Tips for moving up to Warlord?

[DhulKhidr]

I'm just beginning to warm up to this game after initially giving up on it way back in November. The main reason being that I gave up on playing at the Warlord level and I started a game at Chieftain which is going marvellously.

Why is it so difficult to play at Warlord or above? I am always either financially or scientifically destitute, and way behind the competition around midway through the Ancient Era. Any ideas?

[Warmax]

Just a few suggestions:

1) Explore early on with several warriors to find those marvelous goody huts. Hopefully you will snag a few techs there and be able to trade with the other civs for their techs.

2) Build tons of roads with your workers. Each tile with a road in it generates on extra point of trade.

3) Build cities next to rivers (if possible.) Not only will you not need to build an aqueduct to go beyond pop size 6 you will gain an additional trade point of revenue for each tile that is immediately next to a river. (Yes, a square with both a road and positioned next to a river gets you two trade pts!)

4) Try and get in touch with as many civs as possible early on so you can start trading with them. Of course in order to do this you will need the roads and ports to enable trade routes to occur.

I know there are other ways to improve your technology and treasury situation but right now I'm outta time and gotta get back to work! Enjoy...

[spy14]

hard to tell without more info... work the land round your cities to maximise probuction, expand as fast as you can... but you dont get much gold during the early game... build some marketplaces. Better yet, post the save game file here so people can have a look and see what your doing wrong... prepare for a lot of sarcasm tho hey

[DhulKhidr]

Other civs refuse to give me any GPT for techs. They just want to give me a measly lump sum. Crazy.

I'll just have to start a new warlord game and let you know since I don't have any of those old save games.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by DhulKhidr
Other civs refuse to give me any GPT for techs. They just want to give me a measly lump sum. Crazy.

I'll just have to start a new warlord game and let you know since I don't have any of those old save games.

Make sure you are always building new cities for as long as you can. Go to war if other civs are to close.

[Tuberski]

Oh, and take the lump sums whiles you can, they will eventually get around to offering Gold per turn. Just remember to renegotiate trade treaties after 20 turns.

[alva]

All i can say is, to use you're first workers wisely.
i.e. don't let them work tiles that arn't (most of the time) used!!
and oh yes, just have fun, winning or losing

edited for spelling

[notyoueither]

Build many cities. 10 or maybe 15 depending on map size. Research Literature and Currency. Build Market places and Libraries.

[alva]

resource denial might be a good strategy too, if applicable

in the end, it's all about trial and error. wich leads to experiance, etc..etc...etc...

just have fun!!

[watorrey]

Originally posted by DhulKhidr
Other civs refuse to give me any GPT for techs. They just want to give me a measly lump sum. Crazy.

Until early middle ages, the AI keeps its science set at 100% so it has no income to give you gpt deals.

You have to make the best trades you think you can. When the advisor tells you that you are getting close to a deal, it means that when it is acceptable, that is what the trade is worth to the ai. If the deal is acceptable all the way up to how much is in his treasury, then you know it is worth more. It is up to you if you take it or not. I usually take what i can get, when i can get it.

[Rimpy]

DhulKhidr, why don't you post a saved game? It'll be a lot easier to give you advice if we can see what you're doing right or wrong. There are so many variables in this game that it's hard to say what you need to improve.

This game does have a pretty steep learning curve, but once you catch on, it's a lot of fun. In fact, it's the steep learning that makes it so fun. There are so many variables to control that it takes time to figure out what works and what doesn't. You get an immense feeling of accomplishment when you finally figure out how to do it right.

Rimpy

[DhulKhidr]

All right everybody...

As I mentioned earlier in this thread I have long since deleted my old warlord-level games. I started a new warlord level game at the suggestion of some of you and I will post the save files in this, and later posts. I may develop a story later.

