New Game- random leader:Roosevelt

[TheMadFiddler]

Sorry guys, I'm just not getting it. I can't wrap my head around all the nuances of micromanaging every single chop and whip how I missed a couple of critical turns by delaying a worker building something.

I still don't have the slightest idea of what I'm doing or why. I'm just following what someone is telling me to do. Some things I get, but so much is way over my head.

Someone told me to plant my second city on the hill, now someone says 1W of the hill would be better.

The whole northern part of the map is jungle- I thought IW would help.

I still have no idea how binary research works. I'm not sure what to research, how many cities I should have and where. What if one of the civs DOWs me?

This game literally keeps me up at night.

First, relax - no game should keep one up at night. I am not going to give a lot of advice on the minutiae of the game because I still have much to learn if I want to an expert, but I would say to look at your goals. Do you want to win Noble consistently or are you looking to play on Diety? If it is closer to the former, do not worry about being perfect - a single missed worker turn is a much bigger deal on Diety than on Noble.

Secondly, look at the concepts of time and multipliers. Take IW for example. Timewise, the question is how long will it be until you need it? Eventually, you will have to clear jungle, but if that time is down the road then you should hold off and research something else because of the second concept, multipliers. If you could spend 300 beakers on a tech you can use, but the AIs all love as well and so will probably have around the same time you research it, or you spend 400 beakers on a tech the AIs don't place high in their research list, but which you could trade for 500+ beakers worth of techs including the 300 beaker tech you wanted (by trading with multiple AIs) it is easy to see which is the most efficient investment.
In most cases IW is a tech that can be traded for, but is not great as something to trade away (at least, this is my understanding, but I am far from an expert), so you would get more benefit from researching something else and then trading that (or trading techs you get from trading the one you researched) to multiple AIs.

Finally, be certain to read the why. With your 2nd city example, iirc, the first person suggested the hill for the production bonus, plus some shared tiles with the capital, though it meant you could not get the second food resource until your borders expanded, while 2nd person wanted his placement to access both food sources without needing culture, and so was focussed on growing the city more quickly. The real question is whether there is a single 'right' answer or multiple valid avenues? If there are multiple valid ways, that means one can stop worrying about what is always right and instead decide simply which is more helpful for your particular situation which will change depending on your goals and plan.

Sorry, that got longer and probably sounds more arrogant than I intended, but it seems to me like you are too concerned about being perfect rather than good enough (which just a lot of pressure for a game). And, if your definition of good enough eventually becomes winning consistently on Diety (or whatever qualifies one as an expert) you'll probably get closer to perfect than you would by always trying to be perfect. Of course, I am just someone on the Internet, so my opinion is not even worth the paper it was never printed on .

 

[joe6778]

1. Build a granary in every single city. There are cases where you don't do that. But for now, understand: build a granary in every single city.

2. Run slavery.

3. Use slavery to whip out a crap-ton of units and kill people. But do that only AFTER you build a granary in every single city.

My advice? Learn how to war. Get 3 cities. Get a granary and an Ikhanda in every city. Whip out units.

But other than that, I totally agree with Dankok. He needs to learn how to whip out a ton of units, fight wars successfully, and then recover economically. However, to fight a successful war, you MUST have granaries in every single city.

EDIT: IW is totally useless. Do not get it unless you're the Romans.

Very good. That sunk in: Granaries in every city.

I have won conquest victories and domination victories and I have axe rushed and chariot rushed and won wars.

My problem is recovery: after I wipe out a civ or two, then what? There are four or five civs left. I can't rush them all. Plus the maintenance costs, my now-depleted cities and lack of advanced techs. I don't know how to handle those situations.

 

[joe6778]

First, relax - no game should keep one up at night. I am not going to give a lot of advice on the minutiae of the game because I still have much to learn if I want to an expert, but I would say to look at your goals. Do you want to win Noble consistently or are you looking to play on Diety? If it is closer to the former, do not worry about being perfect - a single missed worker turn is a much bigger deal on Diety than on Noble.

