Need help... a lot of help

[Joul Ironhand]

Morning guys. Long time lurker, not a major poster, but I have finally decided to post asking for the advice of the community.

In short, my problem: I can't play Civ 4, and I can't seem to grasp how to do well...

Not sure how much time i have to type out my thoughts, but here we go. Since lacking an internet connection to play a certain MMO (hehe), i decided to give Civ 4 and Warlords a try.

Played many games, lost them all, currently playing on Noble level.

My basic tactic, after reading a number of posts on these forums, is to found a quick religion (Hindu, Buddhism), spread it as fast as possible, then get a Great Prophet to build the unique religious building, and then rake in the cash. I then started to do this...

If i went for hinduism, another person went for buddhism, and somehow spreads the religion faster than me...not too bad, at least i had another ally who i'd converted to my own religion.

During my crazy amount of building (focusing on wonders, other cultural buildings such as theatres), someone declares war on me. Right, thats not too bad...

*switches to war economy*. I change everything to building an army, use the slavery civic to rush build an army, and I manage to hold off the enemy, but my economy gets ruined (lots of dead citizens, cities down to 2 or 3 population).

Then another person declares war on me, and, obviously, I can't hold out on two different fronts. **starts a new game**

The thing is, if I focus totally on building a military, then the costs of military could be high (if its similar to Civ 3 in that respect), and then i'll be well behind on building wonders and cultural buildings. If costs are high, then i'll have to reduce my science output to pay for the military, and then i'll fall behind in the technology race, and therefore be out of the game because i'll have a lack of updated units.

If i tried to counter this with the "crazy spreading religion to get money" tactic, i'll spend my time building missionaries instead of military and cultural buildings, and therefore be behind on the military units front.

My current idea is to have one city focusing on building just military units and buildings (barracks, walls, stables), and then keeping these units ready to deal with any attacks, or even take the fight to the enemy.

The usual Civ i choose is Ramesses II of the Egyptians. Don't know why (the unique building isnt great, and the chariot is kinda... well, meh, in my opinion). Something about Rammy which I like.

Well, i'm on a university connection in their library at the moment, so I probably won't be able to check till later this afternoon. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I give up totally on playing this great game.

Thanks for reading!

Joul

 

[shivute]

1. play a level or 2 below noble
2. play a protective civ
3. get the balance right between units and buildings
4. don't build buildings or wonders when they aren't much use
5. view the power rating graph against neighbouring AI, try and keep up with them
6. build more units - 2 or 3 production cities with barracks to pump them out.
7. Don't bother with budism or hinduism - I find this to be a major distraction. I prefer to conquer a shrine city and to build stonehenge and the oracle. The oracle gives a good chance of christianity or confucianism - as does the priest from the wonders.
8. if your military cost is high, then go to war. I try not to fall under 60% research.
9. learn war, don't waste units.
10. Short wars are great for limited expansion
11. play marathon. I love it. You have lots more turns, you can make more mistakes and still win, and it make learning war easier.
12. The AI is very poor. It is easy to beat and easy to learn to beat, don't be scared of going to war
13. learn how to use the different units of the period to wage effective war and defence.

These are a few basic tips that i would find to be of use. If you are a long time lurker though, you should have picked up good tips from reading other posts.

 

[cabert]

there are some good tips on the forums (hey, there even is a war academy now), read and read more

Main factors IMHO :
- get to know the game (all the concepts are useful, you can't focus on just 1 thing)
- particularly get to know the tech tree
- learn how the different AI leaders work (montezuma is a psycho, isabella is a religion nut, mansa musa is a tech whore, tokugawa is isolationnist, ...)
- don't wait for others to declare war, do it yourself!

 

[spoooq]

Always try to do "just enough" to get by. You know how you dont build units, because you think youve got just enough for defence? Apply the same logic to ALL aspects - culture, religion, military, tech, buildings, wonders, units. If you build just enough of everything, you'll find you -have- just enough of everything and maybe a bit left over too to really push ahead where it counts. Specialisation is useful, but it requires a base to support it.

