Vel's Strategy Thread, Volume II

[Saygame]

What a great thread, Vel! They should give you a commission. Most wonderful!

I am a serious student of Civ 3 and now Civ 4. Daily I am learning from both personal experience and these pages. One of the things that helps me greatly to understand both macro and micro is to spreadsheet the data presented. As a result I now understand city production, maintainence, gold and research production in a way that enhances my enjoyment in decision making as well as my skill. Certainly I am willing to share some if anyone is interested. Predictability is a helpful tool to make decisions with. The beauty of Civ IV is that multiple variables (like religion, trade, GPs and Civics) grant fascinating possibilities to explore. More than exploits, each beckons to be tried, tested and explained. Neat stuff.
I have found I prefer winning culturally to other methods BUT keeping all means of victory alive is a wonderful way to keep victory possible by "zigging" when the AI zags. The fabric of how closely Sid and company crafted the closeness of one victory to another is indeed to be marveled at.
I play random cultures often, to experience this richness and currently am operating at prince level and am ready, I think to step up a notch. The beauty of CivIV is that in contrast to CIV III it has eliminated many of the "all or nothing" outcomes of getting or missing certain wonders and techs. And the beauty of city building, as one contributor spoke of, is highly dependent on both culture, leader and terrain. One simply must enhance the value of the tools granted. For this reason I find Civ IV to be a superior game.

Now for my question. One thing that continues to elude me is trade route valuation. Obviously harbors play some role on coastal cities as well as foreign routes and time established cities paying more. Size of city seems to not correlate. So other than those factors I am at a loss to explain variances in trade route gold production between cities. My spreadsheeting has indicated that trade routes (along with religious shrines) are the two single most important gold production factors in late game situations with market and bank multipliers present. A city with 4 x 12gpt trade routes is normally the dominating gold producing city when building multipliers are applied. I have friends who have reported much higher route values. Trade becomes critical in the endgame (hence the airport becomes extra valuable despite the health disadvantage for a large city).
So what have you experienced as a factor to enhance trade route valuation? Any ideas?

Thanks, and keep up the great discussions.

[Saygame]

Oh, and one other point I wanted to make. I have found, again through spreadsheeting, that it is important to keep power (Army) levels at least at mid range on the graph to keep the AI from using me as its military feast, particularly when I am vulnerable militarily.

In addition, it is only not imporant to keep track of who is friendly, annoyed or pleased with me BUT equally important to see what negative mods I will incur by attacking a small power who is friends with a big one or a border one. Sometimes I can prevent or precipitate a war by watching this closer with great alacrity.

This thread has already covered the manipulations, religion can render quite well, so I know most are familiar with the advantages of religion. Like so many factors there is no set methodology but that rather each game sets its own parameters and religion has great uses for national alignment and friend/enemy creation by choice. Even the choice of no State Religion until religious choices are made by foreign nations or missionary bombardment can make it favorable to secure allies through state religion.


Asta la vista

[tommynt]

hi guys, I saddly might be the most experienced civ4 player, proly beside some beta testers, I got by far mots played games and wins on the ladder, I just wana add my 2 cetns for some things:

start: moving: moving on plain hill is good on stonehill rockz - never move on grass hill - with lot of nearby hills moving on ivory or marble on plain might be valid choise
oh well never move away from fresh water not even when getting plain hill - also if u start on wood and got same good grass/plain spot settle on it .. free 20 shields

on some maps u might be able to settle ocean spot with lake in range .. nearly nice .. abiliy for col and great lighhouse + 3 food 2com tile lake after lighthouse

1. build: it has shown that warrior (or scout with warr start) 1. with grow to 2 (or 3 with 3 food tiles) and then worker with slave gives 1. worker nearly as fast as worker 1. and gives u 2nd worker at same time by having a free forest and a free warrior - so build should be
war work slave chop 2nd work then chop 2 forests same time for 3rd worker - with this start u have 3 workers before t25 (normal speed) with some micro u r even size 2 or 3 -
now u should work your land let city grow to about 4 and get some units to fight barbs
or on friendly map chop with the 3 workers a settler and work then land
if u chop with 3 workers 3 woods at same time u get your settler in 2 turns -

I read that leaving forests d be good in long term - not in my experience - sure if u have 0 hills u need 1 or 2 for some production - but in fact u should build on all grass huts and go to demo as fast as possible - after emaz u get so a shield on all tiles

city placement - settle all your land - dont waste tiles - settle coasts - dont waiste fishes - settle espacially food
never ever settle on resources

i read that it d be obvious to work river tiloes with huts - isnt obvious for me .. on river u can irigate or watermill what u cant do on other tiles

teching:

bronze 1. is a must (if u r india or play lil difficulty u may get a reli before bronze)

afterwards a tech to work your res depeding which one u get - and then pott as fast as possible espcially on higher difficuly level u need some huts very fast or u get badly screwed - i d sacrife early religion for it and get cast system later - monarchy makes your people fairly happy anyway

wonders: hange and orcale should be reserved for indu civs - they can get em with some chops
others i d never ever try without res for it.

