Warlord Difficulty Questions

[Helghallen]

I'm currently playing noble, so I'll toss my $.02 in.

Don't try anything fancy. The basics will win you games. By this, I mean cottages and farms and mines. There is no need to try anything too fancy till you get this mastered.

As fun as religions are, don't try to found them. It clutters your thinking while you're learning. Same applies to wonders. Learn to play without them. You'll be a better player for it.

Also, YOU need to control your workers, don't let the computer do it for you.

And, as others have stated, screenies/saves are helpful when you can get to it.

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

My issues with Warlords, (I probably only win 35% of the time) seems to be my lack of military production, and crazy DOW on me. Getting 3 or more leaders to DoW me in multiple games seems a bit unfair, even if it's warlord.

 

[michmbk]

You definitely need to post a 4000 BC save, and ask people to shadow - compare your game every 50 turns to the shadows, and I'm certain, in no time, you'll pick up enough tips to move up to noble.

 

[walkie]

My issues with Warlords, (I probably only win 35% of the time) seems to be my lack of military production, and crazy DOW on me. Getting 3 or more leaders to DoW me in multiple games seems a bit unfair, even if it's warlord.

i think you get lost in building your cities. dont try to get "perfect cities". i mean you dont need to build everything in a city. for ex; skip temple if you dont have unhappiness problem, skip library if your city doesnt produce much wealth, skip barracks if your city lacks hammer and thats why you wont build many units in this city.

probably you dont get along well diplomatically too. if you have weak army, they will want tribute from you. may be it is better if you give them, that will keep them away from you for a short period of time, so in mean time build army...

 

[Foamy7]

Religion is an addiction. Shed it. Seriously, you're way better off leaving the AI to found them

Excellent advice, at least for the three early ones. (Hindu,Budd,Jud) Confucianism and Taoism, you need the techs that grant them pretty quickly anyway, so it doesn't really matter if you found them. That being said, you don't *HAVE* to spam missionaries with them. You're better off going with what the rest of the cool civs are going with for diplomatic reasons.

i go on a limb here, suggesting another thing many new players forget

are you using enough siege? ... are you using it proberly?

You can never go wrong by building siege units. They are devastating when used properly. They can be used to soften up attacking stacks in your own territory to great effect. When used in enemy territory, bombard the opponent to 0% defense and then attack the city on the next turn, siege FIRST. Collateral damage destroys the enemy.

As a general rule, once you have 6-10 cities (less if you have a capable city or run out of room to expand), devote at least two of them to producing NOTHING but military units. The exceptions to this are to build any building that
A)Increases (Forge, factory, etc.)
B)Increases military unit strengths ('racks, stables, drydock, Heroic Epic, etc.)
C) Increases (this will become a problem).
Doing this *should* keep your power high enough to discourage your enemies.

Keep quite a few units in your border cities. AI's will see a small garrison as a weakness to be exploited. If you have Open Borders, scout their territory.

Don't underestimate diplomacy. Keeping good relations with some of the civs is pretty much a necessity for most of the game. Sharing religions, trading resources, trading techs, etc. are some of the best ways to keep your friends happy.

If you are afraid of an attack and not ready for it, and the civ in question demands a tech or resource from you, give it to them. By doing so, the game forces 10 turns of peace between you, giving you much-needed time to marshal your forces for the attack.

Another of my favorite methods to buy time is to bribe another AI into war with your enemy, if you feel an attack is imminent. (WHEOOHRN) Gift them a tech or two, some money, your map, whatever. Just get them to attack your enemy. Also great for softening up your target or diverting his main stacks away from your borders.

Hope some of the ramblings help out...

 

[henrebotha]

My issues with Warlords, (I probably only win 35% of the time) seems to be my lack of military production, and crazy DOW on me. Getting 3 or more leaders to DoW me in multiple games seems a bit unfair, even if it's warlord.

If you build more units, you will
1) Possibly put yourself over the threshold where AIs will not want to attack you, and
2) Be able to deal with DoWs.

Like others have suggested, dedicate some cities to nothing but Forge, Factory, Ironworks, Barracks, Drydock, Stables, West Point, Heroic Epic, and military units. (And obviously health and happiness buildings, something to pop borders with, Granary...)

 

[thecolorblue]

When I first started playing I was horrible too. Just teching randomly, not knowing what to do. First time I won was a timed victory as Germany, and my whole goal the entire game was to get Panzers!!!

I spent a great deal of time reading the King of the World, Deity Challenge, ALCs, and all the other extremely awesome game threads on these forums and it has improved my game immensely. I just took a week or two, reading a few games every night, and didn't even play Civ. After that I went back in, won two games on Warlord, moved to Noble, won two games, moved to Prince, stuck around for 3-5 games, then went up to Monarch where I've been for a few weeks.

There's just something that clicked for me. Kind of like riding a bicycle, you suck massive at it and want to quit, but as soon as you go those first 10 feet you're on your way and things get way easier. You're going to hit a wall eventually, but oh well. The thing that helped me the most was having an actual plan going into the game, and picking a leader that would best suit it.

Sorry I don't have any real advice, but I'm not very good so I would probably just be hurting you.

 

[Yooka]

When I first started playing I was horrible too. Just teching randomly, not knowing what to do. First time I won was a timed victory as Germany, and my whole goal the entire game was to get Panzers!!!

