So how in the world do you beat this game?

[trev]

Be willing to expand your number of cities quicker, nothing wrong with science rate dropping to 60% for brief periods, it will come back up once you whip those courthouses into the cities and build both cottages that turn into towns.

[Urban Ranger]

You need more cities, particularly coastal cities. Stop building so many wonders all at once. That's nonsense. Develop your luxuries early to keep people happy. There's some sort of land to the left of your island that you should be able to reach with gallies. Three of your four cities aren't growing - cottages are nice, but make sure your cities get bigger!

[Moonbars]

Originally posted by Feyd


Anyway, Civ IV is a different ballgame. You can no longer "turtle" your way through the game with the same efficiency as before. Aggressive nations fueled by tech jealousy will attack every time unless you have a strong enough military to potentially pose an invasion.

So, long story short... build up that Navy detterent, Invest in a legion or two of Praetorian Guards and don't be afraid to throw your weight around early before the AI gets any funny ideas

Pax,

The AI is still hopeless at mounting a sea-borne invasion. No danger there.

There is still little point building up a Navy, especially as you don't have any option but the galley. It is cheaper to let the AI spend the resources on a few galleys that it can use to pillage your fishing boats, and just build a new work boat for when the war is over, than build a galley and have it sunk, or sink the first enemy boat and then get pasted by it's friend.

[Arrian]

Quicky advice, looking at your screenshot:

Your city locations are messed up. Don't build a city 1 tile off the coast if you can avoid it. Coastal cities rock. Built lots of them, and get lighthouses/harbors/libraries in them. ESPECIALLY as Rome. Rome gets discounts on both Lighthouses and Harbors (as well as courthouses and granaries).

Next, you just need more cities.

Terraforming-wise, I don't know if you have Civil Service yet, but if you do, some farms extending up from your river to your north/northeast would probably help growth.

You founded four (!!) religions and don't appear to have spread them. That bad. Consider, by the way, that if you got all four of your religions in Rome, you could've build 3 extra monasteries. That's +30% science.

Back to religions... founding four is a bit much, IMO. I guess it's not bad, but I think it might speak to imbalance in other areas - you most likely expended quite a bit of effort to nab 4 religions. You might've done better with just 1 or 2, and then focusing elsewhere in the tech tree.

-Arrian

p.s. Try out the Oracle "Civil Service slingshot"

[Arrian]

The AI is still hopeless at mounting a sea-borne invasion. No danger there.

Depends on your definition of "hopeless." If by hopeless you mean that an AI attempting a seaborne invasion of a prepared player with a strong up-to-date military, yeah, sure, it's hopeless.

If, however, we're talking about a human player who is concentrating on other things (tech, exploration, whatever) and has perhaps neglected homeland defenses a bit (warriors in key coastal cities), then no, the AI isn't hopeless, because it is entirely capable of dropping off several boatloads of troops right next to said warrior-defended city.

-Arrian

[billones]

I shouldn't be falling behind in score like this.

One other thing: score doesn't matter. Sure, a high score is nice, but your score is based on techs, wonders, land area and population. It doesn't take into account resources, production capability, commerce, or the size of your standing army. And unless the game goes all the way to 2050, score has no effect on whether or not you win.

When you go to the Statistics window, switch over to the other charts to get a better idea of where you stand relative to the other nations. The score can be deceptive.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Moonbars


The AI is still hopeless at mounting a sea-borne invasion. No danger there.

There is still little point building up a Navy, especially as you don't have any option but the galley. It is cheaper to let the AI spend the resources on a few galleys that it can use to pillage your fishing boats, and just build a new work boat for when the war is over, than build a galley and have it sunk, or sink the first enemy boat and then get pasted by it's friend.

haha, this screenshot is taken 2 turns before the chinese landed 4 units (2 axes, 2 horse archers) in my territory. I thought my praetorians could easily wipe them out. But I couldn't root out the axes unless they were on flat land. axeman are simply too tough with the defensive terrain bonus and melee bonus.

[Dis]

One more question. The tech tree.

I really should keep it next to my desk. I get sidetracked on other seemingly cool techs. Sometimes I go too high up one part of the tech tree (like religion).

