What the hell am I doing wrong??

[Solo4114]

Ok, so, it's been a while since I played Civ IV. I know I'm a little rusty, but conceptually I think I get the basics (mostly). I also know one of my major weaknesses: I'm a sucky warmonger, and as we all know this game basically requires you to at the very least maintain a strong military presence, if not actively warmonger.

So, to try to train myself to be a better warmonger, I decided to play a game as Boudica. Random continents, balanced resources, random number of enemies. No tech brokering (but tech TRADING enabled), re-rolled random seed each time you load, and I forget the other options but nothing out of the ordinary, really, aside from that.

It's 340 AD and I'm getting my ass kicked on Noble. Now, as memory serves, Noble is the last level where the computer DOESN'T cheat. It's also the only level (I think) where the human player gets no bonuses.

So what the hell am I doing wrong? I mean, the way I see it, I'm doing everything I can to maximize my military presence (since Boudica heavily benefits from that), and I'm still sucking wind in terms of tech, power, money, etc.

To explain one move that you'll probably find controversial -- I built (well, mostly chopped) Stonehenge purely because it was an early way to expand culture quickly when I found cities. I knew I'd want to pop out to the fat cross quickly (Especially in my one southern city to get the only spawn of copper available in my area), so that's why I spent the time on that.

Other than that, I have no idea why I'm so far behind everyone else. Is it just bad luck in terms of placement? Am I being too conservative in my founding of cities? In the past when I've founded a lot of cities early on, I've ended up REALLY taking a hit tech-wise. I knew I couldn't get an early axe rush because of the crappy copper placement, so I'm hoping for cat spam on the Germans later on.

Meanwhile, I'm constantly beset by bastard barbarians, but at least THIS game I haven't gotten as many mining disasters (man you should've seen the last game -- I had no fewer than five mining disasters before 1000 AD).

Other than that, I'm stumped. Why is the computer able to beat me this easily? Oh, and one other thing -- this is playing on BTS 3.13. Anyway, here's the save. I eagerly await any tips.

 

[Bleys]

Didnt look at the save yet, but there is nothing wrong with building Stoney with a CHA leader.

I will take a peek at the save though.

 

[Iranon]

Gah! My Eyes!

The question isn't whether you wasted time with stonehenge... the question is what did you actually do all this time? So much beautiful unused land... you could have had a dozen cities around 1AD.

Just check the diplo screen - Frederick has 7 cities to your 3, and that's too few too.

***

Expanding doesn't hurt one's tech all that much if one is paying attention to the details. Undeveloped cities unconnected to the trade network working unimproved tiles cost money, but there is no excuse to have those for more than a few turns each.

REXing done right doesn't slow one's tech because it has to but because hammers are a higher priority for long-term rewards. Get your cities, get the basic infrastructure up, laugh at your opponents as you catch up and surpass them on sheer mass.

 

[The Madness]

I have checked your zip file, and here is my analysis (note: this is my first posting!)

First of all, stonehenge was a good move: you get culture and happiness thanks to your charismatic trait.

your first build order should have been something like this:

warrior --> worker --> settler(chop) --> stonehenge(chop) --> warrior --> settler ect.

You seem to be alone with Frederick, not exactly the most threatenig of AI, at noble at least. A possibility would have to rush him after you have hooked up the copper with your second city.

You didn't really expand, which will kill you in the long run.

Do thec construction, build cats, build swords and axes, invade the poorly defended Frederick.

Do not settle on the wheat. Settle between the wheat and the cows and you will even get clams to the northeast. send a settler to the east of your capital to claim the clam and the 2 golds. With Frederick's cities, that should be plenty.

Good luck

 

[The Madness]

I have checked your zip file, and here is my analysis (note: this is my first posting!)

First of all, stonehenge was a good move: you get culture and happiness thanks to your charismatic trait.

your first build order should have been something like this:

warrior --> worker --> settler(chop) --> stonehenge(chop) --> warrior --> settler ect.

You seem to be alone with Frederick, not exactly the most threatenig of AI, at noble at least. A possibility would have to rush him after you have hooked up the copper with your second city.

