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**Blake** · December 17, 2005, 22:57

Coherence?

**Maquiladora** · December 17, 2005, 22:57

Pr0n.

**JohnUghrin** · December 17, 2005, 23:20

Originally posted by Blake
Coherence?

Sorry, I miskeyed and posted before I was done with the Subject

**ghen** · December 17, 2005, 23:30

Re: Just can't win...What am I missing?

I throw myself on your mercy! I'm willing to entertain and try just about any ideas you might have. (This version is just too boring at lower difficulties.) What are the fine, subtle points that I may be missing?

Unfortunately fine subtle points aren't very easy to point out. What helped me better my game was reading everything interesting in the strategy section and trying to apply the basic concepts to my gameplay.

What techs do you go for early, what do you build, and how many cities do you put out on what map size?

**Velociryx** · December 18, 2005, 01:22

Let's design a twelve step program for ya, and see if it don't improve your game.

Step 1: Gotta change that mindset. I know, I know, losing a bunch of games back to back can put you into full on defeatist mode, but the truth of the matter is, you're smarter than the AI. You're better than the AI. On Noble level, you can outproduce and out perform the AI. Believe it, and then go out and make it so.

Step 2: Formulate a plan and stick with it. There are any number of solid strategies out there, and I would encourage you to try them all. If you're not sure which one best meshes with your playing style, the best way to find out is to experiment with all of them, and then mix and match to taste. If you're thirsting for a win, I'll outline EXACTLY the methodology I use for most of my games, in hopes that it will serve you as well as it has served me.

Step 3: Treat the strategies you read here as recepies. Just like cooking, you know? Follow the directions explicitly the first time thru, and then, start adding your own ingredients.

Methodology to snag that confidence restoring victory
* Select your favorite civ

* Found your starting city where the settler initially appears, and start building a Worker. Use the city governor to maximize food production. Use whatever starting unit you get to begin exploring. Don't stray too far from home. Make a wide, sweeping circle around your capitol. Your goal here is to scope out three (3) additional city sites that are suitable for expansion. These three future cities, plus your capitol, will form the foundation of your empire. (city placement notes: Your main objective is to scope out special resources, especially food resources (corn, wheat, pigs, sheep, etc), and use these to springboard the growth of your new cities (this fast growth will also be used as production, in that you'll be called upon to sacrifice your population to speed-build infrastructure, but that comes a bit later. Where possible, try to avoid sending your settler farther than six tiles away from your capitol. 4-5 is optimal, but of course, the food specials will ultimately dictate how far you must go).

* Research Mining (if you don't start with it already) (if you already have this tech, then you're a step ahead of the game already!)

* Research Bronzeworking - Switch to the Slavery Civic on the same turn you get this tech.

* As soon as your worker finishes, start building warriors. Send the worker out to chop down some trees. This will have the effect of speeding the construction of your warriors. Once you have three warriors (not counting whatever unit you started with), start working on a Settler (One warrior will guard the Capitol, one warrior will move to the site you have selected as your second city, and the third will occupy some high ground at approximately the midpoint between your capitol and the second city site. This should dispel ALL the fog of war between your capitol and the new city site, which means that you'll suffer no nasty surprises when moving your settler to his new home). Keep chopping trees until you get your initial cadre of warriors AND your settler out. If you must leave your borders in order to keep chopping, then you will want to route your starting unit to a rendevous point with your worker, so he has some coverage and protection.

* Coolio thing about doing it this way is that once your settler is done, and once he arrives at his destination, he's already got a garrison sitting there. His first move is to build a worker, then a warrior, and then a settler. Meanwhile, the capitol completes the aforementioned settler, builds another warrior, and then...you guessed it, another settler.

This is all "setup time." This is the point at which you will be the weakest. If someone attacks you (exceedingly unlikely) during this period, you have little hope of fending them off. If they don't, then they'll miss their window of opportunity completely, cos you are about to blow their doors off.

You already know what to do with the next set of warriors and settlers. Rinse and repeat, as above, with the end result being that you'll have four cities, ideally extending from the four cardinal (compass) points of your capitol, but again, let the food resources be the final arbiters of city placement.

