Still having trouble after all this time

[ew0054]

I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review my situation. I just got home from work a short while ago, and have read your replies. I will post the original save (4000 BC) and start this game over, taking all of your suggestions into account. It will be interesting to compare, so I'll take saves every 1,000 years as well.

Note: I just went to upload the starting save but it seems it's already in this thread.

 

[ew0054]

Ok here's what happened so far this millenium. I founded Hinduism, but as it was pointed out to me, founding one religion is enough. I immediately had my capital build a worker to grab rice, and once Animal Husbandry is invented I'll go for the pigs. My science strategy this time around is to go for technologies that will allow me to secure resources, and then advance military units. I am currently building a warrior and will then build a Settler to found a new city. I am going to try building cities on top of strategic resources (like the gems, for immediate commerce) this time.

 

[InFlux5]

Depending on the surrounding terrain it's usually not a good idea to found on top of a resource - "usually" being the key word.

Basically you should only do so if the tile(s) you pick up are going to be more beneficial to the city than the tile you're settling on would, once they are all improved.

In most cases, the one hammer/food/gold you get from immediately founding the city isn't enough short-term benefit to justify settling on it. But then, sometimes it is. That's civ for ya

Basically I'm just saying I wouldn't make any effort to found on top of resources as a general goal.

 

[ew0054]

Ok it's 2,000 B.C. I founded two new cities to secure some copper and I am working on another settler to get the gems. My science is now down to 60%. I am trying to keep my cities small, using slavery as needed. I hope I'm not expanding too quickly. I'll probably cool it after another 2 cities and "whip" libraries into action. The next tech after Iron Working will be Writing.

 

[ew0054]

Depending on the surrounding terrain it's usually not a good idea to found on top of a resource - "usually" being the key word.

Basically you should only do so if the tile(s) you pick up are going to be more beneficial to the city than the tile you're settling on would, once they are all improved.

In most cases, the one hammer/food/gold you get from immediately founding the city isn't enough short-term benefit to justify settling on it. But then, sometimes it is. That's civ for ya

Basically I'm just saying I wouldn't make any effort to found on top of resources as a general goal.

I'm hoping I can secure the Copper to the west this way so that I will have it under my control completely.

I hope it clicks in my brain eventually. I mastered the first three games with no difficulty. Granted it was still tough on diofficult levels, but it was almost methodological after a while. I'm still missing something with CivIV.

 

[ew0054]

Whoop forgot to save. Slavery has been working to get me some Libraries. I am going to use the southwestern desert city to product military units, while pumping out settlers from the capital. I will try to found a new city to the west on the pig hill. In my exploration I have found barbarians coming from the east, so I will be building swordsmen, axemen, and spearmen to try an attack by 1 A.D.

 

[ew0054]

50 A.D.

Never found the barbs to the east... someone else must have taken care of them.

But what really p1sses me off is when somebody builds a city right next to my border. This used to happen in CivIII a LOT. Case in point, Wang Kon builds Pyongyang between my two southern cities. That situation has been resolved.

I am the most behind in tech, so I am emphasising Libraries and commerce. I am trying to balance the production of units accordingly. One half of my cities build military units while the other builds improvements, and I cycle. For every 3 or so units each city builds, I use slavery to complete an improvement (Library or Forge typically).

 

[ew0054]

The war with Korea continues and my subsequent attacks are less successful. I still captured two of their cities nonetheless.

I still fail to understand how they become so advanced when they built less cities than I, and three out of four of them were in cruddy areas: one was on tundra, the other two, desert. I am still inclined to beleive that the game handicaps the AI somewhat.

 

[Shagrat44]

Not sure if you have looked at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632
The above thread I found very useful Sisiutil's Strategy foir Begineers. I have played various version of civ since the begining and got bored/frustrated with civ4. I have spent a lot of time printing and reading these strategy on how to leverage rush building wonders to grab advanced technologies, and the strategies on tech path/ city building strategy and specialist economies. I must say it has given me a lot more things to think about in playing the game, and recently I have gone to higher difficulty levels as well as even choosing leaders I wouldn't normally play (ALC thread has really helped here as well).

 

[ew0054]

1200 A.D.

Caesar has joined in on the fun on his own valition in declaring war on Korea. He has a few units outside of Korea's capital but does not appear to be attacking yet. I figure I will wait and let him attack while I accumulate units just NW of the capital.

Normally when I play, I don't stack units but this time I will CHEAT and am building like 20 Swordsmen which I will send all at once to the capital. Like I said I don't normally like to stack because I'm not a CHEATER but I guess given the circumstances I can ok this move, being that Korea is still more advanced than me with only 2 cities when I have about 10.

 

[Alternator]

If by stacking units you mean putting 6+ on one square, it's generally not a great idea because of siege weaponry. If you mean sending in guys with massive advantage in numbers, you have to do it and it's completely fair.