You didn't really expand, which will kill you in the long run.

Do thec construction, build cats, build swords and axes, invade the poorly defended Frederick.

Do not settle on the wheat. Settle between the wheat and the cows and you will even get clams to the northeast. send a settler to the east of your capital to claim the clam and the 2 golds. With Frederick's cities, that should be plenty.

Good luck

 

[Gumbolt]

Okay issues for me.

You are playing Noble and you built Stonehenge before your second city!

In terms of techs. Mining /Bronze working are essential for early techs. Bronze working for slavery and chopping. There was no real benefit to teching wheel first. Unless you found this in a hut.

Your second city was built 1075bc. Playing an imperialist leader i can have a second city by 3300bc or so. Even with celts i can have a second city around 2800bc.

Your capital is size 14. You have no excuses for not whipping out settlers. Its a great city.

There is a city SE of your capital that would give a sea resource and gold.

In terms of the economy. you are producing 44 science beakers a turn at 80% science. You can afford many more cities really. Specialists will help soften the blow of a lower science slider. On some games my science slider is at 0% and I am getting 70-80 science beakers a turn.

For me the start. You have agriculture. So Worker, worker, settler. When worker has finished working the food resource you can grow your capital to size 2-3. Perhaps warrior build or a wonder why you grow the city. I would then switch back to the second worker.

When you have bronze working you can chop forest to speed up city production.

With fishing resources nearby i would of gone for work boats once i had fishing.

 

[Solo4114]

Ok, so, "expand more, dummy" seems to be a common theme. Trouble is, when I've done that in the past I've crippled my economy and tech. I don't mind dropping my tech slider down to 0% to build up gold for an upcoming unit upgrade, but I do mind dropping it below, say, 70% early in the game.

How should I go about expanding? The copper city was a priority for me, but it sounds like I could've founded another city sooner than that, even. The custom continents games I've been running seem to do large continents separated by large bodies of water, populated by one or two AIs. Human players always seem to have an AI with them (I guess for trade, conquest, etc.).

Part of why I didn't expand was because I was planning on focusing almost exclusively on military early on, so that I could rush Frederick. I know Frederick isn't that much of a threat to me, especially early in the game, once I get a few SODs moving. I'd probably raze his cities that intrude into my cities fat crosses, and then take most of his other cities (or raze and rebuild if placement was good but I can't afford to defend currently).

My question is less about me vs. Freddie and more about me vs. everyone else in the game.

How the hell is the AI getting as far ahead of me WITH as many cities as it has (yes, I popped open the world builder right after the fourth religion had been founded before about 500 AD to see just what was going on)? How are they as advanced as they are, but I'm still sucking wind? I haven't seen if they have economies that aren't tanking, but if they're popping religion techs that early, they can't be doing too badly. Plus, they've all got at least 5 cities.

So WTH?

When I expand more, I suck wind economically because it happens too soon (or because I didn't have the cities hooked up to the trade network soon enough?). I never have enough units to protect my workers and my cities and keep everyone happy (I probably could whip more, but I'm usually productive ENOUGH to where whipping ends up costing me more happiness than it may be worth).

As I said, the game is also constantly throwing barbarians at me. I have no idea if it's done the same with the AI, but I suspect it hasn't.


I think another issue may be my perception of where to build cities. For example, I NEVER allow fat crosses to overlap. Ever. That's wasted space, to me. But maybe that's part of where I'm going wrong.

Second, I look at a lot of the land around me and while it's good, I have to spread out further in order to make it really great (which is why I have a less contiguous empire). Is that kicking up my city maintenance costs? Also, am I maybe not seeing the value in some spots on the map? Where would you guys build, starting off?


--EDIT--

I did The Wheel early because I knew I'd want to hook up resources. I didn't know where copper would pop, so my plan was to be able to axe-rush for a few early cities rather than expand too much. I suppose I could've gone mining-->bw--->wheel, though.

 

[oyzar]

As long as you are above 50% you should always look to expand, later when you learn to handle your economy properly you can often safely expand all the way down to 0% as long as you have a plan for getting your economy back on track... Always work improve tiles, together with the first one this means that for a large part of the game(until most of the land is settled) your focus should be on workers and settlers. There is nothing wrong with building cottages or running specialists, and on most maps you need to do this to get by.. Don't build up massive military before you want to attack someone...

