Time to move away from Civ.

[Zarty]

I read this thread from the beginning and I am having the same kind of frustration with CivIV BTS. What really is pushing me to the point of thinking it's an unbalanced game is something that I see just about every game... I can use a lot of resources building a big stack of units to attack a city and often the whole stack, despite promotions, gets whiped out by one or two defenders. It just seems strange that I turn up with a stack of gun toting soldiers and they all get whiped out by one unkillable guy with a bow. So, I think about it and say to myself... Well, maybe if I defend a city instead with the same kind of units, I'll get good results too... But, no... I have a big stack of upgraded defenders in my city and get whiped out by some strangely unkillable attacker. So, can't attack and can't defend, not all but most of the time. This means the game is almost unplayable and just too frustrating to spend hours trying to get better at it. Warlord by the way.

The other thing... It's hard to understand the game in terms of what you should build and how it affects your chances. People say 'build cottages' but why? Where's the feedback in the game to show you the results of building cottages? I build lots of cottages by the way but don't often win. I've seen other games that have a kind of running account of your economy, poduction capacity, resource consumption and so on so that you can see directly what works and doesn't. A lot of the time it's just blind 'build this, build that or adopt this civ or that civ without really knowing why and certainly not seeing the actual results of that change. Sure, I understand about building certain buildings to improve happiness, culture or whatever but the game's interface is vague on detail that could help players improve through better feedback.

On default settings, playing Warload, 4 our 5 games are basically unwinable as far as I can see - the other guys crowd your borders and being aggressive won't work because you can't beat them back well enough without getting sucked into a long, drawn out war that kills your chances of winning anway. You can't sit back either because you won't have enough cities to compete and you'll be so small you'll get eaten in due course. Maybe, 1 in 5 times the starting position is favourable enough to allow me to get enough Settlers out there to develop a half decent economy. Out of those 1 in 5 reasonable starting positions, I might be lucky not to get my well defended cities overrun by some 'supermen' attackers. It's just a lot of wasted time for the most part because it's not clear what I could have done differently.

A good game in my view is game that has the information/feedback given to you in the game so you can improve. I just don't see enough information and, if it is a level playing field with the AI, I can't begin to understand why it is that I get whiped out most of the time if I attack or defend with largish stacks of promoted units. How on Earth can 20ish city attack promoted Riflemen get zapped by a couple of bowmen? It's quite ridiculous On the other hand, it would seem impossible to make enough units to properly attack/defend because you're economy would be whiped out long before there were sufficient units. Yet, strangly, the AI achieves it???? Not only does the AI achive one side of it (lots of units OR well developed culture and economy), it often achieves it in several ways. Even that would be ok if I could see how the AI did that but I can't because... not enough information.

Going to bed.

Zarty

 

[Sisiutil]

Longbowmen, behind city walls on a hill, are formidable even to Riflemen. Have you tried using siege weapons (Catapults, Trebuchets, Cannon, Artillery)?

I do agree that the game interface could have been more informative for beginners. Provided experienced players could then turn those options off.

Aside from that, all I can do is a little self-promotion: have a look at some of my posted ALC games to get some ideas on how to pursue and execute a winning strategy.

 

[3 EMS]

The other thing... It's hard to understand the game in terms of what you should build and how it affects your chances. People say 'build cottages' but why? Where's the feedback in the game to show you the results of building cottages? I build lots of cottages by the way but don't often win. I've seen other games that have a kind of running account of your economy, poduction capacity, resource consumption and so on so that you can see directly what works and doesn't. A lot of the time it's just blind 'build this, build that or adopt this civ or that civ without really knowing why and certainly not seeing the actual results of that change. Sure, I understand about building certain buildings to improve happiness, culture or whatever but the game's interface is vague on detail that could help players improve through better feedback.
Going to bed.

