Not new to Civ, I just suck

[DarkReign]

I have read these forums as a guest for...sheesh, a year now? I have picked up some excellent advice and such but I just cant seem to execute. I dont play MP which makes this post even more embarassing, so all my trouble is from the AI.

What I mean, take Sulla's walkthru....excellent stuff in there right? Hes playing on what you guys probably consider a noob level of Noble(as he does, but it was for purposes of his walkthru) and he easily, without thinking, dominated the entire thing.

I play flargin' Warlord and have yet to win a game in over 2 years of playing. I think I did once, but I have a new PC now, so whatever. I stopped playing this game for that reason. I just dont seem to "get it", so to speak.

For example, I have read the Beginners Tips sticky on top, wonderful stuff (with good arguments too). I have tried following them to a tee and have a lot of early success in my game. But then it all goes to hell...let me give you a synopsis of EVERY SINGLE game I play.

Since rapid expansion isnt really an option, I wait until my first city is at 3 before I start to train a settler. Im pretty finicky about escorts so either thru setllement discovery or training a warrior, both starting cities are defended.

Worker time. Connect, grab available resource, then cultivate the surrounding area. I usually have both Hinduism and Judaism and are well into Ironworking before I consider expanding again.

Mind you, I always have all the early wonders (maybe, rarely I miss one) as well. Especially Pyramids.

Bla bla bla, build warriors/archers to defend my ever increasing feeble empire. Tops in every score, especially money and culture (not very hard to do on Warlord, I know). Have 5-6 cities that are all well defended and have workers a-plenty working their fields and networking.

This seems to be when I stumble. Either I am not trading enough (really only resource, some tech but its all stuff I pass on my way to civil service, so meh) or I am not expanding enough (via war), but either way I stall.

I am still way ahead in tech and $$, but the AI focused more on tech for war. I havent and usually do not until well after drama/music/education/etc. All my cities and bordering AI civs that I have open borders all have both my religions in every city, already have both religious buildings for the $$ (which is why I am usually so far ahead).

When I do decide my corner of the world isnt enough, the sheer TIME it takes to expand is god awful. Ill have 3 stacks before I enter a conflict of my choosing. 4 muskettmen, 4 macemen and 4 cats a piece. All well and good to take 3 cities, but that isnt enough. Also, the AI is throwing Grenadiers at me, which means I waited too long or researched all the wrong techs for too long. So after I take 3 cities automatically, Im dead in the water getting chewed up by the advanced army.

Obviously, I wait for the cities I did take to stop revolt (if I dont have some artists) and call for peace (which is always accepted). Now I have 3-5 new cities that are WAAAAAAY behind in buildings.

Is this where I make one my mistakes?

I build them up to the level they should be, cranking out workers to cultivate and connect the corresponding outliers. By this time, its almost 1800 AD....as you can see I am going to lose. I dont even have the world map yet outside of my continent and yet the AI from the other side of the world is declaring war on me. I couldnt get an army there if I even knew where "there" was.

Most of the time I find a way to bring balance back and all is well, but with time being as late as it is, I run right out of it and some AI wins a timed victory or the space race (which is puzzling).

I quit playing this game because I sit here and read the CivFans playing warmup games on Noble just trying out new strats and I cant even smell victory on Warlord for Christs sake.

I build every building in every city, which during my time writing this is probably my problem. Instead of building everything, should I be cranking out units? How do I show you folks a typical AI beatdown of DarkReign (on frickin' Warlord! GaaaAAaaAAGH!).

I dont even care about the abuse I am going to get from this post/thread anymore. I havent posted before because I knew I was fundamentally flawed in my approach, but I dont get where and how. I have played every Civ game and was quite good at CtP. But Civ4 was a departure from the previous games (in a better way) and I have yet to grasp, after 2 years, how to win at this game. Please. Help. Me.

 

[madscientist]

I stopped reading after I found what I think are your 2 problems. Founding 2 religions and all early wonders.

These can be done successfully but usually require some deviation from normal and reliable strategy.

My suggestions is to found ONE religion, get Hinduism and don't tech monotheism until someone else founds it. Pick an early wonder or 2 and stay away from the others. Pyramids are fine if you have hammers to build it. Also the oracle is almost always worth the effort.

I always build a worker or workboat before a settler. I always escort my first settler with 2 warriors and send one back to the capital.

It would help to post a start and play the game through the forum.

 

[DaveMcW]

Try playing a game where you only build settlers, workers, and axemen. See how many cities you can collect before your units go on strike.

Then start a new game, follow the same strategy, but stop expanding before you reach the breaking point and then play normally.

