Sanguivorant's IM A NOOB Walkthrough

[lymond]

Sang, I think now would be a good time to start thinking about how you want to win the game. Set some goals and then move in that direction. Rice/nanas is an okay city and you may want to get that gold eventually, but with goals in mind you may not really need to think too much about expansion right now.

And yes, you really should have scouted the land by now and should have OB on everyone except the AI or AIs that are hated by everyone. Even then I may do it.

(Note on scouts: If your scout survives and gets promoted. I recommend going Combat I and then Medic should you get a second promo. Scouts make great super medics if you attach a Great General)

Note that Diplo does not preclude warfare. You could pick up Feud and go on a tear, vassaling most of the AIs on the map. Of course, this approach works quite well for Domination and Conquest should you choose

Medieval warfare IS a viable option on Noble difficulty.

Also, keep in mind that you can easily settle up the New World far before the AIs.

All options are open to you here, although it would be a pretty late time to start thinking Culture. You could certainly win Culture easily, but it is usually something focused on much earlier...for one, getting some religions under your belt and beelining Music.

Maybe one or two more cities like rice/nanas, but that should probably suffice for now. There really isn't much good land left in your area. Maybe some fillers later.

I'd say it is time to get focused on a goal.


As for Diplomatic aspects, there's not much done already in that regard other than some OBs, but you haven't been in danger here. There are several things you can do. Pick sides and join a religion bloc. Give into requests and maybe gift a tech or two. All depends on your approach. You are in a strong position and could easily steamroll these guys should you choose.

Question: What did you do once the Alpha monopoly was gone? Have you trade techs at all? Make sure you keep a constant eye on the tech screen. I check it every turn myself...you almost have to on high level play. However, always look for opportunities to trade with allies and get some gold and backfill techs. Once a couple of AIs get your monopoly tech it is time to think about trading it and whom to trade with.

edit: and make sure you are trading extra resources for resources you don't have or gold per turn.

 

[Sanguivorant]

I also believe that the expansion phase is a bit over for now. I just need to improve some land and its finished.

Though I still have a question: I have now at least 6-7 cities in possession, yet my tech slider is at a good 50, with a good amount of beakers. How? While waiting for answers here, I played another game using some of the tips I've gotten, and my tech slider can barely go past 30% without being bankrupt, and my beaker size was low (Though I did out-tech the AI). Is it the resources? The financial trait?

I have few long-term goals in mind.
1) Start up a colony in the new world. I would need to research compass, optics and harbor to do this, as well as keep a few settlers/galleys before I research all of those. It will cost a lot of money to maintain though, so I'll need to switch it over to a new AI.

2)Take over the continent.
This means that I have to take out all the cities of Darius and Mansa Musa, and I have little idea of how many there are. I'll need metal casting, construction and machinery to pull this off quite nicely. Perhaps I can tech to feudalism also to vassal them.

But I have a question concerning warfare: Raze or capture? When is it ideal to use either one?

 

[vandermerwe]

I also believe that the expansion phase is a bit over for now. I just need to improve some land and its finished.

I agree. No sense in cramming more cities into marginal land. Looks good.

Though I still have a question: I have now at least 6-7 cities in possession, yet my tech slider is at a good 50, with a good amount of beakers. How? While waiting for answers here, I played another game using some of the tips I've gotten, and my tech slider can barely go past 30% without being bankrupt, and my beaker size was low (Though I did out-tech the AI). Is it the resources? The financial trait?

So it's not the expert advice you got on here then . FIN helps of course, as does all that coast to go with it. But the real trick is to balance city growth and empire expansion. 6 or 7 cities will usually pay for themselves once they've grown to a reasonable size and if they have decent improved land to work. 6 or 7 rapidly-established small ones will be an economic disaster if you're not careful. So you've really benefited from having a large corner of the continent to yourself that you could settle when you could afford it, rather than having to rush to beat the AI to land - Hastings was the key to that, right back near the start of the game. Also, you built plenty of workers, which naturally help cities get up and running quickly.