The usual Civ i choose is Ramesses II of the Egyptians. Don't know why (the unique building isnt great, and the chariot is kinda... well, meh, in my opinion). Something about Rammy which I like.

I think this is the best way to choose a civ. Rather than min/maxing your own natural strategy, take one you like the idea of. Then try to play to its strengths. You'll learn a lot more that way. Im playing with Monty at the moment because Im terrible at war and being ruthless, and its helping my game no end.

 

[Joul Ironhand]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll try this tonight

Joul

 

[Bierp]

Joul,

Are you building and working cottages? You don't mention it in your original post.

It took me a while to realize the true value of these things, but when I did I went from struggling at noble to dominating at noble and moving up difficulties.

The commerce generated from cottages (then hamlets, villages and towns) can keep you in the running for techs and generates good gold at need by dialing down the slider.

If you haven't tried a cottage based economy it's worth a look. Do a search for "cottage spamming" for a hundred threads on the subject.

Hope that helps,
B

 

[lilnev]

1. For now, forget about founding religions. The financial returns are quite small (at least until the mid-game). The most important aspect of religion is the diplomatic effects -- adopt the religion of the neigbor(s) you most want to like you, or stay without one.
2. For now, forget about Wonders. Learn the basics of the game first. Wonders can add extra layers of strategy later, but you need to get a handle on the basics first.
3. For now, forget about culture (almost). The only culture that matters is the first 10 so that you can work your full fat cross. After that, culture is worth barely more than zero. You could play a Creative leader, and the first 10 will take of itself.
4. I'm guessing Bierp is right, and you need more cottages. About 2/3 of your cities should be primarily cottage-based -- as many as they can work, subject to food and happiness limits.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Andorim]

I would like to add two points:

Religion is great -- but it is not that great. Don't make a high prioroity to found and spread a religion until you have a better handle on the rest of the game. It is sort of like the whipped cream on a sundae -- really nice but not essential.

Second, watch the power graph throughout the game every 10 turns or so. Don't let yourself drop to the bottom of the list -- or even the bottom half of the list. If you appear weak to the other civs, they will start a war against you. It doesn't matter how many wonders or how much culture you have built, if you can't protect the cities from invaders. Remember that weakly defended cities, that have wonders or shrines, are especially attractive to stronger, more aggressive civs.

Hang in there.

 

[Wlauzon]

1. For now, forget about founding religions. The financial returns are quite small (at least until the mid-game). The most important aspect of religion is the diplomatic effects -- adopt the religion of the neigbor(s) you most want to like you, or stay without one.

lilnev

I disagree. Should try it both ways. just play the same 4000BC saved game twice, and go for a couple of religions in one, and not in the other.

Religion are a VERY iffy thing, and they depend a BUNCH on how you play and what maps. If you are on pangea with 16 civs, forget it, try to not get any at all. On the other hand if you are playing a custom continents game with 5 other civs, and you have the continent all to yourself for a while, beeline for everyone you can get and also the Spiral Minaret.

There are so many possible variations in this game there is ZERO advice that fits all situations (well maybe some, but not much).

For example, one of my favorite games is huge continents x6, no barbs. I play a Spiritual, beeline hog every religion I can (I have gotten as many as 6). Then research and expand like crazy until you start getting visits from other annoyed civs. Then you switch to emphasizing military and navy units.

Ideally, about 900 years ago you planted a city in their back yard that is now heavily fortified and you have flight for airlifts....

And then there is cultural wins - one of the hardest, as you need 3 cities of legendary status. That means you need a lot of wonders and a lot of great artists. And it can be done on Prince level (probably not higher).

I play with space and UN turned off (a UN victory always seemed so lame...) But some live and die for the space race.

Bottom line is, learn the basics first - what does what, and why. That is not easy, but once you do, you can adapt to any game type or custom game scenario. The simplest things, like don't attack fortified riflemen in cities with 100% culture bonus unless you have 832 tanks...

And BTW, having 6 religions and the Spiral Minaret at the end game gives me hundreds of gold per turn.

 

[cabert]

on warlords, vassalizing a financial civ gives me hundreds of gold too