Creation information:
Standard size
Raging Barbarians
Random Geography
Random Climate & Topology
Random civilization
Warlord Difficulty
Nothing else changed

I didn't get all the details down but basically I built a worker for every city. Built barracks in most, maybe all, of my cities to prepare for the conquest of the Americans, whom I encountered early on. Had all workers build a road north to America. Founded four cities on my peninsula taking almost all available land tiles. Protected all cities with Jaguar Warriors and then built an expeditionary force, mainly composed of spearman and one archer and sent it up north to New York. After the discovery of Iron Making, I built Swordsmen exclusively, upgrading my Jaguar Warriors as I could afford to do so. Conquered Americans, destroying two cities during conquest, capturing Washington. One barbarian encampment encountered but it should be dispersed soon.

Upside:
I have a good force for exploring, dispersing barbarians and perhaps conquering other civs.
A few elite units which hopefully can be converted to leaders soon.
Very good road development.
Lots of workers. I captured at least two American workers.

Downside:
Lots of jungle up north.

Critiques, suggestions and expressions of adulation are all welcome.

[DhulKhidr]

My save file didn't make it. I will try again.

[Rimpy]

DhulKhidr, I looked over your game to see how you were doing. You've probably made some more progress, so I don't know if this info is still relevant or not, but I thought that I'd make some comments on your game.

First of all, IMHO, your map sucks. You don't have much land to develop, and what you have isn't even very good. Plus, it's going to take forever to irrigate, especially around your capital and other cities at the bottom. You're going to have to chop through all the jungle to spread that one small source of fresh water to other areas. Although irrigated grassland tiles don't do anything until you're in a Republic, it can be very helpful to irrigate plain tiles right from the start.

Personally speaking, I usually restart the game about five to ten times until I come up with a good starting position: luxury nearby, plenty of food-producing tiles (grasslands, bonuses such as cows and wheat, etc.), fresh water within a reasonable distances (esp. rivers, which add +1 gold per tile), and lots of room to spread. You've got some luxury resources, but lack all those other things.

Don't feel bad about restarting a half-dozen times until you get a decent starting position. I think just about everybody does it, and wouldn't label it "cheating". Sometimes I'll play a game and take whatever I get just for challenge of it, but I only do that at a notch lower difficulty than what I normally play. If you're still learning, restart several times until you get a good starting position, especially knowing that you're goind to end up investing 20 hours or more in that game.

It looks like you set geography and climate to random when you generated the map. I would just choose the standard settings until you learn the game. It looks like you got a dry, sparse, island map, which isn't much fun, especially for a new player.

Outside of your bad starting position, it looks like you're doing fine. You built your road network and you improved a few other tiles. Zoom into your cities to see which tiles are being used, and concentrate on developing those, which it looks like you've done, more or less.

You're managing your tax rates well. I typically do what you've done -- set taxes so that you're just breaking even and devote the rest to science. At the beginning of the game, I try to avoid setting the luxury rate to anything above 0. The only exception is if I'm producing some wonder, and I know that it's going to be down to the wire, so I can't afford to have any entertainers as opposed to people working tiles.

The only thing that I'd do differently (besides not playing that map at all) is chopping down some of the forest to see if there are any grasslands with a shield. A mined grassland with a shield is just about the best tile that you can get at the beginning of the game, outside of tiles with bonuses.

It also looked like you had "Republic" set as a research goal. I also try to research Republic early (I usually skip Monarchy altogether, unless I'm a religious civ). However, the best attribute to Republic, besides the lowered corruption, is being able to reap the benefits of irrigated grasslands. But you're going to have too many of those anyway, so it may not be worthwhile to go for it right away.

Given the fact that you're on an island (I'm pretty sure, didn't do much exploring), I'd try to research Mapmaking before Republic. You're going to need some boats to keep expanding, and early expansion is the key in this game.

I hope that helps, but remember that it's just my opinion and everybody has there own strategies. Many different strategies work, you'll eventually find your own.

Rimpy (UM-C grad, '93)

[DhulKhidr]

Thanks for the reply Rimpy. I figured this thread was dead or people were waiting for the weekend to check back in. I'm going to have to get back later with the save file. 93 huh? Were you a CS or CE grad? I arrived in Columbia in 93 and have been here ever since. I work for MU at the IATS dept. (formerly campus computing).