Warmonger seeking help

[JunglistGuy]

Hey all, been reading these forums for 4-5 years, decided to join finally lol. Anyways, the way I like to play Civ is by waging war, I currently play on warlord(I'm not very good player) and have a win rate of about 25-30%, looking to better myself and move onto higher difficulties before trying multiplayer...I mostly played Warlords but now play BTS since a friend finally got it

I play as Washington, almost always on a huge continental map, epic speed, conquest victory and no city flipping from culture(it pissed me off too much in one game lol)

Since I play conquest only I find one of the most important things to me is research, as a general rule of thumb I try to never let it go below 80%, having it at 70% for a little while, if I run 60% or below for too long I usually quit.

The way I tech up once I get past the opening (the first few techs you research is pretty straight forward depending on city placement) is going straight for important military tech, and once hitting a couple milestones I have set I go back and grab some key economic ones to help boost the economy. I tend to wage a war shortly after hitting certain points in military tech as I have no problem out teching the AI up until 17-1900AD.

The way I build my empire is pretty standard I feel, found cities near resources and try to found on tiles where it is easier to specialize...all mines around you for hammers, plains with a gold coin for gold and then some food towns. I generally build a cottage on every tile except ones where I can have a farm produce a full loaf of bread(this excludes my first city as I build 2-3 farms to help population growth)

The civics I usually take are Universal Suffrage (cottage spam plus extra hammer I find is nice...usually get pyramid wonder to unlock this right away or I take Hereditary until then), Nationhood(usually take no civic until this due to high upkeep), Slavery(never changes), Free Markets(usually don't take a diff civic until I can get this) and Organized Religion(which usually never changes since I mostly end up founding Christianity or spread my nations religion I adopt)

I try and trade with everyone I can until people start getting upset about it and this helps me stay in the green. I always try and make at least 1-2 friends for war allies(I usually play with 11-12 AIs)

One thing I do do that I haven't seen mentioned in the forums yet (perhaps one of my weaknesses) is I usually keep almost all the cities I capture. I find this helps expand my economy(even though you take a hit when you first capture a city, I typically am busy rolling through others, growing the coffers enough to withstand the negative impact until either the war ends or it starts making me more gold) I find this also helps me pump out units really well as I almost always end up in 1-3 wars of pure attrition. Also this prevents the AIs taking over the land and I find it is far easier to monitor a continents entire coast line in the mid-late game preventing amphibious attacks on the homeland...

One thing I am really bad at in this game is building wonders...most of my wonders end up not completing and I get gold. I always try and read what resource helps speed production if any do.

I also have a habit of building a road on a tile after the improvement is made...is this bad? Do roads increase the commerce generated? Do people play conquest only multiplayer?

Any points would help.

Realized I should originally posted this in the strategy forum, so am now

 

[Gumbolt]

Seems to me you are doing lots wrong here. Try playing smaller maps and gettting used to the game.

Quitting games because science goes below 60% seem silly. My science at 0% could be higher than my science at 100% if it purely came from specialists. Worrying about science rate is not the way to play. As long as you have the key techs like writing and pottery you can normally expand till your tax rate is almost 20-30% or less. Then run cottages to help recover economy. As the cottages grow your empire takes off.

I think best to upload a game to forum. (Normal size map/ no huts or event.) Then we can see just how good or bad your play is.

Really by read some posts on here or youtube play throughs you will probably learn more.

 

[JunglistGuy]

Clearly I am doing lots wrong if Warlord difficulty is still troublesome lololol.

I am not good at all at spawning great people, and I don't know much about assigning people in cities etc. Which is probably why I focus so much on the science slider...I usually quit if I spend too much time at 60% because you fall behind too much in military tech and end up losing the game anyways.

I will try uploading a game like you suggest...I heard it is best to upload, wait for advice, go 10 turns out, upload again?

Thanks

 

[Gumbolt]

If you are falling behind tech wise on Warlord you are getting quite a lot wrong. I think on Warlord you actually start with an advantage over the Ai in most areas. For someone who has followed the forum for 4-5 years you don't seem to have picked up much.

Yep load a save and we can try and help.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I think that, mostly, you should aim to improve your management.
Better management makes warring easier.

I generally build a cottage on every tile except ones where I can have a farm produce a full loaf of bread(this excludes my first city as I build 2-3 farms to help population growth)

This stood out to me.
You're right to be willing to work strong tiles. However, I think you could easily improve your view over the "food issue".

