New Game- random leader:Roosevelt

[UnforcedError]

There is nothing wrong with a GP economy under Representation, although you built the Pyramids very late. But your capital was a fantastic cottage spot, so using it for farming out GPs is not optimal unless you go for a full bulbing strategy (like getting Engineering or Military Tradition via Liberalism) which is not something you need on Noble. You can get a tech lead and start warring much earlier without a single bulb.

Also, the fact that you have six great persons sitting idle in your cities suggests that you don't really know what to do with them yet. That's no problem for now, it's more advanced stuff anyway, it's something we could focus on in a future game. However, if you don't know what they can do, why bother to get them? They cost food to generate in any case except for the GG.

 

[Lennier]

And I like to play on terra maps since it's closer to our world type.

Terra maps can be fun, but present their own unique challenges. Land=power means you want to grab as much of the "new world" as fast as possible. But colonial maintenance costs will quickly kill your economy unless you build the Forbidden Palace on the "new world" continent. If you play huge maps, you'll typically get multiple "new world" continents necessitating a bee-line to communism.

 

[lymond]

I'm actually going to dive into more detail on your Arab game later (football..ha). Anyway, I wanted to address a couple of points now. It is a good win for you, Joe, so definitely feel proud. I really think you should play on Prince for your next game.

There are still some things I'm struggling to comprehend. For instance, I thought this would be my GP farm so I built farms.

Mecca was not a bad GP farm and actually I agree with you farming it up (although you did not quite do that entirely).

The reason is that your Bureau/Ox cap was right next door in Damascus. You built up/improved Damascus almost perfectly for an ideal Bureau cap. You should have moved the Palace to Damascus to take advantage of that.

As UE said, Mecca would have been an ok Burea cap as well. It one of those situation, not just for the "cap" but in analyzing a city's "specialization" that you could go many ways. Mecca is a good Bureau "hybrid" cap city, a good GP farm, and a great production city. Basically the choice on this is what is best for your situation based on your land and your goals.

Ideally, if you even build Ox, you want in a super cottaged capital. HOwever, there are time where a GP farm type city with early Representation makes an good Oxford city in lieu of decent cottage cities. Archipelago maps are a good example since you often rely on less land to build cottages.

Plus I'm trying to build more farms in general since it's starting to sink in that food is king. Damascus was my money maker.

Food IS King because it FEEDS what you need. It allows a city to FEED cottages. It allows a city to FEED hammer tiles. It allows a city to FEED specialists for great people. It allows you to use slavery effectively. What you are missing here is city specialization, although in the case of this game many of your cities seemed fairly focused on improvements and purpose. The big exception though was Mecca itself. Yeah, you mainly farmed it up, but then there was a lone cottage there..why? And since it was basically your GP farm it should have been running more specialists in Rep.

 

[UnforcedError]

And you should have done something with your GPp. Think Golden Ages with the artists, they aren't really useful for anything else in non-culture games. The three scientists are different. Letting a GS sit around unused means sitting on tons of potential beakers and letting them go to waste. Building an Academy in a city with good research potential, bulbing a technology or even simply settling the GS in a city with good research multipliers would all have been better options. Or a second GA combined with an artist, obviously.

 

[lymond]

^^^Ha..yeah..those 3 GS's sitting there were really puzzling for me too. Ofc, it probably simply boils down to Joe not understanding the importance of specialists and Great People yet. Something we will get too, ofc.

Joe, 3 GS sitting unused in your Ox cap while running Representation? Heck....just settle them in Mecca. That's 9 bpts before multipliers for each GS. That's 27 bpts. Add 100% to that for Ox and its 56 bpts. Add another 100% for Library, Uni and ACademy and that's 112 bpts just from those3 settled GS's that you've been sitting for who knows how long. (Actually, there's a whole economy type defined for Civ4 called WWE/SSE or World Wonder/Settled Specialists economy + Representation, of course)

Ofc, there's bulbing strategies too which we will get to later. As UE mentioned, you don't have to overthink GPs on Noble. However, the better use you make of them the better your results will be to achieve your goals.

 

[joe6778]

Obviously, I didn't need those GS because I won going away

Seriously, I was saving them for bulbs if I really needed them later. I built the Taj Mahal which gave me a Golden Age and then I got another GA later.

 

[lymond]

Obviously, I didn't need those GS because I won going away

Seriously, I was saving them for bulbs if I really needed them later. I built the Taj Mahal which gave me a Golden Age and then I got another GA later.