Zarty

Cottages will add money to your economy. Later on, I think, there is a tech that adds production to them. Thing is they won't get worked until your city has the population to work the tile. A city starts out with 1 population and 9 squares that it could possibly work. After its borders expands it will have 21 squares in its Big Fat Cross. You can cottage every one of these tiles if you want to but you can only work an amount = or < than the cities population. You can always change a tile improvement. You may want a few farms, at first, to grow your city. That will allow it to work more tiles. You can always go back and change farms to cottages if you have the food to do so.
When you build a city you will need 2 food for evry tile and/or specialist that it is going to have. If you find a spot with say three hills and you want a city there for production you will need to find 6 extra food to work them. You will need an improved food resource or 6 farms or 3 farms on those 3food tiles. If you can't produce all that extra food now there is a tech, Civil Service or Machinery or another one around that time, that lets you spread irrigation.
I hope my rambling gives you some insight into what to build when/where.
If not read some of Sisiutil's writings. He writes well and offers some good insights to the games mechanics.
Some of the advice offered, in this thread, isn't strictly necessary but is nice to know. I play comfortably on Noble and don't always use some of the more advanced strategies but it is nice to know them because they can help you overcome a weakness.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I read this thread from the beginning and I am having the same kind of frustration with CivIV BTS. What really is pushing me to the point of thinking it's an unbalanced game is something that I see just about every game... I can use a lot of resources building a big stack of units to attack a city and often the whole stack, despite promotions, gets whiped out by one or two defenders. It just seems strange that I turn up with a stack of gun toting soldiers and they all get whiped out by one unkillable guy with a bow. So, I think about it and say to myself... Well, maybe if I defend a city instead with the same kind of units, I'll get good results too... But, no... I have a big stack of upgraded defenders in my city and get whiped out by some strangely unkillable attacker. So, can't attack and can't defend, not all but most of the time. This means the game is almost unplayable and just too frustrating to spend hours trying to get better at it. Warlord by the way.

The other thing... It's hard to understand the game in terms of what you should build and how it affects your chances. People say 'build cottages' but why? Where's the feedback in the game to show you the results of building cottages? I build lots of cottages by the way but don't often win. I've seen other games that have a kind of running account of your economy, poduction capacity, resource consumption and so on so that you can see directly what works and doesn't. A lot of the time it's just blind 'build this, build that or adopt this civ or that civ without really knowing why and certainly not seeing the actual results of that change. Sure, I understand about building certain buildings to improve happiness, culture or whatever but the game's interface is vague on detail that could help players improve through better feedback.

On default settings, playing Warload, 4 our 5 games are basically unwinable as far as I can see - the other guys crowd your borders and being aggressive won't work because you can't beat them back well enough without getting sucked into a long, drawn out war that kills your chances of winning anway. You can't sit back either because you won't have enough cities to compete and you'll be so small you'll get eaten in due course. Maybe, 1 in 5 times the starting position is favourable enough to allow me to get enough Settlers out there to develop a half decent economy. Out of those 1 in 5 reasonable starting positions, I might be lucky not to get my well defended cities overrun by some 'supermen' attackers. It's just a lot of wasted time for the most part because it's not clear what I could have done differently.

A good game in my view is game that has the information/feedback given to you in the game so you can improve. I just don't see enough information and, if it is a level playing field with the AI, I can't begin to understand why it is that I get whiped out most of the time if I attack or defend with largish stacks of promoted units. How on Earth can 20ish city attack promoted Riflemen get zapped by a couple of bowmen? It's quite ridiculous On the other hand, it would seem impossible to make enough units to properly attack/defend because you're economy would be whiped out long before there were sufficient units. Yet, strangly, the AI achieves it???? Not only does the AI achive one side of it (lots of units OR well developed culture and economy), it often achieves it in several ways. Even that would be ok if I could see how the AI did that but I can't because... not enough information.

Going to bed.

Zarty

Warlord difficulty. What are your other settings- game speed, map size and type, etc.?

