Set Yourself Up For Victory ! - Help For Noobs ?

[Big Boss Man]

This article is dedicated for the " New " Player . Included will be the knowledge gathered from my games and tons of data gathered from the forums here . First of all welcome . Have you been beaten up by the A.I. In Civ IV ? Join the club . At first Civ IV seemed almost impossible to win . Before I get to far , " New " players should read SISIUTIL'S Civ IV Guide For Beginners . It's a trove of game play wealth to say the least .

O.k . then shall we begin with " Winning The Game "
In my opinion this topic is key . You do want to " win " right ?
I feel that we should begin with a lesson on millitary unit creation .
Your " Victory " will in most cases depends on how well you raise , station and deploy millitary units .

" Winning " There are several ways to " Win "
One may pursue several " paths " to " Victory " by means of " Victory Conditions " in Civ IV . These paths be it " Domination " , " Time " or " Spaceship " to name a few will no doubt need you to have a decent millitary in order to reach . Having a goal in mind from the start of a game is a great way to win . It will help decide what to research and or what to build .

No matter what your Civ will need millitary units for it's defence . Be it a rival or Barbarian threat your only protection is your millitary !
Defending your Civ should be at the top of your list . My H.O.F. recorded my first loss during my first attempt at the Diety difficulty level . Lesson learned defend your city .

Setting yourself up for " Victory "

It is wise to research key millitary techs early on most difficulty levels . Namely archery and bw . Archers can be a key unit to defend a city site since they get a defence bonus . Hills are also a good site for them when they get a promotion . Archers can " Upgrade " to get a hill defence bonus .
Hills inside your city radius or just outside your cultural boundries make logical deployment areas . During " War Time " enemy hills can be used by these upgraded archer types .

Perhaps one of the best units to deter a rival from attacking your Civ is the Axe man . After you research bw the copper resource will be revealed on the map . Axe men are strong units . Build them in your cities and keep them on or near key resources or in mass in border towns . A good idea to prevent a rival from starting a war with you - Keep a strong garrison . Three axe man can do wonders .

P.S. Don't forget to vist the War Academy

 

[JP Vieira]

Interesting...can you develop this further

 

[Big Boss Man]

Well let me start this section off properly . Let's talk about " Millitary " units .
Depending on what Civ you choose during your game set up you have two units on turn one . So after you settled down that leaves one unit . Ah the Warrior / Scout units . You do have " Options " to take at this point . In most cases exploring the map for a second city site is one good option . Finding out where rivials live is another . If you have a Warrior remember that unit can make an attack and that the Scout can not . Scouts can move a bit faster and do defend better V.S. Animals . Other than that either unit can only move one space in hills , forrests or jungles . One thing about the Warrior sometimes overlooked you can capture a rival Civ's worker !

That would start a war so early on that might not be such a good idea .
An early goal to help you win , setting your research path for " Millitary "
Unit creation . One should " Prioritize " research depending on your Civ's needs and your goals . To get your first city up and running you may need to postpone research in some areas and focus on a " Priority " . For example if you started with cows then animal husbandry might be a better tech to research first than say BW . This all depends on what you want to do .

Other than that getting more powerful units as early as possible is most likely
going to help you the most . Millitary units like archers and axe men are keys to early empire life . Without them rival Civs and Barbs will smell blood and doom will decend upon thee ! So research archery & BW soon . Explore the map so when you do get BW you can hopefully know where the copper resources are . To build axe men copper needs to be mined . Hopefully by the time your Civ can see copper you have built a worker , an archer or two and a settler to capture this prize .

So now what ? Your Civ now has copper
Raise Defend Deploy
A word about Civics Depending on your Civ switching them might cause your empire to suffer a bit of anarchy . Slavery can be useful so lets go for the " Slavery " civic . You have the option after BW to change to this so if it's time to " Whip " up some units do it . Crack your whip to hurry units or buildings . Your city will sacrifice some citizens but you can speed up building units . You also suffer some unhappiness so don't go crazy .
That should help out with the raise now defend yourself .
Some tips for deployment V.S. barbs : archers with the hill " upgrade "
deploy on hills in or just outside borders of your cultural borders .
Barbs should attack these archers when encountered keeping bloodshed away from your city . Keep archers fortified to aid thier survivial in the field .
They also can be " Fog Busters " so Barbs don't spawn where your archers can see . It may be wise to keep an axeman on or near your copper just to be safe . Lastly garrison border cities with at least three axe man . Other Civs
will be less likely to attack a well defended city . As time passes do upgrade their weapons . Like from Axes to Maces & Archers to Long Bows .

 

[Sjaramei]

Don't rely on early archers... it's a mistake. Make axes/spears for early defense so you can counterattack instead.(or use them to attack yourself) You don't want a bunch of axes/swords running around pillaging everything .Archers is more useful for a huge war when you want the enemy to bleed on your walls and can't counter their stack soon enough (it should be longbows/crossbows then)

 

[Elandal]

Archery before BW is no more a mistake than the other way around. It all depends - as everything in cIV

Generally Aggressive leaders want axemen (and thus bronze working first), as they get free Combat 1 promotion to melee units and the trait lends to warfare early, often, and a lot. If there's no copper around, then maybe get Archery to get some units more powerful than warrior.