I have few long-term goals in mind.
1) Start up a colony in the new world. I would need to research compass, optics and harbor to do this, as well as keep a few settlers/galleys before I research all of those. It will cost a lot of money to maintain though, so I'll need to switch it over to a new AI.

2)Take over the continent.
This means that I have to take out all the cities of Darius and Mansa Musa, and I have little idea of how many there are. I'll need metal casting, construction and machinery to pull this off quite nicely. Perhaps I can tech to feudalism also to vassal them.

Comes back to your question about how to win. If you're serious about going for diplomacy then a new world colony gets you a guaranteed diplomatic ally (although you take a slight hit from other AIs for having a vassal) and restricts the AI's growth and thus voting strength at UN time. It's also the only way to win by domination on a Terra map, as you v probably won't get over the % land threshold otherwise. You can probably trade for Compass, and Optics isn't an expensive tech. Once you've got that get a couple of caravels out in opposite directions for the +1 movement bonus for circumnavigation. But Astronomy (which you'll need to build galleons) is a good way off and costs a lot. Try to get Liberalism first and you should be able to take Astronomy as the free tech. But bear in mind that the Great Wall won't protect you from barbs in the new world - and there are usually plenty of them. And beware of Joao, whose carracks allow him to colonise the new world without astronomy.

Conquest OTOH would come much sooner if you plan & execute right; in fact if you want to do that you should start soon so you can finish before any of the AI head for the new world, esp. Joao. And yes, Feudalism is good, both for vassals and for longbows, which are the best garrison troops for any cities you capture & keep. You know what I'd do because you know what I did...

But I have a question concerning warfare: Raze or capture? When is it ideal to use either one?

The one-size-fits-all Civ answer: it depends... If it's a well-sited and reasonably-sized city then keep it, especially if it's on your borders and/or it has any wonders or is a holy city or capital. As well as adding to your empire, it'll heal the troops you used in capturing it more quickly. Marginal cities far from your borders can be razed - or, once you've vassaled at least one civ, gifted to your vassal if they'll take them (you still get the healing bonus in vassal cities, but as the recipient of a gifted city gets 2 free defenders, there's no need to leave a garrison behind).

 

[lymond]

Though I still have a question: I have now at least 6-7 cities in possession, yet my tech slider is at a good 50, with a good amount of beakers. How? While waiting for answers here, I played another game using some of the tips I've gotten, and my tech slider can barely go past 30% without being bankrupt, and my beaker size was low (Though I did out-tech the AI). Is it the resources? The financial trait?

To add to this, and first this starts to involve more advancement concepts, there are quite a few factors that go into your economy and ability sustain research. Traits, trade routes, specialists, Maintenance costs(affected by many things), etc.

Having your slider at 30% without deficit is far from the definition of "bankrupt". Raising your slider above the point where you have negative GPT is called deficit research, not bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is losing gold at 0%, which you obviously want to avoid. As long as you can generate GPT at 0% research you have no major issues. The important thing here is that land is power. It's your beakers per turn (bpts) that is important, not where your slider sits.

For instance, take note in your next game when you settle your first city. First of all, make sure you road to the new city before settling it. Before settling the city, note your bpts. Then settle the city. You now instantly go into deficit research and your slider will start to drop. However, your bpts actually went up due to the new city and trade routes. More cities means more land and resources, and the ability to run more scientists. Traits like FIN and Organized enhance your ability when expanding, but you can do just as well without those traits if you play it right.

Another thing that I was going to mention, but did not want to confuse this much, at this stage, is that there is no issue in running the slider at 0% to accumulte gold. I do this all the time. It's called binary research among other things. I often do this right before getting in beaker multipliers like Libraries, which is often a point where you are still expanding outwards. Accumulating gold allows you to expand without going bankrupt, then raise your slider once the libraries are in and at a point you have enough gold to finish the tech out at 100%. This approach becomes very important as you move up levels as the maintenance costs increase dramatically. Of course, once you get Currency, you can build wealth which helps tremendously and is another reason it is such an important tech - it basically solves a ton of economics issues experienced prior to the tech.