Wow, that's freaky. That's exactly the story with my roommate. He doesn't play much any more, but I believe all his games were Bismarck Blitzkriegs on Warlord and Noble.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm chronicling a game now with screeners, incremental saved games, and a bit of running commentary for edu-tainment value. I'm thinking of calling it "Yooka's Airship to Atlantis" to get across how silly/contradictory my methods probably are. Probably will have it done by the weekend, but I want to work some of the screeners in photoshop a bit, since I play at 1680x1050 res. Also, my friends are pressuring me to pick up TF2 again.

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

I exercies the specialty city (as in a commerce city, or a production city). So I don't think it's that? Honestly, it's probably my lack of military. I "warmonger" but I think my rebuild periods might be WAY TOO long, and during this time, I'm falling behind and getting the DOW on my awesome cities. Thanks.

 

[Foamy7]

^^

Love the sig.

 

[henrebotha]

Jrrd Tzu: how is it possible that your military would be lacking if you have a city that does nothing but create military?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

The best way to win on Warlord difficulty is well build units and attack people and take their cities. If you stay on top of the power chart almost no AI will attack you, unless you really piss them off. So my best advice to you is to not be a builder, never found a religion on purpose, and kill people.

 

[Jrrd Tzu]

Jrrd Tzu: how is it possible that your military would be lacking if you have a city that does nothing but create military?

You're assuming I'm good at what I say. : )

Har har

No but, the instance(s) that come to mind are ones I've probably gotten too caught up in peacemongering and playing sim city, I just call it recovery. After a war, my recovery seems to take a while. So I build the carebear city improv. at the cost of my military defenses, already weakend from the last war.

 

[henrebotha]

You're assuming I'm good at what I say. : )

Har har

No but, the instance(s) that come to mind are ones I've probably gotten too caught up in peacemongering and playing sim city, I just call it recovery. After a war, my recovery seems to take a while. So I build the carebear city improv. at the cost of my military defenses, already weakend from the last war.

This part I don't understand. My military always seems to come out stronger after a war. I do lose some units, but that loss is more than made up for in experience for the surviving troops. (That, and the fact that my military production cities are usually still being developed, so they only get better the more the game progresses.)

 

[muxec]

An advice about wars. This is of greater importance on higher difficulties, but should help even on warlord. Know units that last long and good way to quickly tech to such units. Examples are: Cannon (Steel), Artillery, Jet Fighters (Advanced Flight and Industrialization for Aluminum). Know AIs who beeline such offensive techs and use units smartly (Alexander, Ragnar) and be prepared.

If you want your first cheap Prince win read futurehermit's Monarch Pericles guide and copycat it on Prince adjusting to different map.

If you want to break peacemongering habit play Cyrus. Wars are really fun with Cyrus as you have many promotions to choose from.

When you move to higher difficulty play your first game with strong leader, I recommend Augustus Caesar, Victoria or Pericles.


Another important advice: use Oracle and liberalism free techs wisely. Plan ahead.
And here is a simple exercise for Warlord players:
1. Start on Noble difficulty as Sitting Bull, build Stonehenge, research Monarchy and Writing and build Oracle for Feudalism slingshot. Switch to vassalage and kill your neighbors with heavily promoted longbows. Do not attack before you get your 5th longbow and keep building only them for some time.
2. Start on Noble as Augustus Caesar and get Metal casting from Oracle slingshot. Build forges and get an early great engineer.
If you fail these simple challenges try again. Build more workers and chop oracle. Do not forget to switch to slavery.

 

[Zubbus]

Yeah ignore Dave for now, he's just being a jerk

I am very much like you, except I came with maybe 1000 hours of experience in Civ2 and Alpha Centauri. And maybe another 1000 in MoO2. But I suppose you never learned anything with Centauri because you can just cheese your way through it.

And when I picked up civ4. I can beat warlord no problems as long as I don't make a fatal mistake like leaving an important area too underdefended. But I struggled with noble and I was like "man, how low is noble for a level to struggle at..." and after maybe another 20 odd full and near-full games, I've only climbed about 1 level. So depending on your experience, each difficulty can be a huge learning milestone. Civ4 is definitely built to last some of us 20 or 30 years

For chieftain, I guess you have to protect yourself. For warlord, still you don't have to play terribly hard to your strengths or against your opponents'. A sound basic strategy should win easily. Something like
1) Grab as much land (by building settlers and founding cities of course) as possible.
2) Do make sure every city has some food and some hammers (10+ @ before they're stagnant)
3) Don't leave anything too under-defended. 2 units of different types some some defensive qualities will do fine for each city (like archer + spearman, or axeman + spearman) near an opponent. 1 unit will do if it's not a frontline city.
4) Go for alphabet. Trade some techs with all other civs. So they each get 1 or 2 techs, and you get about 10.
5) By the time you seriously need to worry about going to war, you should already have a healthy tech and territory lead. Don't forget to convert that into a military lead i.e. crunch out a big load of units before it's too late. (Now you should understand the full meaning of Dave's post)
What is too late? You may find that even if your units have more than 2 times the power, your opponent can push through them if they outnumber you 3 to 1, and especially if a stack of it are siege units.
6) If you get all of that no problems, play again and make sure you win some wonders of your choice. If you have >33% of all the wonders, your lead will be even more solidly insurmountable.

Well hopefully next time we'll hear your cry for help on Noble