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**Felch** · November 23, 2009, 10:01

1.

Workers on automate is fine for lower difficulties, but if you're playing Prince on CivIV, you're going to want to be more thoughtful. The strategic choice you face is to either go for a cottage economy which is simpler to execute on a turn by turn basis, or to build irrigation and go for a specialist economy. At this stage, I'd recommend cottages. Expert players seem to love the specialist economy, but if you're struggling, you probably just want to simplify as many tasks as possible.

You should try to shoot for a worker for each city, and you should try to make sure that every citizen is working on an improved tile (a tile with a mine, farm, cottage, or exploited resource on it). Focus on exploiting resources first, and make sure they're linked to your cities with roads (if you've gone through the tutorial you should already know that much).

I see that Wodan is looking at this thread, and he knows far more than I do, so if he says otherwise, I defer to his judgement.

Oh yeah. Welcome to Poly.

**Felch** · November 23, 2009, 10:04

4 & 7

These go together. If Barbs are pissing on your grave, try to build the Great Wall. It stops them from breaking into your cultural boundaries. If you're having trouble in the Wonder races, pick a leader with the Industrious [IND] trait.

**wodan11** · November 23, 2009, 10:09

Originally posted by Calibos View Post

Everything seemed to take a long time to research and I gradually lost all my gold (research plummeted from 100% down to 0%, Mathematics in 500+ turns

) and the majority of military units once the strike kicked in.

You built too many units. Use the F2 screen and you can see where your money is draining away. Depending on your civic choices and the population of your cities, you get so many units for free. After that, it costs you. There are two costs: maintenance and support. The former is how many units you have, period. The latter is how many units you have outside your borders (so if you have a ton of units off fighting in a war, this costs you).

Now whilst I was struggling to break even, every other nation was sending Frigates to my shores (my greatest naval unit was a galley), they also had great technology and enormous amounts of land.

You got behind in technology because you were spending all your money on unit maintenance.

So how is it that every one else in the world is able to develop so quickly? I assume it's because of poor planning and management on my behalf, but what is it that i'm doing wrong?

Upload a save game and we can critique it.

1. I usually set workers to automate, as I am not sure how to optimize the work.

That's ok but it would better if you figure it out. Specialize your cities. Have some cities that are almost all cottages (with a couple of mines plus developed special resources) and only make buildings that help commerce (e.g., Library). Have other cities that are mostly mines and only make units (and some key buildings such as Barracks and Courthouse).

2. I study the technology tree in a random manner, as I do not know how to utilize it effectively, though I generally go for hunting, sailing, animal husbandry, bronze working, pretty early on.

The most straightforward answer is:
(1) Get Bronze Working
(2) Get key worker techs (Agriculture, Pottery, etc.)
(3) Get Alphabet, Currency, and Code of Laws

Don't go get things such as Iron Working until you've done the above.

(This is just a guideline and will get you started. As you play more you can start experimenting to see what works and how modifications affect the situation.)

3. I build cities next to as many hammers as possible (as I believed that more hammers = faster production, though I feel this is wrong after some reading).

Yes. High hammer tiles are worthless if you don't have enough food to feed the citizens to work them. Also, your cities are limited by their size... if you have 15 hills/mines then that's a lot of wasted tiles if your city is size 5. Planning ahead for when your city is that large (later in the game) is good but keep perspective as the early game is very important. As you saw, if you don't set things up well in your early game then it's pretty hard to come from behind.

4. I try build barracks and granary in every city

Granary is usually good in every city. Barracks is usually not good in every city.

and produce a lot of military units early on as barbarians keep destroying my improvements and it really pisses me off.

Build quality not quantity. Make sure you pay attention to bonuses such as Axemen who get a bonus vs Warriors. Also, Axemen are stronger than Archers. So they are a good choice for early units.

