Make me a better player, please.

[padillah]

Here's your chance to influence someone's life for the better: help make me a better Civ player.

I want to start at the begining, get input on everything cause I don't know what I'm doing wrong so I don't know where I screw up.

My playstyle (as if I had one) is basically builder. As a matter of fact, I'm terrified of war. I've never won a war. I have no idea why but I keep attacking the city with all the enemy units in it.

I have a tendancy to build every wonder I come across, in hopes that one of them will help me win.

I'd like to play Saladin or Hatshepsut (really Hatshepsut, I'm a SPR/CRE kind of guy). But I'm open to whomever will help me get an idea of what I'm doing wrong.

I usually play on huge pangea maps. Not real fond of the sea and I'd like room to grow before I get into a war that I'm going to loose anyway.

Um, that's pretty much it. That's me in a nutshell.

I'd like some input on map, leader, everything. I'll reset my XML (I've done some tweeking) and post the game tonight. I figure a save every 20 turns for the first little while. Or is that too much? Do Civ4SaveGames zip down much smaller?

Thanks in advance for everyone that decides to help with this. I appreciate it.

Tom P.

EDIT:

Initial game save file added.

3160BC save file added

2400BC save file added

[Solver]

That's the deal... you need to have a plan. Of course, plans change, and no plan survives contact with the enemy, and all that. But you still need a plan.

I start with my plan depending on my start - the starting position and the leader. If I see that my capital site is on floodplains, with Wheat, Pigs and I am a Philosophical leader, I'll tentatively plan to go heavy on Great People. If I start near Gems/Gold, I recognize the commerce bonus and make use of it by founding a religion first.

Also do play random leaders - it will give you more perspective.

If you go to war, also have a plan. Have a clear idea of why you are at war - do you want to conquer city X, get access to resource Y, or do you just want to slow down the development of that particular civ? Be flexible. If you see you can't take their cities, but have a superior field army, pillage the hell out of them. Pillaged Villages and Towns HURT.

Oh, definitely get a couple of friends. It's much better to have some civs Pleased with you, and the rest hating you, than to have everyone annoyed or cautious. If you try to make everyone happy, you'll fail, and end up with no friends. So have some friends and use them!

[Arrian]

Here's your chance to influence someone's life for the better: help make me a better Civ player.

Unlikely. In fact, it's entirely possible that the best thing I could do for your life is to tell you to put the game down and walk away. But, since I'm an addict too...

1) Wonders are nice. I like them too, and invest too many resources in them. But I've been working on that. There are several you really can ignore (Sistine Chapel is the best example). Generally I do the Oracle CS slingshot and go for some others that I really like and/or have the resource for (ex: Stone for Pyramids).

Wonders I generally don't bother with:

-Stonehenge
-Pyramids (except if I have easy access to stone)
-Parthenon
-Sistine
-Spiral Minaret (I don't generally bother researching D.R.)
-Versailles (same as above, plus waaay expensive. And, given its effects, it's better to have AI build, me take)

Early Wonders I really go for, resources or not:

-Oracle
-Great Lighthouse
-Hanging Gardens
-Colossus
-Great Library

The sea-based wonders are there b/c I play on Continents maps and typically have a good number of coastal cities.

2) Warfare against the AI isn't really that hard. You just need to build the right units in good numbers. If you are going to fight Alexander, don't bother much with horse archers, ya now? If you're up against the Mongols, you want some spearmen. In general, you want catapults and lots of 'em. Start picking fights early on and practice it. Use civs with good (early) UUs, at least at first. Like Solver says, you need a plan. Don't always go for the enemy capital. It's fine to go for the throat if you have the units to take it down (or your aim is pillaging not conquest), but if you don't you could do your damage elsewhere and mop up the capital later.

3) Furthermore, you really want to get a unit to 10xp early, get Literature and build the Heroic Epic in a good production city. This is key. It can be a builders godsend, actually, because that one city can often produce the vast majority of your units and free up other cities to build... buildings. Playing with raging barbs makes this a snap.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Continuing...

You like playin Happy and you don't fight early wars? With that 5str chariot of hers? Dear God Man!

I actually avoided Happy for a while, b/c I hate her traits But when I got around to her, I did bad things to the AI with them thar chariot thingies.

Same thing with Xerxes. Persia's traits blow, but the Immortal does horrible things to the poor unsuspecting AI.

-Arrian

[Solver]

Arrian, why do you not like the Pyramids? I find that a great Wonder with a more peaceful playstyle. Representation is good for a specialist economy, but then I switch to Universal Suffrage after my Cottages have grown into Towns. A nice production bonus, and a use for my money way, way before Democracy on the tech tree.

[fed1943]

IMHO, the first thing a builder must learn is to build.

