Need a tip about Civ4

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by foudres
You need to have production cities of course but you really need commerce/research cities.

Thoses cities should have more food than need and 2-3 tile with high production. All other tiles should be seft sufficiant on food and you should cotage them all (or use the special resources).

Won't you get more cottages being worked sooner by putting farms on any of the floodplain or food specials in the area rather than just spamming cottages?

[Jaybe]

Geronimo, the consensus is that cottaging flood plains is generally best -- I wouldn't be surprised if I read it first from Blake. I have never considered (or heard of) cottaging food resources before.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Geronimo, the consensus is that cottaging flood plains is generally best -- I wouldn't be surprised if I read it first from Blake. I have never considered (or heard of) cottaging food resources before.

ok, in addition to farmed resources, where and when is it best to build farms? only for cities that won't be able to work all their tiles otherwise? For those cities is it best to choose grassland if available (all the floodplains being reserved for cottages) or are plains a better choice so you get some hammers out of the deal as well? maybe even less often than that?

[Jaybe]

If you have 2 or 3 food surplus, that is sufficient for most cities and most times. Exceptions being at the game start, at cities where you are exploiting slavery, and cities where you want no further growth.

Common sense stuff (as uncommon as that is).

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Jaybe
If you have 2 or 3 food surplus, that is sufficient for most cities and most times. Exceptions being at the game start, at cities where you are exploiting slavery, and cities where you want no further growth.

Common sense stuff (as uncommon as that is).

but i thought Blake advocates massive exploitation of slavery in every city that can take the whip?

Does he recommend the cottage spam for a single floodplain city that will carry the financial weight of the empire or something?

[zeace]

I think that in some situations you probably should farm a floodplain. Like Jaybe said, you want a city that has a food surplus of 2 or 3, maybe even 4 or 5 while you're using the whip or starting a new city. But food above that is wasted on unhappiness.

If you found a new city near say 4 floodplains and the rest grassland, you will initially be working a floodplain so you get +3f/+1c per turn. Farming the floodplain takes it to +4f/+1c. At this point your city is producing a ton of food, but it's manageable. But the 2nd and 3rd pop will also work floodplains taking it to +5f/+2c and +6f/+3c respectively. It's very hard to micromanage your whipping such that this city won't become unhappy. The 4th pop makes it +7f/+4c. Obviously you'll cottage the rest of floodplains making it +7f/+7c, but you're still probably over producing food.

Any city with a food special is going to be at least as bad as an improved special produces more than a floodplain.

If you had started by cottaging the floodplain, you'd end up with a lot more commerce (1 more cottage, and the first one is started sooner) and 1 less food. By the time your 4th pop comes along you've probably already advanced to a hamlet so you're producing +6f/+9c. This is still probably too much food, but it's certainly better than +7f/+7c.

On the other hand, if you have a city with 2 floodplains and a bunch of plains hills with gold and silver, you're clearly going to need the food. I'd farm both of them. After your 2nd pop you'll be making +6f/+2c per turn which is a lot of food, but the 3rd pop works a gold mine so now you're at +4f/+2h/+8c. The 4th pop makes it +2f/+4f/+14c. There's no food problem anymore. In fact it'd be nice to have a little more food.

The reason people say "always cottage floodplains" is because the former situation happens a lot more often than the latter. Getting the first cottage working is far more valuable than getting up to your happy cap a few turns quicker. But in a food poor situation, farming floodplains is great.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Olavi
Well I wouldn't go this far. Limited and well planned conquest wars are OK to me.

But before starting a war, one should have clear goals for the war and a planned way to stop fighting when the goals have been achieved.

So it may be wise to attack for valuable resources. It may even be wise to capture one or two large border cities just for expansion, assuming that your economy can take the rising maintenance price.

But unlimited, out-and-out conquest frenzy is no good, especially not in the early game. It will leave you with large but unefficient land area, high city maintenance and poor research.

"From a certain point on" does not mean "always" and certainly not "the early game". And of course every war shall be well planned, that goes for wars of conquest as well as for wars of destruction.

A war for resources is the only kind of conquest I would do after that "certain point" is reached. However, such wars for resources are often 20% conquest (you need only one colony) and 80% destruction of surrounding cities, that pour their five thousand years old culture into your newly acquired land.

What concerns that "It may even be wise to capture one or two large border cities just for expansion" part: Why has it not been done before the "certain point" was reached?

It is not a matter of maintenance, by the way, that makes late conquests uneffective. In the late game (i.e. after the "certain point") you usually have enough money to spare to pay the upkeep. However, the good you gain from this city is highly questionable. It will be undeveloped, it won't have libraries, universities, market places and banks, forges and factories and so on. Or at most a few of these buildings.

This city will likely spend the rest of the game catching up to your productive cities by building improvements. Its contribution to the whole empire, measured in beakers and military units, will be very small. But it will make you trouble. It is inhabited with foreigners, who will revolt often, especially if it's under overlapping cultural influence from its former owner. It will make you more trouble than it is worth. You might have been better off, if you had just razed it.

