Shrine in Emperor+ games

[JustBen]

Yes I've restarted a game with Isabella while kinda ignoring the Religious tech path... and I've went trought an outstanding start ! At some point, I was the tech leader by some good margin and then a GP poped and I bulbed Theo, so I founded Christianity... But later, the next GP I got, I didn't even found the Church because there was only 3 cities with this religion and I didn't want to bother spreading it, i felt it was a big waste of time and hammer !

Perfect! Sounds like a strong standard game that is well preparing you for Immortal.

Now I've went trought a war with my neighbor, who I erradicated, but I think it compromised my lead in tech. ... should I try to bother him with espionnage while keeping good relations or should I kick him in the face ?

This is typical at Emperor and up. A well-chosen war is almost literally mortgaging your economy. Usually standard econ play can fix this -- courthouses, libraries, specialists, and building Wealth. If your opponent is strong enough, espionage may be called for.

Ideally you trash your economy to build a huge army ahead of time, spend your savings on the invasion, and recover while you assimilate your conquests. Less stressful wars require less pain beforehand, and less time to recover.

 

[NetGear]

Take the shrine from the stupid AI who will always found a religion. Here's the moto of CiV, wonders, and religions are generally bad for you to build/found, but gggggggreeeaaaat for you to take! (Some exceptions may apply.)

qtf. irony of this game is that it should attract builder gamers like simcity, but its always the warmongers that have it infinitely easier time with it. Mainly cause AI is so bad at warring, but it also mirrors history! why spend time building when you can steal and pillage your way to dominant position?

 

[Um the Muse]

Slightly off-topic, but in real life, you can always choose to sabotage your own stuff as a last resort or resist foreign occupation. No, threatening with war is almost always better than actually taking over. Peaceful negotiations from a position of strength is even better, imho.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Whats that whimpy France? Oh you have a bunch of stuff I want, well hi my name is Hitler! Time to die!

 

[Um the Muse]

*Removed for possibly being perceived as inflammatory and for derailing the conversation. My apologies*

 

[jihe]

I think your thoughs are too optimistic. I don't see how one can just go for alphabet just like that. For me, it feels like it takes forever.
I usually have problems getting writing in time for when the oracle is done when I am trying to shoot for CoL early.

This is on Imm difficulty though, but I still doubt that emperor techrate is that much higher...

Got to keep in mind he always plays HC settling on riverside gold with 2 more riverside golds in BFC.

Back to OP: No it's not worth it. Since you are Isabella, you should put those cheap workers to use and research worker techs.

 

[Seraiel]

Got to keep in mind he always plays HC settling on riverside gold with 2 more riverside golds in BFC.

You also have to keep in mind, that I rex so hard, that it's nearly impossible to keep research up and that I don't tech Cottages, so no commerce from there, but again, some Gold from Conquest.

I would have been interessted though in the answers to my questions, but I think he just wanted to flame me instead of answering them or overlooked them, I don't know.

Krikrav, do you build SH for Failgold and do you play with GHs? These two help a lot for fast Alpha.

 

[jihe]

You also have to keep in mind, that I rex so hard, that it's nearly impossible to keep research up and that I don't tech Cottages, so no commerce from there, but again, some Gold from Conquest.

I would have been interessted though in the answers to my questions, but I think he just wanted to flame me instead of answering them or overlooked them, I don't know.

Krikrav, do you build SH for Failgold and do you play with GHs? These two help a lot for fast Alpha.

Isabella is not industrious. Failgold is the same as building wealth, which is a terrible waste of valuable early hammers especially because she gets cheap workers and cheap granaries. Goody huts are not reliable. If you want to rely on goody huts you might as well assume you pop all the way up to astronomy.

Seraiel, I understand you are proud of the way you play the game with your settings, but please realize other people are playing with different leaders/settings and what is best in your game might not be optimal for others.

 

[Seraiel]

Isabella is not industrious. Failgold is the same as building wealth, which is a terrible waste of valuable early hammers especially because she gets cheap workers and cheap granaries. Goody huts are not reliable. If you want to rely on goody huts you might as well assume you pop all the way up to astronomy.
ne
Seraiel, I understand you are proud of the way you play the game with your settings, but please realize other people are playing with different leaders/settings and what is best in your game might not be optimal for others.

