What Are Your Tactics for Building on Plains in CIV IV?

[Plains-Cow]

On non-deity, you don't need to go archery in general. It's safer to do so though and safety is good.

No.

I remember once playing a game where rush buying came into play. I wouldn't put a lot of emphasis on it.

So you always go archery on deity? When do you typically like to go for the tech?

Never culture? Fair enough.

I've played with it a little, but rush-buy seems to clearly benefit from any financial building. Therefore, I was thinking about the possible benefits of waiting to build the more expensive markets and grocers until later so I can stack their gold bonuses with banks for the strat.

Backfilling is not a bad thing. Land grabbing near your closest AI to choke or plan an early attack is good. On Immortal they can have a second city before 3000bc. On a good game no reason not to have 4 cities by 2000bc. With imperialist 5+ can be possible. With warfare 10 or so by 1ad. Maybe less if you wait for cuirs and stay peaceful. 6 seems low.

I don't get this culture thing and trolling AI borders. If you take out an AI city and it's still covered in it's culture from nearby cities its more likely to revolt. Chances of cities revolting due to your culture is low. You would need to control most of the city tiles with your culture. It won't win you games.

If I was playing Mongols maybe withdraw. Normally just combat promo. Current game 18 cities 1000ad huge map. Normal map maybe less. I could easily spam 100 cuirs quickly on huge maps. With 8-10 cities it takes longer whipping units.

I would like to backfill as much as possible in order to have as many cities possible, and since most tiles will never be used before a game is decided (especially with whipping), I do what I can.

The culture thing is just personal. It's nice to have the AI load it up with goodies and flip it. I also like to flip cities that are on islands because it saves the the hassle of making a navy lol. It's literally just a fun mechanic that I like to work with to win sometimes as a peacemonger. Like a personal challenge. I like to make challenges here and there, like seeing if I can win with an all-pike or all-spearman army, and seeing how far up the difficulty ladder I can go before it becomes impossible for me.

Yeah, I always go combat line, too. Winning battles is more important than withdrawing only to just get killed next AI turn anyway. How much do you stack whip anger for your cuir rush? Into oblivion?

 

[sampsa]

So you always go archery on deity? When do you typically like to go for the tech?

Not always. On pangaeaish maps it can get so crowded so fast that there is no need. With AGG I prefer to defend with cover warriors, if possible. Sometimes there is so much room for barbs to spawn you will need to get archery no matter what.

I've played with it a little, but rush-buy seems to clearly benefit from any financial building. Therefore, I was thinking about the possible benefits of waiting to build the more expensive markets and grocers until later so I can stack their gold bonuses with banks for the strat.

Have you investigated the maths behind rush buying? Taking a look at the numbers might make you think again about the viability of the whole strategy...

 

[Fippy]

Much depends on starting techs too (on deity), if possible i always try BW first for a chance on copper.
Archers can defend well, but are bad at attacking so keeping barbs off improvements etc can be annoying. Axes just kill them.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Not always. On pangaeaish maps it can get so crowded so fast that there is no need. With AGG I prefer to defend with cover warriors, if possible. Sometimes there is so much room for barbs to spawn you will need to get archery no matter what.

Have you investigated the maths behind rush buying? Taking a look at the numbers might make you think again about the viability of the whole strategy...

I have not, but I usually only consider it when I am going to play as a financial leader. What's the math like that makes it so bad? What's the best to focus on? Science, I'd assume.

Much depends on starting techs too (on deity), if possible i always try BW first for a chance on copper.
Archers can defend well, but are bad at attacking so keeping barbs off improvements etc can be annoying. Axes just kill them.

Interesting; I usually go BW when there are a lot of trees in my starting city, but otherwise focus on other techs first like pottery or agriculture.

 

[sampsa]

I have not, but I usually only consider it when I am going to play as a financial leader. What's the math like that makes it so bad?

Do you know how many you are paying per when rush buying? Do you know what kind of to conversion rate you can get via whip? Investigate.

What's the best to focus on? Science, I'd assume.

Depends on what exactly you mean. Maybe it's best to whip cottages away to get more units.

I usually go BW when there are a lot of trees in my starting city, but otherwise focus on other techs first like pottery or agriculture.

Chopping should in general come before granaries/cottages, unless a very high start.

 

[Gumbolt]

So is this thread helping you to improve your game? Or will you play your own style anyway? Immortal is not a huge leap in terms of challenge.Harder if you choose a peaceful approach.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Do you know how many you are paying per when rush buying? Do you know what kind of to conversion rate you can get via whip? Investigate.

Depends on what exactly you mean. Maybe it's best to whip cottages away to get more units.

Chopping should in general come before granaries/cottages, unless a very high start.

Whipping always better than rush-buy then, all things considered?

