Multiplayer Tips

[Maquiladora]

I was thinking back to when i first played MP (and got soundly thrashed) what was i doing wrong (apart from not defending my capitol)? What wasnt i doing that the other player was? Hopefully i can remember and write some of those here.

In no particular order -

1) Wasting Good Land - This raised my standing in the later game 25% when i realised what i was doing wrong. It means consider how long the game will last, how big do your borders need to grow to the end of the game? Most of the time 2 borders, Pop 1-18, is fine. And dont overlap at all before size 19.

2) Waste of Production - I dont build Bazaars, City Walls or Ballista Towers, perhaps later or if i have nothing to build. Same goes for their modern equivalent, Banks etc.

3) Be Alert - Depending on how far the enemy is away from me ill have units fortified around my border as soon as i can.

4) Roads - Build them all as soon as I get Trade.

5) Graphs & Ranking - Keep looking at them.

If your enemy's Military graph is a vertical line and yours is a horizonal line, you probably need to build more units. Dont let it get that far, build units to stay around equal in the graph or stay lower to save production if youre sure youre in no danger of attack.

Science is important, if you see yourself lagging behind then do something quick to increase science, more scientists, trading posts/ports, if you dont act now youre already dead.

Economic graph is increased by buildings in cities?

Ranking screen - Pop %, means the Worlds population, make sure it stays near 50% (in 1v1), give or take a few percent.

6) Explore - Even if all goodies from huts are turned off, knowledge of the land around you and more importantly, your enemy's exact location, is crucial.

Toni should reveal some tips on city growth and public works

[Barley]

Again in no particular order.

1) Ongoing threat assessment, always have an idea what your enemy is doing, sacrifice units if necessary to see if hes going for growth, where his weak points are etc. Huge / Gig map = early war unlikely so you can concentrate on growth. My goal is usually to find the enemys empire ASAP. If your on different islands its much easier to defend so I tend to max out growth and science.

2) Keep the enemy on his toes with surprise attacks etc. bringing together 3 units e.g. a couple of Archers and a Hoblite can knock out a border city – even a capital as from my experience players only keep 1 or 2 units in most cities.

3) Take advantage of any advanced units you find e.g. the mobility of a mounted archer for exploration or to assist a surprise attack. 1 Knight can do a lot of damage.

4) As Maq said keep an eye on science, war usually starts following the discovery of Knights or Cavalry.

5) Keep a mobile defence force to quickly bolster week points or defend a surprise attack.

6) Get to Monarchy as soon as possible.

7) Theatre bonus is given to first player to construct 8 threatre’s. This is a useful bonus especially if you can time it nicely with the transition to Monarchy.

8) Just to clarify Maq’s comment re Economic Graph, this is only actually influenced by Happiness buildings as far as I am aware.

Hope this is ok for a start, ive not given to much away I hope. Will be back with more tips later.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Barley
3) Take advantage of any advanced units you find e.g. the mobility of a mounted archer for exploration or to assist a surprise attack. 1 Knight can do a lot of damage.

Another way to take advantage of units from huts is to disband them in cities to rush settlers, especially Samurai or Catapults.

7) Theatre bonus is given to first player to construct 8 threatre’s. This is a useful bonus especially if you can time it nicely with the transition to Monarchy.

10 Theatres, but yeah it can be a nice bonus before Monarchy.

8) Just to clarify Maq’s comment re Economic Graph, this is only actually influenced by Happiness buildings as far as I am aware.

I just did a small test with cheat mode and i built one city played a few turns, got a boost in Econemy graph from the Capitol building i expect, then after 3 turns i added a Granary to the city with cheat mode and got another boost on the graph. So i think it is all buildings, or at least including Granaries....

edit: Update on the Economic graph, you dont get a boost from Ballista Towers....... but then that makes sense. I also got a slightly higher boost from adding a Bazaar than i did with a Granary, which makes sense too. I cant see anything in buildings.txt that gives these different effects.

[Maquiladora]

To correct myself, it seems ALL buildings boost the Economic graph. I tested all the way down alphabetically to Publishing Houses and all boost the graph. More modern ones give bigger boosts, although i dont know exactly how it gives a bigger boost for a Bazaar over a Granary for example.

[Barley]

Its definatly 8 theatres for the bonus.

[Maquiladora]

Yeah youre right its 8, i had to double check feats.txt

[child of Thor]

Its been a while

For me MP left me a few definate impressions.

1. I only played over LAN and it was important to lay down some ground rules for the free flowing of the game(like pre-arranged breaks etc).

2. Play with people you like playing against. For me that meant with people who not only played the games rules, but also role-played their civ to some extent, and kept it in that rough character.

3. Dont bother with 'Huge' maps as this dilutes the main fun of playing against human opposition.

4. When in-game diplomacy just wont cut it( ), in the LAN enviroment it was easy to set up out of game diplomacy, and quite fun too

5. Its fun to play for a 4-5hr session, with a couple of mates and a few beers

[centrifuge]

Don't give away all of your secrets Maq, 'cause I'm still holding a grudge

[Maquiladora]

Dont worry, itll take more than a few tips and tricks Just name the time, the place and the game*



*(except ones im no good at)

[centrifuge]

-wiffle ball

- the empty lot next to my house

- this next Sunday at 4:00pm (mountain time)

[Maquiladora]

My (google) powers tell me thats some kind of baseball variant with a strange ball, excellent. You know i was top scorer 3 years in a row for my schools rounders (british baseball) team

Anyway ON TOPIC,

- If you play faster, you give the next player less time for his turn, definately works with speed turns........ without speed turns, unless he doesnt care and goes VERY slow anyway, in which case destroy him.