G-Max
Deity
- Joined
- May 20, 2006
- Messages
- 2,556
Why Do I Suck So Bad at This Game?
- Thread starter txdave37
- Start date
Peregrine
The Swift
I also had several failed attempts at Noble, but can now beat that level consistently.
The most important advice; Read these forums, especially the sample games and the strategy subforum with the articles. Flexibility in playing the map and defeating AI armies is the key.
I will restart usually if at least 3 of these important initial aspects aren't favorable;
1.) Good land in the Bfc. Especially wealth/commerce production specials. Wine and Ivory are the best, imho. Bronze/iron and horses for warfare.
2.) Cash from huts. The more you can acquire in the exploration phase the later your tech slider will tank in early tech gain after REXing. W/the latest BTS patch, I can count on, usually, 600-700 gold from this method. There have been games where I ended the exploration process with a little over a thousand. However, the amount varies.
3.) Good land nearby. Food, bronze/iron, and rivers are good. If you start near santa's workshop, hence ice everwhere around you, restart.
4.) Techs from huts. If I pop half a dozen huts and get no techs, then the other three prior requirements better be there.
Regarding wonders; I ALWAYS build the GW very, very quickly. On huge continent maps, spawnbusting is too tricky/expensive for me to pursue. Whether or not it's necessarily cost-effective, I build it to save time and trouble. In the long term, I do believe that it IS cost-effective. Opinions differ, however. Like many others, at some point, I attempt to build the Oracle and use it to acquire Monarchy and immediately switch civics to Hereditary Rule. This allows for suppression of unhappiness w/military units, though it can become tricky if you whip quite a bit--might tie down a LOT of units. The upside to this is if you're DoWed, you can boost the culture slider to create a lot of (temporary) happiness and thus free up a great number of units for immediate use on the battlefield.
Things I've found useful, but are iffy;
If your workers have maximized the special tiles, and there are plenty of cottages, farms, and mines, have them build border forts, placing a unit in each, preferably with a 2 or 3 tile spacing between. Time-consuming, true, but a surprise DoW will hit one of these first, rather than marching on a city, thus giving you time to mass in response. Ideally, and in special circumstances, you may be able to actually mass in one of the forts and hold the enemy SoD right there.
If feasible, I go for monotheism early and found Judaism, then open the borders to every AI that will do so. All it takes is one trade route to a foreign city and an AI with no religion yet will acquire it and then spread it. Won't cost you anything, and, if/when you pop a GreatProphet, build the shrine. This boosts economy. I have seen foreign cities acquiring the faith well into the industrial age with this tactic, and every city to which it spreads boosts the shrine income.
If there are dangerous AIs near you, or even somewhere on your continent, watch carefully for a diplomatic opportunity to bribe another AI into DoWing them. Once they're at war, they're not eyeing you. Give them whatever they want, if reasonable to do so, as the worth of this tactic is game-long. Sometimes, you can ask for a DoW and offer nothing--just ask, and they will do it "for a friend." Ragnar is bad, so is Shaka, Ceasar, Monty, and Peter. Opinions about AI leaders differ, however. My own experiences may not be typical.
Luck. That's important too. Good luck.
The most important advice; Read these forums, especially the sample games and the strategy subforum with the articles. Flexibility in playing the map and defeating AI armies is the key.
I will restart usually if at least 3 of these important initial aspects aren't favorable;
1.) Good land in the Bfc. Especially wealth/commerce production specials. Wine and Ivory are the best, imho. Bronze/iron and horses for warfare.
2.) Cash from huts. The more you can acquire in the exploration phase the later your tech slider will tank in early tech gain after REXing. W/the latest BTS patch, I can count on, usually, 600-700 gold from this method. There have been games where I ended the exploration process with a little over a thousand. However, the amount varies.
3.) Good land nearby. Food, bronze/iron, and rivers are good. If you start near santa's workshop, hence ice everwhere around you, restart.
4.) Techs from huts. If I pop half a dozen huts and get no techs, then the other three prior requirements better be there.
Regarding wonders; I ALWAYS build the GW very, very quickly. On huge continent maps, spawnbusting is too tricky/expensive for me to pursue. Whether or not it's necessarily cost-effective, I build it to save time and trouble. In the long term, I do believe that it IS cost-effective. Opinions differ, however. Like many others, at some point, I attempt to build the Oracle and use it to acquire Monarchy and immediately switch civics to Hereditary Rule. This allows for suppression of unhappiness w/military units, though it can become tricky if you whip quite a bit--might tie down a LOT of units. The upside to this is if you're DoWed, you can boost the culture slider to create a lot of (temporary) happiness and thus free up a great number of units for immediate use on the battlefield.
