My first two questions!

[Flambo]

Hi, I'm a real Civ4 newbie here. I played Civ 2 a bit and enjoyed it thoroughly, but that was years ago. Just recently got Civ 4 (no Warlords) and am finding that the game is really much more challenging than I remember Civ 2 being. I've been playing on Noble, and I can *almost* hold my own. I think. Anyway, my questions:

1.) I've read about a strategy to blitz and conquer a nearby opponent with axemen. How late is too late for this to work? I've tried this only twice so far, and each time I find that my enemy has archers by the time I get my first axeman to him, and this makes him very tough to kill. More details on how this strategy should work would be nice!

2.) How close is too close for two cities to be from one another? Originally I had thought to place them so that their borders would just barely touch after each city had expanded a couple times, but I've started to think that makes their distance costs a bit high, and seems to leave a lot of land that I cant make my citizens work on.

Thanks in advance for any replies! If there are guides or savegames or anything that I should have read, please link away. I've read a few, but I'm sure there are some good ones I've missed.

 

[Bhruic]

1) Archers shouldn't be a problem unless you are facing an enemy that is Protective, or he has cities on hills. Generally, you can win a fight with 2-to-1 Axe vs Archer odds (that is, if there are 3 Archers defending, you bring in 6 Axemen). Basically, an Axeman assault is only "too late" once the enemy has Longbows - at which point you'll need Catapults to win any fights.

2) Ideally speaking, you want to ensure that 2 cities aren't sharing any squares in their fat cross. However, especially in the early game, other priorities may be more important than ideal city placement. Getting Copper/Horses immediately, for example, may take precident. So the answer is "it depends".

Bh

 

[JujuLautre]

1.) I've read about a strategy to blitz and conquer a nearby opponent with axemen. How late is too late for this to work? I've tried this only twice so far, and each time I find that my enemy has archers by the time I get my first axeman to him, and this makes him very tough to kill. More details on how this strategy should work would be nice!

Facing archers is not too late at all. Facing longbows or crossbows with axemen is.

Even if your axes cannot beat the archers at one to one, come with two or three the number of opponents units, give them city raider promotions (or cover if you are agressive), expect to lose the first attackers and roll.

Usually the first wave reduces the strength of the opponent archers, and the second wave wins. But when I say waves, I mean attacks in the same turn: do not give your opponent the opportunity to heal/improve with XP or you'll be in big trouble.

2.) How close is too close for two cities to be from one another? Originally I had thought to place them so that their borders would just barely touch after each city had expanded a couple times, but I've started to think that makes their distance costs a bit high, and seems to leave a lot of land that I cant make my citizens work on.

I would say "at the right position if you can afford it"

I mean, if your fourth city would be a pain in your economy, do not place it too far away. But if with your second city you can grab the only copper resource of the area before your opponent does, place it even if you're force to downgrade your science slider: you will have the best place. All depends of the situation.

But usually, I don't bother about distance maintenance for cities just touching (by their fat cross) the capital. More if there are, say, 5-10 tiles between.

And don't forget to look into the war academy or into the strategy articles section

 

[Cam_H]

Flambo,

Firstly, a big welcome!

Secondly, there are few absolutes in this game, so lots of room for debate on these forums!

Thirdly, I'm repeating Bhriic and Juju's responses here a bit because of cross-posting.

1.) You can still make Axes the backbone of your army for quite a while. The trick is that you'll need them to be combined with Catapults if you're leaving it very late. The AI researched Feudalism pretty quickly, and that means their city garrisons are quickly upgraded to Longbows, which are pretty tough for Axes, where you'll need superior numbers. I usually go with a 'thumbnail rule' of 2.5 Axes per Archer. A city with 40% cultural defence on a Hill is however going to be tougher than a cultureless city on flatlands, so you'll need to accommodate for that.

2.) Cities have to be three tiles apart if on the same landmass, or two if on different landmasses. I'd generally suggest that you look at city placement that grabs useful resources and near fresh water, and perhaps no more than about a dozen tiles from the next closest city. I'm a bit of a fan of optimal city placement, but then again Acidsatyr demonstrated that your second city doesn't need to be miles away as per; 'A discusion on Immortal game '

 

[Flambo]

Thanks a bunch for the replies! I'm glad I wasn't doing anything too slowly with the axemen - I guess I'll just have to make sure I have a decent stack of them ready to move before I declare war (instead of just one unit). This is making me start to think that my problem is more with my startup strategy, whether I build workers, warriors or settlers first from my beginning city. I suppose general startup tips will be the next thing I go researching.

Thanks for the pointers to those two sections, too. I'll go check 'em out!

 

[automator]

Welcome to the game. It is pretty tough, otherwise we all would've quit months ago.

As already said, as long as you aren't seeing Longbows when you march up with your Axemen, you're fine. You might want to enlist the help of some catapults if your enemy is racking up the culture, but often building more axemen is quicker than running your tech tree to construction (unless you have access to Ivory, which makes construction a very nice tech).

