*Sighs* Pangea and The "No Tech For You" Club

[Titler]

Hi all; I'm writing this with a feeling of hopelessness... I've always adored the Civ series, and have played since Civ 1 on the Commodore Amiga, but now in Civ IV and Warlords I am coming to hate the game. Why? Because I'm finding it impossible to progress beyond Noble difficulty level, because of two combined game issues...
Firstly, I play single player and a random map style, but if it rolls one where the AI has reasonable amounts of room, or worse still Pangea, the AI all rapidly expand much faster than I can, even though it's only supposed to be a small build advantage at this level.
Secondly, the AI is blatantly scripted to screw you the player over; if they can see each other, they rapidly share all their technology with each other, charge you through the nose to join in, and then refuse to trade at all when you don't stop trading with others (to try and keep the gap down between you and them). Then they all turn on you militarily because your power rapidly collapses.

I've attached two games that I gave up in disgust upon because of this, that I would like some advice on please. The autosave one I built a few cities quickly, teched to a military advantage, and tried to knock out Mahmas... But on his last city, he Vassaled to Shaka, who as you can see is in the process of crushing me. And look at Huayana... How on earth are you supposed to win this kind of game?
The 780 AD game I gave up even earlier, due to falling ridiculously behind once more, and watching impotently as everyone edges towards hating me.

I've read the Civ IV Basic Stategy Guide.pdf, but could someone have a look at these games please, and tell me how I can boom my economy during the early turns to keep pace? Am I improving the land around my cities incorrectly? Should there be more cottages (I build 4-6 cities usually, but even so, I fall behind fast). What should I be doing diplomatically? Is it even possible to get a Conquest victory under default conditions on a Pangea map, or will they always exclude you from progress to the point that you can't mass the required military power? I must be doing something really bad somewhere, because I'm struggling so terribly, but be kind in pointing it out please!

 

[ori]

welcome to the posting side after 4 years of lurking

I had a very short look through the games and have just a few observations:
- city specialisation: you will fare much better when you designate atleast one city for production (of units most importantly) and others for commerce (i.e. cottages) and one other for Great people points... At the moment you are forcing all cities to do everything this is not efficient...
- city spacing: it is not a sacrilege to have overlapping tiles of the cities fat crosses, especially when you have to put a city ontop of a wheat resource just to not overlap, this is not a good idea Most games are long over (or decided) before most cities hit the 20 population points necessary for full use of the fat cross.
- diplomacy you can't have everybody as your friend - just buddy up to some of them and prepare for war with others...

 

[Titler]

He he he, I didn't realise I registered that long ago... How would you set up city specialisation? Do you just click the little icons "Emphasis X" in the City Window? And will the automated workers pay attention to this, or would they just carry on with their merry messing up the territory?

 

[ori]

He he he, I didn't realise I registered that long ago... How would you set up city specialisation? Do you just click the little icons "Emphasis X" in the City Window? And will the automated workers pay attention to this, or would they just carry on with their merry messing up the territory?

automated workers? don't trust them, unless you are using the http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=245]BetterAI Mod[/url]

some useful articles:
Guide to City Specialisation
Optimum Early Growth Strategy
Specialisation of Cities

 

[Viperace]

I understand the pain in Pangea map, where all the civ like each other and they trade heavily. IN this case, you gotta play some diplomacy game, bribe them to attack each other.

But u r having this problem in NOble diff, I guess u need to work more on your starting strategy.

 

[Howitzah]

An important factor to winning a Pangaea game is diplomacy.

When you start a Pangaea, try to find all of the AI Civs ASAP. Compare where they are relative to your empire and choose your friends wisely; this is helped along if you have a religion.

Good friends are Civs that will build a strong military, but won't generally be a tech threat; Caesar, Alexander, Mehmed, etc. Once you get Currency/Alphabet you can bribe them into wars with the more advanced Civs. Not only does this slow down the techrate of the defending Civ, it may also create a few "You declared war on our friend!" negatives with the attacking Civ.

Stirring the pot is good.

Of course, this works on all map types, but Pangaea diplomacy can be game-deciding.

 

[Rycheman]

Hi Titler,

I've had a look at your "Ian Imperator AD 0780" file.I even played on for a while just to see how things were panning out.Not good.I think you were right to give this one up when you did ,your position looks doomed.

