Somewhat CIV newbie with some questions

Shadow1psc

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 31, 2009
Messages
2
Location
Palmdale, CA
Ok, so I played Civ III and Civ IV very casually. I mean, very casually, usually on the lowest difficulty. I like the premise, and I like the game, so I wanted to get better at it and move up the difficulty ladder. On Settler and Chieftan I could win any game easily with automated workers and doing winning via space race, no big task, but that's what I liked to do every once in awhile. I usually play (still) on Earth_2 (I use BtS expansion now) w/ huge setting and default number of opponent civs, but sometimes I also play with just 5 opponents, as opposed to default.

Which leads me to my first question; Is there any difficulty corrolation between the number of opponents you have? Is it harder to win on a map with 10 opponents as opposed to 5? Obviously a military victory will be easier with less people to conquer I guess.

Until recently, as noted above, I've been playing the game with workers automated, which I now know is a terrible idea. Obviously when you control their every move, things are faster and more efficient. I most notably realised this when I read the article on Specialist Economies as opposed to normally using cottages. Now I can make a general guess as to which improvement to build when, but here's question #2;

Is there a general rule of thumb to follow? I tend to only build farms if there is fresh water for them, and even then only on grassland or spaces with 2 food production. I cottage anything with 1 or 3 that's not a resource, so that if I have a floodplanes, I've already got a tile with 3 food, and now I can use that for commerce as well. On into question 3;

Cottage Economy I assume is the basic way most people play the game? I only heard this term used in vague relation to when reading about Specialist Economy. How is a CE generally run? Where is the middle ground between balancing city growth and when to let the city be stagnant? I usually let the city hit it's happiness max, stagnate it, then wait for the next chance to improve happiness before going back to it, but I've been trying to implement Specialist Economies instead. So, #4 (you guys sick of me yet?);

In a SE, I think I've got the basics down; Lots of farms, build a library, granary, monastary, and basically anything that is going to go towards science output. Race to the Great Library, Oxford University, etc, crank out the science production w/o the use of the science slider. Here comes the actual question lol. When the city has nothing left to build towards research, do you dedicate the city's production to research, or build an army? I tend to favor diplomacy over war, but I notice that's not always possible when playing Warlord (and definitely higher I assume). I know strategy will always differ based on starting position and circumstance as the world unfolds, but are there clear cut general guidelines when working an SE? I tend to favor Ghandi for this if that helps.

Though, that leads me to my last point, in that I always find it hard to balance military production vs. technological and city growth. I tend to favor spiritual leaders so that I don't have to deal with anarchy which is great for drastic tide changes in war and peace, and I don't know if it's possible to be entirely diplomatic past the Warlord difficulty, but how do you guys tend to manage? Are there any completely dead end buildings/techs/things in general that should be avoided?

The closest I've got to supreme military prowess was in my last game as Ghandi. I shot to Bronze Working as fast as can be, and lo and behold, Copper was right next to my city. I implemented slavery and CRANKED out the axemen, whiping 2 out of the 5 other civs right away, and having plenty left to annoy a third, but basically just a prod to get rid of them and bring commerce back to stability (I lost a lot of science production as my slider had to hit 0 to support a 20 stack of axemen >.>).

I went in to the game with the mindset of using a SE, but the temptation w/ slavery+early copper to maim some civs finally overtook me lol. Eventually I went back to being peaceful, and even launching a somewhat succesful (I think) SE, only to have that third civ come back with rampaging war elephants and the other two civs (though they had like +10 relations with me) wouldn't back me up for anything.

So, I lost that game, and obviously I should have invested more into military instead of dedicating 3/6 of my finished cities to research, which is why I asked earlier if you do that in a SE, and why I asked how do you best balance war production in a tech/diplo/culture victory mindset lol (yes, my story had a point!)

So, omg this post is long for a first post >.>; I'll give you a tl;dr version;

1) Is the game always more difficult with more civs on the map? Obviously for military victory, but what about others?

2) What improvements to build when? Is there a general rule of thumb for cottage/farm/workshop placement?

3) Cottage Economy; How is it done?

4) Specialist Economy; Am I doing it wrong? (I guess for that one you'll have to read >.>;)

and 5) Balancing military and technological growth. Are there dead end things to ignore and avoid? Things to always race to?

So, thanks in advance for anyone that braves the wall o' text and answers any questions :) Looking forward to being quite the civ fanatic!
 
