WTB game help

[OTAKUjbski]

I really suck at the first 6000 years of this game.

All of my games are single player random everything in hopes I'll experience more map types and play styles along the way.

Well, this is one of those games that really game me trouble.

I'd rather not tell you how poorly my first run at it went ... I'll just leave it at "even though Tokugawa and I were both Buddhist, and I kept gifting shlt to him, he would never trade anything to me and eventually declared war on me -- diverting me long enough to allow Alexander to settle on my island and take up much of what I hoped would be my good real estate."

I subsequently reloaded this map, trying for a better start, and even screwed the reload up!

My 3rd attempt went very well. I got sleepy and turned it off shortly after I was the first to discover Liberalism. I only had 5 cities, though and hardly a navy to even cough at, so even that one might go south when I get back to it.

Summary of some stuff not in the SS:

Prince difficulty.
Genghis Khan.
Continents.
Tokugawa starts 5 tiles to the NE.
Nearest Horses are 16 tiles south.​

I have LOTS to learn about this game (especially how to start), so I'd like to ask you guys' opinions.

How would you play this one?

 

[jayjackson]

I really suck at the first 6000 years of this game.

All of my games are single player random everything in hopes I'll experience more map types and play styles along the way.

Well, this is one of those games that really game me trouble.

I'd rather not tell you how poorly my first run at it went ... I'll just leave it at "even though Tokugawa and I were both Buddhist, and I kept gifting shlt to him, he would never trade anything to me and eventually declared war on me -- diverting me long enough to allow Alexander to settle on my island and take up much of what I hoped would be my good real estate."

I subsequently reloaded this map, trying for a better start, and even screwed the reload up!

My 3rd attempt went very well. I got sleepy and turned it off shortly after I was the first to discover Liberalism. I only had 5 cities, though and hardly a navy to even cough at, so even that one might go south when I get back to it.

Summary of some stuff not in the SS:

Prince difficulty.
Genghis Khan.
Continents.
Tokugawa starts 5 tiles to the NE.
Nearest Horses are 16 tiles south.​

I have LOTS to learn about this game (especially how to start), so I'd like to ask you guys' opinions.

How would you play this one?

I'm far from an expert in this game, just having started making submissions to try to eventually become a Quattromaster, but I'll try to lend some small assistance.

First of all, if you are already doing nearly everything randomly to start, I would *stop* reloading these maps and replaying them. I thought this was a good plan too when I started to really try to learn this game. It's not.

When you give yourself this much information, "Nearest Horses are 16 tiles south", you are really depriving yourself of possible skill building situations. You already know the map that well, when you finally do win a game on this one, what will you feel like you've accomplished?

---

On a different note, if you are going to play this map. I don't recall Khan's starting tech's right off the top of my head, but obviously fishing would be by FAR the most important early technology for your capital or else your civilization will starve. I would probably start Worker, Warrior, Settler, Workboat. Normally I usually build Worker, Worker, Settler - but in this situation where you know you have silly Toku up there to destroy you, you need the Warrior to protect that city while you explore.

Maybe some of the pros can give you some better tips, but this would be about what I would do... again, I'm not very good - but I definitely wouldn't deprive yourself of the chance to learn, since you are actively trying to learn. Reloading the map and replaying it several times is defeating your entire purpose of playing "all randoms" in the first place.

Best of luck to you in this great game, however.

 

[toug]

First off, if you are having trouble, I would reccomend lowering the difficulty level.

Judging from the screenshot, settling in place would probably be a good idea. Send the scout southwest and start exploring (although from the info given it looks like you already have). For research, 'd say it's a no brainer that you go fishing first. Get a workboat built up and immediately start working one of those clam resources.

After Fishing I'd go to mining -> bronze working so you can start whipping some workers/settlers/warriors barracks. It will also be very useful to get agriculture and animal husbandry for the pigs. That's the immediate start I can think of.

 

[Bhruic]

Cows? You mean pigs, I think.

