The 'help the dyslexic Newbie' thread

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by xxFlukexx
*Sigh*
I went over representation in another thread. 1st representation comes late unless you grab the pyramids(hard to do on high difficulties without stone) 2nd, the +1 hammer is pretty trivial, especially when talking about science output, academy gets +4 culture which is also pretty trivial and rarely mentioned.

Still Representation is a temporary bonus that you might not use very much. Still a settled scientist under representation will generate 15.75 rounded up to 16 science with a library and an academy so if you have a second city with 30 base base beakers it is better for an academy, otherwise, settling is the way to go.
I don't usually add in stuff with representation because it should be very obvious that if you like representation you should settle a lot of your great people, that should go without saying, but oh well I'll say it if you want to hear it.

By the time you get observatories and laboratories up, a settled great scientist will net you 9*1.75(obs+lib+lab) = 15.75 = ~ 16 science. With an academy you will get 21 science. Not much when techs of that era cost over 4000 beakers. By that time it is much better to use the instant tech ability and gain around 1600 beakers instantly(normal speed)

You forgot the Oxford University. That will net me 42 beakers at the end. That seems about right. Anyway, Oxford and observatory is not that far off from university. In fact, you can get observatory before university even, it's even cheaper to build so it will save you a few turns to build it.

It's all depend on your play style, of course. In my current emperor game, I get to the year 1120 AD and my capitol gets 254 beakers. I consider myself very lucky this time to have a good second city as well (size 10 with 3 dyes, 1 river village, 1 corn, and 1 banana). Adding a GS to my capitol nets me 19 beakers per turn (it has lib and universitybut not Oxford yet, shouldn't be too far off). Adding an academy in my second city nets me 20 beakers if I have 2 scientists (thanks to a lot of grassland and the food resources) but only 16 beakers if I put the 2 scientists to work in two fresh lake squares.

So, even with this unusually good second city, I can still do well with a GS in my first city. After Oxford university which has the highest priority in my play style (I practically give the AIs anything so they will leave me alone to build the 6 required universities), it will be even much harder to the second city to ever catch up.

BTW, this is with science research rate at 80% which is rather on the high side. At the more normal 60-70% research rates then adding a GS will be even better. And, this is also with a financial leader (Catherine). With other leaders, it's harder for the second city to match the first.

Maybe I should upload my game after coming back from the Xmas party. It's only 1120 but I think I'm in the position to guarantee a win. My military is at 7th place since it it not needed much but I can crank out cossacks and crush the crossbowmen from other civs if I want.

[Krill]

Actually, now that I think about it...you only need 38 food. To work all of the tiles you need a pop of 20, so 40 food is required, but 2 food is supplied by the city tile, therefore the labourers only need to supply 38 food.

This is of course moot, because specialists are so important now that you should probably run one or two of these in a few cities, and alot in your specialist city...

Any way, back off to Christmas Day with the family

[frogbeastegg]

Wait, wait, wait, WAIT!!

BTW, this is with science research rate at 80% which is rather on the high side. At the more normal 60-70% research rates

And Velo earlier: or, you could drop research by 10%, but if you're already running 50-60% (which is where I like to be)

:has a small panic attack: I always try to run 90%! I run 80% when I can't afford 90%'s deficit!

Tell me ... everything How on earth is this a viable strategy? With my 5-6 city empire and 80-90 research I manage to keep slightly ahead of the AI on noble. It's not the run-away, overpowering leaving them all in my dust boring lead I had on the easier levels. I also tend to have no real cash reserves, so I can't upgrade units etc. I knew something needed doing, but I was thiunking "Get more money!" rather than "Lower research!" Alright, there is the small detail of my being a bit crap at the game, but still ...

Now, I shall return to reading my nice pile of new books.

[Firecrak]

You will need 6ish cities, to build wonders like Wall Street, Sistine Chapel, Red Cross, Great Library etc, all of which require a pre-requisite number of basic buildings (barracks, library, temple, theater etc) to show up as a buildable option. Easiest way to see this is to go into the City Screen and browse to wonders, have a look at any greyed out ones. Assuming you have researched the tech, you can see how many more basic buildings you need to build before they are buildable.