Welcome to CFC :D
General guideline for everything is - City Specialization. I think you are aware, but as you never mentioned it... You have cities focused on Commerce / Science and\or Specialists while some others go for (military most of the time) Production.
Also pay some attention to having enought workers to cope with the needed improvemnts. Ideally a growing city should never need to work unimproved land.
Cottage Economy I assume is the basic way most people play the game?
I think in the end most people end up running some kind of Hybrid of both. (Tho many purists won't admit that ;))
In a SE, I think I've got the basics down;[...] When the city has nothing left to build towards research, do you dedicate the city's production to research, or build an army?
Once you built everything the city needs for its main purpose, you are free to do what you like. I know some people will switch to building research. I often build missionaries in such cities - i.e. if i got a shrine - they tend to have monatery anyway.
Though, that leads me to my last point, in that I always find it hard to balance military production vs. technological and city growth. I tend to favor spiritual leaders so that I don't have to deal with anarchy which is great for drastic tide changes in war and peace, and I don't know if it's possible to be entirely diplomatic past the Warlord difficulty, but how do you guys tend to manage? Are there any completely dead end buildings/techs/things in general that should be avoided?
With a good army Size (not falling behind in power too badly) and some sane diplomacy (keeping one or two good friends is often better, than trying to please everyone) you can play peacefully way above Warlord.
The key to good army size is - again - city specialization.
You dedicate one or two cities to building units (permanently, unless you can build a new improvement that is helping you build units (Barracks, Forge...))
In these cities there is no "tradeof between ..." because they only purpose is to crank out military.
1) Is the game always more difficult with more civs on the map? Obviously for military victory, but what about others?
Not necessarily "more difficult". There are obviously more things to pay attention too, more possible diplo/tech tradings.
But there are also more opportunities - not just the AI trade more tech, you can do so also.
And of course more potential victims. More likely to have someone in reach for a rush...
2) What improvements to build when? Is there a general rule of thumb for cottage/farm/workshop placement?
There are quite a few around i think... And some of them might contradict each other...
Aside from improving and working bonus tiles asap - these generally give best yields...
With city specialization in mind (Some cities go for production, others for commerce) you put the improvments to produce the yield you desire for that city (commerce or hammers).
The food being a constraint here - unless you have some pretty good food bonus, you will need to add some farms, to feed the dudes working the other tiles.
A somewhat common approach is to put more farms in the begginging (to make city grow faster) and gradually convert farms into Cottages, or maybe Workshops, as the city is able to use more and more tiles.
Obviously, for your SE, GPP or maybe Slavery cities, where you need mainly food, there is no need for concersion. And sure, fresh water farms are the best (untill Civil Service - then you can chain irrigate). But so are Riverside Cottages... I prefer using the weakest tiles for farming (af far as possible/usefull), while the best ones get dedicated to the cities main objective.
3) Cottage Economy; How is it done?
Quite easy actually - in the cities dedicated to commerce/science you build as many cottages as you can feed and pay attention to actually working these cottages - the main goal is to get some cottages mature (Village->Town) as soon as you can, as these are the best (again, converting farms to cottages as the city grows might be a idea).
4) Specialist Economy; Am I doing it wrong? (I guess for that one you'll have to read >.>;)
Did not read nothing specifically "wrong"... A thing to mention: the power of the SE is not just "Scientist making Beakers". It is also the generated Great Peoples. Bulbing key technologies - for immediate advantage and/or trading - using these great Peoples is a common approach.
Another thing you did not mention (i think) is Caste System civic. It will let you run as many Scientists as you can feed.
and 5) Balancing military and technological growth. Are there dead end things to ignore and avoid? Things to always race to?
As said before - city specialization. Two heavy, focused Science cities (One with Oxford and another one with good tiles) should be enought to stay competetive for quite a while. One dedicated military city (Heroic epic) is enought to keep your military scary. Additional production cities can be used for more military strategy / jump in when preparing/fighting war.

Another thing is - stagnation is death. If you are in a good position, don't just stick with it. Use your advantage to expand via conquest or settling whenever possible/necessary.
Otherwise you risk the AI's closing the gap.
Generally you want to expand when you are out of tiles to improve for your workers (At the very latest - often you will want to do so sooner, because a opportunity presents itself)...
 
Obviously a military victory will be easier with less people to conquer I guess.

Not so obvious actually. With less civs on the map all of them have more room to expand so you'll be dealing with larger opponents. And with larger empires means more possibility of military production. Plus there will be less AI-AI warfare. If your neighbours are all fighting amongst themselves then they'll be expending what units they have against their opponents, leaving you free to build up your military with no losses. If there's enough inter-AI warfare going on, you could easily end up with the most powerful army since you haven't been losing as many as everyone else.
 
