Need some Critique

[CivMonger]

Good morning boys and girls, trying to work on some strategies. Seems of late that I'm not able to push through to victory as effectively as I could before. I was thinking of going from Monarch to Emporer a couple months ago, but after coming back to play Civ IV from a break I'm having troubles with Monarch!

Latest BAT version, huge smart map, couple continents, epic game speed, permanent alliances, tech brokering, domination, conquest, and diplomatic victories.

I'd like to post my start and some saves as I play to get critique. How often should I post saves to get useful info?

Here's my start. Random rolled the dutch, moving to the east to settle along the coast. Warrior is going to the west to explore and grab huts. Building a couple warriors to assist with the scouting and try to grab all the huts I can.

Going straight for bronze working because I doubt I can get an early religion and there's lots of forests in the area to chop.

 

[CivMonger]

Mining, animal husbandry, and a scout from goodie huts. Lost a warrior to hostiles before my first warrior was build, found Ragnar to the north.

That'll be fun to deal with...

3300BC - now have three scouts, first warrior back to base to defend the city. Second warrior will be as well, building a worker after that. No copper readily available to me. Found Hammurabi as well, but no idea where his city is. Between Ragnar being a nut and Hammy having bowmen, along with no copper, axe rush is out of the question. Not that I've had much luck with that on this size of map mind you.

3000BC - two scouts, four warriors, DOT mapped future city placement around me for areas explored.

2475BC - entered into open borders with Hammy to the southwest. Figure war with Ragnar is probably a given eventually, may as well make friends with the others. Two scouts remaining, working irrigating for better capital growth, first settler half built. Going to the high food location to the northwest - building up cities towards Ragnar first. No war resources nearby, copper and horses both lacking. Hopefully iron pops up when I get that tech down the road.

2000BC - Found Rammy far to the west, scouts still working. Three early religions are founded, I have my second city. Building granaries to promote growth, cultural borders growing on their own. Going for archery so I can have some defence from the barbarians that are going to be a problem before too long.

1275BC - No religions on this land yet. Pushing for alphabet so I can trade techs. Barbarians starting to be a problem. Have 3 cities now. Plan is essentially build a city, then granary, work on a couple archers and a settler. No cities go out without 2 archers defending it. Need a couple extra archers here and there to defend mines and important passages. Need to build two more workers (three total) so I can improve my non-frontier cities and build them up.

925BC - Hammy and Rammy are confuscius. Hammy started it. Spearman and axemen starting to show up along my southern borders. Always from the south or southwest, never the north. 9 turns to alphabet, then iron working. Really hoping I'll have iron.

675BC - Got alphabet, traded it to Hammy for Iron Working. Have iron in my capital city BFC. Pretty sure dog farted.

Turn 146 425BC - Ragnar settled a city to the north of me, that explains no barbs from there. Now have six cities, trying to rush out some more settlers to do a quick land grab to the north-west and make sure Ragnar doesn't get it all. Some good resources there. Converted to Conf as well. Everyone but Ragnar is the same faith.

 

[Pangaea]

Can't load your savegame as I don't use BAT, so can you provide some screenshots?

 

[CivMonger]

Here ya go. The Native Americans just found me. I assume they are far to the northwest.

Starting to build research as my economy is at 30% science, no gold generated. Once I get currency I'll be working towards Code of Laws, unless I can trade for it.

Building a couple barracks as well as I need axemen and swordsmen to capture some barbarian cities and/or raze them.

Most cities are along the river or coast to take advantage of levees when I can build them later.

I've attached the 40AD save as well. I'm 4th out of 5, but the top three like me, don't have a huge city or point lead, and I'm about the same army strength as the rest of them. The economy is going to be a problem unless I get it on track real fast though. 4 turns until currency.

 

[Pangaea]

I see a lot of forests and unimproved tiles. How many workers do you have? One of the most important aspects to improve the game is to get on top of worker management. You need to improve your land better. Cut down the forest (preferably after Math, not (much) before), put up cottages and farms, and of course improve food and other resources.

 

[CivMonger]

200 turns in, 400AD, I have 8 workers. Generally I try to get a couple groups of workers and finish expanding before building more. But improving terrain more probably would be a good start to improving my game. I'll have to work that in, thanks.

