I totally suck at this game

[Al'Kimiya]

Suggestions appreciated

Well, I have managed to win space race at chieftain and warlord at standard/large maps while taking advantage of the player bonuses getting me quite strong culture and can flip maybe one or two cities in a game. This does not work on noble (which I'm trying hopelessly now to win). I worker-chop to about three cities fairly quick, trying to get hold of stone and marble to rush some early wonders. Then if I find iron (usually) I will try to build a few swordsmen/pretorians if romans as to not be last militarily, steadily improving my cities and maybe founding 2 or 3 more.

This seems like a valid foundation for science victory, but at noble there is always some other nation managing to win it regardless. Is my error not to keep building more cities. I so want to keep the science level at 100% for the most part, but still falls behind and end up losing.

My first games I also couldn't be left alone, but since then I've tried to build at least defence enough to take on one attacker and try to be friendly with as many other opponents as possible.

Anyway, at the moment I really see no other way of winning this game at all, since warmongering usually lets me take a handful of cities up until the modern age. I do not understand how to create that many units in that short time to take out more than one or at most two opponents without getting utterly bankrupt in the process. Mind you, I do understand the way to make wars with stacking and sieging cities. Well this applies to conquest, domination and cultural victory. Too little time and too expensive. What am I doing wrong here, since I cannot even win at very low difficulties?

[Hayden]

I personally dont ever stop building cities until a lack of available land forces me to stop. Having more cities makes it more difficult to manage your civilization, I would guess the amount of time it takes to play a game is somewhat exponentially related to the number of cities you have, but in the long run you cant afford to stop building cities. If you do, the AI will just come along and take the land for themselves. You might be able to get away with having only 4 cities on an easy difficulty but not on the harder ones. The bottom line is that your overall GDP of you nation is proportional to the number of tiles you work each turn, so first and foremost you need to maximise this.

[Al'Kimiya]

Originally posted by Hayden
The bottom line is that your overall GDP of you nation is proportional to the number of tiles you work each turn, so first and foremost you need to maximise this.

That would mean building lots of cottages and/or placing cities next to lake/ocean, right?

[padillah]

Another thing I'm slowly learning is that specialists help... A LOT. You may get more out of reaserch if you drop it to 90% or 80% but add a scientist or two.

Take a real hard look at what specialists and adding Great People do to a city. (i.e. Got a big city? Add a Great Profit for a ton of happyness and a much better prod)

It's the new stuff I don't know how to use yet that is killing me.

Tom P.

[kolpo]

To dominate science are 2 things very important:
a) make sure you have a holy city with a holy scrine and convert every city you can. This can allow you to have 5-6 cities, expensive civics, a possitive cashflow AND 100% science.
b) The academies that great scientists can build give you +50% science, which would be the same as having 2 universities in each city This helps a LOT. The great library is a great source of great scientists. A city surrounded by farmed floodplains can be a gigantic great scientists factory. Only let workers work the farms needed to have a slight population grown and make all the other inhabitants science specialists(the caste system civic allows unlimited science specilaists)

If you are leading the science race near the modern age then DON'T trade technologies and focus on space part technologies. Not giving away your edge, can let you win the space race easiliy.

EDIT: Having the financial trait makes getting a tech lead easier.

[BigWilly1974]

After struggling for multiple games on Prince level while trying to expand at a moderate pace, I've learned some valuable lessons.

Expand quickly and early. It may cause you to have to drop research for a while, but before long, all the extra commerce from the extra cities will make up for it...even if you still are at 50-70% Research. Think of it this way...you could have 100% research generating 50 beakers...or 50% research generating 60 beakers simply because the 50% is on a much larger commerce base.

That's definitely possible. I played a long chunk of my last game at 30% research and only fell behind by a few techs because I had twice as many cities as everyone

[BigWilly1974]

Oh, and keep this in mind. So long as you don't totally break your empire's backbone through expansion early (which would be difficult given the AIs are also creeping too), the more cities you have...the more resources and production capacity you have.

Wars are harder and longer in this game then Civ 3. The surest way to improve your odds of decisive/quick wars is to bring more production capacity to bear. When you have more cities than the AIs, it's so much easier to overpower.

Sounds obvious, but the power of it I really noticed in the last game when I had a big edge in the number of cities. My war ability was decisive.

[yin26]

Do be careful though, on higher difficulty levels, that you don't drop too far behind in the tech because once you are in that 2nd tier below the top of the pack, getting the big dog techs will prove very difficult, and you could easily find yourself outlcassed on the battelfield.

But in the spirit of the expansion idea: Yes, expand, but always watch the trade offs and be ready to fill the gaps!

[Volstag]

Good tips in here. Warmongering: I've found that a series of limited wars is often better than one protracted slug-fest. I usually designate one to three targets, prepare my force, declare war, smash 'n' grab, sue for peace. Then spend the downtime refitting your army, consolidating your gains, basically takin' care of business.

Then, when you're ready, repeat the process. I've found that this method allows you to keep your army in a constant state of readiness (ideally), and keep your economy humming, while still making territorial gains.

[BigWilly1974]

I agree with that as well Volstag.

Long wars are a real drain on the economy and happiness of cities. And it's easy to end up in long wars as after attacking/conquering 1-2 cities, it takes forever for your units to heal up sufficiently to be worth throwing at them at more cities.

Basically I go for 1-2 cities depending on relative strength (me vs the AI), and then pillage the crap out of their remaining countryside until they finally allow for cease fire. That way you took about all you could reasonably take in a limited engagement, and then devastated their economy so extensively you can go back 30 turns later and dominate them.

[Mayfield]

Originally posted by kolpo
To dominate science are 2 things very important:
a) make sure you have a holy city with a holy scrine and convert every city you can. This can allow you to have 5-6 cities, expensive civics, a possitive cashflow AND 100% science.
b) The academies that great scientists can build give you +50% science, which would be the same as having 2 universities in each city This helps a LOT. The great library is a great source of great scientists. A city surrounded by farmed floodplains can be a gigantic great scientists factory. Only let workers work the farms needed to have a slight population grown and make all the other inhabitants science specialists(the caste system civic allows unlimited science specilaists)

If you are leading the science race near the modern age then DON'T trade technologies and focus on space part technologies. Not giving away your edge, can let you win the space race easiliy.

Suggestion: Make one "scientific city". Try to get wonders that promote science GP first (like Great library, the one that gives you 3 free scientists) Put a library, university, academy, etc in that city. Drop all scientific GP you get back into that city.. watch your science output grop by leaps and bounds.. my current game has a 400 beaker per turn output in my science city.

[Alexfrog]

Re: I totally suck at this game

This seems like a valid foundation for science victory, but at noble there is always some other nation managing to win it regardless. Is my error not to keep building more cities. I so want to keep the science level at 100% for the most part, but still falls behind and end up losing.

70% of 300 is much bigger than 100% of 100. Keep expanding at a reasonable rate. Also, cottages, which become hamlets, village, towns, are critical to getting money for science.