First priority with any start/city should be to get food(this is normally done through improving food resources), you started with irrigated corn, cows and 3 clams for food(although plains cow is not great for food it is still a decent resource). Your tech path was wheel -> archery -> fishing -> mining -> bw -> ag -> ah so the 3 techs you needed for your start came as number 3, 6 and 7... Your tech path should have been something like ag -> fishing -> mining -> bw or something(you don't really need the cow since you have several clams and corn).

Learn to claim resources and improve them, try to have at least one food resource in every city and get it worked asap.

As for overlap, sure it really doesn't hurt much to have overlap(before very very late game, but small cities have their uses even then).

I would have built your second city near clams and 2 gold(that can stop at size 3 working 2 gold and the clams). It is providing more than enough commerce to fuel plenty of expansion.

You are working several unimproved tiles, you should aim to never ever do that. If you would grow onto an unimproved tile, just whip a worker(invest a turn of production into it first).

Granary is one of the very best buildings in the game, should be among the first things you build(whipping it if you can is often good) in any city, as soon as you have a food resource workable(either initially or through getting a culture building), you should get a granary...

There is so much advice to give you that it is hard to put it into one post, try reading some guides out there. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632 try reading this one for example... Should help you get down the basics.

 

[Tacgnol]

I'm usually productive ENOUGH to where whipping ends up costing me more happiness than it may be worth

You can NEVER be productive enough that whipping isn't worth it in the early game. Trust me, I felt that way too for a long time, just make yourself whip as much as you can without sending your cities into disorder, and you'll see, it WILL be worth it.

 

[Solo4114]

Hmm ok. Well, I'll try being more liberal in my usage of the whip.

Can anyone explain how the AI is getting as far as it is on the other continents?

 

[Bleys]

Well, lots of guys beat me to it, so I will just echo them somewhat. I was going to write "I bet you dont have enough cities or workers" in my first post, but decided not too. I should have, it would have been right on.

At Noble, you can REX quite a bit. Dont be afraid to let your science slider drop. As you REX, you should be cottaging and developing commerce tiles to work for cash, as well as mines and farms to fuel production. For that, you need a LOT more workers. Chop or whip out Libraries as you REX as well (again, workers, clear those forests off the tiles you want to cottage/mine/farm, and use those trees to build your Library and Granary). Run scientists in high food cities to supplement your Research rate as your slider drops.

Dont worry too much about over specializing. Look at each city as a whole, though, and decide which direction you should lean with it. Dave's excellent article on Cottaging is a good place to learn some techniques.

Speaking for myself, I almost always crash my economy to the brink of disaster before I start turning it around. Land is power, but if its not developed (with cities working improved tiles) then its worthless. You should never stop expanding, really, fill in the available land with settlers, then work toward getting more land with the Sword. As you go, see what areas your lacking in. If your teching too slow, chop out more Libraries and build a farm or 2 to run Scientists. If you're out of land, look where you are most likely to send an army in, and begin working towards that goal by building Barracks and Forges and churning out units in the Production cities.

 

[JammerUno]

Don't be afraid to expand to 0% tech slider before the ADs. Firstly, an empire with base commerce of 400 at 20% will perform thesame, beaker wise, as an empire with 100 commerce at 80%, and with vastly outperform the latter later on. Secondly, if you tech writing before being forced to set the slider to 0%, chances are you'll still outperform the smaller empire by just running scientists in foodrich cities, later on your economy will reemerge with better infrastructure, more cottages, higher population.

Also, the whip is your friend in these stages, more pop means higher maintainance, so keep your fringe-cities small by either whipping, or running specialists.

While planning for a militairy victory this early is to be commended, not settling cities yourself means it will take a looooooooong time for the continent will be settled. Basically; early wars will lead to more expansion-need, because there will be less cities on the continent.