Things I've found useful, but are iffy;
If your workers have maximized the special tiles, and there are plenty of cottages, farms, and mines, have them build border forts, placing a unit in each, preferably with a 2 or 3 tile spacing between. Time-consuming, true, but a surprise DoW will hit one of these first, rather than marching on a city, thus giving you time to mass in response. Ideally, and in special circumstances, you may be able to actually mass in one of the forts and hold the enemy SoD right there.
If feasible, I go for monotheism early and found Judaism, then open the borders to every AI that will do so. All it takes is one trade route to a foreign city and an AI with no religion yet will acquire it and then spread it. Won't cost you anything, and, if/when you pop a GreatProphet, build the shrine. This boosts economy. I have seen foreign cities acquiring the faith well into the industrial age with this tactic, and every city to which it spreads boosts the shrine income.
If there are dangerous AIs near you, or even somewhere on your continent, watch carefully for a diplomatic opportunity to bribe another AI into DoWing them. Once they're at war, they're not eyeing you. Give them whatever they want, if reasonable to do so, as the worth of this tactic is game-long. Sometimes, you can ask for a DoW and offer nothing--just ask, and they will do it "for a friend." Ragnar is bad, so is Shaka, Ceasar, Monty, and Peter. Opinions about AI leaders differ, however. My own experiences may not be typical.
Luck. That's important too. Good luck.
Note that none of what Peregrine is talking about is necessary or even necessarily optimal in all situations. I play without huts, practically never go for the Great Wall, only look for decent food in my starting city's BFC, and don't really worry about what other land is in the area. I've only recently started going for the Oracle, I don't bother founding religions, and if I get a Great Prophet I usually settle it in my to-be Wall Street city for the immediate +5
/+2
or burn it on a golden age. And this is all on Monarch.
The big thing IMO is the reliance on huts. Huts get less and less generous as you go up in difficulty; I turned them off after getting angry villagers (spawns several barbarian units) in three games in a row after moving up to Monarch. Getting several hundred gold from huts means you really don't have to worry about crashing your economy, since that's a big enough buffer to get you through to at least one of the economy-fixing techs (Code of Laws, Currency, Monarchy). Getting techs, of course, is just ridiculously useful. There's a reason why the Oracle and Liberalism are so popular; they give free techs when you get them. The investment needed to get free techs from huts is far lower, which makes them much more imbalancing even though you don't get to choose which tech you get.
/+2 or burn it on a golden age. And this is all on Monarch. The big thing IMO is the reliance on huts. Huts get less and less generous as you go up in difficulty; I turned them off after getting angry villagers (spawns several barbarian units) in three games in a row after moving up to Monarch. Getting several hundred gold from huts means you really don't have to worry about crashing your economy, since that's a big enough buffer to get you through to at least one of the economy-fixing techs (Code of Laws, Currency, Monarchy). Getting techs, of course, is just ridiculously useful. There's a reason why the Oracle and Liberalism are so popular; they give free techs when you get them. The investment needed to get free techs from huts is far lower, which makes them much more imbalancing even though you don't get to choose which tech you get.
Tristan_C
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2006
- Messages
- 1,730
I turn off the huts and random events. While I don't mind flavor, they have a drastic impact. Most serious games on the forum eschew them because random free techs, gold, and barbs in different iterations of the same game map distort the skill of the players.
It doesn't sound like you win consistently on noble peregrine, but rather that you win consistently on the games you declared to be good.
You cant restart a bad start and then declare that game a win or even that it didnt count.I think the definition of a good player is making the best of what you got, that means to make a crappy land work for you and to work with it until you can get better land.
The only good land you should worry about is your first city, which you dont have much control of what you get for all other cities, you almost always choose where to put them and if you are gonna put them in bad land then you cant really blame the game for giving you bad land.
Relying on huts is a bad idea, many players play with huts turned off because huts can unbalance the game rather easily.You get 2 settlers from huts or 1 great tech or even a good amount of money and your gonna be hard to stop, especially if your opponents were unluck enough to get barb spawn on their huts.Dont rely on huts for anything, if you get stuff then be happy you get them , but huts should never imo be a reason for you choosing to lose a game.
The GW is a pretty bad wonder in my opinion, the only real thing the GW saves you is time, the trouble is much easier solved by using those hammers on units which can defend your cities/workers/settlers/improvements, since you are gonna spend those hammers on those units ANYWAYS you might as well not split the hammers between the wall and the units.The wall also dramaticly slows you down from getting free exp and gives you GPP that at that point of the game isn't that useful I think.The only time I would consider going for the GW is when i have stone nearby, but even then its a low proirity since I would have to get masonry to work the stone, at least i could get the pyramides then, but even with the pyramides its still a iffy choice.
