Working Warlord

[Doomspark]

I'm going to start my first game as Warlord this evening. In general, I play at a given difficulty level until I can win consistently no matter what leader or civilization I'm using. On Settler and Chieftain, I've been a very peaceful guy, content to trade with my neighbors most of the time, and only go to war when forced into it. I suspect that this will have to change at some point.

I've always automated my workers. Again, this is something that will have to change. I like to think that I'm better than the computer at picking city sites, but I probably have a great deal to learn in this regard as well.

I play with unrestricted leaders as a rule, although sometimes I'll pick a particular combination to try.

So I'm looking for some good basic advice on upgrading my game.

 

[lymond]

Post your game here when you play and get advice as you play along....ideally short turnsets

Automating workers is one of the worst things you can do. Manage your workers closely, especially in the early game which is so important.

Unrestricted can be fun, by I suggest playing with the normal leaders/civs if you are learning game, although it really is not a big deal.

Basic advice for starters is to build a worker first (sometimes coastal starts or leaders with bad starting techs might require a different build order). Improve food first always and grow. Build first settler at size 3 or 4 and keep a rate of 1.5 workers per city. Learn to use slavery.

We can help more if we see you game.

Make sure you read Sis's guide (link below), if you have not for more basics :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

 

[damerell]

I'm going to start my first game as Warlord this evening. In general, I play at a given difficulty level until I can win consistently no matter what leader or civilization I'm using. On Settler and Chieftain, I've been a very peaceful guy, content to trade with my neighbors most of the time, and only go to war when forced into it. I suspect that this will have to change at some point.

True; but perhaps not between Chieftain and Warlord. I gather on the higher difficulties (somewhere above Noble), it becomes hard to win without taking an AI's territory near the start of the game; but that's not the issue on Warlord, where you still have some game mechanical advantages over the AI.

However, the AI likes you less on Warlord, and is more likely to DoW when it does (on the three difficulties below Noble, there's a 25/50/75% chance that a war plan against you is simply abandoned); so it's not that you need start wars, but you must expect war to come to you - where on Settler you might not be entirely surprised to win without ever going to war.

(That said, of course, if you do have a tech lead, it never hurts to give your closest rival a good kicking. But it's not necessary.)

Beyond that, you seem already to know what your biggest problem is; automating workers.

 

[spaced]

I used to be very peaceful when I first started out, never declaring war unless the AI declared on me (partly because I actually felt bad declaring war on someone just because I wanted their land - heh). But being a warmonger can really pay off, especially if you can grab a nice chunk of land in the early part of the game.

Expanding quickly may tank your economy temporarily, but gaining all that land with plenty of time to improve it really helps in the long run. Adding "more territory and cities" to the long list of advantages you already enjoy over the AI on lower difficulties can make for some pretty hilarious military/tech advantages in the mid to late game.

 

[Doomspark]

Post your game here when you play and get advice as you play along....ideally short turnsets

Automating workers is one of the worst things you can do. Manage your workers closely, especially in the early game which is so important.

Unrestricted can be fun, by I suggest playing with the normal leaders/civs if you are learning game, although it really is not a big deal.

Basic advice for starters is to build a worker first (sometimes coastal starts or leaders with bad starting techs might require a different build order). Improve food first always and grow. Build first settler at size 3 or 4 and keep a rate of 1.5 workers per city. Learn to use slavery.

We can help more if we see you game.

Make sure you read Sis's guide (link below), if you have not for more basics :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

Please define "turnsets". I'm not familiar with that term.

Thank you for the link. I'll take a look at it.

 

[Nydaeli]

You don't have to go to war early to succeed. Try to expand to 6 cities peacefully (the number needed for Oxford University on Standard size), then tech to Liberalism. After that, you can go to war with something like Cavalry/Cuirassiers or Rifles/Cannons.

As for the workers, definitely turn off automation. Micromanaging them takes a while to get used to, but it's very rewarding once you learn how to do it. The same goes for cities.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I believe what he means by trunsets is play for a few turns like 10 or 20 or so (assuming normal speed) then post a save to get some advice. Then after reading suggestions play some more turns then post again--etc etc.