As for where to go with this game, it is up to you. However, I would not concern myself too much with the new world unless it is directly beneficial to your goal. I recommend getting Mace online asap and then whipping out a quick army of Mace and cats to starting taking land. Get Feud afterwards and start capping some AIs.

Keeping cities is really a matter of several factors. Often when going conquest I will raze crap cities or keep them with the intent of just gifting them back to the AIs after I vassal them. I will generally keep the good cities with shrines and wonders. Crap city means the city has nothing to offer - food, production or resources. AIs settle a lot of them...ha When attacking AIs early, well before Feud, I may raze crap cities with the intent of settling a new city in a better position and to avoid the negative economic impact having such cities would be at that early point in the game. In your case, at this point, you have the economy to survive keeping most cities, so I would be especially judicious in razing them.

Try lower your slider a few turns to accumulate some gold. Trade really old techs for some gold with AIs. Have some cities with nothing to build, just build wealth for now, while other cities start producing Swords an Cats. You can upgrade some swords to mace later - basically insta-advanced army. Although I would make sure you have barracks and forges in most cities, once MC comes in.

Oh....comment on Monuments. 1 pop whip them at size 2 or quickly chop them out. There's no point in waiting that long for the border pop when there are resources to be had. I noticed in Canterbury, as well, that you did not have a workboat netted until at least 13 turns after the border pop. Make sure that doesn't happen. You want fish up asap - it is one of the best food resources.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Thank-you for all your advice everyone. I think it's now time for action.

I have never tried a conquest/domination victory before, but I am eager to take some cities. Here is my plan of action:

-I will finish civil service, then tech metal casting and machinery.
-Hastings, London and York produce the most commerce and beakers. After London is finished the Great Lightouse (If I get it), I will switch these three cities to wealth. I will then drop my teching to 20%. I want to amass a large army and be able to capture cities for a while.
-Meanwhile, Nottingham and Coventry are high in production. Definitely I will train my armies from these two cities.
-Canterbury will finish up its library and have 2 scientists, after that, it will be focusing on either research or wealth depending on the situation.
-The two new cities, Newcastle and Warwick will have their monuments finished. Warwick is not on the main land, so it won't train units. I'll place a lighthouse there, and maybe a library also. Newcastle is a distance away, so I will add a courthouse there after the monument.
-settle my last city in the banana rice area, clear it up with workers (which should be easy). The place has three hills, so it looks like it can be a production city.

 

[lymond]

Plan sounds good, but I'm not sure I follow what you are doing with your slider there.

Make sure you pick up Construction at some point....maybe via trade, just be careful what and who you trade with. Also, putting some beakers in a tech can make a trade more equitable.

Again, you can build some swords now and then later upgrade them to Maces. One trick is to run Caste temporarily and pump out some Great Merchants...even starving a good food city temporarily to run as many merchants as possible. Run a trade mission, ideally in the Temple of Artemis city.

Otherwise, once you hit your tech goals, you can cut off research and amass some gold for upgrades....build some wealth in non-contributing cities.

We need to learn you the ways of the whip, especially for army build up. I would slow build for now, but once you get the key techs you will want to do some whipping. I'll try to find some write-ups I did on whipping and maximizing whip overflow. BUG really helps with this, so I hope you install it for you next game. With whipping you can get a sufficient army in a matter of turns.

Scout Scout Scout....

 

[CreeDakota]

I didn't mean to imply from my post you should be pursuing a diplomatic victory; I was instead suggesting that you need to spend more effort in analysing the diplomatic situation.

This basically means to assess which AI you will culitivate as friends, who you can afford to piss off, who to trade with, who is the worst enemy of the threatening warmonger etc. To be successful at CIV requires manipulation and anticipation of the AI behavior.

For example you have Identified that warring against Darius will be part of your stategies. Does he have any other enemies that you could cultivate as friends? Who likes him and will be angry when you DOW on him? Does he have a tech lead and the ability to bribe someone into War against you?