Do you know by heart the output of each terrain'type,

feature, resouce, improvement and their combinations,

don't you?

Best regards,

[Yosho]

I should mention that it's much, much harder to be a builder on pangea then it is on continents. On pangea, you will piss off SOMEONE, and will probably be at war with someone for the whole game; you are likely to have several people on your borders and you will not be friends with all of them. On continents, if your lucky, you can make friends with most or possibly even all of the people on your continent, and if you want to and you're lucky you can avoid most war; you don't have to worry about war with the other continent at all until astronomy, which is fairly late in the game, and even then AI navel invasion fleets aren't that hard to stop. It's a real pain to invade the AI across the ocean, but if you want to be a builder, that's not a big problem.

[DirtyMartini]

I'm trying to improve my game as well -- especially since I'm started playing with the last patch. The elimination of the chop has really hurt my early game and I'm trying to recover --

Something I've found useful is to reload and play the same start several times (like 10 or so), experimenting with different research strategies, build orders, city placements and military tactics. I generally have played these out until I "feel" like the early game is over, probably in the early 1000's AD. This has helped me do several things better:

1) tailor my strategy to the available terrain and my neighbors

2) recognize good city sites and to visualize what the research/food/production capacity will be in the short term and in the long term. For example, if my capital is going to be research heavy, I now reconize the need for, and the optimal placement of a production city (which will be my eventual heroic epic city as well)

3) Think in the short term -- I used to place cities based on their long term potential only. This isn't always useful in the early game when the happy cap keeps you around size 5 or 6. Founding a city which has 4 or 5 good workable squares early is more useful than founding one which will have 6 or 7, but only eventually (with radius expansion and later techs).

4) Value the things I produce, even those early warriors and scouts.

5) Balance military vs. growth, better use the units that I do produce, and avoid underbuilding miltary in peacetime and overbuilding military in preparation for invasion.

By using the same 4000BC save to experiment, I get better feedback in the different outcomes of various approaches without the added variables of different leader, different map, different neighbors.

That being said, I'm pretty much a rookie, I need to play my best game to win consistently at Monarch and I tend to try to have a "do-it-all" empire. 1st in territory, 1st in GNP, 1st in manufacturing, etc, which is ideal when you can do it, but probably not always feasible. Even so, I'd be happy to look as some saves and give my humble opinions.

Dirty

[gdgrimm]

Honestly, if you're really new, want to learn how to master the basics, and can still enjoy playing the game while following this advice....

Do NOT build any World Wonders at all.

In CivIV, WW's aid in helping specific strategies. If you're just starting out, you don't need to learn specific strategies -- you need to learn general strategies.

Things like how to mange cities so they grow quickly to health/happy caps, then change their worker assignments to maximize production or commerce. Things like balancing new city founding with cash flow. Things like how to maintain an army large enough to avoid war when you don't want it. If you do need to capture a city, how many of what type of unit do you need to bring to take it quickly with few or no losses.

Once you can win most of the time at, say, Noble, with no WW's, then you can be confident that you have a good handle on all the general strategies, and can start exploring the specific strategies.

[Yosho]

I can't say I agree with that...some wonders are always good for general stratagies, especally on a lower level where you don't have to go out of your way to get them. Oracle or great libary, for example, can have a stratagy built around them, but they're worth building either of them just for the tech andvantage and the great people points they give you, which should help you no matter what else you're doing.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Solver
Arrian, why do you not like the Pyramids? I find that a great Wonder with a more peaceful playstyle. Representation is good for a specialist economy, but then I switch to Universal Suffrage after my Cottages have grown into Towns. A nice production bonus, and a use for my money way, way before Democracy on the tech tree.

Oh, I like it. I just don't like it as much as I used to. Partly due to the mini-nerf of Representation. Partly due to the change of Hed. Rule to low upkeep. Partly b/c of its cost and my deep and abiding love of the CS slingshot.

-Arrian

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by padillah
I have a tendancy to build every wonder I come across, in hopes that one of them will help me win.

Nope. That won't work. I propose (predictably) to go for the Spaceship. Let's see what the map looks like before deiciding on Wonders, but Oracle, Great Library and Pyramids can frequently all be very useful to get launched first.

I'd like to play Saladin or Hatshepsut (really Hatshepsut, I'm a SPR/CRE kind of guy).

Saladin for PHI's GPP. Maybe Alexander, or Lizzie.

I usually play on huge pangea maps.

No, no, no, no. Standard, Continents: less AI on your landmass equals lower chance of war being declared on you. There's enough space to grab for sure. If you decide to go this route (playing on normal speed) you'll need at least 6 cities (to build Oxford).

Initial saves are very small anyway so don't worry on that front. Post that up along with initial research and build plans, get some feedback then play for 20 turns and post another save with further plans.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Arrian
...and my deep and abiding love of the CS slingshot.