If you have worker turns to use to build forts then your doing something wrong, simply making more units has the same effect and doesn't tie your workers up on stuff that might not even be used.
To OP:
You seem disappionted with 10 cities, 10 cities by the time you get boxed in isn't that bad.If you need more cities and you are boxed in you just make units and take cities from the people that boxed you in, its not that hard.Actually doing it might not be easy, but if you need more land and you cant get more you just take from your neighbours.
I dont think its possible to be able to be good at everything, you have to make goals for your civ and try to reach those goals, if your gonna make units then that would mean that your either planning for war in the near future or want to win by war.If you are working for war then it should be no surprise that your culture wont be the best.Building units shouldn't really affect your tech rate, not unless you are trying to do too much at the same time like massive waring, the only thing i can really think of which relates to units that could slow your tech rate down is being at war a lot.If you want to be at war a lot then a good thing to try is to be at war then every now and then get peace and get some techs from the civ you were attacking, sure it will hurt you diplomaticly to declare war on them each time and maybe also with a few of their friends but hey at least you get someting for your trouble.Also dont keep all the cities you conquer from your enemies that can be a very fast way to kill your economy
You should not focus on making wonders, wonders is a easy way to fall behind in the game, you should only try to get a few wonders.Do not try to get all or most of the wonders only the once that will actually help you.I personally like the Hanging Gardens +1 free pop in each city is very nice and a great engineer can also pretty handy.However start a game and focus on going for it i play the game and the map and if im lucky enough to have stone nearby and I have a place that can make it at a decent rate and without stopping or slowing down too much the rest of my plans then I might try to get it.In most games I dont try for it.
It sounds like you aren't putting down enough cottages, 100% of 10 is 10 but 100% of 100 is 100 meaning it doesnt matter what your slider is set at if you dont have commerce to power your teching.Put cottages on grasslands and on floodplains, if your city is working grassland tiles or floodplanes tiles and they dont have a cottage on them, that is a lot of commerce unused.
Numbers isn't everything in a civ 4 war, the type of units you are using is also important that means that in times of peace you scout around your future enemy cities and see what they have and you make your army accordingly to take him on and as was posted before siege is very important.
Post a save, the good people of these forums can help you a huge deal more if they were able to disect a save and tell you where you went wrong or were the game was lost before it was actually lost.
You cant restart a bad start and then declare that game a win or even that it didnt count.I think the definition of a good player is making the best of what you got, that means to make a crappy land work for you and to work with it until you can get better land.
The only good land you should worry about is your first city, which you dont have much control of what you get for all other cities, you almost always choose where to put them and if you are gonna put them in bad land then you cant really blame the game for giving you bad land.
Relying on huts is a bad idea, many players play with huts turned off because huts can unbalance the game rather easily.You get 2 settlers from huts or 1 great tech or even a good amount of money and your gonna be hard to stop, especially if your opponents were unluck enough to get barb spawn on their huts.Dont rely on huts for anything, if you get stuff then be happy you get them , but huts should never imo be a reason for you choosing to lose a game.
The GW is a pretty bad wonder in my opinion, the only real thing the GW saves you is time, the trouble is much easier solved by using those hammers on units which can defend your cities/workers/settlers/improvements, since you are gonna spend those hammers on those units ANYWAYS you might as well not split the hammers between the wall and the units.The wall also dramaticly slows you down from getting free exp and gives you GPP that at that point of the game isn't that useful I think.The only time I would consider going for the GW is when i have stone nearby, but even then its a low proirity since I would have to get masonry to work the stone, at least i could get the pyramides then, but even with the pyramides its still a iffy choice.
If you have worker turns to use to build forts then your doing something wrong, simply making more units has the same effect and doesn't tie your workers up on stuff that might not even be used.
To OP:
You seem disappionted with 10 cities, 10 cities by the time you get boxed in isn't that bad.If you need more cities and you are boxed in you just make units and take cities from the people that boxed you in, its not that hard.Actually doing it might not be easy, but if you need more land and you cant get more you just take from your neighbours.