Kaytie

 

[Doomspark]

So I'm playing the Dutch as William of Orange. Huge fractal map with balanced resources. Here was the start:

Spoiler :

I decided to grab the hut with the warrior before deciding what to do with my settler:

Spoiler :

A map! That's useful! Lots of food, and lots of hills. Good chances for nearby bronze. I decided to settle right there. After some thought I chose to build a worker first. By the time the worker was done, I'd researched mining and was mostly done with bronze-working. I built a farm on the corn north of the city, and then a mine. I build a warrior to garrison the city. I probably should have built a second worker at this point, but I decided to build a granary instead. I also converted to slavery when BW finished.

While all this was going on, I was exploring with the warrior. Got the Woodsman 1 and 2 promotions from one hut, and some gold from another.

No bronze in all my lovely hills, so I went for pottery and followed that with iron-working. Got Animal Husbandry from a hut. Chopped the forest directly east of Amsterdam to speed up the granary, and began on a cottage.

So Iron-Working just completed, and my warrior has just found lots of useful resources. My granary is done and I'm building a settler. After the settler, I plan to build 2 more workers. As I said, I probably should have built one earlier.

Spoiler :

Where to put my next city?

I've been tasked to build lots of chariots also. If I want to complete that quest, I will have to go after the horses.

All advice appreciated.

 

[lymond]

Few points:

1) Post a save with each report and a start save

2) Don't pop huts before settling your cap. You miss the opportunity to get free techs

3) The first move of the warrior/scout is to move strategically to a spot that reveals more of the potential BFC to reveal land and resources. This move allows you to further analyze a possible settler move. In this case SIP is best, but you should have moved your warrior 1NE which would have revealed the corn. This can be very important when you have questionable starting positions.

4) Granted this is Warlord level (forget what free techs you get at this level..maybe the wheel). BW is a good play. With BW you can chop forests. After getting up the corn and a mine (consider mining the sheep hill by the way if you don't go AH asap), I would start chopping. Chop a WB for the fish, chop another worker and settler. However, do not beeline Iron Working like you did unless you have tons of jungle with gems surrounding your empire or a good UU. IW is an AI priority tech that you can often just trade for later. This is very important as you move up levels as your tech path had to get more focused.

5) Start building your first settler at size 3 or 4

6) Don't automate workers. I expect you are doing this which is why you have roads already instead of more improvements and chopping. You will road to your new city for the trade route, but you need to get more workers and settlers out first.

Overall, we can give more advice on settling pattern if we have a save or you provide more pics that allow us to see all the land. Save is better.

Obviously an interesting grouping of resources to the NW. Oddly with no hills or rivers. I would want that corn in the mix.

Keep in mind that once you get Civil Service you can chain irrigate land. This will boost dry food resources like that corn to the west. The corn near Amsterdam is next to a river so it will be automatically boosted 1F at CS. You can build farms to the corn in the east to irrigate it.

FOOD FOOD FOOD. Food is production. And don't forget that workers and settlers are built with food. If you had a WB on that Fish you will produce them faster. Food is also important for fast growth and whipping.

I don't play with events/huts. Many don't, so the chariot quest is meaningless to me. HOwever, if there is a nearby AI - doesn't appear so - you could rush them with chariots and fulfill the quest without thinking about it. Otherwise, the last thing you should be worried about while learning the game is fulfilling quest. Focus on expansion, worker management and economy.

My tech path here with AG/FISH start (not sure of Warlord freebies) is BW>TW (if not free)>POT>Writing>Sailing. Build Great Lighthouse.

You may be isolated which poses it's own issues. We can deal with that though if it turns out to be the case.

Note: New players seem to get the wild idea that bigger is better. Huge Fractal maps can be extremely imbalanced. The AI can get lots of land which leads to runaways. I recommend standard settings for learning the game, and then move to larger maps as you see fit.

Edit: Note2: If playing a shadow game here, like I said post saves with your reports. Get advice before you play your turnset and play shorter set...say 20 to 25 turns

 

[damerell]

Also, work boats. Work boats mean food, and food means regular whipping.

 

[vandermerwe]

So I'm playing the Dutch as William of Orange. Huge fractal map with balanced resources.

Balanced resources IIRC basically gives you everything within a reasonable distance of your capital. Perhaps not the best script to learn city placement etc. But good for growth, production and getting a pretty solid empire to manage.

I decided to grab the hut with the warrior before deciding what to do with my settler:

Fine. But just as a tip - it's better to grab huts with a border expansion (which you couldn't do here without moving the settler). More chance of getting free tech (or a settler or worker), especially on lower levels.