* Research-wise, after snagging BronzeWorking, you need to be thinking in terms of keeping your workers occupied, and to that end, you'll want Agriculture and Animal Husbandary (which comes with the added advantage of revealing Horses), and then, you have an important strategic decision to make. If your terrain is heavily dotted with forests, then you can continue to chop-rush infrastructure, and should make straight for Libraries, with the goal being to chop-rush one to completion, assign two science specialists until you generate a great scientist, and build an "Academy" (+50% research) in your best science producing city (in all probability, this will be your capitol). Once you have done so, remove the science specialists, and let your city grow at full speed again.

If you don't have too many forests around, then you'll want to think in terms of strengthening the slavery civic you're running, which will mean "The Wheel" and "Pottery" (so you can build grainaries in all your cities). This will need to be done sooner or later anyway, but WHEN it is done is almost entirely dependant on how many forests you have to work with. If you need to rely heavily on sacrificed population in order to build infrastructure, then you'll need grainaries before writing. If you have tons of trees, then take writing first and snag that 50% research bonus relatively earlier.

* Once you have the ability to construct grainaries and libraries, you need to turn your attention to military affairs, because by now, with all this attention to installing the basic infrastructure you'll need to WIN the game, you'll prolly be quite behind, militarily. Hook up whatever resources you've got (copper or horses, at this point), build barracks everywhere (chop rush and/or pop rush them to completion), and then start churning out the best troops you can make.

If you have no copper OR horses, then your next two techs are hunting and archery. You should be able to research these while building your barracks, so that as soon as the barracks complete, you can start training archers with a free promotion. Not nearly as solid as chariots or Axemen (the troops you'll be able to build if you have either Horses or Copper), but better than nothing. And of course, once Archery is in-hand, begin making for Ironworking, to see if you can snag a source of it (which will make up for the deficiency of either of the other two).

* Check the F9 screen with regularity, and monitor the progress of your military building program. Your goal is to land either dead center (4th of 7) or slightly higher. Right now, your goal is NOT to have the largest military...your goal is deterrence. All you wanna do is avoid being attacked. To that end, all your cities will be building troops until such time as that goal is met. When building troops, don't chop trees to complete them (unless you have a defenseless city for some reason, and barbarians are moving in on it...that, or an unexpected declaration of war by a neighboring AI would be the only valid reasons for wasting a tree on troops at this stage of the game), and don't sacrifice population UNLESS you've got unhappy or unhealthy cities...in which case, sacrifice there, and send the slackers into the army. The discipline will do them good, and it will get them out of your hair. Your first goal will be to properly garrison your cities (2 units per city, three units for cities bordering another civ, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR RELATIONS TO YOU ARE AT PRESENT). After that, create a staging area (preferably on a hill near a rival's border), and use this as the place to begin locating your soon-to-be-born attack force). - if you're worried about stacking your units too deeply, then create several staging areas, and plan to put no more than four units + 2 catapults in each stack.

*While you are building your army up, you've got another strategic choice to make, depending on the prevailing conditions in the game. If you're out of land to expand onto, then you'll have to take some cities from someone else, in which case, your next stop is Construction (and all its pre-requisites), for Catapults.

If you've still got land to expand peacefully into, then Code of Laws is your next choice. Either way, you'll need them both, and soon....which one comes first is a function of the in-game situation.

* If you have land to expand into still (without war), then do that....same methodology as before, and keep doing it until you are out of room. Note that you'll have to come down from 100% research in order to pay for your cities, and so courthouses (code of laws) will begin to become increasingly important. Chop or Pop rush these to completion as quickly as you are able.

* Once you fill up all available land, and if you're still not at war, you're gonna need currency to start putting money in your pockets.

* On the other hand, if it is to be a fight, then here's what you do:

* Keep building your best available troops until you hit construction. Then mix in catapults with your troop builds. Your goal is to get no less than four (4) catapults in each attack group. (see below on attack methodologies).

Attack Methodologies
Method A: Catapults knock down the enemy's defenses from X to zero, then send in the troops.