I dont think its possible to be able to be good at everything, you have to make goals for your civ and try to reach those goals, if your gonna make units then that would mean that your either planning for war in the near future or want to win by war.If you are working for war then it should be no surprise that your culture wont be the best.Building units shouldn't really affect your tech rate, not unless you are trying to do too much at the same time like massive waring, the only thing i can really think of which relates to units that could slow your tech rate down is being at war a lot.If you want to be at war a lot then a good thing to try is to be at war then every now and then get peace and get some techs from the civ you were attacking, sure it will hurt you diplomaticly to declare war on them each time and maybe also with a few of their friends but hey at least you get someting for your trouble.Also dont keep all the cities you conquer from your enemies that can be a very fast way to kill your economy
You should not focus on making wonders, wonders is a easy way to fall behind in the game, you should only try to get a few wonders.Do not try to get all or most of the wonders only the once that will actually help you.I personally like the Hanging Gardens +1 free pop in each city is very nice and a great engineer can also pretty handy.However start a game and focus on going for it i play the game and the map and if im lucky enough to have stone nearby and I have a place that can make it at a decent rate and without stopping or slowing down too much the rest of my plans then I might try to get it.In most games I dont try for it.
It sounds like you aren't putting down enough cottages, 100% of 10 is 10 but 100% of 100 is 100 meaning it doesnt matter what your slider is set at if you dont have commerce to power your teching.Put cottages on grasslands and on floodplains, if your city is working grassland tiles or floodplanes tiles and they dont have a cottage on them, that is a lot of commerce unused.
Numbers isn't everything in a civ 4 war, the type of units you are using is also important that means that in times of peace you scout around your future enemy cities and see what they have and you make your army accordingly to take him on and as was posted before siege is very important.
Post a save, the good people of these forums can help you a huge deal more if they were able to disect a save and tell you where you went wrong or were the game was lost before it was actually lost.
Having science at 100% doesn't mean you will get a tech lead. You use 100% of your commerce to go to research, but if you have low commerce you will get far behind to someone who, let's say, has the slider at 60% but he is generating much more commerce than you.
Build cottages man, they are good for you.
Tristan_C
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2006
- Messages
- 1,730
A niche wonder, definitely. Has some applications in monarch/emp/imm that can be handy. In a sparse map, mara/epic with raging barbs, it can be cheaper than building piles of units that will never see combat with a rival. It's also pretty much a must-have for an espionage economy. Imperialistic leaders can stack it with constant defensive warfare to farm up a bunch of GG's. Am I missing anything? I'd still hardly consider it without stone.
revengeofmakno
Eclectic Enigma
Derakon's suggestions (copied below) are a solid foundation. Try them out with the leader you had the best suggest with to this point. Compare the results. If you still get hammered at that level, then determine exactly when you fall behind.
Also, Keep at track as to who has what techs. If you are not tech trading or only doing at bit and others are suddenly gaining lots of techs, it is from them trading with eachother and not you. You will fall fatally behind sooner or later when that is happening. Personally, I found tech trading and some aspects of diplomacy the most challenging parts of the game to beat.
Also, Keep at track as to who has what techs. If you are not tech trading or only doing at bit and others are suddenly gaining lots of techs, it is from them trading with eachother and not you. You will fall fatally behind sooner or later when that is happening. Personally, I found tech trading and some aspects of diplomacy the most challenging parts of the game to beat.
* Only build farms on crop tiles (corn, wheat, etc.). Only build pastures on animal tiles. Only build cottages on every grassland and floodplains you see. Only build mines on hills.
* Don't build a library in a city unless itsoutput is at least 10.
* Don't build a market, bank, or grocer in a city unless its
* Don't build wonders except for the Great Library, Taj Mahal, Kremlin, Apollo Program, and Manhattan Project.
Any time you have a city that has nothing to build according to these rules, have it build a military unit instead. Alternate between building one of your best siege unit (catapults => trebuchets => cannons => artillery) and one of a standard military unit (chariot/axeman => maceman => rifleman => infantry). Give siege units the City Raider and Accuracy promotions (ignore Barrage). Once you have at least 15 units, muster them on the border of your nearest neighbor and declare war on them. Move your stack up to a city. Hit the Bombard button until the defenses are at 0%. Wait to the end of the turn so your siege can move again. Have your siege attack the city normally. Some of them will likely die (at least until you get cannons); this is normal. They're weakening all of the defenders in the process. Once the siege has all attacked, send your normal units in.
Once your siege is too weak to keep going, extort peace from your neighbor. Start the cycle over again.
These rules aren't ideal for every situation, but they should be adequate to get you through Noble. The important things to realize are:
* Research comes from commerce, which largely comes from cottages. Therefore, more cottages rarely hurts.
* Wonders are a distraction. You don't need them. You're often better off letting the AI build the wonder and then taking the city it's in by force.
* War depends heavily on a) siege, and b) overwhelming force.
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