Thanks everyone for your responses~!

I actually forgot another question of which I had; How do I go about making a pure production city? What are the key buildings, and how do I work the tiles around it? This one always eludes me, as I either end up with a good production city in conjunction with what I'm already doing, or I don't, and I'm at a loss as to how to just make a production city lol!

And back on the subject of an SE, I always settle Great Scientists; Every time I get one, the lightbulb tech is something mundane that I'm not shooting for either at the moment or any time soon. Free tech is always nice, but is there a way to coerce the free tech in a specific direction? Or is it all random? Also, I like building a Great Engineer city to get the (imo) all too valuable Hurry Production option on big wonders (late game 1 turn Manhatten Project is fun imo when you have nukes in 1600 >.>).
 
A Military Production City... Granary (anyway); Barracks; Forge at some point... Happiness/Health buildings, if really needed (if you whip a lot you can postpone these). Heroic Epic in a good one. Could concider settling your second/third GG there too.

The tech you get from a GP is very specific. It's the one with the highest priority for that GP, that you have the Pre-Requisites for. So by choosing what techs you research as Prereq you can influnece what is unloocked for a bulb.
Here's a reference by DaveMcW: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952
Common bulbing techs are Philosophy, Paper, Education (On the path to Liberalism)
 
Thanks everyone for your responses~!

I actually forgot another question of which I had; How do I go about making a pure production city? What are the key buildings, and how do I work the tiles around it? This one always eludes me, as I either end up with a good production city in conjunction with what I'm already doing, or I don't, and I'm at a loss as to how to just make a production city lol!

As far as key buildings go, just the forge. Later a factory and coal plant. (These should actually go in pretty much every city but with production cities its more important.)

Although important buildings are standards across your empire: Granaries for faster growth and courthouses for lower maitenance. (unless its your capital) If its producing military units, obviously you'll want a barracks, stable (warlords and bts), drydock and airport. To be decent, make sure it has enough hills to work. Hills have high hammer but low food, so make sure you have enough farms or food resources to feed the miners. Grow the city to its happy cap with the farms, and then switch to mines.

And back on the subject of an SE, I always settle Great Scientists; Every time I get one, the lightbulb tech is something mundane that I'm not shooting for either at the moment or any time soon. Free tech is always nice, but is there a way to coerce the free tech in a specific direction? Or is it all random? Also, I like building a Great Engineer city to get the (imo) all too valuable Hurry Production option on big wonders (late game 1 turn Manhatten Project is fun imo when you have nukes in 1600 >.>).

What about acadamies? In some situations they can be much stronger than settling. But in regards to bulbing, there is a specific list of techs they will bulb, with certain techs having a higher priority than others. (i.e. if both techs are available, it'll bulb the higher priority one) Scientists give 50% more beakers than other great people when bulbing.

With scientists, there is a stretch of the tech tree where bulbing them is popular: the Liberalism race. Liberalism gvies the first civ to research it a free tech, and it requires Philosophy, Paper, and Education. Scientists can bulb all three of those techs easily, they have high priority.

A great engineer city is certainly a good idea as they are useful, though I wonder how you get the manhatten project in one turn, isn't it a project that can't be rushed?
 
Heroic Epic in a good one.

That and either Ironworks or West Point. You can only have two of those three buildings in one city so it's not a bad idea to have at least two production cities devoted to just unit building. Then you can put the building that's left over in the other one. I prefer to have West Point and Heroic Epic together and use my Ironworks city primarily for Wonder production, or building spaceship parts towards the end.
 
That and either Ironworks or West Point. You can only have two of those three buildings in one city so it's not a bad idea to have at least two production cities devoted to just unit building. Then you can put the building that's left over in the other one. I prefer to have West Point and Heroic Epic together and use my Ironworks city primarily for Wonder production, or building spaceship parts towards the end.

Heroic Epic + Ironworks is usually overkill. ;)
 
On what, marathon?

Usually my ironworks city is able to churn out the highest military unit in a single turn, or maybe two when the overflow doesn't line up good.

Still, too much production isn't a bad thing (over-overflow will be converted to cash) so its not a bad combo by any means.
 
It's good to benefit from IW while building these expensive late game Wonders, while still churning out units from HE. Hence i prefer different cities.

Even on marathon units 'only' cost 200% normal. So HE without IW should make 2 Modern Armor in 3 Turns on average in a reasonable production city. You can boost it with a extra Military Academy, if you feel like needing it.
 
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