Quick and simple tips for staying ahead

[Animepsyco]

Like the name says for a novice using the american CIV. It just seems the AI always has more cities than me And I've really tried to make as many cities as I can. What can I do to get ahead in the first two eras?

 

[Michelangelo]

First of all,

Welcome to CFC

Secondly, don't get worried if you don't expand as fast as the AI. This just happens, just don't fall behind to much. The bonusses the AI gets helps them to expand much faster than you.

You can get involved in a war and get a couple of nice cities that way. Especially on lower difficulties this won't be to hard.

 

[Animepsyco]

First of all,

Welcome to CFC

Secondly, don't get worried if you don't expand as fast as the AI. This just happens, just don't fall behind to much. The bonusses the AI gets helps them to expand much faster than you.

You can get involved in a war and get a couple of nice cities that way. Especially on lower difficulties this won't be to hard.

Glad to be here.

Hmm, maybe I should stop being so elitist and start on the lowest difficulty level against one city. Anyway I was playing civilization back in 2005 and found myself always getting bogged down someway or another and it was pissing me off so I stopped playing until like last week. I think I might have gotten better thanks to maybe more exp. with strategy games. Either way I'm playing Civ conquest ver. 1.22. BTW could someone give some info in the game setup screen (the one where you choose your world), NTM some good early-on tips?

 

[Michelangelo]

I'm playing Civ conquest ver. 1.22.

But that's civ3!!!, this is the civ4 forum, so I assumed you're playing civ 4.

On civ3 it's even easier to expand quickly, look up articles that handle 4-turn settler factories. Basically requires a lot of food surplus to make up for the 2 pop you lose by creating a settler.

But I'll advise you to visit the civ3 part of this forum, it's still very active.

HTH

 

[LlamaCat]

the AIs only gets bonuses on Prince or higher level, so depending on what level he is playing he should be able to expand as fast or much faster than the computer no problem, if the basic concepts are understood. On the lowest two levels, if you just plop a city down, grow to size 2-3 and build whatever you want, then build a couple settlers, you are expanding quicker than the AIs right there.

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, Animepsyco.

Expand fast and early, build lots of roads, use the sliders found in the F1 screen. Early on, focus on military, workers and settlers. Also, don't build city improvements just because you can. Build ones you need. Otherwise, they're going to cost you shields and gold that could otherwise be spent on something else.

You'll want to visit the War Academy, as well.

 

[drakdan]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=59026

and the War Academy

 

[Ringo Kid]

some good early-on tips?

Hmm, if the problem is that the AI has more towns than you, you need to make more towns. And destroy his or take them.

What I do at the start is ;

1 Build first town

2 Build nothing but settlers and cheapest soldiers.

3 Have the worker build roads to connect the towns.

4 If a town is size 1, I set it to build a cheap military unit- usually a warrior.

5 If a town is size 2 I set it to build a settler if it will grow to size three by the time it builds the settler.

6 If a town is size 3 or bigger it builds a settler.

7 I build the towns two squares from each other so that when roaded the garrisons can support each other. I build the town in the spot that the particular settler can reach the quickest, if I have to decide between several choices. My idea is to found as many towns as possible as quickly as possible.

8 The military units escort the settlers to its chosen location and then garrison it.

9 extra military units ( not needed for garrisons)get put into stacks of 5 and attack the nearest enemy city and burn it down unless it has a resource/luxury. The idea at this point is not to conquer the enemy-just slow down their expansion. Just keep attacking every thing you see that is close to you. You get a lot of slave workers that way too.

10 When I hit twenty cities (standard map) I stop building settlers and build some workers and city improvements to develop my territory. I like to have two workers per town. I pick the best towns( least corrupt)and put science, economy and growth buildings in them, and the lesser ones get barracks and build military units. The military towns with the best production build the expensive units (cost a lot a of shields) and the weaker ones build cheap units.

That will give you a strong base to start from.

Read the academy articles on micro managing for a faster start- they will make your game much stronger and show you how to learn to grow you empire as quickly as possible.

Then read the military ones that will show you how to destroy any enemies that stand in your way or at least defend your empire.

 

[Animepsyco]

Sounds good. Got anything else tell me.

 

[Jazzmail]

some good early-on tips?

2 Build nothing but settlers and cheapest soldiers.

I would highly recommend building a granary and some workers early.

10 When I hit twenty cities (standard map) I stop building settlers and build some workers and city improvements to develop my territory.

That might be a bit too late. Food production is crucial for settler factories, so you'll want to irrigate early which means workers.

 

[Ringo Kid]

What Jazzmail says is correct, good techniques to learn as you gain experience. But for a newbie, I think its better to narrow your focus on one specific goal; ie 20 cities as quickly as possible. There is just no way to screw that up. So you know it will work.

