Medium Difficulties

[Cefari]

Until recently I've played mostly settler and cheiftan difficulty levels. Well now I want to start moving up. However my game play has always been different then what I see here on the forums. So I have a few questions (for warlord/noble difficulty):

1) Should I micromanage my workers or can I automate?

2) Should I still do warrior->barracks->worker as a build for my first city?

3) Should I make specialized cities, some for commerece, some for research, some for military units and a GP farm? And if so how many (roughly)?

4) Are there certain technologies I should definetly try to get early on?

5) Is founding new religions a good waste of time or am i better off capturing a holy city?

6) Is it okay if my cultural score/overall score is lower then the AI's?

7) Last one, should i just reroll the map if i dont have copper/iron/oil near me?

I know some of these maybe answered in articles but I'd like response just to verify

 

[InvisibleStalke]

1) Micromanage
2) Barracks much later. Warrior first or worker first is OK. Usually I will go worker first to accelerate early growth.
3) Yes. No hard and fast rule on how many but you probably only need 1 GP farm and maybe 1/3 of your cities as military cities. But terrain will help you decide too.
4) Bronze Working early. Pottery. Alphabet.
5) Depends on your starting techs and strategy. Don't rush to found more than one and if you have a warlike leader then don't bother founding any.
6) Yes - in fact as you go up in level its inevitable until the late game.
7) Up to you. I wouldn't worry about oil. If you don't have iron and you wanted to play a game with Praetorians then I would probably reroll. Likewise if I really wanted to do an Immortal rush and there were no horses. But if I wasn't interested in exploiting an early UU I would just play with what I have.

 

[Cefari]

thankies invisiblestrike

alright well a few more came to mind

1) are wonders super important or can i just ignore most of them?

2) say i make a military city should i just make improvements related to military functions (barracks, forge, drydock) or should i also throw in research/commerce/cultural buildings like libraries, banks, temples

3) are monty and isabella the worst neighbors or is it just me?

4) are catapults recommended for city warfare?

5) is a navy a must on continents or pangea?

6) finally, i play more of a defensive style, i war only for resources or if i feel dinky, not so much for a domination victory, so far ive found i can do somewhat good with mansa musa (i play vanilla btw) but i havent played around with many people and am unsure of what traits best suite me....

 

[bode404]

Some things that I'm secure to say:

1) Later in the game I automate most of them (to build trade network), but you must remember to enable the option "Automated workers leave old improvements" or else they'll destroy your towns over uranium mines, even if you already have 5 of it.

4) Definitely Bronze Working. Maybe Agriculture before, depending on what you have, but dont delay BW too much. And then Pottery and Alphabet.

6) As long as they dont steal your workable tiles, thats ok!

 

[bode404]

thankies invisiblestrike

alright well a few more came to mind

1) are wonders super important or can i just ignore most of them?

2) say i make a military city should i just make improvements related to military functions (barracks, forge, drydock) or should i also throw in research/commerce/cultural buildings like libraries, banks, temples

3) are monty and isabella the worst neighbors or is it just me?

4) are catapults recommended for city warfare?

5) is a navy a must on continents or pangea?

6) finally, i play more of a defensive style, i war only for resources or if i feel dinky, not so much for a domination victory, so far ive found i can do somewhat good with mansa musa (i play vanilla btw) but i havent played around with many people and am unsure of what traits best suite me....

1) You can ignore most of them. Dont avoid building a strong military to waste hammers on a wonder, unless you are sure you can do that.

2) No, you dont need it. It's all about specialization.

3) Yes, indeed

4) Of course!

5) Much more in continents, but also in Pangea, specially on mid/late game. You must protect your sea resources (fish, oil, whale...) and be able to intercept enemy ships carrying lots of ground units to take over your nation

6) Try them all!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

thankies invisiblestrike

alright well a few more came to mind

1) are wonders super important or can i just ignore most of them?

2) say i make a military city should i just make improvements related to military functions (barracks, forge, drydock) or should i also throw in research/commerce/cultural buildings like libraries, banks, temples

3) are monty and isabella the worst neighbors or is it just me?

4) are catapults recommended for city warfare?

5) is a navy a must on continents or pangea?

6) finally, i play more of a defensive style, i war only for resources or if i feel dinky, not so much for a domination victory, so far ive found i can do somewhat good with mansa musa (i play vanilla btw) but i havent played around with many people and am unsure of what traits best suite me....

1) No wonder is essential. You can ignore all of them if you want to. Sometimes they can help a particular strategy though. Define your strategy first and then see if wonders will be part of that.

2) Only build the military requirements (later you may need health or happiness to grow and work more mines etc, but never prioritize culture or science improvements once you have your fat cross - build troops instead).

3) Monte is. Isabella can be your best friend if you convert to her religion.

4) Yes definitely. You can war without them early on while cities don't have walls and only have 40% culture, but after that you need them.

5) Navy is generally weak except on archipelago. On Pangaea it just protects your sea resources. On continents you only need it for an intercontinental invasion.

6) Financial and Industrious would probably be your best options for a "builder" style economy. Try playing the Incans.

 

[Cefari]

i just realized i misspelled your name before sorry bout that....

Hmm well I'll have to write these down, one fo my main probs is i always forget the stuff i learned when im ingame and its too much of a hassle to exit my game, find it out, and reload....

well i normally like to get oracle or stonehedge early on b/c of either teh free tech or the obelisk in every city (when im not creative...)

alright well i can really only think of one more question, when placing cities whats a good distance to keep them away from each other and second should i place it near/on another cities cultural border (assuming im not going for a resource) or should i place it further out and let its cultural boundries fill it in?

 

[Harbourboy]

) Last one, should i just reroll the map if i dont have copper/iron/oil near me?

You have no way of knowing that until further into the game, so "re-rolling" is not really an option.

 

[Cefari]

Well I occasionally check the WorldBuilder if I don't like the initial site, I want to make sure there are good spots around.

 

[anima36]

(sharp intake of breath) i dont like that, bordering on cheating

 

[oyzar]

he can do whatever he damn well please in SP. You can eaily just use alt + tab to swich out of the game without exiting this. I do this frequently to cehck great ppl tech preferences. What builder you want totaly depends on you play style. bismark and peter are quite decent if you want to focus on specialists and wonders. Also go well with not too heavy expanding since you get way fewer reasources this way. organized agressive and somewhat protective is a waste if you go for a builderish aproach.

 

[Cefari]

I only do it if i dont like my initial city spot, otherwise ill play it out.

Oh and I played a game with ghandi and (i think) thanks to your tips i pretty well comindated on warlord so im going to try noble next

 

[LlamaCat]

1. Yes, always micromanage workers.
2-7 None of these matter if you are playing Warlord level, and usually on Noble (although I would advise researching bronze working early on)

 

[JimT]

alright well i can really only think of one more question, when placing cities whats a good distance to keep them away from each other and second should i place it near/on another cities cultural border (assuming im not going for a resource) or should i place it further out and let its cultural boundries fill it in?

Away from your other cities so they don't overlap by more than one or two tiles unless your going for a cultural victory (then you might want to squeeze an extra city and/or develop cottages quicker).

Choose best possible sites in the early game as even if your going for dom. your cultural borders will fill out. This may mean not working some tiles but its worth it. At these levels you should find the main limit to expansion is maintenance so no point having extra cities you don't need.