Tips for improving my game(save attached)

[MantaRevan]

Today I decided to follow through with my plans for a domination game with good old Boudicca, and ended up with something reasonably alright. I'd like it if you guys could take a look at my save and give my play some constructive criticism.

My father and I both play BtS, and I serve sort of as his civ 4 mentor

Anyway, I used to be able to win on Prince pretty consistently about half a year ago, but for some reason, I can't do that anymore. Maybe the BUG AI got better or maybe I'm neglecting something, but my play doesn't feel that much worse

Hopefully I can improve to keep giving him tips and tricks. The save is standard/pangea noble.

 

[Zholef]

That save is too late. Giving us one from around 2000-1500 BC would be much more helpful.

 

[nate45]

the thing about civ IV is that 90% of the game is in the first 100 turns, especially on lower difficulties. If you have a solid, efficient first 100 turns, and you're playing prince, you can win almost no matter what you do. If you're struggling on prince, the problem with your play is almost certainly the first 100 turns. So i agree with zholef, need an earlier save.

 

[Macksideshow]

The BUG AI is unchanged. BUG stands for BTS unaltered gameplay. Its UI changes only. All the best improving your game. My 2 cents is to focus on working really good tiles only in the early game. Whip and run specialists after that. What constitutes a really good tile, I'll leave open to interpretation.

 

[MantaRevan]

Here you go, sorry about the late save. This is the earliest one I have.

 

[Ghpstage]

The first significant mistake was made on the first turn, when you started by researching Polytheism. Beelining to found the early religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism is almost always a mistake as it takes research away from the vital economic techs that you can't really get started without.
It very rarely pays back anything close to what you would have got from a worker oriented start (here that would be animal husbandry + worker as first build), even after building a shrine. Your game lies on the extreme end of this as you shrine only gives a paltry 2 gold.... whereas a settled prophet would have given 5 gold + 2 hammers.....

That isn't the most critical mistake however....
Unimproved tiles, even forested ones are feeble, working one without an extremely good reason is a small failure in its own right.
In your empire your of 39 pop, 16 of them are working unimproved tiles. Thats more than a third of your pop that is severely under performing as a result.
The main cause of this is your lack of workers, just 2 for 5 cities is far from where you need to be.

The general rule of thumb for people trying to learn the game is to have around 3 workers for every 2 cities you have (so 7 or 8 here!).

Theres a lot more wrong, but the worker issue is so bad here its masks the specifics of most of it.
So just dropping the religious opening (building a worker first if you don't already), and making sure you have enough workers to be improving tiles as you grow you should see a considerable improvement.


EDIT -
Just looked at the later date save posted in the OP.
1650 and still having the same unimproved tile problem (including many of the same specific tiles!), and only having 3 workers is painful to see

 

[MantaRevan]

The first significant mistake was made on the first turn, when you started by researching Polytheism. Beelining to found the early religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism is almost always a mistake as it takes research away from the vital economic techs that you can't really get started without.
It very rarely pays back anything close to what you would have got from a worker oriented start (here that would be animal husbandry + worker as first build), even after building a shrine. Your game lies on the extreme end of this as you shrine only gives a paltry 2 gold.... whereas a settled prophet would have given 5 gold + 2 hammers.....

That isn't the most critical mistake however....
Unimproved tiles, even forested ones are feeble, working one without an extremely good reason is a small failure in its own right.
In your empire your of 39 pop, 16 of them are working unimproved tiles. Thats more than a third of your pop that is severely under performing as a result.
The main cause of this is your lack of workers, just 2 for 5 cities is far from where you need to be.

The general rule of thumb for people trying to learn the game is to have around 3 workers for every 2 cities you have (so 7 or 8 here!).

Theres a lot more wrong, but the worker issue is so bad here its masks the specifics of most of it.
So just dropping the religious opening (building a worker first if you don't already), and making sure you have enough workers to be improving tiles as you grow you should see a considerable improvement.


EDIT -
Just looked at the later date save posted in the OP.
1650 and still having the same unimproved tile problem (including many of the same specific tiles!), and only having 3 workers is painful to see

Thanks for the feedback. I'll keep that in mind next game. Maybe I'll be playing an expansive leader to take advantage of the worker principle.

Most of those unimproved tiles are likely forests, which I was saving to chop later. Since chops decrease in efficiency over time, when do you think is the best time to have cleared most of your forests?