I'm guessing code of laws is important. I used to wait too long before getting it. Although in this game above, I got it fairly early. And I also tend to wait too long to get the tech for harbors. Any other techs I should be aiming for early?

[Arrian]

Yes, CoL is important, especially so for Rome, because you get 1/2 price courthouses. Of course, if you don't build very many cities (like you did in this game), maybe that doesn't matter...

Playing an ORG civ means you really ought to concentrate on expansion - either peaceful or via your Praetorians.

Early tech priorities for Rome... well, I'd say:

- Iron Working (Praets)
- CoL (courthouses, confucism, leads to Civil Service)
- Compass (harbors)

IIRC, IW and Compass are on the same line, so that helps.

In addition to building lots of coastal cities, if you can nab one or both of the coastal wonders (Great Lighthouse, Colossus), you're in real good shape. I've had a much easier time grabbing the Colossus than the GLight, probably b/c of the forge requirement (the AI doesn't necessarily focus on that).

Then you can devote several interior cities to production (less need for cottages when you've got coastal powerhouse commerce centers) to pump out Praetorians and go bonk some heads.

-Arrian

[Calvin Vu]

If you can help it, don't ever trade with Mansa Musa. He's a tech whore and always gives you the worst deal. It's always tough to play games against him and Elizabeth peacefully expanding and researching !!

Anyway, a 80% research rate or better all the time is too high. I guess that explained why you did better initially (since others were busy expanding when you had your few cities with high research rate). After their cities grow they will overtake your research, especially without the Bureaucracy civics to help your capitol.

Since you are isolated on an island you might as well take advantage of that and aim for a peaceful expansion, taking advantage of the Roman traits.

I've won a space race game at the emperor level even with my research dropping down to 10% initially when I had to do a fast expansion to peacefully compete for land (against the Greek and Roman neighbors !!). That's not really a good thing but 40% research rate for a while should be normal. After your cities grow , especially if you're going for a cottage strategy, then the research rate can go back up.

[Dis]

I'm about to give up on this game. I was once able to beat noble games with relative ease, but now I can't even beat warlord. I hate to drop down to chieftan. Did the patches make the game harder? I realize I'm playing more difficult maps. As I'm going to post a noble save on a continents map. I had the island all to myself, making for an easy game. But it wasn't that easy because it was a long time before I met someone to trade with.

My first save will be of my current warlord game. Yeah I realize I made some mistakes. It me too long to find a city near the copper and get it hooked up. I tried defending with chariots, but I didn't get them out fast enough. And I made a mistake by not researching archery. My warriors could not defend against archers. I lost 2 cities (but gained one back with my chariot- the other was razed). I'm dead last in score. I don't now how to fix this. I realize I also didn't get workers out fast enough. I only have 1 out right now. But I'm trying to save my empire from this barbarian threat. And I made the mistake of expanding too fast. But I was trying to get access to some copper.

[Dis]

I honestly can't tell what I'm doing different from this game. Yeah I know this game I didn't have to deal with barbarians because of the size and type of map.

[Arrian]

The best way to improve is to take all of the mistakes you've explained above, learn from them, and start again. That's a fair number of mistakes, Dis.

The next time we get an AU game going, I highly recommend you read the DARs people write. Have you read the DAR threads for AU100? It's pretty informative when people write such detailed reports, complete with screenshots. Mine kinda suck, but some of the others are really detailed. You can learn a lot.

-Arrian

[Dis]

I'm unfamiliar with DAR and AU100. I have no idea what any of that means. Could you provide a link please?

I think my game is just broken. . I'm going to play a normal game instead of a custom game and see if that changes anything.

The funny thing on that elizabeth save was that was before the first patch. That save was taken 1 turn before my space victory. But when loading it post-patch, I no longer have enough turns left in the game to finish that last space ship part. As they raised the cost of the space ship parts.

[Arrian]

They changed a bunch of stuff in the endgame (tech costs, SS parts...).

"AU" = Apolyton University. There is a whole subforum for it (under the Strategy & Education forum). Use the forum jump.

"DAR" = During Action Report. The idea is to provide a detailed recap of a certain period of the game. Typically we break things up into blocks like "start until 1500bc, 1500bc until medieval, etc. We're still getting a feel for that, what with the new game and all). There is a thread for each period.

-Arrian