I can get off to a good start, but my game tends to lose focus after the early years. I haven't yet figured out how to figure out who to attack and who to ally with to keep expanding. I think some of this advice will help

Lately I usually play Japanese-Noble-Standard-Continents

As to 'Who to attack and who to ally with', I tend to attack the nearest closest neighbor, and ally with those further away that I am not likely to war with.

I'm no expert though.

Cheers.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Medieval wars are all about the catapults.

I think they're all about Trebuchets. These units absolutely own this time period. Forget that they can bombard stronger then Catapults. Consider that this weapon when attacking a city matches the strongest fortified unit (maceman) in strength, 8 to 8. No other siege unti has this (cats are behind at least longbowmen 5 to 6, cannons have riflemen 12 to 14, artillery has infantry 19 to 20). They are relatively cheap even after they increased the hammer cost, and you can get them to cr II or III fairly easy...attack fringe cities that usually have one or two longbowmen (or archers and axes if theyre backwater) and youll have the trebs very strong for a capital-capturing campaign.

And if you REALLY want to go Treb crazy, pick Isabella. With her ub, the citadel, and barracks, youll have trebs built with cr II right out of the box! Add a military instructor or two, or a civic change of vassalage/theocracy (which is a piece of cake of Izzy being spiritual...switch over and build up your treb force then switch back) and youll have them built at cr III. THEN throw in conquistadors 50&#37; against melee and...well, your enemies are in a heck of a lot of trouble.