New player needs advice so he doesn't get spanked

[mattalton88]

Hey guys,

I only started playing civ a few days ago with my brother and my cousin. We started a game together and we're fairly competitive so it's getting heated. Now they have both played before so their empires are already bigger than mine, but I had a plan.

I chose England (I'm australian and have great love for the mother country) and reckoned I would do pretty well if I followed their policy - glorious isolation. I have a peninsula of the map to myself, with about 5 cities (it is about 1500AD at the moment). Now my plan for domination isn't really based on having huge ammounts of stuff - my plan is for the royal navy.

In 7 turns I will have enough tech to get frigates, and I plan to build ****loads of them to dominate the seas. Then I'm gonna try for redcoats to get a decent land force.

My question is, how do I build enough frigates to paint the seas black? I don't have that much gold and I'm still not that sure why some units take longer to build than others. Most of the cities I am enemies with are coastal so if I can keep them blockaded and get some redcoats on my border I will be set to rule the waves.

Thanks guys. Any advice would be appreciated.

-Matt

 

[JimT]

I chose England (I'm australian and have great love for the mother country) and reckoned I would do pretty well if I followed their policy - glorious isolation. I have a peninsula of the map to myself, with about 5 cities (it is about 1500AD at the moment). Now my plan for domination isn't really based on having huge ammounts of stuff - my plan is for the royal navy.
-Matt

Personally I think Frigates become obsolete too quickly and I don't like the blockade strategy. The amount you need is either (and I would choose a):

a) enough to protect your invasion force (3/4), bombard his cities (3/4) and pillage his resources (2).

or

b) enough to prevent ships escaping from his ports (too many) and protect your own sea based resources (i.e. clams, fish, whales, etc.) until a squadron can patrol the seas and clear up those who slipped through the net or left port before the blockade.

Your idea of sending redcoats out is a good strategy. Your frigates can then bombard his cities, destroying the defences. Make sure you still take some siege weapons for collateral (and I recommend city raider promotions) while a mix of troops is often best, particularily when invading overseas.

Your Royal Navy is a brilliant way of sinking an invasion force. To best effect patrol his seas so you can spot them a mile off and then meet them with your own squadron closer to home.

Hope it helps and I expect criticism of my opinion to be posted below

 

[JimT]

Oh and don't forget the best strategy for Civ is to weaken your strongest opponent with someone elses army. Any way to pitch your cousin against your brother, then find an achilles heal to claim a landing base and create your colonies.

 

[mattalton88]

hahaha. ruthless. i like it.

thanks for the advice, really appreciate it.

one more thing - i still don't know what governs unit production, why some things take 40 turns and some take 2. can anyone explain this to me and how to get the most out of my cities?

 

[InFlux5]

Everything that is produced has a cost in hammers. These come from the land surrounding your city, and you can see them in the city view or by pressing Ctrl+Y in the regular view.

You can see the hammer cost of something by holding your mouse pointer over it in the list of build options or in the build queue, or by looking in the Civilopedia. Also, at the city view you can mouse over whatever is currently being built to see how far along it is.

As the game goes on the hammer cost for units, buildings, and wonders steadily increases. This is because your hammer production should also be increasing as your cities get bigger and more people work the land.

 

[voek]

I wouldn't base my strategy on history but regarding the situation at hand... Because do you actualy need a navy? Is there much Ocean? Does your brother and cousin have a lot of coastal city's. In other words, why do you want a cr*p load of frigates? Not knowing any facts I would probably draft and build myself a lot of Redcoats and some cannons and just enough of a navy to counter theirs while landing near their weak protected city's.

 

[mattalton88]

thanks everyone for helping out.

yeah, all their major cities are coastal. China is pretty aggressive towards me and becoming a naval power, so is Napoleon. I need to rule the sea. and we're trying to kill Saladin at the moment - Mecca and Damascus are coastal and he keeps launching raids on us from galleys.

thanks again.

 

[swimrr]

Just a little side note-make sure you have plenty of cottages (which produce $, the more $ the longer you have them) around your cities. Flood plains and grasslands are the best spots for them. They will give you enough $ to help sustain a large army. Also, plenty of markets/grocers/banks. Make a beeline for redcoats as soon as you can, they will be far more valuable towards your win than frigates.

As for different time required to build things, some buildings/units cost more to build than other buildings/units, hence the different time rates. These costs are displayed in hammers, the more hammers you have the less amount of time it takes to build. SO make sure you have mines on all the hills, windmills, lumbermills, etc. Forges are also good, costly but at times very helpful. Good luck!

 

[mattalton88]

got the tech for frigates - first one in fifteen turns. i've got a pretty large bay seperating me from the dastardly french, so my first squadron will go there. after that, smooth sailing. ha ha.

another question - me and my cousin keep trying to trade with my brother but get denied. he is playing as the romans and unfortunately got Rome sacked by Saladin's troops so he is massively behind us. we keep trying to trade with him to get him up to speed but the interface just wont let us give him tech, world maps, resources, anything. does anyone know why this is?

 

[weimingshi]

need different techs to enable different trading. tech trade needs writing.

 

[swimrr]

You need writing to be able t otrade techs. Perhaps you don't have any techs that he doesn't. As for the trading resources, do you have roads to each others cities? Do you have open border agreements?

 

[InFlux5]

It's Alphabet that's required for trading techs, not Writing. If you are building Frigates I'm sure you have Alphabet. I'm not sure why you can't trade with him though.