 

[johncross21]

perhaps you're building too much

I rarely bother with any world wonders - unless I have a strong production city and two good commerce cities and another idle

whatever my strategy I try to capture an enemy capital by 1100

that seems to be regarded by the vetrans as a bit slow - axe rush was a popular strategy for Vanilla and Warlords

but even if you want a cultural victory building all early wonders is expensive in terms of other opportunities

similarly two religons seesm desirable rather than essential - after you have a favoured religion research other lines

finally don't build everything in each city - production cities don't need a market/library because if they are specialised they will only produce a handful of coins and increasing that by 25% isn't worth much - use them to produce units/ships/wonders

research cities don't need barracks/stables etc because its not efficient for them to use land which could produce coin for hammers and therefore they churn out units too slow - turn all the land over to coins, cottage and slow build libraries etc

finally explore using workboats and when you have astronomy build ships - send a settler to colonise offshore islands or peninsulars on other continents. I do this and let them grow for 300 years then use them as a base for an assault

there may be other tips but we would need to see a posted civ

hoewever if its fun - the score don't matter

 

[DarkReign]

I knew I was fundamentally flawed, but whoa...

I am a turtler by nature. Every RTS I play besides Dawn of War, I turtle while I tech then unleash the gates of hell. I try playing this turn based game the same and always run out of time.

So basically, pump out combat untis early and kill everything in sight? I think I can do that.

Thanks for the advice. Warlord domination, here I come!

 

[DarkReign]

Oh oh....I should say (since johncross mentioned Vanilla) that I am playing Vanilla. I have Warlords, but I cant even win in vanilla yet, much less with new units, etc. BtS?! No friggin way, not yet, besides I suck at this game as it is, why dump more money into it without knowing what Im doing yet?

 

[DarkReign]

So, city specialization is an absolute must? I understand you mean that "to a degree". Theres one of my many problems. I am going to play a quick game with some of this info, especially the "only workers, axes and settlers".

 

[johncross21]

one other thought

those 3 stacks sound a bit wimpy

put them together, call it two stacks and add some pikemen to each

then unleash "turtle war"

 

[DarkReign]

hoewever if its fun - the score don't matter

See, thats the thing. I have yet to win, but I play this damn thing like it was a drug. I enjoy it immensely, moreso than any other game (except maybe Dawn of War), but at some point you know, I want to win.

 

[Elrohir]

DarkReign

Don't build as many buildings and wonders. Only build the ones you need - try EITHER Stonehenge, or the Oracle, to get some GP points. Try only building the Pyramids if you have stone. And so on. Don't build every building in every city, either - if you have a great production city that is turning out 10 beakers per turn, why do you need a library there? That'll only get you 2.5 extra beakers a turn. That's not much. Just build units there nonstop, instead. (Except where you need buildings to increase production - forge, factory, etc - make your units better - barracks, stable - or increase the happiness or health but only when you hit the limit, or right before. If you're city is at size 8, and you have 12 happy faces versus 8 unhappy faces, you don't need to build any more temples) Build libraries and markets and such in cities with a lot of commerce, but establish a couple of serious production cities that build almost nothing but units. (And maybe one that builds the occasional wonder)

And every time you research a new tech, go look at the tech trading screen and see what you can get for it, if anything.

And continue expanding, until you're losing money at 50% research and 50% gold. Then make peace, or stop building settlers or whatever, and focus on rebuilding your economy. Once you're earning money at 50 or 60% again, keep expanding. Unless you've already decided on a victory condition that requires you focus on something else - like building space parts, or not declaring war on people for a Diplomatic victory - always keep expanding. As has often been said, land is power.

 

[manu-fan]

Not starting a Settler unitl size 3 is not necessarily bad. It's what I do

I start out with a Warrior until size 2. At size 2, I build a worker. Then, another warrior or Scout or something else to get to size 3. Then, as soon as I'm size 3, I immediately stop and build a Settler. Don't stop there though. Finish what you were building before Settler, then build another worker->warrior->Settler.

A couple of other things to consider. Getting Horses early should be a priority. Chariots are great is keeping the Barbs at bay.

Apply your early warriors to the new cities you found. You don't need any defense in your capital until you have at least 3 cities pretty much.

Use your early workerst to chop if you have lots of forests, to speed up the Settlers, and (moving forward) any key buildings you want.

The only early Wonder I usually go for is the Oracle (and maybe one other). Chopping for this is also good. As a free tech, I usually take Metal Casting (if lots of sea, go for Colossus), or CoL (if I really need a religion badly).