 

[Fippy]

Besides everything mentioned, some peoples should be reminded that AIs are terrible until at least Emperor. So winning on diff. below that in anything but really dominating ways means you are a bad Civ player. This may sound offensive, but the first step for improving usually means you stop digging deeper holes, and comparing yourself with really bad playing AIs

Pointing out workers and so are missing..fine, but why does that happen?
Yep, no real pressure. On these diff. levels barbs come late, techs are cheap, Relis are easy to get early, no real thinking is required and so you dig deeper and deeper while playing on these difficulties. They should be skipped by *everybody* they have zero value.

 

[pigswill]

Not everyone starts off brilliant however and find these levels challenging while they're mastering the basics.

 

[lymond]

EXP is a great trait Manta, but in no way a crutch to the "worker principle", which applies to every game and every leader regardless of trait. In fact, think less about traits, religions and pretty much everything you have thought about and focus on improving the basics you seem to still be learning like worker management, city specialization and placement, economy, good tech paths, etc.

Just make sure you have enough workers. Build 1 first ...usually..and chop or 2pop whip them later, or use overflow to help finish while you let unhappiness wear off from that earlier whip. Workers are easy to get. EXP makes it a little easier but that is no reason you should not have enough. But even more important is using them wisely. GHP already pointed out the unimproved tiles. I have not even looked at a save and feel confident that the issue is very likely a combination of not managing your workers properly (like building tons of useless roads) and city placement..namely being scared of city overlap which is actually a good thing.

Part of it is (well..not building useless roads, only ones needed for trade routes and resource hook-ups if not already connected via rivers) not thinking about what improvement you need for a city based on it's size and happy cap. Basically a city should be working bonuses (resources, improved tiles) or running specialists. Once a city reaches/exceeds it's happy cap it needs less attention from workers until you find ways to boost happiness, so those worker can divert attention to other cities. The point is you don't need 20 improvements for 1 city in the early game nor a spider web of roads around your empire. Start to think about the balance of these improvements to the state of your empire in a specific point in time and look to maximize your worker turns.

Every time a worker is building a road off in BFE somewhere or building an improvement in a city that can't work that improvement for millenia, that is worker turns wasted that could be better spent on less developed cities suffering from lack of improvement. Furthermore that is more turns that your empire is not running at max capacity (production, food, commerce, research, etc.). In other words, your empire is underperforming its potential.

Lastly, one thing I learned not long ago from an excellent player () is it's not how many workers you have but how you use them. Once you improve on that you will need less workers...not that more is not better. You can always steal/conquer plenty in war as well.

 

[Fippy]

This was always something i disliked about Civ forums (and what did hold myself back at start too).
You are not learning by staying on easy diff. cos you are falling into bad habits, that will not point themselves out cos the challenges are too low.

Nothing was more healthy for me than trying to survive deity games (while i probably was at emp. level..). I stopped building silly stuff early. I stopped founding Relis (darn, i really need better units against these barbs and no Reli..). I learned the importance of rushing with slavery.
I saw some deity AI cities, full of cottages and improvements. I started chopping early cos i need stuff *now*.
I learned Stonehenge..ugh /points at Nate

You are not helping players who look for improvement by sugar talking Prince, Noble and so on.
You would help them by saying try surviving some deity games, then go back to normal levels but remember what you learned about respecting esp. the early turns.

Sooo..that's what i try doing, if they take offensive if i tell them you are still bad (like we all have been) on prince or noble..bad luck. But i did try.

 

[lymond]

Ha...I don't think saying he's bad is offensive at all...at least he should not take it that way. We were all bad once and I've not been shy about being blunt in that regard with less experience players, especially ones that have been putzing around the game for years with little improvement because they get stuck in certain ways like founding religions and ignoring workers, beeling Feud, etc... I think it's a good way to shake things up for the players and basically say you gotta throw everything out the window and start fresh. It's eye-opening.

I think Deity may be a little much right now for Manta , but I see no reason why Manta can't try out Monarch or Emperor for now with some guidance from folks here.

 

[Fippy]

It's never too early for deity, which would be just a word for healthy losses
You 100% learn only good stuff for your game there, if you can live with losing over and over deity offers the best learning curve by far.
And little bonus..you will enjoy the peaceful Emperor or whatever afterwards :b
But this time you might bring some useful moves with you.

 

[BlackArc]

You are not helping players who look for improvement by sugar talking Prince, Noble and so on.
You would help them by saying try surviving some deity games, then go back to normal levels but remember what you learned about respecting esp. the early turns.

Sooo..that's what i try doing, if they take offensive if i tell them you are still bad (like we all have been) on prince or noble..bad luck. But i did try.

