The basic principle of winning

[Silence101]

The more I play Civ, the more it seems to me that the basic concept of this game simply being able to out produce the competition. Now, Civ is a pretty detailed strategy game... it's the most complex of any strategy game that I've played, but hey, that's why we love it. Still, I think it's easy, expecially for new-comers, to get bogged down in the complexity of it all and forget the basic concept. Winning at Civ, at any difficulty level, is being able to produce more of something than the competition.

In Civ terms, the term "production" is usually defined as how many hammers a city brings in - however, for this post, I'm using the word a bit more broadly. I'm refering to anything that you can produce - research, commerce, military units, hammers, espianage (sp?)... your ability to to produce these things at a higher rate than the competition will determine whether you win or lose.

This is one of the things that I love about Civ IV - specializing your empire toward one specific area of production (research, for example) will yield exponentially higher results in that area compared to your empire's total GNP and production capacity - yet the internal conflict we must face is that neglecting any other area of production in favor of specialization can be fatal to your empire (military, for example). You have to have enough production to compete on all levels, yet you also want to have an end goal in mind (a victory condition to work toward) so that you know how to specialize and how to engineer your empire.

The secret to producing anything in Civ IV is land - having good quality land, and having more of it than everyone else. You grow your city population so that you can work the land. You build workers to develop the land. Anything you produce comes indirectly or directly from the land. So you take land - through war, or through peaceful expansion, or from cultural flipping. And then you make the most out of the land that you have by specializing your cities.

Now, maybe this isn't exactly news to a lot of people - but it hit me the other day... if I'm not out pacing the AI comfortably enough, then I either need more land, or I'm not using the land that I have as effectively as I should be. Every strategy that exists is geared toward increasing this general production value in some way. Winning is just a matter of maximizing your GNP and having a victory condition to work toward.

 

[Murky]

I think the most basic thing is to try to optimize every move. Some players go so far as to plan everything out on a spreadsheet first. That's probably not really necessary but it can help with important decisions.

 

[DaveMcW]

If you want to win militarily, you need to do a lot more than out-produce your opponent.

You need double or triple their military production, or an equivalent number of allies.

 

[Silence101]

I think the most basic thing is to try to optimize every move. Some players go so far as to plan everything out on a spreadsheet first. That's probably not really necessary but it can help with important decisions.

The purpose of optimizing every move is to maximize long-term production.

If you want to win militarily, you need to do a lot more than out-produce your opponent.

You need double or triple their military production, or an equivalent number of allies.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me here or not, DaveMcW... Double or tripling their military production is the same thing as out producing your opponent, and even getting allies to help is combining the production capacities of the two or more empires.

 

[Murky]

The purpose of optimizing every move is to maximize long-term production.

In most cases, that's true but sometimes you can gain diplomatically by taking a few steps backwards, like when gifting a city. Optimizing is about achieving the desired end result, not always just out-producing the AI. On Immortal and Deity it can be impossible to out produce the AI so you have to find other ways to win.

 

[Silence101]

Murky - I see your point. Keep in mind that I was trying to keep things somewhat basic, but I can also understand the advantages of having positive diplomatic relations opening doors down the road.

 

[axident]

It's a game about short-term v. long-term gains and balancing the two. If you go all long-term you'll be dead as some guy waltzes in with more units than you have. If you go all short-term your economy crashes and you are lagging in tech and some guy waltzes in with more advanced units than you have.

One way to solve this is to go hard short term then hard long term (axe rush a neighbor, then rest and recover before later wars or space race). Or to specialize cities so some are in long-term commerce/beaker/gold mode, and others are in keep-our-civ-alive military mode. Not to mention that it's more efficient to skip some buildings in each city, so some end up without any barracks and others end up without any markets.

It's also about flexibility. I don't play with any objective other than Domination/Conquest in mind. Domination/Conquest can easily morph into a space race or diplomatic victory. Heck you might even get a Cultural or Time victory out of it. If you go for any other victory condition, it may be harder to switch victory condition objectives.

 

[Silence101]

It's also about flexibility. I don't play with any objective other than Domination/Conquest in mind. Domination/Conquest can easily morph into a space race or diplomatic victory. Heck you might even get a Cultural or Time victory out of it. If you go for any other victory condition, it may be harder to switch victory condition objectives.

That's an interesting point - I usually play the role of the warmonger regardless of the victory condition that I go for (though I've admittedly never gone for a cultural victory), but I can see how not taking that path can limit your options. Again, I think it goes back to how your overall production capabilities increase by claiming and effectively using land... something a warmonger does more often. More production = more options.

 

[Via]

From my point of view the civ4 singleplayer is all about diplomacy. You can grab yourself as much land as you want and still lose to space racing civilization not slowed down by warring. You can also be the last one in whole score/production thing, and still win cultural or diplomatic(this one is rare).

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Seeing as you can win with a One City Challenge, its not just land. And you can win with limited land and production through either diplomatic or cultural victories.

I like Axident's short term/long term view. The game is all about how you balance your long and short term strategic needs and doing so more effectively than your opponents.

 

[Silence101]

From my point of view the civ4 singleplayer is all about diplomacy. You can grab yourself as much land as you want and still lose to space racing civilization not slowed down by warring. You can also be the last one in whole score/production thing, and still win cultural or diplomatic(this one is rare).

Diplomacy is an element that I admittedly overlooked. There's merrit to what you're saying. Still, I think it's usually more of a complementary element. Even when going for a diplomatic victory, you're not even going to be in the running if you neglect the other stuff.

Seeing as you can win with a One City Challenge, its not just land. And you can win with limited land and production through either diplomatic or cultural victories.

I like Axident's short term/long term view. The game is all about how you balance your long and short term strategic needs and doing so more effectively than your opponents.

