Need Strategic Critique And Advice

[GrilledCheesies]

Hi Fanatics,

Long time lurker, first time poster, and even longer time player. I've been enjoying Civ 4 casually for several years and over the past month have been becoming more serious about how I play. What I am going to attach is the first game I'm doing my best to play right. What I mean by that is directing workers manually from start to finish and generally trying to make the most out of every turn. The map is the continents_0_68 type and so far it appears I'm isolated with Stalin on a medium sized continent.

The sort of advice I'm looking for is a general critique of my strategy and advice on how to proceed from the current position. I'm playing Elizabeth and setting up to run an SE but first I think it is more important to get rid of Stalin before he becomes too strong. The power parity between him and I isn't great, with me sitting at 0.9 according to BUG. Building the Pyramids seems to have slowed down my play some and left me in what I think in somewhat decent shape but lacking workers and thus improvements. And I know Hastings, SW of London there, is in a poor spot but the horses looked too far away from me and the land to the SE looked too barren food wise. I figured with the clams and corn I could at least use it to whip out a few units when the time comes.

My idea is to research Construction and whip myself up an army of catapults, swordsmen, and a few axemen. There's a small indent in Stalin's borders next to Moscow which I'm aiming to exploit. Once I feel I have enough units I plan to roll them up, declare war, then capture Moscow and roll on for one more city if the battle went wall or aim for a ceasefire until I can build an army able to finish Stalin off. My production isn't great but I think with some forges and whipping I'll be able to attain slight military superiority over Stalin and capture Moscow at least. This is the primary plan I would appreciate advice and guidance about.

If the above plan is successful I plan to steer towards the SE oriented civics, set London up to be my primary GP farm and found at least two production cities since none of the ones I have seem well placed for hammers. Because I intend to be alone at that point, barring a wily Stalin, my general goals are to develop my empire and head for Rifling (once my SE economy is running strong) to get the UU as a deterrence measure against the other AI I meet.

Once the Redcoats are protecting my cities I intend to go for Democracy and make the transition to a CE. (This is my first time running an SE.) After that it is onwards to a victory condition since I doubt I'll be able to project enough power against mature AI empires to score a conquest victory. I sort of want to try for a cultural victory but I've never gotten one or even attempted one so I have zero experience on that front. The intention is to use my GP to zip over to Mass Media, build the UN, and score a diplomatic win by being kind to whoever I meet after Stalin.

So, what do y'all think? Feel free to tear apart my plans and tell me that I'm playing all wrong.

Thanks,
GrilledCheesies

 

[elitetroops]

Hello and welcome to CFC!

I had a look at your save, and there sure is a lot to improve on. How to proceed form the current position is not the problem. How you got there is.

No 1 rule of CIV: Food comes first. Research food technologies first, improve food resources first, build granaries as first build in most cities and certainly it should be up in capital long before 1 AD. In fact, you haven't built a single granary yet, nor built a single cottage, which makes me wonder why you researched pottery in the first place. (Researching it was the right move though, not building granaries is a huge mistake).

When you settle your capital, look for strong food resources and try to include them in the BFC (you could see the corn but did not include it). Later, settle cities with food resources in the inner ring and have those food resources improved immediately. Hastings is in a good spot (though you should ideally have had a workboat there ready to improve the clams immediately after it was settled), York and Nottingham are really bad. Not only do they lack immediate access to food, they are both also one off the coast.

Speaking of coast, explore it better. I can see immediately that your continent might not be as isolated as you think. Turn on tile yield display and look at the tile 3W of Hastings. That tile cannot possibly be worked by a city on your continent, yet it displays a tile yield, which means it can be worked from some other landmass. You shouldn't cut corners when exploring coast. Corners actually reveal the most, like tiles like that one. You can also see some islands to the east of Stalin and there's a bunch of ocean tiles on the east coast that look like they have coast on the other side as well. You should have an exploring workboat circling you continent to find possible passageways to other civs.

I can't help noticing that you are in slavery, you have no whip anger in your cities, yet you lack all the basic infra. Whip more. Whip granaries, whip settlers, whip workers and whip units when you go to war. This is the most efficient for of production at this stage of the game (as long as you build those granaries).

And what's up with all those archers? An appropriate army for this empire at this date on noble level would consist of maybe 3-4 warriors. Maybe throw in one extra axe to fight off the occasional barb warrior. You have Pyramids and Representation, don't even need military units to keep your small cities happy at the moment. Even if you get attacked, no Noble AI will ever send a stack in the BCs that cannot be countered by last minute archer whips. The only reason you want a bigger army is to attack someone. Archers are not made for attacking, hence you should not be building them. Nor should you ever tech archery on noble. Except if you need it for Horse Archers. Had you built axes instead of archers, you would already have enough units to just walk down to Stalin and wipe him off this planet.