 

[Fold]

I'm hoping I can secure the Copper to the west this way so that I will have it under my control completely.

That's a bad idea in my books - copper is one of the best tiles to work since when it's mined it is among the most hammer productive tiles you will have in your empire (along with iron).

I still fail to understand how they become so advanced when they built less cities than I, and three out of four of them were in cruddy areas: one was on tundra, the other two, desert. I am still inclined to beleive that the game handicaps the AI somewhat.

The AI plays at Noble level. If you are below that, then you have the positive handicap. Without looking at your saves I'm inclined to say that you are behind due to some combination of the following:

1) The AI is generating great people and you aren't.
2) You're not working high value commerce tiles.
3) The AI is tech trading and you aren't - do you have Alphabet?
4) You have an extremely unfocussed tech path, researching techs that don't gain you anything. Eg, I noticed you researched Iron Working although you already had copper available so that tech probably wasn't justifiable.

At 1200 AD for example you should certainly have Catapults, not just Swordsmen, for your stacks.

I founded two new cities to secure some copper

Another point I noticed - why would it take two cities to secure one resource?

being that Korea is still more advanced than me with only 2 cities when I have about 10.

Add to the above list:

5) You have too many cities. If you don't have catapults, I'm guessing you also don't have code of laws and currency. No code of laws = no courthouses, no currency = less trade routes. 10 cities is probably too many without these techs.

 

[ew0054]

1625 A.D.

Alright I think I am starting to get it. I FINALLY took Korea's capital, which was a size 14 city. Now they only have one left. I learned two things from this. One, creating a superstack was costing me a lot of money, and two, I needed to have a bombardment offense of catapaults and later, trebuchets to back up the war elephants. Collateral damage is quite useful!

 

[ew0054]

If by stacking units you mean putting 6+ on one square, it's generally not a great idea because of siege weaponry. If you mean sending in guys with massive advantage in numbers, you have to do it and it's completely fair.

Yes I learned that this isn't the best strategy to stack many units on one tile, which is what I was trying to do. Plus, I didn't realize the benfits of seige weaponry at the time, so my swordsmen were pretty useless.

 

[ew0054]

That's a bad idea in my books - copper is one of the best tiles to work since when it's mined it is among the most hammer productive tiles you will have in your empire (along with iron).

Good point. Since you can't mine the city square it will never reach full potential.

The AI plays at Noble level. If you are below that, then you have the positive handicap. Without looking at your saves I'm inclined to say that you are behind due to some combination of the following:

1) The AI is generating great people and you aren't.
2) You're not working high value commerce tiles.
3) The AI is tech trading and you aren't - do you have Alphabet?
4) You have an extremely unfocussed tech path, researching techs that don't gain you anything. Eg, I noticed you researched Iron Working although you already had copper available so that tech probably wasn't justifiable.

At 1200 AD for example you should certainly have Catapults, not just Swordsmen, for your stacks.

I have come to understandthe benefits of seige weaponry to reduce city defense and cause collateral damage to units. I think the reason why I often neglect these types of units was because in the previous Civ games they were treated like any other unit in that it had a certain attack/defense/mobility rating. As I've said I've been playing since Civ I for SNES (1994 I think) and was always able to swarm ground troops and eventually take a city. I think I am beginning to realize that CivIV is like a new generation of the Civ franchise, whereas the older games were revamped iterations of the original. That's how I see it anyway. In a sense, it's not necessarily more or less difficult, just different.

Another point I noticed - why would it take two cities to secure one resource?

Probably a dumb reason on my part, but since I was in the "land grab" mentality, I just tried to cover it before anyone else got to it.

Add to the above list:

5) You have too many cities. If you don't have catapults, I'm guessing you also don't have code of laws and currency. No code of laws = no courthouses, no currency = less trade routes. 10 cities is probably too many without these techs.

I started this game out a little better than yesterday. I coerced courthouses into all of my cities as soon as I could. Again, the land grab philosophy prevails... but that's how the AI plays.

 

[ew0054]

1834 A.D.

The Koreans won't be bothering me anymore, haha! I think it would be best to shoot for a time victory at this point, since it is probably too late to go for Spaceship victory and conquest would take too long. Although I am not the most advanced civ I still have the high score so if I put my efforts into research and improving my cities then I should be able to pull off a time victory.

The endgame has begun!

I think the war preoccupied my advancement.

 

[ew0054]

1916

I have initiated conquest of the Vikings. With less than 200 years left to play I doubt I will conquer the world but I hopefully will achieve score, if not domination victory.

As I was playing this game I realized that one of the reasons I fail toward the end is because I lose the drive to keep expanding and conquering, and the AI wins over. Hopefully I can hold Caesar off from winning the end. Perhaps I should have gone after him first as he is in second place below me, but Ragnar is much weaker and I can finish him off quickly. I don't know what to do about is island cities though.