-Arrian

OK, I've seen this bandied about and apparently everyone but me knows why this is a good slingshot so no one explains it.

Why is CS so amazing? IIRC it allows Beaurocracy and farms to spread irrigation. Why is that worth ignoring IW, Alphabet, etc. ?

Tom P.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by padillah

Why is CS so amazing? IIRC it allows Beaurocracy and farms to spread irrigation. Why is that worth ignoring IW, Alphabet, etc. ?

Tom P.

Ignore Iron Working or Alphabet?

huh? Why would you do that?

edit: Are you saying why grab CS with the free tech instead of others? Because by the time you get CS you should have a library in your capitol and be well on your way to popping your first GS to build an academy. The 50% commerce boost should give you about 100 beakers in even a normal (Ie: not silly with cottaged flood plains or multiple gold mines) city.

Also, the less AI that are around the less people you have to trade with! I used to be the 'quiet builder' type and liked choosing continents with maybe one other AI on the same one as me, or even Islands maps.. so I could build and expand for quite some time without any worries other than Barbs.

Well, all that does is make the game longer and crush you mid game when the AI is all trading with each other, and you're not.

Grabbing Alphabet (and then Currency!) is just about a guaranteed win in Warlord and below because you can just continue to sell your tech lead to all the other AI and starve them while you use their cash to keep your research at 100% and your units current.

[teaster]

Originally posted by padillah
As a matter of fact, I'm terrified of war. I've never won a war. I have no idea why but I keep attacking the city with all the enemy units in it.

The AI will concentrate it's defences in cities that it believes to be threatened. If you gather a Horde near city A the AI will usually send the bulk of it's forces to defend it. If you want to take city A, maybe start by sending a mobile force (those nice chariots maybe) to city B and threaten it. When the AI sends forces there to defend you send your main army to city A while your chariots pillage the roads to slow down reinforcements.

It will also make things a lot easier when trying to take cities if you use the units specialised for that purpose. Catapults to bombard, swordsmen to attack and don't forget to load those swordsmen up with city raider promotions.

Good Luck

[padillah]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat


Ignore Iron Working or Alphabet?

huh? Why would you do that?

edit: Are you saying why grab CS with the free tech instead of others?

I don't think so, I'm asking why a "slingshot" to CS? What makes ivil Service itself worth slingshotting to while ignoring the other tech during the slingshot?

And what makes it a better slingshot goal than any other tech you have access to? So much so that you specifically set out to get it "ahead of time".

Does that question make sense?

Tom P.

[Arrian]

Because bureacracy is hugely powerful, and its power is proportional to how small the empires in the game are, and thus the earlier in the game you get it, the stronger it is.

Bur gives you a 50% bonus to production and commerce in your capital. In the early going, your cap is often far and away your best city. Plus, if you follow the slingshot step-by-step (I don't*) it gets you an early great scientist for an Academy in your cap. So now you've got +50 commerce, +50% research, +50 production in your best city, at a time when most empires in the game have 2-3 cities.

On Prince, one can do the slingshot w/o totally beelining. I often research 1-2 techs that are outside the slingshot beeline. Stuff like pottery, archery, bronze working... you get a feel for what you can get away with, in part depending on the power of your starting position.

If you want to know exactly how to execute the SS, there are threads on it, or I could give you a quick version here...

-Arrian

* - I often forgo the early GS for the Academy in favor of better growth/production in the early going. I typically get out to a nice tech lead anyway, and thus would rather boost the other areas. A tech lead is nice, but you need cities and hammers to do something with it.

[Palpster]

Originally posted by padillah


I don't think so, I'm asking why a "slingshot" to CS? What makes ivil Service itself worth slingshotting to while ignoring the other tech during the slingshot?

And what makes it a better slingshot goal than any other tech you have access to? So much so that you specifically set out to get it "ahead of time".

Does that question make sense?

Tom P.

Two things: a) because it's often quite useful to get to bureaucracy and b) because when you finish the Oracle CS will quite likely be the most expensive tech you could get for free...the other techs are all faster to get, even more so when the switch to bureaucracy is made since this switch will increase your science output substantially.

[Azuarc]

because when you finish the Oracle CS will quite likely be the most expensive tech you could get for free...the other techs are all faster to get, even more so when the switch to bureaucracy is made since this switch will increase your science output substantially.

Not if you don't spend numerous turns researching Code of Laws.

The advantage in CS lies squarely in the hands of Bureaucracy. I will often run that the entire game, especially when not playing spiritual.


And as much as I generally try to play without "teh sling", it really is that good.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by padillah


I don't think so, I'm asking why a "slingshot" to CS? What makes ivil Service itself worth slingshotting to while ignoring the other tech during the slingshot?

