[BTS] What to do about big Civilizations? [Prince]

[SlimJim01]

Hi!
So, I've been playing Civ4 on Prince and, if I do say so myself, I think I'm getting of it!
I've won two games in a row and decided that I'll do one more game on Prince, and then try Monarch.

You can surmise that something went wrong. Namely, I got a taste of my own medicine. Let me elaborate.

Now I think I got the early game down to a (reasonable) T.
I whip and chop Settlers, and try to settle ~5 cities. After that, I make horse archers and take over my neighbor. Then, I wait for construction, build Catapults and Elephants, and get my biggest neighbor.
Now, this strategy works pretty well! I get a bunch of cities, bunch of land, and I'm best at everything, the end. But I noticed a pattern.

Every game there's a rival Civilization. One Civilization that has a very large number of cities.
That was never a real problem because by the time I meet them it's already too late for them.

In this game, I thought that rival was going to America. They were more advanced than anyone and had ~10 cities. And they were right next to me.
I decided to fix this before they become a problem.

'Bout an hour of elephants and catapults later, I've captured 5 cities, including their capital with two WW, and those that they had left weren't particularly good.
I was feeling very pleased with myself, and was looking forward to a golden age of peace. Then, the fire nation Native Americans attacked.

Yeah, turns I should have been watching the flank while Roosevelt was making all the noise. The moment I sued for peace, ol' Sitting Bull decided he wants some.
He immediately took Philadelphia with a big-fudge-off army (excuse my French). This looks pretty bad, but I still have my thrice-promoted Elephant army on the front! I might be able to delay him long enough to muster up some units. Now where did I put them? Ah, yes, Philadelphi—oh. Oh.
This is bad. But luckily, I have generously garrisoned the taken cities (a couple of horse archers and Catapults, 1 Spearmen, 1 Axemen, 1 Archer per City). Maybe, just maybe, this will slow him down enough for me to— is that two fudging armies.
Turns out, there are three big-fudge-off armies, and the Americans are also joining in. Lovely.

The situation is officially fudged untenable. There is no way to keep the cities I've taken. The best—no, the only thing I can do is staff as many Crossbowmen as is humanly possible in one of my choke point cities and pray that he breaks himself on them.
At worst, I'm looking at a complete loss of all cities that I've taken from the Americans. At best, I'm going to have to reconquer everything.

So, yeah. This game is most certainly lost. But I want to ask a couple of questions.

First off, how can I prevent a Civ from getting big? I invaded Roosevelt for this very reason. If not to completely destroy, at least to cripple them.
The obvious answer would be to be on good terms. But honestly, I don't think I'm capable of Diplomacy.
I do trades, but I never give into demands for Techs or Tributes, when they're unreasonable, or war. And everyone always hates me.
I have accepted that the only way I will have good relations is if the Civ is on the other side of the world, or they're so scared of me that they have no choice but to be nice.

Second, how tightly should I pack my cities? I know they should overlap, but how much?

I've included the save before I invaded, and a save after the Native Americans invaded.

Thanks in advance!

P.S. I'm using BUFFY. I think they should work fine with vanilla, but do tell me if you need a world builder save.

 

[Gumbolt]

Your early expansion is too slow. 1960bc for a second city is 400+ years late. Were you building scouts to look for huts at start? First build is a worker or workboat if you have fish and hammers. Maybe AH here first for pigs. Then whip workboats or chop?

No point keeping forest around capital. 60-90 hammers not used.

1200ad with financial leader you should really be looking at cuirs. You are not even close. Maybe earlier with your traits. Land around your capital is not great for a second city but you could of shared the pigs but I do like your 2nd city for the lake. Coastal tiles for financial are good.

HA rush seemed a bit late too. Likely knock on effect from slow first settler. 3 cities. Hook up horse and go. You had those gold resources too. Early second city with 1-2 gold would of been sweet for science. (Albeit slows growth badly.)

Only reason your facing 20-30 stacks is it's 1500ad. No reason you should not have rifles by this date. Phant rushes normally come just after 200ad pending on your tech speed.

The Ai is not that quick out the blocks on prince level. Second city maybe 2000bc for them. Where on my games I aim for 3-4 cities by 2000bc.

Fact the AI has a lot of cities is not an issue as long as you can compete on more advanced units or your warfare is better. You were aggressive just too slow date wise. Maybe 4-5 cities with phants could of been quicker? That or just spam HA and take down 2-3 AI. On prince level that should be possible.

Resource trading? AI have 3 happiness resources for trade. One AI will trade 6gpt for a resource. You have unhappy citizens. Simple wins!