Personally, I'd do the obvious - Fishing for research, Worker for production. I'd use the worker to mine all the hills (other than the pigs), and as soon as Fishing is up, go for Fishing boats. You have no Forests to chop, so going Bronze Working for Slavery is your own option to "hurry". However, if you mine the 4 hills around you, you'll have a very large production base, and with the 3 clams + pigs, you'll have the food to work all the squares. It'll be a very decent early game production city. Beyond that, exploring will let you know what settlement options you'll want down the line.

Bh

 

[OTAKUjbski]

When you give yourself this much information, "Nearest Horses are 16 tiles south", you are really depriving yourself of possible skill building situations. You already know the map that well, when you finally do win a game on this one, what will you feel like you've accomplished?

...

Reloading the map and replaying it several times is defeating your entire purpose of playing "all randoms" in the first place.

Good point. I reload the troublesome maps to find out how a similar map should be played next time. I figure even with a little edge, if I can figure out the optimum way to start a map where neither my UU/UB really make a big difference and where my capital has only 5 grassland hills for 'land', then a similarly awkward start might not require so as much head-scratching and wonder the next time around.

BTW, since Animal Husbandry was my second tech, I knew I had Horses down there before I had my 2nd city up, so that info was already known. I guess I mentioned this b/c the insane distance made it nearly impossible for me to acquire and use the Horse resource necessary to make my UU worth anything.

First off, if you are having trouble, I would reccomend lowering the difficulty level.

Where's the fun if there's no challenge? I beat Noble the first weekend I played CivIV, so I figured I should try for a harder level. I win often enough, but I never really feel like I beat the maps.

I think that's what I'm trying to learn ... how to beat the AI consistently, which seems to require intelligent starts (my finishes are good, but my starts are horrible).

 

[Bhruic]

Ok, I definitely wouldn't make Animal Handling your second tech. Fishing->Mining is the best way to go, imo. You're stuck on your own island - you're not going to be needing military techs immediately, other than for Barb handling, and those won't show up for a bit. So there's no rush to get to the horses.

I played it a bit - you've got a nice start for playing your strengths. Toku went for Buddhism both starts, which is good. You can reach him easily from your island, so he's your first military target. I settled the recommended square NW of the corn as my second city - it makes a great commerce city. By this point, you'll want to get Iron Working - you've got a lot of jungle around your starting area. This will also reveal the iron near you - which is where your third city should go. I placed it 6W1S of your capital - this gets the iron, pigs and elephants. Culturally "pop" your borders, and get the iron hooked up ASAP.

Once that's done, build some Swordsmen. 6 + 3 Galleys and you are ready to hit Toku. I got lucky, his capital only had 1 archer in it when I attacked - I took it easily. Since he founded Buddhism, that gave me a religion (it had spread to my cities, but you can't count on that). And it effectively took him out of the game. It was easy to mop him up at that point.

Beyond that, I didn't play, but you have 2 solid islands to work with - I'd probably try and bee-line to Astronomy if you can't sail to the other civs, so that you can get some trading in. Cottage up, and you should easily be able to maintain a lead on the other 2 civs.

Bh

 

[toug]

I win often enough, but I never really feel like I beat the maps.

I wasn't suggesting that you were not capable of a victory on the current level. I was merely saying that if you aren't performing as well as you'd like with a random setup thrown at you lowering the difficulty could help you focus on one thing at a time.

 

[InFlux5]

I would also advise against reloading and playing the same maps. You are missing out on key skills by doing that.

First of all, know your enemies. Tokugawa is a notorious isolationist and practically a guaranteed war before the Renaissance. Alexander is pretty similar.

But let's say you don't know the AI personalities, or have them set to random. Go to war anyway. Personally I'm a builder and a peace-monger, but I've reluctantly accepted the power and necessesity of war.

Two Archers is enough for an early "war". Oh, you won't be taking any cities with them. But you can stunt your opponents growth by parking those Archers next to his capital (on hills if possible) so that he won't send a Settler that way.

So the first point of advice is to learn the art of an early war. The second is to become an economist.

