Just wanted to say hi, and thanks for making me a better player. Been reading for a week or so, thought I'd join the forum. I've played Civ, Civ II: CTP, Civ 3 Gold, FreeCiv and now Civ IV. I'll be finishing up my third game, having bought it about two weeks ago.
The first game I played on Warlord, Fractal, huge map, epic as Asoka. As an old hand at Civ starting any easier seemed silly. As it turned out, I didn't even finish that game as I was so far ahead it seemed boring. The next game was Noble, continents, large map, epic as Saladin. I tried for a CS slingshot and pulled it off handily. Even losing my strategic focus in the midgame I managed a decent scoring conquest win.
I am nearing the end of my first Prince level game. Normal terra map, the RNG gave me Peter this time, and I decided to play marathon. It is 1730 and I have over 4,000 points compared to about 1,700 for each of the next best civs. I started off in an insanely great position. Lake start, which is not the best, but the site has gold, pigs, and corn. I pulled off another CS slingshot (okay, I'm bored with that strategy already) and settled three more cities, traded a bunch of techs, heading for Military Tradition (go Cossacks!)
I started on the eastern coast of the main continent. From east to west it was me, one of the Khans (am at work right now and can't check), Mansa Musa, Alexander, and Napolean. The southern continent, blocked off by mountains, was home to Saladin and Huayna Capac. I got confucianism from the CS sling and spread it to Mansa. Everyone else went with Hinduism, except Saladin who founded Budhism.
My first major war was with the Mongols, who had been beating up on Mansa and threatening me. I started the war with macemen, took two cities, made peace for twenty turns, then finished him off. Mansa was happy, which was good, as I had pissed off everyone else but Saladin at that point.
I was still second or third in score at that point, and the others were eyeing Mansa hungrily. He was my sheild, and really, as my disciple in Confucianism, he was really just looking after my western kingdom until I was ready to take control. I still needed him for tech trading, and I needed to knock the others down a peg, so it was time for the Orange (hey, they're Russian, aren't they supposed to be red?) Tide to roll.
By this time I was just starting to pump out Cossacks. Moscow was almost finished with West Point. I had HUGE stacks of catapaults ready and waiting, as well as a nice assortment of macemen, crossbowmen and spearmen (hadn't quite gotten pikes yet) left over from my Mongol campaign. I switched to Theocracy and Feudalism (is that right? the other one that gives +2 exp.) and after the anarchy, the campaign began, with Alex as my first victim.
I didn't want his cities, I just wanted to set him back while I took over my real objective, Mali, which was right up against my border and already catching back up in tech. So the plan was: burn everything between the Malinese border and Athens, take Athens, burn everything to the French/Greek border, make peace, wait a few turns, then declare on Napolean and burn a path to Paris, take paris, make peace, then gobble up Mansa.
It worked like a charm, and all the gold I got from looting paid for modernizing my army for the war against Mali, which also went off without a hitch. At that point, I could have easily won the game by burning down every other city on the planet, but I was having too much fun so I turtled for a while and headed over to the Barbarian continent where my Cossacks and (by that point) cannons made short work of the Barb cities, which came chock full of fully developed towns and financial improvements.
Now it is around 1730. Cultural pressure on Athens and Paris put them in revolt and forced my hand. I want a space race win, so I'm hoping that taking a few more cities won't put me over 64% land. Both cities have several wonders and (as capitals usually have) great lands. Things got dicey for a while, at least as far as holding on to Paris and Athens went. I had to declare against Huayana just to get to Athens, as he had moved into the barbarian infested anarchy I left behind in my first crusade. That and two culture bombs in Athens did next to nothing. Athens had all of 30% Russian culture and all of four tiles to work. Then Paris went into revolt.
So the Orange Tide rolled in again. Unfortunately, France and Greece had a mutual protection pact. Not that it helped them at all. I've smashed Greece and stand poised on the borders of France. I've beaten back the French seige of Paris, but lost the Incan city next door that I had taken in my skirmish with them. I had to pull the defenders from that city to distract the French and consolidate my position in Paris. Stupid size 2 coastal city, who wants it anyway? Now it's size 1, soon to be size 0, mwahahaha!
Honestly, I am in an even more commanding lead than in my first warlord level game, which I attribute entirely to a very luck start rather than great play. Again I lost focus in the midgame and started role playing my leader and civ rather than doing what I knew I needed to do to win quickly. I wasted turn advantage by forgetting where I put all my sleeping workers. I got distracted by the barbarian continent rather than focusing on the southern continent and completing my conquest of the world. I didn't specialize my cities enough. I didn't pay enough attention to specialist settings (stupid governors, I don't want any more priests!)
Anyways, i don't think this was a fair test of my skill, my next game will be random leader, normal map, fractal generator (less predictable), random leader and epic speed at Prince level again. Marathon is fun, but the AI is SO bad at combat that it really is unfair to play at that speed, where combat counts the most.
Anyways, thanks for all the great strategy tips! I'll be posting some stories and screenshots from this game sometime in the next few days.
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... with the possible exception of agecommunity 
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Let´s trade some technologies or gold! 