While i'm no expert at civ,there's certainly plenty around this forum that are though,from whom you can learn a lot.However, there were a few things that struck me straight away.Here go's:-

You've settled two cities right on top of a valuable resource!I WOULD NEVER DO THIS,as you are then unable to improve the tile for the bonuses.This has restricted, severly the growth of these 2 cities.You also need to specialise your cities ,rather than try to have them do a bit of everything [as Ori suggested].I also NEVER automate my workers,they do what i tell them.You could also do with a lot more cottages around the rivers.

On the diplomatic front,i see you're friends with Ghandi,who's you're nearest neighbor and blocking you in somewhat,while at war with Monty,whose territory i can't even find.I personally would have adopted Judaism, the same religion as Vicky,the runaway leader,Monty and Wang.Then i'd have focused on Military production,not wonders,and gone after Ghandi.This would mean less force on your borders,razing his weak cities,and expanding your empire, by keeping his strongest ones. Also you have a very short distance to travel to get to him.

What level do you normally play on, and with which leader? Stalin's ok, but i think his traits are a bit mis-matched.I've only recently got Warlords but i like Ragnar for war and Huayna for building.Both have financial trait which is a real boost in any game.

I hope this isn't too harsh,just trying to help.Hope you have better luck next time.

 

[vilemerchant]

Wonder building - a sure fire way to remain crap at civ.

 

[Titler]

Regarding building on top of resources, under earlier Civ games the city square was automatically worked... Is that no longer the case now? The manual doesn't mention anything about it, so I assumed that it continued as before.

As for that particular game, Monty (Aztec) was being his usual annoying self and demanding submission and techs aplenty... which of course he then trades to everyone else leaving you further behind. I think I refused him only twice before he declared war on me, and as I was already trying to fight another Civ (I forget which one), I ended up in a hopeless situation.

I've always been loathe to switch religions if I need to missionary my own cities, because then you lose the build time bonus for... but do you believe the diplomatic benefits are worth it? Also, what do you do if so far their religion has not spread into your cities? Is there any way to deliberately aim to get it? I've not tried yet, but can you offer conversion to them (even if for nothing) via Diplomacy?

I've gone back to Noble level for now, and I'm trying to get some better basic skills down; I won my first team game online via Cossack spam the other day, so was trying Stalin offline too, but I switched leader to Augustus (Roman) for the earlier Praetorians, and managed to knock out a Space Race victory, after defeating 4 of 7 Civs, but it was still pretty close... The survivors still had a slight tech advantage towards the end, and the Koreans declared War as I overtook them in spaceship parts, but I fortunately managed to beat them down to vassal status due to having a larger production base and the use of bombers. Still came down to the very last spaceship part in a three way race, grrr....

 

[Moonbars]

If you build on top of the resource, you just get the standard city tile yield. If you build next to the resource, and then improve the resource with a worker, you'll get much better tile yields.

 

[jray]

If you build on top of the resource, you just get the standard city tile yield. If you build next to the resource, and then improve the resource with a worker, you'll get much better tile yields.

This is true except for one additional rule: you get to keep anything that an unimproved tile offers above and beyond the standard city yield of 2F+1H+1C. For example, settling on a plains hill gives your city 2H because it's above the 1H. Settling on a riverside Wine gives your city 2C.

But you're correct in spirit, that it's almost always better to avoid settling on tiles. The primary exceptions that come to mind are worthless resources like Fur and Incense. It's often better to settle atop those because you'd almost never want to work them anyway, and by settling over them you get the instant happiness benefit when you discover the appropriate tech.

 

[Rycheman]

Titler,as i understand it, there's nothing you can do to "make" a religion spread to your lands, other than have an open borders agreement.Unless someone else knows any different.

 

[jray]

Titler,as i understand it, there's nothing you can do to "make" a religion spread to your lands, other than have an open borders agreement.Unless someone else knows any different.

Religions spread among trade routes, not open borders. But having open borders increases the probability of transmission.

 

[uncarved block]

Checked the 1320 AD save. Where did you get all those Workers? Did you build them? Because if you did, that's something you could scale back in the early game. Capture workers, don't build them, especially if you've got an Aggressive leader like Stalin (who isn't the best leader, but that's beside the point.) That's at least another city right there, maybe two or three. Early attacks + using the whip is also a good idea: Mehmed should have been toast well before the ADs even started. With all that nice river territory there, an Axe rush would have been a perfect early strat. I'm a bit of a builder myself, but it always seems easier playing that way if you're using two plots of land instead of just the one you're "given" at the start.