Method B: Catapults knock down the enemy's defenses, and then you use the catapults to attack, causing collateral damage to all defenders IN the enemy city, then send in your troops to mop up when they are sufficiently weakened.

Either way works well, tho method b is generally one that I save for a city with LOTS of defenders in it. If there are just two or three defenders, I use method A.

While you are at war, DO NOTHING BUT BUILD TROOPS from all your cities. No matter how tempted you might be to build other stuff, avoid that temptation. Stay focused and build troops. No telling what surprises await you, and you're better off being prepared, so build troops!

How many will you need? Rough estimate thusly: Take the number of defenders in the town you mean to take. Pretend there's an extra defender of the best type. Sum the strength numbers of all forces present. Double that number. That's how much strength you want to bring. Additionally, be sure you have twice the total NUMBER of troops attacking the city (ie, if there are three defenders, you want AT LEAST six troops in your attack force (not counting catapults), and AT LEAST twice their total strength (after adding in their "phantom" defensive unit, per the instructions above).

Following those guidelines, you will seldom have ANY trouble taking cities from the AI. Bring less troops, and you may win, but you will be courting disaster with every attack.

Make your target two cities per war, and then stop and make peace with whomever you are fighting. If you fear their cultural influence on your newly conquered cities, then take two to keep, and burn a third city to the ground (one that would be exerting significant cultural influence on your new posessions). This will solve any culture problems you have, and prevent newly conquered cities from flipping back to their former controller(s).

Once you have some new cities, your first goal will be to rush every cultural improvement you can into them. In this way, you build up their cultural influence quickly. Use a combination of pop and chop to speed those builds along, and then, of course, courthouses, to mitigate your costs.

Worker Jobs at this point

At this stage in the game, your workers are busy hooking up resources that you've not already hooked up, and maximizing hammer outputs in all your cities.

If you go to war, then you want at least one (escorted) worker to follow the army in, and build roads/repair infrastructure on newly conquered cities, so that you can a) get reinforcements to the battle zone quickly, and b) get those conquered cities up and running as quickly as possible. Note that oftentimes you will capture enemy workers when you take cities, and if this is the case, then you can use THEIR (former) workers for this purpose, and let your "native" workers stay home.

Also, at this time, if you still have some land to move into, your workers should be road building to potential city sites, so that when you have an opportunity to build more settlers, they'll be able to use your road network to speed themselves to their destinations.

And that's the basics of the whole game. You basically want to repeat those steps at each "age" in the game. A period of building that age's infrastructure. A period of modernizing and buffing up the army, a period of conquest, and then, a period of consolidation. Repeat for each age you go through, and by the end of the game, you'll have a commanding lead.

Tech trading:
Trade frequently. Trade favorably. Don't be afraid to give more than you get. Remember, you're trading with SIX other civs....if you get a little something from each, you're still getting more in total, than you're giving up.

Sell obsolte techs to civs that are less developed than you. Broker gpt deals for ANY spare resources you've got. Adopt the same religion as a neighbor you want to befriend. Investigate the possibility of goading your neighbors into declaring war on each other (expensive, but can be worthwhile if the opportunity presents itself).

If you get a tech with an associated wonder, and you wish to build the wonder yourself, then start on it, and when it is 3-4 turns from completion, sell your tech to everyone who does not already have it. You'll get much more for it at this point than you would once you complete its associated wonder.

After all the basic terraforming is done, and your cities are road connected, build LOTS of cottages. If you want money for research and upgrading your army, then you want cottages. Tons of them. Basically, any tile that's not critical for food production, and any tile that's not cranking out a mess of badly needed hammers....that tile gets a cottage. You can mix it up later. For now, let that be your guide.

Okay, so that's just a three step program, not twelve, but if you try the methodology above, I think you'll find that you can roll over the AI's like they're not even there.

-=Vel=-

**JohnUghrin** · December 18, 2005, 08:30

Originally posted by Velociryx
Let's design a twelve step program for ya, and see if it don't improve your game.

Okay, so that's just a three step program, not twelve, but if you try the methodology above, I think you'll find that you can roll over the AI's like they're not even there.