5. I use slavery to hurry production on a lot of things (usually when the number of angry citizens outweigh or equal the happy)

Keep in mind each time you use the whip, you're removing citizens from working your cottages. So, yes, you get production, but at the cost of commerce (research). Thus, whipping is often counter productive. Only do it where it makes sense.

and I allocate research according to whether I make profit or not. Usually it is around 80% so I do not lose any gold per turn, though I guess if I produced less military units I could research faster and theoretically build a stronger military?).

bingo

6. I try to out-culture a nearby enemy city to overtake peacefully.

no comment

7. I ALWAYS fail in building the Pyramids, just how the hell can you win this race?

Chop forests. Try to find Stone and build a quarry. Pick a leader with the Industrious trait. Start early (have your 2nd or 3rd city start on it, not your 5th or 6th city).

8. I usually get impatient during war and send wave after wave of unit to attack (even if they have no chance of winning) in a vain effort to deplete enemy HP for the stronger uints to go in and attack.

Your units dying cause more war weariness which causes unhappiness in your cities. Besides being a waste of hammers you spent to build them.

Edit: One more question that has been bugging me is the use of great people to discover new technology. I find that even when I consume the great person at the expense of new technlogy that nothing is discovered

A great person will generate an amount of beakers depending on your population at the time. If that amount of beakers is not greater than the cost of the tech, then you don't get it right away. That's ok... those beakers are saved and when you decide to research the tech you'll see that you already have a big start on it.

**wodan11** · November 23, 2009, 10:14

Originally posted by Felch View Post

I see that Wodan is looking at this thread, and he knows far more than I do, so if he says otherwise, I defer to his judgement.

I'm always mixed between feeling flattered and saying "ha!" when someone does this. I guess that's my sense of self-sardonic kicking in.

Anyway, thanks for the compliment.

**Felch** · November 23, 2009, 10:54

I play on Noble most of the time, since I'm more interested in playing around than getting my ass handed to me. You're more of an expert on this.

Now, whether you consider expertise at a computer game to be much of a compliment is up to you.

**wodan11** · November 23, 2009, 11:10

Originally posted by Felch View Post

I play on Noble most of the time, since I'm more interested in playing around than getting my ass handed to me. You're more of an expert on this.

Now, whether you consider expertise at a computer game to be much of a compliment is up to you.

ha.

**Ming** · November 23, 2009, 11:18

The real key is not to overexpand to quickly, and build an economey that will support your current and future needs.

Some techs are really good for building your economy.
In the early stages..
Sailing (can give you better trade routes)
Code of Law (allows you to build court houses to lower city maintence costs)
Currency (an additional trade route plus the ability to build markets)
Pottery (allows you to build cottages)

And as you discussed, you are already going after key military techs, and that is important as well... especially animal husbandry because it allows you to improve animal squares.

You also have to improve your science rate... Writing is good to target early since you can build libraries.

You just have to manage your economy. Once you build 4 or 5 cities, your maintance costs will start killing you. Make sure you are running a surplus before adding more cities. Some might argue to expand like crazy, and then put the infrastructure in place later, but for new players, slow and steady growth will probably be better for you.

Wodan mentions "cottage economy" and "specialist economy"... He rightly says that for beginners, the cottage economy route is probably easier to master. Just build cottages where you can, trying to balance food and hammers. The old joke, when in doubt (non resourse sqaure) build a cottage.

As far as your military goes, a big army is expensive. A smaller more superior army is better at first. Also, you don't say How you attack... To attack, beginners should use the Stack of Death method (SoD) This is a large and concentrated stack with a mix of units. You should have collateral damage units (like catapults or tribs) so that you can take down city walls, and then cause damage to multiple units at a time, include units that can attack cities (melee units like swordsmans with the city raider promotion) and some defensive units to defend the stack (like spearman or crossbowman) and probably some double movement units like horse archers to flank an enemies colateral damage units. Experiment a little bit and you will see how many units you need to take good and poorly defended cities.

And if you do take the cities, you don't have to keep them all. Only keep the ones covering valuable resourses, strategic points, and the best cities. Cities with wonders, holy cities, and capitals are almost always worth keeping. Raze the rest or your economy might go down the tubes again. After you take more land, you might need to spend some time building the infrastructure to rebuild your economy, which usually goes into the tank during a war.

Just a few more tips... GOOD LUCK

**Blaupanzer** · November 23, 2009, 11:27

Felch: On the one hand he compliments, with the other he takes it away.