As for your plan, what do you mean by transitioning to CE? You don't have a single cottage built in 75 BC. Cottages should be built early and worked. By 75 BC you should have several villages already, soon to become towns. This map is not really good for cottages though, you want a capital with lots of riverside for the best benefit there. Your best bet for a strong economy on this particular map would have been Great Lighthouse and spamming coastal cities. Until you get down to the Gold/Corn close to Stalin, there's no compelling reason to settle any non-coastal cities at all. With GLH every coastal city becomes a net gain (especially if you explore better to find other continents earlier).

Overall, in 75 BC you have 4 cities and do 30/turn with slider at 100%. Those numbers should be more like 7-8 cities and >100/turn, and that's with just basic sound gameplay, no fancy tricks to push the limits. Your tech choices have been odd throughout. There's a ton of techs you should have by now but don't have, and several techs you do have which you could have skipped for a long time.

So really, you should not be asking for how to fix the holes in your boat, you should be asking how to avoid hitting those rocks in the first place. The best place for that is the Strategy and Tips forum. There are plenty of threads there by posters in similar positions that already contain a lot of the basic advice you would need. You can look for those or start an own thread with a game you want advice on. If you post a game, post before playing at all, just attach starting save and opening screenshot. Wait for comments, then play on in short bits, waiting for advice every 20-30 turns or so. This is the best way to learn. Or, I also just now noticed that a new Nobles's Club map was posted. Join in there, post regular updates for feedback and read about how other players have tackled the map. There should be some discussion on the start in that thread soon enough to give you an idea about what things you should consider when settling your first city, and more discussion later on how to tackle whatever challenges that map might have to offer.

 

[GrilledCheesies]

All of what you said sounds like great advice and I am definitely going to try to incorporate it into future games. I might even go back to my first turn save and see how much of a difference putting what you said into play makes. Such a detailed reply is very appreciated and I think you for it. Searching the coast with a work boat is something I may never have thought of on my own.

After reading your response I have only a single question, you say that I should be churning out >100/turn by now. I've read the majority of the articles in the War Academy and am learning how to apply the lessons from there but I don't see how such a high science rate is possible especially if I'm whipping away population that could be working commerce focused tiles. Would you mind explaining your approach to achieving that sort of science rate to me? You'd be my best friend if you did.

 

[Gator Country]

All of what you said sounds like great advice and I am definitely going to try to incorporate it into future games. I might even go back to my first turn save and see how much of a difference putting what you said into play makes. Such a detailed reply is very appreciated and I think you for it. Searching the coast with a work boat is something I may never have thought of on my own.

After reading your response I have only a single question, you say that I should be churning out >100/turn by now. I've read the majority of the articles in the War Academy and am learning how to apply the lessons from there but I don't see how such a high science rate is possible especially if I'm whipping away population that could be working commerce focused tiles. Would you mind explaining your approach to achieving that sort of science rate to me? You'd be my best friend if you did.

Welcome to the forums.

There are a few things you can do. The first thing is to ensure that your cities have good food resources and granaries, so the whipped population will quickly come back.

The second thing is to build libraries, for which you need to research Writing, which is a vital early tech that you need to get as soon as possible. Besides increasing your tech rate, a library allows you to run up to two science specialists, who will further increase your tech rate, plus accumulate Great Scientist points. A Great Scientist can build an Academy in your city, or he can join your city as a super specialist (both of which give more tech rate boosts). He can also "bulb" (discover) a new tech for you or start a Golden Age, but you really shouldn't use your first GS's for either of those.

Finally, make sure you're founding new cities as quickly as you can, so you can control more land and increase your population, so they can produce more commerce (which translates into more beakers) for you. Balancing early expansion with keeping your economy afloat is one of the first things you need to learn, but there are plenty of people here willing to help you with that lesson.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Also forget obsolete concepts such as CE or SE, unfortunately many articles in the war academy are horribly outdated. What you ideally want is a capital surrounded by cottages which gets boosted by the Bureaucracy civic, one or two cities with lots of food that employ scientists around the clock, and the rest of your cities working resources and riverside tiles while regularly whipping away the surplus population.

 

[elmurcis]

Flexible Hybrid economy is what wins game. You can have capital that works specialists for some time while "helper cities" around it grow up cottages. Once Burea is on (or cottages are villages already) you just switch roles for cities.
Also atleast 5 cities by 1000 BC is what you need. Building Stonehenge was tottaly fine but after that had to pump out settlers. Really - land is power. And overexpansion on Noble can't be done
For defense 1 single warrior or archer is enough if you take care about diplo and send few best units to deal with barbs.
If you plan to go war you want to whip/build/chop units quickly so you can save unit maintence. No need for ~10 units in that south city. Totally wasted money and production. As long as Stalin don't get into "war mode" (that "angry hand" next civ info right down corner) you are safe (few times when both isolated from others can get attack without it but.. thats totally bad luck and deserve reload ).
So my suggestion is that you start new game with random leader (so can adapt to open situation) and wait for responses. Believe me - after some time you will get more fun from civ than now can imagine if basics are done and you know what you do good or bad.
And be the one who is looking for attack not the one who defend. AI already took defender role

 

[elitetroops]

After reading your response I have only a single question, you say that I should be churning out >100/turn by now. I've read the majority of the articles in the War Academy and am learning how to apply the lessons from there but I don't see how such a high science rate is possible especially if I'm whipping away population that could be working commerce focused tiles. Would you mind explaining your approach to achieving that sort of science rate to me? You'd be my best friend if you did.