[Quillan]

Ok, frogbeast, I'll try to explain this without using numbers. It all boils down to one simple phrase: Commerce is the key to everything. The more commerce you generate, the more research/money/culture will be coming into each city. You want to have plenty of incoming commerce, and the key to that is cottages. I like to have a cottage or two at every city. A city that I specialize into finance/research is going to be almost nothing but cottages. Build harbors at coastal cities. Put cottages along rivers. Watermills and windmills generate commerce, especially after electricity.

As to what your research percentage needs to be, it will vary from game to game. The old saying, it's better to gain a penny from the many than a pound from the few, applies here. The more cities you have, the more commerce you're generating, can result in a large developed empire generating more research at 50% than a small one will at 90%.

This is purely a matter of play style, but I like to have more than the minimum number of cities. On a map of standard size, you need 6 of each core building to be able to build the linked national wonder. You have to have 6 forges to build the Iron Works, 6 banks to build Wall Street, and 6 universities to build Oxford. If all you have is 6 cities, you will have to build those improvements in all of your cities to be able to build those wonders. If you have 10 cities, then you can build forges at your 6 highest production cities, universities at your 6 highest research, and banks at your six highest gold generators to qualify, while other cities build other things. The bigger your empire, the higher your maintenance costs are going to be. As those increase you'll probably have to drop the research rate to cover the costs. But, as you grow and build improvements, you'll increase the money you generate and eventually be able to increase your research rates back up.

[99ranch]

I hate math too

Frog, I read your stuff on total war. Classy. Maybe I can clarify this issue with the tech slider (percentage thing for beakers) without math because my math sucks too.

Wait, wait, wait, WAIT!!

BTW, this is with science research rate at 80% which is rather on the high side. At the more normal 60-70% research rates

And Velo earlier: or, you could drop research by 10%, but if you're already running 50-60% (which is where I like to be)

:has a small panic attack: I always try to run 90%! I run 80% when I can't afford 90%'s deficit!

Tell me ... everything How on earth is this a viable strategy? With my 5-6 city empire and 80-90 research I manage to keep slightly ahead of the AI on noble. It's not the run-away, overpowering leaving them all in my dust boring lead I had on the easier levels. I also tend to have no real cash reserves, so I can't upgrade units etc. I knew something needed doing, but I was thiunking "Get more money!" rather than "Lower research!"


OK, here's the issue: if you've got 5 or 6 cities, you aren't going to have the sheer economic bulk that vel has when he runs a large empire that has "layers" of cities.

If you have 18 cities, even if most of them contribute only a couple dozen beakers at 50% science, your empire will out-produce a smaller empire at 80%.

So a smaller empire, 5-6 cities, will BE FORCED to run at 90 or 100% science to match the larger empire's output. This can hurt you in many ways, but also circumvents the ridiculous maintenance situation that 18 cities comes with.

but...
This means, and this is important, YOUR ENTIRE ECONOMY IS TIED UP KEEPING YOU COMPETETIVE IN TECHNOLOGY.


There are many trade-offs here, but the most important thing to be considered here is the fact that you will not be able to upgrade all those archers to riflemen in one stroke without lowering your science and thus falling behind by X turns, where X is however many turns you have to wait before you have enough cash for whatever you are going to buy.

the long of the short
Bigger is better in terms of economy, Taiwan has a great economy, but China has a HUGE economy. Which country could throw more actual economic weight at a project? It's pretty clear.

This is just my opinion though. My LAN buddies play different styles. One of them swears that smaller empires are more powerful, and he might be right circumstantially.

Bigger means more neighbors, more tension, the need for more troops, a much more complicated game just in terms of management. Whatever fits your style, just be aware of the fact that (here it is) a bigger economy can do more things at once, and do them more effectively.

Hope this helps

[frogbeastegg]

Back at work now, and have been for a few days, so not much time for civ 4 or these forums

Thanks for the latest snippets Useful ... makes me want to go and try a large map with a bigger empire! I have been playing a lot of duel and tiny maps lately; small empires are all that is really possible until/unless the conquest machine is well and truly rolling.

Now, what else did I want to ask? Always the same - a few billion questions when I can't ask, and then when I can, poof, they vanish from my froggy little mind. The changes to combat in the new patch have certainly made my life erm, interesting. My old tactics for taking cities pre-catapults appear to have died. So I'll field a few on that while I wait to remember some of the others.