Pottery earlier would of helped. Granary is the most important building for growth. Lack of cottages likely killed science unless you just ran sea tiles?

 

[Fippy]

Game isn't lost and can be fixed in no time
There's an enormous amount of potential you are not using by trading with AIs.
Selling resources for gpt (12 from Charlie i.e.), and most important trading techs.
CS which you are researching would have been available from Wang. Engineering & Feuda from several. 250g from Shaka, 180g from Kublai.

Your slider could be on 100% for a dozen turns, and you could tech towards Lib already (or something else).
Longbows are much better than xbows here cos SB doesn't have any melee in his stack..Feuda via trade should be yours already.

All your trouble comes from not managing the AIs
Play your game, not what they ask for. Open borders usually with everybody, trade for what you need.
Never agree to annoying requests (especially "stop trading with our worst enemy"), those don't result in plotting.
If you trade with everyone they will all like you more than if you trade with nobody, cos "our trade relations are fair" balances out with "you traded with our worst enemy".

 

[SlimJim01]

Your early expansion is too slow. 1960bc for a second city is 400+ years late. Were you building scouts to look for huts at start? First build is a worker or workboat if you have fish and hammers. Maybe AH here first for pigs. Then whip workboats or chop?

I always build a worker first and then either research a Tech for improving food resource, or if I have sea resources I go straight for Bronze Working. While that's happening, I build Warriors to scout and defend potential City sites. After that I produce settlers until all my cities sites are settled. Although I will admit, I probably should have gone for Pottery first, and then Archery second.

Pottery earlier would of helped. Granary is the most important building for growth. Lack of cottages likely killed science unless you just ran sea tiles?

The problem was, the two biggest cities were completely surrounded by forests! I didn't want to waste them on nothing! Or I'm I misunderstanding how forests work?

Game isn't lost and can be fixed in no time

So, if I got this right, you're saying I should trade for gold for Techs, mass produce Longbowmen, put them all in one city, get a peace deal, and then just beeline it for Rifling?

 

[Gumbolt]

Well you got pottery 750bc after HBR/hunting/archery/sailing and writing. No granary or cottages before 750bc is not a good thing. On Prince you would of had time to whip/chop out granaries. Some on here suggest you should have 10 cottages by 1000bc.You built 5 cottages in your capital and barely developed them. Albeit most non river. Still good for financial leaders.

I doubt the pigs or the horse would of had forest. Both likely started on a grassland. The plains hills would of been a 3H tile with forest.

So you either have 8 turn fishing boat (Assuming plains hill.). With a 10 turn worker after? So 3 turns lost (Compared to 15) with a big boost to commerce and no requirement to improve the fish for 4-5 turns.. 3 extra commerce a turn and 5F resource.
So about 12 turns for AH? 8T for mining? 10T for BW? If you get the fish sooner it makes 2nd/3rd tech quicker. 4f3c is still nice for the crabs.

So +5 food a turn fish. Pigs is +6 food a turn.

So BW vs AH. Not so simple. Of course you would not of known about the horse. I might of still taken AH. That or you go BW and chop out 2nd workboat. I would prefer the 6f resource.

At this point you should have a size 3 city pretty quickly and a 10 turn settler at size 3?

Then a question of Worker/worker vs worker/settler. On prince research time is much lower than immortal or deity. I think second workboat is nice for commerce. You definately wanted the second worker after the first settler to speed up forest chopping. Could you of got 2nd settler by 2600bc?

Starting save?

 

[Fippy]

So, if I got this right, you're saying I should trade for gold for Techs, mass produce Longbowmen, put them all in one city, get a peace deal, and then just beeline it for Rifling?

Maybe that works with longbows, retreat from a city you cannot hold and gather an army further behind.
But usually it's better to attack, your Elepult stack would have been good ofc. Anything with cats to soften large numbers.

You should start trading with..everything
Techs for techs, old techs for gold, resources for gold, open borders..
Literature, Aesthetics & Music are particularly good for that. Don't put good / bad badges on AIs, make every trade that helps. Trade with Shaka and trade with Gandhi if they have something (dunno if they actually are in your game..but you know what i mean).

 

[jnebbe]

I wanna know what happened to your stack of 42 units, could've wiped out washington completely and only lost a couple cats per city

 

[SlimJim01]

Starting save?

No, sorry, I forgot to make one. But I think I get what you're saying. I've been trying to follow your guidelines you wrote on my other post, but I don't think I've been following them well enough. I'll start a new game and post a save around 2000bc.

