The thing which I never understood about the value of such a strategy (hardened cities) was how it was meant to actually... work. Do you have the city throw expensive stacks against your perfect defenses in cities? If so, how does your economy survive? I tend to run a cottage-based economy so obviously it's that much more impractical for me, but I wasn't aware anyone, even with a farm-based strategy, could really afford to have the AI laying sieges all the time. Wouldn't it pre-suppose that the AI will be dumb enough to unsuccessfully attack your cities rather than just pillage and choke you to death? Are they?
I'm interested, because I find defenses dead cool, I just figured they were mostly useless except for really rare geographic/strategic circumstances. (Taking a city in the enemy's back yard and then making it into a bug zapper has a certain appeal, but a bonus to city walls isn't exactly an overwhelming advantage to the prot leader in such a scenario.)
OP: Glad to hear you have BTS! A few other things.
First, maybe the
best reference sheet I've ever seen made by players of a strategy game. Firaxis should put it in the box, if they aren't; and indeed if you bolted Sisutil's guides onto this chart you could probably get Prima to stick a logo on it and sell it for 39 bucks.
To make things easier you may want to enable the free selection of leaders in your custom games; this will let you pick just the leader AND the civilization you want (and thus, unique unit and building.)
For a new player the general rule is to go with a cottage-based economy; cottages get more and more commerce the longer they're worked, but the Financial trait - which gives you an extra commerce on every tile with more than 2 - means you start out with 3 for a cottage (or a coastal ocean tile) which means a lot of extra money right from the beginning of the game and then running all the way through. For anyone using a cottage economy - which you may always do, depending on your preference - Financial is deliciously overpowered. Some leaders with it and another handy trait:
Elizabeth, Financial/Philosophical (Double great people speed; you need wonders or to run specialists in order to have anything to double, a common error for people who know Liz is good but don't understand GP)
Huayna Capac, Financial/Industrial - Double wonder speed. Fantastic but can exacerbate wonder overbuilding, a chronic ailment of new Civ4 players.
William of Orange, Financial/Creative - Free +2 culture from cities pushes out borders a lot faster without the need to build monuments. Also, cheap libraries.
Hannibal, Financial/Charismatic - faster unit promotion, faster great generals, extra happiness from the start and with non-obsolete monuments. Also city tooltip appears to be a Duffman reference
If you are going to remember to run some source of great people points (specialists or wonders) than Elizabeth is generally considered most economically overpowered; great people and cottages are kind of semi-incompatable emphases so some people don't like her as much, but as a newbie, getting both great people often -and- a great commerce economy is the softest start.
If building monuments annoys the heck out of you than William of Orange might be a good thought - also, the cheap libraries are evidently an attractive deal even for people who don't care about culture micromanagement.
One really basic thing is "build cottages on riverside grasslands and floodplains, and work them so they develop." If you do nothing else but that you'll wind up with a great economy and tech on low difficulties.
As you get up to noble there are some new things to civ4 to remember - specialization of cities as commerce/production/specialist cities, and making sure to use your city production and workers for exactly what you need right now, not "everything you'll ever need, in whatever order you come to it." Think of it as a bit like "last minute economics," doing whatever does you the most good right away.
This thing sounds great. Would love to get it.
