How do I beat a better civer?

[DaveV]

(double post)
[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited August 01, 2000).]

[DaveV]

I think most games are decided by 1000 BC. If you're facing a "better civer" and are behind by that point, your long-term outlook is bleak.

My tips for the early game:

1) Don't build *any* city improvements. These siphon off money, and consume shields that could be used to build more cities. Eventually, you can turn perfectionist, but two more cities will give a far greater early payoff than a library or marketplace. Don't get me started on temples.

2) Don't irrigate or mine with your settlers; instead, use them to build more cities. Keep your cities out of disorder with garrison troops. Try to situate every city to take advantage of at least one special resource square. Build on good defensive terrain (rivers, hills, mountains) if you're playing a "no city bribe" game.

3) Explore the map, and pop lots of huts. Sometimes you'll find barbarians or techs you didn't want, but the outcome is good more often than bad. Once you find your opponent, establish an embassy. Knowledge is power.

4) Best specials for war: Sun Tzu and Great Wall. Hanging Gardens is indispensable for sleazing at Deity difficulty level.

[Ming]

All good solid advice.
Early in the game, expand... and then expand some more. Once you have a solid base, then you can start making decisions on what you are going to do for the rest of the game. No single strategy works, because each game is different. But if you don't lay out a good base of cities, and get to monarchy quick, you won't need to make an future decisions... because you will have already lost

And great post inca911, but it was easy to suck me in... you mentioned golf

[Alexander's Horse]

Hey Austin, played Hydey yet? Guaranteed big ego boost for ya

[Austin the Iron Fisted]

I ALLWAYS build the Hanging Gardens. so u are saying big early on expansion is vital? Ok. I think I understand most things, like how important trade is. But one thing. What about building happiness improvements? should I build them early on, or should I wait until the first signs of unhappiness? note:I am playing on prince and king level right now

[This message has been edited by Austin the Iron Fisted (edited August 01, 2000).]

[inca911]

Well, here are a few pointers from my excellent golf pro that apply to learning and improving performance in general:

1. Most important: Analyze your performance and identify areas to improve. Target those areas for practice.
2. Set goals.
3. Practice with feedback to aid learning.
4. Assess your performance against your goals.
5. Lather, Rinse, and repeat this process over and over setting new goals accordingly.

So, RAH outlined some very nice general civ goals. Unlike golf, you will be able to practice during your playtime and your feedback will be obvious. However, since analyzing your performance is the key to improving try to be clear as to what your problems are:
Is your treasury smaller than your opps making you an economic weakling? If so, you might want to consider more active trading for gold bonus, or build markets over temples to lower maintenance costs, or build more trade routes.
Are you militarily overmatched? Is it due to superior technology or superior numbers? If it is tech, you want to more closely monitor the science and tech tree. More trading for needed techs may be in order or you may be racing down a less beneficial tech path than your opps. If you have too few units but a big treasury, perhaps you are not doing enough incremental buying of units to build your army faster.
Are you losing the races to the key wonders? Perhaps you want to output more shields throughout your civ or stockpile some caravans for Wonder building instead of trade routes.

You must determine what is causing you to lose your games, keep track of it, and work to improve those areas. Just getting beat does not make you learn anything except how to lose graciously!

In my early Civ days, I used to have problems with happiness control on Deity. So I focused on the problem by building temples earlier and by increasing the importance I placed on HG. Now my treasury was too small for my liking, so I switched to building Markets instead of Temples, and didn't put all my caravans towards less valuable Wonders and instead used them for continued trade and the gold and Sci bonus. With all the focus on trade, now my military wasn't big enough, so I started more incremental rush buying of units with my larger treasury. Now, my treasury was shrinking again! I started incremental rush buying of caravans for better gold bonus. And so on and so on....

You may simply be up against a bunch of tactical cheaters and there's nothing you can do about that, but by identifying WHY you lose is crucial to your future winning success. Do you have any more ideas or specifics as to how you are losing? Perhaps with some more info, we can help you identify a strategy for improvement....
[This message has been edited by inca911 (edited August 01, 2000).]

[Hydey]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 08-01-2000 08:26 PM Hey Austin, played Hydey yet? Guaranteed big ego boost for ya

Best let him crush you first Horse before he tries to tackle a big gun like me

[DaveV]

Austin - definitely, don't build happiness improvements until you need them. Two warriors have the same effect on happiness as a temple, cost half as many shields, and have no annual maintenance. At king level, your first 12 cities can grow to size 3 without needing a temple; size 5 with two units for martial law (your first 24 cities can grow to size 2/size 4 respectively). If you're sacrificing early growth to build Hanging Gardens, I'd suggest that you build five more cities instead of that wonder.

