What I have learned so far

[asabahi]

I don't generally like to chop down forests unless I have to for growth. Forests are very powerful in the late game - with lumbermills and enviromentalism.

Forested hill next to river does not even give the one commerce point river bonus, therefore in the early game mining it not only gives you free hammers for what your cities is producing, but the square gives you one commerce and extra hammers. Or you could build a windmill that intialy gives you one extra food and with the right techs extra commerace and hammers. This is just one example. A plain that is covered by a forest can be cottaged and the hammers from chopping can go towards building a market (commerce city). Need health build improvements, play an expansionist civ, trade or aquire through war health resources. Need happiness, read the article in strategy article in the forums called Need Happiness.

Also - early wonders (beyond their obvious bonuses) will generate more early great people, each of which equals a new tech or instant completion of another wonder. Or, lucrative trade missions. All of which push your score and your advantage.

If you have a phil civ you can chop for the great wall, and use the GE to ruch the pyramids. But what use is the pyramids unless you are going to run a Specialist economy. Not saying it is not nice to have, but it is not a must have unless you have a certain strategy in mind. Trade missions, they are nice later in the game, when whether you are going to win or lose has already been decided anyway. If you do not have healthy number of cities, with the right improvements, producing commerce and science, you can run your science slider to 100%, and you still will not be able to beat the AI at teching.

In single player games I base my early stratagy on appeasement, trade, and the great wall. This virtually eliminates the need for a military until the 1600s or later.

You cannot appease certain AI civ no matter what you do. Catherine, Alex, Ragnar, and Monty come to mind. If you are weak they will come after you. Having a few really good friends that will fight by your side is better. I base my early strategy on having a strong military and attacking my neighbors to keep them weak, and uncomfortable.

Founding them yourself denies the computer their benifits. They aren't just nice for the happy, they are great for the happy. A city with 5 temples is not going to have happy issues, plus when you switch to free religion they all generate culture and happiness, not just the state one.

The benefits are not that great. Trust me it is not. A financial civ with no religons founded by itself will have a much stronger economy with cottaging than a civ with a number of shrines. I believe I read somewhere that the gold from the shrines just gets added on to total commerace of the city with the shrine and that it is not put through the slider and does not benefit from the city improvements.

It's all about staying ahead of the computer players. Otherwise, when you make war you will be facing superior tech forces, and unless you 'cheat' by turning random seed on you are going to have a tough go of it.

Axemen, spears, chariot, for early war and add swords and catapults for the second round of war is very powerfull. They do not become obselete until macemen and knights, and it takes a whie to get to that macemen and knights. Seige weapons are great. No need to cheat.

Each free tech is 10-30 turns saved, plus the 10-30 turns with that tech to use. And, can give you access to wonders so you can build them before your opponent.

Why build a wonder, do you need it, does it serve a purpose, or is it just vanity? Go for the wonders that help you win. Example, why build the Great lighthouse if you only have one coastal city?

The computer WILL war, if you don't have perminant peace turned on. It's only a question of will it war with you, or itself. I always perfer it waring with itself, as both civs advancement will stall dramatically (which is odd because in real history war was a time of great advancements). I perfer to stay friends with everyone, and pick my own war when the time is right.

You cannot stay friends with everyone, unless you play a small map with few civs and they are all builder civs. They will turn their attention towards you if they sense weakness or if not.

I've notice the increased failure to spread rate, but it's been nothing but a minor annoyance so far and I've got eight cities with five religions each.

How many temples do you need? If you have the happeiness needed why build more temples and spread more religons.

Cottages are great, especially when they make it to Town. Unfortunately they are easily pillaged so if you become dependant on them you can be hurt fairly easily, and they take forever to rebuild.

Build your commerace cities inside your empire (is it an empire?) not on the borders with unfriendly civs. Or heavily defend them.

The computer will always build the pentagon if you don't - and by the nature of the game it will be build by your strongest rival. The strategy I outlay (which I admit is only one of many possible ones) is as much about denying the computer as it is getting things for yourself.

Penagon gives an advantage but not a huge one. You can always weaken a stack of promoted enemies units with bombers and seige weapons.

 

[Wlauzon]

Yeah... a lot of the counts you are wrong on.

For one, it's nearly impossible to have 5 religions. It's just plain hard. Besides, you can't just go straight for Religion Techs... you need other techs.

Uhm.. no it is not.

Many times I get 4, not rare at all to get 5. And in a couple of games (against 5 other civs), I have gotten all 7.

Read the posts above again - there is very little that is impossible.

For example, try this - start custon continents, each civ on their own, huge, no barbs.