Spoiler Your Advice: :

Usually i am for 4 by 2000bc. Then keep expanding. At some point when I have pottery I start building cottages. Early on you want to chop heavily and improve your nearby resources. So food resources/chopping with roads and mining last. Add cottages once you get to about 1500/1000bc. Maybe before that pending how your game is going. You should be winning on Prince. You have a big advantage.

You should start trading with..everything

Will do. I, uh, might have forgotten that resources give happiness.

I wanna know what happened to your stack of 42 units, could've wiped out washington completely and only lost a couple cats per city

Well, I follow the advice from War Academy which is: 1 catapult for every 3 units in a city. I, of course, bombard the city beforehand to get the defenses as low as I can. I slowly started bleeding catapults, and at the end I had like 5 left. But, I because of that the vast majority of my Elephants survived! And then I put them in Philadelphia. And then they all got killed.

 

[lymond]

If you are still playing the game your start save should be in the autosave folder...unless you started a new game since

 

[SlimJim01]

If you are still playing the game your start save should be in the autosave folder...unless you started a new game since

Ah, so it is.
In that case, I'll restart, rather than start a new game (bit cheaty).

 

[SlimJim01]

Right, here's my 1360 BC save. I think I'm doing alright. I'll try to get Granaries for every city, and at least one worker per city, and then I'll start whipping and chopping Horse Archers.

 

[Gumbolt]

So 2nd city founded 2480bc. Third by 1960bc. That makes a huge difference. By 1960bc you are 1 city ahead of last time. I told you 2000bc was easily beatable. Note Aztecs still on 1 city. That is shocking even for prince.

Not sure about those 2 cottages or the roads. You are screaming for a 4th worker. Chops are more important at this stage. 2nd city needed those resources improved. So plan to have a worker to move to new cities once built if possible.

There is no rush to HA yet Aztecs still on 1 city. The hardest part here is only 8 on a large map so the AI will have a lot of land to expand into. You could even go elephants and let Aztecs clear some jungle for you.

The Hague is not great. Better to have grabbed the ivory site first.

Good to see granaries up in 1360bc. They make a huge difference.

Pointless having warriors in size 2 cities. Maybe 1 in capital at size 5/6. Rest should be fogbusting. Pretty sure you can still replay this and make improvements but granary and expansion wise much better.

 

[SlimJim01]

Pretty sure you can still replay this and make improvements but granary and expansion wise much better.

I did just that, and things are looking good! Waited until the elephants, so the Aztecs could actually develop. I'm on the fence on whether I should build a city on the Spice

Spoiler :

I wouldn't get to build a Plantation, but I would get a half decent city that overlaps.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think you lost some focus here. 12+ cottages built around capital and cow city. Almost none worked by the cities. Plains cottages are horrible. Lots of roads built and most not needed. 3 forts built for no reason. I guess they can be used to claim resources. I rarely build forts. On plus side you have 12 workers which is loads for 7 cities.

Running mines in a city is never great for a capital. If you want commerce run the cottages and grow the city. You don't have marble or stone for wonders. Wonder spamming is very weak on Civ 4.

Colloseums add little here too. If you want happiness you build mids or run HR civics and use units.

You face same issue this map. If you want to attack America you will upset them or a neighbour. The ai will get LB soon. You would need to whip a big army quickly as AI will spam spears to counter your phants.

That or you sit on the seven cities and start thinking golden ages.

Spice city big issue is lack of food. I guess with a border pop you could whip a workboat in 13 turns. I guess it does provide more happiness. Will be a weak city for a while.

 

[SlimJim01]

I think you lost some focus here. 12+ cottages built around capital and cow city. Almost none worked by the cities. Plains cottages are horrible. Lots of roads built and most not needed. 3 forts built for no reason. I guess they can be used to claim resources. I rarely build forts.

Ah, I assure you only started doing that after I have built everything important. What else was I supposed to do?
As for the forts, two words — Panama Canal. (Again, I had nothing to do).

Running mines in a city is never great for a capital.

Don't worry, I usually replace most mines with Windmills as soon as I get them.

You don't have marble or stone for wonders. Wonder spamming is very weak on Civ 4.

Funny story about that. So, I started building the Pyramids because I wanted fail-gold. Then I finished them. Same goes for all other wonders. (Well, maybe except Taj Mahal and Mausoleum of Maussollos. Those are good).

Spice city big issue is lack of food.

I could hook up some farms with irrigation. Could even get wet rice (for the other city).

 

[Gumbolt]

Will have a better look after work. I would expect most wonders will be easy to reach first on Prince. Ideally if going phants you would of gone maths before hbr route for better chops.

I would run research in cities if you lack good builds. 20-30 science a turn can make a big difference. Same for developed cottages. Maybe you built too many workers.