Sometimes those of us fanatics who have been playing since CIV I or CIV II forget how complex and overwhelming this game can be to a beginner.

I don't know if your problem is not enough info, or info overload, but a save posted here or better yet, in a new thread with a link here to that thread, would allow you to get analysis and feedback. You could work you way through a game with human advisors and posting saves from time to time.

I usually recommend that when learning a new version of Civ that a person play as Rome and consult the civilopedia . With Sisiutil's guides ( linked in his sigline) you can get well explained advice. I'm not saying he's got the best or only way of doing everything, but he's got an effective way , and he's probably got the most effective explanations of anyone. That's a great place to start.

Another thing that might be useful for you is The BUG Mod, which doesn't change civ, just the way the information is presented to you. Many prefer it.



Combat is a complex thing, something that a human can learn to do better than a program. This version is designed as a mixed forces game, that is, foot soldiers, ranged units, and flanking forces used together. Promotions matter. So does the order in which your units atttack.

You need to find ways to weaken the enemy stack, and ways to take out it's toughest defenders so that you can at the other elements of the stack.

It might mean reducing defenses with siege , using more siege to weaken the defenders, using flanking forces to weaken the defending siege units , sacrificing a couple of fresh foot soldiers to weaken the top defenders, using your best veteran footsoldiers, your second best, etc.

It's not that straightforward , because promotions complicate matters.

Here's an Ax Rush, as explained to me by Forum member Axident pre- BtS.-



"I'm not the best player, or the best rusher out there, but my typical build order is pretty standard as far as the warmongers on CFC go: after getting at least agriculture and mining, get BW ASAP so you know where to plant your 2nd city and for chopping. Farm your capital (or pasture it or whatever). Choprush your settler if you have the forests. Plant your 2nd city near some copper. In the meantime you should get wheel for obvious reasons and pottery for granaries and switch to slavery at the most opportune time (I never switch to slavery till I have to.. not worth the early anarchy). Also in the meantime you should have found some nearby civs.

When I can steal a worker I DoW and steal one so I'm up one and he's down one. I then pillage whatever I can safely pillage, at least 2 squares away from the city. Then I find a forested hilltop to fortify in, at least 2 squares away from his city, but run for it if he masses archers against me. Sue for peace if he gets dangerously close to counterattacking or counterpillaging.

After the granaries are done, build some barracks and start cranking out a few axemen.. whip IF APPROPRIATE. Don't overwhip, it's not necessary because you have barracks for crying out loud. Do whip if your population is just exploding into unhappiness or something. Take two times as many axemen as he has archers in his capital to have a good chance of blowing it away in your first salvo. Also try not to step outside your own cultural boundaries until you are really ready to attack, to save some money on maintenance. I usually beeline for Alphabet at this point for extortion purposes later.

Some people don't even build barracks, they go hard axes ASAP and whip like crazy, but I don't like it. I like barracks and less whipping. Some people wait till they have 3 or more cities built up--I used to do that too, but it really depends on how close the civ is, the difficulty level, the game speed, etc. I think 2 solid cities with barracks is enough in many cases. Capturing the enemy capital will add a nice juicy city, so I see no point in having like, four cities already built by the time I overrun someone's capital. Also the earlier you kill a civ, the less likely you build up -1 "you declared war on our friend!" penalties since your victim is less likely to get friendly with anyone before dying.

After taking the enemy capital, heal your forces, don't build more forces than you need, and then raze (or keep if they are really nice) the rest of the enemy empire's cities. EXCEPTION: spare the crappiest enemy city till you are done researching Alphabet so you can extort some techs from your victim before finishing him off 10 turns later.

By the way, the moment your basic improvements are done, cottagespam like crazy. I start cottagespam on floodplains first and then grasslands. If you are dying for a wonder you can also spend your workers' time chopping.

