My Problem

[Point13]

I'll put it this way.

I am a builder plain and simple, I seem to have trouble forcing myself to expand and build my military but as for building all those new fancy temples? Sure why not, can't hurt. My capital ALWAYS is very good in culture.

I have no problems trying for a culture win I usually go into the game thinking along those lines...

Then I meet my new neighbors which always seem to be Monty, Genghis and Alexander. Just my luck

So war always breaks out

I usually lose.

I play on Noble. I've had one successful game on a tiny map as England because I swallowed 1/3 of the map and I was going to win but then power goes out in the house and I accidently save over the autosave.

How can I force myself into expanding like crazy, if only enough to build off my builder attitude?

 

[Thedrin]

Do you found and/or spread religions? If so, and since having access to religions gives access to a lot of culture-giving buildings, play a few games where you do neither. This will put you at a disadvantage, particularly if you base any part of your game plan on religions, put it will allow you to concentrate on other aspects of the game.

Play a few games - the same few as above - where you don't build any wonders. Not one. The disadvantages are minute (there are only a handful of universally useful wonders) and, again, it'll allow you to concentrate on other aspects of the game. If you're used to building Stonehenge you might want to do this with a creative leader at first since getting culture by other means can take some getting used to.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After you've done the above, get into city specialisation. Pick the city (or two cities) you have with the largest production (or projected largest production) and only build one of two things in it:
1) military units,
2) buildings that will help that city build military units (increased population caps as needed, a granary, a forge, etc.).

Pick a few cities with plenty of food for a commerce specialisation and only build:
1) buildings that will in someway boost its commerce output,
2) buildings that boost its beaker output,
3) buildings that will boost its gold ouput.

There are a couple of exceptions to the above build lists. For example, courthouses should go everywhere.

The advantages of that are a more efficient empire and less cities in which you can focus on culture. For non culture victories, the only cities in which you should focus on culture are those which are in danger of losing territory to another empire.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

My recommendation would be to play a few games where you run Hereditary Rule, and concentrate on using military police (units) to provide happiness to your cities, rather than temples and resources.

 

[Killroyan]

Welcome to Anonymous Builders 101. My name is Killroyan and I was an AB too. That was untill one game where I had the perfect start and was expanding like mad, but defending cities lightly with archer and warriors, etc... Then Alexander came knocking on my door with Phalanxes, axemen and horse archers. Not funny. Cured at once.

Try playing a game where you only get 3-5 cities max at start and then start concentrating on taking over a neighbour. Build only military and enjoy the sweet taste of victory after you kick somebody out of the game. Then swallow his land and get going again.

Good advice, take a look at the ALC series where Sisiutil uses a very good mix of military and building on prince level. (ALC = All Leader Challenge)

 

[BundtCake]

Yeah, this is the problem that I have, too. I'm too tempted by all of the shiny things to build in my cities and end up developing my empire until the 1500's. Only at that point do I start looking outward to expansion...

So those wonders can be safely avoided, huh?

'Cake

 

[futurehermit]

You can be a builder, you can win cultural victory, but you CANNOT CANNOT ignore the power graph and your military. If you fall behind in military, especially with aggressive civs on the horizon (which you should EXPECT not be surprised/dismayed to see), you will get beat on, usually by 2+ civs at a time = gg.

You can play completely peacefully but you must:

1) Have a large military to discourage attacks
2) Use diplomacy. Befriend aggressive neighbours and bribe them to attack someone else. If they're attacking someone else, they're not attacking you...

 

[Sparta]

I'd agree completely with futurehermit's sentiments - neglecting military in favor of other goals, while tempting, is a surefire way to paint a big target on your civ's back. (Also, consider that building a few extra units in lieu of infrastructure early on can often gain you a couple extra resources through conquest (or just defend your own), which in the long run will serve your empire far better than an extra temple or two would have.)

So those wonders can be safely avoided, huh?

You can typically become more powerful by not investing all that production into those nice shiny wonders. Think of your wonder production investment in terms of military units you are sacrificing to (attempt to) acquire that wonder, and they really lose some of their luster (IMHO). Building the pyramids without stone or Industrious just cost you 14 axes . Think how much land and dominance you could achieve with all those units in the ancient era - getting a slight bonus from a wonder really doesn't add up most times (and is typically impermanent anyway).

An excellent article which expands on this idea, and can be quite helpful for newer players suffering from wonder addiction, can be found here (granted, it is based on Civ3, but it is still very relevant in its core concepts, IMHO):

The Four Rules of Wonder Addiction, by Ision

(For really new players, note that the article's Civ3 shields == Civ4 hammers - either just represent production units.)

Good luck!

 

[Sparta]

Here's another comparison for you to consider, Captainkeyes23 and BundtCake (sorry for the double post):

Very early game, assuming neither Spiritual (cheaper temples) or Imperialistic (cheaper settlers), one temple is going to cost 80 hammers, while a settler will cost 100 (on normal speed, and note that whipping (after one turn) to produce the settler with hammer investment is more efficient than producing him 'regularly' with a horrible 1:1 hammers:food conversion). If we figure you can still get by with an archer/axe (or even axe/spear) combo to defend the city for the short term, that's another 60 or 70 hammers to found a new city and have some token defence in it.

