looking for a few helpful pointers!

[tikigodbob]

I've been lurking around here for a while, because after i played by myself for a while i was losing...a lot and realized i must be doing something wrong (and boy was I) and have now reformed my tech/build orders, but am still a little hazy on a few things.

So for my first time through everything, i figured I'd go with what I assumed was a fairly easy civ, Augustus. The Prats give you such a large advantage early in the game, i almost feel as if I'm cheating, lol. Depend on what's around...For tech's i generally go agriculture - AH - BW (to get the things out there) and here is where I'm not entirely sure...rush IW for prats? or get some of the other techs? I tried to follow along the ALC Fredrick build order type, because SE is the only type of econmy i kind of get a gist of...I haven't read/seen much for CE, but would one be superior than the other for Augustus?

Also in a recent start i went agri - AH - BW - Myst - Poly - Priest - Pottery - IW; i couldn't help but wonder if there is a better way to prioritize. Although i did have stone and marble fairly close so with those nearby I built Parthenon, Oracle, and Pyramids all in the hopes of reaching some the goal of the SE econ. I'm also in the process of building the GL (13 turns total) and am busy trying to mass together some troops in my other cities. is 3 turns about average for build times? or should i be able to get that down?

I never get much farther than medieval in most of my games, mostly because i A. enjoy the beginnings more, and B. feel like i kinda..did bad at the start and wanted to start over.


Also towns: how do you know what to build? I know your supposed to prioritize them, like a Production town, Commerce town, and with SE a science town (with the GL) but what makes a good spot for these? my captical was pretty much enclosed by a river, and had hills all around, so i built farms and mines, but i was surrounded by so much plains and desert, that a few of my other towns have a lot squares where i can only build cottages. I really was considering making saves of my games and such, and since i know this is probably gonna come off as a flow of thought...just try to read through the garble-de . .. .. .. . as best as you can. lol, any help is welcomed and appreciated!

 

[r_rolo1]

Some thoughs:
IMO (some will disagree) for Romans, Agri -> BW is the best opening, unless seafood is avaliable ( in which I would go for BW ASAP). BW is a must have because with it you can have cooper ( and axe rush before Praet rush )and allows Slavery and chopping.

About SE/CE ( flame thower issue ), I do believe that both ceasers are more inclined to SE, because of their superb UU ( more early cities) and of their UB ( + 25% GPP ). But a CE can work well too, if you learn how to raze ( sometimes is so hard ... )

About city specialization.... There are some good articles in the Strategy article subforum.

I hope that helped

 

[Sjaramei]

CE is hard?

I've never gotten the hang of a proper SE, and kinda given up on it. But CE/
HE on the other hand i got sorted kinda nice.(i think ) It's not very hard cottaging all over the place, farms if needed for growth (cottage over them later if possible), and just keep a couple of cities for production/army.

If you intend to warmonger with CE, you shouldn't be getting insane amounts of cities super fast, wait until you get CoL to really go nuts. (Augustus is organized so very cheap whipping of newly conquered cities)
My strat is 3 cities at the start (sometimes 4 if it's a good spot avaiable) then get 6-10 (total) cities from an AI with axe/sword rush. (If i got commerce power (gems etc.) i might wait until catas) I'm beeling CoL always (i get it first in 90% of my games). Get courthouses in all cities and get catapults and go for more AI's (CE is easy!)
Just remember to work commerce squares in all cities when your economy goes to hell.(before CoL) Make cottages and work them if it's no easy sea squares etc around.(work cottages over sea squares of course unless it's critical)

Just run 2 scientists from a library somewhere so you can get at least 2 scientists. (preferably the 1st should be born before 1 AD or close to) One for academy and one to lightbulb Philosophy. (Having Mathematics and Code of Laws opens this i think)

Build at least one army town. (at least 4+ hills, decent food and stuff. Make workshops around it too so you spend all that surplus food) HE+Ironworks in this city makes it crank out troops fast! Rest of the cities just plain commerce or most likely hybrid. (cottage up grasslands/rivers farm plains etc to get max amount of tiles worked)

Key techs i usually get first of all:
- Code of Laws then Alphabet to get some trading done.
- Civil Service (even costly it's worth skipping lesser techs for this one. It's worth a lot for AI's, Bureaucracy is awesome as well)
- Liberalism Beeline (i get Liberalism first most of the times so it's sweet)
- Democracy of course, Emancipation and lots of cottages makes you a monster

Currency, Monarchy, Feudalism are priority techs for me to trade from AI early game. I feel they are not worth the time to research myself since AI prioritizes it so hard. You should in most cases be able to get Currency from CoL and something else, Monarchy with the same, Feudalism with Civil Service/Philosophy so all will be well.

If you get these first the game should be in hand with some decent land power. You have to adapt from game to game, but my games usually go like that. As you see i don't get very many GP and it works fine anyway

My start build order/aims:
- Worker-Warrior(until size 2)-Settler-Finish Warrior/start Barracks(until Size 3)-Worker-Settler
- 2nd city is placed near copper/horse and gets a worker then barb defense (chopped)
- 3rd city grabs happiness or copper if i got horses with 2nd city.