Btw if you can't find copper fast, you have different ways to go. In my last game, I was stuck on a moderately large island with Egypt and no copper except in some godforsaken tundra, so I shrugged, planted a city to block off Egyptian expansion in my direction, and researched Iron Working. Luckily my capital was next to a gold mine so that research went by quickly. The iron was.. not much farther away from the tundra, UGH. So I planted my 3rd city near the icy iron and went hard swordsmen with a few axemen for anti-barbarian defense. It took a lot longer than I wanted, and the lack of other civs made for tech delay that made me not want to fight any more wars, so I settled for a spaceship launch in 1890 AD or so. You don't HAVE to fight a war every era, but an ancient-era one will help a lot.

Also, if you have a good UU, you may want to use it instead of or in support of axemen.

P.S. I went hard swordsmen because it became apparent to me that he didn't have any copper, either, just iron, and I knew I probably discovered IW before he did. Swordsmen suck vs. axemen but are better vs archers. He did have some horses but HBR is expensive, I was mostly swords anyway, and his capital fell before he could even think about war chariots."


Post BtS it's not as simple and easy to cripple your enemy by fortifying in his territory so you might want to allow him to build up his capital before you declare war and take it for yourself, and now you can build axemen with iron.

 

[Tony.Uk]

Playing as Napoleon, Noble, terra, standard. Came second so not too bad.
Obvious mistakes is that I have the same specialists in more than one city, but would have lost anyway. Darius had a huge cultural victory.

 

[Sisiutil]

Playing as Napoleon, Noble, terra, standard. Came second so not too bad.
Obvious mistakes is that I have the same specialists in more than one city, but would have lost anyway. Darius had a huge cultural victory.

Here are a few observations:

• You have a relatively small empire, even with the cities on the other continent. You're playing as Napoleon, who's Charismatic (easy promotions) and has a decent UU; I would have conquered more territory. Or, if you prefer to build, choose a different leader without one of the warmongering traits.
• What's with all the obsolete units? As the game progresses, they contribute very little to your power rating, and they're a drag on your economy. Upgrade the highly promoted ones, delete the others.
• You built a lot of wonders, which is great, but I don't see a cohesive plan there to leverage them--not for great people, or with synergy between them. It frankly looks like you built wonders just because you could.
• Foreign trade: you could easily boost your economy by trading/selling your surplus resources to other civs. You have several cities with unhappy citizens, and they could be put back to work by trading for happy resources. Additional territory would have also helped here, giving you more resources to trade/sell.
• Looks like you were chasing a space race win, yet you were researching Advanced Flight while you still needed Plastics? Focus, my friend, focus. Oh, and you could have obtained Plastics from Hatshepsut, your vassal, who should not be researching Ecology, which you already have. You can direct a vassal's research, then trade for the results.
• No cottages and no merchant specialists. I gather you were running a Specialist Economy, but again, it seems a little unfocused, and at noble level, the much easier Cottage Economy works equally well. In addition, it looks like you settled all your Great People--usually, in a SE, you use them to lightbulb techs.
• Orleans is--AARGH!--one tile from the coast and therefore unable to build a lighthouse to get the most out of that fish tile. Almost all of your other cities are very well-placed, however, so that's what makes this one stick out like a sore thumb.
• Minor point: you could also have placed a few more marginal cities. One on the ice N of Lyons to work the crabs, one SE of Rheims to claim the fish (looks like there was one there and it got razed), and two more on the other continent's east coast, one to claim the corn, the other further south to get the pigs and horses.

On the positive side, you're obviously a very competent builder--hence all the wonders. You understand the need for military strength to keep the AI off your back. You managed to found some fine cities on the terra map's other continent. Overall, I'd say victory is definitely achievable for you at this level by making some adjustments.

What you may want to do is play another game and post a save from mid-game. I would suggest choosing a leader who either suits your game style, or one who will challenge you to enhance elements of your play that you feel are weak. If you prefer to remain a builder and like playing as France, I'd suggest Louis--Industrious helps with wonders, and Creative will help you peacefully claim territory. Alternatively, if you want to amp up your warmongering, choose one of the Charismatic or Aggressive leaders. Or play as Rome.

