Playing BTS on Cheiftan

[riddleofsteel]

I am playing with Quot Capita enabled. That might be what's doing it.

 

[JBossch]

I am playing with Quot Capita enabled. That might be what's doing it.

No idea what that is but it must change gameplay, in which case, specific suggestions from this board will not be very helpful.

 

[Quaren]

Think he means the anarchy from swapping civics.
That only lasts 1 turn if you do.

 

[sosasoser]

No idea what that is but it must change gameplay, in which case, specific suggestions from this board will not be very helpful.

IIRC Quot Capita makes several changes to gameplay and has a lot of addons. Its a good mod pack, but it might be a good idea to get the basic game down before moving on to it.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Yeah, you're right. Think I'll do that.

 

[oawiefga]

install the BUG mod. It will tell you when your cities are about to become unhealthy/unhappy so that you can take corrective action before it happens. I would make a habit opening the city advisor at least once every 5 turns just to see what is going on in your cities.

 

[Shafi]

I would suggest you play with a expansive / charismatic leader this will make it easier for you as you will get a +3 health and +1 hapiness bonus - I think i remember Cyrus having these traits in vanilla & warlords.

But you still need to learn to keep your cities within the health & hapiness caps (you need to keep checking the city management menu regularly for this.), also build temples for early hapiness(you need to have a religion to build a temple), for health Granary / Aqueduct.

Do you know what resources can give you health & hapiness? All the food resources + seafood will give you health. get these hooked up (improve them and build a road to the nearest city)
Hapiness comes from - Gold / Silver (you can mine these) + Fur / Ivory (With camp) + Dyes / Incense / Sugar --- you can only improve these after researching calendar so they wont be available in the early game.

Also you can avoid unhealthiness from jungles by chopping them.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Thank you very much. When I play with Ragnar, as he has the financial trait, how should I be making my money? For that matter, how do you make money with any leader? I was playing hotseat with my cousin yesterday and by the medieval age we were both almost always flat broke every turn. Thanks.

 

[JBossch]

Thank you very much. When I play with Ragnar, as he has the financial trait, how should I be making my money? For that matter, how do you make money with any leader? I was playing hotseat with my cousin yesterday and by the medieval age we were both almost always flat broke every turn. Thanks.

Cottages.

 

[futurehermit]

Improve the tiles in your city's "big fat cross" (i.e., what you see when you double-click your city).

Food is priority #1. You want to settle your cities near food resources (seafood, grains, livestock, calendar resources [bananas, sugar, etc.]). Improve these tiles first so that your city grows. Aside from food resources, you may need to build farms and windmills to increase the food so that your city will grow to size 15++

Some production is priority #2. Every city needs at least 1 hill to mine so that you can produce buildings, units, etc. (Advanced players can get away without hills, etc.)

Commerce is priority #3. Commerce is what drives your tech rate and pays the bills. If you see gold, gems, silver, etc. then you should try and target these sites (be sure to combine with food resources!). Aside from commerce resources, you get your commerce primarily by building cottages. You should try and build LOTS of cottages across your empire so that you tech fast.

Health and Happiness!!! You need to increase your health and happiness caps as much as possible as soon as possible. In the early going, for health, this means acquiring health resources (seafood, grains, livestock, etc.) and building the early health buildings (granary, aqueduct, harbor). For happiness, this means acquiring happiness resources (precious metals, ivory, fur, etc.), building the early happiness buildings (forge, market, theatre, temples, etc.), and teching to monarchy for the Hereditary Rule civic (+1 per unit stationed in city).

Also, mods are fun, but getting the game basics down first is probably a good idea.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Okay, just played a few hours as Washington. Had a few rough spells of having research as low as 20% (not enough money again) and I probably had my workers too automated again also because I wasn't really building any cottages like I should have.

I am in the industrial age, and every other civ has choked me out, territory-wise. I waited until one other one asked me to go to war with Hammurabi and I said yes. So far, have taken one Babylonian city at somewhat high troop cost. Other civs seem to have airships, which puzzles me because they still have longbowmen.

I didn't really whip much this time, either. Still trying to get the hang of that. And Futurehermit, when you say get cities to size 15++, what do I do when people say it's too crowded? I can definitely see that I need to play a little bit like the AI does and spread out like a plague.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

And Futurehermit, when you say get cities to size 15++, what do I do when people say it's too crowded?