My favorite games are the ones when Bronze pops up in my first two city borders. Three quickly popped axemen, with continual reinforcements, is often enough to destroy a neighboring civilization.

Cities. I've found that the more I pack them in, the better I do. Try drawing on your map. After you've scouted your territory, and before laying down your second city, zoom out, turn on the "show resources", then select the draw/pen tool. Draw your capitol's fat-X. Then concentrate on what other resources you see and find good spots for your next 2-3 cities and draw fat-Xs for them. The ideal is to have all the resources in fat-Xs, few (or just 1-2) shared tiles between each city, and few good tiles in the gap between cities (though feel free to waste desert and mountain tiles). If you do this for a couple games, you'll become a natural at city placement.

 

[Baldas]

2.) How close is too close for two cities to be from one another? Originally I had thought to place them so that their borders would just barely touch after each city had expanded a couple times

"Expanded a couple of times"? I think you might be making the mistake that I made when I first started playing Civ4 (I came straight from Civ2 as well). The "fat cross" that has been mentioned is a 5x5 square with the corners missing, which is the biggest area your city can ever work. It is not the same as your cultural borders, which will often expand beyond this size with time, BUT this does not mean that your city can work the larger area. So the city working limits are the same as in Civ2. The cultural border is a concept not present in Civ2.

In my first game I made the mistake of putting my cities much further apart than I would have in Civ2, because I noticed this cultural border was getting quite big and I wanted to give them more room to grow. That was a mistake. Although there are situations when a city is placed to match where your cultural borders are, e.g. to block opponents, it is not normally the best way to do things. See the tips from the others about placing cities to use resources and food.

Hope this helps.

 

[Flambo]

"Expanded a couple of times"? I think you might be making the mistake that I made when I first started playing Civ4 (I came straight from Civ2 as well). [snip...]

In my first game I made the mistake of putting my cities much further apart than I would have in Civ2, because I noticed this cultural border was getting quite big and I wanted to give them more room to grow.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, that's the mistake I made at first.. I thought that I'd be able to work everything inside the pretty colored lines. It took me a while to figure out what posters meant by "fat cross", thanks for clearing that one up! I've had more than a couple games with tons of excellent squares that went to waste between cities. ><

@automator: you actually touched onto another problem that I've just recently recognized! No matter what I think I want to do tech-wise in a game, I always feel like I'm doing something wrong. Not long after starting a war, I'll say to myself "jeez, sure do wish I could be making catapults right now" after I'd skipped construction in favor of teching through paper or something.

Most times, after I've gotten bronze working and some growth-friendly techs like hunting, agriculture or animal husbandry, I go straight for Civil Service, since I read a guide that suggested it as a method to combat city costs. The problem is, I can never seem to get along with my neighbors, and have to just sit and pray that I make it to some advanced military tech before they want me dead!

 

[Janus0]

The problem is, I can never seem to get along with my neighbors, and have to just sit and pray that I make it to some advanced military tech before they want me dead!

While diplomacy is a very complicated thing (isn't everything in this game?) if you have problems with neighbors constantly attacking you, it's almsot always because you aren't building enough units. Check the power graph (it looks like a chart button on the upper right part of the screen) and make sure you aren't last in line.

I usually build one city whose job is to build units the entire game. Pick a spot with 2 food resorces or on a river with lots of hills and it will work out well. It's generally enough to keep the monkeys off your back.

 

[LuckyAC]

The enemies start with archers, so you aren't going to be able to attack them before that They certainly aren't a problem though, axemen by themselves can take archers, axemen with catapults can take anything up to macemen. Really, you can win even at a disadvantage, because you have all your units in a big stack and attack in a single turn, while they are very spread out. Since the mostly defend with archers, Swordsmen are of course a valuable addition, once you get them, and elephants are always nice, but axemen don't go obsolete for a while.

In theory, you want there to be no overlap and no wasted squares, perfectly notches crosses, but other concerns are often more important, like getting resources, not getting useless squares or not building two squares away from the ocean.

Civil service is a valuable tech, allowing bureaucracy, linked irrigation and macemen (with machinery), and is often worth a beeline, but it doesn't reduce maintenance costs. Code of Laws, however, does, through building courthouses. If you are playing defensively, having axemen is a good enough military tech until macemen - you just need to build enough of them to deter attacks. Actually fighting them off should be pretty easy if you have a decent number of units because they fight very stupidly, but it needn't come to that.

My tech path is usually worker techs, bronze working, writing to get my first scientists running to build an early academy, alphabet to trade. Then,
for peace, Monarchy for hereditary rule to help happiness (some go for Calendar or Drama), then Literature to build Great Library or for war, Construction. Sometimes Iron Working can be a pressing concern if you have a lot of jungle or no copper. If you get stone and/or are industrious, Pyramids can be an almost unfair advantage, as you can switch to Representation early and basically negate early unhappiness as well as boosting science.

