[Vanilla] I WON A PRINCE GAME! :D

[henrebotha]

I am, as they say, FREAKING STOKED. And how come no-one ever told me Archipelago maps are fun to play?!

This game, like most of my recent, was Prince, Epic, Random Civ/Leader, Standard-size Archipelago. I got Hatshepsut, and after failing to obtain horses for a War Chariot rush, I started building your average sticks-and-stones army and taking down one rival after another.

The game ended in a domination win (again, a first for me - I usually take space race) around 2010. This is what bothers me - shouldn't one be able to get a dom win much earlier? I spent much of the latter part of the game building things in the wrong places (Libraries in production cities, etc) just because I really ran out of things to build. I feel I handled the last two wars well (I fought a total of four wars, eliminating a civ in each), planning them out beforehand in terms of troops needed and placing those troops in such a way so that I could essentially decapitate my opponent on the first turn of the war - as Sun Tzu would say, winning first and then going to war. My economy was ridiculously strong from around the 1800s onwards, to the point where I could comfortably rush-buy anything I needed to. I had the science slider on 0 for the greater part of the game, relying on about three cities running Representation-empowered, Caste System-enabled Scientists. I made good use of Hatty's Spiritual trait to switch between Rep for periods of teching and US for periods of building (usually in preparation for war). And I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I think from about the 1200s I was holding a massive tech lead. Washington and Elizabeth were eventually able to catch up to me (and Huayna got Destroyers at least by the time I attacked him), but they were cool guys anyway and we had some fun times together.

How could I have pulled this win off faster?

I post here three saves: 4000 BCE, 1762 CE, and 2010 CE.

Also, as a side note: Barbarians built the Hanging Gardens!

 

[Matthew5117]

Reading your sig:

It took you a month to write that post?

My definition of just is not 1 year ago.

Congratulations nonetheless!

 

[henrebotha]

lrn2date, Ameriloser, it means the fourth of May.

 

[Matthew5117]

*Decoding code*

Time zones... and, you think I'm an American who's a loser.

First off, I'm not American. On top of that, I'm not even a loser. In fact, I can play Emperor!

 

[henrebotha]

Haha, fair enough. I misread your Location there.

Now help me win this game faster.

 

[Matthew5117]

Can't sorry.

I would if I could, but I have BtS, not Vanilla. As far as I am concerned, I can't play Vanilla saves. This applies to A LOT of people here at CivFanatics.

Some general tips though:

Cottage, Cottage, Cottage. The more cottages you have, the more commerce you'll get and the faster the tech rate. Which is vital to getting a military advantage earlier.

Battle strategically. If you think your war was easy, try doing it again except earlier. This time, though, battle strategically. When attacking a city, attack with siege units first, make sure they have City Raider promotions. Then attack with clean-up units to kill all the units, like Riflemen or Calvary. If you thought your war was hard on the other hard, declare war but let the AI come after you. Once they sent waves of stacks and you've let them attack your cities thus killing them all (defense bonuses!), go after the AI. These strategies seriously decimates your opponent.

Another idea is to read the War Academy. They have tons of articles on warfare. It is here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

 

[peppe1]

I am not too familiar with the difference between Vanilla and BTS, but in BTS my faster domination victories have been when I am able to capitulate target 2-3 to be my vassal. Dust them off and get them up to speed and you have an ally to fight target 4 and on.

It sounds like you planned well for the wars. Maybe over planned? try to take more with less. Shorter wars are better, but if you have an advantage push it.

 

[Amao]

On prince level, you have a few windows for war:
1. the opening, warrior rush
2. early times with copper, axe rush; with horse, chariot rush
3. got construction before AI got longbows, Cats/Axe/Sword/WE rush
4. got engineering and civil service before AI got huge empires, Treb/Cats/Axe/Maceman/WE rush
5. got steel before AI got Infentry/Calvery, Cannons
combinations of any of these leads to huge empire as long as you know how to recover from bankrupcy. the key is dedication to the war.

 

[Ghpstage]

I am not too familiar with the difference between Vanilla and BTS, but in BTS my faster domination victories have been when I am able to capitulate target 2-3 to be my vassal. Dust them off and get them up to speed and you have an ally to fight target 4 and on.

It sounds like you planned well for the wars. Maybe over planned? try to take more with less. Shorter wars are better, but if you have an advantage push it.

There are no vassals
and no UBs
In vanilla as well as the obvious less techs/unints/civs etc

to the OP
From your 1764 save it looks as though you are teching extremely slowly, and your SE is extremely 'pure'. Remember, it takes 2 grassland farms (pre biology) AND a 3rd pop point to run one specialist 3 pop for 6 whereas 3 cottages on grassland will get you a lot more (15+ at your tech level I think)

The National Epic and Oxford University wonders can help tech rates immensly, but you have to build them first

My advice would be, don't force an SE on your cities, if its got lots of grassland cottage it, if food and the rest sucks then specialists, if food and hills then mines. Specializing your cities on an individual level based mainly on the land its on can work wonders

 

[mtr12]

Props for winning on Archipelago. I've never beat it myself on Prince or Monarch (usually play on Continents, Fractal, or Pangaea), but it's almost akin to moving up a difficulty level from what I've heard.