I suspect a few ha would of cleared Aztecs. Been a while since I tried prince. Mids is a good wonder so don't feel bad about that as long as you run rep for happiness.

 

[pigswill]

Not unfudgeable.
Played from your 1230 save. Went mach> eng> towards steel, picked up some tech trades, bulbed philosophy, had a GA. Capped America 1525 (just after Suly broke free) while SB was at war with GK. Now at war with SB/GK, wiped out their front line stacks. Looking ok but a definite grind to win.

 

[Gumbolt]

I keep meaning to give this a try but run out of time.

 

[Gumbolt]

Okay micro wasn't perfect but Aztecs down.
So workboat. Worker settler worker. Grew to size 4 for first settler. Tried to build more workers this game so settler arrived after 2000bc.
Settled almost same as you. Grabbed a city to work a few cottages near capital and to share pigs/gold.
Yet to settle cow city. The distant copper city is not something you would normally do on higher levels. 5-6 turns to reach it.

I need to whip some settlers/workers now. 9-10 cities by 1ad should be okay. Follow by 4-5 American cities assuming I don't get dogpiled.

Tech wise.
AH, mining, BW, TW, Pottery, writing, maths. hunting, masonry, construction sailing, alphabet. Should probably grab HBR soon. Left sailing too late for coastal trade routes. Ideally a exploring workboat too.

Might focus on economy for a bit as Americans are a long way away. Could trade for IW to Americans.

So 6 cities. He has a second city I will attack once size 2.
Catapult/axes were over kill. He had 2 archers defending capital. 4 HA would of taken it down.

Started roading a bit as the AI are so far away with large map.

 

[Gumbolt]

Reviewed my save.
No ai has Oracle yet. Wonder if I can sneak CS.
Located 2 ideal cities for settlers. Aztecs have a worker I can hopefully steal.
2 turns off calendar but I don't need it yet. I got 100-200 gold from an event on last save hence why I have so much gold on above save. That and capturing a capital with no buildings.

Could settle cow city next but happiness would really help here. Mids hmmm. I would want to chop Oracle in a way where I know I finish it in 1 turn. 3xchops. I have workers on the way.

600BC and the HRE lack agriculture. I can see why they give them this tech on higher levels. Aztec worker captured.

400BC and Civil Service taken from Oracle. Sweet!

Aztecs are gone and captured size one city. Spice city settled. Settled rice/iron city that can run 6 cottages. So why not? Hanging gardens would be nice but no stone. Same for Mids.

Building GLH slow time. Could use whip overflows to complete. Conf religion founded. Might adopt for happiness albeit the world would hate me.

My original stack heading to Americans. Will scout first.

300bc and at Americans borders. He has 2 lots of iron. My stack is relatively small only 10 or so units. 2 turns off HBR. Largest ai met has 5 cities.

175bc. Heading for Monarchy. Useful for happiness. Mids is just a dream at 500 hammers. 1 city captured and both irons taken out.

I have been whipping units near old Aztec capital. Capital szie 11 but not happy. I have Phants now but so far only faced archers.

100bc and Washington taken with 10 units. Sword and 2 archers defending. Bombarded down to about 5% and attacked with 3 pults. Axes finished off rest. Lost a catapult. I have about 7-8 more units enroute. Adding units to my capital for HR switch. Prolly should of gone Monarchy sooner.

No AI has over 6 cities. I have 12. Soon to be 13-14. Plus a new city near rice. America likely has 3 cities size 1-2. Maybe New York bigger? Boston was size 1. So its very unlikely he can build any kind of stack here. SB won't have anything that can take me on either.

So your game.
Think going for HBR on your game was a mistake. Just beeline the key techs and back fill. Absolutely no reason not to have 12 cities by 1ad here. You have 3x gold. Free civil service on Prince level with Oracle. Ai who come 1ad have 2-3 units a city with little or no stacks. Not seen a single barb unit all game. AI not even built mids yet. You could of gone HA for Aztecs. Going axes/pults is more efficient as you head deeper into tech tree. Archery is a dead end tech. Early maths for chops is a big win!! I guess you wanted phants but an earlier start to war is much better. Especially if the AI has 2 cities and only archers. Distance to America was biggest issue here.

If you want to learn the game don't play low sea level till you are comfortable with basic mechanics and how to play at start. Ai on Prince need an extra 30-40 turns to catch up with immortal Ai who start with 3-4 techs, a worker and several archers too.

Do I play this on? I would have to do something bad to lose this now. Main dangers could be the warmongers. Doubt anyone is close to LB's