WoundedKnight's CIV Strategy Guide

[Heroes]

Beauracracy affects both production and commerce, not gold produced. I was uncertain of this due to the ambiguous coin icon in the Civilopedia. In order to test it I built a traditional science city (GL + Oxford + academy) in my second city. It was producing ~150 science per turn mid-game.

I then flipped to beauracracy and built a palace in the second city to see if it would affect the science production. After the palace finished I saw a near 50% increase in its production. It started producing around 220 research post palace move.

If I'm correct, I think this makes for an interesting choice between whether or not to sticking your palace in your production or research city. The major boost I got is one reason I stuck with beauracracy as long as I did.

I find that the problem of beauracracy is it repels vassalage, which gives 2 more XP to new units and makes a huge difference!

 

[Heroes]

I haven't listed the fact that land (usually) gets more food after the forests are cut down, and so there is no need to acknowledge the +1 production/-1 food of forests. To be consistent, my list only includes the actual production/food/commerce bestowed by the terrain itself -- it would be too confusing to mix it up by attributing innate terrain features to the improvement.

Land gets more after forest is cut down? Sorry, but I never see it. This could happen in civ 3: a grassland forest becomes pure grassland, and generates 2 food instead of 1. However, in civ 4, it seems that forest has no influence to food. A grassland forest has 2 food and 1 hammer, a plain forest 1 food and 2 hammers, etc. As civlopedia says, the effect of forest is just +1 hammer (and 0.4 health).

 

[WoundedKnight]

If river tiles are reserved for watermills, why not turn them into farms early on for the population increase? They can always ben converted into watermills later. I agree with the mine/hills and cottages strategy, although the needed techs to fully upgrade cottages/towns take quite a while to research.

That's a nice thought that could be viable. I typically place cottages everywhere (except hills, which get mines), and then replace cottages with watermills as they become available. As I usually play financial, a cottage immediately provides +2 commerce, giving a big research/economy boost, and progressively more as the cottagest turn into hamlets, villages, towns.

Growth is important, yet sometimes in the early game there isn't enough health and/or happiness to focus too aggressively on growth..trade networks are not well developed and few luxury resources and city improvements have been built in the pre-watermill stage. For these reasons I have stuck with cottages, both for their progressive benefits with time and for their versatility in he early game. Yet under the right circumstances, farms *could* make a nice alternative in the early game for river squares -- or at least every other river square, the ones that will eventually be replaced with watemills.

The research strategy I typically follow is:
1. Bronze working (for chop-rushing)
2. Pottery (for cottages)
3. Alphabet (through pottery) for tech trading
4. A religion of choice (Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism are typically the remaining ones)

You can typically trade for all other improvement techs except pottery is scarce in the early games and it is advantageous to get this promptly.

I've also noticed that the AI seem to be able to trade with each other without alphabet. In fact, alphabet is one of the last techs that the AI goes for ... it seems to make little difference for them as AI players who lack the tech when you have it will still trade madly among themselves.

WoundedKnight

 

[Arkanin]

Guys,

PROOF regarding the nature of the organized trait:

http://ee.1asphost.com/Arkanin/OrganizedTest-1, With Organized.Civ4SavedGame
http://ee.1asphost.com/Arkanin/OrganizedTest-2, Without Organized.Civ4SavedGame

As you can see from these savegames, which have a 4x4 grid of equidistant cities on each (One is as Washington with the organized trait, and the other is as Alexander without), it appears that organized DOES NOT affect city maintenance in any way save courthouse costs, and that it ONLY affects civics cost.

I'm not happy about this either, but it looks to be true.

 

[Mujadaddy]

What led you to believe that it DID affect city maintenance in the first place? Doesn't say so anywhere but in ill-informed posts on this and other sites.

 

[Arkanin]

What led you to believe that it DID affect city maintenance in the first place? Doesn't say so anywhere but in ill-informed posts on this and other sites.

So many people are saying this is not the case that it seems worth taking the time to try to refute that belief. To these people's credit, the trait would have made infinitely more sense from a balance perspective if it had done so, so wondering if the trait is misdocumented doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. At any rate, it looks like this belief is safely (and disappointingly) enough refuted.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Yeah, you can't believe everything you read

My opinion is that the TRAITS are NOT balanced with each other...their pairings, civ-starting-techs, and UUs are what are balanced...

 

[Harv72b]

Spiritual: One of the weakest traits IMO. No anarchy, while nice, is of little benefit as I only chance civics 5-6 times in a game. Cheap temples? Temples are cheap anyway and have fewer benefits than many other buildings.

You'll notice that the AI civs change civics quite often in a game, and I believe that's a good strategy. When they're at peace, it's all about research & the economy, but as soon as they go to war, it's a switch to vassalage/theocracy to get the XP bonuses for their new troops. In this way, they are able to maximize their empire's output towards whatever the needs of the moment are--and this is where having the spirutual trait comes in handy, as you can make these changes immediately and not have to worry about a turn (or two) of anarchy while you change over each time.