 

[King Hannibal]

Ok i like to play on regent i have won on diety i have vanilla but i guess these simple steps will hep all versions

1. First city build granary
2. first city build settlers.
3. second city build granary
4. second city build settlers
5. third fourth fifth cities build barracks
6. 4,5,6 build spearmen, archers or swordmen
7.1,2 still building settlers 7 and 8th city build workers
8.all other towns put wealth on (i do this because i lag behind in tech, i leave tech at 50% until i have a few cities and can put it to 80-100% with out loosing cash)
9. build a warrior and press "e" wich will send it out exploring
10. when you find a different civ plan a route taking 1 5th or 1 8th of his/hers empire.
11. trade for peace and take all their techs world map workers and if your lucky a city or two.
12. wait 20 turns restocking your amry and repeat you can wipe them out completely or keep them small.

hope this helps. if any of these steps dont work for you send me a message and i will try to help further

 

[Son_Of_Dido]

I would also like to add that the sooner you get your second, third, and fourth cities founded, the sooner you can start having your cities "specialize" instead of having to build their own warrior, their own workers to improve their tiles, and their own improvement buildings, and spit out a settler to further expansion.

Once City 2 is founded, it can take care of all your warrior needs while City 1 takes time out to get its granary up, so it can pump out settlers faster.

Once City 3 is founded, you can have a city pumping out workers. Workers which will connect your resources, improve your tiles, and eventually merge back into all your cities to make them nice and big and strong.

Once City 4 is founded, it can take over the settler pumping while City 1 now focuses on getting big and maybe generating culture or prebuilding a wonder, or whatever. Or perhaps pumping scouts or curraghs for exploration and contacting other civs. Or maybe following in City 2's footsteps (letting 2 take time out to build a barracks, then go back to building military units, only it won't be mere MP/exploring warriors now, it'll be archers or the like for attacking & bullying your neighbors). It depends on your victory condition and the particulars of your civ/situation.

It's sorta like your cities playing as a team this way, as opposed to them being a collection of individuals, each trying to pump out their own warrior, their own worker, their own buildings and then trying to put out a settler to help expansion, and then going back down to size 1 to start all over again.

 

[Animepsyco]

Keep the tips coming.

 

[Delphi456]

I'm a fan of peaceful expansion. Keep building cities until there is no more land - then attack most vulnerable AI. I wouldn't suggest warring too early if you are inexperienced. Warring is an art; REXing is an art - don't combine the two. Master each - then (possibly) combine.

 

[RFHolloway]

Read through a couple of the sucession games, particularly training games (e.g. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=221622) those should help.

Grow population fast

The difference between a city with 3 extra food and 2 extra food is huge, so if your worker can get you that extra food he should. Improve cows and wheat first, and work that square, then any other square that can get you 3 food or more. This means that workers matter, and you should concentrate on what you are doing with them.

Use the Lux slider

You should try not to use entertainers in cities. Instead use the Luxuries slider on the F1 screen, set it to the right level to make sure everyone can work without rioting (happy citizens must be equal to or greater than unhappy ones). As you get to multiple cities that may get more difficult, so you might need to use the odd warrior in a city, or if a warrior can't get there in time the odd scientist.

Don't be afraid to let this get to 40% or 50% in the early game, but as the game progresses it should settle down to 10% to 20% if you have acquired sufficient luxuries. Don't forget to check this each turn, you don't want to waste the gold, or have cities riot.

Build more workers

One per city or more is what you are aiming for, until you have no cities working tiles that are not fully improved.

Dont defend every city
You don't need a military unit in every city, you will need some to protect from barbarians, but it might be easier just to spend your gold, and let them waste themselves on your cities.

Don't build every building in every city
You only need baracks in cities that will produce military, granaries in cities that are producing workers or settlers, and probably not much more infrastructure until you get out of the ancient age apart from a couple of libraries in high commerce cities

Trade
Technologies are more valuable the fewer people that know them. So don't buy a tech that only one person knows unless you really need it. Wait for your opponents to trade it round first.
Similarly if you have a tech that one of the other AI's has trade it round to all the others before they do, you might as well get something for it rather than them.

Get out of despotism as soon as possible.
The despotism penalty (if a square is producing 3 or more of something it loses one) is huge.

 

[Taras Bulba]

first off, im pretty sure that C3C has Mass Regicide, which i would suggest turning on, and using your King units as Scouts to explore early territories and poping lots of techs... don't sell em unless you can get a good amount of cash... it will keep your lead

after you pop lots of techs, you need to research Fuedalism or Monothesim, then Engineering last... that is how i like it, and after about the first 3 techs, normally the huge turn difference between AE, and MA is gone, so you can increase science funding to get stuff in 8-12ish turns, which is alot better than my usual 35ish turns for Fuedalism at 50% science

if it works out right, you can get to Industrial Ages before the other peeps get to like astronomy, or gunpowder, which is good.... because you can see who has what resource, and try to start early wars before they can see them and take those cities


As for starting off expantion, id choose something like this:
-if the capital has growth in 5 turns or less, i would say go straight for a settler, which would be about 15 turns, and would be right on...
-if the capital has growth in 10 turns, but still settler in 15, don't build a settler, build the cheapest unit/building possible, then build the settler
-repeat this until you have your capital surrounded, or about 5-7 other cities, then start building wonders in your capital ***only if easier levels***
-as for your one worker, have it irrigate and mine the terrain of your capital
-as for new cities, build settlers in the ones that can, or if they only grow to 2, build workers...

That is how i always start off, and i normally get a good starting position which is rather large, unless you are surrounded, which stinks