Playing BTS on Cheiftan

[riddleofsteel]

Hi, I have lots of questions, and I apologize if they get asked all the time. I've been reading here for a while today and didn't quite get the answers I need, so here goes.

I play BTS 3.19 on cheiftan. I tend to 'automate' a lot, because for now I am a shallow player. I usually focus on city improvements and combat. How can I keep my cities from getting too big and becoming either unhealthy, unhappy, shrinking, or taking way too long to produce?

I was playing hotseat with my cousin yesterday and our cities were either unhappy many times, some times unhealthy, and his were shrinking and not producing anything almost.

I can remember when I joined this forum asking a similar question and hearing from someone that you have to almost do mathematics with all your city tiles to manage them perfectly. I really dislike math, so I hope that is not the case.

Next I want to ask about workers, civics, research order and similar stuff. But I need to learn about proper city management first. Thanks very much.

 

[Inso]

Best thing to as a starting point is go into the 'civilopedia' in the game and look for the section that explains the game mechanics. Then check out the plethora of articles in the 'war academy' section on this lovely forum, loads of articles explaining every conceivable concept. Proper micromanagement of city tiles is only really necessary on the higher levels i.e. emperor+

 

[madscientist]

Riddle, just a little micromanagement can help your game.

Decide to review your cities once every certain amount of turns, then adjust what you population is doing (a population of 10 means you can either work 10 tiles, run 10 specialists, or a combination). Each population requires 2 food, extra food with leead to population growth.

If your city has unhappiness, it's too big or you need more happiness or lower population.

You do not need to know math but the game is fairly complicated and more than a wargame.

 

[DaveMcW]

Press Ctrl+R to turn on resource bubbles.
Build 1.5 workers per city.

 

[civverguy]

Care to post a save of one of your games?
Do not automate anything, the ai that controls your empire isn't smart and its much better if you control your workers manually. You don't really need to do exact math for everything, just play around with your city tiles see which choices are the most optimal for your situation.
Check the introductory courses in the war academy, it will help a lot.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/introductory_courses

 

[riddleofsteel]

Sure, I can find a save somewhere probably. I can sometimes fix the unhappiness or unhealthiness with a building or some improvement, but when I can't seem to fix it with those things it presents a problem to my limited skill. I might need to do more with specialists also, I never really mess with that feature.

 

[Yared]

Read:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138904

and

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=327926

 

[georgel123]

Hey, I'm pretty new like you. I won one deity game with an extremely lucky quecha rush. Anyways, like the other people said, YOU should control the game, not the computer, therefore refrian form automation. cehftain seems pretty good for a beginner, so it isn't all bad. Try Hatshepsut- it's a good beginner leader for both war and peace expansion.

 

[Yared]

Hey, I'm pretty new like you. I won one deity game with an extremely lucky quecha rush.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Ah, I'm using the Quot Capita mod. If I post a save game, nobody would be able to use it unless they have the mod too, is that right?

 

[sosasoser]

I'm not much more advanced then you, but I'll offer a couple of tips FWIW:

Hereditary Rule and Slavery do wonders for early game unhappines and unhealthiness probelms.

When you build something in a city, do not click your next build in the pop-up. Click examine city EVERYTIME. Before leaving the city screen, look at what your citizens are doing...play around with it...what else could they do?

Don't automate workers. It takes just a bit more time, but have them build what you want and where. You can automate them later to build railroads.

You don't need to build every building in every city. You can get away with it on chieftan. But before clicking build, ask yourself, what will this building do for this city?

 

[riddleofsteel]

Thanks Sosasoser, I appreciate the tips. Can anyone recommend an easy-ish nation to play and what to research at first? I take it slavery and hereditary rule are helpful, but how do I take advantage of slavery? I keep hearing about "whipping" but I have never seen that command. Thanks again.

 

[sosasoser]

The button to whip is on the city screen in the lower right. It's a big orange arrow pointing up when it's available. Also if you have alerts on with the mod you are running, you should see in the alert section when you can do it.

Financial leaders are great to play around with and learn. The extra cash gives you money to burn and get a nice tech lead with. Try Huayna if you want to wonderspam or Ragnar if you want to fight a lot of wars.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Thank you, I'll give Ragnar a try.

 

[Quaren]

Some things I thought about to advance a lvl or 2 was:

1. Dont build too many wonders. Some are good but a few are just not worth wasting time on.
2. Build a worker first. This usually gives you a faster start then anything else.
3. Cottages are good. If your not in need of food in a city your grasslands and floodplains should have cottages on them.
4. Get bronze working fairly early to chop forests in your cities while building settlers/wonders/important buildings to get them done faster.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Ok, I just played about an hour or so with Ragnar. Not feeling too good about it, but I've never used him before.

I got to Renaissance age pretty fast. I could research pretty quickly too. I didn't have much money (70 or 80 gold tops), and I also never invaded anyone. I built 5 cities (not consecutively) and focused on repelling barbarians and getting economy going. Never declared war or got declared on. I only used whipping once, but I don't know how much to use it or when to use it. I ended up with Civil Service which adds +1 unhappiness to every city, is that a bad move? Also, one of my cities got to size 8 with growth de-emphasized. And lastly, my capital got unhealthy really fast due to jungle. Does anyone want to see the save? I think I covered pretty much everything.

 

[JBossch]

I ended up with Civil Service which adds +1 unhappiness to every city

Uh, what?

Also, one of my cities got to size 8 with growth de-emphasized. And lastly, my capital got unhealthy really fast due to jungle.

Why are you de-emphasizing growth? Growing into unhappiness is bad but this means you need to get more happiness; luxuries, religion, military police, etc.

Does anyone want to see the save?

Yes.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Don't really know how to explain it. I was asked if I wanted to adopt Civil Service, and one of the effects was +1 "red frowny face" for every city.

I de-emphasized growth because it got too big and I wanted to avoid unhappiness and unhealthiness. Is there a better way? I had gems, confucianism, and maybe 1 more thing but that was it.

Where should I host the save file for you? Thanks.

 

[JBossch]

Don't really know how to explain it. I was asked if I wanted to adopt Civil Service, and one of the effects was +1 "red frowny face" for every city.

I de-emphasized growth because it got too big and I wanted to avoid unhappiness and unhealthiness. Is there a better way? I had gems, confucianism, and maybe 1 more thing but that was it.

Where should I host the save file for you? Thanks.

Are you using a mod that affects gameplay? Civil Service is a tech, not a civic. It allows the Bureaucracy civic which certainly does not add +1

With growth, the "better way" is to up your happy cap. Try Hereditary rule.

You can just post the save file in your forum post using the "manage attachments" function.

 

[Yared]

Don't really know how to explain it. I was asked if I wanted to adopt Civil Service, and one of the effects was +1 "red frowny face" for every city.

That's not supposed to happen.