So we're now looking at roughly double the cost of a temple to add an entire new city to your empire!! Let's say for the sake of argument that there is a new luxury or food resource in this new city. Since most resources have associated buildings that can double their health or happiness bonus, you're talking an eventual almost-two-average health or happiness bonus across your entire empire, for the same investment as would yield +1 happiness in two cities from temples. This doesn't even get into the fact that this new city is going to continuously augment your empire's production, income, and landmass control, ideally for the entire rest of the game.

IMHO, while there is still 'free' land available, (excessive) infrastructure (beyond granaries and occasional barracks, and maybe a rare monument or two for non-religious border popping if needed) is a losing investment - get out there and grab those resources while you still can!

 

[ChicagoCubs]

I too am a peaceful builder, but I noticed the lack of my army. Here are some of my guidelines:

1. Have at least one defender in each city.
2. To boost your power rating, build some barracks.
3. Have a decent amount of troops to handle the barbarian threat. These should not be the troops from item #1.
4. Whenever I finish building a wonder, I will then build a military unit.
5. Any time there is a new unit available (after discovering a tech), I will build at least one of those units.
6. The moment I hook up a resource (copper, ivory, steel), if I have the tech to build that unit (axeman, elephant, swordsman), I will crank out one of them.
7. If I reach a point that I don't have any buildings to construct in the build menu, I will produce new units to replace obsolete ones. Many builders will upgrade their units, but for a city defender, you probably haven't promoted it, so just build a new, better one.

This allowed me to have a decent, deterring force. While my army may not be poised for an attack somewhere, or all that well organize, my power rating will be decent and the AI will take that into consideration.

Also, as a builder, I notice that there are times that I won't have anything to move except my workers. If you have open borders with someone (especially you neighbors), build some 2-move units and go scouting. You can get a feel for what they are producing and perhaps gear up for defense against them.

 

[Collier20]

FYI - I play fractual, small, epic, monarch

Cultural victory is my favorite form of victory. I dont like domination, try to trade with everyone and no one likes me enough for a diplomatic victory, I am not a warmonger (takes out conquest and domination), and the space race is a sort of default victory. The key to winning a cultural victory is religion, found every religion you can, open your borders so religions spread, and keep off merc. so you have more foreign trade routes. Build montersaries because even after they go dead, you can still use them to build missionaries (Organized Religion also allows this later in the game). You need three cities with legendary status to win culturally and on a small map (which i play on bc my computer cant hand standard later on in the game), you need two shrines for each catherdal. This means you need six cities. Three of your cities should do nothing but build building that increase culture (Wonders, NW, shrines, catherdals, libraries, theaters, universities, monts, walls so you can build castles). The other three should build every shrine they can. Out of these three cities, turn one into a Specialist Farm, one into a military city, and use the third to pick up the sack in other areas (building missionaries, ships, specialist, etc). Your closest neighbor is always going to go to war with you. He is not going to be afraid of your puny army, so you got to be smart about it. The AI's keep large garrisons in most of their cities. You should keep a large garrison in your most vulernable city (this is usually the one I have building units), and keep one or two other units in your other five cities. Make sure you have a strong navy to keep other civs away. This is the only time I find iron clads useful. The dont many movement points so, you will need a lot to defend your coastline if someone decides to attack, usually SoD in the seas consist of three frigates and three galleons loaded. So have plenty of ironclads ready to swarm if you see one approaching. Its a lot easier for your iron clads to destroy frigates and galleons than it is for your land units to destroy other land units. Also as soon as you see there ships off your shoreline, start moving your land troops to intercept (a fully developed road/rail network and compact empire is key). You dont have many units garrison in each city, and it would take long for the AI to over power them. An industrious leader is very helpful for winning a cultural victory. Louis's salon is very nice, but the Inca's terrance (a granary with +2 culture) and financial combo, and Qin's protective and pavillion are also useful.

 

[futurehermit]

Cultural victory does go hand-in-hand with playing a peaceful-builder game. Diplomacy is very important.

Try this:

-Dedicate a couple (or one) high-production city to build wonders. Dedicate a couple decent production cities to building troops (non-stop pretty much). Dedicate a couple cities to commerce. Build your temples, etc. when you are able to (consider going the pyramids approach where you buy all of your temples--see the deity cultural thread).

By dedicating certain cities to units you'll consistently be raising your power graph. I think the problem people get into with the builder approach is that they tie up most/all of their cities with building wonders and buildings. You need some cities to be just pumping out troops non-stop to keep up with aggressive ai civs.

 

[Winston Hughes]

How can I force myself into expanding like crazy, if only enough to build off my builder attitude?

For me, the key to overcoming builder-syndrome was to have a crack at a couple of challenges that demand military expansion. In particular, playing the "Super Size Me!" challenge helped to get me out of the habit, although you could just start a pangea (or terra) game and make your sole early priority the elimination of your nearest neighbour asap. Explore, build units, kill kill kill - don't even plan for the long-term; the point isn't to win the game, but to get yourself a feel for how and when to use force. If you should fail first time, or if you think you could stomp them even earlier (if, for example, you could have got axes earlier or won with less units), then just restart from the initial save and give it another go.