I do agree that the benefits of spiritual tend to pale in comparison to traits like industrious, financial, philosophical, and aggressive, but I do think it deserves a little more respect than most players are giving it.

 

[anton_z1]

You'll notice that the AI civs change civics quite often in a game, and I believe that's a good strategy. When they're at peace, it's all about research & the economy, but as soon as they go to war, it's a switch to vassalage/theocracy to get the XP bonuses for their new troops. In this way, they are able to maximize their empire's output towards whatever the needs of the moment are--and this is where having the spirutual trait comes in handy, as you can make these changes immediately and not have to worry about a turn (or two) of anarchy while you change over each time.

I do agree that the benefits of spiritual tend to pale in comparison to traits like industrious, financial, philosophical, and aggressive, but I do think it deserves a little more respect than most players are giving it.

This is hy once i get into war with a civ, i burn their towns(villages),put defence on borderline and simply look at their economic demise .

Also i wish you good luck to win on Emperor and higher difficultiers with spiritual .

 

[travathian]

WK,

Please post some screenshots of your cities and the improvements around them. I seriously question your watermill/mine/cottage strategy. You keep pointing out how great watermills/cottages are late game with certain techs/civics. Unfortunately that doesn't do much good if you don't survive to the late game. Secondly, how do you expect to feed your population working all these mines or plains with cottages? Neither generate enough food to support their own tile, and if you don't farm you have no way of working these tiles.

 

[Arkanin]

Agreed, at least we have something to try to refute it now

My opinion is that the TRAITS are NOT balanced with each other...their pairings, civ-starting-techs, and UUs are what are balanced...

I wish that I could agree with you on this one, but it seems to me that by neither set of criteria is the game balanced.

 

[Mujadaddy]

You might be right, Arkanin... Maybe they just have a buncha weak leaders for the n00bs to pick to play as

 

[Arkanin]

You might be right, Arkanin... Maybe they just have a buncha weak leaders for the n00bs to pick to play as

Maybe so.. that's what I'd figure

 

[WoundedKnight]

WK,

Please post some screenshots of your cities and the improvements around them. I seriously question your watermill/mine/cottage strategy. You keep pointing out how great watermills/cottages are late game with certain techs/civics. Unfortunately that doesn't do much good if you don't survive to the late game. Secondly, how do you expect to feed your population working all these mines or plains with cottages? Neither generate enough food to support their own tile, and if you don't farm you have no way of working these tiles.

I could post screenshots, but what would it accomplish? The figures with a breakdown of the benefits I posted here should be adequately clear, and it seems doubtful that screenies would help. Survive until the late game?!?! In my last game I had 2.5-3x the score of all of the AI players from the middle ages on.

I never have food problems, my cities continue to grow...The fact that hills with mines do not produce self-supporting amounts of food is (obviously) made up for the fact that the city radius includes tiles that make up more than their own food consumption: grasslands, coast/ocean + lighthouse, flood plains, river/watermill with state property, etc. If you focus on making every tile produce food as you imply, you will have an unhealthy, unhappy, poor, backwards, and unproductive civilization. That's a whole concept of CIV: specialization. Not every city and not every tile has to do everything; it's better to do one thing well that works in combination with other aspects than to try to create hybrids that do a little of everything but do nothing very well.

The key to my approach is that the improvements I use generate a balance: solid ongoing population growth, but not so rapid that it outstrips early city health or happiness, and a very strong economy, research, and production that sets the player up to rocket ahead in technology and production from the middle ages through the end game.

If you still don't get it, that's okay...it doesn't hurt my feelings, but it's pretty clear that you are criticizing something that you have not tried and do not understand. Feel free to run with your farm/windmill approach, but you will have a poor economy and slow research -- be prepared to get demolished by others in multiplayer.

 

[Arkanin]

WoundedKnight,

I think my weakest area in the game is city management, too. If anyone (not you necessarily, though that would be good), but someone would send you some save games to include in your guide (I have file hosting), it would definitely do me a bit of good...

 

[WoundedKnight]

Fair enough. As I finalize the guide I will try to include screenshots and/or save files. It may take me a few weeks though...lots of other stuff going on.

 

[travathian]

I could post screenshots, but what would it accomplish? The figures with a breakdown of the benefits I posted here should be adequately clear, and it seems doubtful that screenies would help. Survive until the late game?!?! In my last game I had 2.5-3x the score of all of the AI players from the middle ages on.

It would prove that yer not just talkin out yer ass, lol. Take a screen shot of your capitol in each age and lets see how it develops over time.

And if your strategy leads you to just a great score, maybe its time to turn the difficulty up a couple notches?