but if u got stone close go for these pyras - they gives **** load of other wonders for free and can therefore win game nearly allone

early war: having horse in cap can badly screw your neighbour - if u are able to choke him before he get his spears out he s kinda dead in th long run - just never attack city but pillage and steal workers

a skirm choke can only pay of on a very small map - i d hardly risk screwing myself that bad just for lil hope to get him beforre he got axe

i really laugh about guys posting settler 1. might be even a approach - civ4 works with early fast choping - u should get enough helth by expanding sea tiles for fishes and settling only on fresh water - so allways get at elast 3 workers before settler and work your bonus resource as fast as posible

this 3 worker approach is imo close to allways perfect´
- for next cites .. never ever build a city without a worker for it - never ever build worker 1. in next cities (appart from chop help) - for every new city u should also get about 1 new worker - so perfect worker number is about 2 + number of cities imo - more is a waste of shield imo espacially considering that at some point ( i m usually finsihed with working "my land" at start of middle age). less will hurt a city without using its bonus tiles is a big waste (workerd plain cow f.e. doubles your gorw and prod of your 1 size city)

few more words on war - scouting is here more important as building units ... if u got problems with scouting and not sure what to expect - get 1 spear in every front city and only axe apart from that for early defence - after catas are reached a stack off 20 catas can defend nerly every attack - thats the other reason to chop all woods ... your attacking opp got no tiles to defend his stack - and is easy food on open field for catas

oh well if some1 is interested i can write a bu´t more how we ladder dudes play at another time

[Velociryx]

Excellent additions, Tommy, and you bring up a point that bears repeating.

Most of what we're talking about here is applicable to SP only. Everybody knows (or should know) that MP is a lesson in reductionism.

Reduce the game to the bare minimum elements needed to survive. Focus on that and forget the rest.

As such, many of the things that are perfectly viable (and often the superior play) in SP, simply don't work in the reductionist environment of MP.

-=Vel=-

(which explains why I don't really enjoy MP all that much...Civ is a GREAT game. I want to enjoy all its complexities, not reduce it to a bare bones shell of itself, which happens in the greater bulk of MP games I've participated in (Civ and others).

[tommynt]

quote: reductionist environment of MP.

?? wtf ???

game stays same in MP only thing is that there s some clever opponent added in MP

so it s all more nothing less

we do also epics which are kinda same as singleplayer

also most thing work out in SP and MP quite the same ... all the buildup - sure in MP u might have to handle a choke soemtimes but with some experience u get used to that stuff

[Velociryx]

I disagree. Especially competitive MP (Ladder), it seems all about the rush.

Every game I've played in a competitive environment has been this way.

Rush.

Nothing else.

Just rush (which is unfortunate, since that is the very "strategy" that plays to the absolute WEAKEST part of the Civ franchise). Across the board, every other model in the game is more robust than the combat engine, but in most MP games, it's a blood-fest. The exceptions being Demo-games tend to have more flavor to them, as do role play games. Some other informal ones aren't that way, but even all these taken together make up a scant minority of the total number of MP games played.

This is why almost everyone acknowledges that "for all practical purposes, there IS no late game in MP"....cos there's not.

Person who can chop the biggest army fastest, wins.

No real nod to cultural development. No real nod to religious development. Some crude nod to diplomacy ("you don't attack me, and I won't attack you!"), but that's about it. Everything else takes the back seat to combat.

Rush to dominate the continent, and then, rush to see who can dominate the globe.

Very different from SP, IMO. Totally different shading.

Your mileage may vary tho. You clearly have more MP experience, but from what I have seen....it's rush or die, and that's....not something I find all that interesting.

I know lots of people love it, and I'm glad they do! I think it's great. But it seems VERY obvious to me that MP is a whole different beast than SP, even tho they're nominally the same game.

For me, I liken the experience to playing an RTS game at a painfully slow speed, I guess. Most times, it's just this side of torture.

-=Vel=-

[tommynt]

oh well in most games played on ladder u loose the diplo part - that might be true

but personally i prefer no diplo then this very slim and bugged diplo in SP.

About rush .. whats a rush?

is a rush sending a stack with 10 axe and 10 catas? or is it sending 1 early warrior?

both have to be handled

in fact thats for me far more reallife as this I keep the ai happy and dont have to build armee and outtech it till i have some superior unit - thats just a easy "cheating" victory

games are still won by the one having highest score - that most often the best all round player
the one that can build armee importve land and build wonders and expand at same time

[Velociryx]

Hey again Tommy, and I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the subject, because so far, I'm not seeing anything that's particularly convincing to my brain that would lead me to change my mind re: SP and MP being essentially two different games using the same engine.

Sounds to me like the stuff you're describing adds more credence to my own position than it does to yours.

As to realism...*shrug* Realism is not, and has never been, one of the Civ Franchise's strong suits. If, by "greater realism" (in MP) you mean "populated by a pack of raving psychopaths, whose main aim is to kill you in as few turns as possible" then yes, I will agree, however....I believe this to be VERY far-removed from the real state of affairs in the world, and thus, cannot see how such an environment could ever be called "realistic," or even vaguely so.