-=Vel=-

Thanks. I'll give it go or 20 and see how it works out. Tho, with only 4 cities and my luck at resource placement, I expect I'll be seeing a lot of archers.

**Velociryx** · December 18, 2005, 08:33

Well, those four cities are just your starting point, remember...and with Bronzeworking as your first or second tech, you'll see the copper lying on the ground, so of course, if you can work that into your four city spread WITH a food resource, so much the better....if not, then make a fifth city specificially to cover the copper....

-=Vel=-

**Blake** · December 18, 2005, 09:18

Can't let Vel have a monopoly on monsterous posts, so I'm going to talk about adaption and awareness.

Something I'm fond of saying is "No plan survives contact with 4000BC".

You can go into a game planning to try a strategy, but if the terrain and circumstances don't suit that strategy, it'll be a failure.

The terrain within the fat cross of your Capital may very well shape your early game.

For example one ideal start is a river with a couple of floodplains and a goldmine on a plains hill next to the river.
Once mined the gold will nearly double your research speed, you'd be a fool to not try a deep-tech research beeline, like for example CS Slingshot. When you pull it off (and it's hard not to with a goldmine) you get even more benefit from having the very high base commerce.
But then again a Goldmine can also allow you to neglect the usual research-increasing efforts in favor of expansion, the important thing is to think about what your start allows you to do.

Another start might be on a lake (no river, so bad land-commerce) with only a single cow in radius. Getting Animal Husbandry and expanding quickly is a smart move. If you start with fishing you can immediately work the lake tile: 2-0-2 (or 2-0-3) for financial, which will speed your early research and somewhat negate the need of quickly building a worker. But any resource-shy start is not a good candidate for CS Slingshot or other capital-centric strategies, since the Capital isn't so hot to start with, so with a bad start you should focus on more cities - quantity over quality.

Another interesting start is when your city is coastal but also has lake tiles in the fat cross, the interesting option here is quickly building a lighthouse so the lake tiles become 3-0-2 (3-0-3 for financial!), Organized leaders get half-priced lighthouses making quickly getting sailing double-attractive for them, and since you have a lighthouse you may as well build the Great Lighthouse, and pursuing a trade-orientated strategy becomes wise - this is how your start can define your strategy.

A capital which has Pigs, Cows or fresh-water corn/wheat, plus several hills and some hammer resources (in short lots of food to work lots of good hammer tiles) is going to be extremely good at cranking out wonders. This is in contrast with the lighthouse lake capital which is going to be a "no improvement needed" research machine, but wont be cranking out those wonders.

The capabilities of your capital shapes your empire, of immediate concern is military, either your 2nd city or capital needs to build garrisons, for example if you plan to build a early wonder in your capital you need your 2nd city to be able to quickly build some garrisons - be that by working good hammer resources like horses/copper, or by chopping nearby forest. You don't want a 2nd city that can't give your empire what it needs - for example a 2nd city in jungle is a generally bad idea even if it claims a number of resources (because the future-resources won’t help if a barb axeman whacks your capital).

Speaking of wonders, in my opinion it's best not to play an Industrial leader. Only try for one or two early wonders, Pyramids (only if you have stone), the Great Lighthouse or Colossus (best to have copper, but not essential) are good choices. Oracle is often not the best idea because it's on a bit of dead-end tech in the short run, you could be getting more worker-improvement or military techs.

The reason to stick with just one wonder is so you can focus on other things, namely expanding. Then only go for wonders if you're confident you have a large lead or can "plop" them with a great engineer or rushbuy, or you have the relevant resource and a good hammer city.

From experience I know it's entirely possible to do very well with no early wonder at all, or perhaps only one. In some games my first wonder has been the Kremlin, which I then use to fuel the "Great lategame wonder yoink" using the power of rushbuy. What this means is that early wonders aren't that important, as long as you have a respectably large territory and improved land you will be competitive.