Wodan is one of the best for diagnosing and advising.

Definitely do not play above Noble until you figure out cottages, great people, and city placement. Pay attention to which of your cities thrive; place and build more like that in the next game. Wonder races are enhanced by the IND trait, but it is not required. Don't build too many cities until you have Currency and Code of Laws. Without those and their corresponding buildings, you are hard pressed to pay for more than 5 or 6 cities.

Again, welcome aboard.

**Calibos** · November 23, 2009, 12:39

Thanks to everyone for your help, I can't wait to get home and have another crack at it.

Ming: The way I usually attack a city was by using a variety of units (usually axeman or swordsman at the start, I do use siege weapons when I am able to but it normally takes me a while since my research is so bad). This stack option you speak of, is that simply placing several units onto the same tile? Or is it a little more complex than that?

Wodan11: Thank you for insight, I can see where i'm going wrong in certain areas now. I could upload the save I was referring to for lolz; as far as I recall, I had just landed a caravel on American shores and they were competing in the Space Race. I guess that's a pretty good indicator of how bad I was actually playing.

How early should I begin a second city? I normally create a warrior or two and a worker just to make sure my improvements and city are secure, once that's done should I get rocking on number 2?

**Felch** · November 23, 2009, 12:45

The stack of death is just units on the same tile. For ease of use, you should group them together (there's a button on the bottom to do that). That way you won't have to move each individual unit.

When you attack with the SoD, remember to break it up. Use the units that are most appropriate (seige and city raider to attack cities, horses against enemy seige units, etc.)

**Calibos** · November 23, 2009, 12:58

Sweet! Thanks Felch

**Theben** · November 23, 2009, 13:05

Originally posted by Calibos View Post

This stack option you speak of, is that simply placing several units onto the same tile? Or is it a little more complex than that?

Basically it's placing many units on one tile, but the best ones have a mix of units that cover a variety of bonuses vs enemy units: axemen vs melee, swords for cities, spearmen to hold off horse units, and catapults to knock down city defenses/collateral damage on enemy stacks.

If grouped all together (recommended) you should 1st separate the catapults/siege units and have them assault a city 1st. Then you can send the remaining group in as a whole and the computer will pick the best unit to fight for you.

How early should I begin a second city? I normally create a warrior or two and a worker just to make sure my improvements and city are secure, once that's done should I get rocking on number 2?

ASAP. In SP you don't need to build even 1 warrior and most people advise building a worker or workboat (if available) 1st, as the AI will not attack you during the early turns and barbs don't show up until later. However at low levels having another warrior or a scout 1st can help for the "goody hut" dash and allow you to see where you what to place future cities.

I prefer to build 1 warrior, then 2 workers/workboats and then a settler +escort.

One thing to look for is food specials. I never settle an early city down somewhere unless it has 1-2 food specials in its workable area (aka Big Fat Cross or BFC) or it has a critical resource or placement vs the AI.

**ybrevo** · November 23, 2009, 14:37

And when it comes to SOD, it is always a good idea to have a unit with

attached to it.

Supported by a Great General it works wonders in a fight for a well defended city. It took me a long time to find out how much healing means when at war - and how much effort it takes to put a hypodermic needle into the skin of a wounded war elephant

I look forward to your next threads - because I am in the learning phase as well.

ybrevo

**Felch** · November 23, 2009, 15:30

The others have touched on this, but Civ IV brutally punishes you for having too many cities. Early on, three is a good number. Keep an eye on your tax rate, and gradually add cities as you can afford them. I like to aim for a science rate of 50-70 percent. Once I'm making a profit at 70% I build another city. I only break that rule if I need to secure a choke point or key resource from the AI.

As far as city specialization goes, I'd like to hear more from the vets. My cities tend to be more cookie cutter, since I favor peaceful expansion, low difficulty, and long games. That means that hammers generally go to buildings instead of armies, and so I tend to overbuild cities. I also like big empty maps, where I'm not likely to run into the AI until I've had plenty of time to develop.

Just to clarify, are you playing the Vanilla version or BtS? And are you patched to the most recent update? A lot has changed, including the AI, since the first release.

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