Some strategy advice needed

[dschur]

Originally posted by Saldrin
There is an option, to turn on the city icons for beakers, coins, and hammers, so you can tell which cities are producing the most of whatever. I usually start to keep things balanced in the start of the game, usually focusing my capital on GPP and a lot of farms to feed them. And let my cities decide what they want to become by watching for the icons.

I wait and see what cities start producing the most hammers and I build forges and what not there. For my commerace cities I stick mainly to cottages and one or two farms. I also keep my specialist geared towards that production. I convert a lot of merchants in my commerace city, and priest for the added food and hammers, engineers in my hammer city, ... Yadda yadda yadda.... City that are not used for comm/prod/sci I use as military cities. And as my GPP city pumps out great people, I put that great person in the appropiate city: merchant in my comm city, engie in my hammer city...

Probably not the best advice, but its been working fairly well for me.

I think I would reconsider this. Civ4 is very harsh on this strategy. You really have to plan out what a city is going to do before you even build it. Terrain and Resources will direct what is possible, and maybe even offer some choices, but before you even launch that settler you need to know exactly what the location's goal is going to be.


Edit to add: http://www.civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_walk_1.html

This helps a lot

[Robinski9]

Thanks to DrHook for asking the questions that were buzzing around, in my head and thanks to everyone else for the helpful (gee, why didn't I think of that) information.

[slimeddy]

My suggestion: Play a notch down and select the Raging barbarians option. It will give you a nice trial-by-fire of how to deal with constant attacks but not overwhelm you like a war might. It really helps get you focused on unit production and defense very early on, plus it helps keep the other empires at bay.

[Saldrin]

Originally posted by dschur



I think I would reconsider this. Civ4 is very harsh on this strategy. You really have to plan out what a city is going to do before you even build it. Terrain and Resources will direct what is possible, and maybe even offer some choices, but before you even launch that settler you need to know exactly what the location's goal is going to be.


Edit to add: http://www.civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_walk_1.html

This helps a lot

That's a great idea, but...

You can't tell where resources like iron and coal are going to be. You can assume where they might pop up, but if they don't its a hassle to start changing tiles to fit the need. Same with later spawning resources.

Founding religions can also impact commerce city choices, and I never know where those are gonna end up, if I happen to get one or hopefully two.

I have a basic goal, but it doesn't always work out. Its great to plan, but games don't always turn out to be that easy, nor forgiving. Getting a few turns into the game to let my cities develop a bit before specializing has worked great for me. Where as, plopping down a settler with intent of that city being a hammer city has usually not resulted in that being the case for me. Mid game, when most of the resources are visable, yeah, no problem.... But early ages, there is no way to be sure what's gonna happen.

[Blake]

I build all my cities as general purpose - they all build everything pretty much.

I usually make a super-science city and might make a super-cash/culture city with the religious stuff. But in any case the capital (usually) becomes my SSC and the game chooses the cash city.

When founding cities my only motivation is acquiring as many resources as possible. I'll favor a tundra city which will grab me 3 resources to a fine floodplains+hills city without resources. Ofcourse denying the AI good spots is also part of it.

Getting back to building up the cities I mostly just go with farms & mines. I only start with cottages when a city has enough food to work all it's mines. Cities with lots of food and production seem to work out better than cities with cottages, the production lets you easily build all the facilities (remember they don't have upkeep now) while a cottage city will stagment. (so sure, cottages are the bees knees and all, but think of them as a luxury rather than a staple).

I also avoid windmills/watermills on the most part. I'd rather have one tile producing 4 food and another 4 hammers than two 2/2 tiles, this is because the 4hammer tile can be swapped with a specialist if nessecary. Having specialized tiles allows you to easily switch a city over to building units/wonders, or specialists for great people.

The above advice is mainly for non-Phil/Finanical Civs, cottages are slightly more valuable for Finanical civs and probably less valuable for Phil civs (since you'll want HEAPS of food for specialists and hence GP).

[Mhantra]

I have had a similar problem with balancing until recently. I used to fly up the tech tree, and believe me, I would be an absolute beast in techs compared to the comp. I would found 3 religions sometimes even. My culture was through the roof, but my military was always weak.

However, the same thing would always happen. They would declare war on me (always more than 1, probably because my culture would completely infringe on their territory...) and come beat me down.

So, this current game, I didn't even found a religion, instead creating a military/commerce civ, and the minute one showed any aggression to me (Saladin declared war), I defended his attack, in the meantime producing military in 100% of my cities, than counterattacked and took two of his cities, and demanded 400 gold for a peace treaty...he took it.

This expansion, once the difficult transition was over, left me a much more powerful civ. I still stocked a large amount of units (invading army size) in my frontal cities, waiting for his next move while I worked on techs (I got a lot from trading). Once he came again, I beat down his attack, counter attacked and took two more cities...

This is what I was missing in my "balance." If you are a pushover, militarily, than they will attack in force. Also, I noticed that this was the first game, ever, that I actually waged war, attacking and taking another civ's city.

I was trying to win a basketball game only playing defense...

[DrHook]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx


Not as I understand it.

here, and I could be wrong, still not 100% sure on all this myself:

City A is working tiles that give it 100 Gold per turn. This is the cities 'treasury'.

You have science of 50% (because my math is teh suckage)

50 gold goes to science
50 gold goes to Treasury for your empire.
If you build a Library, + 25% to science, now you get

62 gold to science (maybe 63, not sure how it rounds)
50 gold to Treasury.

Build a bank:

62 science (50 + lib bonus)
62 Treasury (50+ bank bonus)

SOME buildings, though, like a harbor, or the special shrine for holy cities would increase that original 100 gold for the city as a whole, and therefore effect BOTH a bank or Lib bonus.

