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, thefire 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 officiallyfudged 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.
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
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
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.