The goal is to grab land. There are three ways of doing this: you can either settle as much of it as possible youself (REX), settle your fair share then taking the AI cities, or take out the AI early then fill in the land yourself.
In each case you will be settling as many or more cities as the AI. This means you should at least expand at parity with the AI early on.

 

[oyzar]

Hmm ok. Well, I'll try being more liberal in my usage of the whip.

Can anyone explain how the AI is getting as far as it is on the other continents?

I edited my post massivly, you might want to reread it. Basically the AI is programmed to actually use food, when you don't you get to face the consequeses.

 

[Solo4114]

Neat! Thanks for the tips, guys! Now I'm annoyed that I'm stuck at work and jonesing to try this stuff out.

 

[dankok8]

Ok, I looked at the save and noticed a few issues:
1) Way too few cities - Fred has 7 and that's about the minimum and you have 3!!!
2) Way too few workers - you don't need more with 3 cities, but you should build some to help you improve your new cities; around this time, I typically have 8-10 cities and 10+ workers
3) Army is mostly defensive; barbs cannot take your Archer-defended cities, but they sure can pillage them dry with Swords and Axes; build some of your own Axemen and Gallics (good at defending hills) and actively defend your tiles by destroying the barb units before they get to your cities
4) Run some Specialists (SE); your capital is size 14!!! You've actually done a good job growing, but running a few Specialists with Caste System would have helped - research Code of Laws asap and switch to it

I think the short term plan should be some major worker/settler builds to tame all that land around you followed by running a few Specialists everywhere; Code of Laws will also give you courthouses which can help reduce your city maintenance. After that, you can just take out Fred or do whatever you see fit. This situation is still very very winnable...

 

[Gumbolt]

As a thought. the majority of my production before 2000bc is workers, settlers and warriors. if rushing on higher levels maybe 2 cities and lots of axes.

On noble level you can rush with 4-5 warriors.

Its not unreasonable to have 8-12 cities by 1ad.

On higher levels people build the Pyramids and use the representation civic to run a specialist economy.

Your game has been hampered somewhat by your lack of chopping forest to speed up production too.

So workers/settlers early on. Warriors to guard settlers on the move.

Dont be afraid to whip your population. All those food resources soon replenish your population!!!

Chopping forest puts your workers to good use.

In terms of workers. maybe 1.5 per city early on. 1:1 later maybe?

 

[Mantic0re]

I didn't look at your save and can't really add much since I'm also a beginning Noble player but I did notice you mentioned barbarian problems.



Aside from on the expansion I've found I have less barbarian problems if I put a few units outside my borders to remove the fog of war. I still get barbs but I have a meaningful advanced notice. If my fogbuster unit is sufficiently strong the barbarian that spawns will stall away from your borders for a while before beginning an approach and then often beeline for your fortified unit. If all goes well the barbarian problem corrects itself.


If I'm really planning to warmonger I will want horses to pop 2-movement units from a city with barracks + stable. I will give a few of these Flanking 1 + Sentry so that they can see farther then use them as fogbusters.


Keep in mind as you expand to keep moving these units to maximize the area outside your borders that you can see. Don't forget about them. These units will eventually become cost prohibitive but hopefully at that point the fog is eliminated either with your border or the borders of your neighbor (target) civs. At that point these far-seeing fogbusters make great scouts to plan an attack.


Keep at it. You learn most from making and correcting mistakes. Advice is great but the actually experience is what you benefits you most and that comes with time.

Goodluck!

 

[Bleys]

These units will eventually become cost prohibitive but hopefully at that point the fog is eliminated either with your border or the borders of your neighbor (target) civs.

One of the biggest reasons I never build Scouts for fogbusting is that if I use regular units (Warriors/Archers) they can become garrisons for the city sites they are fogbusting. Every city needs at least one unit, and warriors are just fine for non-border cities. I have had warriors and archers as garrisons well past Assembly Line.

