So Totally Lost

[MosquitoControl]

I'm a longtime Civ player. Bought the original when it came out. I never upgraded, though. The original stayed with me until the disks gave out. It was then transferred to zip disks until that format died. It's been on every PC I've ever owned.

So I figured it's a good time to go Civ 4.

Bleh.


I am playing Chieftan, ie very easy. But... I'm terrible. I do really well, getting every single wonder, being massively rich, expanding, but somewhere around the Dark Ages the world ALWAYS turns on me. I've never attacked anyone (I still like the tiles better to see what unit is what, but I do no non-cultural aggression.) Still, they all turn on me. Eventually I'll have two or three civs attacking me. They'll decimate my farms and mines, starving my huge cities. They'll hit my defenses with endless waves, just constantly attacking, until my now starved cities can't replenish riflemen to stop the elephants.


Where am I going wrong?

 

[Memphus]

Well first you should be excited and say :where am I going right

For 3 AI's to 'gang up' on an easy difficulty setting, means that you must be winning by a large amount.

So the question is:

What is your military status at? You said you were peaceful but look at the Demographics screen.

If you military Ranking is low, but you have ALL the wonders and large prosperous cities it would be dumb of the AI not to attack you.

Keep a strong military even in peaceful games.

Edit:Spelling

 

[Innawerkz]

Keep a strong military even in peaceful games.

Preach it, brutha.

They'll hit my defenses with endless waves, just constantly attacking, until my now starved cities can't replenish riflemen to stop the elephants.

I suggest finding some quality tiles along your border that offer a significant defensive bonus - such as Hills with forests/jungle or simply forests/jungle. The idea is to not let them get too close to your cities unless absolutely necessary, otherwise the AI tends to pillage your tiles, thus starving you into non-production. NOTE: Still keep defenders IN your cities - at a minimum - archers.

Give your defenders Promotions for terrain 'x' that they will be perched on, to:

• hopefully kill the enemy on their way there.
• give you leeway on getting your troops defending the right cities en masse.
• slow their advance, buying time to reproduce more units.

My hardest initial mental block was 'flipping the switch' so to speak. Changing from pacifistic builder to 'all out war machine'. This means switching ALL of your cities to military, if necessary and the aggressors until they regret waking the sleeping giant. Also consider switching your Civics to more war oriented if it looks like it is going to be drawn out.

With a tech lead like that (elephants vs. rifleman) you do NOT have to worry about losing it. Good luck!

 

[Equisilus]

Listen to those guys above, they know what they are saying. I was new to Civ4 and liked building and being peaceful and such, with only a minor military presence thinking I was safe. Lo and behold, I kept getting massive attacks by multiple civs. Gradually, I've been changing my tactics to increasing my military power and spreading religion to other civs and things have calmed down considerably and I'm doing better even though I don't outstrip my opponents in other categories as much as I used to. Don't underestimate how far behind an early war can put you when you have a lot of other civs as opponents. Avoiding a war by building a big military can be more beneficial to the rest of your production just by avoiding being decimated.

I hate that military power is so important in Civ4, but there you have it.

 

[Admiral8Q]

Yes, Civ4 has quite the learning curve, I'm still getting over it,

 

[MarcoPolo]

Civ4 seems to reward the warmongers more than the other types of players. Even if you intend to be peacefull you still need a lot of military for defense. Some of the AI types are geared toward aggressive behavior and will usually use war as a means to expand their empires no matter what you do.

 

[Admiral8Q]

Marco Polo, I've found you can keep the peace as long as you want, as long as you stay somewhat caught up in strength. I usually get a diplomatic victory, but I find that ruins the game to early, ME LIKE SMASH!!!

 

[Sadan01]

Another important point is that even if you don't want to win via Domination or Conquest victories, you can always pick on a smaller civ, especially if they have been hemmed in close to you by you and other AIs (depending on the map-type you are playing - I guess this works best on pangaea or maybe even Terra).

Whilst playing on the lower difficulties, try a military campaign of sorts (at the very least, for practice). Picking on the smaller civs that inevitably develop in most games is a good way to get that practice as they will not have the resources to you. Additionally, this will bring in other concepts such as diplomacy (i.e. Is the Civ you are going to attack a close ally to a much bigger civ? etc) and resource management (both your resource management and the AI you are going to fight - i.e. Do they have access to Oil? Iron? etc which determines what types of military units they will throw at you).

 

[Innawerkz]

Marco Polo, I've found you can keep the peace as long as you want, as long as you stay somewhat caught up in strength. I usually get a diplomatic victory, but I find that ruins the game to early, ME LIKE SMASH!!!

I agree. My girlfriend plays for cultural victory and uses military only as a deterrent. Enough to flex when necessary, but certainly not enough for genocide.

Civ4 seems to reward the warmongers more than the other types of players.

I find warmongering rewarding in the sense that it takes a touch more planning and cunning to accomplish compared to CIII. There is more need for tactics, overlying strategy, and an end goal.

Compared to CIII where your Stack o' Doom just trampled over every city with really little need to stop until thorough dominance, CIV has some nice balances instilled into it to prevent rampant conquering... or at least from keeping the cities.

I'm sure further patches will further flesh out the various victory methods and the inevitable Expansion will add even more diversity.

