Why do I always lose?

[nossr50]

Me and my friend play together on a team and I always lose, I have played over 10 games with him and have not come close to winning once, what the heck am I doing wrong? (I do mainly default settings huge map 16 AI opponents)

I play on noble difficulty skirmash maps, and my basic strategy is one of 2 things when I play

1) Build a settler or two then pump out workers, wait till gunpowder is researched to get aggressive

2) Pump out 10 archers and take towns from AI

Either strategy bites me in the dust later and suddenly the AI are 500+ points ahead of me, late into the game they can be 2000+ points ahead of me, it makes me go nuts trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

What kind of a strategy should I use? What kind of tips do you recommend? I'm not very good since I keep losing clearly, please help me out. And I lose with a team mate to add insult to injury.

 

[Head Serf]

How about building one worker and improving the land around your city as you slowly build settlers for new cities and archers to defend those cities? From there you can build buildings depending on what kind of city you want it to be. Around the classical age you could attack one of your AI neighbors with a combination of swords, axes, and maybe catapults.

 

[nossr50]

yeah I build workers before settlers

 

[jonta]

So many possible things y can do wrong
1/ do you build cottages to gain gold
2/ do y get any wonders
3/ do y change civic
4/ keep an eye on your tech rate, keep an eye on grafs/stats to find out where it hurts, is it lack off gold or lack off population

 

[Dan Quale]

DO NOT ATTACK WITH ARCHERS
That was the first red flag that I saw.
Archers are a purely defensive unit, use axemen for your initial attack and you will see far better results.
You haven't really described your strategy enough for me to give you any further imput.

 

[automator]

I see the big problem in #1. Building workers and settlers stops city growth. So if you're just "Build[ing] a settler or two then pump out workers, wait till gunpowder is researched to get aggressive," you're hampering your civ's advancement. Beginning game is a bit touchy, but if you hold off on building your first worker until city is pop size 2, that worker will be produced much more quickly. I usually go Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Settler ... that way I'm being a bit more efficient.

And Dan Quale is right -- taking cities with Archers is expensive. They're fine if the towns only have warriors defending and no culture (turns into about a 1:1 odds), but if they're defending with archers or have culture, you'll be tossing a dozen archers at the city just to take it.

 

[rabidveggie]

I go warrior
If pop still not at two second warrior
Aim for bronze working as early as possible
worker
chop worker
chop, chop, settler
barracks
settler, chop if possible
then go from there

Make sure you make only as many farms as you need, most should be cottages.
Don't attack with archers, instead go axes, or Praetorians if you happen to be Rome. You don't need an absurd amount of workers instead make a few early and add a couple more if you still have a lot of unworked tiles later. By Gunpowder you should have at least six cities, its also not the best age to be aggressive unless you are going cavalry. If you and your friend are playing on a team remember that you can double pump the same technology to speed it up. Hope that helps.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Axemen are one of the best early attack units

Just echoing what's already been said.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Me and my friend play together on a team and I always lose, I have played over 10 games with him and have not come close to winning once, what the heck am I doing wrong? (I do mainly default settings huge map 16 AI opponents)

I play on noble difficulty skirmash maps, and my basic strategy is one of 2 things when I play

1) Build a settler or two then pump out workers, wait till gunpowder is researched to get aggressive

2) Pump out 10 archers and take towns from AI

Either strategy bites me in the dust later and suddenly the AI are 500+ points ahead of me, late into the game they can be 2000+ points ahead of me, it makes me go nuts trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

What kind of a strategy should I use? What kind of tips do you recommend? I'm not very good since I keep losing clearly, please help me out. And I lose with a team mate to add insult to injury.

Since I'm not as good as Dan Quayle, I generally agree with advice you've been given, and I don't play on normal speed anyway, I'll take a different approach.

Often in life,it's easier to notice things when they go wrong and understand why we lose ( if only ....) than why we win. When we win we like to take credit for our good luck and our competitor's mistakes , and don't learn as much .What have you learned from your games so far ?

Another question is which techs do you prioritze?


Which civs and leaders do you play as?


Have you tried the Inca? The Quecha rush is very effective.


What types of victory have you tried for?



Answering these questions will help the others give you better advice.

 

[Tristan daCunha]

Make sure you make only as many farms as you need, most should be cottages.

Yes, gold = beakers. Anything which increases your gold per turn is also increasing your research. A good economy can give you a technology lead, and military edge, which is game-winning.

Other things to consider: locate your cities near high gold resources, such as gold or gems or dye etc. Or if you are on the coast consider building income generating great wonders such as Great Lighthouse and Temple of Artemis. Actually, those two wonders, combined with open borders, can really really jumpstart an economy. Or found a religion and build its great shrine.

With a lot of money coming in, you can afford to create more cities. I aim for about 70% research rate and expand until I have to drop to 60%. Remember, if you aren't growing you are getting smaller (relatively speaking).

Don't attack with archers, instead go axes, or Praetorians if you happen to be Rome.

Oh yes. Archers = bad attackers. I like to wait until I get engineering and my macemen can move quickly.

 

[Tristan daCunha]

Have you tried the Inca? The Quecha rush is very effective.

Or try a leader with the financial trait. This can really help your research!