I don't think I've advocated any sort of 'bee-line' in order to complete the CS slingshot. You aren't ignoring other techs during the slingshot.

Here's the tech path from Devel's Workshop I - Completing the CS slingshot:

Mining, Bronze working, Mysticism, Wheel, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing, Pottery, Code of Laws , Alphabet, Civil Service via Oracle, Iron Working, Mathematics, Trades IW for Polytheism, Sailing, archery and Masonry, Currency, Monotheism, Literature, Music, Compass, Metal Casting, Machinery, Optics...

It goes on.

Anyway, you aren't really bypassing any techs that I see are critical. IW is a rather expensive tech if you try to do it before you have a library, academy, and run Bur in your Capitol.

[Dominae]

Bureaucracy is not as powerful on Huge maps, which the OP likes to play...

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by Dominae
Bureaucracy is not as powerful on Huge maps, which the OP likes to play...

Please explain. I always play on Huge maps, and I always take a huge benefit from Bureaucracy.

Are you just making that supposition because on Huge maps you'll have more room for expansion, so you'll have more cities and therefore the production of your Capitol isn't as important?

That might be the case but the OP doesn't expand, either.

[Solver]

I wonder if I'm wrong in using Bureaucracy a lot, even when I have a larger empire. I just find that with Bureaucracy, my capital can produce military units in 1 or 2 turns, on Epic speed. It seems very powerful to me - even when I have a lot of other cities. I do, though, sometimes switch to Free Speech, but only if playing a cottage-heavy game. Vassalage I use very rarely...

[Rancidlunchmeat]

I don't see what civic could possibly be better.

Vassalage and Nationhood are really only good if you're aggressive and almost constantly at war. At which time, the happiness bonus from Nationhood is pretty much minimalized, and you need Nationalism to get to it which is rather far down the tech path.

I suppose you could get Vassalage earlier, but I normally ignore monarchy and feudalism until later (because I also ignore horseback riding and archery so I don't use Knights or Longbows)

Free Speech requires liberalism, and is great. The commerce and research from Free Speech Civ-Wide could easily surpass the benefits of Bur. But we're talking about Liberalism, and we're talking about added benefits only from Towns! Even if you get Liberalism early, you probably won't have enough towns to make it more productive than Bur for quite some time. About the same time you'd like to switch to US, I'd imagine, which is rather late.

I'd say for the most part, under most conditions, Bur is the way to go through the mid-late part of the game. Which is why it's so popular.

[padillah]

OK, I know it's late but here's the deal: in defference to my earlier thread ("What's the BEST leader", much earlier) I'm going with Catherine. Everything else will be out-of-the-box standard. Continents, Standard size, Temperate, Medium, Ancient, Normal. 7 AI's and me.

My personal preferences are for "Complete Kills" and "City Flipping after conquest".

I have a preference for no time or space race victories but I will save the WB file so I can turn them on if I get enough kick-back.

I figure the first couple of moves will be warrior build, chase the CS slingshot, worker second, and see what I come up with next.

I'll post the saves in the first post so they are easier to find.

Here we go, thanks in advance.

Tom P.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

I'd go huge and epic and add three more AI.

But that's just me.

[SebP]

I'd advise you to play for spaceship victories if you don't want to conquer the world. It's not that cultural victories are hard, but they are, well, somewhat unintuitive. Diplomatic victories are good. Trying to get those will teach you about important aspects of the game (as will the spaceship victory). From my limited experience though, there seems quite a bit of luck involved with the former (diplo). Therefore, spaceship first. Errr.... perhaps someone can back me up there?

[One_more_turn]

Conquest gives you the coolest end movie.

Cultural victories are so underwhelming.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by padillah
I have a preference for no time or space race victories but I will save the WB file so I can turn them on if I get enough kick-back.

Backing up SebP, how do you want to win? Not only that, the AI wants to win too and its default path to victory is the spaceship. Turn it off and the AI might look to win by conquest/domination...

I figure the first couple of moves will be warrior build, chase the CS slingshot, worker second, and see what I come up with next.

I loaded the game and the build order is fine, but what are you researching first and why? I picked Animal Husbandry to improve the pigs. Don't get too hung up on the CS Sling...it's a good move but it's not always the best. Look first for a good 2nd city site.

[padillah]

@RancidLunchMeat: That's easy enough to change. I still have the WB script so I can edit that for a second try.

@SebP & Swiss Pauli: I guess the thing I don't like about Space Race is how short it used to be. Time too. I don't want to stop playing just because it's time to stop playing.

@Swiss Pauli: I was going to go for Mysticism first, then BW and on but you have a point about the pigs. But won't they hold till after the slingshot? I've got plenty of food from the grassland and my health won't be a problem for a while.

Tom P.