Let's assume your capital is in the space it is now. It should definitely have had a lighthouse up a thousand years ago, since the strongest food is a seafood tile. With a lighthouse, all 4 lake tiles would currently produce 33. You are currently working 3 non riverside grassland farms that produce only 3. (Know that every population point eats 2 food, so the real gain of having this population is tile production -2. In other words, working a grass farm is +1, working a Financial lighthouse boosted lake is +13. Quite a lot better.) With the lighthouse you would not need those grassland farms and all green tiles could have been cottaged instead. By now they should be villages, which for a financial leader means 4/cottage for the capital. Working 3 villages, 4 lakes, clams and cows at pop 9 nets you 29 (including 1 from city tile).

Next, let's look at trade routes. Earlier I mentioned The Great Lighthouse. That gives +2 trade routes/coastal city. You should also have Currency by now for one additional trade route. Trade routes are calculated automatically to give the best gain, no need to worry about that. But here's to give you an idea of the values early on:

-Domestic trade route between 2 cities on the same landmass: 1
-Foreign trade route between 2 cities on the same landmass: 2
-Domestic trade route between 2 cities on different landmasses: 2
-Foreign trade route between 2 cities on different landmasses: 3

As you can see, foreign trade routes are much better. You can have only one trade route/foreign city though, which is why you want to meet and open borders with a lot of civs. If you have Great Lighthouse and 7 coastal cities, you'd need 28 foreign trade routes for max gain, which might not be possible at this date on noble (they expand too slow). However, you can have unlimited amounts of trade routes to your own cities. This is why scouting the coast and finding islands is important. If you have 6 coastal cities on the main land and Great Lighthouse, most of the trade routes will be 1c domestic trade routes. Settle an island and every city immediately gets one trade route upgraded to 2c. In addition, that island city get 4 2c trade routes on it's own. That's an immediate gain of 14, which easily overcomes the maintenance cost.

Let's get back to capital. Assume you have currency and the Great Lighthouse, and you have found the civs on the other continent. Capital made 29 from working tiles, in addition it now gets 12 commerce from trade routes, for a total of 41. Capital should have a library by now, and you are Philosophical and could have easily generated a Great Scientist by now to create an Academy. (In high level play the Academy would be questionable with such a commerce poor capital, but if you don't know about better things to do, using first GS for Academy in capital is never a really bad choice). Put 41 through library and academy and this becomes 71/turn. If you had been focusing your tech path a bit better, you could also have Civil Service by now for Bureaucracy. In bureau, the commerce in capital gets multiplied by +50% to 61/turn, then runs through Academy and library to become 106/turn. And that is only your capital! I said 7-8 cities, so 6-7 more cities also contribute with trade routes and worked tiles. In reality you should be above 200/turn.

You might be thinking that this is assuming a lot of techs that you don't have, like Currency and Civil Service. But with wiser early choices, your teching would have been much faster from the start and you could easily have those techs by now.

As for whipping, if you had settled your cities with immediate access to food and built granaries early, they could be bigger than they are now despite some whipping. Granaries double the growth rate. They would also have been built earlier and you would have more workers available to improve the land around them.

 

[elitetroops]

I played on a little bit from your save. Took me 15 turns to triple your research rate and reach the promised 100/turn by 300 AD. One turn from the last save capital 3 pop whipped the forge into granary, then built lighthouse and library. The other cities whipped as well. Did a mistake in York as I didn't realize you didn't have math yet, which delayed the builds there a bit.

Move scout into Rostov the turn of your last save, it has a surprise in store for you.

Scouted the coast as well. Found some more signs that tell you there is a lot of land nearby:

Spoiler :

The marked tiles cannot be worked from your continent but show a tile yield, meaning more land nearby.

Attaching 300 AD save. York is building barracks, which it shouldn't be. I just put something there as I wouldn't be playing longer. Having it whip a settler would probably be the better choice. Nottingham could whip a settler as well.

 

[GrilledCheesies]

I'd like to thank everyone in this thread for posting some quality responses and advice. I've been trying to incorporate what you all have told me and am playing a slightly better game now. It seems like it would be a good idea for me to partake in the Noble's Club further improve my game so that's what I'm going to go do. Cheers.