 

[JesusOnEez]

I'll throw my oar in with an example of a game I'm playing at the moment. Note that I'm a Prince player but I'm playing a Noble game.

Up until recently my starting tactic has been to research all resource techs for my capital, then BW. I rarely MM'd the capital, and my build order was always;

Worker > Barracks > Archer > Archer > Settler > Worker > Archer > Settler > Worker.

This worked fine when I was playing Warlord level games, but in Noble and Prince I found myself getting beat to the best city spots so, I changed my tactics, and this is about the 3rd game I've tried it on, albeit circumstances where favourable.

More often than note, you capital is capable of producing a lot of food, whether that be through resources or farms. My capital had a few floodplains, cows and corn. Since floodplains give 3F, I decided Pottery was a priority, and Agriculture then Animal Husbandry. I started with Mining and BW was next.

I had discovered I was on an island with Hannibal as my only companion, nd in my experience he can spread like the plague, so I needed to get Settlers out fast.

Whilst researching the above my build order was;

Worker > Barracks > Warrior > Settler > Warrior > Settler

You can see this is going to get me Settlers quicker than my previous tactic. Also, Barracks is there for growth...whilst building barracks I'm working high food tiles at pop 2, then pop 3 will work a mine. The Barracks may or may not be built by the time pop 4 comes around, but if it does, I alternate max production for warriors and max food for settlers completely ignoring my research rate (although in this case I was working a cottaged floodplain, so my research rate was pretty good).

The primary aim for the two Settlers I'm building depend on the surroundings, it turns out that I can block Hannibal with one well placed city. So that's where the first Settler goes.

The second Settler would have gone to get bronze but the only supply was under Carthage. This made Iron a priority, but the second settler found a good gold city spot.

Note that in my initial new cities, I build Barracks > Archer/Warrior > Settler > Worker again MM the cities to alternate production and food.

This allows me to fill in the rest of the island fairly quickly before Hannibal can get Galleys around my borders. By this time I've researched IW and my food monster capital start whipping Praets (I was Augustus). Swords would have done the job almost as well.

Note that at this point I'm still not particularly concerned about research rate or health and happiness in my cities, but the Workers have been busy building the infrastructure for when I stop whipping and let cities grow.

150BC and I have taken all four of Hannibal's cities with Praets.

So, 150BC and I have 8 cities. I now go into peaceful expansion with a general beeline to Optics after getting currency for markets (forums in this case).

I've build no wonders apart from Chichen Itza (purely for GP points as I wanted the Confucian shrine). Yup, founded Confucianism as well...mostly wanted Courthouses.

So that's my general game plan for the BCs. Obviously it deviates when the need be, but as long as I can get settlers out fast and beat the AI to the best sites than you should be OK for an early war to take AI cities before some peaceful economic revival.

Don't be scared of the whip, happiness soon recovers especially as you start hooking up happy resources...let them grow into unhappiness and whip infrastructure buildings like courthouse or even theatres if you need a culture boost.

In summary, I don't particularly concentrate on my research rate, happiness or health until the AD's, but Workers are building the infrastructure in readiness.

Blimey, that was longer than I expected it to be.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

^ Thanky, Jesus. I'm having troulbes on Noble, that should come in handy I think I really should whip, I've never done it :O

Yes, I can't beat Noble I console myself with the fact that I've only had the game for a month, though.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

^ Thanky, Jesus. I'm having troulbes on Noble, that should come in handy I think I really should whip, I've never done it :O

Yes, I can't beat Noble I console myself with the fact that I've only had the game for a month, though.

Do it. Once you start, you won't be able to stop. To really see the power of the whip, play epic speed and if you can get your 2nd and 3rd cities with at least one good health resource, watch how quickly you can get the basic improvements there with the whip (granary, forge, lighthouse, courthouse). Whipping out a granary can actually speed up the growth of the city instead of slowing it down. There are food rich cities I've had where 100% of what was built included a whip. The only thing is to be very careful you don't end up whipping cities that are going to struggle to grow, unless it's a little town you're just gonna keep at size 1-2 and whip axes or workers or something. I'll whip my capital too, but usually only pretty early, especially on noble where there's a high enough health happy limit to support a nice size city fairly early. However, in the early to mid game where you start running into a happy cap the whip becomes a great way to use those otherwise useless unhappy guys.

I think getting a handle on whipping will take anyone who can crush warlord and is struggling with noble, to crushing noble and struggling with prince.

 

[JesusOnEez]

^ what he said.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I just started to play with whipping, bumped the difficulty back down to Warlords to try it.

Wow.

I absolutly love it! I was able to crush the Incas with a whipped up army of Axemen (the fact that I trapped him with one city because of a terrain bottle neck helped, too). It's awesome! <3's muh whipping!

 

[vale]

I just wanted to point out that an early barracks is unnecessary and is slowing down the rate with which you pump your key early units out. Your earliest units will farm their first two promotions off of animals.

Personally I prefer worker->warrior->warrior->settler in most cases although this is not set in stone by any means.

Early research priorities are Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working and the Wheel. Early aggression against a neighbor is nice but not necessary at noble (if you expand aggressively with well placed blocking cities, you can claim your chunk of the land without war).