On a more general level, I always recommend playing a couple games with very specific goals in mind: religion-mongering in one game, say, and cottaging for finances the next. Play the same map with three different leaders, and see what changes between games. Play the same leader on three different maps, and see what's different. Once you get the handle on one leader, some of the lessons will carry over (though Rome is in a league of its own), and you'll start sensing when to act before a problem gets out of control. Personally, I used to have a lot of trouble with neighbors just materializing huge stacks of attackers to take a border city-- now, I keep a Scout or some other obsolete unit in neighboring lands (when I have OB arrangements), which helps prevent, or at least reduce, the nastiness of wars on the AIs terms. Oh, and the First Rule of Civ4 is that Monty dies if he's your neighbor, no matter what game plan you started out with

Hope that helps a little.

 

[bennos76]

Try and be the first to alphabet if you can, and then don't trade it away until you have to. If none of the other civs can trade with each other, you can take advantage of them and sell your techs off one at a time as you see fit, for many of theirs.

Also, many times I have managed to come back from being very tragically behind in tech by shooting for a specific high value tech that none of the AI have. Every now and then, take a look at your tech path and see what you seem to have specialised in. Then have a look at the AI to see if you can get an idea about what techs they don't have. Try and shoot for an expensive tech that you don't think the AI will have discovered by the time you get it (take advantage of the tech path you have followed, and try to specialise in a particular branch of tech). Then, trade it away for everything you can get.

When you do this, check out what techs they have, usually you can find a civ that has a tech that none or only a few of the others do, let this be your first trade. On your next turn you can now trade that away for more techs. If an AI doesn't have much to give you, wait till the next turn. Any new techs you have acquired become available for trade the next turn, and also enable you to trade for higher techs that you didn't have the prerequisites for previously. With a little luck, planning, and some clever trading, you can often get over 10 techs in exchange for one good one. It can take up to four turns before you have truly exhausted all the potential from one good tech.

Also, if the tech your shooting for seems too expensive (it will take you 40 turns say), don't be afraid to use a great person to help you along. Getting one tech (or half a tech) from a great person doesn't really seem worth it most of the time, but if getting that one tech just before the AI does will enable you to trade for 10 others, it's definately worth doing.

 

[jan33]

one archer i each town with monty around? thats just begging for war when i play and i have not at least 3 units in all of my town i feel naked hehe and mostly its rather 5 or 6 dont worry they will rarely declare war on you with such defense they do but if u take some units from the less treatened city's u got something to hit back with
wile u build a second army,and always upgrade your units

 

[Titler]

Just popping back to this thread to thank everyone for the advice so far. I'm not entirely sure I've got a hang of the basic City Specialization/Economic aspect yet, but I'm slowly improving there... I'm ashamed to admit that I've finally started beating Prince level at last now, even on Pangea maps, but not because I've improved my diplomatic game that much either... yes, I've gone up another difficulty level by going Augustus and Praetorian rushing everyone, mua ha ha! With slavery and whipping out lots of the unique roman units, I can steamroll 2-3 civs before they can gain the tech advantage, and sometimes even before they get writing, so they don't have the opportunity to shun me, nasty horrible tech fiends that they be! But as I say, thanks for the advice overall, which has helped the other areas of the game methinks I shall soon be needing!

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Things that can hold you back:

-Building too many wonders:
Not as big a deal on levels below prince, but each wonder is equivalent to maybe ten units or three to five building improvements.

-Expanding too fast:
Before currency and code of laws, your economy will have issues supporting more than half a dozen cities. It's easier to keep up in tech by staying within your income limits, and once you are past banking and economics, you should be able to afford any new cities as they come online.

-Failing to specialize:
Trying to do everything with every city is a very costly proposition. For instance, building units in a science city or building science buildings/science in a production city is wasteful. It takes two to four times longer to recover the investment you put into the non-specialized build than you would if you had kept unit building in the production city and science generation in the science city. Remember that units can move around. You don't ever have to build them in the city they are destined to sleep in. You want to build units only where there is good production and move them to a commerce or science city afterwards.

-Not working the diplomacy rules built in to the game:
1. If you have friends, don't ever trade with their worst enemy.
2. If you build too many religions yourself (and fail to spread them around to foment conflict between the AI), the AI will end up in a couple religious blocks. Religious blocks like to trade within the block. You need to pick up one of the prevailing religions or stay neutral to have a chance at keeping helpful friends through the game. The problem with staying neutral (i.e., always taking the "nothing but supersition" path) is that you can't use the middle three religious civics to maximum effect (you only get the non-state religion based benefits).