I never have food problems, my cities continue to grow...The fact that hills with mines do not produce self-supporting amounts of food is (obviously) made up for the fact that the city radius includes tiles that make up more than their own food consumption: grasslands, coast/ocean + lighthouse, flood plains, river/watermill with state property, etc. If you focus on making every tile produce food as you imply, you will have an unhealthy, unhappy, poor, backwards, and unproductive civilization. That's a whole concept of CIV: specialization. Not every city and not every tile has to do everything; it's better to do one thing well that works in combination with other aspects than to try to create hybrids that do a little of everything but do nothing very well.

Grasslands and coast/ocean do not net you any extra food. Yes they provide the two food needed to be able to work another tile, but unless that next tile also provides two food your city will eventually go into a grow/starve cycle. Unfarmed flood plains net +1 food, which means the next tile can only have +1 food and you break even, stagnating. Watermills are great, you can build them at Machinery and get +1 hammer, but you can't get that +1 food until Communism. That's a long, long ways off. If its a grassy tile, you're fine, since the 2 food feeds itself, but a plains tile wont generate enough food until much later in the game. The situation is the same if you put a windmill on a plains hill, you only get +1 food out of it, where as a grassy hill with a windmill gets you +2 food and +2 hammers. The only way to work a plains mine early game is to have a farmed flood plain or two non-farmed flood plains, and then your food breaks even and growth stops.

All of the comparisons you have been making between lumbermills/windmills/watermills are apples to oranges. Your watermill numbers come from the late game after all of the applicable upgrades for it have been discovered and you're running a specific civic, yet your numbers for windmills and lumbermills only use the base values.

If you still don't get it, that's okay...it doesn't hurt my feelings, but it's pretty clear that you are criticizing something that you have not tried and do not understand. Feel free to run with your farm/windmill approach, but you will have a poor economy and slow research -- be prepared to get demolished by others in multiplayer.

Ah yes, nice personal attack. I disagree with your strategy so obviously I must not understand? Maybe you should re-read my posting? I understand the affects of all of the tiles and improvements, what I dont understand is how you are making use of so many tiles with so little extra food. Don't get me wrong, I build my fair share of cottages too, and the occasional watermill, but your strategy of watermills on rivers and cottages everywhere else seems suspect. And relying on flood plains and state property is not the answer since state property is a long ways into the game, and flood plains arent everywhere. Lastly, please quote where I said to farm/windmill every tile like you did for cottage/watermill.

All tile improvements are useful, but a blanket statement like your strategy guide makes is damaging to noobs. Each city needs to be carefully evaluated, each tile needs to be carefully evaluated for the situation you're in. Rather than providing a blanket statement try providing specific examples (including screen shots and tech level) to teach noobs when its good to build which type of improvement.

 

[WoundedKnight]

Moderator -- please censor/delete above post of travathian. Profanity and personal attacks are not appropriate on this forum. I am happy to have a civil discussion, but travathian's remarks are in violation of forum rules, and I don't feel any need to respond to such crudeness.

I could reply to all of the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in his post, but as a preliminary requirement let's keep the discussion civil and decent. And if he can't abide by that, there are other forums where he may feel more at home. Thanks. -WK

 

[walkerjks]

Grasslands and coast/ocean do not net you any extra food. Yes they provide the two food needed to be able to work another tile, but unless that next tile also provides two food your city will eventually go into a grow/starve cycle.

If you pay attention to where you place your city, this isn't a real problem. Most of the time you have a couple of resources that produce extra food, so you start with an effective net of +6 or so (+2 from the city and +4 from a couple of reosurces like bananas or pigs or fish or corn). This surplus gets drawn down by hills and plains that you work, but it's enough for quite a bit of growth.

I've won culture victories with size 9 cities before, but more typically, my big commerce cities manage to get to size 15 to 18, with the only farms being put on farmable resources (rice, wheat, etc).

 

[travathian]

Moderator -- please censor/delete above post of travathian. Profanity and personal attacks are not appropriate on this forum. I am happy to have a civil discussion, but travathian's remarks are in violation of forum rules, and I don't feel any need to respond to such crudeness.

I could reply to all of the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in his post, but as a preliminary requirement let's keep the discussion civil and decent. And if he can't abide by that, there are other forums where he may feel more at home. Thanks. -WK

The holier than thou attitude just makes you look petty dude. As to your cry of profanity, a google search of the forums shows 533 instances of the word ass. Hmm, think the mods have 532 other posts to censor before mine? And as to your claim of a personal attack, maybe you should evaluate the tone in your posts first?

And way to dodge all the holes I put in your strategy man. Just admit you're wrong, update your guide and go on with your life. Its ok, really, you can't be right all of the time. Remember, my name isn't in the title, yours is. Thus the onus is on your to prove your strategy works.