Timeline and succes criteria

[Madbone1]

Hi all

This is only my second post on these boards though I have been reading through many of them and enjoyed the articles at the war academy very much.

Anyway I consider myself a seasoned semi expert Civ player. But I most certainly can improve. To get a fealing/guideline on how I'm doing could anyone please help me set some sort of succes criteria based on the following scenario:

Huge Map
Monarch difficulty
Around 7-8 opponents
Continents (large landmass)

1. Around what year should my second city be founded ?
2. Around what year should I have the republic
3. How many cities should I have at year 0
4. How many cities should I have at year 1000AD
5. How many turns should it take to research a tech in the middle ages and industrial age ? (are anyone able to keep it down to 4 turns that early on) ?
6. What kind of net income (expenses paid) should I expect in the different ages to do good ?
7. A little off topic. Does anyone actually use artillery? I think they slow down my expansion when I do go to war and that they don't do enough damage.

I know the answers depens on playstyle etc. But I hope you will be able to provide me with some criterias so I am able to measure how I am doing compared to an expert player.

Thanks alot.

 

[Darkness]

IMHO it's impossible to answer all your questions, except number 7, to which the answer is yes. Artillery are great to take of hitpoints of infantry during your conquests on the higher level games.
The other questions I can't answer 'cause it all differs per game. It all depends on the map.

 

[HalfBadger]

Can you give approximation or avergaes from game that you've played Darkness?

 

[Arathorn]

Take all of these answers with suitable amounts of salt... They're my best guesses from off the top of my head -- recollecting other games.

1. 2500 BC but faster after that
2. On a huge map? Depends on goodie hut luck. 300 BC
3. At least 30
4. All of them.
5. *IF* you choose to research, somewhere between 4 and 8 turns.
6. Huge map?
Ancient -- anywhere from 0 to 200
Medieval -- 200 - 1000
Industrial -- 1000 - 3000
Modern -- 2500 - 5000
7. Only when I want to win. They're one of the most valuable tools in the game.

Arathorn

 

[Sparta]

Sorry that I can't offer any generalities myself; I'm still to some extent transitioning from civ2 personally. However, I would like to reiterate what Darkness said about artillery - they are very valuable, and simultaneously seemingly easy to overlook. I had seen posts about their strength, but just in my most recent game finally decided to build a stack of them. Now I'm obsessed by them; they're really powerful when used in numbers.

I'd strongly encourage you to give them a shot the next time you're in a war with a little breathing room. bring a stack of 6-10+, guarded by defensive units of course, along with your attacking army/units. It'll make a huge difference - even if you miss half the time, attacking a couple red-lined units instead of full-health, fortified units can make a huge difference. Don't view their incomplete kills as unfinished work, but rather less work left over for your troops who actually CAN take damage in return. Think of your investment in artillery as saving you a repeated investment on replacing troops thrown at city walls. I'd highly recommend you try incorporating them sometime (offensively, and in numbers).

As far as your timelines, everything varies so drastically it'd be hard to estimate things like that. a bonus resource or two in your capitol could skew all those figures, and I don't have the experience yet to venture estimates, sorry (as for #5, I'm personally just into the industrial age and taking ~6-8 turns per tech, so I hope that's not too bad). One somewhat helpful thing you could try is to watch the replay of the game at the retirement screen, and use that to judge your expansion relative to the AI's. If they're consistently beating you to 5/10/20 cities, you may need to tweak your starting plays. There are, of course, good articles on that in the war academy (I believe it was BamSpeedy who wrote one of the better ones).

Anyway, good luck! Welcome to CFC, and enjoy your civving!

 

[Madbone1]

Thanks a lot for the input.

I know it is hard to estimate these things.

I have recently started a game with the settings listed in my post and with inspiration from the war academy on settler farms I decided to give it a try. Wauw. I think I have 28 cities around year 0. I was ecstatic (Usually took me much longer) but judging from your post it is about average HAHA. Well still a lot to learn.

I will certainly give the artillery a shot I think I see their usefullnes but my primary concern are their slow movement. I usually build a substancial force and go for a big attack on lots of cities. Maybe my strategy is wrong but using artillery for this strategy slows it down a lot.

Anyway thanks alot. Love this game. And a very nice site and forum. I think I know a lot about the game but I guess I'm not the only one