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OKay, so I'm relatively new to the forums... I spent some time on the SMAX forums as well as the Civ 3 Forums awhile back, but that was years ago, and as of now this is my first Civ 4 post.
So I've learned some stuff, after buying Beyond the Sword. Mainly that being this: I suck at Civ.
See, I follow the Builder path. Turtle up, research like crazy. My wars tend to favor overwhelming force in a blitzkrieg style, taking two to five enemy cities within a few turns of one another, then turtling back up and calling up reinforcements. Thus, my wars (used to) tend towards short, bloody, and monstrously effective, if I actually set the war machine into full gear. In previous games (SMAC and SMAX, specifically), this concept worked exceptionally well on the strategic level and fairly well on the tactical level.
They no longer do. Primarily because, apparently, the AI was playing nice with me all this time!
I've run through four games of Civ 4 with Beyond the Sword installed... and all four games ended the same way. I had a nice, (relatively) technologically advanced empire with two or three upraded defenders in my border cities. All four games saw me completely overrun by upwards of a dozen (sometimes two or even three times that...) slightly-lower-tech-yet-still-good-enough-to-tear-me-a-new-one-apparently units. And all four times, it was someone who I'd been at Friendly with (I'm talking a total of +8 or more from various factors like Open Borders or the like) who invaded me, and universally it comes via a massive fleet descending from the edge of the fog of war onto one city and steamrollering me to death.
I try to take the city back, and sometimes I even succeed, but at that point I've used up almost all my defenses, and fall quickly prey to a second invasion, either from the original offender or some other vulture come to pick me clean.
I've since learned that apparently, I was being handled with kid gloves before Beyond the Sword came out, and it's caused me no end of frustration. My previous tactics no longer work, even when altered. And it's hard to make a case that I was invaded for being "weak" when I've got three dozen Knights and a smattering of Gunpowder level units sitting halfway across my empire, preparing an invasion against someone else!
Beyond that, my fleet (which, admittedly, can't stand up to a half-dozen transports coming out of nowhere, but could at least thin them out a little!) is WAY too easily dodged. I'm not sure what to do about this, as four combat vessels stacked up are significantly more effective on defense than four combat vessels in four seperate squares. I say this because if four vessels are stacked in one square, you have to attack that square four times to get through it, while if they're spread out, you attack one square, blast it, and slide in through the gap.
I'm quite sure I'm doing something wrong here, but I really have no idea what. I'm expanding throughout the early game to take advantage of resources wherever they're found on my continent, and I ususally manage to control half or more of the "useful" land before I'm pressed against the entire length of another civ's cultural borders.
I'm looking through strategy threads right and left, but the basic problem I'm having is that all of them assume I've been reading everything from the beginning, since the game came out... there are references to strategies by name only with no explanation of what they are, for example, so it's slow going. So, in essence, I'm lost, and frustrated to no end. I have a hard time enjoying the game when I'm getting my rear kicked by money shortages (Which I still don't understand how THAT'S happening, as I've made commerce and trade routes a high priority to counteract that very problem), thusly slowing my tech progression to a crawl at the worst possible times, and then suddenly I'm invaded by a computer opponent who is somehow significantly less hobbled by these problems than I am.
So, while I'm far from a "newbie", none of my old ideas are working anymore. I'm heading to try a few more ideas out now, but it's a bit tiring to put six or more hours into a marathon game of Civ only to get blasted back to the dark ages as soon as ocean travel becomes practical for my opponents.
Any advice?
So I've learned some stuff, after buying Beyond the Sword. Mainly that being this: I suck at Civ.
See, I follow the Builder path. Turtle up, research like crazy. My wars tend to favor overwhelming force in a blitzkrieg style, taking two to five enemy cities within a few turns of one another, then turtling back up and calling up reinforcements. Thus, my wars (used to) tend towards short, bloody, and monstrously effective, if I actually set the war machine into full gear. In previous games (SMAC and SMAX, specifically), this concept worked exceptionally well on the strategic level and fairly well on the tactical level.
They no longer do. Primarily because, apparently, the AI was playing nice with me all this time!
I've run through four games of Civ 4 with Beyond the Sword installed... and all four games ended the same way. I had a nice, (relatively) technologically advanced empire with two or three upraded defenders in my border cities. All four games saw me completely overrun by upwards of a dozen (sometimes two or even three times that...) slightly-lower-tech-yet-still-good-enough-to-tear-me-a-new-one-apparently units. And all four times, it was someone who I'd been at Friendly with (I'm talking a total of +8 or more from various factors like Open Borders or the like) who invaded me, and universally it comes via a massive fleet descending from the edge of the fog of war onto one city and steamrollering me to death.
I try to take the city back, and sometimes I even succeed, but at that point I've used up almost all my defenses, and fall quickly prey to a second invasion, either from the original offender or some other vulture come to pick me clean.
I've since learned that apparently, I was being handled with kid gloves before Beyond the Sword came out, and it's caused me no end of frustration. My previous tactics no longer work, even when altered. And it's hard to make a case that I was invaded for being "weak" when I've got three dozen Knights and a smattering of Gunpowder level units sitting halfway across my empire, preparing an invasion against someone else!
Beyond that, my fleet (which, admittedly, can't stand up to a half-dozen transports coming out of nowhere, but could at least thin them out a little!) is WAY too easily dodged. I'm not sure what to do about this, as four combat vessels stacked up are significantly more effective on defense than four combat vessels in four seperate squares. I say this because if four vessels are stacked in one square, you have to attack that square four times to get through it, while if they're spread out, you attack one square, blast it, and slide in through the gap.
I'm quite sure I'm doing something wrong here, but I really have no idea what. I'm expanding throughout the early game to take advantage of resources wherever they're found on my continent, and I ususally manage to control half or more of the "useful" land before I'm pressed against the entire length of another civ's cultural borders.
I'm looking through strategy threads right and left, but the basic problem I'm having is that all of them assume I've been reading everything from the beginning, since the game came out... there are references to strategies by name only with no explanation of what they are, for example, so it's slow going. So, in essence, I'm lost, and frustrated to no end. I have a hard time enjoying the game when I'm getting my rear kicked by money shortages (Which I still don't understand how THAT'S happening, as I've made commerce and trade routes a high priority to counteract that very problem), thusly slowing my tech progression to a crawl at the worst possible times, and then suddenly I'm invaded by a computer opponent who is somehow significantly less hobbled by these problems than I am.
So, while I'm far from a "newbie", none of my old ideas are working anymore. I'm heading to try a few more ideas out now, but it's a bit tiring to put six or more hours into a marathon game of Civ only to get blasted back to the dark ages as soon as ocean travel becomes practical for my opponents.
Any advice?
just kidding)
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