Once you've developed your warlike instincts, you can go back to playing in a mostly builderish manner; you don't have to war constantly to win, but you do need to prepare for, identify and exploit the expansion opportunities that arise over the course of the game.

Imo, the tips given above can all be useful, but the most important thing is to get yourself into the habit of just going for it. Sure, sometimes you'll be in a position to use overwhelming force, but more often you need to have the nerve to go ahead even though your forces seem a little underwhelming.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Ive found that religion is huge when trying to avoid war. If you have two neighbors...Napoleon and Gandhi...take Napoleon's religion.

One game I was able to take the same religion as the most powerful civ. Eventually I was able to get a defensive pact fairly quick...all you need is military tradition. Get to liberalism first, grab nationalism as your free tech, military tradtion is next. You can get it somewhat early...before riflemen. Make sure not to trade to your allies' "worst enemies" and you're set.

And, like others have mentioned, diplomacy is key in starving off war. Sometimes I hate it but I'll give in to almost every demand, only backing off if they ask to call off my deals with a civ that is a threat to me. If you're going for a cultural win, it wont be as big of a deal if you give away techs...though hold on to military techs. Gifting techs that arent that big of a deal (like optics) can also be easy + diplo points.

 

[Point13]

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback!

I've started a game as the Aztecs and actually haven't been to war yet, I'm a close second in points to Louis XIV and I managed to keep out of a war between England and France (both wanted me) and I'm constantly having to turn down cancel deals with France demands (Nobody likes him) however he's the other power broker on the block so I'm playing nice with him for now. Cyrus is really tempting to the northwest but we've had good relations the whole game and he's Buddhist as well.

If anybody would be willing to take a look at my game and tell me how I'm doing I'd appreciate. BTW yes, I know those stacks of jaguars are outdated, they were there in case I ever wanted to help England contain France


Edit: well I finally caved and took advantage of England grabbing the Christian Holy City (Warwick) along with Newcastle and Canterbury. I also teched to Astronomy and settled a city on the large island in the ocean. I intend to build 1 or 2 more cities on that island and then build one on its smaller neighbor.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I've had a look at the save and, unless I'm missing something, you're in a whole heap of trouble. Louis looks extremely threatening. He's already taken a chunk of England and he'll surely be back for more soon. At the same time, he's leading the tech race, and has good relations with Mali and the Incas (you might want to try and get those two to fight each other). Worse, you and your fellow religionists are weak in comparison (although America is shaping up to be a tech-monster), and would stand no chance in a world war against Louis and his pals.

As for your own development... Man, you weren't lying about being a builder, were you? Your main problem (again, unless I'm missing something) seems to me to be a lack of focus. What are you building all this stuff FOR? You've got a lot of culture buildings, but little (if any) hope of winning a cultural victory as your cities haven't been developing cottages, and so can't get enough culture out of the slider.

The castles you're building at the moment are a case in point: your culture is building up a decent defence already, and if you ever come to need the extra defence bonus, you're probably doomed anyway. Besides, in most cases troops are a much better defence than walls and castles, not least because they can be moved from city to city. You also seem to have promoted your troops ahead of time. Save those promotions for when you know what you'll need.

More generally, I have three suggestions:

1) Play a couple of games bloodlust-style. Just get out there and kill everything that moves; don't build anything that doesn't add almost immediately to your killing power.

2) Have a go at a game where you prioritise research above all else, and take a single path up the tech tree, leaving loads of early techs til later. See if you can get to a powerful tech WAY before the AI. Perhaps try a financial leader and cottage spam, or a philosophical leader and a pyramids-powered specialist economy.

3) Read as many articles and threads on this forum as you can. Try out some ideas you pick up (including some of the more outlandish ones), and maybe have a go at of one or two of the saves you find, and compare your approach with those taken by other players.

Ultimately, of course, its up to you how you want to play the game, and as long as you're enjoying yourself... Nevertheless, I've found that civ gets more and more enjoyable the better I get at using different strategies. I'm still a builder at heart, and I probably still build stuff I don't need in every game. But the beauty of civ4, imo, is the huge range of different strategies and playing styles you can try out; one day it's a play for religious dominance, the next it's a policy of steady military-powered expansion, and the next it's a wonder-building whip and chop frenzy.

Happy hunting!

Edit: Sorry, I started writing before your edit. Sounds like you had a good war, although I'd wager that you and Louis will come to blows before the game is over, especially now that you're nextdoor neighbours and all.

 

[Point13]

Overall, the more recent save was an improvement for me. All those jaguars sitting there are Rifleman and are garrisoned along the English border, I have solo access to those islands and I'm neck and neck for the tech lead (If only that bastard Washington hadn't gotten liberalism)

I'm still not sure how I'm gonna win though. I won't win by culture and probably not domination or conquest.

Space race COULD happen. We go into the race with the same teches and I start whipping and buying my parts. If not I can just get into a war with France and bring in say Mali from behind to shave off the small lead he has and win by default after 2050, risky but I MIGHT be able to pull this out.