Razs Learning Thread

[Rasputin]

Well as usual i am too simple or too lazy to master civ like so many others have.

When i played civ2 i never got any furthre than the second level and then only occasionaly, moslty i played on base level. Why you ask, because i never micromanged a city EVER. I just liked to build things and then make an army and then go to war if i had to. oh and i hated the Space ship win so always avoided it.

Civ3 i never played above the base level as i always got crunched early on.

so onto civ 4. Again all my games been at settler level. i enjoying myself. but have decided finally i must master this game

So i have been playing a game on chieften level this past weel or so.

So i expanded as far asi could in the avaialble land, i got about 19-20% of land area, my nearest competitor has approx 16-17%

I only got 20% of world population out of the 11 civs in the game.

It is late 1990AD in game already and my first war with the Spanish has ended ( iwas asked to wipe them out by Montezuma)

By time i got open borders to get through my neighbours to the spanish only one city was left for my colection , monty got the rest. But i did send a few settlers to occupy the spaces left.

So i now had this reasonably large force of soldiers in the southern hemisphere with nthing to do, sitting on the border of montys land. and feeling peeved off that he got all the spanish citys. I said "to hell with it" and managed to get the 2nd largest AI to decalre war on Monty. I joined two turns later.

It been a good fun time, i have managed to maintain at least a 1000 pt lead all game, nearly 2000 pts in front at present turn.

I not sur eif i will get a win of any sorts by end of game, but at least i hav enjoyed palying at one level above my norm

Will now have to try the next level up.

[Badtz Maru]

The difficulty levels in Civ4 do seem to be a lot more appropriate for a wide range of play skills. I used to play Civ2 on the 1st or 2nd level. I stayed on 1st level until I realized I would like to have an AI declare war on me a little more often than every other game or so, but level 2 allowed me to maintain a steady lead while still having a bit of a challenge and a use for all those military units. Level 3 was really hard for me, if I survived it would be at the bottom of the scoreboard and I frequently got wiped out or driven to the point where there was no reason to continue well before modern times.

I think I played Civ3 at Warlord almost exclusively, though it's been a while and I didn't play that as much as I played Civ2.

There's something about Civ4 that's inspired me to try harder difficulties. I don't think I ever finished my first game at Settler, I saw that the AI was always going to be at least an age behind me and probably 2, and I tried Warlord (I figured if I could dominate on Settler my first time playing, I should probably skip the next one). Warlord was fun for me, I didn't always lose, and after a few games I could count on surviving until the end and getting a score close to the winner.

I think I realize what made me approach Civ4 differently than previous games...there seemed to be a lot more variety in how to play, and I read more on the strategy of playing the game. I always played as a builder, but I started playing in a more warlike fashion, in part because combat seemed more interesting. Anyway, when I played Civ2 I wasn't aware of the exploits and tricks to playing the game, and I never developed my strategy to a point where I could play well. I had access to more online resources for Civ3, but the game didn't hold my attention and I spent more time modding it than actually playing. In Civ4, I wanted to be able to play the game on the "Fair" setting and had the resources to do it.

I know some of the people who play on harder difficulty levels think it's funny to hear about how hard Noble was at first, but I think a lot of players at Raz's level feel the same way at first. Despite it's flaws, Civ4 has a good AI that will take advantage of your weaknesses, and it seemed like there was nothing I could do to keep up. I knew it had to be possible as the AI had no production advantages, and started planning ahead and focusing on goals, and soon I could sometimes survive at the middle of the pack, sometimes I came close to winning, and eventually I was able to get a decisive victory (although on Marathon, which is a bit easier).

I haven't moved on to Prince yet, though I can beat Noble 95% of the time. I've started playing with the map set on Shuffle and random civ to make it a bit harder and to learn different strategies - whatever leader I get, I try specifically to take advantage of everything unique about them...even though I rarely fought early wars, if I start with someone with an early UU, I will try to use them. I guess I'll have to move up soon, but I hate the idea of the AI getting bonuses over me.