So, yes, you want a bank in your 'science city' if you are not running 100% science because your science city should be making allot of gold, and you want all that under 100% to get the bonus.

No, making a bank in your science city will not help it put out any more beakers in the least.

Alright, I hate to go through this again but I gots ta know, man, I gots ta know!

Commerce gets converted to beakers based on the slider setting. I got that much. So in your example, 100 gold from tiles at 50% science = 50 beakers. Now if you add a bank, and it increases by 50% to 150 gold produced, you say it doesn't go to science. Is the beaker amount tied only to the base tile production of gold or to overall city production? If I understand you right, the bank will produce 150 gold, but the extra 50 that comes from the bank is not figured into the conversion to beakers; only gold directly from tiles is. Do I have that right? And if so, what happens to that extra 50 gold from the bank? It certainly doesn't show up in my national treasury.

I am having a hard time with this simply because let's say I am at 100% science (because I too suck at math). I make 100 gold in tiles, and get 100 beakers. I add alibrary and I get 125 beakers now from the same 100 base tile gold. If I add a bank, I am now producing 150 gold, but still only 125 beakers? again I wonder where that extra 50 gold is ending up.

Secondly, what about the individual sliders within each city? Do they change the production of beakers/gold that is then figured into to the overal civ treasury/science?

[Dominae]

DrHook, there's a difference between Commerce and Gold.

What you get from working tiles (say, Cottages, Gold Mines, and stuff) is Commerce. It's confusing because it looks like gold coins, but it's not actually "Gold" in the Treasury sense.

The sliders split Commerce up into three outputs: Beakers, Gold, and Culture.

Then, buildings increase these three outputs by a certain percentage: Banks +50% Gold, Universities +50% Beakers, etc.

If you're running 100% Science, none of your Commerce is going toward Gold or Culture. So in this case your Bank is producing 0 Gold because +50% applied to 0 is still 0.

When your Science slider is at or close to 100%, your Marketplaces, Banks and Grocers are adding little to no Gold to your Treasury.

As a rule of thumb, I would recommend not building Banks until your Science dips below 80%. Marketplaces and Grocers are still worth it because of their Happiness/Health bonuses.

[Jaybe]

Shrine income goes directly into the treasury, I know. Specialist revenues are also factored by buildings, according to the mouse-overs.

[DrHook]

Thanks Dominae. The concept finally clicked and now I understand. So basically I am wasting time making markets and banks as long as I am running 90-100% science which I try to do. For some reason I had a hard time getting my mind around that - I think it was the commerce not gold thing.

Now I have another question. I am still on noble (I refuse to move up until I stop getting pasted on that level . What seems to be perpetually happening to me is that I start out fairly well, being one of the top 2-3 Civs in score, and keeping pace or staying ahead in tech. Then, at some point in the 16-1700s I start to lose ground, to be low-middle of the pack. And of course this is bad because the techs are getting modern and I have little or no chance of recovery. What is a way to get past this? Do you guys tend to put a high hammer city on beaker production? I thought maybe specialists could do it, but to get many, it seems like you need a near perfect food situation. At any rate, I am getting frustrated always losing ground to the AI in the tech race. It is starting to feel like the only way to stop it is to go to war and crush them, but that doesn't really fit my playing style, and I;d hate to think that is my best (and maybe only option).

[DrHook]

Here is a save game in case anyone is feeling kind enough to look at it I'd like to know where I've gone wrong.

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=70713_SaladinAD-1878.Civ4SavedGame

[QuestGAV]

I'm at work so I can't peek at your saved game, but it seems like the AI civs start getting more protectionist about their techs around this time. If you're very reliant on tech trading to keep up you're going to start losing the battle as the game moves into the gunpowder era.

For me, this means that by this time I've got to have my cities fully specialized and have several big commerce cities pumping out beakers (and be equipped with library/university/observatory). If you don't have the specialization process down quite yet I think that would explain why you're hitting a wall here. Once you're able to play through a game and implement this you'll be in better position.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by DrHook
Now I have another question. I am still on noble (I refuse to move up until I stop getting pasted on that level. What seems to be perpetually happening to me is that I start out fairly well, being one of the top 2-3 Civs in score, and keeping pace or staying ahead in tech. Then, at some point in the 16-1700s I start to lose ground, to be low-middle of the pack.

I suspect this is a combination of the following:

1. Not enough of an emphasis on Cottages/Towns. The AI knows that Towns rule supreme in the late-game, so it builds them early. It's probably researching faster than you because it's got more income coming in. Unless you build military units (which should have more of than they, if you so few Cottages) and conquer them, you cannot hope to remain competitive.

2. Insufficient technology trading. If the AIs are trading and you are not, that's a source of "income" for them that you are not dipping into. I would recommend checking the F5 screen every few (2-3 turns) just to see what's possible. Trade when possible.

3. Reduced expansion. The AI keeps expanding in the mid and late-game, if it can afford to. It finds unclaimed islands puts cities there. Human players tend to stop expanding after a certain initial rush and focus on building upward instead. Remind yourself to keep expanding post-Astronomy.

I'll try to take a look at your save later.

[I_pity_the_fool]

WRT your save:

Do you have anything against those religious civics? If you choose Free Religion you'll get +10% science and a happy face per religion in each city. And you won't get diplomacy modifiers for being of the wrong faith. Also, Organized Religion is good for infrastructure.

Also, there's no reason not to have Free Market or Mercantilism over Decentralization. It'll bring in a lot more money.

[Robinski9]

Trading...

Is it just me or do competing civs seem to not want to offer ANYTHING for any trades but expect you to pay through the nose?

I've been playing chieftan - warlord mostly since I'm still trying to understand game concepts but it seems that trading techs isn't worth my time. They always lowball me and I end up cancelling the trade.

Am I doing something wrong?