A map! That's useful! Lots of food, and lots of hills. Good chances for nearby bronze. I decided to settle right there. After some thought I chose to build a worker first. By the time the worker was done, I'd researched mining and was mostly done with bronze-working. I built a farm on the corn north of the city, and then a mine. I build a warrior to garrison the city. I probably should have built a second worker at this point, but I decided to build a granary instead. I also converted to slavery when BW finished.

Having got the map I might have been tempted to move 1NW and settle there. Would give you wet corn & crab straightaway, and a second hut from the first border pop. That said, Willem's CRE trait will expand your borders quickly, so no big deal on the corn.

While all this was going on, I was exploring with the warrior. Got the Woodsman 1 and 2 promotions from one hut, and some gold from another.

Good choice of promotions - the best for any scouting unit. Try to move your warrior through forest and jungle as much as possible - with Woodsman II they move quicker and are pretty unbeatable there by animals or early barbs.

No bronze in all my lovely hills, so I went for pottery and followed that with iron-working. Got Animal Husbandry from a hut. Chopped the forest directly east of Amsterdam to speed up the granary, and began on a cottage.

Would have been worth researching animal husbandry yourself to hook up those sheep E of your capital, and pasturing the sheep before building a cottage. Always (or almost always) improve resources before ordinary tiles. Similarly, you need a couple of workboats for the fish and crab soon.

I wouldn't have used chops on a granary myself. Granaries are strong, for sure, esp. in the early game if you run slavery and whip a lot (which you should). But bear in mind that chopping gets 1/3 fewer hammers until you get Mathematics. So before that I'd try to only use up forests on really essential things - settler for 2nd city or early wonder (Oracle / Pyramids / Stonehenge / Great Wall). Amsterdam isn't growing now as it's building a settler - but it's already well outgrown the number of improved tiles it can work, and the granary only makes that worse.

So Iron-Working just completed, and my warrior has just found lots of useful resources. My granary is done and I'm building a settler. After the settler, I plan to build 2 more workers. As I said, I probably should have built one earlier.

Where to put my next city?

Using this map script it's almost too easy as I said. Resources are everywhere and the temptation is just to settle in the middle of them. The problem (so far as you can see) is fresh water. There's a spot 2SE of where your warrior is in the last screenshot that could have iron, copper and horse straightaway - but no food and no prospect of farms before Civil Service (so it would struggle to have enough food to work all of those resurces). 1S of the copper or (overlapping with Amsterdam) 2S of the iron look decent though. Also - this is a guess but I think I see tundra at the bottom of the screen. That means you're at the southern end of the world, and settling anywhere roughly to your N is more likely to be in the direction of the AI, which is an advantage both for trade and for preventing them from expanding.

I've been tasked to build lots of chariots also. If I want to complete that quest, I will have to go after the horses.

All advice appreciated.

You should go after the horses anyway sometime soon; it'd just be easier if there were some food or water up that way. But be wary of quests - they can easily distract you in return for only a modest gain. If you want to / need to rush a neighbouring AI, then fair enough, chariots are a good choice. But don't go building them just for the sake of completing the quest.

EDIT: Lymond beat me to saying a lot of this. Sorry for the repetition.

 

[Doomspark]

General request - PLEASE explain abbreviations the first time you use them so I'm not left guessing what you mean.

@lymond:
#1 - I'm interpreting this to mean "Save the game right after you start, and post it. Also post a save game every time you post another report of progress." I don't have a starting save from this game, but I did save it at the point where I took the 3rd screenshot above.

#2 - Didn't think about the chance of free techs. Noted.

#3 - Noted.

#4 - Free techs? Elaborate, please.

#5 - Noted.

#6 - My apparently flawed understanding of the game is that resources need to be connected by road or river to a city in order for the city to get the benefit of that resource. My workers are not automated; they're been given faulty instructions.

@vandermerwe:
I chose balanced resources for my first game on this level as I figured that I have plenty of other things to learn. That's useful information about the huts. Do scouts also have a better chance of tech/settler/worker?

Being creative, as you say, I'm figuring that my city borders are going to pop quickly.
======================================

It sounds like I may do better to start this over completely, and post more saves and screenshots.

 

[Ghpstage]

#1 - I'm interpreting this to mean "Save the game right after you start, and post it. Also post a save game every time you post another report of progress." I don't have a starting save from this game, but I did save it at the point where I took the 3rd screenshot above.