 

[Bhruic]

He's playing on Noble, the AI doesn't start with Archery + Archers until Monarch. Of course, the AI also tends to beeline Archery more than a human player would.

Bh

 

[rabidveggie]

Wait you're supposed to use axes early on? I make swords since I learned my rush using Romans so does that mean that every game I've waited to long for iron working?

 

[rabidveggie]

I still alway's take my cities by the way, but I have to wait longer.

 

[Murky]

1.) I've read about a strategy to blitz and conquer a nearby opponent with axemen. How late is too late for this to work? I've tried this only twice so far, and each time I find that my enemy has archers by the time I get my first axeman to him, and this makes him very tough to kill. More details on how this strategy should work would be nice!

Each game situation calls for a variation of your strategy. Axemen work good against warriors/archers with little or no defense bonuses. If your opponent is creative then the cultural defenses may force you to wait for catapults or pick a different target. If there's a lot of hilled cities then that could also be a problem. Also, you may not want to axe-rush everytime. Sometimes it's better to grab an early relgion or do a wonder building strategy instead. Occasionally, you can do both but only up to a certain difficulty level.

2.) How close is too close for two cities to be from one another? Originally I had thought to place them so that their borders would just barely touch after each city had expanded a couple times, but I've started to think that makes their distance costs a bit high, and seems to leave a lot of land that I cant make my citizens work on.

In CivIV, having too many cities in the early game can crash your economy. You also want cities to be relatively close to the capital to minimize distance cost. There are always exceptions to that rule because gaining access to strategic resources is more important.

I like to build 3-4 cities before starting to capture AI cities in most games. On the lower difficulty levels you can get away with having more. The main thing is to grab the best spots as soon as possible.

 

[uncarved block]

I think a better question to ask is less "should city tiles overlap" but rather "which city tiles overlap". If it's a Mountain, or even two Plains without resources, then it should be fine. City placement is nearly an art in Civ4- one I certainly haven't gotten down in the last year!- and that aspect gets better, you'll probably see a lot of the rest of the later game fall in to place. A lot of my games hinge on "seeing" the best spot for the second and third cities, and those games where I fail tend to be for that reason-- mostly.

If you're coming from Civ2, another thing that can help, that you didn't mention Flambo, is Wonders. In Civ2, they were key, and often ridiculously overpowered; in Civ4, you have to be a LOT more selective, because winning or losing can depend on having the right units and the right buildings to leverage the terrain you're given. Five Towns don't do much good if there's no Market and Bank (or more) to exploit the $$$.

There are plenty of good strategy articles around CFC, so all I can say is good luck-- there's a lot of game to learn, and you have a lot more control over it than you ever would in Civ2.

 

[JackOfClubs]

Wait you're supposed to use axes early on? I make swords since I learned my rush using Romans so does that mean that every game I've waited to long for iron working?

It isn't necessarily too late, but it is more expensive. Iron Working costs 200 so it is more than Mining and Bronze Working put together (170 total). Plus Swordsmen cost a little more to build. Still, they start with advantages attacking cities and are slightly stronger than Axemen (6 vs 5) when fighting against Archers (3). However, Axemen get a 50&#37; bonus against melee so you don't want your swords fighting them as it will be effectively 6 vs 7.5.

So, if you are fighting an entrenched enemy with Archers in his cities, Swordsmen are a good choice even though Axemen are quicker.

2.) How close is too close for two cities to be from one another?

There is a rule of thumb that if you space your early cities 3 tiles in one direction and 4 in the perpendicular direction, they will interlock perfectly. So, for instance, if you go 3 N and 4 E, the "missing corners" of the fat crosses will interlock. As noted above, however, it is wise to pay more attention to resources and workable tiles rather than worry too much about city distances. I usually use the 3:4 rule to find the "potential" site and then examine the squares around int for the "optimal" site. I generally don't want to overlap more than 3 tiles or leave a gap more than 2, but even these rules can be broken if there is a really good reason.

 

[Flambo]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I finally managed to win a game, through a Time victory (all of the win conditions were enabled, so I guess it wasn't that hard...) on Noble, as Rome. (Pan-gaia, temperate, normal length and size) This was a huge improvement over my usual 3rd-to-last place by ~200AD!

Thanks again, and I'll look forward to reading more strategy tips on these forums... and maybe even posting some eventually!

 

[rabidveggie]

Congratulations!

 

[The Navy Seal]

2.) How close is too close for two cities to be from one another? Originally I had thought to place them so that their borders would just barely touch after each city had expanded a couple times, but I've started to think that makes their distance costs a bit high, and seems to leave a lot of land that I cant make my citizens work on.

Well depending on the surronding terrain that would be fine but It's best to keep city bordering after there 1st expansion, b ut try not to get overlap.