What am I doing wrong??

[akillias]

I can't develop my cities and I don't know why.

 

[CivEikka]

First of all, you dont have many key techs (rifling, banking so on.)

You need to cottage pretty much, becouse you have *no tech trading* on.
And you dont need to build research, build more troops instead, becouse you cant win an army of infantry with few muskets/grenadiers. You even got ordinary archers here.

This game is lost, dont worry to play it. But for next game, research techs like feudalism, nationalism. Cottaging is the key, you dont have to build research, just build cottages. And build more troops, you WILL need them.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

You're way to low on health and happiness. Having the happy casp at ten in 1948 is a sure recipie for disaster. You don't have many resources to start with and some of them you got are still undeveloped. Please tell me that the reason for thoose corns not being farmed and thoose pigs outside Cheju(?) isn't pastureed are because they've been pillaged by Churchill? In any case get them resources online pronto. Look in the civilopedia which buildings give happiness and sometimes multiplies it, and build them. And for the love of God, if you wan't to grow big and strong, stop farming all thoose plains.

EDIT: And why are you giving yourself the handicap of playing with no trading? Thoose yellow happy faces in the resource column could have been a lot more if you did some trading.

 

[Gumbolt]

For me the problem is you stopped expanding. You reached about 6 cities and seemed to stop early on. You had copper near capital and had no reason not to build 6-10+ axemen early on and invade a neighbour. On Monarch and above people can have 10 cities by 1ad.

Remember to count the science beakers per turn not the science slider percentage. I think anywhere between 50-100 science beakers a turn at around 1ad should keep you ahead of the AI all the way up to noble.

You might try building a library early on once you have 3+ cities. Once you have the library set up 2 scientists in the city. When your first Great scientist arrives build an academy. Then use next to either add to the city or bulb your way to philosophy ot liberalism. (2 scientists + representation with pyramids proves 12 science beakers before bonuses.)

On a plus side you had pyramids and representation at your disposal. So each scientist is proving 6 science beakers early on. When you add a great scietist to city its +9 beakers if you have Rep.


Overall advance faster. Remember on noble the Ai will defend with only warriors early on. 4-5 warrior rush will take an ai capital city early on.

Your great people count is really poor. It looks like you only had 10 all game. For 1948ad that is really bad. You only got them as you built 5-6 wonders in your capital early on. A GP farm will typically either be wonder heavy or use excess food to provide specialists. Add on national epic and pacfism and a Great people farm with 4 food resources could be providing over 100 points a turn. Thats 15 turns. On this basis you should be able to get 20+ great people. With corporations later in game this could rocket.

 

[akillias]

Should I build more farm? Why are my cities so underpopulated?

 

[Joshua368]

Should I build more farm? Why are my cities so underpopulated?

Your cities can't grow if their health/happiness caps are too low. Basically every population point of a city automatically adds 1 unhealthiness point and 1 unhappiness point. If you want the city to grow bigger, you have to make sure you have enough happiness and healthiness to cancel this out.

Search for resources that increase these and be sure to hook them up! Pigs, gold, corn, fish, etc... make sure you work them and hook them up by roads, they'll help raise the caps. Certain buildings will as well, so if the city needs it build stuff like colloseums and aqueducts. Also keep in mind that things like war or factories can increase unhappiness and unhealthiness.

 

[batavier]

Should I build more farm? Why are my cities so underpopulated?

There are 3 reasons, your cities are unhealthy, your cities are close to becoming unhappy and you (or the city governor) have assigned lots of specialists, wich bring no food and halt growth. You need to solve all 3 problems, for your cities to grow.

You need more workers, you only have 4.

You used your meagre force of workers to improve terrain that can't be
worked by any city, meanwhile some resources are unimproved.

Build granaries. You have only 3! A granary improves population growth.
and is also a health building if you have rice/corn/wheat (you have 2) and it's
a lot cheaper than a hospital.

you have fought one war and have yust started another and have no barracks none of them, nowhere.

You made a strange tech beeline to mass media. The only reason I can see for that is building the UN and getting a diplomatic victory, but you have disabled all but a domination victory. While monarchy isn't useful on its own, it is necessary for a lot of essential economic and military techs.

you build research, but you need to be building essential infrastructure and military. You should have some military cities with only farms and mines, and barracks, forge.

The University of Sankore, Chizen Itza and the national park are doing very little for you.

I don't see the apostolic palace anywhere, did you raze it? (probably not a mistake, just curious)

you should have switched civics to bureaucracy ages ago.

 

[akillias]

Well, I am replaying the game. I plan to tech better. I didn't tech very well because I was used to CIV 3. LOL!

Also, I don't think it is because of the specialists... I think I have built too much cottages at the beginning.

 

[akillias]

There are 3 reasons, your cities are unhealthy, your cities are close to becoming unhappy and you (or the city governor) have assigned lots of specialists, wich bring no food and halt growth. You need to solve all 3 problems, for your cities to grow.

You need more workers, you only have 4.

