King Younk's Questions thread

For example, how quickly should I build new cities? Is there a formula for determining when they are profitable? I am cottage spamming on the locations where they are going to go this game, but I'm speaking more in general.
 
Update - should I concern myself with these northern two cities I'm planning? I almost have the island on lock, and fully developed/developing, but I'm wondering if I should make these northern cities into a military-specialized city or two?

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Should of settled the island city for the 2c trade routes.
Capital is too small. Running gold and not using the best food tiles means for 500ad or s it's small.
Map settings seem silly. The AI will have 4-7 or so cities each.

Too late for those 2 northern cities. You have already claimed the best tiles
 
@King Younk Those two northern cities are almost certainly only worth settling for the purpose of splitting out whipping or drafting anger. I settle such spots frequently for that purpose.
I would make sure both are coastal though, so they can stockpile population with lighthouse-coast.
The western one should be where the spear is, and the eastern one should be placed 1N.

Those cities would in my games get 3 and 3 buildings only. Granary, lighthouse and barracks and their purpose would be either to whip out units or boats or to draft something, or to run representation specialists when in caste.


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And those cities would be settled after optics, or possibly after astro.
Why...? Because optics/astro is a commerce bottleneck you want to pass through asap. Adding too many cities too early adds upkeep and makes reaching that bottleneck slower.

Once optics/astro is in, then they are settled to beef up future production.
 
Another update - (I swear I work, and very hard, as a truck driver. I just take weeks off at a time - hence why I'm playing Civ4 for 20 hours on two consecutive days, following months of 80+ hour weeks).

I'm in first on the standard map as Ragnar. I'll probably play these same settings, more or less on Immortal, just to prove that map size is a huge factor.

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Nice! Soon you will probably start to play normal speed too, that way you will have time for more games during the off-truck periods!
 
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Gonna win this standard map, and I didn't reset once. Maybe I'll play on Standard, Ragnar, Immortal next - my point about the people criticizing is that map size can be harder than a level up. I pretty much can always win on Ragnar - he's an easy leader who can conquer a few rivals (take a few wonders/holy cities) and sustain his conquests with the financial trait.

I'm off to f&$3 the Zulu now - if not vassalize them, then at least burn 3-5 of their top cities.

Nice! Soon you will probably start to play normal speed too, that way you will have time for more games during the off-truck periods!
I don't think I want to play Civ over the road - the computer I play it on is a bit broken (the hinge on the laptop is broken), and I don't really care for standard speed games.
 
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Just look at these clowns - the Vikings with Astronomy and Berserkers. I'll probably have conquest soon after conquering the Zulu. HRE to follow.

I'm tellin' ya's - it's the map, not the level.
 
KY - It would be of benefit to put your pics in spoiler tags for page loading.

Keep on truckin'!
 
High sea level on a standard map will cripple the AI. Marathan settings made axe rush easier. Especially as you took the copper spot.

You would have to seriously mess this up to lose now.

Still think you need to find the balance between settings and a fun game that is challenging but not one where you face a runaway AI every other game.

I guess if your job was less demanding you could improve your micro more. Growing capitals to size 10-13+ really helps a bureau capital.
 
All finished. Maybe I should try on a faster speed, since the Marathon game enabled me to drag on a combination of an Astronomy-monopoly/Berserker-building era that enabled a lot of momentum.

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Congrats on the win.
Nice to see Delhi at size 19!! 3-4 sea food resources really help city growth.
 
All finished. Maybe I should try on a faster speed, since the Marathon game enabled me to drag on a combination of an Astronomy-monopoly/Berserker-building era that enabled a lot of momentum.

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Congrats on the win. Yeah, that is one of the main differences with Marathon I think- if you get a military edge, it just lasts a lot longer and lets you conquer a huge amount. On standard, by the time you've built up your army and moved it into position, the AI has often caught up in military tech. Kind of annoying, but it does make for more of a challenge.
 
The strategy for building in the early game reminds me of a book I'm reading - The Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire - 's description of an empire compared to a country.

An empire being defined as a collection of people's based off of one core people, and rather large. It seems you need something like a tight-wound generator to build energy (financial, military, industrial, population/food, resources, etc.) in order to get moving. This is best done with minimal energy loss, and thus in a more compact form.

I'm going to try Ragnar on Immortal, with a standard map, and everything else random except for the speed. Should I do Marathon, Epic, or Standard speed for that one? I really think a huge map was what was slowing me down before. Oh, and the fact that I didn't use Ragnar, who is probably the best in the game.
 
Spoiler Screenshot at turn 454/1500 :


I'm in a good spot - not great, but definitely winnable. And I didn't restart once, and put everything on random! Watch as I conquer the lot, starting with the Arabs. Will likely adopt Buddhism or Confucianism for tech trading purposes - maybe Christianity would be best.

"You still haven't realized it, have you? The power I have is greater than the power you possess, even right now."

I beat the game 5 turns after the date in your screenshot when you were just starting philo.

After bulbing astro ASAP, I got to engineering. The AI on emperor can't stand up against trebspam, and by the time I had 20 or so of them + knights and elephants and a few crossbows, nothing could really stop me. I rolled over one AI every 5 or so turns until they all capped, 795AD (t459), for a conquest victory.

All I really needed was astro + engineering + guilds (knights) to unleash absolute devastation. After that, I didn't really tech for the last 30-40 turns of the game. My first war, against Hammy, started t412, so it took 47 turns from the moment I started conquering, to conquer everyone. Now that's efficiency!

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It seems like in your latest game you're following some of the advice of building cottages and getting astro ASAP, which is good.
 

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In a problem in my new game (Ragnar, Marathon, Immortal, Huge Map), in that barbarians are spawning, despite my having borders or a military unit within every 5 tile block on my little island. Any advice here?

Spoiler 2500 BC :
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You have loads of fog tiles here. Not suprised barbs are spawning. Cities are great fog busters. 3rd city before 2nd worker?

High sea levels is just killing your maps. It will limit the AI.

Not so sure you are isolated here. You can see a fish resource to the south that is not linked to your land. Plus more land to the north. Exploring workboat maybe?

Here I would of either grown to size 4 and whipped or done a size 2 settler. That or chopped with workers and chopped settler. You only have 1 good land tile and early mines don't beat chopping.

It's a terrible start this. You have a somewhat obvious 2nd city but the 3rd will have no food resource.ALbeit you do have fish up north but that requires a border pop.
 
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Spoiler :
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Well, I think my city placement is okay. I can farm the south flood plains tile, and use that for both of my southernmost cities. Will be cottage spamming and building libraries soon.

So I should build an exploring workboat, and go from there?

I understand that you think I should have built more workers earlier - what kind of ratio would you suggest?
 

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