Shadow1psc
Chieftain
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!
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!