Go for key techs early that will help out with your current position. Agriculture->Animal Husbandry (vital to see if any Horses)->Wheel->Bronze Working->Iron Working->Pottery (if you want cottages)->etc.

I find I can usually backfill the Religion techs and still get the Oracle fairly comfortably (on Noble).

If you need to, wait to go to war until you have Construction. Otherwise, if you've got a close neighbor, feel free to beat them up with tons of Axes or Swordsmen.

Play as a Creative leader to get the +2 culture so you don't have to worry about building a monument etc. to get your cities to expand.

Cheers.

 

[xanadux]

Sounds like you wait til after your settler to build a worker. Build the worker as your very first build in the game with only 2 exceptions ... the worker will have nothing to do once he is built (rare), you start with fishing and have seafood you can work (workboat first). Waiting til size three for settler then waiting for first worker until after the settler is putting you dozens of turns behind from the very start.

Learn how to run a strong economy. On noble level, it can be as simple as just building almost all cottages in your capital and running bureaucracy.

Skip the early religions. A stab at Judaism after the worker techs is ok, and if you really want a religion, Code of Laws is very easy to get first even if you start by researching BW, IW, and other worker techs.

Read the walkthrough games ... ALCS, my Mansa CivIV 101 game, and others and pay more attention to tech paths, worker improvements, and city builds.

By the time an AI's cultural borders touch yours, you should have enough military built to at least easily crush any invasion they may send.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I just dont seem to "get it", so to speak.

For what it's worth, it took me a long time to "get it" as well. At the lower levels, Collect the Shiny! is a lot of fun, and obscures much of what the game is about.

Since rapid expansion isnt really an option, I wait until my first city is at 3 before I start to train a settler.

Assuming that you are growing as fast as possible, it will typically take you 16 turns to grow to size 3. What else are you doing during that time?

Years 4000BC through 1000BC are the most important turns in the game (er, until you reach a level where that stops being quite so absolute). Learning how those turns work, and how to maximize the effectiveness of them, will get you to Prince.

Also, ignore score - it's not a very good measure of "how am I doing". The demographics graphs are a better choice, if you understand what they imply.

I build every building in every city, which during my time writing this is probably my problem. Instead of building everything, should I be cranking out units?

You are a buildaholic. The fact that there's a name for this should be a hint that it's a common problem (do a search, and you'll find a number of threads discussing remedies). Playing a few games where you concentrate on units - variations include

1) Before constructing a building, you must first train a unit. A stricter version of this calls for investing an equal number of hammers in military before constructing the building (in other words, if you want a granary, you have to train two axemen/three archers/four warriors first).

2) Play an always war game. Turn the difficulty up to a level where you won't be embarrassed to get smoked (Deity, why not) on a Pangaea map. Save the original position, and play until you are destroyed. Then reload the original save, and try to beat your time.

3) Try playing a game where your fourth city is an enemy capital.

 

[ratrangerm]

I've learned quite a bit from my experiences here on this forum. I'll admit I used to be the guy who chased all the wonders (darn that old scoring system from the first two Civs! ) and wanted to get every religion, but sometimes, that's not a good route to take.

Here's some general advice that will help you at the start of the game.

1. Look at your leader's traits and your starting techs. If you are Spiritual and start with Mysticism, that's the time to pursue an early religion. And in this case, pick either Meditation or Polytheism and stick with it. Don't worry about the other one. On the other hand, if you are Financial and start with The Wheel, you may want to grab Pottery early and you should forget the early religion.

2. Look at the land around your starting city. If you see Corn and don't start with Agriculture, you want it. Cows means you should pursue Animal Husbandry. If there's Gold in them there hills, get Mining if you don't start with it. Lots of forests means heading to Bronze Working to do some chopping.

3. Decide on which early Wonder you want to get. If you have the Creative trait, you probably don't need Stonehenge, so you might want to look elsewhere. Oracle can be useful, but it's not absolutely necessary. If you are in doubts about which Wonder to pursue first, set your sights on the Great Library, which is useful to almost any strategy.

4. Get units out first, then focus on buildings. And yes, specializing is a key. Lots of riverside territory could mean a commerce city through a cottage spam. Two food resources and lots of hills suggests a production city. A flat area with grassland, plains a couple of food resources and a fresh water lake for irrigation is an ideal Great Person farm.

5. It doesn't hurt to found cities that won't grow to be that large. You don't necessarily want to found those first, but if you can claim a useful resource, that's fine. It's not about getting every city to grow to a population of 20.

6. Build a unit first, then when you grow to size 2, start a Worker. Workers will help you greatly in getting your first city on its feet. Then you can build a couple more units to accompany your first Settler. And it's often a good idea, when that Settler is complete, to build another Worker that can go to the second city right away.