If you haven't already started a new game since this one, then the 4000BC autosave the game makes itself should still exist for this map.

#4 - Free techs? Elaborate, please.

Ordinarily you would start with just two techs, the ones specific to your civ (Agriculture and Fishing for the Dutch), but on levels below noble you start with certain techs guaranteed even if your civ wouldn't have them otherwise. On Warlord it seems that guaranteed tech is the Wheel, which is why you started with that too.

#6 - My apparently flawed understanding of the game is that resources need to be connected by road or river to a city in order for the city to get the benefit of that resource. My workers are not automated; they're been given faulty instructions.

Resources do indeed need a route, and in the case of your corn it already had one along the river (for a route entirely within your culture you don't need sailing to use rivers/coast!).
The mine south of your city doesn't appear to have any resource, and therefore did not need roads.
Also worth noting is *when* you want to connect your resources, in particular health doesn't generally become an issue till much later in the game so you can afford to delay connecting them to do more important things. Also more obviously theres no need to rush to connect duplicate resources, especially if noone wants to trade for them.

Don't worry too much on the above apart from realising that you don't need to road non resource tiles to use them, and resources can be connected sometimes without roads (if in doubt check the city screen).
I'm more concerned about your worker improving that feeble plains tile when you have a sheep hill and lots of grassland to chop forests from. For future reference plains are very rarely worth bothering with till you run out of resources, floodplains, grass and hills.

Do scouts also have a better chance of tech/settler/worker?

Better than Warriors yes, they still aren't worth building for that purpose....

 

[coanda]

General request - PLEASE explain abbreviations the first time you use them so I'm not left guessing what you mean.

You can find a lot of the abbreviations here...
http://www.civfanatics.com/node/7

You'll still run into others, but that should help with a bunch of them.

@lymond:
#1 - I'm interpreting this to mean "Save the game right after you start, and post it. Also post a save game every time you post another report of progress." I don't have a starting save from this game, but I did save it at the point where I took the 3rd screenshot above.

The game saves an autosave when it generates a map. This will be in your autosaves folder. If you generate a new map it will overwrite the old 4000 BC autosave though.

#4 - Free techs? Elaborate, please.

Each civilization has two starting techs. However, difficulty levels can mean players/AIs automatically get given specific techs even if their civ doesn't normally start with those techs. For example, on Monarch or higher the AI starts with Archery. I believe that on Warlord the human gets The Wheel for free at the start, although I'm not 100% sure about that.

#6 - My apparently flawed understanding of the game is that resources need to be connected by road or river to a city in order for the city to get the benefit of that resource. My workers are not automated; they're been given faulty instructions.

There are two benefits to any resource - one is improved tile yield, and one is making that resource available to your empire.
Improved tile yield is something like getting 6 food (6F, or 6:food) from a riverside-grass-corn with a farm, instead of just 3F without. These benefits are very high priorities for workers to get going - each citizen eats 2F, so allowing the citizen to work a 6F tile instead of a 3F tile means you gain a net of 4F instead of 1F - that citizen is four times as productive.
Making that resource available to your empire gives other benefits, and requires connecting that resource via roads/rivers to your cities. E.g., gold will let you increase your happy cap (the maximum population your cities can be without having unproductive angry workers who just eat 2F and give nothing back); copper will let you start building axemen; any resource can be traded to a neighbor, and so forth. Generally speaking, you want to get at least one strategic resource hooked relatively early (before your third city if possible), but hooking up other resources can wait until you have an immediate use for them. Don't waste time building roads to a gold mine if you aren't ready to grow your cities to a larger size; don't build roads to corn if your cities have plenty of health already, and so forth.
In short: improving resources is very important, so your citizens in your cities can start working them. Connecting improved resources via roads is less important, and can often wait.

@vandermerwe:
I chose balanced resources for my first game on this level as I figured that I have plenty of other things to learn.

Balanced resources is a fine choice for learning. It's a little easier on the human than without, and makes rushes noticeably more reliable, but I wouldn't worry about it for learning.

That's useful information about the huts. Do scouts also have a better chance of tech/settler/worker?

Being creative, as you say, I'm figuring that my city borders are going to pop quickly.
======================================

It sounds like I may do better to start this over completely, and post more saves and screenshots.