So, if you can win decisively on Chieftan, I strongly recommend going to Warlord for now, but be prepared. The AI is pretty aggressive on Warlord and your production bonuses may not be able to keep up with the AIs efficiency. Here's some things to try to do if you want to improve your game.

Keep your mind on your money and your money on your mind. If you're enjoying an advantage over the AI, you may not notice that the game is drastically cutting the amount of money you spend on research to keep your economy afloat, and the AI WILL surge past you if you let it get too low. Strive to keep your science spending at 80% or above. There are a few things that can cause this to happen.

1. Expanding too fast. You can expand pretty fast on Warlord, but maintenance costs will get you. Maintenance costs go up for every city you build and are also higher for cities that are far from your capital. I don't recomend building more than three cities unless you are at least breaking even at 100% spending, unless you have a very good reason to build a new city, like snagging a vital resource or blocking an AI's expansion, and if you do start having to drop your spending below 90 in pre-Medieval times, you need to start planning on getting techs that will help your finances, which I'll go more into later.

2. Building too large of an army - up to a certain number of units (12 on Warlord), you don't pay any maintenance. After 12, each one is going to cost you 1 gold per turn, which is going to cost you some research in the early game unless you have a surplus. I'm not much of a warrior-type player so this usually isn't a problem for me in the early game, but it could be for someone else.

3. Not building things that make you money. This sounds obvious, but before I got better at the game I was constantly building things that weren't going to make me money when I REALLY needed to be making money (i.e. bleeding gold or running at 60% science rate to keep ahead). This needs to be your top priority if you want to grow or if you start to slow down unless your civ is about to get attacked, and if you're in that situation and about to get attacked, you probably want to start over. If you have coastal tiles, get Sailing and build Lighthouses (so you can work money-making water squares and still get enough food to grow), Pottery to build Cottages (until you start getting into city specialization you should probably build as many of these as you can, Currency for Markets, Code of Laws for Courthouses (reduce maintenance which can make them very valuable). Oh yeah, don't forget to build some workers and research the techs that will let you make money from any special resources you have. A gold or gem mine in one of your cities in the early game will allow you to maintain a surplus while at 100%, which means you can expand and become stronger faster.

Afer you got the money thing figured out, work on your build strategies. The most important advice I can give you is DON'T BUILD THINGS YOU DON'T NEED YET. No, buildings don't cost you maintenance, but they still cost one of the most important resources in the game - turns. If you spend 15 turns building a happiness building 20 turns before that city reaches the population where happiness becomes an issue, don't think of this as a good thing. Think about what you could have built in those 15 turns that would be providing you an immediate advantage. There's almost always something. the game rarely puts you in a situation where there's nothing worth building except for something that won't help you until your population has gone up/borders expanded/production increased/whatever. Every time you can choose something new to build, you're gaining a chance to build turn advantage over the AI, make sure you don't waste that opportunity and carefully consider every possibility. Though the suggestions are frequently good, DON'T always choose one of the suggested buildings. Doing that makes you the same as the AI players, which means you'll gain no advantage due to your human creativity. The AI has quirks that you don't need, like a lack of consideration of the value of trade routes and ocean access, a tendency to ignore the value of granaries and barracks, and other bad strategies. If you can't see an immediate benefit to what the AI suggests, look again (because it usually does have good suggestions), and if you still don't, consider the other choices. If there's really nothing worth building, consider building a military unit if you aren't suffering from unit maintenance costs.

I have a lot more to say, but I have company walking in the door, so I have to go. This can all be boiled down to planning ahead and remaining aware of all your options.

[Rasputin]

cool info , sounds liek civ4 is jsut as comploicated to win on higher levels as civ2 therefore maybe i wont move off the base levels.

i play for the empire feeling not to get into the nitty gritty of what each town is producing and when, I tend t obuild whatever my advisor tel lme to build unless i see an immediate action to take . like a culture item if i built too close to other civs or perhaps a barracks for protection.

I couldnt stand only having 3 cities, i would feel wasted. all that land up for grabs.

i guess i knew al lalong this game was meant fro people with hours to waste studying time after time what goes right and wrong, i dont have that time to waste. all i want is to build an empire and see those buildings going up and wonders and railroads and anything else i can build.