Since the patch I have managed to capture just 2 cities using my old tactics (army of axemen, swordsmen as and when available, maybe a few archers. Stacks of about 8 units, and two stacks minimum, three by preference, with reinforcements flowing towards the front. Catapults if I have them too, usually about one stack of 4-5). One was a very new city on grasslands with 2 archers for a garrison, no defences at all and no culture. The other was a puny grassland barb city that had been captured a couple of turns earlier by Saladin, so another really easy target. The others I have tried, gah! I might have won before but I certainly do not now, or it costs so much it is not worth it at all.

1. Pre catapults, what is the best unit for killing city garrisoned archers now? Cit raider axemen used to do nicely, but not so well now, especially when the city has a few bonuses due to walls and culture.

Cavalry seem the logical unit for archer disposal. But horses are far from guaranteed, and I seem to find more metal than horses.

2. If that nasty AI selfishly parks a city on a hill and inconveniently stuffs a couple of archers into it, is there any way to capture the gosh-darned thing without catapults? I'm rather leaning towards not after watching the massacre of my unusually large army when I tried it. In fact, I'm not even sure if you could get it with catapults.

3. When you actually get catapults, is it still good to suicide them on the garrison after demolishing the defences? I'm not sure, because damage no longer reduces effectiveness, and it seems most of the time my units are having a hard time even hitting archers.

As you might be telling, the two games I have played since the patch have not gotten too far. The furthest I have reached is the early middle ages, with the game postponed until I have time to play again. I am not much of a warmonger at all; I’m a builder peacenik type, so my idea of how to do war is dodgy anyway. But before the patch I did well enough to win a domination victory on noble through annihilating one civ and beating up another. So … er, maybe I should also ask for general advice and help when doing the whole brutal conquest thing.

[Quillan]

1) Like you, I seem to have an easier time finding copper/iron than horses. Still, I seem to prefer horse archers for facing archers if I can get them. They're immune to first strikes, which is a big cause of what makes archers defending so good. I don't recall if horse archers can get the city raider promotion, but I tend to think not. So, failing that, city raider swordsmen would be my next choice. They have to weather the first strike(s), but they have an innate bonus attacking cities which is improved by the promotions.

2) Yes, you can take it. You're going to need more than you did before the patch. If you toss enough units at it, you'll weaken the defenders enough that you can beat them, though it takes a while. If you aren't sure you have overwhelming force, then you probably don't.

3) I still do this. The damage does weaken the defenders. It might not reduce the amount of damage the defender inflicts if it wins a round of combat, but it still does change the odds of winning the rounds of combat.

[Arrian]

If you're having money problems, I highly recommend working on setting up one city that pretty much pays for your entire empire. What you will need is a holy city (found a religion), a shrine (requires a great prophet), and some missionaries (requires one or more monasteries or running the Organized Religion civic).

You can generate a ton of gold in a city without that city bringing in any commerce from its tiles. The shrine gives you +1 gold/turn from every city that is converted to the religion in question. If you make sure to spread the religion to each city in your empire and perhaps to some others, you can easily be looking at 15 gold per turn.

Then the buildings that can modify that:

Market (+25% gold)
Grocer (+25% gold)
Bank (+50% gold)

Ok, now you've doubled the output (30 gold per turn).

Wall Street (requires a number of banks in your empire and the corporation tech to build) will add another 100%... which I think still works off of the base number (15gpt), so you would have 45 coming in from your city.

And that doesn't count super specialists. Add any additional great prophets you get to this city. Each one is +2 hammers/+5 gold, IIRC. You also may want to add any great merchants you get too (although those can be a nice "boom" factor for a mass unit upgrade, so it's situational, of course). This adds to the base number that is then modified by your buildings.

I have a Prince level game where one such city is providing for a medium-large empire running 100% science with a surplus. Granted, if IIRC that's my Japanese game, and Japan is an Organized civ (cheaper civic upkeep), so my expenses are more easily managed.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

2. If that nasty AI selfishly parks a city on a hill and inconveniently stuffs a couple of archers into it, is there any way to capture the gosh-darned thing without catapults? I'm rather leaning towards not after watching the massacre of my unusually large army when I tried it. In fact, I'm not even sure if you could get it with catapults.

I find chariots with the flanking promotion to be pretty good at softening up city defenders pre-catapults.