On a different topic-Building wealth. Building wealth turns hammers into gold. It uses the hammer multiplier (forges) to boost the amount produced. Markets have no affect. I typically build wealth in margianal un-special cities that have allready built basic infastructure (typically granary, courthouse, forge and maybe Barracks). In contrast cities that I plan to give an important national wonder (like Oxford) will continue to build the infastructure needed to fit that special role (beaker modifier, needed happy and health caps etc).

In your empire Nottingham is a good canidate to build wealth inbetween periods of building troops. It will never be a large or great city so it doesnt need alot of infastructure.

 

[Abegweit]

If you really want to pound on Darius, there is no reason to wait for for Medieval. Elephants and catapults make a great army. You'll be able to take him out easily.

BTW, great game here. You're obviously a quick study;

 

[Sanguivorant]

I apologize for the long wait (Spent some time doing other things).

Update:

Spoiler :

Confucianism has spread to Hastings, so the Confucianism holy city has to be close. I'm building a courthouse here and in a lot of places solely to reduce maintainance, because Hastings is far from the capital.

Meanwhile, I see Mansa Musa is doing some missionary work, spreading buddhism to my cities.

Spoiler :

Darn it, I did not get the Great Lighthouse. Oh well. I worked on a courthouse instead, don't know if that's a good idea or not.

Spoiler :

Just found out where the Confucian holy city is. Now I have more of a reason than not to attack Darius. Susa is rather undefended, with only two archers. I figure that I could probably take it in a few turns if I had a trebuchet or two.

Spoiler :

World view. My new city, Oxford, is almost improved. I did not build a monument here, as it wasn't necessary. I whipped a spy here, because someone poisoned my water system in Hastings (Probably Darius). I figured that I should just start producing troops in it already.

Spoiler :

http://www.mediafire.com/conv/010a34ada9f906feee867d6eb797ee613c7c1889408ef5993e7a5e4ceafab3306g.jpg

My tech progress, for those who would like to see it.

Generally, in the next 15 turns, I want to get out a few trebuchets, and take the two frontal cities of Darius.

Also, some diplomacy info:

Spoiler :

Darius:
Cautious with me.
Furious with Ragnar (At war).
Pleased with Joao.
Friendly with Mansa.
Pleased with Roosevelt.

Ragnar:
Annoyed with Joao, Roosevelt, Mansa Musa.
Furious with Darius (at war).
Cautious with me.
Joao:
Annoyed with Ragnar.
Cautious with Roosevelt, Mansa Musa, Darius, me.

Roosevelt:
Pleased with me, Darius and Mansa Musa.
Cautious with Joao.
Annoyed with Ragnar.

Mansa Musa:
Cautious at Joao, Roosevelt, Me.
Friendly with Darius.
Annoyed at Ragnar.

 

[lymond]

Ok...a few things to note here:

1) No, don't build a CH in your cap unless you are running corps later. A forge on the other hand would be a great idea

2) Speaking of London, why is it at Size 5. Grow this city and give the rice back to it.

3) Somewhere along the way we've lost track of workers. For one, you only have 8 for 9 cities. You should have more like 13. You will notice that you have several cities that have grown but remain unimproved.

4) You have CS now, so you want to start chain irrigating. Tag team some workers, build some more actually, and start farm from Nott outwards towards the rice south of London. Rice will now be +1 food. You can then gradually farm just about every tile in your whole western empire unless you specifically want a city to work cottages. This will allow all your cities to grow and make whipping more effective. Later you can put in workshops on some tiles, when that improvement becomes awesome with techs and civics.

5) York has 2 unhappies. Dont' let that happen. You are in HR so you can easily prevent it, or better yet, whip away that free production. York could use a Forge, which will also add back 1 happiness. 3 pop whip a forge there, put back the scientists.

6) When you get CS, switch to Bureau almost immediately. London is not exactly a great Bureau cap, but it will still boost you quite a bit and make it a great production town. Forge in London.