[Badtz Maru]

If you just build what the advisor says and pay a little attention to your money situation, you should be OK to play on Warlord, it's not very hard. A lot of people have complained about how big the difference in difficulty between Warlord and Noble is. You can dominate Warlord and not be able to get away from the bottom of the scoreboard in Noble.

A good, easy rule to follow to help you keep up with the AI in Warlord is 'Don't build another city if you can't break even at 90% research'. When you build the new city, your tech rate may drop to 80 for a while, but it should recover even without careful nurturing of your economy. And if you don't like to move population around in your cities, be sure to enable the option that has the city automatically assign population and highlight the Coin, the Hammer, and the Bread, so the cities make sure they are getting the most out of their tiles. It's not the smartest strategy and you won't get as many great people, but it will keep you from having cities that are totally wasted.

[Nacht]

So you started a learning thread to announce that you don't want to learn?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Rasputin
cool info , sounds liek civ4 is jsut as comploicated to win on higher levels as civ2 therefore maybe i wont move off the base levels.

I think Civ 2 is considered easier at the higher levels than Civ 4, so you'd probably be better off staying lower down. In fact, Monarch level on Civ 4 is more like Emperor on Civ 3.

The main difference with Civ 4 against the predecessors is that you cannot just expand unless you develop the economy too. Failure to do usually ends in bankrupcty.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Nacht
So you started a learning thread to announce that you don't want to learn?

At least he didn't put it in the learning forum.

Tom P.

[Xorbon]

I like the advice of not building things until you need them. A good alternative to building units would be to put a city's production on gold, science, or culture, depending on your need. You just have to keep an eye on the city since it won't remind you that it's not really building anything.

Now, here's a question. When is your gold/science/production/upkeep level high enough before it's worth it to build an appropriate building? At what science rate should a city be at before builing a library, monastary, or university? How high should the production be before building a forge? Etc. Any advice?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Xorbon
Now, here's a question. When is your gold/science/production/upkeep level high enough before it's worth it to build an appropriate building? At what science rate should a city be at before builing a library, monastary, or university? How high should the production be before building a forge? Etc. Any advice?

Since library, university, forge, market & grocer increases are 25%, just understand that a city with less than 4 is going to result in zero profit. Science & gold enhancers are almost always going to be valuable in a coastal city due to trade as the city grows.

Is it worth the time to build that building? Will it be worth it to have it later, so build it now?

There are other benefits than 'just' gold or science, of course. Several universities are required to build Oxford U., both forges & markets also give resource-dependent happiness. I like to make sure that cities with substantial hammers have the whole suite of gold enhancers so they can switch their production to gold at max (not enhanced by hammer enhancers) -- a 24 hammer city producing 24 gold can make a difference!

[DrSpike]

I think the levels should start at noble. Anything below that teaches you too many bad habits.

[Badtz Maru]

I think anything under Warlord should have a disclaimer saying it's a kind of sandbox mode and you aren't experiencing the full game.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
I think anything under Warlord should have a disclaimer saying it's a kind of sandbox mode and you aren't experiencing the full game.

Many players out there enjoy the "lower" levels.

Rasputin



for actually admitting that these levels are fun!

I quite often enjoy unleashing my hordes of praetorians on "lower" level games.

[Wiglaf]

I think the levels should start at noble. Anything below that teaches you too many bad habits.

this would frustrate a lot of people.

really, the difficulty levels should stop at noble, if they could program an AI that didn't cheat all the time

[DrSpike]

I think anyone can win at noble with a little application.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
really, the difficulty levels should stop at noble, if they could program an AI that didn't cheat all the time

This will not happen until AI technology matches the human brain - which is probably as close to never as makes no difference, or if Civ were scaled back to something of trivial complexity, such as chess.

In fact, it could possibly be a bit 'smarter' if humans were prepared to wait for much longer for the AI to play its turns, which on the whole they are not.

Meanwhile, stop worrying about the bonuses and learn to love the finer points of the game!