 

[Gooblah]

Well, I opened up your save with my rusty BTS skills, and I must say it was really fun. A few notes:

1) You're in Slavery. Use it. Vienne and Bibracte were high pop cities; in my first few turns I whipped out (and used overflow production to create) 3 Settlers and 5 Workers.
2) Dotmap. You have amazing land, and your culture goes over that of fat crosses.
3) Frederick has no metals. None. No Copper, no Iron. You have a bunch of bored troops and a high production center at Bibracte. Use it.
4) I teched Aesthetics-Sailing-Code of Laws, traded for Alphabet, and stole Metal Casting, Currency, and Feudalism. Just bump up the espionage slider for one turn to get an espionage lead on Frederick, and build some Spies. Send two to Dortmund, keep 'em there for a bit, then start stealing techs.
5) Barbarians: A major pain in the arse throughout the game, due to the sheer amount of land to the south. You have too many units in Bibracte and Vienna, so send some Archers south, keep 'em on hills, and watch barbs suicide and your Archers rack up Guerrilla promotions.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Ok, so, it's been a while since I played Civ IV. I know I'm a little rusty, but conceptually I think I get the basics (mostly). I also know one of my major weaknesses: I'm a sucky warmonger, and as we all know this game basically requires you to at the very least maintain a strong military presence, if not actively warmonger.

So, to try to train myself to be a better warmonger, I decided to play a game as Boudica. Random continents, balanced resources, random number of enemies. No tech brokering (but tech TRADING enabled), re-rolled random seed each time you load, and I forget the other options but nothing out of the ordinary, really, aside from that.

It's 340 AD and I'm getting my ass kicked on Noble. Now, as memory serves, Noble is the last level where the computer DOESN'T cheat. It's also the only level (I think) where the human player gets no bonuses.

So what the hell am I doing wrong? I mean, the way I see it, I'm doing everything I can to maximize my military presence (since Boudica heavily benefits from that), and I'm still sucking wind in terms of tech, power, money, etc.

To explain one move that you'll probably find controversial -- I built (well, mostly chopped) Stonehenge purely because it was an early way to expand culture quickly when I found cities. I knew I'd want to pop out to the fat cross quickly (Especially in my one southern city to get the only spawn of copper available in my area), so that's why I spent the time on that.

Other than that, I have no idea why I'm so far behind everyone else. Is it just bad luck in terms of placement? Am I being too conservative in my founding of cities? In the past when I've founded a lot of cities early on, I've ended up REALLY taking a hit tech-wise. I knew I couldn't get an early axe rush because of the crappy copper placement, so I'm hoping for cat spam on the Germans later on.

Meanwhile, I'm constantly beset by bastard barbarians, but at least THIS game I haven't gotten as many mining disasters (man you should've seen the last game -- I had no fewer than five mining disasters before 1000 AD).

Other than that, I'm stumped. Why is the computer able to beat me this easily? Oh, and one other thing -- this is playing on BTS 3.13. Anyway, here's the save. I eagerly await any tips.

All of this has probably been said already, but here we go:

1) You have only three cities, in 340 AD. I saw four other really good city sites that you should've gobbled up already, especially the city site east of Bibtrace that has TWO GOLD!!! Don't be afraid to tank your economy in the short term to get good city sites.

2) Only three workers. You want at least twice that, and if you had settled the other cities, you'd want even more. A minimum of eight, at least.

3) Bibtrace is unnecessarily large. With all that food, you should've been a lot, especially settlers. Allow the city to grow to size six while producing units, whip a settler, rinse and repeat. You should only allow Bibtrace to grow larger than that after the other cities have been settled.

4) You have no fogbusters out and about. They would've kept those barbs away from your borders, and earned some XP in the process.

5) You had a very bad tech order. You should've teched mining and bronzeworking first to whip and chop. After that would be agriculture and animal husbandry to get food, and then wheel to connect your resources. Pottery for the grannery to whip more efficiently, and then
Fishing and writing to get libraries and science specialists in those food reach cities to the north of bibtrace. Archery is a tech you want to save until the last minute, once you've found out that you don't have copper or horses nearby.

6) Given the charismatic trait, and mysticism, chopping stonehenge is a good idea. But wait until after your first city is settled.

7) I have no idea what your initial build order was, but your lack of workers and cities indicates it wasn't a good one. For a stonehenge chop with an aggressive leader, I'd go worker, worker, warrior warrior, settler, stonehenge, barracks, warrior, warrior, settler...