I'd be interested in hearing from somebody who has done a one city challenge and won, exactly how they did it (what victory they got). Maybe it's my lack of understanding core concepts, but to me it just seems unfathomable because of a lack of production. I usually play on Prince, or Noble depending how much of a relaxing game I want.

 

[axident]

Diplomacy is an element that I admittedly overlooked. There's merrit to what you're saying. Still, I think it's usually more of a complementary element. Even when going for a diplomatic victory, you're not even going to be in the running if you neglect the other stuff.



I'd be interested in hearing from somebody who has done a one city challenge and won, exactly how they did it (what victory they got). Maybe it's my lack of understanding core concepts, but to me it just seems unfathomable because of a lack of production. I usually play on Prince, or Noble depending how much of a relaxing game I want.

I think people usually win in OCC via space race, conquest, or diplomacy. Space seems to be most common. Diplo is hard to pull off sometimes but your options are limited if you have 1 city. Conquest if playing a duel map or something.

 

[NickAragua]

If you want to win militarily, you need to do a lot more than out-produce your opponent.

You need double or triple their military production, or an equivalent number of allies.

You don't necessarily have to out-produce the bad guys by that much. You could always use good tactics - trick/force them to attack your strong spot, or hit them in the rear cities where they don't have a stack of fifty machineguns.

 

[axident]

You don't necessarily have to out-produce the bad guys by that much. You could always use good tactics - trick/force them to attack your strong spot, or hit them in the rear cities where they don't have a stack of fifty machineguns.

Yup. I'm playing Road to War as Germany, Emperor, historically accurate. It's even easier than freestyle since you get Italy and co. as teammates. Anyway, faced with numerically superior foes, I just chew them up with air power and mop up and run back to cities to recover.

Stalin had a TON of troops in a border town when war broke out. I pounded it to death with most of my aircraft, the rest of my bombers collateralling another massive Russian stack to prevent it from moving that turn as I hit the first stack hard and then retreated back to my heavily garrisoned city (with several medic II units and a hospital to boot!). Rinse and repeat. Russia would have to have something like a 5-to-1 numerical superiority over me for me to start worrying at all. And even then that would just delay the inevitable so long as I maintain air supremacy.

The existence of collateral damage is a massive advantage that the human has over the AI, which doesn't use collateral damage as effectively.

In regular games I've also attacked civs that had triple my power rating. They died. I didn't. And I didn't even lose that many troops.

 

[Silence101]

You don't necessarily have to out-produce the bad guys by that much. You could always use good tactics - trick/force them to attack your strong spot, or hit them in the rear cities where they don't have a stack of fifty machineguns.

Maybe I'm looking a production a bit more abstractly... the way that I pictured it, if you build an axeman that subsequently kills three of your opponents axeman due to tatics, promotions, or whatever, then you've taken a production advantage in this instance. You've taken your 35 hammer production value of the axemen and have used it more effectively than 105 hammer production value of your opponent.

 

[Bradlius]

Russia would have to have something like a 5-to-1 numerical superiority over me for me to start worrying at all. And even then that would just delay the inevitable so long as I maintain air supremacy.

Reminds me of a haunting photo in my Life's Picture History of WWII. Russian Cossacks, swords drawn, charging German tanks. Numerically superiority doesn't matter much when the units are mismatched like that.

 

[Silence101]

I can see where maybe I didn't explain myself very well with the term "out produce" - from the feedback, I don't think people are quite interpreting what I had in mind. Maybe a better way to define it would be to "more effectively produce" than your opponent(s). This is an area that I tried to touch on a bit when I was writing about city specialization - focusing your resources will have an exponential impact.

Another example would be the tech tree - if I were to beeline computers for the internet wonder, build it, and subsequently backfill most all of my other techs, have I out produced my opponents? Technically, I guess maybe not, yet my overall production has proved to be more "effective" in terms of research up to this point. So, in a round about way, I have "out produced" my opponents in terms of research. This is more what I had in mind.

I've never played an OCC, but it seems to me that even with one city, the main goal is still to more effectively produce something than your opponent(s). Generally, however, I still think that the most obvious and common way to do this is through increasing and effectively using land. Land is the most basic building block for any production that occurs at all. Having it is the first part - the second part is effectively using it through improvements, buildings, national wonders, city specialization, and ultimately tailored to your goal for victory.

What are your thoughts? Is my thinking totally off base here?

 

[Harbourboy]

"more effectively produce" than your opponent(s).

I still don't really agree. Take Deity for example. The AI will outproduce you on every measure you care to use. But you can still win, by USING what you produce in way that contributes to victory. Like using your 4 Immortals to pillage the right resources and lure the AI to waste its armies through the use of superior military tactics.

 

[axident]

Reminds me of a haunting photo in my Life's Picture History of WWII. Russian Cossacks, swords drawn, charging German tanks. Numerically superiority doesn't matter much when the units are mismatched like that.

I actually restarted the game on Deity, but didn't realize that my AI allies would also get Deity-like AI bonuses, so while Russia put up one HELL of a fight with about a 3-to-1 advantage in improved infantry and tanks--not cossacks--and made Operation Barbarossa a DEFENSIVE struggle for me for several months, my Italian and East Balkan allies broke through Russia's southern flank and kept marching farther and farther east. I DEFINITELY recommend playing Road to War on Deity if you play Historical Accuracy (any type), as your teammates are unreal. Heck, it didn't take very long for Italy's power rating to surpass mine and keep rising faster than I could keep up, as most of my cities were generating Wealth to keep me above zero gold--and this was at 10% culture (anti-war weariness), 0% science, 90% gold!

Your horsemen vs. tanks description still fits Poland, which crumpled beneath my initial panzer wave.