Advice on how to win this game (screenshot/save included)

[mattsaccount]

Hello everyone,

I recently beat Civ IV on Noble, default settings for mostly everything, through a "domination" victory. It was pretty ridiculous actually.

So, I figured I'd bump up the difficulty to Prince, but my old strategy doesn't work quite as well. Since the computers are stronger, capturing their cities is slower going. I'm also being bogged down in maintenance costs.

Here's a link to my save game if you'd like to take a look at where I am:

https://www.renzelmann.com/temp/Game.Civ4SavedGame

Screenshot of some stuff:

https://www.renzelmann.com/temp/screen.png

Summary:
- Year is 1440 AD, I recently discovered gunpowder and am currently researching education. Epic game speed.
- I'm the Russians and occupy the western most part of a small, "highland" style map with almost no water and large numbers of hills/mountains. Since the map is "flat", nobody can possibly attack me from the west or north. Egypt is to my east and north east, Greece borders me in a small part in the southeast, and the remains of the Incas are to my south.
- I have the highest score, but number 2 (Mao) is close behind. Luckily he's on the other side of the world and does not pose an immediate threat.
- Three neighbors: Egyptians, with whom I have great relations, Greece / Incas, with whom I have awful relations. Mao also isn't too happy with me.
- Currently at war with the Greeks--they declared it on me. I asked the Egyptians to help and they agreed, so the Greeks can be handled.
- Incas do not pose a threat--I've captured a number of their cities over the years. They have the lowest score.
- I have a number of reasonably large/productive cities, mostly thanks to various conquests (Incan / Greek). My core cities (e.g. Moscow) are generally well grounded economically. Moscow in particular can pump out military units very fast. Terrain around my main cities is all improved the maximum amount.

I'm mostly looking for advice on how to win this game. I'm concerned the other civs are keeping up in technology, so a space race will be a tight finish. Diplomatic victory is practically out of the question, since the only civ that likes me is Egypt. Culture is definitely not happening since I've been in so many wars I haven't had the chance to get the necessary wonders. Domination / kill everyone is too slow, and would consume my entire economy. It's already mostly consumed by war.

Any tips / suggestions appreciated.

[mdbill]

A domination victory would feel the best I think. Alternately, it's probably not too late to pull off a space race win.

I won a Domination on Prince. Coincidentally, it was on Highlands. When i got my Unique Unit (musketeer) I took full advantage and stomped my closest neighbor. Maybe you can do the same with your Cossack? Then I settled back in and researched until Modern Armor. When you go to attack a civ, take out their Oil. I only had to fight Infantry and a couple Mech Infantry near the end.

For space race, You're at Education, so you can probably get Liberalism first (use the free tech you receive for first to Liberalism to get Astronomy) Computers is surprisingly close. Only 5 techs away (6 if you need Printing Press yet)

Build the Universities, Oxford and the Labs.

Head straight for Fiber Optics. It's also closer than it appears. Probably only 7 - 9 techs after computers. Halfway there you can even start the Apollo program and some spaceship parts.

Build the Internet. You will get all the techs the other civs have and be completely caught up on old tech, way ahead overall.

Like I said, more fun/challenging the first way.
Enjoy!

[Blake]

Hmmm I see your terrain improvement is rather awful.

Take Moscow for example, it's never going to grow with those mines. The mines along the river should be replaced with windmills ASAP.

A hint - don't queue up units. Instead use infinite build, that is Alt-Click on the unit. It will be *'d and will build until cancelled. You can then stop it building by removing just one item.

Getting back to the game. Your economy is a mess, you NEEEEED courthouses everywhere, and banks too since your commerce allocation is at 50%. You need to stop building military units, your military is large enough and in any case it would be foolish to continue conquest without first consilidating.

Since you have many cities and few trade partners Merchantalism will be a very nice civic. I think it's worth the 1 turn of Anarchy.

I'm going to play this saved game just for fun. Victory goal will be domination.

[cal_01]

Answer: Cossacks, and lots of them.

You can literally destroy everyone with the Cossack/Cannon or Cossack/Artillery combination.

BTW, I haven't looked at the save game yet. So, my somewhat ignorant speculation is that you should get Military Tradition (and Steel if possible) and prep up two spearheads: One for Helipolis and one for Alexandria. Or, two for Alexandria and then diverge to Helipolis and Pi Ramesses.

And yes, sometimes attacking your neighbours is the best thing to go with.

[Blake]

First on the agenda:
Push the armies forward to take Athens.

In interior cities, cancel all future units, as the units complete, change to infrastructure.

