So I've noticed I suck...so how do I stop?

[Kyroshill]

I've been playing on Noble most of the time when I am trying to learn how to play civs. I occasionally play higher with civs I know fairly well.

Now I know I'm not a great player.... but here's my problem....

I have been playing the Saturday RP game for the past several weeks, and here's what I see.

I see other players creating Eurabatres and having Archmagi running around devastating stacks on Turn 200. In the meantime... I'm still researching Iron Working.

My basic problem seems to be that I have no idea how to charge up my research.

I tend to wait until I feel I can properly defend multiple cities before I settle new cities. Which maybe means I'm stagnating by having too few cities. But when I have more cities, I have a harder time pumping commerce out of them when I need production to build, and so end up with a lower-than-wanted research slider.

So my question..... First 100 turns (normal speed).... what should I do to supercharge my research while not getting pwned by raging barbs and AI?

 

[cabbagemeister]

Archmages at turn 200? Are you playing on Quick speed? Not only are slower speeds generally easier for the player, but I believe the game is only well geared for Normal speed at the moment.

In general, key techs for early economy are Mysticism (for God King and Elder Councils) and Education (for cottages).

If you really want to dominate in research for a game, try playing as Hannah the Irin on a water-heavy map, research Sailing, and spam cities and Pirate Coves.

 

[Yarnosh]

Yeah, archmagi by turn 200 seems a little off. I can't say I've ever even seen the AI with archmagi even at normal speeds. And I play up to Monarch difficulty.

Also, don't necessarily be so quick to research iron working unless you plan on depending on melee units or really need the frigates to command the seas. Depending on your civ of choice, you can put off iron working (and other techs) indefinitly. As the Svartalfar, I depended exclusively on assassins and fireballing mages. Assassins do have the city attack penalty, but after you hit a city with several fireballs, the assassins will go right for the weakest units. I don't even bother building catapults anymore.

Or the Amurite firebows can go a long way. Horse archers are also good early/mid-game. No metal required.

So yeah, in addition to cabbagemeister's suggestion, once you get mysticism and education, be sure to grab any commerce generating resources ASAP. A capital city next to two wineries will give you a great early tech advantage. I might even put off education to get mining if there is gold nearby.

 

[Boleslav]

Find the civ that best fits your regular playstyle, be unafraid of experimentation, and seek out the wisdom of your peers. Sounds like you are a new player, not a bad player.

 

[Kyroshill]

OK.... I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be....

I do fine against AI... big deal....

I'm talking about in MP games where I can watch human players.

In the game I'm most interested in, I was playing the Lanun... so Iron Working was to get Guybrush and Boarding Parties....

Next thing I know Eurabatres is being created.... now I see a screenshot from turn 200 and the Amurites have 4 archmagi and a waterwalking Chalid...

I thought we were playing Normal speed...if we weren't.... I really suck

Anyway.... I always seem like the first 200 turns for me involves getting all the necessary economic techs.... (I wonder if that's my first problem) and warriorspamming to try to defend my cities and workers.

I have little idea how to specialize... I seem to build what I need early... which doesn't necessarily translate into what I want later.

So what I wonder is.... first 100 turns... let's say playing Grigori... starting city on a hillside river tile.... some treed hills and riverside grassland and plains... cows and corn in BFC.... (pulling these outta my butt here)....

How would you promote solid teching?

Which techs would ya research?
What would you build? Units and/or buildings... and when?

Anyway... hope this is a little clearer....

I would like to play a few more MP games... but there is NO way I could survive a competitive game for long.

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[Yarnosh]

I haven't played the Grigori in particular, but the first 100 turns shouldn't vary too much from civ to civ. Though I hear you should try to avoid generating great people other than Adventurers. Have you read the FFH2 manual? (PDF). Not having normal great people is going to give you a tech and economic disadvantage. I dn't know how the Grigori deal with this.

Normally I'd try to generate Great Sages to build Academies in each of my commerce cities. That's a huge tech boost. Later I'll settle the sages in teh cities with Academies. The Great Library is great for generating sages. But, again, maybe not for Grigori. The free sage specialists (and corresponding GPP) might make it difficult to make Adventurers.

