Forests: Should you really keep them?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Thanks ghen! That was a good phrase, no?


And I think Ag summed up the gist of it quite nicely....that there are some types of investments that resonate more loudly than others (specifically infrastructure), and that it's best, if at all possible, to save what forests you have for those builds.

-=Vel=-

Even on high level games though, chopping an army can be quite effective (though you'll want to chop settlers and workers too). Especially if you can leverage it to take the pyramids or another wonder from the AI -- which can be quite difficult to build on your own whilst building up a small empire.

In order to support a large empire early on, however, you are going to need Stonehenge and a religion, or philosophical with one of those for a Great Prophet. Using him to generate money while your cottages or other money resources develop can allow you to hold on to 10 or so cities pretty easily before markets. In this sense workers and cities probably resonate the most later, as the sooner you get those cottages out, the sooner they are producing a lot more gold for you. The sooner you get your cities linked together, also, the sooner you earn money from that.

I've also found that with the above strategy of getting Great Prophets that I can *always* found Christianity. I typically play England so I have philosophical. I chop for Stonehenge after I build my first settler. I use my first prophet as a specialist in the most promising financial area I have. By the time the second prophet comes along, it is still early in the game and I have or nearly have all of the first 5 religion-related techs. This means he can instantly give me Theology. Pretty handy (naturally the third prophet is spent on the special religious building). Since I tend to lean towards expansion, I typically have to spend the first prophet to make a super specialist, otherwise my economy will be in ruins -- as everyone is probably aware, 5 gold is a huge deal in the beginning of the game.

-Drachasor

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Shr3dZ
Ive been playing this game since 2 days after it was released and Ive still yet to see any resources pop up after mining!

I read elsewhere that you need to work the tile for the resources to have a chance to appear.

[rjmatsleepers]

And IIRC, the chances are about 1 in 1,000 so you have to work the tile for a long time.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Arrian]

Or rather work lots of tiles over time. Over the course of a game with a decent-sized empire, I'll typically see 1-3 resources pop up.

-Arrian

[Shr3dZ]

Ohhh now I get it, I thought it was like a 1 time thing once you mine the hill, total brainfart there :/

In that case I think I have seen copper and iron popup a few times, but no gold or silver.

[Hauptman]

I swear i remeber a resource pop outside of the fat cross before... I mine all hills in my cultural raduis even if its out of the cross for that reason...

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Hauptman
I swear i remeber a resource pop outside of the fat cross before...

It does happen, but not often (I think I've seen it happen maybe twice in 40 or so games). Mines make the chance a bit better, but it's still only a small chance, AFAICT..

[ghen]

In civ3 resources would randomly dissappear from the map somewhere and reappear somewhere else. I liked that setup as it added a sense of realism with resources being 'mined out' or 'dried up'. This doesn't seem to be the case with civ4.

[tai4ji2x]

Originally posted by Hauptman
I swear i remeber a resource pop outside of the fat cross before... I mine all hills in my cultural raduis even if its out of the cross for that reason...

are you sure it was a "newly discovered" resource? because resources that were seeded by the map generator at the start of the game will still "pop" up as if you "discovered a new source" simply by getting the appropriate technology to reveal said resource.