 

[Good Omens]

The only responders to the thread have all made excellent points, and I generally concur. One aspect, though, that seems to have been missed is this:

I do really well, getting every single wonder

Wonder addiction is a major problem, especially because the Wonders in Civ 4 are not really as dominant as they used to be. Of course, there's a few that are worth trying for, but spending your time trying to build every Wonder will end up setting you back overall. Much better to focus on a few that will especially help you, which will allow you to expand your infrastructure and military. Then, attack your enemies, and take the Wonders which they have so generously built for you.

Of course, it's a little trickier than that. Civ 4 does have a significant learning curve; it's much more complex than the other games in the series.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I agree. My girlfriend plays for cultural victory and uses military only as a deterrent. Enough to flex when necessary, but certainly not enough for genocide.



I find warmongering rewarding in the sense that it takes a touch more planning and cunning to accomplish compared to CIII. There is more need for tactics, overlying strategy, and an end goal.

Compared to CIII where your Stack o' Doom just trampled over every city with really little need to stop until thorough dominance, CIV has some nice balances instilled into it to prevent rampant conquering... or at least from keeping the cities.

I'm sure further patches will further flesh out the various victory methods and the inevitable Expansion will add even more diversity.

There are other ways to win besides domination and conquest but they do seem to give you the most points at the end. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion but it would be nice if other victories could have higher payouts.

The Civ4 GoTMs winners accomplished their high scores by being warmongers. They micromanaged their first few cities and workers to give them an edge over the AI. Once they had the technical lead and more production, it was just a matter of building the units and deciding who to attack first. Attacking does take some planning but when it's Calvary vs Archers/Spearmen it's not much of a contest. It can be fun to see a stack of Calvary take over a city without hardly getting a scratch themselves.

 

[Oho]

Compared to CIII where your Stack o' Doom just trampled over every city with really little need to stop until thorough dominance, CIV has some nice balances instilled into it to prevent rampant conquering... or at least from keeping the cities.

Well I think Civ II and SMAC had this even more ridiiculous. In CIVII Artillery/Mechinf/Spy/Engineer/ton of cash exploit had one killing major rival in single or couple of turns. Conquer the capital a couple times, at some point it simply did not seem to reappear maybe due lack of money, and buy rest of the cities intact at bargain base prices.

Likewise in SMAC helicopters with blink, no stopping them....

 

[Dyvim Tvar]

Maybe on a side note you might want to look into threads about specializing your cities to produce more commerce, hammers, food, great people, science etc. in other threads. Your nation will not be near as efficient and powerful when your try to have all cities be good at everything - it won't work.

 

[Xenocrates]

I usually try to build a lot of wonders too; all in one city for GP powerhouse.

But what do I use those GP for? Why building more wonders of course!

Thus I end up getting stuff that I don't really need for no advantage. At least they enemy don't benefit from them but that's small consolation.

 

[SlipperyJim]

I usually try to build a lot of wonders too; all in one city for GP powerhouse.

But what do I use those GP for? Why building more wonders of course!

Thus I end up getting stuff that I don't really need for no advantage. At least they enemy don't benefit from them but that's small consolation.

If you can found a number of religions in the same city (HinBudJewism, for example), this can be an excellent use of Wonders and Great People. Build a few of the early Wonders that give you Great Prophet points. When you get a Great Prophet, use him to found a shrine. Note that the shrine gives you additional Great Prophet points! Keep turning Great Prophets into shrines as quickly as you can....

 

[jrice77]

The only responders to the thread have all made excellent points, and I generally concur. One aspect, though, that seems to have been missed is this:



Wonder addiction is a major problem, especially because the Wonders in Civ 4 are not really as dominant as they used to be. Of course, there's a few that are worth trying for, but spending your time trying to build every Wonder will end up setting you back overall. Much better to focus on a few that will especially help you, which will allow you to expand your infrastructure and military. Then, attack your enemies, and take the Wonders which they have so generously built for you.

Of course, it's a little trickier than that. Civ 4 does have a significant learning curve; it's much more complex than the other games in the series.

IMHO, On Chieftan (and on Noble if industrious), he should be able to go wonder crazy and still easily win the game. Of course, this is not a good habit to carry on to higher difficulty levels. If multiple AI's are attacking him every game on Chieftan, then it is guaranteed that he does not have an adequate military.

 

[automator]

If you can found a number of religions in the same city (HinBudJewism, for example), this can be an excellent use of Wonders

I love doing that. Sometimes I'll hold off on building cities until I've founded three religions, just so they'll all be in one city.

Hear hear to the "military power" for the peaceful. That lesson took me a dozen games to learn.

 

[Wodan]

Of course, there's a few that are worth trying for, but spending your time trying to build every Wonder will end up setting you back overall. Much better to focus on a few that will especially help you, which will allow you to expand your infrastructure and military.

Definitely. Decide which victory you are "shooting" for. e.g., if going for spaceship, why in the world would you build a wonder that will give you +culture? e.g., Sistine Chapel (I think it is).

Also, I haven't seen anyone else point this out:

Back to your original question. You're peaceful, you're doing well, you're playing your own game, but suddenly the AIs intrude into your little "world" and declare war.

Did you trade with them along the way? Did you keep Open Borders, or did you refuse? Did you give them tribute when they asked for it?

All of these things will keep them pleased with you. Not that you have to do them all, but you have to do at least SOME of them. If you don't, then one way or another, you'll be at war with them later on in the game.

Wodan