You need no military until around 1750+. You can get most of the religious techs if you start with someone like Asoka. You can make Stonehenge your first build, and get away with it - and that is before you make any workers or settlers (just a scout).

Obviously that strategy will not work with other types of startups - but that is the point. Never assume that everyone plays like you or has the same goals.

 

[Inyuraye]

There are only 3 things you must do in CIV:
Whip
Whip
Whip some more

 

[Meatbuster]

I haven't yet won because I'm a perfectionist and tend to quit a game if I fall too far behind in score - even though I might still have won in the end. Right now I'm totally focused on getting ahead and staying ahead in score for the entire game.

You can't always count on that. It's fairly difficult to get ahead in Monarch, and on Emperor or worse you can't possibly hope to get ahead in score or tech for a sizable part of the game.

You may be behind in score, but you could be in a better position to win than you think.

 

[ThomasHardy]

LOL, imho you are wrong about almost everything. I like to play on emperor and really, most of the things you mention just won't work at that level.

Stone isn't needed unless you are going for the pyramids. The Oracle is nice if used for CoL---> Civil Service, but hardly a must have. Founding buddhism is difficult brcause the AI usually gets that at emperor because they have a research bonus. Hinduism, on the other hand, is gettable.

 

[Sisiutil]

Hey, I only got the game a week and a half ago, and I started at Monarch. I haven't yet won because I'm a perfectionist and tend to quit a game if I fall too far behind in score - even though I might still have won in the end. Right now I'm totally focused on getting ahead and staying ahead in score for the entire game. But, point taken

This makes sense all of a sudden. No, not your tactics, but your thinking.

Especially on Monarch and higher, it's common to be behind the AI until mid to late game in score, or to not be ahead ever. You can still win. But you're not finding that out.

Furthermore, your tactics may enable you to keep up with the AI for the early game. But by mid-game or so, if one AI civ has been busy conquering and has a large empire of 12 cities or more compared to your 6 to 8, they'll be able to out-tech you no matter what you do, especially with the AI's bonuses on the higher levels. More cities and more population equals more research points, pure and simple.

I still think your tactics can work, you just need to fine-tune them. Since you're fond of stone, farms, and the Pyramids, try playing as a philosophical leader and run a specialist economy. I still think a cottage economy has an edge in the long term (especially for a non-philosophical leader and/or if you don't build the Pyramids), but the occassional SE game is fun.

Be warned, however, that a proper SE also relies on warfare to keep up with/overtake the AI. Also, if you play as a financial leader and DON'T spam cottages, you're wasting one of that leader's traits.

 

[Naismith]

Sisiutil, I think you're being very polite when you say these tactics can work, they just need to be fine tuned.

There are so many problems with this strategy I could write a book on it. A very simple example - you simply cannot count on having stone, period. What do you do if you don't have stone, restart?

In order to get 5 religions, you would have to priorite religion at the very start of the game, which means you don't get techs like AH, BW, and Archery until later - doesn't that mean you are very vulnerable to barbarians? If you are more concerned with hooking up stone than copper, that wouldn't help, either. Perhaps you play with barbarians off?

I'm gonna go out on a limb, here: At Monarch level, this strategy isn't going to be terribly successful.

In summary, you place too much importance on founding religions and building wonders. You also don't utilize forests for chopping early in the game. I don't see how this could ever constitute a winning strategy on Monarch.

 

[Sisiutil]

Sisiutil, I think you're being very polite when you say these tactics can work, they just need to be fine tuned.

Me? Polite? Maybe you're right. Must be because I'm Canadian.

Nonetheless, the main point a lot of people are making in this thread is that there are no hard-and-fast rules to winning a complex game like Civ IV. That point is being used to question the OP's assertion that you can't win without his tactics, which is obviously false, but the flip side is that you can't assume he won't eventually win with them.

I'm always reminded of Kylearan's non-violent Gandhi game, for example, where he won on Monarch while doing such counter-intuitive things such as never building a military unit and founding all but one of the religions. So I'm not going to rule out the OP winning a game with these tactics, if they're adjusted.

That being said, I think it would be pretty darn hard to win this way, especially on Monarch or higher. I"m just starting to see some success on Monarch, and I use almost none of these tactics.

 

[aelf]

I have fun playing Civ4 by trying out different strategies and finding out whether they can help me win a game or cause me to lose. So far, all of the strategies I've tried are viable (one of which you can read about in the 2nd Emperor's Challenge). That goes to show in a concrete way that there's no single way of playing the game. Of course, when you progress into the higher difficulty levels, your range of options gets narrower. But on Monarch many things are possible.