Secondly, look at the concepts of time and multipliers. Take IW for example. Timewise, the question is how long will it be until you need it? Eventually, you will have to clear jungle, but if that time is down the road then you should hold off and research something else because of the second concept, multipliers. If you could spend 300 beakers on a tech you can use, but the AIs all love as well and so will probably have around the same time you research it, or you spend 400 beakers on a tech the AIs don't place high in their research list, but which you could trade for 500+ beakers worth of techs including the 300 beaker tech you wanted (by trading with multiple AIs) it is easy to see which is the most efficient investment.
In most cases IW is a tech that can be traded for, but is not great as something to trade away (at least, this is my understanding, but I am far from an expert), so you would get more benefit from researching something else and then trading that (or trading techs you get from trading the one you researched) to multiple AIs.

Finally, be certain to read the why. With your 2nd city example, iirc, the first person suggested the hill for the production bonus, plus some shared tiles with the capital, though it meant you could not get the second food resource until your borders expanded, while 2nd person wanted his placement to access both food sources without needing culture, and so was focussed on growing the city more quickly. The real question is whether there is a single 'right' answer or multiple valid avenues? If there are multiple valid ways, that means one can stop worrying about what is always right and instead decide simply which is more helpful for your particular situation which will change depending on your goals and plan.

Sorry, that got longer and probably sounds more arrogant than I intended, but it seems to me like you are too concerned about being perfect rather than good enough (which just a lot of pressure for a game). And, if your definition of good enough eventually becomes winning consistently on Diety (or whatever qualifies one as an expert) you'll probably get closer to perfect than you would by always trying to be perfect. Of course, I am just someone on the Internet, so my opinion is not even worth the paper it was never printed on .

I value everyone's opinion here.

My goal is to be able to win consistently so I can move up in difficulty, and all the nuances and mechanics of the game are second nature to me. I'm pretty far from that right now.

 

[vandermerwe]

I value everyone's opinion here.

My goal is to be able to win consistently so I can move up in difficulty, and all the nuances and mechanics of the game are second nature to me. I'm pretty far from that right now.

My problem is recovery: after I wipe out a civ or two, then what? There are four or five civs left. I can't rush them all. Plus the maintenance costs, my now-depleted cities and lack of advanced techs. I don't know how to handle those situations.

First up, I suspect you may be building too many units before attacking. Yes there is such a thing - units cost hammers / population to build and gold to maintain. It's best to err on the side of more units rather than less, but if you have so many that you start falling behind in tech on Noble, then you may have overdone it. Build as many as you need (impossible to give a number - depends on the map and opponents) and use them to conquer and expand.

And don't over-reach yourself in war. In particular, (a) raze (don't capture) cities which you'll struggle to hold or afford, and/or which are small or badly situated; (b) don't be afraid to do a peace deal on good terms (ie, if the AI is offering lots of gold or tech in return). You've already crippled them and can finish off or vassal them later when you've let your economy recover; and (c) be especially careful with this if you haven't yet researched Currency, which many would say is the most important tech in the game. With Currency, you get extra trade route income and can build wealth to offset maintenance costs. Without it any major expansion by conquest will hit your economy hard.

 

[Nials]

Spoiler :

Restarted. Just completed Mysticism. About to settle third city.

uMgungundlovu should have had a Granary by now and it should have been whipped but you're not even running Slavery yet. Typically, a good time to revolt is right when your first Settler comes out so you avoid suffering Anarchy in both cities.

Why are you banking so much gold? At this point, you should only accumulate gold at 0% slider until you have enough to research the next tech at 100% for as long as it takes. A case can also be made for banking gold while building Libraries to make better use of the multiplier effect, but that's not at all needed to beat Noble.

EDIT: One other thing that I noticed. Your worker near your third city is queued to build a road to connect the city. Cancel that and have him improve the Cows instead. You need to get food up and running ASAP in new cities.

 

[lymond]

I suspect he got a lot of gold from ridicuhuts

Joe, keep playing this one and following advice and whatnot (unfortunately, I think there were too many eggs in one basket, but hopefully you can weed your way through everything)

Anyway, I've been thinking of starting another thread for you soon. I have to formulate some ideas, but basically it would be to discuss concepts and ask questions. Not actually playing a game.

