Some beginner Conquest questions (how many cities should I have?)

[ReidCiv4]

Hello,

I've been playing Civ4 for a while now so I know the basics, but I'm having a hard time doing well. I play on Noble difficulty with only Conquest victory enabled. My main problems stem from what I'm supposed to do early-game. Specifically how many cities I should have, and what I should do with cities that I capture. For reference, I play on a large continents map.

I find that if I expand slowly, before I know it, the other civilizations will have like 15 cities each and I will have nowhere left to expand, leaving me with only like 5 cities. This results in me falling behind drastically and being overpowered. But if I decide to expand rather quickly and build 10-12 cities myself before all the land gets taken up, I end up not having even remotely enough money to maintain all my cities, resulting in me having to lower my research to a really low percentage, sometimes even down to 0%. So I still fall behind. I know there's a technology that allows you to build research, but it takes a lot of time to get to that technology when your research is being gained so slowly already.

Also, I'm not sure what to do with cities that I capture. For example, in my most recent game, I rushed swordsmen, and I attacked a neighboring civilization that was starting to box me in. I captured the majority of his cities, and I kept all of them because they were good cities, and I didn't have many cities myself yet. But the cost of maintaining all these cities was extremely high. So I thought in the future I should just raze them, but this seems counterproductive in a conquest-only victory game, because then that razed territory is just going to be settled again and I'll have to capture it all over again.

Any tips are appreciated. Thanks!

 

[ReidCiv4]

I'm sorry I just realized this is the Civ6 forum, not the Civ4 forum. Is it possible to delete a thread?

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Civ 4 - S&T forum

 

[krikav]

@ReidCiv4 Hello and welcome to the forums!

To get the best feedback possible, it's best to start a "shadow game"
Here you have two recent examples:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/jacobs-shadow-game.637273/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/shadow-game-for-an-old-dude.636725/

To give you some very quick feedback to alleviate your current problems:
Tech pottery quickly, and build some cottages and have your cities work them.
Don't tech ironworking, try to get it through a trade with a AI.
Axemen do a almost as good of a job as swordsmen do, but the tech cost a fraction.

 

[AcaMetis]

General tips:

• Build/whip libraries in rich cities that have enough surplus to also run Scientists.
• Build wonders for failgold in rich cities, or Wealth if you don't have any more wonders to fail build. National wonders also work for this, but you'll have to actually build them somewhere to get the failgold.
  
• Research trade bait instead of techs you need and can trade for with the AI. It might seem counter-intuitive to research Aesthetics when your economy is dying, but by trading it around you could get multiple techs for it.
• Use Great Scientists to bulb useful techs, or worst case scenario, techs to use as more trade bait. Philosophy is great for Pacifism, but even Compass could get you back into the tech game if you can trade it around for good stuff.

 

[Gumbolt]

Generally 7-10 cities by 1ad is fine. If your struggling financially you have not developed enough cottage. That or you have not been developing the land around those cities. Impossible to guess based on your post.

Have you got a 1ad save we could see.

 

[unas876]

Sounds like a classic case of terrible worker management and whip usage, but yeah, not much to say without a save

 

[lymond]

Hello,

I've been playing Civ4 for a while now so I know the basics, but I'm having a hard time doing well. I play on Noble difficulty with only Conquest victory enabled. My main problems stem from what I'm supposed to do early-game. Specifically how many cities I should have, and what I should do with cities that I capture. For reference, I play on a large continents map.

It really first and foremost about changing your perspective on the game. My first advice to you is to open yourself to completely changing how you think about the game and basically relearning everything. If you start here from that perspective, you will learn a lot and improve quickly. Right now, it is clear to us that you do not know the basics. Basically, if you are struggling on Noble level like you describe, then there is much for you to learn and likely you have many bad habits. Hey, keep in mind that most of us have been there. I was in a worse position that you before I found this forum.

I recommend playing normal settings - normal maps, normal size, normal speed. Play with all victory conditions enabled...no real logic having one VC enabled, unless role-playing or something. Pangaea map is good for learning.

As others have said, post up a new game as described, and get advice as you play short turnsets. The good folks here will really help you improve your early game.

 

[ArchGhost]

But if I decide to expand rather quickly and build 10-12 cities myself before all the land gets taken up, I end up not having even remotely enough money to maintain all my cities, resulting in me having to lower my research to a really low percentage, sometimes even down to 0%. So I still fall behind. I know there's a technology that allows you to build research, but it takes a lot of time to get to that technology when your research is being gained so slowly already.

I commonly do that too (not saying it's a good thing). It comes with the understanding you are trading economic efficiency for later production advantage. But you have to weigh it against how much land you actually need, and whether it's even important to deny certain land to the AI (they eventually take everything left).

Wouldn't worry so hard about it on Noble, and instead focus on better economic management in general as it's very important moving up. You can do a lot with few cities if you attack early enough and increase the city count later that way. Even in the hardest games I would say you need 3 good quality cities, 4 if they aren't so good, in order to force a better position a little later. If you have enough land and time to peacefully settle out, not much call to go far beyond 6-7. You will be able to get away with many more because of the lesser costs and slower AI on Noble though, just don't get used to it if you want to improve.

One thing you can do in the "too big economic crash" thing: make sure you have the Writing tech by the time to wrap up your war (ideally you'll have had it long before and already done this part), whip some Libraries, and run a couple scientists where food surplus allows (+4 or more). It's possible to crawl your tech forward to something emergency to bail out the economy like Alphabet/Currency with just scientists, while developing cottages elsewhere to keep afloat re:expenses. Recovering the economy is an important part of committing early warfare and this is but one measure. Somehow getting to Currency is usually the biggest step: build Wealth, trade for gold etc.

As Gumbolt alludes more cottaging is generally helpful too. Having a bunch of cottages early doesn't just help you get up to war tech quicker; after you are done whippping/chopping your attacking forces out they are your lifeblood for funding the war and recovering. Cottaging to some extent is a requirement that grows in importance as the difficulty does.

Also, I'm not sure what to do with cities that I capture

Whip them for infrastructure they might need (especially granary, possibly a library or monument if absolutely needed) then have them grow cottages to offset their costs while you recover. Make sure they are connected to your trade network or their net cost is even more. A common case with AI cities is they are overgrown even after capturing them, and if you don't have the happy to run those citizens, they only cost you more civic expenses or will starve down anyway.

Suggest that you follow Lymond's advice, you really will get some in-depth help that way instead of my sweeping anecdotal stuff.

 

[OldDude]

@ReidCiv4, you sound just like I did when I first started posting here. I could win on Warlord every time but when I went to Noble I had the same problems you describe. Like @krikav said, check out those two Shadow Game threads; one is mine. Thanks to all of the great help here I was able to win a domination victory in 1605AD. Since, I played a few other Noble games (not shadow) and was able to win those as well but not that early. I'm now trying my hand at Prince level so we'll see how that goes.

By no means am I a good player, as @lymond and the others can attest to but I'm learning and getting there. The biggest thing for me is breaking bad habits that I developed for so long. You really have to fundamentally change the way you play, plus learn A LOT. It sounds like you're in the same boat. Start a shadow game, listen to the great advice you'll get and try to incorporate it all into your game. It's not easy at first and it won't come overnight but if you stick with it you'll get there.