It's easy to fall into an aimless builder pattern. Forcing yourself into a few wars is one way to mitigate this strategy, which is basically a losing one unless you can meander your way to a space race in time.

But if you are going to be somewhat of a builder, the best thing you can build is your economy. Get cottages up early in the right places (grassland/floodplain on rivers, in hard-to-pillage locations.) Specialize one or two cities in military production, while focusing on commerce in the others. Don't whip too much in your commerce cities. Plan ahead and try to include the appropriate resources for each type of city. (Gold mine in the commerce city, iron mine in the production city.)

These things are all necessary just to stay afloat at higher levels. Ultimately all the best economic management in the world will have to be supplemented by war if you are going to surpass your rivals.

Ask yourself if a pre-catapult war is doable. Did someone found a city right on your border? No cultural defense and 1-2 archers? This is a prime target. You don't need catapults. Raze it for money or keep it if you like the spot. After that just harass that civ for a while, then declare peace. The sooner your first war is over the sooner people can start forgetting about it.

Once defense bonuses start to accumulate, catapults are the name of the game. Generally speaking, you want about as many infantry as your target has defenders. Then, you want at least as many catapults as infantry, probably more. Using this rule of thumb you should be able to take any city but a well-defended capitol. A couple turns of bombardment, an onslaught of catapults (you will lose roughly half of them) and your infantry can walk over the wounded defenders. Again, keep or raze depending on your economy and the city's location. For the most part you will be doing a lot of razing.

I'll stop here and just offer a last bit of advice on wars. Even if you are a non-aggressive builder, look at wars as a way to stunt and distract your opponents. You know how much you hate having pillagers run amok through all your infrastructure. It hurts your opponents in the same way. Even if you gain nothing from a war, if you somehow hurt your opponent then you still come out ahead.

 

[oyzar]

you can easily rush 40% cultural bonuses defended by archers with just axemen or swordsmen.

 

[bardolph]

Good point. I reload the troublesome maps to find out how a similar map should be played next time. I figure even with a little edge, if I can figure out the optimum way to start a map where neither my UU/UB really make a big difference and where my capital has only 5 grassland hills for 'land', then a similarly awkward start might not require so as much head-scratching and wonder the next time around.

Actually, this is a pretty great starting position for a coastal city. Four (!!) food resources means you will have awesome growth, and five grassland hills (four available for mining) means that you will also have good production capacity. Of course, this would be absolutely sick if you were Financial on top of it all, but you gotta take the cards you're dealt, right?

The jungle can be problematic. If the jungle is too thick, then you won't be able to expand landward without Iron Working plus an army of workers. Your biggest challenge in this game is to find a suitable site for a second city. Now it's quite possible, given this screenshot, that you may have to use a Galley to get there.

Researching Animal Husbandry and building a worker is not a bad way to start. Next tech would be Mining, and by then your scout would have figured out whether or not you have any open space nearby for another city (and by then you would know about your horse problem). Your worker would pasture the pigs and mine the hills. Even without Fishing, you can work pigs + 4 mines while growing to size 5. That's enough production to build an army even without Slavery!

After mining, you can either go for Fishing/Sailing (if you don't plan on expanding by land) or take Bronze Working and hope for some nearby copper (and if copper shows up in your capital, I give you permission to shed tears of joy). Since you already know The Wheel (and have a Worker available), you should have no problem hooking up copper and starting your first war. Even if you go the Bronze Working route, you should follow up with Fishing and Sailing so you can build a Lighthouse and work all of your clams. This would also give you some good -ping (though with all those hills, you won't need to whip very much).

It's pretty rare to see a city with so many hammers AND so much food avaialble. This city will be a fantastic Great Person farm, since the food will allow you to run plenty of specialists while your mines allow you to build libraries and wonders and such.

Regarding your "horse problem": hey, that's the way the ball bounces. The biggest mistake you can make in this situation is to kill yourself trying to hook up horses when you should be expanding your empire instead. Who knows? Maybe a friendly AI will trade them to you.

But you don't need Keshiks to win the game.