Here's how goody huts work. There is a table of possible results for goody huts on each difficulty (e.g., on Warlord you have a 3/20 chance of a large gold pile, 3/20 chance of a small amount of gold, 2/20 of a map, 1/20 of a settler, 2/20 of a warrior, 1/20 of a scout, 1/20 of a worker, 1/20 of experience, 1/20 of healing, 3/20 of a tech, 1/20 of a strong barbarian force, and 1/20 of a weak barbarian force). The game rolls a random number by which it decides which of those results you get. But if it gets an "invalid" result, it re-rolls.
Here's how a result can be invalid:
If the game is less than 10 turns old, or the unit popping the hut does not have any promotions (e.g., a Great Prophet), an Experience result is rerolled.
If the unit is fully healed (or nearly fully healed), a Healing result is rerolled.
If there are no valid "goody" techs you can currently research - either from lacking prerequisites or from already knowing them all - a Technology result is rerolled. Generally the potential "goody" techs are Ancient/Classical/Medieval techs plus Astronomy.
If the unit popping the hut cannot pop barbarians, a strong or weak barbarian result will be rerolled. This applies to scouts and explorers, and also "null" units (cultural).
If it's less than 20 turns into the game, or later but in Multiplayer, you can't pop a warrior; that will be rerolled.
If you're playing a One City Challenge, a settler result will be rerolled.
If the game has No Barbarians, a barb result will be rerolled. Similarly, if you have no cities a barb result will be rerolled, or if you have only one city and that city is 7 or fewer spaces from the hut, a barb result will be rerolled.

When a goody hut is popped by culture, the unit popping the hut is null, which means every result dealing with units is thrown out. So on Warlord if you pop a hut via culture, 4/20 results are thrown out - the relatively less valuable bonuses of experience, healing, strong barbarians, and weak barbarians. This means instead of a 3/20 chance of getting a tech, you effectively have a 3/16 chance.

As far as CRE border pops... CRE is a very powerful trait for early expansion, but it can become a crutch pretty easily. While I'd finish out this game as is, if you play another learning game I'd deliberately aim for a leader for whom border pops aren't so effortless.

I see no need to abandon this game and start over; you're getting good advice and learning from it. You don't have to get every setting right and master everything in one game (and, in fact, you'll probably run into vociferous disagreement about what constitutes the "right" settings if you let your thread get sidetracked into that argument).

Edit: x-post with Ghpstage; sorry for any duplicated info.

 

[Doomspark]

Update:

Two saves - one from screenshot #3 above, and one five turns later.

Spoiler :

With regards to the location of my second city, I'm thinking of actually settling on top of the copper. I know this plays havoc with the copper, but it puts all the other resources within the BFC.

 

[damerell]

With regards to the location of my second city, I'm thinking of actually settling on top of the copper. I know this plays havoc with the copper, but it puts all the other resources within the BFC.

That does not seem like a bad plan, assuming you can border pop to get the food in the city's borders quickly. As you say, it's that or have some other resource outside the BFC; and if you settle on the copper, at least it can't be pillaged away from you.

 

[lymond]

That's an odd distribution of resources, but I don't like settling on grass copper. grass copper and iron are excellent tile yields. 2F4H is one of the best tile yields you can get. Given the fact that there are absolutely no hills in the area, you want that production.

I'm inclined to settle 1S or 1SE of the copper, or split the area into 2 overlapping cities. You do not need to get the horse with this city. Scouting may reveal another city for the horses.

 

[vandermerwe]

I'm with Lymond on this one. Settling on the copper means you'd be giving up the +3 hammers for mining it permanently. In return you'd get immediate access to copper - but you don't need it (a) because there's no immediate pressure calling for a rapid expansion of your military, and (b) because you can get iron anyway, which (apart from accelerating some wonders) gives you everything copper does, and more. 1S of the copper for me.

Also, 6 resources in one city looks maybe a little greedy... You're currently doing OK for gold at 100% research, so you can easily afford 2 further cities. Looking at your second save, there's a spot 2N1W of the horse which would get you horse, wine and cow with a border pop. Still looks a bit thin on food but maybe there's something better under the fog?

Finally, it's well worth dowloading and running the BUG mod. Doesn't alter the gameplay in any way; just presents you with much more info much more clearly. Can take you up a difficulty level all on its own IMO.

Keep us posted...