Pull garrisons back from forward cities to the interior to act as police.

Split up the big worker stack, and pull them all back to start reclaiming hills. One big stack of 5 workers to complete a windmill every turn.

Infrastructure builds in cities: Theatres, banks, courthouses, grocers, markets etc.

Checking Religion Screen: 18% of world worships conf. The Kong Miao has been built. It will be nessecary to do some Confinscation in the name of holy shrine income.

Also in the warpath, a medic knight arrives. Where are your medics?!


Athens and Thermopylae (conf holy city) quickly fall. The Kong Maio only produces +10/turn. That's barely enough to cover the city upkeep. But add a bank and the city will be quite profitable. I make peace with the Greek.. don't need the war weariness.

I notice the Incans have built the Hanging Gardens, I also notice they have Bananas... and that the russian empire is in dire need of health. Taking out Incaland would add 3 health. Time for WAR OF THE BANANAS!

Cuzco falls without a fight.

Side notes: I havn't built much more military. I switched to rep after capturing the pyramids. I've built 3 explorers, all of which are Combat1/Medic. I love medics, and explorers make ideal medics, they rarely die and can catch up to isolated units.
Tech-wise I got to Economics (settled the Merchant in Moscow) then headed to Liberalism and picked Nationalism as my free tech. Next up: MIlitary Tradition. In throwing away my military at Incaland I'm making sure to keep enough promoted units.
Also Mao Zing-Dong has declared war on me but it appears to a war of the words (ie one where the leaders call each other names rather than send armies).

I note that Heroic Epic and National Epic have both been built in the capital. Bad idea. Since I can't make a Heroic Epic + West Point pairing, I might go with Ironworks + Westpoint. At this point I'm looking for a good city for this task, I'm thinking that the Incan city of Huamanga is the best, room for 6 watermills and plenty of mines and workshops.

[homeyg]

wrong thread

[mattsaccount]

Hey everyone!

Thanks for your detailed input, especially Blake.

mdbill - Thank you for your suggestions. Since Blake is also pursuing, it sounds like Domination is still the way to go in my situation. I know many of you guys can handle Prince in your sleep--do you find that domination is still a viable option on the higher levels, e.g. Monarch, or do you have to go a different route, e.g. cultural?

Blake - Thank you for taking the time to look at and try the save game. You've pointed out many valuable things that I hadn't previously considered. I'll try my best to respond:

1) Mines vs. Windmills. Yes, you're absolutely right. I think the problem was I built all the mines early on, before I had the windmill technology, and never went back to change anything. Having only recently moved to Civ IV from III, I'm still learning about the advantages of these newfangled terrain improvements

2) Courthouses. Yes again (of course). I had actually attempted to start something along these lines, probably less focused than your suggestion, but Greece initiated the war with me so I had to respond. I agree that my finances were not working out well.

3) Mercantilism. This was definitely not something I had considered. Whenever I had looked at the "+1 free specialist" at the cost of "no trade routes" it seemed like a bad idea. But since my cities can simply trade amongst themselves, it's actually pretty good. Thanks for opening my eyes again on this point

cal_01 - Indeed, I used Cossacks to win the last game I played through a domination victory. But it was only on Noble.

Blake -

4) I hadn't considered redistributing the military to act as police. If the military later need to be pulled out again, how do you maintain happiness in the cities in which they were formerly stationed?

5) Windmills. I take it you're mostly replacing mines with windmills in cities that are not growing yet have unused mines?

6) The medic idea is clever, again something I had never considered. I normally would fortify the units in a city until they healed, and then continue attacking as needed.

7) Yeah, Mao shouldn't be too big a problem at this stage since he's on the other side of the world.

8) The Heroic Epic/West Point national wonders is a good idea--again something I hadn't considered. (I'm obviously not that good ). I don't believe I had ever considered the consequences of pairs of national wonders in a given city.

Anyhow: Thanks again everyone for your input, especially Blake for taking the time to play some turns. I'm looking forward to hearing more about how it turns out (should you choose to continue the game, Blake). I've learned a lot about my numerous weaknesses in this thread. I knew I must be doing some things wrong since victory wasn't coming easily. Apparently, it's possible to win at Noble while simultaneously screwing up a lot of stuff :-)

[mdbill]

Domination on Monarch is probably a great challenge. Above that might be impossible unless you change the map size (smaller) or maybe play islands. Probably not a fun game at those levels. Good luck with your game. I'll let Blake take over.

[cal_01]

Well, you aren't trying for a domination victory per se. A land grab can be useful in terms of getting resources and more cities.