You should have at least 3 cities by turn 100. You'll need a fairly large civ to get any decent amount of research. What you research specifically depends a lot on what resources you have available. Start thinking about city specialization early. This applies to regular Civ IV. There are some really good guide out there. City specialization is a must. I forget the exact ratios, but you'll want one production city for every 3 or so commerce cities. The production city should be pumping out all your units while the commerce cities spend time commerce buildings and nuturing cottages. And finally, dedicate one city to generating great people, aka great people farm. Just one city. All GPP should be focused in a single city to maximize great person output. This city should have access to a couple mines to build wonders, but mostly farms and food resources for specialists. But, again, this may not work with Grigori with their dependency on Adventurers.

Or you could go with a specialist economy and build tons of farms. But I personally don't like this because t is too much of a pain to keep people happy, especially if you're going to be at war a lot, and the required techs to allow a lot of specialists are a bit of a distraction.

Take all this with a grain of salt. I don't play MP games (too much pressure). Just monarch difficulty, soon to go Immortal, against AI. It could be that things change drastically against real people.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I've been playing on Noble most of the time when I am trying to learn how to play civs. I occasionally play higher with civs I know fairly well.

Now I know I'm not a great player.... but here's my problem....

I have been playing the Saturday RP game for the past several weeks, and here's what I see.

I see other players creating Eurabatres and having Archmagi running around devastating stacks on Turn 200. In the meantime... I'm still researching Iron Working.

My basic problem seems to be that I have no idea how to charge up my research.

I tend to wait until I feel I can properly defend multiple cities before I settle new cities. Which maybe means I'm stagnating by having too few cities. But when I have more cities, I have a harder time pumping commerce out of them when I need production to build, and so end up with a lower-than-wanted research slider.

So my question..... First 100 turns (normal speed).... what should I do to supercharge my research while not getting pwned by raging barbs and AI?

I second their advice and add maybe you're already early researching Education and building cottages -yet not bothering to make more than one or two workers who're building roads, farms, etc. I've done that: I have the tech but I'm not really exploiting it fully and expecting my 2 or 3 workers (and I usually play Ljosalfar whose workers are 20% slower) to catch up. I've found it pays to have many workers early and to switch to appropriate civics early. In my Elven case, the Aristocratic/Agrarian civic combo gives me mucho dinero.)

Some of the technologies, like Iron Working, for example, are huge projects (Isn't Iron Working about 2700 beakers? And to get there one has to spend over 2000 on researching Smelting) that seem better suited for middlegame research. Going for the big projects before the economic technologies that lead to better civics or coin production probably means slower research.

So first 100 turns, as you ask, I'd go for the basic economic and growth techs:

Agriculture (210 beakers) -> Ancient Chants (210) -> Education (420) giving us cottages which we will make our workers build lots of!

Exploration (210) -> Cartography (336) giving us City States civic for expanding empires on the make.

Crafting (210) -> Mining (356) -> Bronze Working (672) since you seem to like the metal path.

I think during the first 100 turns your warriors should be able to handle raging barbarians 'til your higher Tier units arrive.

I'd also be wary of heading down any major heavy duty research path until the economy and the basics of research were done.

Specializing after the first 100-200 turns is the fun part and that's all yours...

(EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see your second post. I can't see too many reasons (though they exist) for the first 100 turns for any civ to be hugely different: everyone needs coin, research, growth, etc. The differences being random things like starting near gold, I'd bump up Crafting so as to get to Mining faster. Basically, I see now I don't understand your situation; is it that research is not going fast enough? If so, then I think my first impression that you might be neglecting using the civics and workers and basic techs enough. Your opponents do seem to be getting Archmages rather early if it's only 200 turns in-game.

Anyway, sorry, I'm not certain then why your research isn't ramping up as fast as theirs? Unless they're trading beaucoup techs between 'em.)