Well, actually you kinda bring up a point that wanted to bring up about your Sal game.

Yes, GPs are important and you should learn how to use them. But yeah, really that is not the focus of this particular game. Going for Space...say...would be a different story.

However, you can use bulbing strategies early on in a war game to get military advantages. Something to think about.

Yet, the point I really wanted to bring up is staying focus on the prize. You mentioned early how you don't understand or that you are amazed by some of the early dates we've mentioned can be achieved for conquest/domination.

The key is devising a plan, implementing it, and then sticking to it and staying focus. You had all the tools here to win this game much earlier. (Again, it is still a very good win for you)

For example, say you have horses. i forget from the map how early you had access to horse. Horse Archers are fantastic on any level at grabbing land early on. You could have put a serious dent into the map with them. Then focus on teching/bulbing/whatever to GUilds for Camel Archers, which are pretty darn nice on lower levels (Note: I don't much care for Knights or their UUs on higher levels - window is too small- but they can rock on lower levels).

So, get Guilds, build up some cash or run GM trade missions, and upgrade all your juicy veteran HAs to Camel Archers and then stomp the rest of the map.

You don't even need Oxford or all those other builds you've built. With Mids and Rep and some solid core cities and GP farm (in this case Mecca) you should get decent tech dates for these units. Then build them en masse.

When you use mounted, stick to mounted.

Another things I noticed is that none of your cities have been whipping. USE DA WHIP, MON!!! Moar units, Moar faster = Moar faster victory

When you settle yourself on warring to win, then go all out war. Just set up a nice core base like a Bureau cap for research or gp farm for bulb strategies, as well as a city or two to maintain economy with cottages. Attain your military tech objective for units of choice and then go full bore with those units. Even if it requires to stages such as...say...taking half the map with Horse Archers before AIs start hitting Feudalism, then recover/rebuild and get the next tech objective like Mace/Cats/Trebs or Knights or Curs.

In this type of game, Taj Mahal should not even have factored into the equation.

 

[UnforcedError]

Joe, when do you intend to play on?

 

[joe6778]

You said to play one turn at a time. I made one move.

 

[UnforcedError]

Sorry, I seemed to have missed your post with the game update. So here you go:

Advanced one turn. A random event triggered a golden age! Whoppee!

Hm. Let's check what this random event did to us:

Spoiler :

+1 swordsman, -1 pop and +1 whip in uMgungundlovu (which we wanted to grow to size 6 instead of stagnating on the settler in any case) plus a golden age we won't really profit from at this stage, since we're mainly whipping. Err, cool. This is why I love events so much.

Anyway: we should try to profit from extra hammers during the GA so we could try to use more hammer tiles in our three production cities (Bulawayo, Nobamba, Ulundi). You can even stagnate them on their happy cap on improved hammer tiles, that's almost as good as whipping during a GA and we will lose some whip anger in the cities during these 8 turns. We have to monitor the cities carefully though to make sure to grow back as soon as possible.

Bulawayo: use the horse, two mines, pig and switch to ikhanda. The catapult should pop after the ikhanda is done. Use a worker to chop the forest to the NE.

Nobamba: the overflow should go into a swordsman or a catapult, not into an almost completed axe because that would lose the OF hammers. Besides we don't need an axe right now anyway. You can complete the sword or cat on the quarry, 2 mines and the cow (this will stagnate the city) and pop the axe afterwards. Continue chopping.

Ulundi: switch away from the forest tile to the plains mine for now. Continue chopping.

uMgungundlovu should switch to the two villages and the hamlet 1S of the city right now. Do not use the gold or the pig! (The reason being: the GA will mitigate the loss of gold and we will be growing our cottages a bit. There's no rush with the settler, either.) Switch the city to a unit or wealth (the city will grow in 2T) and continue growing. If the whip anger goes away before the city grows another size we can use the pig to grow faster. Otherwise we'll be using only the village and hamlet tiles. The goal is to work all the cottages and the gold, and resume building the settler.

Nongoma needs a farm.

As for units: move our whole main stack 1NW of Beshbalik as we discussed. Move the axeman with the two catapults 1NE of Kublai's copper and move the catapult from Nobamba and the two chariots on this tile too. If Kublai's axe attacks next turn our axe will defend on a hill-forest tile which gives him quite good odds. The spearman cannot attack this tile next turn, he can only go against our main stack so he should die to an axe. Move our new swordsman directly towards Beshbalik, he will join the small stack towards the suspected iron city. Move an axe out from Ulundi towards our stack and start moving the extra warrior in Nobamba towards Ulundi to free up the other axe.