You might not wanna believe this, but I'm really trying that. My main problem with that is, that I'm still a n00b (playing Civ for a few months now) and have little experience with other leaders / settings.

Anyhow, building SH for Failgold to sooner reach Alpha is good imho, as one cannot build Wealth / Research at that time. And one can rely on GHs to at least give something like 200-300g, as one gets at least 2-3 of them, I do, even on crouded maps. Sometimes I get as much as 6, but those are rare cases, 2-3 seems to be possible for really all games imho, and 200-300g help a lot in researching Alpha.

So you see, I'm really trying to adept.

 

[Um the Muse]

I really miss the extra gold from goody huts, but in a more casual game, you can count on the AI's to benefit from them more than you do. More importantly, GH's change the way that you play the game and yet are impossible to plan for. If something is keeping you from learning, then you might consider not using them.

Ofc, this argument is only convincing if your goal is to get better at playing Civ 4, and more specifically, to improve your early game. YMMV

 

[JustBen]

I used to have the Alpha problem more often. If I find myself with cities that can't build anything, rather than trying to rush Alpha I prefer to look backwards and find mistakes in my expansion. It usually happens because either (1) I build too many settlers before new cities are being productive, or (2) I screw up my tech path because of the starting land and tech gave me a problem I solved incorrectly. It costs me 1-3 cities on standard-immortal, sometimes leaving me short of the magic 6. But it also causes Catastrophic Economic Failure a lot less often, and leaves me capable of defending myself in case of war. I find it easier to fight my way out of 4 good cities than to tech my way out of a barely functional empire. I can't handle Deity so I'm not sure what the right balance is there (though AZ tends to settle conservatively too in his videos).

If you usually play on Huge, that could be bad advice. If a typical REX on Huge sends you to 10+ cities or whatever, with a stunted tech pace, it might be simply impossible to fill those build queues. Long plays for Alpha make sense in that case. I have to defer to Sera on that subject.

 

[tdy99]

My most recent game on Emperor was interesting from a religion standpoint. I was Alexander, and started right beside Gandhi who founded Buddhism. I Phalanx rushed Gandhi and easily crushed him, picking up the Buddhism capital on a great commercial BFC. I still had to generate a GP to get the shrine because I conquered him so early that he never got it himself.

That was a pain because getting a GP is sort of hard early on unless you build Oracle, since temple only allows one priest. I ended up ultimately having to build Angkor Wat in order to get the prophet, since with Great Library also in my National Epic city all I was generating was scientists.

What made it interesting is that Elizabeth founded ALL of the other religions. I was on a continent with her and Ramses. I converted to Buddhism and Ramses and Elizabeth both ultimately went Hindu.

By the time I got Caravels, the other continent with Shaka, Isabella and Roosevelt still had no religions, and I was able to get all 3 of them converted to Buddhism before they picked up any of the other religions Elizabeth had founded. My Buddhism shrine ultimately ended up being worth like 60 gold per turn and was an awesome commercial city with both Oxford and Wall St.

 

[strijder20]

Welcome to the forums btw!

He's been a CivFanatics member for 6 times the amount of time you have been one.

 

[Manco Capac]

He's been a CivFanatics member for 6 times the amount of time you have been one.

Off-Topic I shall keep it hidden.

Spoiler :

Sometimes the registering date means nothing. I am registered march 2010, but I have practically done nothing on this forum up around april 2011. Even as lurker, I couldn't think of myself as one back then...

Someone who was registered long time ago, then way later starts to contribute massively (not longer a lurker) deserves a warm welcome as much as a total newcomer.
As those who were around for long, they finally decided to jump in actively in the CivFanatics community.

 

[krikav]

He's been a CivFanatics member for 6 times the amount of time you have been one.

Really...?

Given what he writes:
"This is my first intervention in this forums so hello everyone, nice to meet you all !"
Do you REALLY think my welcome was out of place?


Sorry, I'll edit my post, and change it to "Nice to meet you too.".
I hope this change will be enough, even to satisfy you.

Do not hesitate to speak up again, if this change is not satisfactory.

 

[GWItheUltimate]

Well I was watching this forum before but this was still my first intervention.

So thanks ! Nice to meet you too !