Noob help, I even have troubles on chieftain

[Scallus]

Ok here i go, Im an old skooler of civ in the way that i've been playing civ since civ 1 (civ 2,3 included). I obtain now the latest version of civ 4 which is beyond the sword. I never player beyond chieftain. Becaus i prefer beeing the most powerfull nation in the world . But now i have this problem. Im allready at future tech 15 and i have alluminium (which provides me the modern armor etc).

for making a large story very short
--> made alot of units (modern armor mobile art., etc) and invaded a country
--> conquered 2 cities but had difficult maintaining as they sent wave after wave of sacrificed cannons followed by cavalery.

--> I lost 1 city but was able to hold the other 1. But I managed to crush their army.
--> checked worldbuilder as i found they used alot of units but found it plausible
--> 2nd attack and managed to get the city back, I thought... well their resistance is broken 'im going in'.
--> checked worldbuilder to be sure, and indeed only few units / city left.
--> I grouped my units and moved them only to find them crushed the next round by yet again wave after wave of units...
how can this be... how can this be prevented (can it be edited as I know about the "CIV4handicapinfo.xml). I don't recall i had same problems in previous versions of civ 4( vanilla nor warlord).
And one more thing that might be for modding tips... can you disable techs only for the AI and not for you? (i want to be the only civ who can build airplanes and armor ).

thx in advance for the help and by the way sorry for the bad english afterall I'm flemish

 

[oyzar]

build workers and settlers faster... This is cheiftan after all.. turn on resource bubbles. Learn what economy is. Don't automate workers. That should be enough for you to get to noble at least...

 

[Cam_H]

Scallus,

Welcome to CivFanatics!

Further to oyzar's good advice {cross post} especially re. Automated Workers if you're doing that ...

Winning the game?

How are you trying to win the game? By getting to Future Tech 15 it seems that you're preferred victory type is a 'Time' win? If so - your score will be helped by more land, which again means more invasion of the AI. In your next game, try to go after a specific victory (e.g. Space Ship) and have a 'fall back' position (e.g. Diplomatic).

Ineffective Battles?

It's a bit difficult to tell the exact situation you're in without seeing a game of yours, but it sounds like you have had the technology advantage over the AI, but simply not used it to invade other nations, expand your empire which leads to more resources and more production.

Your invasions should be 'punishing' - sqabbling over two cities just isn't typically enough to cripple the AI, you should be aiming to smash your rivals.

Other stuff?

If you are still struggling on Warlord, there are probably other matters that would benefit from attention, but addressing (a.) chasing a victory type, and (b.) making your wars count for something, are probably two factors that you might want to consider further.

There's loads of threads with 'challenge' type games here in this forum alone (let alone others such as the 'Succession Games' forum) that might be worth following to get a better feel for how other players beat the game, and articles in The War Academy and in the Strategy Articles sub-forum such as Sisiutil's Guide that are worth reading.

Best of luck - and again, welcome to CivFanatics!

 

[Scallus]

Well thanks for the advice ^^ I do automate the workers as I cant handle everything myself (in my opinion that is). But for part of the victorys ... well thats the point i dont really want to "win" i have played 100's of games without winning, for me its having fun beeing the allmighty having other AI worshipping me etc. I know about punishing the AI. allthough my skillz aren't good. This is what i usually do. I select some first cities to be conquered, most likely on the coast as they can provide a save landing spot for my next wave of troops (if i need any). and from there I push forward etc. the point that I get stuck at 2 cities is because I met alot of resistance. And I would not be able to hold the cities if i would push forward with my troops. And this is because they attack me with 20-30 units/ wave which is alot (specially for there second wave, read previous post for this). I find It impossible for them to have so many troops in 1 single turn as I checked them with world builder, hence even my empire consisting of 15+ cities all beefed up cant produce that many troops like theirs in 1 turn unless i would cheat via worldbuilder. I have modern armors 30-50 of them but still i got smashed by their technologically inferior army seeming to consisting of only cavalery and and cannons. That what makes me angry as i struggle to get the upperhand in their country others (more powerfull nations) tech up and will have armors which in turn will be nearly impossible for me to take over their land if i allready have problems with cavalry and cannons...

*update*
And by the way in civ 4 and warlords I had no probs playing on warlord difficulty. As I prefer AI fighting eachother more, on settler they are even affraid of destroying eachothers windmills... but in beyond the sword i find them ai cheating in my opinion (ok i know i cheat aswell but still I want THEM to play fair )

 

[Quornix]

My money is on whipping. With BTS, the AI knows how to whip units out with slavery, so if you're checking every couple of turns in worldbuilder (although with as much espionage as you must be pumping out with your tech lead, I don't see why you'd need to), that probably explains the extra troops.

Also, send more units. If 20-30 units is breaking your assault, send 60. Sure, they won't all have five promotions, but with that sort of tech advantage, they don't really need them. Keep your special forces special.

 

[Strato]

Just a thought, but considering you mentioned cannons, then they are causing collateral damage to any stacks that they attack. While the cannon may in fact lose to your almighty modern armours, they are (if it were against a stack) causing more damage than one would think. I can not remember the exact details with collateral damage, but it pays to be aware of that. Also consider terrain bonuses.

The AI is bad at fighting on the field in my opinion, choose your battles, and take it to the AI instead.

 

[InFlux5]

Best thing to do is post a save game(s).

 

[xanadux]

If you have FT15, have more production cities and build more military. The AI isn't beating you. You are allowing the Ai to beat you by not building enough of those shiny modern armour. And at chieftain level, I don't think the AI even knows how to build warriors yet at 2000AD?

 

[goldenhero]

They do build military, (although I play only on WL, I remember Chieftain.) But you could have gunpowder units, and they're still messing around with archers and longbowmen. It's entirely a possibility that you aren't taking terrain bonuses, cultural defense, defensive bonuses, and quite possibly the effects of collateral damage. What you could try is build up quite a few MA, but instead of keeping them all in one stack, try putting them in maybe 3 or 4 stacks. This could help disperse the collateral damage a little better, giving you a better chance.

 

[vicawoo]

Try drill mechanized infantry. Higher level drill reduces collateral damage, so cannons will hurt less, and they should be very hard to kill with cavalry. Modern armor doesn't get defensive bonuses, by the way, so in cities mechanized infantry may defend better.

Also, gunships and bombers are a good way to weaken the enemy stack before they get too close.