Happiness is one of the forces that you need to learn to manage - there's a strategy article that will expose you to the tools available.

 

[superclean]

Okay, just played a few hours as Washington. Had a few rough spells of having research as low as 20% (not enough money again) and I probably had my workers too automated again also because I wasn't really building any cottages like I should have.

I am in the industrial age, and every other civ has choked me out, territory-wise. I waited until one other one asked me to go to war with Hammurabi and I said yes. So far, have taken one Babylonian city at somewhat high troop cost. Other civs seem to have airships, which puzzles me because they still have longbowmen.

I didn't really whip much this time, either. Still trying to get the hang of that. And Futurehermit, when you say get cities to size 15++, what do I do when people say it's too crowded? I can definitely see that I need to play a little bit like the AI does and spread out like a plague.

Even having played CIV 4 earlier, I only just got BTS recently and a lot of the new concepts were foreign to me. I am still getting the hang of it, as it is different every time, but the whole point of the game is about managing your civ and balancing out every factor you have to deal with. I think what helped me develop into a better BTS player was just starting test games to better get the hang of the new game concepts, like I played for a bit doing mostly espionage, or I played for a bit playing extremely aggressively, running specialists, or rexing to failure and trying to recover (the best way to learn the concept of cottaging.) It's still fun trying to figure it out and I think makes you a better player in the long run. Also, when you can mop the floor at a certain difficulty, play it again until you can beat it with any random civ and then move up in difficulty. Especially on the higher difficulty's when it looks like you are coasting to a victory, there is always some dick that ruins your plans by declaring war, and you better always be ready for it

 

[CHEESE!]

EDIT: Whoops, didn't notice second page.

 

[riddleofsteel]

What happens with a city when it gets too crowded and you can't do anything to fix it anytime soon? Does production slow down or something? Also, should I add specialists to a city that are of a field where the city already does well or where it is deficient? And last, what is "rexing"? Thanks.

 

[CHEESE!]

It just gets angry mad or unhealthy yuck. You work the same tiles, but you have one useless citizen. Specialize your cities- so put your Merchants in your Money city, and scientists in Science city. Rexing is Rapid EXpansion, or really fast settling.

 

[COUGAR69]

I play the game on Chieftain as Washington and never get below 60% reserch. I never automate workers till late game when telling them what to do is to time consuming and tedious.Build mines on hills,cottages on floodplains and grasslands and farm all plains. I never farm floodplains. The reason be if you cottage them the gold brought in is nice to have. I always try for Stonehenge just for the reason of cultural border expansion. If any of this is bad advice feel free to tell me. The one problem I have is not building enough units for defense let alone offense. Having a religion and religious buildings also helps as they will produce gold for your cities. If you spread your religon to other civs and they adopt it its all the more better.

 

[sosasoser]

What happens with a city when it gets too crowded and you can't do anything to fix it anytime soon? Does production slow down or something? Also, should I add specialists to a city that are of a field where the city already does well or where it is deficient? And last, what is "rexing"? Thanks.

Generally speaking, yes you want to maximize your city's capacity in what it is good at so you will want to run specialists that help that. However, there may be times when you will want to switch it up. Is your whole empire a little cash strapped and you're looking for money for upgrades but can't reduce the science slider too much at the moment: might run some merchants for awhile. Need to get an important building out like a Bank or Wall Street in your hammer-poor commerce city? Running engineers and priests during the build might be a good idea.

You just have to remember to switch the specialists back when the time comes.

 

[riddleofsteel]

Okay, that makes sense. I could have sworn though that I've hired merchants in a city before and not had it improve my money situation. I'll double-check though. Another thing is, in the first 100 turns, even as a financial leader, I wind up losing nearly all my money and have to crank research down. Is what you describe in your last post what I need to do to remedy that, Sosasoser?

And what happens to cities that have more than 1 religion in them? Thanks.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Another thing is, in the first 100 turns, even as a financial leader, I wind up losing nearly all my money and have to crank research down.

It's NORMAL to have more expenses than you can handle with the treasury alone.

The game UI makes it very easy to confuse research conversion rate ( percentage of converted to ) with research rate ( / turn ). The second one is what matters.