7. Watch your slider to determine your expansion. Generally speaking, you will want to have your science slider at least at 50 percent. When you are going to war, you may have to drop it a bit to keep from losing all your money, but that's OK... you just have to remember to rebuild your economy when you are done warring.

Try this out: When you start the game, build cities until you have to set your science slider to 50 percent just to break even or be just slightly "in the black." Then concentrate on needed buildings and additional units for your army, while your Workers improve terrain. Soon, you should be able to adjust the science slider back up to 60 percent, maybe even 70 percent. At that point, consider whether you should build more cities, or go to war to acquire them.

 

[Johan^^]

If you want to go for wonder strategy I´ll recomment reading Obsoletes walkthroughs.

Just search the forum for walkthrough and you´ll find them.

This is an extreme case of wonder hugging and without any early expansion. Though it is easy to follow and with this game in mind you can evolve your own strategy from this.

 

[Nickzilla]

I too am a warlord player at the moment, but I have played with success on Noble too.

I don't have much time so I'll talk to you about wonders, and which ones to build to help you succeed.

Hopefully in each game you'll have a rough idea of what victory to go for. In my opinion, this depends on your leader traits and the lay of the land around you. For example, you can't really go for a conquest victory if there are no military resources anywhere near you, just like you can't really go for a space race victory if there are no good tiles for commerce or cottages anywhere near you.

Granted you can always move or expand in different directions. This can work in certain games and be hopeless in others. I guess part of being a good player is assessing these situations.

Anyway. You should only build the wonders that help advance your victory agenda or are universally useful regardless of the victory type you have in mind. Building more wonders that aren't as useful could be using hammers that are better spent elsewhere.

(that's one problem with building EVERY building in each city, it wastes quite a few hammers.)

I'll list wonders and what victories they're good to build with. I don't have time to explain WHY for each one at the moment, but maybe I'll edit this post tomorrow to go into more depth.

btw, a symbol means they're only useful if you're a religious state. If not, don't bother with them.

btw2, some wonders aren't very good, but I'll put down what they're best for.

btw3, I didn't bother including time victory.

Angkor Wat - Universal

Broadway - Cultural, Diplomatic

Chichen Itza - Conquest, Domination

Hollywood - Cultural, Diplomatic

Notre Dame - Diplomatic, Domination

Rock n Roll - Cultural, Diplomatic

Stonehenge - Universal (unless a creative leader)

The Colossus - Space Race, Universal (useful for all, but more for space race)

The Eiffel Tower - Cultural, Domination

The Great Library - Space Race, Universal (useful for all, but more useful for space race)

The Great Lighthouse - Space Race, Universal (useful for all but more for space race UNLESS mercantilism is the economy civic)

The Hagia Sophia - Universal

The Hanging Gardens - Domination, Diplomatic

The Kremlin - Universal

The Oracle - Universal

The Parthenon - Universal

The Pentagon - Conquest, Domination

The Pyramids - Universal

The Sistine Chapel - Cultural (especially if )

The Spiral Minaret - Universal

The Statue of Liberty - Universal

The Taj Mahal - Universal

The Three Gorges Dam - Universal

The U.N - Diplomatic (duh)

Versailles - Universal

It seems most wonders are universally useful for all victory types (which admittedly I didn't know ) but some are more useful than others depending on your games circumstances. For example, extra wealth or production in all cities is good, but if you are wealthy or productive enough already, you should be able to skip them.

 

[hwynboy]

.

When I do decide my corner of the world isnt enough, the sheer TIME it takes to expand is god awful. Ill have 3 stacks before I enter a conflict of my choosing. 4 muskettmen, 4 macemen and 4 cats a piece. All well and good to take 3 cities, but that isnt enough. Also, the AI is throwing Grenadiers at me, which means I waited too long or researched all the wrong techs for too long. So after I take 3 cities automatically, Im dead in the water getting chewed up by the advanced army.


I quit playing this game because I sit here and read the CivFans playing warmup games on Noble just trying out new strats and I cant even smell victory on Warlord for Christs sake.

I dont even care about the abuse I am going to get from this post/thread anymore. I havent posted before because I knew I was fundamentally flawed in my approach, but I dont get where and how. I have played every Civ game and was quite good at CtP. But Civ4 was a departure from the previous games (in a better way) and I have yet to grasp, after 2 years, how to win at this game. Please. Help. Me.