Consider this :
A city is size 4 and has a happy cap of 8.

Essentially, it is working 4 tiles, whereas it is allowed to work 8.
Virtually, it is losing the yield from 4 tiles, right ?
What helps working 8 tiles asap ?

Strong food tiles, sure...
... But those can be counterbalanced with food negative tiles : mines, specialists, etc.

What you should be looking at is your city's food surplus.
How much food does your city gain each turn ?

Note that the larger your city is, the more food it needs to grow a size.
Then maybe there is another data that is more helpful than the food surplus.

That is the number of turns your city needs to grow a size.


This is where we can come back to cottages.
Cottages, once developed, are very strong tiles (bestest in the game).
However, cottages do not speed up city growth (2 food tile = food neutral).

Therefore, if, say, you have a size 4 city with a happy cap of 8,
If it takes 15 turns for that city to grow to size 5,
What is the right move ? Cottage or farm ?

--> This is a case where a city, needing food, will benefit more of a seemingly lesser tile (the farm) than it would from a seemingly strong tile (the cottage).

--> Always consider your happy cap, your food surplus and the number of turns your city needs to grow a size, when assessing your next tile improvement.

Specialization is all neat and good but "what does this city need right now ?" is the better question.





ps : to assign worked tiles, sure you can use the emphasize buttons. This is some sort of clever automatization, which is much useful.
The button will ask the city to favour specialists.

You can manually assign tiles, inside the city screen, by clicking over a worked tile (removes it, now you're hiring a citizen non-specialist) and then clicking again over the tile you want to work.
You can also straight click over the tile you want to work and the city will stop working its "least favoured tile" to work that one.

 

[JunglistGuy]

Gumbolt - I don't usually fall behind in tech on Warlord, but eventually a couple civs tend catch up and that's where the wars of attrition come from. And I concur, I don't think I have picked much up beyond very very basic things and warring strategies.

BornInCantaloup - I agree, my management is brutal. I barely go into the city screens, although that is changing lol. Food issue I definitely need to work on, what you said makes sense and I will definitely keep that in mind for my next game. Those are points I haven't really given any thought to lol. I do know about assigning certain tiles in the city screen, I use this minimally, perhaps it is better to do it more manually and rely less on the emphasize buttons.

I was wondering, if say I have a production city (all hammers around it) is it best to assign some citizens to be engineers? They give more hammers correct? If you assign citizens to engineers can they only work hammer tiles?

Thanks again guys

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I think you can do most "stuff" with the emphasize buttons. That's legit.

However, they are best used by looking within the city screen :
Often, for a better result, you want to use a combination of buttons (eg : + or + or + or etc.) and it helps to see what tiles the governor actually chooses to work when you click a button.

What is more important is your worker use.
Workers should improve tiles that matter to your cities and... help them develop (!).

Roading each tile, by the way, doesn't do anything.
Roads are used for the trade network : connecting cities & resources
And for movement : moving troops around.
Where your army won't move and where there are no resources, no roads are needed.

 

[rah]

Where your army won't move and where there are no resources, no roads are needed.

I read this all the time but it never hurts later in the game when worker turns aren't critical and in as high as demand to build some extra roads near existing roads in case there is some pillaging. You hate to see your network dependent on a single road or troop movement getting disrupted.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Yes, agreed, rah, but the situation you describe is for troop movement as well.
Near borders, it's often a good idea to road extensively to gain mobility. If one is invading, workers should start roading some turns in advance for that task.
It's harder if one is invaded, unless one knows a DoW will happen before the fact. If one doesn't know, then there is little reason to road a border on the off chance that there will be a war.

Such a play is different from improving and then roading a tile that has 0 strategic value... out of a habit.
Worker turns matter.

 

[rah]

Which is why I said

later in the game when worker turns aren't critical and in as high as demand

Heck there I times when I'm at war capturing workers by the dozens that I put them to sleep in cities until railroads. It's time like that that I'll build extra roads. Even in places where it's unlikely that I will need them.

 

[JunglistGuy]

Alright, I'd say usually it is about 50/50 with my cities have 2 buttons or 1 button selected.

I will definitely try to improve my worker use, firstly by not building a road immediately after I build on the tile lol. I usually build the roads for troop movement since I play with a conquest only victory condition, but I think I'll wait a little later until building more than one route because my road building is a habit.

Does setting a conquest only victory change the way the AIs play?