Civs with early unique unit may want to tech to that. Egypt should go for Animal Husbandry first, for example, as if they have horses nearby they get access to their powerful War Chariots. But if the required resource (eg. Horse for Egypt) is not available, then tech to Archery.

Protective civs may want Archery to get highly promoted Archers. Protective archers are more capable in taking care of barbarians than normal archers.

And so on... There may be a reason to get Archery first (Mali? Sure - Skirmisher is very powerful unit), or other technology first.


Let's start with something. Assuming Continents map, or other map that generally creates continents separated by water (ie. not pangaea and not archipelago either).

You usually scout a bit with the initial warrior / scout, to see your surroundings. This allows you to decide on where to settle your second and third cities. Also, it's nice to meet the neighbours and know where they live. Close by? Far? Does their land look greener than yours?

Now, before we're that far even we have to remember that there's the choice of early rushing (get early offensive units, be those archers, axes or chariots, then charge the nearest enemy), or peaceful expansion (build settlers and settle near key resources or strategic spots). Other possibilities exist as well, but those are the common expansion strategies.

If you decide to rush instead of rex (Rapid Early eXpansion) then you probably want offensive troops. That means either axes or chariots, or early unique unit (Inca have Quechua, which is a warrior with bonus against Archers, Mali Skirmishers can be used to attack Archers easily). Getting resource for the units you want to build is imperative and your first goal.

But if you decide to rex instead, then you may want to priorize other techs. Still, knowing where strategic resources are makes it easier to decide where you want to settle.


Oh yes - never forget that you want food techs. Be that Fishing, Hunting, Agriculture, or Animal Husbandry. Food means growth. And growth means more worked tiles, meaning more food, production and commerce.

 

[Sjaramei]

Archery is a dead end tech and reveals nothing.

Bronze working leads to Iron working reveals copper and enables slavery.

- Archers 3 Strength means it's crap at attacking but good standing in cities or being walked around when it's fortified on a hill. (Stupid barbs doesn't count)

- Axemens 5 strength means it's both good at attacking in the open with combat promotions and defending. (Even in a city) And you can use it to attack cities with city raider promotions.

Final point, without metals the AI is much more likely to declare on you, so seize the good copper city sites as soon as possible. Archery is a last ditch effort if you have no copper or horses and need to keep barbs away until you can look for iron.

 

[Elandal]

In general Archery is not as useful as Bronze Working or Animal Husbandry. It's cheaper in beakers too, so it's fine. And Archers are cheaper than Axes. Just saying that it's not always a bad choice. It's all situational in cIV.

You should not say "never" in cIV. That's teaching bad habits. You must explain the reasoning behind the choice. And even then there may well be cases for Archery - Mali being one as I noted.

 

[Sjaramei]

You should not say "never" in cIV.

I didn't.

Archery is a last ditch effort if you have no copper or horses and need to keep barbs away until you can look for iron.

Getting archery unless you have to is setting yourself further behind the AI, at lower levels anything works and messing up a couple of turns isn't as bad. But if you want to help people getting better and master higher levels of play, teaching them to get archers first is a bad habit. Learn them to get copper and how to use the whip/chopping instead and watch them rise in difficulty level

In my games i can count on one hand the few times getting archery early has had any use for me. Archery is "ok" but a waste of time compared to BW and maybe AH as well. Even when playing Mali i would want to have axes instead of skirmishers.

But keep playing like that by all means if you want too, i feel i have given enough reasons now for anyone to decide what they want

(Pssst.... NO ARCHERS)

 

[madscientist]

I'll jump into archer debate. Note I generally shoot for BW first, and I am not badmouthing axes at all

1) Archers are not 3 when in a city, they are 4.5 in a city and 5.25 in a city on a hill all unpromoted, compared with an unpromoted axe which is 5. So an archer in a hill city beats an axe. Archers get CG promotions (and the first is free for protective leaders) which axes do not get. Archers get 1 first strike and are cheaper to build. Archers are the best early game defenders, one per city is fine eapecially the broder ones. To be complete, axes do have the 50% melee advantage which can be big when facing a stack of swords. On the other hands chariots will wipe out axe defenders unless a spear is present. So 1 archer is a safer, robust and cheaper defender, it is not unit specific like the axes are.
2) The AI will amphbiously attack a costal city from galleys or galleons. No chance of a counter attack if you are defending with axes, so you are stuck with only defending
3) Archery is not dead end, at least not in my books. It allows ALOT of units, archers/horse archers/longbow/Crossbows/Knights, plus the UUs of these units. Yes you can get it in a trade but it's cheap enough, why limit your early military?
4) Does not require a resource.

Not as valuable as BW or AH but still important.