 

[Tony.Uk]

Some useful comments there. I usually like to play as a builder , philisopical, organised, cultural, creative, industrious, not neccesarily France. I found that getting to Astronomy ASAP helped. Its strange how the AI seems to know where the other continent is. When I got there I found the barbs had riflemen and grenadiers so I could only grab 2 cities, no time left to expand further.

I probably parked Orleans there to get the farm and AH but yes being on the sea I would have the fish and lighthouse too, and lose the farm.

Oh yes I have not quit yet. Tried MTW II and it does not have the same amount of depth. Still some oddities, today a chariot knocked out my horse archer(stable built), and on a hill. I dont find horse archers very effective except for their mobility.

As I have said before its rather like being a high handicap golfer, your game rarely improves but you keep coming back for more...punishment...frustration.
Will try to post mid games. I usually give up if more than 150 points behind leader, I find its very hard to catch up if you fall behind too much. Also I find it hard to be aggressive, try to be so at the early stage if I get Iron/copper. Try to pinch a worker with a warrior. After that it gets harder to make war.
I do delete warriors but guess I have not got rid of the axemen level type. Will do so, and trading resources I never do unless AI offers- lazy me.

 

[Sisiutil]

I don't think the AI "knows" the other continent is there so much as it is programmed to explore.

The best use I've found for Horse Archers is to give them the Flanking promotions (then Combat, if they live long enough) and send them at enemy stacks. They may survive thanks to Flanking, and they'll often damage enemy siege weapons.

War in civ takes focus, as you have to build several units and use/promote them wisely. You also have to be prepared to lose units, which runs very contrary to the instincts of a builder such as yourself.

 

[Kawalimus]

Horses on a hill doesn't mean anything, they don't get defensive bonuses.

 

[3 EMS]

If you had attacked that chariot with your horse archer you would have won easily. Chariots are axeman killers when attacking. Having no defensive bonuses they can also be eaten alive by an axeman. Had you put a spearman and axeman with your horse it would have been very difficult to kill. This slows it down a little as it has to wait on the other units. Once an enemy unit gets within striking distance your horse can strike and return to its stack. Thats just a neet thing I like about horses. Plus I'm a defensive minded person even in my offense.
You should be seeing some trends here. Like horses/chariots don't stand a chance against spearmen or pikemen. Swordsmen are great city attackers but if they get caught by an axeman they are chopped liver. An axeman caught in the open by a chariot becomes roadkill. And this is without promotions.
With promotions you can enhance or alter a units effectiveness. Take an archer for example. Archers are great for city defence. Give an archer a city garrison promotion and he is hard to kill when he is in a city. Not so hard if you catch him outside a city. Inside the city, though, a person can expect to need two or three units to kill him. Take another archer and give him the hill or jungle/forest defensive promotion and stick him on a forested hill. This guy stands a good chance of holding off a much stronger axeman. You can read about units and their strengths, promotions too, in the War Academy. You might figure some out the hard way too like I did. Like don't send settlers and catapults out undefended. Took me awhile to become fully convinced here but now I never do.

 

[magikarcher]

For 3 years, THREE YEARS, I played on settler and thought nothing of it. In the last three months I went up a difficulty to chieftain, then warlord after two weeks more, then a few more days, and I was on noble. Finally I am playing on warlord for fun, noble for a good game. I haven't won on any difficulty but settler, but I could if I had the attention span for it.

 

[Gumbolt]

Had a look at the French game. The AI army is 3 times yours if you look at the demographics page. You have a lot of huge cities which is good. Downside is that your empire is tiny for that mapsize. Theres no reason why you cant have 10 cities by 1ad and be constantly expanding. Its simple maths for me. Larger empires can tech much faster. I

In this case Persia quite efficiently spread religions and won a cultural game. Leaving a game to 1980ad with most AI empires fully in tact is a huge risk.