But a Specialist Economy really sucks on an Archi map: you should build one mega-GP Farm with all the fish and cottage everything else.

 

[Ichabod]

*Decoding code*

Time zones... and, you think I'm an American who's a loser.

First off, I'm not American. On top of that, I'm not even a loser. In fact, I can play Emperor!

Just to explain the confusion:

In some places of this world, when you write 04/05/2009, it means 5th of April, 2009, because it's month/day/year. But in other places (like Brazil, where I live and I'm guessing South Africa too), we use day/month/year, so 04/05/2009 is 4th of May, 2009.

Hope I made myself clear and wasn't stating just the obvious...

On-Topic:

One thing that helped me a lot to do the prince -> emperor jump was reading the All Leaders Challenge by sisiutil. You can find links to these games on the stickied thread on this forum named "Sample game directory". A lot of the games were played on vanilla civ and there were a good number of domination/conquest wins.

At least for me, it's better to see something being made rather than reading it and trying to do it alone (especially in a game with as much options as Civ IV).

 

[deathturnip]

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about winning quickly. Just enjoy beating prince, for now.
If it bothers you that much, archipelago does not lend to early victory, since you will likely need transports. As to how to speed it up...

It has been said, but having a pure economy type is almost never advised. Pure cottages eliminate GP's, and pure specialist doesn't get nearly as powerful (printing press and whatnot. Specialists just get bio).

If you can claim a city with even half decent production early on, beeline the G lighthouse on archipelago. It will effect almost every city, and further expansion will likely pay for itself before you even get the first building in!

And if you want to dominate quickly, make sure you go for the biggest chunk of land you feel you can easily take down. The limiting factor in domination is usually land, so why not prioritize that?

Congratulations on beating prince!

 

[Matthew5117]

Just to explain the confusion:

In some places of this world, when you write 04/05/2009, it means 5th of April, 2009, because it's month/day/year. But in other places (like Brazil, where I live and I'm guessing South Africa too), we use day/month/year, so 04/05/2009 is 4th of May, 2009.

Hope I made myself clear and wasn't stating just the obvious...

Actually, the confusion was time zones. I live in North America, the other guy in Africa.

Besides, here now it is the 3rd of May. So I thought something was wrong, it wasn't the order that was wrong (in fact I checked if that was the problem but it wasn't because 04/05/09 or 05/04/09 depending where you are is the 4th of May and its the 3rd of May here, anyways I'll stop the confusion).

 

[henrebotha]

w00t, thanks for replies!

I realise now I probably should have laid down some cottages much earlier. The ones I ended up having were built late-game in cities that were still growing and had nothing else to improve - or simply stolen from rivals. I guess you could say my economy was such a 'pure' SE mostly because I just didn't have cottages. I normally use one big Scientist city alongside cottage cities - I think I just forgot to build the cottages.

I did tech slowly for parts of the game, but this was of little consequence as I still (IIRC, mind you) held a military tech lead. Once I had Representation, this was no longer a problem.

I'll try next time to grab landmasses in order of size, but I'll have to step up my exploring a notch if I want to pull that off early - maybe beeline to Optics so I can hook me up some Caravels.

 

[Matthew5117]

Once you had Representation?! Meaning you did the SE without the Pyramids!!?

It is almost vital that you get the Pyramids if your going to do the SE.

 

[henrebotha]

My plan wasn't really to use specialists from the start (especially since Hatty is neither Phi nor Ind) - only a while into the game did I see the opportunity to use them.

I think a few people on here will argue with you over the Pyramids.

 

[Shurdus]

Congratulations on the win!

 

[Ai Shizuka]

But in other places (like Brazil, where I live and I'm guessing South Africa too), we use day/month/year, so 04/05/2009 is 4th of May, 2009.

More like almost everywhere. And for a reason, if you ask me.
But then SOME people still use weird units like gallons, miles, feet

 

[nanomage]

congratulations!
and give up that vanilla, BtS is much better.
I remember myself playing VanillaCIV first time, i found it lacks very much features and civs which were present even in CIII. Especially disgusting was the way the siege worked in Vanilla, in BtS it is better to some extent.

 

[henrebotha]

Metric units ftw

nanomage, dude, believe me when I say I am getting BtS as soon as I possibly can. I've got a job lined up at the end of the month which will provide me with the ZAR 192.00 that I need for Warlords/BtS... Needless to say, I can't wait.