Cyclonis
Chieftain
first off I want to admit that I am still a civ4 newbie, and have only played through about 40 AI games so far on noble setting.
I was an avid civ2 player though for some years, I was better in that one
nevertheless, maybe some other newbies like this strategy for the romans:
i tried this strat on a small, standard and large map, on noble setting, with domination and conquest victory conditions, all other things on normal. about 5- 7 other civ players and barbarians.
I choose Romans as my civ
I make use of the unbalanced roman pretorians early in the game. these units are soooo strong compared to what most other civs can put on the board untill they have macemen, that it is very easy to clear out your whole continent with them.
I put my city on the first move. I train warriors for exploring untill my city is about size 3. then I train 2 settlers. in the meantime I am researching bronze working and ironworking so I can see where the closest Iron mine is. I then move my settlers in that direction. with my main capital I then build a worker so I can build the roads and the iron mine. I also research either writing or the research that allows you to build obelisk, for some larger borders in the new cities.
the moment I have the iron mine, start building several pretorians to defend your cities and mine from barbarians. barbarians are no match fora fortified pretorian.
I usually expand to about 6 cities, preferably with barracks and some cultural building. at that point I put all my cities on building pretorians. I don't build any wonders usually, only some workers ocassionally after I have built around 10-15 pretorians. I give all my pretorians either the 20% city attack upgrade, or the 10% strength upgrade
the workers that I do build I usually put on auto mode. I put all my cities on research focus combined with production focus.
your economy will collapse as you progress and your science will often have to go down to only 30-50%. all the great scientists I get I make them build academies. by the time I conquered the continent, however, I will usually not be very far behind the other players on science. and as soon as I build up the continent for myself, I will quickly gain on science compared to all the other civs
if you have done this all fast enough, there is a good chance your enemies on your continent have nothing but archers, pikemen, axemen, chariots, and sometimes swordsman. if they have swordsmen it becomes slightly more difficult but it is still doable as long as you make sure you produce a lot of pretorians.
as soon as I go to the offense I may consider building some forges here and there, but the main focus remains on pretorians.
the cities you attack you can defend with the 10% upgraded pretorians. the other ones will gain experience and you can give them an extra city raider upgrade and let them recover in the city you just captured.
keep on doing this and if you manage to produce more pretorians than you lose, you will be succesful. I succeed about 80% of the time. the only times I fail is when an iron mine is far away, or when I make the mistake of building wonders early on.
the disadvantage is that you don't get any early wonders, and that because of the focus on iron and the metal casting researches, by the time you have conquered your continent, you may still not have any boats to transport your pretorians to other continents, and by the time you finally achieve this, the other civs will have macemen.
nevertheless, having an entire continent for yourself will prove VERY helpful later in the game as far as income, research and resources are concerned. you will most definitely have several sources of oil, uranium, aluminium, coal.
although I never get any early wonders, I always get almost ALL the new age wonders such as hollywood, rock&roll etc.
I also manage to get to have tanks earlier than all the other civs and then it is time to start conquering all the other continents, before it is too late.
I hope other people will find this strat useful as well
I was an avid civ2 player though for some years, I was better in that one
nevertheless, maybe some other newbies like this strategy for the romans:
i tried this strat on a small, standard and large map, on noble setting, with domination and conquest victory conditions, all other things on normal. about 5- 7 other civ players and barbarians.
I choose Romans as my civ
I make use of the unbalanced roman pretorians early in the game. these units are soooo strong compared to what most other civs can put on the board untill they have macemen, that it is very easy to clear out your whole continent with them.
I put my city on the first move. I train warriors for exploring untill my city is about size 3. then I train 2 settlers. in the meantime I am researching bronze working and ironworking so I can see where the closest Iron mine is. I then move my settlers in that direction. with my main capital I then build a worker so I can build the roads and the iron mine. I also research either writing or the research that allows you to build obelisk, for some larger borders in the new cities.
the moment I have the iron mine, start building several pretorians to defend your cities and mine from barbarians. barbarians are no match fora fortified pretorian.
I usually expand to about 6 cities, preferably with barracks and some cultural building. at that point I put all my cities on building pretorians. I don't build any wonders usually, only some workers ocassionally after I have built around 10-15 pretorians. I give all my pretorians either the 20% city attack upgrade, or the 10% strength upgrade
the workers that I do build I usually put on auto mode. I put all my cities on research focus combined with production focus.
your economy will collapse as you progress and your science will often have to go down to only 30-50%. all the great scientists I get I make them build academies. by the time I conquered the continent, however, I will usually not be very far behind the other players on science. and as soon as I build up the continent for myself, I will quickly gain on science compared to all the other civs
if you have done this all fast enough, there is a good chance your enemies on your continent have nothing but archers, pikemen, axemen, chariots, and sometimes swordsman. if they have swordsmen it becomes slightly more difficult but it is still doable as long as you make sure you produce a lot of pretorians.
as soon as I go to the offense I may consider building some forges here and there, but the main focus remains on pretorians.
the cities you attack you can defend with the 10% upgraded pretorians. the other ones will gain experience and you can give them an extra city raider upgrade and let them recover in the city you just captured.
keep on doing this and if you manage to produce more pretorians than you lose, you will be succesful. I succeed about 80% of the time. the only times I fail is when an iron mine is far away, or when I make the mistake of building wonders early on.
the disadvantage is that you don't get any early wonders, and that because of the focus on iron and the metal casting researches, by the time you have conquered your continent, you may still not have any boats to transport your pretorians to other continents, and by the time you finally achieve this, the other civs will have macemen.
nevertheless, having an entire continent for yourself will prove VERY helpful later in the game as far as income, research and resources are concerned. you will most definitely have several sources of oil, uranium, aluminium, coal.
although I never get any early wonders, I always get almost ALL the new age wonders such as hollywood, rock&roll etc.
I also manage to get to have tanks earlier than all the other civs and then it is time to start conquering all the other continents, before it is too late.
I hope other people will find this strat useful as well