On a huge map I think you need a decent empire of 30-40 cities by 1980 ad. Or to have such a huge commerce base to out tech the AI.

I still think your start playing the game up to 1ad is the key to winning. Taking out 2-3 AI civs is key. When you go to war with larger AI civs have settler in tow to build cities where you raze theres.

As i said initially the start is all about workers, settlers and chopping for me. Try an imperialist civ and build a settler as your first build. You will have a second city by 3300 and then be able to knock out 3-4 workers and 2-3 more settlers. From then on hook up copper and attack with 5-8 axemen.

Its that simple. You can have 6-7 cities by 1000bc and have captured an AI capital.

 

[MqsTout]

I also can win no matter the map or civ I play on Warlord, with various mixtures of the options (even OCCs). However, I've not once won a noble game, no matter how I've tried to mix it up.

 

[Gumbolt]

The hardest problem is moving away from contentment.

You expand to 6-7 city you worry your science rate is diving too low and you stop expanding.

Your more concerned with building wonders, libraries, court houses to aid your strategy.

By the time you have thought about doing something the AI has longbowmen and your army is small in comparison and you wait for trebs before you make your attack. For some cats and axemen have passed and not a single war has been fought.

Yet among all your dilemas the Ai will have spammed cottage from the start and expanded fast from 3-10 cities without a care for cost. Meanwhile have built a huge army.

Heres the dilema. You start a war with a neighbour. Next thing you know your in a rut of continual wars with other neighbouring AI's. Each quite happy to wear down your ailing army that cant cope as you have limited cities to build new military units.

If only you had rolled over one or two of these Ai much earlier and expanded harder to stop them building so many cities.

End of day a game has to reach a victory condition. The only trouble is stopping the Ai doing it before you.

So we have a culture route.

Religious route AP.

UN route. Diplo

Space race.

Yet through all of these you still have to ensure the AI is weak enough so you can claim a glorious victory.

 

[Brian Boru]

When I got there I found the barbs had riflemen and grenadiers so I could only grab 2 cities, no time left to expand further.

Not sure if you mean you captured those cities? On Terra it's better to bring Settlers and found cities first, with good defense to soak up the spare wandering barbs.

The AI will be quite late conquering barb cities, so you can pick most of them up later yourself first, once you have an established base and land claim.

 

[Tony.Uk]

Found an AI cheat I think on the first turn. Using Python toggleDebugMode so I can see what the AI is doing, I have discovered the 6 rival civs have started with warrior with 2-4 turns being available, all working food tiles. As Catherine I have to wait 15 turns, slighltly less if I work a production instead of a food tile. Unless I am mistaken this is rather blatant and a big AI advantage on Noble. Wish I could see what they were researching too, even with infiltrated great spy I cannot see.

Comments anyone.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

AI's get some extra hammers for the first build (this is a known feature).

 

[Tony.Uk]

Ok, did not know that myself. Is that all they get?

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

I think you should try another game but as Holy Rome right now. Charlemagne's traits are great for defending your empire and cheaper settlers will help you expand faster which can make a big difference. At first these cities will be a drag on your economy, but beeline to code of laws and put Rathaus's in all those cities and you'll be fine. The Landsnkecht is a great unit for conquering when you combine it with catapults. In one game Khmer was way ahead of me tech wise(naturally first in score), so I built up a massive army and vassalized there massive empire in about 100 years(on marathon). Easy space race victory right there, although I did eventually conquer Babylon's massive but technically backward empire(nukes help alot). However, I played that game a year ago, since then I've only played RFC, the development forum is in my signature.

RFC Random's out July 28th which will probably make civ way more intersting for you. Hope you find it interesting.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=306 RFC Random development forum.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Noble is the most even level for AI/player bonuses/handicaps. There might be some other thing(s) i don't remember right know that aren't exactly even, but nothing too big.