You used your meagre force of workers to improve terrain that can't be
worked by any city, meanwhile some resources are unimproved.

Build granaries. You have only 3! A granary improves population growth.
and is also a health building if you have rice/corn/wheat (you have 2) and it's
a lot cheaper than a hospital.

you have fought one war and have yust started another and have no barracks none of them, nowhere.

You made a strange tech beeline to mass media. The only reason I can see for that is building the UN and getting a diplomatic victory, but you have disabled all but a domination victory. While monarchy isn't useful on its own, it is necessary for a lot of essential economic and military techs.

you build research, but you need to be building essential infrastructure and military. You should have some military cities with only farms and mines, and barracks, forge.

The University of Sankore, Chizen Itza and the national park are doing very little for you.

I don't see the apostolic palace anywhere, did you raze it? (probably not a mistake, just curious)

you should have switched civics to bureaucracy ages ago.

Do barracks increase unit production speed?

 

[Joshua368]

Do barracks increase unit production speed?

No, forges do that (and building production speed as well, you certainly want those!)

Barracks give your units a free promotion, definitely worthwhile in any city that'll be building units.

 

[akillias]

I am not a very aggressive player, I only defend in the beginning and that's how I get my promotions.

 

[Joshua368]

Still they are cheap and worth building in all but the poorest production cities, even if you're defensive your archers could use those city garrison promos.

 

[akillias]

Hmmm, perhaps I will give it a try if I have nothing better to build.

 

[akillias]

I think the major error is that I did not build enough farm. Some people suggested me to build only cottages, but that doesn't even work. And strange enough, a SE is easier to manage, at least to me.

 

[akillias]

Btw, I had like 10 workers. A couple of them got captured due to poor management.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

I think the major error is that I did not build enough farm. Some people suggested me to build only cottages, but that doesn't even work. And strange enough, a SE is easier to manage, at least to me.

But no Akillias, that's not your problem. I've been taking a look on your save and your Civ is in pure chaos. Unhealthiness and unhappiness are going rampage in your citys. Tha last thing tou want is more farms which only will grow youre citys larger. You just can't have the happy cap att 10 in 1948. Build granaries and get rid of the unhealth, build markets and get rid of some of the unhappiness. You did expand to slow and you're suffering big time from the lack of resources which are one of the most important ways to get happiness and health. Don't get me wrong but you don't seems do understand some of the basic stuff of Civ 4.

I would direct you to Caberts guides in the strategy articles sections, Ways in to happiness, Ways in to health and Ways in to production. All of the important stuff is there.

 

[akillias]

?? I didn't lack resources. I just traded most them for more gold per turn. Also, my science and production would have increased drastically if I had built more farms.

 

[akillias]

I also built a lot of farms in late game because Churchill would keep destroying my tiles.

 

[Bleys]

I think you are missing the point of what the people trying to help you are making.

You dont understand how health and happiness work.

No worries, its a tricky concept to grasp when you first start playing this game. I will try to make it simple.

When you found your first city, you will see some numbers up by the name of the city in the city-screen. One is health and one is happiness . Those numbers indicate your current and , and your "caps". Cap means thats as high as the first number can get without a penalty of some kind. Unhappy citizens cant work a tile or become specialists, but they still eat your food. Unhealthy citizens take 3 food each, instead of 2. Since every citizen in your city is equal to 1 + 1 , you need to find ways to make those "caps" higher so your city can support more people without penalty. This is done with both buildings and resources. When you put a farm on a corn resource, and then a road connected to a city, you will get +1 in ALL cities connected to that city. When you build a Granary in a city that has access to corn (is connected to your empire), the corn will give you another +1 . For happiness, we will use Gold. When you build a mine on a gold resource, and a road connecting it to one of your cities, you will get +1 in ALL cities connected to that city. When you build a Forge in a city that has access to gold, you get another +1 .

Access doesnt mean it has to be in the cities BFC. It just means you have the proper improvement (mine, farm, pasture, plantation, etc) and its connected to your Empire. Thats why its important to connect all your cities together with roads, and connect all your resources to that network of roads, so that all cities may "access" the resource. 1 Gold mine provides 1 for ALL your cities (as long as they are connected), you dont need to have a separate gold mine or corn to get the or .

So, if you have 2 sources of Corn for your Empire, you only need 1 to give ALL your cities +1 , therefore you can trade that extra corn to another AI for something you dont have, like wheat. Trading your 2nd corn for a wheat gives ALL your cities +1 from the wheat, and if you build a Granary, that city gets another +1 . If the AIs dont have any resources you need, then you can trade your extra's for Gold Per Turn. As you aquire a resource, or build a building that benefits from a resource you have, your and caps go up, which allows you to grow more population in that city safely without penalty.

I have the feeling you dont quite get how this works, so as you play, look at those numbers I refer too, connect your resources to raise caps, and see how it works.

 

[akillias]

No, I understand, but it definitively didn't hinder my growth. I built hospitals in some. However, even the cities I captured had higher population than the cities I built.