Wow I read this post and I was like YES! there is someone else out there who just doesnt QUITE get this game like me. I have been doing ok until warlord and I have a hard time winning at all. But this game is awesome...Im just gonna keep plugging away. Just about every statement in your post is exactly how I feel in EVERY single game I play for the last 2-3 months.
Good Luck I'm right there with you.

 

[manu-fan]

Interesting. I hadn't noticed the bit about 3 stacks of musketmen, Macemen and Catapults.

Here's something. I have never ever ever ever had 3 stacks in any of my games until very late in the game. I sometimes have 2, but only having 1 stack and one front and city to defend etc. etc. is what wins it for me. This is especially true in the early and mid games. Later, I might have a stack of Cavalry and a slower moving Cannon/Grenadier stack, and much later I may have swarms of Tanks.

So, try this. Build up a single stack of Axes, or Swordsmen, or Axes w/ Cats, or Swordsmen w/ Cats and take out a close neighbot one city at a time. Swordsmen w/ Cats can last quite a long time as an attacking force. even after they get Longbows, because of the Cats.

Later, get a SINGLE stack of Macemen w/ Cats or Trebucets. Then, take over a rival Civ (trying to keep a single front of attack), one city at a time.

If you try to keep and hold too many cities at once, you'll be stretched too thin.

Cheers.

 

[eewallace]

Oh, I've been exactly where you are, too. I've always loved wonder-building, but there really isn't any way to play a good game of Civ 4 on noble level and get all of the early wonders. I'd say, go on the wonder-diet! No wonders at all in ancient and classical times, and see how it goes. After you win a game or two, then allow yourself maybe just a stonehenge and an oracle...

The problem with having your cities tied up with building early wonders is that your defenses and economy aren't going to be good enough. The AI civs will capitalize on your military weakness and you will get picked on pretty much always. So build a pretty good sized military early, defend your cities, and station the rest in the areas into which you want to expand (to fogbust, and to see where the AI civs are expanding to). Work on your economy and resources early, too. Unless you start with mysticism, forget grabbing one of the earliest religions. Prioritize BW (for chopping and bronze) and horses (for military). Make your second/third cities near bronze/horses. Then get the techs your workers will need to hook up your resources. THEN think about religion. At this point, maybe judaism hasn't been founded yet, but confucianism is probably a better bet. Get writing/mysiticism/code of laws. You have your religion, plus the ability to build courthouses to help the economy. With workers building cottages, you should be able to expand to 4 or 5, maybe even 6 cities (if there is room).

 

[vormuir]

I had the same experience a level higher -- stalled for months at Noble. Then it finally "clicked" and I moved up to Prince. Then I spent over a year at Prince! Only won my first Monarch game yesterday.

But, you know, it's all good. The game has stayed fun.

As a bunch of other people have said: don't grab all the early wonders. I mean, yeah, they're all good, but some are better than others and they cost a buttload of hammers.

Let me narrow in on the Pyramids a little, because you say you always build them. Okay, the Pyramids are a great Wonder. But they're not cheap. They cost, what, 400 hammers? For 400 hammers you could build a barracks and 10 Axemen. That's a war right there... instead of building the 'mids, you could probably have taken out a rival capital.

So why build the Pyramids? Well, they let you shift to other forms of government... usually Representation, although occasionally people while go with Fascism for warmongering. But 9 times out of 10, people shift to Representation and stick with it for a long time.

So what does that get you? +2 Happiness in your five largest cities. Which is nice, but happiness caps are probably not an issue at your level... you can grow your cities to size 7 or 8 before you have to think about happiness.

Representation also gives you +3 beakers from every specialist. Which is super-wonderful, if you're planning to run a lot of specialists. If you have a natural GP farm city, excellent -- those beakers will add up fast. But if you don't? Then, um, Representation isn't all that great, and probably not worth spending 400 hammers in the early game.

So should you build the Pyramids? Well, it depends. If you have stone, hell yes -- at 200 hammers they're a steal. If you're Industrious, they cost 2/3 x 400, or 267 hammers, which is still pretty good. Or if you're planning to run a lot of specialists.

But otherwise, there's probably something better you can do with your hammers.

Here's a broad guideline: if you have built one or two Wonders before 1 AD (on normal speed, vanilla), you're fine. Three Wonders, hmm -- might be OK, but you should have a good reason for building them. Four or more Wonders? Unless you're Industrious and started with Stone or Marble next door, you have overbuilt.

Try restricting yourself to just two or three Wonders, and see how your play changes.

Oh, and also: early war. How early depends, but AT THE LATEST when you have catapults. Getting cats should trigger a brutal war of expansion right away, if you haven't had one already.

Okay, go out and kick. Then come back here and tell us how it went.

cheers,


Waldo