Nah, the ancient and classical age is for settlement, middle ages prime time for conquests, which ends in the renaissance. After this, conquests usually don't pay off anymore, wars for resources notwithstanding.

[DrSpike]

I have to agree with Ralphie.

[Harovan]

Well you could vassalize your neighbor and be rid of the trouble (provided you play Warlords), but if you can vassalize him by capturing a few border cities, he's been already weak beforehand and there's again the question, why he hasn't been pruned long ago.

[foudres]

In midle late game if i attack someone in a single player game, it even beeing the more powerfull civ of the game it actually finish dead or my vassal most of the time because i like to win by domination and the % required in terrain size is huge (Vassal state help increase you % and allow you to make peace faster and when any AI accept to be a vassal state he is likely to have already lost the game and can do nothing against you.

[Arrian]

War in CIV is expensive. Extra cities w/o the economic infrastructure to pay for themselves are also expensive.

Playing an organized civ can help.
Playing a financial civ can help.
Poprushing (rushing using the slavery civic) courthouses in captured territory helps.

Do not neglect cottages (unless you're specifically aiming for a "specialist economy" using a philosophical leader... and I'm not the guy to ask about that, I'm not good at it).

Do not neglect currency (tech) and marketplaces (building). Build courthouses as soon as they are reasonable builds (120 hammers for non-org civs make them an expensive build in the early game).

A religious shrine coupled with the commerce multiplier buildings (market, grocer, bank, wall street) can be extremely lucrative if you spread the religion well. That requires some work to set up, but the payoff is worth it, IMO. Don't get distracted by going for lots of religions. One is enough, really. Get one, and concentrate on spreading it and making the shrine city a cash cow. That means market/grocer/bank/wall street as soon as they're available and also settling any extra great prophets and merchants in that city.

Trade is also important... both passive trade (international trade routes between cities occurs "under the hood" once you open your borders to another civ) and active trade (swapping resources or, better yet if you don't need more health/happy, selling your resources to the AI for gold per turn).

-Arrian

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Arrian
War in CIV is expensive. Extra cities w/o the economic infrastructure to pay for themselves are also expensive.

Playing an organized civ can help.
Playing a financial civ can help.
Poprushing (rushing using the slavery civic) courthouses in captured territory helps.

Do not neglect cottages (unless you're specifically aiming for a "specialist economy" using a philosophical leader... and I'm not the guy to ask about that, I'm not good at it).

Do not neglect currency (tech) and marketplaces (building). Build courthouses as soon as they are reasonable builds (120 hammers for non-org civs make them an expensive build in the early game).

A religious shrine coupled with the commerce multiplier buildings (market, grocer, bank, wall street) can be extremely lucrative if you spread the religion well. That requires some work to set up, but the payoff is worth it, IMO. Don't get distracted by going for lots of religions. One is enough, really. Get one, and concentrate on spreading it and making the shrine city a cash cow. That means market/grocer/bank/wall street as soon as they're available and also settling any extra great prophets and merchants in that city.

Trade is also important... both passive trade (international trade routes between cities occurs "under the hood" once you open your borders to another civ) and active trade (swapping resources or, better yet if you don't need more health/happy, selling your resources to the AI for gold per turn).

-Arrian

when you spread a wallstreet shrine city relgion you get 2 coins per turn per missionary who can establish the religion.

To plan my investment in missionaries can I assume the hammer cost of the missionary is equal to the number of coins the converted city will have to send back to my shrine city before the missionary has paid for itself?

There must come a point in the modern ages where it's no longer cost effective to spread that religion to more foreign cities?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Geronimo
when you spread a wallstreet shrine city relgion you get 2 coins per turn per missionary who can establish the religion.

Three gold, not two (200% w/wall street, grocer, bank & market is PLUS 200%, so tripled).

There must come a point in the modern ages where it's no longer cost effective to spread that religion to more foreign cities?

I'm sure there is, in theory. When playing the game, theory goes out the window because there are also other issues involved ...
(e.g., if you are comfortable with your research rate, you have 2K gold in the coffers and you're bringing in +175gpt, the only reason to spread religion may be for happiness under free religion civic).

Is Geronimo thinking too much about the game and not playing it enough? Will he be able to apply all this "book learning" when he plays the game at warlord/noble difficulty? j/k

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Jaybe

Three gold, not two (200% w/wall street, grocer, bank & market is PLUS 200%, so tripled).


I'm sure there is, in theory. When playing the game, theory goes out the window because there are also other issues involved ...
(e.g., if you are comfortable with your research rate, you have 2K gold in the coffers and you're bringing in +175gpt, the only reason to spread religion may be for happiness under free religion civic).

Is Geronimo thinking too much about the game and not playing it enough? Will he be able to apply all this "book learning" when he plays the game at warlord/noble difficulty? j/k

The questions all arise as I play the game. But I'm only on my second game atm.

Usually when I'm posting here I am unable or it is impractical for me to be playing games.