760 AD - 15 cities, tied for first there. Monty is the hindu guy, just started war with Sitting Bull. Can't think of two better guys to fight eachother. I have 18 workers, building 6 more. Focusing on courthouses in my cities but need a couple catapults to help take a barbarian city as well. Once I have that barb city I'll be consolidating troops and attempt to build up for a war. Longbowmen, trebs, macemen to fight, don't have horses yet, that will have to be a war objective. Ragnar has horses, but there are also horses on the far side of the barb city Zapotec that I may be able to grab.

 

[Pangaea]

See only 8 workers in that last screenshot, but I guess you have got more later. You didn't have an army there btw, just a ton of archers. Have you waged war yet, or is that a plan for the future? In any case, don't use longbows offensively. They are good defenders, but near useless offensively. Maces, however, are good on the offensive, especially in combination with catas, or better yet, trebuchets.

Often the idea of these threads is to wait for advice, then play a little bit, then see what feedback you get again. When you just play like this it's kind of hard to offer good feedback. A key thing is to have enough workers in the beginning so your cities don't work unimproved tiles. At least 1 worker per city is a good ratio to keep in mind. If you have 18 workers for 15 cities, you probably have enough, depending on how much you have kept up with tile improvements.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Moved to Strategy and Tips. Best of luck.

 

[dutchfire]

In the 65 BC screenshots:
Not having the pigs at Rotterdam pastured is almost criminal. Improve food resources first so your cities can grow.

What are your city plans? What will each city do, production, commerce, etc.

Why are you building archers?

Consider settling closer to the capital. The clam 2E2N of Amsterdam is not being used. I would have put a city there, (and thus put Rotterdam a bit further N)

 

[Seraiel]

Your research is horrible. You're down to 10% but that are only 27 / turn, and that at 500 AD. You should do 200 / turn at 1 AD. Build more Cottages and run more Specialists. Also build Wealth and Science where appropriate. Don't build so many units for defense, all of them cost money as maintenance and you don't need a defensive army when your diplo is good.

 

[CivMonger]

In the 65 BC screenshots:
Not having the pigs at Rotterdam pastured is almost criminal. Improve food resources first so your cities can grow.

What are your city plans? What will each city do, production, commerce, etc.

Why are you building archers?

Consider settling closer to the capital. The clam 2E2N of Amsterdam is not being used. I would have put a city there, (and thus put Rotterdam a bit further N)

I generally only have a few cities specialize. I try to get enough food for growth, market and grocer for happy and health. Granary, courthouse, culture, production buildings.

Archers I build for defence and securing resources early on. On giant maps I've had a heck of a time with barbarians running through and pillaging things, which is why I've been lax on emphasizing workers. Which is probably shooting myself in the foot. I also didn't have any strategic resources for any troops but archers

I've attached the 1040AD save. Everyone is peaceful except Monty and Sitting fighting each other. I'm not going to lose at this pace, but I'm lagging behind and don't seem to be catching up enough to go to far to start clawing my way to victory. I'm going to restart a new game and try what I understand from this thread. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[CivMonger]

Same setup, rolled as the Holy Roman Empire this game. Squeaked out the Great Wall which helps with expansion, and stumbled into two religions as well. Much better start, lot more workers. Still nowhere remotely close to even beginning to hit 200 science by 1AD, but a "you should do this" without any context I'm just going to ignore. I can't see how to pull that off playing these settings.

Couple turns later Hatty asked me to go to Juidiasm, which put me, Hat, Julius, and Lincoln all Jewish and Monty Buddhist. Hammy has no religion yet. Not a bad spot to be at this point in game. Rushing Rathaus's in all my cities as well, continuing to expand but my weak army is needing to be strengthened too.

 

[Seraiel]

Still nowhere remotely close to even beginning to hit 200 science by 1AD, but a "you should do this" without any context I'm just going to ignore.

Yes, ignore the advice you get, that'll help.

 

[elitetroops]

Build more Cottages and run more Specialists. Also build Wealth and Science where appropriate. Don't build so many units for defense, all of them cost money as maintenance and you don't need a defensive army when your diplo is good.

I can't see how to pull that off playing these settings.