Also remember that Industrial is nearly useless if you miss out on wonders. It's an attractive trait to less experience players, but Financial or Organized might actually let you get more wonders, by enabling you to research the relevant techs earlier... really think about what you’re getting out of your civ traits. Are you using Aggressive/Creative to quickly expand/conquer? You need a large empire to make full use of Organized (thus combining Organized with Aggressive is good). Philosophical is only helping when you actually generate GPP, the longer you delay generating GPP the less it helps. Stuff like this... a wasted trait can only hurt your game.

Some traits combine badly like Industrial/Aggressive, to use Aggressive you need to conquer and such, which slows your research, slowed research makes it harder to get to wonder techs in time to actually build them, thus Industrial largely goes to waste. Or if you’re making use of Industrial (building wonders), you aren’t building those aggressive units.

My playstyle is to expand considerably, peacefully or by conquest, and thus I find all Organized leaders to be very good, if you like expanding Organized is hard to beat, and if you don’t like expanding you’ll have trouble beating the AI’s

.

**Diadem** · December 18, 2005, 11:09

I'm not going to make a monstrous post here. There already are many of those on this board. Instead I'm gonna do something better. I'll help you analyse your games.

If you post a few of your savegames here, especially saves at what you think were turningpoints in your game, I (and others of cours) can look at them and maybe tell you what improvements might be made.

You learn the game best by analysing your mistakes and learning from them.

**Hauptman** · December 18, 2005, 13:53

About the only thing you can do is PLAN.

And you cannot plan until you know whats going on within your game...

I generally start my games on the religious road. Plop the cap research mysticism then Poly while i build a warrior. After the warrior i begin with stonehedge. I research religion techs until i get an early religion. If i get real lucky i can snag all 3 early religions and the AI's are then all in my pocket. Stonehedge usually completes by the time my cap is size 3, wich makes a worker a fast build. After i have a religion i research the worker techs so that he has something to do. 1 or 2 units (archers) then come the settlers. Most of the time I build settlers just a hair after the ai's build thiers. But thats what ironworking is for should they plop where i wanted to.

Once that worker gets working its important to improve the resource tiles first, then build cottages. did I mention to build cottages? Oh yeh build a cottage too. Mines are good but try to have 1 or 2 cottages first unless that mine is for a money resource (but that is after all a resource and would have been done first) Cottages really need to be done early, soon they will make you more $$ than gold would.

After 2 or 3 cities are laid (depending on the circumstances of my neighbors) Its time for more wonders. I absolutley love the collosus/lighthouse combo. I prefer that to even the pyramids. But this is a choice you need to make... trade, civic, tech. oracle can pay off huge if you plan for it (ive recently been toying with the civil service slingshot, But as ghandi i go for the metal casting shot.)

After the wonder build its construction time. Once you have construction crank those units. catapults, axemen, and if your lucky, elephants. I like to have 1 catapult per attacking unit in my invasion stacks. cats are my throw away units. So my axes get lots of xp and rarely are lost. personally axemen seem to be a better bet than swordsmen but you should try to mix it up. conquer a couple good resource cities then consolidate just as was posted in the previouse reply. now if the neighbor civ has only 3 cities, feel free to take them all, we are not absolutly set on just 2 cities.

However each game is different, this stratagem would get you smooshed fast if monty was right next to you... but a couple extra early archers easily take him out of the race and get you a free worker.

Set yourself to a plan and stick to it early game. whether it be religion, CS slingshot, etc. and then you can see how the game is playing out and plan from there. think ahead and you cant be beat.

**Konquest02** · December 18, 2005, 15:22

Originally posted by Diadem
I'm not going to make a monstrous post here. There already are many of those on this board. Instead I'm gonna do something better. I'll help you analyse your games.

If you post a few of your savegames here, especially saves at what you think were turningpoints in your game, I (and others of cours) can look at them and maybe tell you what improvements might be made.

You learn the game best by analysing your mistakes and learning from them.

This can't be stressed enough. The best way to improve is to get feedback on your game...

Post a save here, join the Apolyton University, anything...