I mean if there was one thing to focus, it would be beakers. That's my point of investigation. It's only worthwhile to be whipping cottages in the case of an invasion.

Good advice about chopping. Always chop to expand, right?

So is this thread helping you to improve your game? Or will you play your own style anyway? Immortal is not a huge leap in terms of challenge.Harder if you choose a peaceful approach.

This thread's about building on plains and strategizing their use, but it has evolved from there. I play my own "style" when looking for some fun style or almost a roleplay-like game, but if I'm trying to win with the most optimal strats for a map, then yeah, I'd say this is quite helpful.

 

[Gumbolt]

Generally I whip away unimproved tiles early on. Or whip to build worker/settlers. If going early rush then I generally 2 pop whip most cities mixed with chops. Same for late game. If I plan to win with cuirs I pretty much whip most food cities. I usually skip capital or HE city.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Generally I whip away unimproved tiles early on. Or whip to build worker/settlers. If going early rush then I generally 2 pop whip most cities mixed with chops. Same for late game. If I plan to win with cuirs I pretty much whip most food cities. I usually skip capital or HE city.

Same with me regarding unimproved tiles. 2 pop whipping gets more hammers than 1 pop, but I always wonder if the overflow is worth it by then because I'd usually have tile improvements up and running by that point. You never whip capital? Do you always run Bureaucracy?

 

[Jarno]

Same with me regarding unimproved tiles. 2 pop whipping gets more hammers than 1 pop, but I always wonder if the overflow is worth it by then because I'd usually have tile improvements up and running by that point. You never whip capital? Do you always run Bureaucracy?

IMO there's no problem in whipping the capital, as long as you're not whipping away your power tiles (early game). Cottages can ideally be taken over temporarily by some satellite cities around your capital to continue the cottage growth. Also make sure that you have enough tiles with food-surplus left so you can grow back quickly, this holds for all your cities, not specifically the capital. If you're only left with a food surplus of only 1 or 2 and no granary, whipping could be counter-productive in the long run.

As for 2 pop instead of 1 pop whipping: you only get 1 unhappy face regardless of the number of pop you whip, so the payback is much better if you can whip as many at a time (taking into account not whipping power tiles e.g.). Also overflow is not (always) the main purpose of whipping, mostly it's just that you get your product faster. Only in hammer-poor cities it can be the goal to produce hammers with overflow, or when you are whipping into a wonder.

 

[sampsa]

Whipping always better than rush-buy then, all things considered?

I wouldn't phrase it like that. I'd say whipping is fundamentally a lot more beneficial than rush buying, due to conversion rates. Main point of rush buying units imo is that in that phase of game / is not worth much.

I mean if there was one thing to focus, it would be beakers. That's my point of investigation. It's only worthwhile to be whipping cottages in the case of an invasion.

Well. First focus is to expand to a solid core (city count depends on when you plan to expand via war), then make that empire produce a lot of in a quick burst, mostly to gain a military tech. In peaceful games the phase where you focus on can last until the end of the game, thus no real -burst phase required (well, need to build space ship parts).

Good advice about chopping. Always chop to expand, right?

I would nearly always chop asap to expand faster.

Same with me regarding unimproved tiles. 2 pop whipping gets more hammers than 1 pop, but I always wonder if the overflow is worth it by then because I'd usually have tile improvements up and running by that point. You never whip capital? Do you always run Bureaucracy?

In general, whip for as many pop as possible, especially settlers/workers, which are something you should especially be whipping in the first place. This is because stagnating growth is bad and slow building conversion 1->1 is very weak compared to whipping with granary. Pre-granary slow building is fine, though again whipping away weak tiles makes sense.

I whip the capital roughly the same as other cities, depending on the available tiles. When -cap is heightened (HR/Mids, res trades) capital usually starts to grow on cottages. In most games you should run bureau, yes.

 

[Harv]

Bump. Hi! Welcome to the forum and nice name! Were you ever able to find your saved games? I'm on Windoze and not Linux. I know nothing about LInux. My path looks something like....

C:\.........\Documents\My Games\beyond the sword\Saves\single......

I think I have seen a little bit of your play on the France 1000AD scenario. Do you have favorite leaders and settings you like to play?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Nothing fuels Deity AI quite as much as farmed plain tiles.

I break into a sweat if one has a lot of them.


Also, Plains-Cow's avatar has my brain absolutely convinced a cow is kicking its hind leg into the air at first glance, but it is always a tail on closer inspection.

 

[gavenkoa]

\

Chop all forests and stack whip anger

What is "stacking of whip anger"? Is it when anger slowly decay during city Pop regrows (and probably you build worker / settler so extra +2F contribute to a build per each angry person)?

 

[sampsa]

What is "stacking of whip anger"?

It means when you already have whip anger, and whip again.