[Ming]

At Deity level, an argument can be made for HG and temples. At lower levels, they really aren't needed early in the game. Wait until happiness is going to be a problem before building improvements. An elvis here or there won't hurt at first. Being able to have three units in a city with no support costs in monarchy is more than enough at the lower levels... and warriors are cheap to build

[Novi Nomad]

Just curious, at what point do your goals change from expansion to improving your cities and building armies? Obviously it is key early in the game to expand as rapidly as possible. At some point though, you will need to at least pick up a few wonders. If I've got a city that is producing more than four gold, I usually build a marketplace. If I've got a city producing four beakers, I usually pop in a library. Is this really a mistake? I've never really cared too much for the whole ICS strategy, it just isn't my style.

[Ming]

I'm sure an ICS'er will tell you that you never have enough cities

Usually, I let my capital crank our a settler, build a couple of defensive units, and then start building a wonder. If my second city isn't condusive for developing settlers, I might crank out a second one before starting on a wonder.

Until I get 8 to 12 cities laid down, I try not to build improvements unless I really need to.

[Shadowstrike]

I haven't played on the higher levels (King and up) yet, but my stretegy on expansion is to send the first settlers as far out as possible, and build cities, and send their settlers (well, you get the picture) after the "sending out, I build cities in the gaps. When my cities are surrounded by nearby cities, I start building improvements. On an average game, this is about 2000 B.C. If I played on a higher level though, I would build a temple right away. Can anyone tell me if this works/not works?

[cavebear]

Austin - I'm not sure that you are getting the kind of advice you need. It's good advice, to be sure, but I think much of it misses your needs.

1. Play your peers and those slightly better than you. You can't really learn much or experiment usefully if you play against people who can just obliterate you routinely.

2. Understand the differences between strategy, tactics, and implementation skills.
Strategy is an approach to winning a game or a goal to be sought. It might be achieving naval strength if you start on islands, or it may be achieving tech growth through trade. Strategy is a general plan.

Tactics are the specific moves/units/advantages to effectuate a strategy. If you want to implement a strategy of island colonization, then some tactics might be to acquire advanced ships, trade to be transported on those ships, and attack competing transports. Similarly, you might have a strategy of maximizing the number of cities on large landmasses. In that case, your tactics might include maximizing the number of settlers produced and protecting your coastal cities and making sure that no one else establishes cities on your landmass.

Implementation skills is trickier. You can read all the tips and hints in the world, but they mean nothing if you can't implement them. Some are even contradictory (many cities, highly-developed cities). Try to decide on a few that are appropriate to the strategy you decide on in a game and follow through on them.

If you have a competing civ on your landmass and your strategy is to defend, then try the 2 settler idea of starting one to mine a hill and the second to build a city there. But, if your strategy is to quickly eliminate opponents in the same area, then don't build your cities that way. In other words, think about sets of ideas that work together, and stick to them until you have some experience in "pure" strategies/tactics.

3. I hate to say it this bluntly, but avoid people who "cheat". I don't mean that many people use 2 computers or have special software that creates gold from nothing, rather I mean people that have learned so many little tricks and bugs that they can easily confound a learning player of generally actual skill. The losing to them doesn't matter, and you might even win, but you won't learn much about your *own* game that way.

The important thing is to play people who are of a skill level to challenge you but are also playing a straight game that allows you to judge your success at trying ideas, strategies, and tactics.

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[Chuckles39]

i learned a strategy that i have never not used...
it is contrary to just about everyone else's...
i go for Monarchy first, but i get horseback riding before it...
you can explore twice as fast then with a warrior...
more exploring means you get more of a look at your terrain to plan your next cities...
then your not "stuck" with crappy land...
you get huts quickly, and usually find your opponent before he/she finds you...
build warriors until horseback, then two horses, then settlers...after two settlers pick a wonder or build an army.do this with your first 5 cities, then build caravans, dips and a bigger army...
after monarchy, fuedalism, trade, then invention...
by this time a zone player will quit or get booted offline..and you win!

this would be a "normal" game...
minor adjustments for barbs, close neighbors and getting stuck on an island...




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[smilo]

You don't.