**Tufturk** · December 18, 2005, 16:32

* Don't think too much
When I tried playing after trying to absorb all the different strategies and advice on this forum, I couldn't get a decent game going. In my mind, I wanted to CS-beeline while rushing with archers and doing the pop'n chop in an imperial approach, and not a single city I founded seemed right for specialization:
"Why did I build this city?"
"Because you needed copper."
"But I need a commerce city!"
"Well, don't you need copper?"
"Yes, but, my capital is going to be a GP producer, so I..."
"Really? It doesn't have THAT much food..."
"No. You're right. So I need a GP city too! But where?! I can't specialize any of these cities!"
And so on...
Stick to the basics: A decent number of solid cities can beat any AI on Prince or lower. By solid cities I mean cities that have food for good growth (preferably fresh water), good production and variying degrees of commerce. Don't ignore commerce, but focus mostly on food & hammers in the early game. That way you have an important production edge against those neighbour AI's that has just plopped down a jungle city to grab those dyes and already has a coastal city with no hammer potential. You can outbuild them on wonders, improvements and military units, as you please. You're solid, and they're at your mercy.

* Know thy neighbour
Who can you live with, and who must go? You know that a guy like Montezuma can never be trusted. Be ready, choose the time and place of conflict. Have the war start as 9 of your Axemen crosses his borders, rather than having 12 Jaguar Warriors surge into your lands as your biggest production city is 9 turns away from finishing a wonder. Keep the wars short and sweet: Don't fight his army in the field, take/raze his cities, and his military dies.

* Can you live in luxury?
So, you have Ghandi to your south. A nice man, who also follows the same religion as you and is likely to remain your friend throughout the game. But, knowing thy neighbour, you have open borders with him and you have discovered Ghandi that has Pigs, Deer, Silver, Fur, Crabs and Silk, and you do not. Well, even friends don't share that much, so get your military moving.

*** Conclusion: Build solid cities, be solid. Get Bronze Working early, like Val advocates. It sets you up both for war and peace. Neighbours: If you can't live with them, kill or cripple them fast, don't get involved in drawn-out wars. If you can live with them, but need what they have, see above. If you can live with them and don't need what they have, make an effort to remain on their good side, as warring with them would be a waste of time and resources (unless you're going for Domination).

**JohnUghrin** · December 18, 2005, 20:11

Round of thanks

Thanks for the tips and advice. I haven't gotten a chance to try out Vel's method in a game, yet. It wasn't all that far from what I was doing, but there are differences (presumably significant, of course).

If I'm still having trouble later, I'll post more detailed troubles and saved games.

**JohnUghrin** · December 18, 2005, 20:33

Originally posted by Tufturk
* Don't think too much
When I tried playing after trying to absorb all the different strategies and advice on this forum, I couldn't get a decent game going. In my mind, I wanted to CS-beeline while rushing with archers and doing the pop'n chop in an imperial approach, and not a single city I founded seemed right for specialization:
"Why did I build this city?"
"Because you needed copper."
"But I need a commerce city!"
"Well, don't you need copper?"
"Yes, but, my capital is going to be a GP producer, so I..."
"Really? It doesn't have THAT much food..."
"No. You're right. So I need a GP city too! But where?! I can't specialize any of these cities!"
And so on...

This rings a bell...looking at Vel's advice and my recollections, I think this may be close to heart of the problem. I'm starting to think that I'm having trouble deciding in which direction I want to proceed...and thus end up trying too many things...and doing none of them well.

In one of my more recent frustrations, I *knew* early on that I would need to found a city about 15 clicks away from my capitol to get the only bronze I could see and the marble right beside it. Sure enough, by the time I get there, Isabella had founded Seville on the other side of it.

No sweat, I wasn't going to let that stop me. It just guaranteed a war that I suspected was in the offing anyway. A few dozen units, two captured and two razed cities later, the issue was resolved in my favor.

After the smoke clears, I don't have any really defined goals other than consolidation. That's where I start to lose it to an orgy of wonder-building assignment and city improvement. Eventually I'm just starting to put musketmen in my cities when 20 or so Musketeers show up and wreak havoc in my heartland (thanks, Lou). My capitol is cranking out Great Scientists every 4-6 turns, so I eventually manage to clean out the frogs with 2 cavalry and some riflemen....but the damage was done. So far behind in production, tech, and land development at that point that I just don't want to sit through the rebuilding.

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