 

[joe6778]

Followed instructions, but frankly, I'm not sure of the mechanics behind some of these moves. This is where I start to get confused.

I'm not sure what the problem is with Umma?

 

[UnforcedError]

Great, only 1 axe and two archers in Beshbalik I was hoping it would be that easy

Umma needs to be ideally at size 6 (no whip anger) working all cottages and the gold. Instead it's size 3 with +2 whip anger.

What is it you don't understand? Rather ask your questions before we micro the next turn.

 

[joe6778]

Why Ikhanda in Bulawayo and not units?

I wouldn't have known about the OF in Nobamba.

How do you beat the culture defense in cities without a bunch of cats?

In general, I'm not sure about which civics to use (except slavery) and when. The same with GPs; which should I go for and what is their best use? should I even go for them if I'm going for a conquest win?

I keep asking about my overall strategy because I'm not sure if I just pursue domination/conquest wins. I don't know how and when to plan for Space or diplomatic wins. For instance, looking at this map, what should I be aiming for?

If I played this game on my own, I would still be making a lot of mistakes.

Thanks for you help and patience.

 

[Jastrow]

Why Ikhanda in Bulawayo and not units?

I did not look at the details of the plan, but in general, building a barrack before units makes your units better, so you need less. It is more efficient in the long term. That Ikhanda reduces maintenance of the city on top of that is a bonus.

I wouldn't have known about the OF in Nobamba.

There is a bug in the game... If you overflow more than the value of a build, the hammers just disappear... They are supposed to be converted to gold, but they dont.

How do you beat the culture defense in cities without a bunch of cats?

Power in numbers... It is not as efficient as cats, but in the early game, before culture defence is too high, it can still work nicely.

Another answer would be Spy->incite revolt mission, but that it s a more advanced strategy for you to learn a bit later.

In general, I'm not sure about which civics to use (except slavery) and when.

As with everything else, it depends on the game...

As you already have seen, Slavery is always a good choice for Labor... Sometimes, Caste is best in that category, but as a default, you cant really go wrong with slavery.

In the other categories:

Governement: HR is a very nice happy boost, and the only one available early without pyramids.... It is usually the civic of choice in the early game. If you have Pyramids, the choice is mainly between Representation for happy, and high powered specialist if you are a builder (space race, for example), or police state, for the cheaper military and less unhappiness if you are on th war path.

Legal: Beuracracy reigns supreme. This is also automatic, at least until you have a situation and the techs for drafting with nationhood.

Economics: VERY game dependent... You need to evaluate carefully for any given game between Merc, FM, and SP. Environment is rarely worth it...

Religious: Again, game dependent... OR is great for building infrastructure. Theocracy is great when building an army, Philo is great for getting more great people, FR is great for sceince... Hard to give any fixed rule here.

The same with GPs; which should I go for and what is their best use? should I even go for them if I'm going for a conquest win?

Yes to the last questions... They are always usefull... Scientist, Merchants and Engineers are the 3 best, aim for these...

Scientist: Academy with the first in capital is often good... Then, you can settle them in the cap with the academy in a long builder game (space race), or use them to bulb key expensive techs... Both uses are good.

Merchants: Trade mission to far away AI city brings in tons of gold!

Engineers: Can be settled like the scientist in space games, or use to build a key wonder much earlier than you would normally get it.

I keep asking about my overall strategy because I'm not sure if I just pursue domination/conquest wins. I don't know how and when to plan for Space or diplomatic wins. For instance, looking at this map, what should I be aiming for?

Anything you want... Sometimes, on higher levels (Immortal+) the map forces a victory condition on you, but nobel-monarch, it is more a question of your preference. Once you have a couple of effective early wars (a pre-requisite for all victories, except possibly culture), then at this level, the AI will never recover, and you can cruise to whichever victory suits you.

Indeed, this is part of why we were saying in other treads a while back that your problem is not, as you were suggesting, late warring... At this level, by 500AD, the game should be defacto won, with the rest, a simple victory parade.

 

[UnforcedError]

I will check out the game later tonight for some detailed micro.

To add to Jastrow's answers:

Why Ikhanda in Bulawayo and not units?

In general you want a barracks in a city before the city starts building units for a war. There are exceptions: if you go for very early wars (with warriors, axes, chariots or even horse archers) where time is of essence sometimes the opportunity cost for a barracks is too high and you may want some more units instead. However, this is not an early war, you already have an established realm. Siege units profit even more so from the starting experience because otherwise they can only level very slowly if ever. Plus you're aggressive, so a barracks in any city that will produce units is really no luxury building.

