Tweet
I'm not a hugely successful Civ4 player yet, but man I'm enjoying it.
I'm on Prince level, and I still have trouble turning an advantage and keeping it in the Classical to Ren era (and beyond).
In this particular game, the map is Huge (first time going that route), otherwise temperate, standard build game (continent style map).
I chose the French, because failed attempts on Huge/Prince taught me more early game military would be helpful against barbarians, which in turn allows for some advantages to an early game war-strategy, which is how I've pursued the game to this point, AD800.
I occupy the northern portion of a long,wide , large continent. My earliest neighbor was England/Victoria. I had enough time in the game to research Iron Working (which I found I needed because I started with no attainable source of copper - early exploration on Huge helped me a lot).
I chop-rushed pyramids, and by that time, I decided on a plan to keep my immediate neighbors from expanding through warfare. So I took the unusual step to go Police State civ and rushed Swordsman. Almost all cities have barracks, I'm French so I start with combat 1 promotion, and I can tell against England, she has no iron/bronze.
London was the first to fall, then Nottingham, then peace.
I could see Takegawa expanding toward me in good land, and he was next. I took a little time to heal troops, did NOT promote except for one unit to have Medic I in the stack, and I produced two stacks of Swordsman/Spearmen/Archers to take to Takegawa. I razed his outermost cities, left Tokyo because it had walls, and found and seized Kyoto.
I ran a huge deficit holding these cities - Takegawa again expanded into territory the French claim but refuse yet to colonize, so our war kicked off and I razed yet another city. I'm now going to fill in some geography...
Meanwhile, far to the south on my island continent is Hathsepsut of Egypt. She out-techs me by leaps and bounds and has a helluva land mass colonized. She shares my religion, and we have long been friends.
Now I need a guide for the Classical-to-Ren transition that will enable me to "catch up" to her in civic prosperity. There is no point in war with her as she out-techs me narrowly and can outproduce me probably easily. Although maybe if I slave-rushed... Still, the tech is too far - she'll have Macemen soon enough. Maybe knights.
So how does one approach the tech tree/civil production given where I am. Note that Code of Laws is my next tech...
If you see glaring productivity errors that I have made, let me know. I have had still enough barbarian activity, and thin enough inner defenses that some barbarian axemen were allowed to rampage some villages
You can't have it all, Napolean...
thanks for your advice - I'm going to keep going from here, and I'll no doubt make mistakes, so I plan on seeing your advice then coming back to repeat the game with it.
Helio
aka "Le Dane"
I'm on Prince level, and I still have trouble turning an advantage and keeping it in the Classical to Ren era (and beyond).
In this particular game, the map is Huge (first time going that route), otherwise temperate, standard build game (continent style map).
I chose the French, because failed attempts on Huge/Prince taught me more early game military would be helpful against barbarians, which in turn allows for some advantages to an early game war-strategy, which is how I've pursued the game to this point, AD800.
I occupy the northern portion of a long,wide , large continent. My earliest neighbor was England/Victoria. I had enough time in the game to research Iron Working (which I found I needed because I started with no attainable source of copper - early exploration on Huge helped me a lot).
I chop-rushed pyramids, and by that time, I decided on a plan to keep my immediate neighbors from expanding through warfare. So I took the unusual step to go Police State civ and rushed Swordsman. Almost all cities have barracks, I'm French so I start with combat 1 promotion, and I can tell against England, she has no iron/bronze.
London was the first to fall, then Nottingham, then peace.
I could see Takegawa expanding toward me in good land, and he was next. I took a little time to heal troops, did NOT promote except for one unit to have Medic I in the stack, and I produced two stacks of Swordsman/Spearmen/Archers to take to Takegawa. I razed his outermost cities, left Tokyo because it had walls, and found and seized Kyoto.
I ran a huge deficit holding these cities - Takegawa again expanded into territory the French claim but refuse yet to colonize, so our war kicked off and I razed yet another city. I'm now going to fill in some geography...
Meanwhile, far to the south on my island continent is Hathsepsut of Egypt. She out-techs me by leaps and bounds and has a helluva land mass colonized. She shares my religion, and we have long been friends.
Now I need a guide for the Classical-to-Ren transition that will enable me to "catch up" to her in civic prosperity. There is no point in war with her as she out-techs me narrowly and can outproduce me probably easily. Although maybe if I slave-rushed... Still, the tech is too far - she'll have Macemen soon enough. Maybe knights.
So how does one approach the tech tree/civil production given where I am. Note that Code of Laws is my next tech...
If you see glaring productivity errors that I have made, let me know. I have had still enough barbarian activity, and thin enough inner defenses that some barbarian axemen were allowed to rampage some villages
You can't have it all, Napolean...thanks for your advice - I'm going to keep going from here, and I'll no doubt make mistakes, so I plan on seeing your advice then coming back to repeat the game with it.
Helio
aka "Le Dane"
Comment