EDIT:

One point I failed to mention is that axes will benefit more form promotions than archers. Meaning an aggresive leader with have combat I (+10%) axes starting at 5.5, while protective archers get free CGI (+20% city) and are base 3.6 in a city. Likewise when you add the +25 for entrenched in a city the axes get a bigger boost, extra 0.75 for archers and an extra 1.25 for axes. Likewise terrain effects like hills.

Another point , you can build three archers for the hammer cost of 2 axes. One the othre hand more archers means more maintenance costs.

It's not a clear cut issue one way or another. Personally I prefer to keep 1 archer in each border city.

 

[Elandal]

I play on Monarch. Given a strong start, almost anything works, but that's not really a given - with average of sub-average start I at least have to maintain some care about how I play

I referred to "never say never" due to your statement of Archery before BW being a mistake (in absolute and factual tense, not allowing for exceptions). I'm not saying that it'd often be good, just that it's not as bad as it's made to be and there are cases when it's a good choice.


I generally aim for BW or AH first, depending on the civ and map.


BW allows for chopping and slavery civic, which are big issues - as well as revealing copper (interesting even if early rush is not planned, more information is never bad for dotmapping).

For Native Americans it allows a resourceless unit (Dog Warrior, replaces Axeman), as well as for Mayas (Holkan, replaces spearman, requires Hunting and Bronze Working).

In reality I rarely use the axes, so getting Axemen isn't really that big a deal for me. I don't like Vultures because I almost never go for axe rush. For Celtia copper is good enough for Gallic Warrior (replaces Swordsman), which is in my opinion an excellent unit, and if I play Celtia I usually do aim for early classical era war using gallics with axe/spear support.


AH allows for pasturing (often important food tech, but cows give hammers as well) and reveals horses.

As Egypt or Persia horses are needed for early UU (chariot replacements). For Mongolía and Cargthage horses also are needed for UU (HA replacement) but it isn't really suited for early rushing unlike the chariot replacements.

Of course horses allow for normal chariots as well, for all civs. I like chariots as barb busters because they can get Sentry promotion which greatly enhances their fogbusting capability.


There are two civs with Archer UU: Mali (Skirmisher) and Babylon (Bowman).
In case of Mali, I would consider going for Archery first because Mansa does not have anything going for rushing, so getting the cheap but very effective barb buster up fast would be nice.
Hammurabi (only Babylonian leader) is Aggressive, so BW first is given.


Now, if I don't get horses or copper (depending on which I shot for first) I may go for the other. But it will end up pushing the limits, so I may as well choose Archery to be on the safe side. If I play with Raging Barbarians, then I go for Archery first in any case - first thing with Raging Barbs is to get some defensive units up and only then start working on other things. Extreme example of this could be an early RB epic (or adventure?) "Rome against barbarians", a Deity level Raging Barbarians scenario.

But eventually I should have metals up and thus ability to build stronger melee units. Even then I consider Archery an early backfill in research, because it's cheap and effective garrison unit. Few of my cities really need active garrison, most of them just need one MP unit which means cheap one - like an archer.

madscientist noted some issues as well (eg. "dead end tech" is thrown so easily... It's not. Just it doesn't give anything but archers early on).


So... conclusions? Generally you want to locate copper and/or horses early, either of which will provide you with strategic resource used to train units that are used offensively. Both techs have other uses as well. But archer is resourceless and cheap, both points good. Think what you want before you choose, and make sure you yourself know WHY you researched the tech you did (be that AH, BW, or Archery).

 

[xanadux]

I think the mistake is to routinely go for archery early. Especially if you don't start with hunting and don't need hunting, early archery just delays everything else you want to research. Even if you might want to build a couple archers, if you start with mining and don't start with hunting, it seems pretty silly not to grab BW.

I do, however, like using archers for happiness under HR.
As said above, you need to have a reason for each tech you choose to research. Although archery is cheap, you should realize it does only one thing in the early game ... give you the archer unit. I would always delay researching it unless you have a good reason. If it is needed/ more beneficial than anything else you can research, go ahead. Otherwise, IMO, waste of beakers.

 

[Sjaramei]

3) Archery is not dead end, at least not in my books. It allows ALOT of units, archers/horse archers/longbow/Crossbows/Knights, plus the UUs of these units. Yes you can get it in a trade but it's cheap enough, why limit your early military?

Just a small clarification. By dead end i meant it doesn't open up something important early on. (Like Iron Working for BW)

Later on i will get archery from a trade or research it myself for very few turns (depending on your speed of course ) instead of wasting my precious early turns doing the long research then. When crossbows/longbows and the rest gets available for me i will have gotten it from a tech or researched it just after getting a tech needing it.

And i maybe should mention i play with Aggressive AI so i want as many shock axes as i can get early on so i "might" be a bit biased towards getting them for "defense"
(i usually make Spears for city garrison duty because of the chariot weakness)

But everyone got some good points hidden away here and there in the long posts, and it seems we've come to a more reasonable conclusion than just researching archery straight away.