Vel's Strategy Thread

[mindnumb]

I usually wait until I have bronse to make the first settler.

I research polyethism, then bronse working, and then monoethism.

I start with a worker ( after some warriors), and time it to finish at the time bronse is ready, then I chop as many settlers as there is woods, throwing in a couple of workers in the mix. This keeps the cities growing, and helps spawning settlers at the same time.

I usually do not use choping for anything but settlers and workers.

I am a big fan of gandhi, and the fast workers help speed things up. using this tactic it is possible to have quite a decent number of cities before year 0, and a lot of workers as well. And a good religous lead too.

Anyone else tried this ?

[InThane]

I've been doing the polytheism/copper/monotheism dance as well with Ghandi, works pretty well on the levels I've been playing with (the lower half). I also make a point of sending my starting warrior WAY the heck out there - and when I come across some poor sap just getting started (for some reason it's been Tokugawa every time. Dunno why) I smack his worker, then pillage all his improvements. Last game Tokugawa was at the top of the score heap when I ran into him, 20 turns later he's at the bottom, AND I got a free worker! It makes him VERY angry with me, but I don't care, as nobody will pay attention to somebody who doesn't start with a religion and has no real power anyways. DO NOT try to take their capital - the random number generator will just laugh at you and smack you down.

What's even better is when I manage to snag stone+marble near my starting location. Ghandi+Organized Religion+Stone/Marble = +175% production on most early wonders means I win the early wonder war quite easily. I use the oracle to pick up Forges quickly while beelining for Alphabet so I can trade for the "early" techs with my neighbors.

[mightycount]

From my experience, starting to build the first settler when the city is size 3 is too late. Starting it in 4k BC might be a bit scary, but it works out better, at least against AI's. If you're up against real ppl, it won't work, I've personally killed a few folks who did that

I play on Prince, not sure if it matters..

[stratti]

Hello everyone. Been a member since CTPII but first post.

First of all must say that Civ IV has impressed me, I have played every one in the series as well as the CTP series and I love it.

If I missed someone talk about it earlier then sorry.

Just one thing at this point in regards to military strategy.

I tend to concentrate on defending frontiers and then having standing professional armies as opposed to loading every city as the AI does. While you are open to surprise attack if your recon isnt up to scratch it allows for fast response to Monty types.

Particularly devastating is keeping a squad of Swordsman early on (four to five) that are dedicated to City Raider. Coach them up, never miss an opportunity to use them against a target (Barbs are great for this). City Raider III is devastating. Then if you have this squad with four to five units, take ggod care of them. In the modern era make a bee-line for assembly line and ensure you have coin (Great Merchants are great for this ((caste system)) upgrade them then watch as you mount an unstoppable blietzkrieg.

Science
Never understimate the power of religion up until Scientific Method. Make a bee-line for the a religion early. Try to build stonehenge then use your prophets to gain as many techs along as you can. When using this strategy I usually end up with three. Convert every city you have access to including your own and ensure that you build the shrine of each Rel. While doing this having a monastery of each rel. in each city adds up especially if you can manage your economy at 100% science. Also don't be afraid to tech trade when you have a lead and whatever you do never give away alphabet. Also Cottages are crucial if you do not have a gold-rich resource.

Great People
Use them their great(:<) Can provide a real advantage.

For a reasonable challenge try to set the victory conditions as merely time, cultural, domination not space race or diplomatic on a standard game with a continent randomely generated. Its touch and go

To finish off I must say that I hate monty and not too impressed with the nukes in CivIV, prolly the only thing Im not.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Settlers? Bah humbug! Who needs settlers? OCC all the way.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by DrSpike
It's silly to argue the relative merits of shields, food and commerce in Civ as a whole. You want high food so that you can grow and produce more and have more commerce, and produce more infrastructure that leverages your base outputs.

I would suggest that it is perfectly reasonable to consider the relative merits of food, shields and commerce (you can add to this science and perhaps even culture) because they are all things that you can, in some way, trade within your civilisation. Food can be traded for production through slavery, while science/production/gold and culture can be traded using specialists. The trading rate here for production is a lot better value that the game trading rates when expressed through rush builds or unit promotions.

Your key civilisation outputs are unit production, tech investment and gold, with culture and GPP points operating on a city level. Everything else is just an investment to increase future output. Building a barracks in a city that never builds a unit is just like paying a large insurance premium but never having a claim. Running with several general-purpose cities is also a form of insurance.

Within your civilisation, you’ll see different cities operate at different levels of efficiency in producing these outputs of science, gold, culture, production etc. To operate the civilisation at optimal efficiency, you will trade production for science in one city while trading science for gold in another. Since your civilisation does not care which city provides your tech investment, it is quite possible that you provide the bulk of it from just one city or two cities while having the others concentrate on producing gold or military units.

[DrSpike]

I think you misunderstood.

It's fine to work out crude exchange rates for various specific scenarios. That wasn't what was happening in the posts I responded to.

[frenzyfol]

Reading this whole thread slowly.

People refer to farseer and settler gambit?
what are these things...

Thanks.

[Velociryx]

I'll bump the second thread for you....we've got stuff more organized in there...

-=Vel=-

[frenzyfol]

Cheers mate
Ill be reading the Vels workshop for the next few days..
Funny thing is I'm not actually playing civ 4.. ive played it.. but I just dont have the time to spend finding out all these interesting things for myself.
I'd love to see a compressed version of civ, less micro managment.
Must of spent years playing civ1-up to ctp.

[pkthoo]

I start with warrior-warrior-settler. By then my first town would be in size 3. In terms of production speed, I usually get 17 to 20 turns.

I have my first worker always after the first settler.

Would it be a good idea to reverse it instead (warrior,worker.settler/warrior), having a worker first to beef up your land around your first city, then utilize the higher prod to make a settler?

I played Civ3 that way, only to find it impossible to pull it off in Civ4 as the worker is one expensive unit (higher than an archer).