 

[gdgrimm]

I have not yet won a game, but to be fair I started at a high difficulty. I am getting close. Here is what I have learned. Feel free to nit-pick, question, praise, and otherwise discuss the points I make.

Early game MUST haves
1. Stone within reach of first of second city
2. Buddhism
3. The Oracle

I believe if you miss any of those things you have lost.

Mid game MUST haves
1. Found as many religions as possible. Buddhism, Hinduism, Jewdism, Christianity and Taoism are usually doable. Confusism and Islam are tough.
2. Liberalism
3. Switch to no-state religion
4. Spread all the religions you founded to all your citys and build all possible religious buildings.

Late game MUST haves
1. Large cities that can support multiple specialists. You cannot stay ahead of research without specialists.
2. Oil and Coal - if you don't have them find them and create a colony by them. Without them you cannot win.
3. If you are after a conquest victory it is nearly impossible if you don't build The Pentagon.

That's all for now... fire away.

Hmmm.... well...

"Early game MUST HAVES".... I think I get that situation about 10% of the time.

"Mid game MUST HAVES".... I think in only 1 or 2 of my 200+ games have I founded more than 3 religions.

So, by the definition of MUST HAVES, I must have lost nearly every game I played. This would be news to me, because I could swear I'm winning almost every Prince game, and about half the Monarch games I play.

So, IRT "I believe if you miss any of those things you have lost.", I would say that you're wrong.

You can certainly try to use the strategy you've laid out in every game, and probably end up losing most of them (which it seems is what is happening), or do numerous restarts. But I would suggest learning a wider range of play techniques and learnin how/when/where to apply them. That'll get you to where you'll win far more often.

Of course, you then won't be able to post a thread listing MUST HAVES and such.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

The key to a successful strategy is leveraging your starting position, opponents and traits to best effect. By definition any strategy that relies on a single solution regardless of the starting position / traits and opponents is going to be sub-optimal.

Each of these ideas may be good in some situations. The only one that strikes me as particularly bad is having lots of religions. I would never try to found more than one (except by accident). Conquering an already established religion is much more use - its hard work spreading a religion and doing it for more than one just won't pay off.

Everything else is useful under some circumstances, but hardly must have. There isn't a list of must-have, but I probably have a list of things that I usually try to do:

- Whip a lot early when the happiness cap is low.
- Target bronzeworking and pottery as key early techs.
- Start hinduism if I start with Mysticism (getting the capital as a holy city is really worth it).
- Get to alphabet first to trade techs first.
- Get the great library
- Get a military defense quickly - seek out axes or horses
- Try and win at least one early war to ensure I have enough space to compete.
- Try and get to liberalism first - allows a very quick rush to cavalry or grenadiers before the AI which can pay off hugely.
- Mix both specialists and cottages in my economies - depending on the city and what will suit it, and also what my traits are. Specialists usually disappear except for the GP farm once emancipation is available and I have generated the early GPs.
- Research techs with an eye to trade potential as well as immediate use.
- Usually play for one early wonder around which my economic strategy will be built. Great lighthouse, Pyramids and Oracle are all beneficial to a particular strategy. Which I go for will depend on resources and starting traits and also whether I think an early early war will be more profitable.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

First, i agree with the "there is no one path to victory" crowd. But, having goal and planning your moves on the path to the goal goes a long way.

Second, to aelf, sisiutil, and naz. They taught me about the synergy of wonders. for example, one can really crank out the GE if one has the pyramids and the great wall. And no, you don't always need stone to do that. And while you're doing that, the barbs are staying out of your cultural borders.

Third, and let me lay down some parameters here, i'm a competant monarch player, working on emperor. what i find works for me is to pick two wonders that complement each other, such as stonehenge and oracle, and then go for an early war to pick up a worker or two. the wonders depend on the civ. the when to war depends on the goal and knowing how the ai will react.

Read some threads, try some things and then decide what works for you.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I can get a religion, the Oracle, and Liberalism if I try on Monarch, but I have yet to score all three on Emperor taking the religion path (not sure where stone helps build oracle, but I try it if I start with marble nearby). This is mostly because I tend to leverage my workers and focus on science instead (yes, cottage econ, that's my strat more often than not... really depends on the start conditions, though). Religion strat is better for a culture win or early pop boost for a mid game rush from behind, I guess.

I like Monarch because you can win almost any start on single player. I found moving up to emperor that I am too easy on the AI... they can usually catch up around Astronomy even though I have only been beaten to it once. It ain't happening again! I am finally working on a win at Emp... no more space race losses when I have twice the score of second place!