The one main issue I see with your approach/discussions is that you keep claiming you don't grasp this or that, but you don't actually tell us specifically what you are having problems with. This was a problem years ago as well when I was helping you. I don't think we are going to get very far with you until we break that cycle. I mean, you've been playing this game for years, something has to change.

 

[UnforcedError]

Thank you for replaying the game, Joe I think this is something we can work with, although you didn't follow advice again and didn't start on a monument in your gold city

These are the things that could have been done better:
1. Switch to Slavery while your settler is traveling. This will save you a bit of production. (In our case let's switch right now. You will lose production in all three cities, but there's a reason for the switch: you're EXP, you have 1 whip granaries. Let's whip away the forest tile in uMgungundlovu and complete the granary. I'd build a monument afterwards, because I never bother with SH but if you'd like it after the Stone is connected building Stonehenge as Htadus suggested is not a big investment for monuments in every city.)

2. The third city should go exactly where the settler is right now You're not CRE, you will always have a more difficult time to pop your cities in the early game. Securing food in the first ring is very important. Yes, that city will have a slightly higher maintenance, which is something to consider. But in this case the wet rice will give you a lot more productive city even without the need to pop it.

3. Masonry is the right tech to go with right now. What do you think you should tech next? Please don't play on before you can decide what to research. Maybe it would be best if you played until Masonry was in and then uploaded again for more discussion.

 

[joe6778]

Yes, I should have switched to slavery. I know that. I just replayed this game so many times, I forgot I didn't switch on this one.

I am settling right where the settler is. That's my intention (based on advice I received here.)

My next tech is Writing.

 

[joe6778]

I suspect he got a lot of gold from ridicuhuts

Joe, keep playing this one and following advice and whatnot (unfortunately, I think there were too many eggs in one basket, but hopefully you can weed your way through everything)

Anyway, I've been thinking of starting another thread for you soon. I have to formulate some ideas, but basically it would be to discuss concepts and ask questions. Not actually playing a game.

The one main issue I see with your approach/discussions is that you keep claiming you don't grasp this or that, but you don't actually tell us specifically what you are having problems with. This was a problem years ago as well when I was helping you. I don't think we are going to get very far with you until we break that cycle. I mean, you've been playing this game for years, something has to change.

I would appreciate your help with that new thread. These shadow games are confusing me.

I thought I was specific about what I'm not grasping: when to whip, when to chop, binary research, to rush or not to rush, which units/building to build and in what order, etc. I told you I have won on Noble, just not consistently, and it's usually a space race victory (barely.) I'm having problems with civs out-teching me, vassaling a bunch of civs and taking the lead, DOWing me, or not voting for me for a Diplomatic win.

 

[joe6778]

Spoiler :

This is north of my capitol. Not sure where to settle next.

Spoiler :

This is the situation thus far. Researching writing, scouting, got to get a unit in my capitol to quell the unhappiness. Building the pyramids.

 

[Nials]

Same problems as before - no Granary in Nobamba and no Monument in uMgungundlovu. The latter is especially important. You could have had the Gold hooked up by now, which would have helped your happiness situation and improved your economy by quite a bit.

 

[UnforcedError]

I thought I was specific about what I'm not grasping: when to whip, when to chop, binary research, to rush or not to rush, which units/building to build and in what order, etc. I told you I have won on Noble, just not consistently, and it's usually a space race victory (barely.) I'm having problems with civs out-teching me, vassaling a bunch of civs and taking the lead, DOWing me, or not voting for me for a Diplomatic win.

Civs are outteching you because your early economy is very far from perfect. This is what we are trying to teach you. Nials already pointed out some cardinal mistakes (and I think these are points everyone here would agree on despite their different playing stiles). I strongly advise against the Pyramids. Not because SE isn't something you should eventually learn but not yet, I'd say. As long as you don't know how to manage unhappiness in your cities and don't know what the basic buildings do there's really no point in trying to optimize specialists.