 

[Yarnosh]

Oh, one more note... it may not be good enough to have only food and animals available in your initial BFC. You'll want to have some commerce generating resources too. If you don't have this and can't put off settling your capital city until finding it, you might as well give up right away. Wine or gold (for the additional happy faces) are great. Gold is good, but getting mining is much more expensive than crafting and calendar. Though you might need mining anyway to cut down the the forests to build plantations.

The difference between +9 and +19 research points from the start is pretty huge. It can make or break a game. Keep a close eye on how many research points you are generating. Keep research rate at 80 or 90%. I never let it go to 100% (and still make profit) because that means I'm not expanding fast enough. And 70% is too low. Means I'm expanding too quickly. Though sometimes it is worth it to command some important resource or take out an opponent early and grab his capital city.

 

[Sephi]

So my question..... First 100 turns (normal speed).... what should I do to supercharge my research while not getting pwned by raging barbs and AI?

1. start a game on a map type you like
2. save on turn1
3. play 100 turns and save at turn 25, 50, 75, 100
4. think what was good and what was not so good
5. reload from turn1 and play till turn 100 and save again at turn 25,50, 75, 100
6. Compare the saves
7. maybe do some more play sessions until you can't think of a way to do better
8. then post the saves here and maybe you get some good advice

 

[JonathanStrange]

1. start a game on a map type you like
2. save on turn1
3. play 100 turns and save at turn 25, 50, 75, 100
4. think what was good and what was not so good
5. reload from turn1 and play till turn 100 and save again at turn 25,50, 75, 100
6. Compare the saves
7. maybe do some more play sessions until you can't think of a way to do better
8. then post the saves here and maybe you get some good advice

I do that sometimes too, at least save the start, to see if it I merely had bad luck or emphasized fighting techs when I should've been economy-focused or vice versa. I try out different research and city settling priorities; it seemed to help. Plus it also shows that there are times there really isn't anything that will save the day regardless; like an Elven start with virtually no forests and an aggressive Hippus civ next door.

It should be transferable - the ideas, that is, of what works for a player and what doesn't - from SP to MP. Obviously, an MP game isn't going to allow you to try again, but the SP experience should provide some valuable ideas.

 

[Kyroshill]

See.... I like you guys that do the math.... that's probably part of what I need to start doing.... know how much of my resources need to be committed to get to certain tech levels.

And I like the idea of playing the first 100 turns thru a few times.....



See... I used to do programming, as well as hacking and cracking waaaaaay back in the day.... but I got lazy, and stopped going thru the sequences.....

I tend to more of a random, pattern-style thinker now.... and I think that may hurt me in FfH.....

I was good at specializing in BTS.... but then again, after my initial city... I had more time to scout out great locations and build with that in mind....

In FfH I seem to have less time early to do what I want, and spend more time protecting workers/improvements.....

Guess I should find more posts with the mathematical breakdowns in them and try to put together a plan.

I think I may also make some civ-specific "crib sheets" too.... like what techs I need to hit to make use of UUs, UBs, and heroes.



Thanks for the info so far!


Now maybe Meth and Jules will tell me how they did it in that game

 

[Zechnophobe]

Okay, so you play the Lanun and are having a hard time with Commerce? Let me give you a few pointers:

1) Settle near the coast in a position where you can get out multiple pirate ports. 3 would be great (4 is almost unattainable).

2) Research fishing right away. As soon as it finishes, build work boats until all pirate ports are made, and perhaps normal fishing resources too (Depends on if you need growth rate).

3) Keep two warriors per city, and expand down the coast.

4) Build Heron throne or defenses, case fitting. Then expand again.


This is a pretty good start, and should cover about 60 turns of the game. If you aren't the commerce leader at this point, I'd be surprised. You will likely have to move your commerce slider lower, but will net greater science output even so, while rapidly expanding as the Lanun. Pirate ports produce an ungodly amount of commerce, and just 1 pays for almost any new city.

As for how to win once you have the economy down: I'd suggest staying away from Iron Working. You really don't need Guybrush as much as a true winning hero like Chalid, or even the Baron. (Both is good, but on completely different tech paths). Ritualists or Cultists can also be a good military approach. IN general, I'd focus on stack breaking effects, and then building just swordsmen or horse units.