Well, I don't get why someone has to be a jerk over a game. After all, it's about having fun, not about being treated like an idiot just because you don't play the highest difficulty on a 9 year old game.

Though, I guess some people just like lording their video gaming skills over other people, like it's something special. Some people are just like that.

---

 

[MantaRevan]

It's never too early for deity, which would be just a word for healthy losses
You 100% learn only good stuff for your game there, if you can live with losing over and over deity offers the best learning curve by far.
And little bonus..you will enjoy the peaceful Emperor or whatever afterwards :b
But this time you might bring some useful moves with you.

Well, I don't get why someone has to be a jerk over a game. After all, it's about having fun, not about being treated like an idiot just because you don't play the highest difficulty on a 9 year old game.

Though, I guess some people just like lording their video gaming skills over other people, like it's something special. Some people are just like that.

---

Ha...I don't think saying he's bad is offensive at all...at least he should not take it that way. We were all bad once and I've not been shy about being blunt in that regard with less experience players, especially ones that have been putzing around the game for years with little improvement because they get stuck in certain ways like founding religions and ignoring workers, beeling Feud, etc... I think it's a good way to shake things up for the players and basically say you gotta throw everything out the window and start fresh. It's eye-opening.

I think Deity may be a little much right now for Manta , but I see no reason why Manta can't try out Monarch or Emperor for now with some guidance from folks here.

Yeah, I'm just not going to play deity for a while. Overall, I think Lymond has been the most helpful, provided the most constructive criticism that I can actually use. I played at low level for wayyy too long when I was younger and never really learned much, which is fine for me now because I think when it comes to most games there's a sweet spot you have to reach.

Getting too into the meta of a game makes it feel too much like a robotic chore for me, but learning too little isn't fun and doesn't allow much room for strategy or thought. I don't think I would ever really want to be able to win on diety- that's how it got for me with Civ 5, and that really just became boring.

I think I can probably win on monarch with help from the forums, but I'm more curious about why I'm worse on prince than I used to be. I used to be able to win noble with Toku or Sal with no real problem.... I wonder why I'm not as good as I was 7 months ago.

 

[Fippy]

Well my point was missed again, nothing new
It's not about playing or winning deity, but putting an evil environment around you that forces into thinking how important good choices of techs and builds are early. You know, like army training..they are not training for winning.

It's also not about me being arrogant, but i really try helping peoples and tell them how i learned this game.
If somebody asks for help, i assume he admits he's not that good yet.

Simply open the world builder, and watch what AIs do on Prince. After that you can tell me again i am idiotic for saying it's a worthless diff. level.
And i prefer learning on my own too not only with help of others, and he could do that with a scenario i described so i thought he might be interested.
Anything else you did only read into my words, but whatever BlackArc.

 

[Macksideshow]

At some point in everyone's life even walking was hard. Kudos to the OP for having the balls to open himself to constructive criticism. Some really good advice here for anyone who wants to get good at Civ. Have fun everyone

 

[Quechua]

I kind of agree with Fippy. A good way to learn is to put yourself in a situation where you are going to lose quickly if you play inefficiently. As it is you are losing slowly on Prince and it's difficult to put your finger on why (because there are a large number of problems).

Deity would really force you to sort out your early game but it would probably be too discouraging. Something like emperor may at least provide encouragement since you probably aren't too far off from being able to make it to the midgame with a decent number of cities and tech parity.

Of course if this doesn't sound fun at all don't bother. You should be able to get some good tips from people and beat Prince without going out of your comfort level.

 

[Ghpstage]

I have not even looked at a save and feel confident that the issue is very likely a combination of not managing your workers properly (like building tons of useless roads) and city placement..namely being scared of city overlap which is actually a good thing.

In 500AD the OP had just 2 workers for 5 cities., in 1650AD, just 3 workers for 16(ish) cities. No amount of worker management would realistically make up the worker turn deficit.

Of course I really should have brought up the city placement, as looking at it again it is truly awful....
After the capital, the first city settled has no food, the second city is in the jungle (though at least it does have a wet rice), the third city again has no food and has some jungle of its own, and the fourth city, captured from barbarians is better than any of them.
The worst part about this is that theres plenty of food for cities near the capital. The capital itself has 3 clams and 2 pigs one clam and pig should have been given to a city to its north, just outside the BFC to the NE is a wet corn that lies unclaimed and there is more food to the NE left unclaimed.

With the state of the game I don't think that help on worker management specifically is going to help in any way shape or form. Lessons on the basics of settling and developing an economy are far more pressing.

 

[lymond]

In 500AD the OP had just 2 workers

I meant to include that as part of the "combination"