He already told you a big clue to how to pull it off. Just don't build units for defense. I usually have one warrior in the cities big enough to need it for happiness reasons, other cities might not have any garrison at all. This is playing a couple of levels higher than monarch. Some properly placed spawn busting warriors can take care of the barb problem. If they become more of a problem later, you can get a couple of chariots out that can take care of any incoming threat. Teching archery is usually a waste of beakers and building archers for city garrison is pretty much always a waste of hammers.

Use the hammers to build workers and settlers instead. Pick better city spots. In your Dutch game The Hague and Nijmegen don't have any food resource at all. Such spots should be avoided like the plague. Settle with food in first ring, for a creative civ food in 2nd ring is also okay, but still it's much better to have food in first ring. For example Middelburg would be much better 1S.

Build enough workers to make sure that no city is working a single unimproved tile. Improve all resources asap, cottage the riverside green stuff around capital, other cities either cottage or farm the grassland, mines on green hills and so on. If a city wouldn't have any good tiles to work even if they were improved (=plains tiles), run scientists instead. Or whip out the extra population.

To get 200/turn by 1AD, you need lots of cottages around capital, a couple of helper cities nearby that can work the cottages capital cannot work itself to make them grow, an academy in capital, and you should be running bureaucracy. Oracle->Civil Service is usually the way to go on lower levels.

 

[CivMonger]

He already told you a big clue to how to pull it off. Just don't build units for defense. I usually have one warrior in the cities big enough to need it for happiness reasons, other cities might not have any garrison at all. This is playing a couple of levels higher than monarch. Some properly placed spawn busting warriors can take care of the barb problem. If they become more of a problem later, you can get a couple of chariots out that can take care of any incoming threat. Teching archery is usually a waste of beakers and building archers for city garrison is pretty much always a waste of hammers.

Use the hammers to build workers and settlers instead. Pick better city spots. In your Dutch game The Hague and Nijmegen don't have any food resource at all. Such spots should be avoided like the plague. Settle with food in first ring, for a creative civ food in 2nd ring is also okay, but still it's much better to have food in first ring. For example Middelburg would be much better 1S.

Build enough workers to make sure that no city is working a single unimproved tile. Improve all resources asap, cottage the riverside green stuff around capital, other cities either cottage or farm the grassland, mines on green hills and so on. If a city wouldn't have any good tiles to work even if they were improved (=plains tiles), run scientists instead. Or whip out the extra population.

To get 200/turn by 1AD, you need lots of cottages around capital, a couple of helper cities nearby that can work the cottages capital cannot work itself to make them grow, an academy in capital, and you should be running bureaucracy. Oracle->Civil Service is usually the way to go on lower levels.

Build less troops doesn't work on slow game speeds on giant maps. When 2 or 3 barbarian units routinely hit your cities in one turn just one defence unit, and not even an archer, gets rocked pretty quick. The rest I can wrap my head around, and I'm trying to implement in my new game, but without copper, horses, and no iron yet, how would I defend my nations from axemen and spearmen with only warriors?

 

[elitetroops]

Barbarians shouldn't be hitting your cities at all. First of all, as long as you aren't playing with raging barbs, they won't enter your borders until the total amount of cities in the world is greater than 3 times the amount of civs. On monarch that gives you plenty of time to hook up horses or copper before you need to worry about the barb invasion.

Are you familiar with spawn busting mechanics? Barbs cannot spawn within 2 tiles from any other unit (your unit, AI unit, or other barb unit). A few warriors 3-4 tiles outside your borders, 5 tiles apart, can in this way create a barb free zone around you. Often this barb free zone extends close enough to your neighbor, so that any barbs spawning outside it will head towards your neighbor, not towards you. If you can fortify your spawn busting warriors in forests, or even forest hills, they have good chances to survive incoming archers. If there is so much empty room around you that they still keep coming, then you send out a couple of axes or chariots to fend them off. In any case those units in your cities do you no good, the barbs should never get that far. That only gives them a chance to pillage your improvements on the way there, and barbs within your borders would probably be interfering with your worker actions.

Depending on map layout, you might sometimes be able to completely secure all your lands from barbs with 5-6 warriors, which is a lot cheaper than building the Great Wall. And those warriors come in handy later as military police in your cities. This is why the Great Wall a lot of the time isn't worth building, unless you want the Great Spy points.

Axes and spears come so late that by then you should be more than prepared to take care of them in case they happen to wander towards you.