I wouldn't have known about the OF in Nobamba.

Whenever you're doing some heavy whipping combined with chopping you have to expect to have OF hammers in your cities. This is why it's good to cycle through the builds every turn. A unit can even complete on OF hammers alone while the more costly units get 2-pop whipped or chopped into.

How do you beat the culture defense in cities without a bunch of cats?

As Jastrow said: you can use a spy to set the city in revolt for 1T or simply have a huge stack to beat the defenses. In general you want to have stronger units than the opposition, which is why getting a technological advantage and knowing how to build a stack within a few turns is crucial.

In general, I'm not sure about which civics to use (except slavery) and when. The same with GPs; which should I go for and what is their best use? should I even go for them if I'm going for a conquest win?

Slavery's almost never bad as long as you have food to use it (and as long as you don't forget to use it ) In fact it's not uncommon to spend most of the game in Hereditary Rule and Slavery, while switching away for Golden Ages (say into Caste and Pacifism to get some scientists done). You will get a feel for the civics as you gain more and more game practice. It really is about adjusting your civic choices to your general strategy. And obviously, if you made the effort to build the Pyramids in a game, you don't want to run HR.

I keep asking about my overall strategy because I'm not sure if I just pursue domination/conquest wins. I don't know how and when to plan for Space or diplomatic wins. For instance, looking at this map, what should I be aiming for?

Well, let's look at this map and see how we could achieve various victory conditions:

1. Conquest / Domination: these two are the most trivial victory conditions in the game. There are basically two ways to go about this...

A. Establish a small empire, start warring as soon as you can handle it economically and unit-wise. After conquering an opponent, consolidate and then go for the next guy. This is usually not the fastest approach but it's the safest way to go about it.

B. Play all or nothing: establish a small empire, tech up to a unit that is fast and strong enough to beat the whole map. Stop teching, mass build this unit and beat the map. (This is typically chariots on Noble / Prince, horse archers on Monarch / Emperor and cuirassiers on Immortal / Deity. Alternatively it involves Engineering and trebs.)
This approach requires learning how to tech fast at the start and knowing how to mass-build an army within a few turns, as well as learning how to run a pillage economy and deal with a deficit empire. It's more useful on Pangea-type maps though.

2. Space race: this is one of the victory conditions to fall back to if for some reason you feel conquest / dom would be impractical in your game (say lovefest or vassal relations between the last remaining AIs). To optimize a space win however, you want to start warring early and get a huge and productive empire, which almost trips the domination limit. The bigger, the better. More cities --> faster teching and more production. Even if a city does nothing but build wealth during the whole game. Space optimization usually involves corporations unless the map is very resource poor for a production corporation like Mining Inc. On a resource poor map you might want to go with Caste and State Property instead.

3. Culture: as Lymond already mentioned, this is probably the only victory condition you need to commit to very early. On this particular map a culture win is definitely possible but it would be impractical compared to other VCs. For culture you want multiple early religions (from the AI or self-teched) and you want to establish your future legendary cities very fast.

4. Diplomatic: the other 'fallback victory condition'. It involves either winning a religious victory due to the Apostolic Palace or a United Nations victory.

A. Apostolic Palace: On Pangea-type maps this is the cheesiest way to win a game. Bulb Theology, buld the AP in a religion noone else is running, spread the religion to the AI and get enogh guys to like you (OB bonus, trade bonus, shared war, city gifting, tech gifting, shared religion, favoured civic etc.). Win. There's really not much else to say about it.

B. United Nations: this involves teching up to Mass Media (or alternatively a universally hated AI teching up to it) and building the UN. The diplo machinations stay the same as in A. but you will have more time to build up your relations. It's also a 'fallback' VC tactic if an AI is too strong to tickle militarily.

5. Time: logically this VC depends on score, not finish date. This involves getting an empire that is close to the dom limit (just as with an optimal space game) and getting your population as high as possible (ideally with a food corporation like Sushi or Cereal Mills).

If I played this game on my own, I would still be making a lot of mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes The goal is to avoid too many critical ones

Thanks for you help and patience.

You're welcome

 

[joe6778]

Excellent responses. Thank you for clarifying.

I know a bit about spies causing revolts to bring down defenses for a turn. I've used it quite a bit. In this particular game, am I waiting for all the cats to come up before I attack the cities?