Back to the topic: so the AIs are outteching you because you really need to get better in the early game. And if warmongers outtech you, they will eventually DoW. That's their nature. On Noble you should normally leave them in the dust.
Forget about binary research as long as you don't play IMM. There's no point in even discussing that topic on Noble. Not using it will lose you the odd here and there but it really isn't much.
About the AI vassaling a lot of others: well, they can only do this because you let them. And that brings us back to the early game.
Diplomatic victories: Do you know what secret modifiers each AI has towards you? Do you know how much you need for an AI to vote for you? Do you know what options you have to get an AI like you more? I'm pretty sure you cannot answer these questions otherwise you'd have no problems getting any AIs vote. However, you would find everything you need in this forum. You just have to look. Or we could envision a diplo win for this game if you want, just so that you see how it goes.

 

[Gwynnja]

Very good. That sunk in: Granaries in every city.

I have won conquest victories and domination victories and I have axe rushed and chariot rushed and won wars.

My problem is recovery: after I wipe out a civ or two, then what? There are four or five civs left. I can't rush them all. Plus the maintenance costs, my now-depleted cities and lack of advanced techs. I don't know how to handle those situations.

Prioritize Currency. It allows you to convert hammers into gold and trade for gold with your neighbors.

 

[Packers5280]

^^To add to that, if you don't have currency, but have alpha, running research can be helpful as well until you get to currency. With writing, OB with all the other AI and road into their territories to get foreign trade routes.

 

[lymond]

Joe, I'm really at a loss here. Is there something you are not telling us? Do you play too fast? Do you not look at your cities each turn?

We have mentioned over and over to whip or chop that monument in Ummagumma and yet you continue to flat out not do it. This is a very basic and simple thing to do. It not even a concept.

You've let Ulundi grow into unhappiness. Why? Look at your cities. Take note of when they approach the happy cap and get a unit in there before it does. Don't just sit there and look at your cites be unhappy. Get MP in there and hook up things like Gold and you increase your happy cap. Otherwise, whip unhappiness away with a 2pop or 3 pop whip.

I feel like we can't progress until you get these very very very simple things down. I mean, we went over all these things about 3 years ago. I just don't understand.

edit: And being 59 is not an excuse. 59 is the new 29

 

[pigswill]

As I'm only 56 I'm sure than being 59 is a real handicap to learning civ. Maybe you just get frustrated which ruins your concentration which leads to errors which increases frustration etc etc.

Maybe you're getting overloaded by advice.

Maybe there's things you know you don't know and there's things you don't know you don't know.

But there certainly appears to be something.

 

[MarigoldRan]

1. On this map, you need happiness resources like gold. You absolutely need uMong to increase its borders, so you can mine the gold. That happiness resource will help eliminate all of your unhappiness.

2. Take your workers and chop all the forests around your capital so that you can get the Pyramids up ASAP.

3. Run Representation. This should solve all of your happy problems. The rest of the game should be easy.

4. Expand or Impi rush your neighbors. Up to you. Prioritize currency for research. But get the Pyramids up ASAP.

 

[Olfart]

You can't play the age card on me. I'm 70, win frequently on Noble, and occasionally on Prince. There are other players my age who are far better than I am. What's important is to learn something new from each game and modify your strategy accordingly. I'm not a great player, but I do get a little better with each game. More importantly, I still enjoy the challenge each game presents. If it stops being fun, I'll do something else.

 

[lymond]

The age spectrum of this game amazes me. You got guys like RobFIN, who is like in diapers and then you got OlFart, who is...well...an Ole Fart . I'm not sure there is an triple A title that approaches this spectrum. Really a great thing.

 

[joe6778]

as i'm only 56 i'm sure than being 59 is a real handicap to learning civ. Maybe you just get frustrated which ruins your concentration which leads to errors which increases frustration etc etc.

Maybe you're getting overloaded by advice.

Maybe there's things you know you don't know and there's things you don't know you don't know.

But there certainly appears to be something.

bingo!