7) Now, this is a nice little trickerooski. Do a double switch to Bureau and Caste now for 1t anarchy. In cities like York (actually you may not want to whip forge yet for this reason, but rather get some units up there to boost happiness), Canterbury, maybe Nott, the island city, run as many merchants as you can, even to the point of starvation. Just note when the city will starve and micro it so it doesn't actually starve. Pop out 2 or 3 GMs and send them to the American city with the Temple of Artemis. Viola! You have tons of gold to upgrade Swords to Mace for insta uber army. Actually since I notice York is soon to pop a GS at high odds, it may be best to use that GS for a Golden Age and anarchy-less switch t Burea/Caste. GoldenAges boosts Great Person points by a 100% so it is a great time to pump out GPs quickly like I just mentioned. I hate to wait 6 turns but it will be good to practice this approach.

8) You are missing out on 6 gold per turn and a health resource by not trading resources. Stay on top of that. It is money in your pocket and health for your cities.

9) My guess here is you are not really keeping tabs on your tech screen with the AI and have missed chances to backfill techs using some obsolete techs. I know you are learning a lot here and have a lot thrown at you now, but you are missing out an opportunities. I just now realized you do not have Monarchy. You should be in HR by now. Priesthood, Mono and Monarchy should be techs that you have. Calendar is worth trading around for some of these techs and gold.

Trade Calendar for Priesthood/Mono/50g and next turn trade CoL for Monarchy with Roos. You can switch to HR along with Bureau/Caste when you pop a GS.

You are missing out on opportunities to trade older techs for older techs, but you will pick up on this next game.

Don't forget to switch back to Slavery before your Golden Age ends so that you can start whipping units.

Oh...and pick up Construction of course from Mansa. You can't build catapults (not trebs) without it. You want that now because you want to start catapult contruction asap. You want a lot of them.

 

[Chuwe3y]

Do not wage war yet if you haven't locate most of his cities. Know what he has and counterattack it. Even with elephants, spearmen can easily take it out, but what if he pikemen? Check his units from the shield icon. If u war, make sure u have sthing to gain, and that u r going to win. If u already tech calender then trade for maps. At least u know where his cities are at rather than taking a big gamble. Your actions effect the rest of the Ais when it comes to war. Make me proud .

 

[vandermerwe]

Was about to post something which would just have duplicated some of Lymond's points. Don't build a courthouse in your capital (and, as a footnote, don't ever build anything just because the game 'recommends' it), trade techs shamelessly, switch into hereditary rule, chain irrigate asap (see the effect it has on London's production, for instance), but as for the caste / GM / mass upgrade thing... I wish I'd thought of that. Oh, and you don't need trebs to take Susa; Darius will have no chance to reinforce a city so close to your borders after a declaration so a handful of swords and maybe a couple of catapults will do the job. But if this is the start of a prolonged war, which it probably should be, you will need plenty of siege (and no regrets about sending it on suicide missions to soften up defenders) pretty soon anyway. Don't start what you can't finish, as they say.

Anyway, probably my last post in this thread as I'm off for a fortnight's happy bonus in the back end of nowhere; Cretan fishing villages have many charms but reliable internet isn't one of them. It's been a lot of fun and I hope at least some use. Good luck.

 

[lymond]

trade techs shamelessly

Well, I'd say on Noble level the better term would be judiciously, but definitely do trade techs

@Chu Good points, although these guys aren't close to engineering yet. Calendar=maps???

 

[Ghpstage]

Now you have Civil Service you can spread irrigation and farm further afield, in particular Nottingham, London and Coventry could all do with some green farms! As has been metioned above, you could definitely do with more workers as what you have have been struggling for a while now, and with CS they got landed with a boatload more priority work to do.

I'm building a courthouse here and in a lot of places solely to reduce maintainance, because Hastings is far from the capital.

Expanding on the 'don't build a Courthouse in the capital' sentiment, instead of thinking about how far away it is, look at how much Hastings and Newcastle are costing you. In both cases this is around 4 GPT, this doesn't really justify building a Courthouse, let alone building them before a Forge (or in Newcastles case, even before a Granary )!