After I take out a couple of AIs early in my games, I find that I'm reeling in maintenance costs and need time to recover. Should I level every city (except the enemy capitols)?

I also find that sometimes the AI forces my hand and I have to switch to emancipation to get rid of unhappiness.

I have trouble with diplo victories. I usually have one civ who never votes for me no matter what I do.

BTW- although I'm fumbling and bumbling my way through Noble , I won another conquest victory as Japan. I've definitely learned a lot here.

 

[Robert FIN]

Hehehe, dude has played at least 2 games besides this one.. Funny!

 

[lymond]

hey joe - i'll add my 2cents to these questions

In this particular game, am I waiting for all the cats to come up before I attack the cities?

I'm not quite in touch with your current position, but if you've got Construction then you definitely want to be using cats to take cities.

After I take out a couple of AIs early in my games, I find that I'm reeling in maintenance costs and need time to recover. Should I level every city (except the enemy capitols)?

This a good question and problem one of the main concepts that newer/struggling players have a hard to grasping, as well as being a major roadblock to their progression.

First of all, as to razing cities, that is obviously situational. Certainly keep caps which are almost always good cities. If at all possible keep cities that are just plain good - good food and good resources. Raze crap cities that just won't contribute. AIs do have a tendency to settle crap cities. Make sure you get trade routes setup asap to all conquered cities.

However, back to the concept of maintenance, keep in mind that it is "relative". What I mean by that is you have to take into account all factors present in you current situation. The fact is maintenance cost are going to go up with more cities, more citizens, and certain civics. That's a constant.

However, newer players seem to fret tremendously when they start to see the slider going down. As I've mentioned to you more than once, you don't have to keep your slider at 100% or anywhere in between. If I'm conquering early, after attaining the techs I need to conquer, I will shut down research indefinitely. Relying mainly on some scientists specialists to keep some research in play. As you conquer cities you get gold from that. Then you can raise your slider back to 100% to get the next important tech like CoL.

Do you have Currency? If you have Currency you generally don't have money issues. Just build wealth in cities that don't have pressing builds. Simple as that.

The bottom line though is that if you are in positive gold at 0% research, then you aren't in trouble.

I also find that sometimes the AI forces my hand and I have to switch to emancipation to get rid of unhappiness.

Well, the only time emancipation should come into play, especially on lower level is if you are going for space wins, maybe diplo. Again, keep in mind that you have been playing very sub-optimally in the past. Even your military victories are achieved far later than normal. That is why emancipation is in play in your games. As for later games like space, well sometimes you might have to switch to emancipation then. Not so big a deal except that in late space games I usually like to be in Caste at that point running Rep and lots of specialists. There are ways into happiness to counteract emancipation, including raising your culture slider a bit.

I have trouble with diplo victories. I usually have one civ who never votes for me no matter what I do.

Diplomacy is often one of the harder concepts to master. The key is understanding the various ways to boost diplomacy with the AI. I'm sure there are things you don't realize. Also, making sure you understand who your rival is and doing things to make sure other AIs like you more than him/her.

Positive Diplo modifiers:

1) Open borders
2) Fair Trade - up to +4 (i'm sure you've seen that)
3) Shared Religion (amount varies among leaders based on how they value religion)
4) Favorite Civic (both you and the AI must be in that civic)
5) Resource trades (over time you can get up to +2 from that and it is very easy obviously...you should always be trading resources. I'll even give away single copies if I don't need them presently. Great thing to do early with EXP or Char civs since they have extra health and happiness already)
6) Shared Technology (gift enough techs and the AIs start to appreciate. You can get at least +2 from that)
7) Giving into request/demands
8) Mutual Wars (bribe your friends into war with the enemy....this can get a huge bonus with some AIs...think warmongers)
9) Liberating cities (plant crap cities within 9 tiles of an AIs capital and you get a Liberate city bonus. You can keep doing it to. Or capture an AIs old city that another AI captured and liberate it back to them. )
10) Vote for them - this is temporary though.

There may be some I missed. It's important to start to understand the differences between the Leaders. As you've probably learned, they are not at all alike. Some value religion more. Some value war. There's a lot of different parameters about the leaders.

 

[lymond]

Hehehe, dude has played at least 2 games besides this one.. Funny!

That's great actually. I encourage it. I always tell new players to keep the shadow game exclusively for learning and play it slow. Play other games to practice or get that quick fix. And Joe is not a complete noobster.

 

[joe6778]

Hehehe, dude has played at least 2 games besides this one.. Funny!

I need to feed my CivIV addiction!