Top twenty newb mistakes

[Capt Dizle]

Despite the fact that Civ has been around for decades and many of the same fundamentals from earlier versions hold today, we still have many new players who show up and have a really hard time even on the easier levels.

So, the point of this thread is for the community to discuss errors common to newbs. We invite opinions and discusssion and yes, newbs to posts savs for the vets to pour over. We will nominate and debate goofs and pratfalls and perhaps finally with a poll we can settle on a top twenty newb mistakes.

I'll start with my favorite dumb thing to do. Building defensive units, especially spearmen. My postion is that you should only build warriors as necessary for police duty. I have played diety level PTW games to an early domination victory without ever building a spearman, pikeman, or musketman. I hold that having a suffcient military to get respect from the AI is important and you can do just that by building horsemen, swordsmen, and later knights for both mobile defense and offense. The only reason to build a spear or pike would be an emergency, which, by its nature, probably occurs due to one or more of the other top twenty gaffes.

#1 Civagoof: Building spearmen

[SirOsis]

I don't really agree with that position. I like defensive units because I like mixed armies. A good defense can result in many attacking units throwing themselves uselessly against you while you gather strength. The defensive units also will allow injured attacking units to survive longer which leads to more elite units/armies.

I think the #1 mistake is building your cities too far apart.

[Xorbon]

Newbie Mistakes:

1. Not having enough workers to build terrain improvements for a decent infrastructure (or not building T.I.'s at all ).

2. Not building roads between your cities or to foreign civs. This could probably be grouped with 1.

3. Underestimating the power of artillery.

I could come up with more, but I'm feeling lazy.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Spending too much time/effort/worry over getting or not getting all the Wonders, especially Ancient Age ones. You don't need most of them, and you can always conquer some later. 300 Shields worth of Swordmen and Horses will likely conquer you a few Wonder cities. Set yourself a target or two for Wonders and don't get distracted from those targets if you really want some, but don;t aim to build too many of them.

[vmxa1]

I would agree that spearmen are often build when they are not need, but I would say that the number one is misuse of workers.

Spreading cities is not important on Chief. Wasting worker turns and not minning enough and getting roads up are painful at all levels.

[Capt Dizle]

Everyone is making good points!

[Alexander's Horse]

Nothing wrong with a few defensive units - I build 2-3 per city so my fighting army can move more freely and quickly.

Also, artillery needs good defensive cover and captured cities need garrisons. I like to have a screening defensive force spread out during an invasion to hold key points.

[Footballgod128]

im not that good, i usually play monarch and im getting alot better thanks to a few peeps on here, thanks guys, you know who you are, im out rexing the AI like crazy now, or, i at least like to think so, but, i got awhile to go still....

i usually put about 3 or 4 defensive units in my border cities and then one in all the others, maybe an extra in my capitol, and then build alot of horseman, i prefer them cause of the fast movement and retreat ability, if i dont have them or iron, i TRY with archers....

i dont like artillary that much till i get to bombers, ill use them to bomb and get rid of thier luxuries and what not, these my not be good strategys, but, they usually work on monarch, can anyone tell me a usefull strategy for artillary as early as catapult, i wouldnt mind using them, im guessing the are best used with archers and spearmen for defense maybe...?

[Aqualung71]

Not building enough and underutilising workers is number one for me. This micromanagement becomes even more important as you move up levels.

I also agree that early on you should build warriors instead of spears, but I then start to build defensive uints later. Warriors are cheaper and you need the extra shield for other things early, especially to build settlers in the REXing phase. Risk of attack very early is usually quite low anyway.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Nothing wrong with a few defensive units - I build 2-3 per city so my fighting army can move more freely and quickly.

Also, artillery needs good defensive cover and captured cities need garrisons. I like to have a screening defensive force spread out during an invasion to hold key points.

We are going to have to have a long talk.

[Alexander's Horse]

well it works for me.

[chuckdelicious]

This game is simple yet complex... Have a plan and follow through.

Personally, I do build defensive units, but not many and they are always placed in outlying cities where I may be vulnerable to sneak attack.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by jimmytrick


We are going to have to have a long talk.

He might be talking about MP. Defensive units are a perfectly legitimate choice in MP.

[Harovan]

Both jimmytrick and AH are right. Defensive units are an absolute must in MP. But except a couple of key point border garrisons, they are a waste of upkeep in SP. After entering Republic, I usually disband all my Spearmen except a small bunch (6-10), holding small stacks of mobile units in reach of the borders. That's enough against the AI.

Overall "don't build enough workers / neglect on tile improvement" is for sure the absolute #1 newbie mistake.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Both jimmytrick and AH are right. Defensive units are an absolute must in MP. But except a couple of key point border garrisons, they are a waste of upkeep in SP.

Exactly what I was thinking reading jt's introductory post. No or very few defensive units might work against the AI, but will fail in 95% of all cases against (skilled) humans.

I believe we should make clear we want to speak about SP here only. MP and PBEM are quite different beasts.