If city has animals get AH before BW, else other way around. The wheel after either tech so you can get some barb defense ready. After these Mysticism-Pottery-Writing (in no special order) and your cities should be improved well and start getting culture/cottages. Then Priesthood - Code of Laws is next. (get other techs first if it's something important you need, hunting or even alphabet if you want some early trading, iron working for iron etc)

This is my (probably not the best ) tactic at emperor level at the moment, there is no sure "guide" for it but it should give you some pointers in which direction to go. It's fairly flexible and can be adapted to most situations. Since you didn't mention difficulty level, it's hard to figure how much help AI will give you with tech trade etc so you'll have to research some techs yourself instead
If you get a really good start it's nothing wrong with getting a few wonders early instead and postpone invasion some years. Just get a war before longbows shows up at least. If you want domination wins (which i assumed from the Augustus pick) play on Epic/Marathon so your army doesn't go obsolete so insanely fast.

(Sorry for the long essay, i tend to go a bit lengthy at night

 

[Sjaramei]

About SE/CE ( flame thower issue ), I do believe that both ceasers are more inclined to SE, because of their superb UU ( more early cities) and of their UB ( + 25% GPP ). But a CE can work well too, if you learn how to raze ( sometimes is so hard ... )

Organized is the key trait here and it favours neither SE nor CE. So just pick according to the map you get dealt. The UB is expensive and not important in my opinion. More cities is good for either economy so thats no plus for SE

I mostly keep the cities i take, (unless they are totally ******** placed, AI is insane sometimes) working commerce as i said above and whipping courthouses solves your money issues. But knowing when to raze is important yeah.

 

[bode404]

Build at least one army town. (at least 4+ hills, decent food and stuff. Make workshops around it too so you spend all that surplus food) HE+Ironworks in this city makes it crank out troops fast! Rest of the cities just plain commerce or most likely hybrid. (cottage up grasslands/rivers farm plains etc to get max amount of tiles worked)

Most of your post is nice, but I strongly disagree with HE and Ironworks on the same city. They should definitely be each in one of your 2 top production cities, combined with West Point or maybe Red Cross.

 

[tikigodbob]

so say i started off in a fairly...flat place. kinda like towards the bottom of the continent, lot of plains/desert, tundra...not so much floodplains and hills (but a few) which would be better to run?

and what is HE?

 

[Poppis]

HE = Heroic Epic

 

[Sjaramei]

Most of your post is nice, but I strongly disagree with HE and Ironworks on the same city. They should definitely be each in one of your 2 top production cities, combined with West Point or maybe Red Cross.

Depends on the production output of the HE city of course, i rarely get to the point where i build either Red Cross or West Point (game is won before i get those techs)

But it's just an example how i do it, as i mentioned it's no sure thing about any of my post

 

[d4m]

int * pVal=NULL;
int Val = 10;
pVal = &Val;
//Good pointer

 

[futurehermit]

if you're not running a SE with Romans then you're losing out on a very solid UB.

 

[cabert]

if you're not running a SE with Romans then you're losing out on a very solid UB.

untrue
You only need the forum in the GP farm.
With the romans, the good thing is you can have more than one GP farm, without polluting the pool.
This doesn't mean you should run a SE.
In fact, if you go all out warmongering, you're going to need all the commerce you can get = CE FTW.
Dominating in 1000 AD is a lot better than somewhat getting a upper hand in 1900 AD.

This really isn't playing civ4, it's so very specific to the romans that you really shouldn't try learning the game this way.
However, here is my strat for the romans :
Phase 1- (worker techs), try to settle a high production city
Phase 2- BW, IW, you need iron. settling on the ice is not the best option, but sometimes you just don't have any choice
phase 3- writing, alphabet (trade for maths if possible), build a massive praetorians army. 3 praetorians are enough to start a war, if you build reinforcements all the time. Keep all the good cities (not the size 1, no resource filler cities)
Phase 4: you live on the plunder money/extortion money. You may be able to tech a bit further :currency/code of laws/construction. You don't build courthouses, you whip them in large cities. Use all high food cities as GP farms. Great merchants are just as good as great scientists = you can stay in slavery, just whip libraries and forums.
This phase ends when there are no more enemies on your landmass .
This isn't a fast teching game, but who cares, the game is over.

 

[futurehermit]

if you go all out warmongering you can run 0% science and get your beakers from scientists and use merchants to keep afloat. the ub then helps you generate GSs and GMs, the former which you can use to lightbulb and trade techs to keep up and the latter which you can use on a trade mission to keep afloat to run scientists.

with romans, especially AC (creative), a SE is a good way to go imho.

 

[cabert]

if you go all out warmongering you can run 0% science and get your beakers from scientists and use merchants to keep afloat. the ub then helps you generate GSs and GMs, the former which you can use to lightbulb and trade techs to keep up and the latter which you can use on a trade mission to keep afloat to run scientists.

with romans, especially AC (creative), a SE is a good way to go imho.

at some point, you won't have anyone to trade with, if you go all out warmongering. You won't even have a destination for a trade mission.
You get more gold by running cottages than by running merchants, so cottages are really good to help funding the army.
I agree that getting a few GPs early (especially merchants) can help a lot.
I settle the merchants in the best GP farm so that I
- get gpt where I have the forum (duh)
- get more food for more specialists there.
+ when you capture the pyramids, you can switch to representation and those settled guys give you beakers.
So do the settled GGs .
And you can indeed run 100 gold = 0% science, with Rome, but you can run it a lot longer if you have a few (30 % of your cities at least) cottage cities.

 

[ddog14]

Noob with a quick question, settling on top of resources= Good, Bad, situational?
(Sorry if that's in FAQ or guide)

 

[futurehermit]

Situational. Generally it's not a good idea, but if it's the only way to get food for your city in addition to other resources (e.g., corn + gold) then do it.

Some resources kinda suck as workable tiles, but are decent to settle on (e.g., incense, ivory)