Why is my Military always so Weak???

[Ghpstage]

Thanks again for your advise it really helps.

I am not sure whether I am using BTS or Vanilla? How do I find this out?

Sorry for being an amateur but I have only just started this game. Now I am determined to come back and show you a better screen shot. lol

Noone starts out able to beat Deity! Everyone needs to start somewhere

'Vanilla' refers to just civ 4, 'BTS' refers to the expansion pack Beyond the sword (either a seperate CD or with the Civ 4 complete version), there is another expansion released between these two called 'Warlords'.

Good eye @ rolo for noticing the and outputs in your city screen screenshot. No output means its not BTS and the lack of decimals on the gold, science and maintenance values means its not Warlords, therefore it must be Vanilla

 

[cherrysnowdrop]

Are you playing with Beyond the Sword expansion pack, or Warlords?

I suck at military too, though I've been trying to get better. Though I'm a beginner at warfare, having spent my civ years with cultural victories maybe I could help a bit.

I begin with building units at the very beginning now. I don't think that you need granaries, libraries and monuments in general when you're planning a warlike game. I first build a worker, then a warrior or workboat while waiting to get to size two then try to chop a settler quickly. I think you should try some early rushes, they're awesome! If you're planning on one, then you should choose your civ and research at the beginning carefully, like getting your first settler right after bronze working so you can settle near it as soon as possible. I learned a lot from guides here!
My favourite is the Roman Praetorian rush, even though IW is expensive at the beginning it really pays off. Just get barracks, workers and settlers at the beginning and then get out as many units as you can. Don't wait too much and try not to attack creative civs without catapults, it gets ugly.

Slavery is great for getting units out fast, so bronze working-slavery-chopping and lovely Praetorians with City Raider promotions are a great combo for me at least.
Happiness seems to be an issue with you, so slavery would be great for whipping the unhappy population. Try to stop growth when the city's reached the happiness cap by changing the tiles the city works. I now work hills and mines when I want units fast and not farms, since the extra food doesn't really help. Cottages are great since maintenance soon gets to you.

After wiping out one civ with the early rush (Even I manage the early rush easily now, since the AI just have archers and maybe a few axemen if you're quick) things get much easier. I just continue with units and don't bother with other buildings, since you can easily demand the techs when you're so powerful. And if you have a city with lots of food working a few scientist specialists really help. When you get a scientist build an academy with him in your wealthiest city, so you can build lots of research. I don't care much after gunpowder anyway lol. Make sure to scout the territory first since I lost a lot of turns at first searching for the citiesi and possibly end up on the other side of the river. You need to get there as quickly as possible since the AI will whip units.

I hope this helps in some way! I'm relatively new to warmongering too, but I got pretty better in a quick time. Good luck and hope what I wrote makes sense

 

[s.bernbaum]

When I purchased civ4 I did not get a booklet with the disk so I can only learn from the game itself and on here. It is easy to feel stupid asking for help but I always think that if you don't ask then you will never know.

Go to the Firaxis CIV website. I don't recall exactly where but I found a downloadable pdf manual there last year.

 

[TheDS]

Well then my advice about espionage spending won't help. I can't remember if UBs were Warlords advances or not. If so, Russia doesn't get a Lab.

You're welcome, Amber. We're here to help everyone, and you're right, the only dumb question is the one that's unasked. (Then again, I usually took that as a challenge )

 

[Amber_10]

Thanks so much guys I appreciate the advice.

Today I purchased the warlords expansion cd, any tips?

 

[robbyextreme]

That is one enraged empire you're managing there.. o_o

 

[ElMikkino]

One other thing, I noticed that you don't have any map info except your empire. Sending Scouts and Explorers out is not mandatory, but it sure helps me in understanding the world, and if you have gotten Paper, you can ask the other civs for their maps, they'll usually want some amount of gold for it, but I usually just go for it if its not too insane. Again, this isn't really a mandatory thing to do, and it kinda wastes money, but I really feel that it helps me understand everything more, like why one civ is more powerful than another.

 

[EmperorValacar]

haha usually this is my bane as well. I'll build up my economy alittle to much and not really my army. When i do get declared war on i hope that i can pump out enough troops to stim back the assault. Im playing fall from heaven where the AI has a tendency to make megastacks. That first game hurt haha. Im getting better about it now just took a while to pay some attention to my military.And then in any RTS i always turtle <.<

 

[BaBaUTZ]

Thanks so much guys I appreciate the advice.

Today I purchased the warlords expansion cd, any tips?

First Tip:

Cancel ur purchase and get the second addon Beyond the Sword. It contains everything, Warlords has (except the scenarios). Beyond the Sword is the most advanced and polished version of the game, at least thats the opinion of the majority.

 

[Lone Wolf]

He is not playing Warlords, since the screens show rounding to the units and not to the second decimal like Warlords and BtS

The evidence is clear: he is playing vanilla

Why bother noticing all that? Russia being orange is evidence enough .

 

[r_rolo1]

Why bother noticing all that? Russia being orange is evidence enough .

He could had been playing a scenario from vanilla in BtS or Warlords ... or even simply a scenario with Russia as orange .Scenarios have the their own color scheme , that can be ( or not ) the default one...

 

[TheDS]

Thanks so much guys I appreciate the advice.

Today I purchased the warlords expansion cd, any tips?

If you haven't opened it yet, consider taking it back and get Beyond the Sword. Except for scenarios (the Barbarians one is cool), there's nothing in Warlords that isn't also in BtS, and most everyone here plays BtS.

Once you've got BtS, when you install it and run it, it should automatically update to the latest patch (3.19).

Once that's done, I'd suggest installing the Unofficial Patch, which was just recently updated. See the CivFanatics main page.

Lastly, I'd suggest installing either BUG or BAT. BUG = BtS Unaltered Gameplay, and I forget what BAT stands for, but it includes BUG plus a few handy mods like Improved AI. Nothing seriously game-changing, except the AI is much less stupid and turns get processed a little faster and the graphics look a little different. But if you don't want all that, BUG gives you a MUCH improved game interface and makes it a lot easier to play and keep track of information.

Even more lastly, once you've played a few times and gotten the hang of the game and you start having questions about other stuff, I'd recommend taking a gander at the BtS reference sheet linked to in my sig. It's purely informational, but it's got a ton of helpful charts and stats.

And, as always, we're all chomping at the bit to show the world what geniuses we are when it comes to this game, so ask what you want.