Buggy or no, at least in SP, the AI has legitimate (if forced) "beefs" with a particular player, as opposed to "I'm gonna kill you cos I can, or because we're neighbors, or because you got me last game." and while it can rightly be said that such attitudes HAVE been present now and again in our own past (well, 'cept for that last bit), they (those attitudes) have not been the thing which defined our history, and yet, they are precisely what defines the attitude and climate found in most MP games. Thus, from a "realism" perspective (or at least, as close as Civ comes to that), I would give SP the nod over MP any day of the week.

Finally, given that militarism has a MUCH greater weight in game score than any other component, you don't have to be a good builder at all in MP. All you have to know how to do is rush.

*shrug*

Not my cup of tea.

-=Vel=-

[tommynt]

for me it s not realistic that any nation waits till it dies - thats what ai sometimes do

and civ is civ, same tactic - build up - outtech - kill is both effectiv in SP and MP

build up, outtech (and produce) and kill (or go to space) that was allways civ

oh well I dont wana convince anyone to play MP civ4 (as it d be nice to have more faces in lobby) - I just wana say that a effectiv strategy (and tactic) in MP works also in SP - maybe it s even vice versa - I played only SP in civ3 for many years but did quite good in my 1. civ3 MP games

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Velociryx Buggy or no, at least in SP, the AI has legitimate (if forced) "beefs" with a particular player, as opposed to "I'm gonna kill you cos I can, or because we're neighbors, or because you got me last game." and while it can rightly be said that such attitudes HAVE been present now and again in our own past (well, 'cept for that last bit)

Well, if you substitute "you got me last war" for "last game" there are a lot of historical examples. OTOH the whole concept of oscillating war exploits the AI's inability to anticipate that you'll soon be coming 'round again.

[Velociryx]

Good points to both of you. I would say that any MP tactic or strategy will work well in SP, but not (necessarily) the other way around. Primarily, this is because in MP, you have the situation where right out the gate, there are a number of rivals who have in their mind that you are marked for death pretty much from turn one. This is never the case in SP, and so, you have a window of time in which to develop peacefully (and unless you get an isolated start, this is entirely lacking from MP...which is why many, if not most MP games are played on Pangea maps, so that there is no escape. Everybody is locked on the same continent together, everybody has the understanding that everyone else is out to kill them with all possible speed, and the end result is a bloody free-for-all (usually), that is VERY GOOD at emphasizing and honing the skills needed to survive in combat (rush, efficiency in developing a strong military, the tactical nuiances of manuevering with that military (choke, ambush, etc)., but little else (and if there IS anything else, then it either a) directly reinforces the military aspect, or b) is incidental, and only done or accomplished because there is a lull or break in the fighting.

All told then, this creates an EXCEEDINGLY different game environment between MP and SP, which is why I'm 100% certain that a fair number of the things we have been talking about in this thread and its predecessor would simply be impractical in MP. It's just a whole different ball of wax.

-=Vel=-

[tommynt]

the power of catas make defending in civ4 very easy - so the go war machine and kill as u think Vel isnt that easy - as said in civ4 MP very unlicköy the one wins who goes war but the 1 with the biggest (in terms of land commerce production and city size) empire

[Velociryx]

From my experience (especially true on Pangea maps, but in general true for MP as a whole), your two nearest rivals can almost always be undone before you GET to Catapults--thus, one of the importances of the beeline to bronze, am I correct?

Even then, once everyone starts getting them, either really BIG stacks, or highly fluid, spread-out forces will counter a catapult-heavy opponent, making it not all THAT hard to deal with (and this too, is where the rush comes into play, with the idea being to overrun the opposition before they have time to firmly entrench themselves.

So having overrun 1-2 opponents pre-cat, you stand a reasonably good chanced at fighting an opponent who did not (or may well not have) had a similar opportunity, and thus, when you face him, you have a decidedly superior production pool (more cities and more land, aggregate). No real reason why, with a bit of skill exploiting the combat engine, you couldn't bulldog your way over him (this would be true even if we assume an empire of similar size....catapults can be built by the attacker as well, and certainly do not make attack impossible in any case).

I think that this ongoing discussion is quite valuable to the strategy thread, because it helps to underscore the precise differences between MP and SP, and should go far in helping SP players who are contemplating MP decide what strategies to employ and which ones to leave firmly in the SP arena. Good stuff!

-=Vel=-

[tommynt]

maybe it s just my experience that never let me die or get pressured fast - sure u need bronze or iron - but with my proposed 3 worker - and maybe fast settler after tactic, u should be able to connect your resource kinda fast

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by tommynt
maybe it s just my experience that never let me die or get pressured fast - sure u need bronze or iron - but with my proposed 3 worker - and maybe fast settler after tactic, u should be able to connect your resource kinda fast

Wouldn't these be captured by the first MP warrior to come wandering your way?