-Arrian

[Quillan]

Arrian, I've been able to do the same with Russia. Common Sensei gave me the idea with his Great Profits thread, and it works. Just push the hell out of the religion in question, add your gold-generating super specialists to that city, and it will bring in the money. I was making 100+ a turn profit at 100% science, late in the game while still supporting the #2 military from it. That idea will work regardless of the civilization. Of course, it requires that you either found a religion or capture a holy city, be able to build a great prophet to make the shrine if it doesn't already have one, and spread the religion. But if you can do that, you'll make money.

[Arrian]

It works pretty well even if you don't manage to spread your religion all that much outside your empire. If you *do* manage to convert another civ or two, then you're in the money.

I think I've been going about the early game w/regard to religion a bit badly - I typically convert staight away to my new religion. Mistake, unless I really need the happiness. Better to stay neutral for a bit so I can spread the religion to my neighbors. When I do switch and they're running a different religion, they hate me and close the borders.

-Arrian

[frogbeastegg]

Day off at long last.

Once again, thanks for the tips. I spent quite a bit of time at work pondering and toying with them over New Year's Eve, New year's Day, and subsequent few quiet days. :sigh: Now why don't all the hungover people want to go running out to buy books on a cold, miserable New Year's Day? The thinking time has given me loads of ideas I want to try.

This is probably one of those often repeated questions and the answer is probably all over this board, but how do you post saved games if you don't have your own personal hosting space? Second question being, is anyone willing to look at at least one of mine?

I started a game this morning, nothing special in any way, and I would like some comments on it. I can list quite a few mistakes and faults with it myself, but others may see far more, and it may be that the situation is not as bad as I think. Having others' opinions on what I am doing strikes me as the best way to improve at present.

[Quillan]

Underneath the body where you type your reply (not the quick reply box, you actually have to hit the reply button), and below Options, is a section labeled as "Attach file". There is a browse button there, so click that, browse your way to the save game in question, and select it. It will upload here.

[Hauptman]

You want the simple non number answer to beat the game? No really... do you want to know?


Specialize.

Plan your cities in advance. Look at their terrain and think about what its good for.

A couple good food squares and lots of hills? Well that screams "Hammer Monster" production city to me. Mine all the hills, farm the grass, and dont bother building libraries, markets, academies etc (unless you need the bonus effect like health from a grocer, or culture from the library) Plop a heroic epic and west point in this city.

Lots of food tiles, especially sea food and a whole lot of no hammers. These cities scream "GP pump" at me. Work all the food then add specialists trying to keep it at the happy/health cap. national epics love these cities, unfortunatly unless you run universal sufferage or slavery and use them, it takes a while to get things built. Rush buy the buildings that let you use specialists (forges, factories, libraries) and just watch those great people poor in... (plant great engineers in this city if you want it to become productive)

Grassland with rivers on the coast with some trade goods (dye, gold, etc). Well this is the perfect... wait for it... "trade city". Cottages, a few more cottages. and a cottage thrown in for good measure. Mine the hills, keep a forest here or there and farm 1 maybe 2 tiles just to kind of round it out. But this city focuses on building libraries, markets and universities. This is also the most numerouse type of city in a good civ. I generally run a single hammer city, 1 food city, and the rest trade cities.


Honestly the numbers crunching isnt required to do well. It only helps understand HOW it works, not why. Its all about the plan. the plan wins the game at higher difficulty levels. the more you plan, the higher you need to set the difficulty to keep it competitive.

Planning is also required for the tech tree, If you just grab the fastest to learn tech and slowly crawl up the tech tree, you actually hurt yourself in the long run. Think about what you want, got alot of a certain resource around you? alone on an island? whatever the case maybe you need to think about how best to use that and go from there... but TECH DEEP! i cannot stress that enough. learn the basics you need at the begining... animal husbandry if you have cows etc, but then go deep... as in beeline civic service, or theology even though you cant fish or (not recomended, but i did it in my last game) build roads. Early game it might take you 5 turns to learn fishing or 30 turns for code of laws. after code of laws is done you will notice fishing only takes 3 turns... If you then wait til after civic service, its only 1 turn to learn fishing... The game reduces the cost as more civs learn it. use that feature, or trade your code of laws for 3 or 4 early techs. Once i started doing this i had tanks pre 1800....