 

[Chuwe3y]

@lymond
Oops got confuse with Paper

My biggest flaw is not building siege unit, my advice is if they have archers (3 strenght), u don't really need cats as long as your quantity is high (units such as axemen, HA). But if they have longbowmen, those old units won't work even as high quantity. Anyway the more unit the higher the maintenance. I must stop my bad no siege habit.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Okay, stop building courthouse in London and build a forge instead. I should be focusing on placing farms everywhere in Covent, Nott and London instead, trying to increase their food output to the point where I can whip up an army, right?

The problem is that I've visited every AI to try to trade my resources for something else, but they either have nothing, or have something that I have. I will attempt to obtain the techs I'm missing out on though.

The caste system trick sounds pretty smart. I'm definitely going to try that, but I will need to also build galleys to put my great merchants into if I want to send them to Roosevelt.

 

[lymond]

Okay, stop building courthouse in London and build a forge instead. I should be focusing on placing farms everywhere in Covent, Nott and London instead, trying to increase their food output to the point where I can whip up an army, right?

Sounds good - everywhere in the West and East where you don't plan to cottage, which is probably everywhere, even down to hastings.

The problem is that I've visited every AI to try to trade my resources for something else, but they either have nothing, or have something that I have.

I'm not sure what you are seeing, but this is what I am seeing:

Spoiler :

Each one of those trades are more than viable. Resource trades are non-negotiable or 10 turns, so check back every 10 turns or so to see if you can get even more GPT. As for the Ivory trade, ivory is fine to trade as long as the AI does not have Construction/Horse Back Riding(HBR) or that AI is not a short term target. American may be target in the near future, so I would cancel the trade later if he gets HBR, but for now that it 2 extra GPT in your pocket.

The caste system trick sounds pretty smart. I'm definitely going to try that, but I will need to also build galleys to put my great merchants into if I want to send them to Roosevelt.

I did not think about using a galley and it is unnecessary, but actually a good idea. Then thing is you only need 1 Galley and you already have one. Send it down near Canterbury and load up a GM there and send it across the way to America. Send your first GM asap, don't wait to collect 2 or 3 of them...you may only get 2 before the GA ends anyway. The first Trade mission will likely fund your war effort on Darius, which you really want to start up here soon. (GMs do move rather quick on roads though and America is clearly next to Darius on the same land mass)

 

[Sanguivorant]

Last time I was checking their diplo screens, I did not see any resources that were available. Perhaps it was an earlier turn. I'll make sure to do that. I didn't know America was on the same land-mass. Actually, it kinda sucks I didn't invest in scouting the land at all, since I know very little of the surrounding area. Yes, it has been advised to me, and my noobish brain ignored it.

Also, I think that I would prefer to make updates daily from now on, not having two-three updates a day. The reason being that I also do other activities, and sometimes I do get bored of civving I like to play 20 save files at a time. I hope this isn't a problem. I think someone suggested that on the first page. I will make another update later on in the day.

 

[lymond]

I think it is a great idea. Playing 1TS a day allows a lot of feedback and gives you the time to absorb and dwell on it. Play at your own pace, there's no pressure as far as the forum is concerned. Slower is always better in this case anyway.

Do you use your advisors? BUG improves on it a great deal, but it is still worth familiarizing yourself with it and using it regular, especially the Foreign Advisor.

The Americans are practically your neighbor. Terra is usually a Pangaea like oldworld landmass and a new world continent, so you are almost assured that all AIs will be on the same landmass. Your big mistake was pulling back your exploring workboat, which should have been on auto-explore and then ignored. Barring an unfortunate barb galley sighting, the WB would have pretty given you a full view of the continent by now. Then put a scout on auto a bit later once he is done spawnbusting or you have the Great Wall.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Yes, I am aware of the advisor windows, but I only use the foreign and domestic advisors frequently, since I believe they are very helpful. I do not know how to use the other ones to their maximum potential.