Thx again

 

[JunglistGuy]

I've also seen air ships are better than fighters, how true is this? In a game I am playing now I upgraded a couple of my fighters just so I could attack enemy tiles(now I have radio so no more need for fighters)

 

[rah]

If the AI ever gets bombers, you'll find a need for those fighters.

And if you're always that far ahead of the AI in tech, you may want to up the difficulty level some.

 

[guspasho]

Whatever happened to Noble's Club and series like that? It sounds like this guy could really benefit from that.

 

[Lennier]

Does setting a conquest only victory change the way the AIs play?

No.

I've also seen air ships are better than fighters, how true is this? In a game I am playing now I upgraded a couple of my fighters just so I could attack enemy tiles(now I have radio so no more need for fighters)

Airships have a greater range than fighters (2 tiles, as I recall). But they can only attack units and are more vulnerable to being damaged from being intercepted. And they can't intercept other air units.

Fighters can bomb cultural defenses and tile improvements and can intercept other air units.

So airships are better for scouting, fighters for everything else.

 

[rah]

One thing I've noticed is that when I play 'Aggressive AI' the AI doesn't seem to try for culture wins.

 

[JunglistGuy]

Rah - Yup, I know fighters counter bombers, do fighters have a higher intercept chance than SAM inf and AT inf? Is AT inf even worth getting? (Haven't played a lot of BTS yet). And yes, I am thinking about increasing the difficulty soon. I have no problem teching up and feel I have the strategy for fighting down pretty good. I want to work a bit on my management game first though.

Guspasho - What is Nobles Club? Just games on Noble?

Lennier - 2 tiles I think is right, and this is currently how I am using air ships and fighters, so glad I got that right.

Rah - that's interesting, maybe I'll try that one day, I only play conquest victory only cause I love war. Domination was ok, until I almost lost cause Catherine was so close to having the right population(an abundance of nukes quickly took care of that though )

How much gold per turn should I be aiming to make? My best games I make around 100-120. I feel this is not that good though. Is it better to attach great generals to units or to cities, or a mixture of both?

 

[Lennier]

Rah - Yup, I know fighters counter bombers, do fighters have a higher intercept chance than SAM inf and AT inf?

From the Civilopedia (here):

Anti-tank and machine guns have 20% probability of interception
SAMs have 40%
Fighters & Jet Fighters have 100% (but I think they need to be on the intercept mission.)

Is AT inf even worth getting? (Haven't played a lot of BTS yet).

Only if you're going after an opponent who has Industrialism and access to oil and you don't (i.e., can produce tanks).

Is it better to attach great generals to units or to cities, or a mixture of both?

Generally I use the first GG to create a supermedic (promote up to Medic-3). I generally then settle at least the next two in the Heroic Epic city. What I do with the next ones in line depends on the game situation; my next options are create a second supermedic (if I have two SODs), create a military academy in my West Point city, settle in either HE or WP city. Some will only settle their settled GGs in the HE city.

 

[JunglistGuy]

I usually have at least one on an intercept mission when other civs start getting bombers, so I think I am fine there. Is the Civilopedia Civs version of a manual?

Ok, so AT inf is useless to me at these levels.

Having a super medic helps eh? I usually only have one unit with one medic upgrade per stack. Heroic Epic is a great/national wonder? I need to improve on building those...I really really suck at getting wonders built in time. I'll keep GG use in mind in my next game for sure.

I've read stealth destroyer is the best naval unit, is this true? And are attack subs better than regular subs? I've also read carriers are virtually useless unless going for naval supremacy, thoughts?

Thanks again

 

[pigswill]

Even with a large map/epic speed you should be looking to have won the game before the modern era.

edit:better expand a bit as on its own this isn't a helpful comment.

Research is a means to an end not an end in itself so first thing I'd say is forget the slider. Worrying too much about city and unit maintenance slowing research means you risk avoiding early conquest because you think you can't afford it. Wrong.

A fairly standard military approach is HA rush. All you need for this is 3-4 cities, a source of horses and horsebackriding/archery. Once you've got those build/whip/chop Horse Archers and invade your pesky neighbours. Keep the cities you capture and keep going until you're research slider is below 50% (purists would say below 10%).

Conquest money from city captures will support your economy short term. While conquering/capturing research currency. Once you've got currency you can build wealth, you get an extra trade route per city. Capturing more cities should give you more resources so you can grow cities bigger. Once you're skint after your first round of conquest grow cities and rebuild your economy while heading towards your next military tech, probably miltrad for cuirassiers then mop up.