Civ IV

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If I go for conquest or domination victory, I always play on the "small" (not tiny) map size. I agree that the huge map makes that very difficult. In fact, even when I'm not playing for those victory types, I rarely go larger than "standard" size maps.

I also noticed that when I customize a game, I have three options for maps: Flat, cylindrical (the default) and toroidal. Is toroidal a fancy name for what would essentially be a spherical world (i.e., the circumference at the poles would be a lot shorter than at the equator)?

I would say my favorite civics when running a lot of specialists are representation, pacifism, slavery (great population control) the one that gives +50% money and production to the capital city, and the one that gives a free specialist to each city - I cannot remember the name of those last two.

If I'm spamming cottages, it's usually much better to go for free speech/religion/democracy/emancipation.

 

If you're running specialists then you want to run Caste System and Mercantilism as well.

War weariness is a great balancing game factor. The game would be too easy without it. There's no secret formula to dealing with it - just all the usual happiness options,plus Jails and or Police State. It depends a lot on what level you are playing - and what victory condition you're going for.

 

I generally go for a large number of smaller cities. I use slavery to rush projects and keep the population small to eliminate the need of a lot of extra happiness/health buildings. If you're keeping the populations of your largest cities around 8, you cannot afford more than a couple of specialists per city anyway.

 

Hot damn! I think I finally have done it! I have tweaked my strategy somewhat, and I think I may be finally well on my way to victory. I'm playing Frederick of Germany this game. (I tried a couple of games with Darius of the Persians to attempt an Immortal rush, the only problem being both games I tried I did not have access to horses anywhere near my starting position.)

So anyway, I'm on the big continent which I share Ramses and Saladin. Elizabeth started on a smaller continent by herself, as did Ghengis Khan. Charlemagne showed up mid game so he had to be the result of a colony (and if the colors match up, he would be Egypt's colony, which I find strange).

Anyway, Ramses and I are best buds, and I have a pretty good relationship with Saladin to boot. Ghengis is being his curmudgeonly self. While Ghengis and I weren't technically neighbors, there was exactly one sea space separating his little continent from the continent I was on. I quickly colonized the area by him - I didn't want him sending a galley over and starting a city on my continent that I was already sharing with two other civs. That didn't stop him from sending troops over of course, and I've had an on-again, off-again war with him from the beginning.

Anyway, I kind of mixed stategies. The plan was to win by domination, and failing that, go for a space race. Both strategies require technological superiority, so the two are not mutually exclusive. In the beginning I found that running a specialist economy was useful to keep the techs flowing, so two of my three starting cities are farm-based to have a ton of food, and I made gratuitous use of the force labor slavery feature. I built the Oracle (and used it to get Code of Laws), the Parthenon, and the National Epic in my capital. Virtually every city in my civ (I have about 12-15) has a science academy.

Most of the rest of the cities I spammed cottages, and I did a mid-game shift to civics of Representation, Emancipation, Free Speech, Free Market, and Free Religion.

At about the same time, Ghengis acted up again, but this time I knew I had the technological edge. I came with Cavalry, Cannon, and Riflemen (I find musketmen to be near useless - janisarries aren't bad, but just run of the mill musketmen I do not find to be a serious upgrade either offensively or defensively, and I never go to war with them as a primary unit). Ghengis had longbowmen, trebucet, and macemen. He has not fielded any mounted units, so I can only assume he does not have access to either horses or elephants. I had expoited this earlier in the game by using mostly knights against his catapults and sword/macemen, and so I naturally upgraded those knights to cavalry for the assault on his continent. (Paid for by sending the free great merchant to Saladin when I got economics - got over 3000 gold!)

I took his capital, not because I wanted to take his capital first, but that's the city that was just on the other side of the one sea space separation of our continents. I definitely think I need to press the attack with Ghengis. I have the superior military, and seeing as how he doesn't even have musketmen yet, he shouldn't be able to put up serious resistance. (I also use the trick of scarificing a cannon or two after I get the city's defenses down to 0% to weaken the whole stack of units before sending in the cavalry (literally).

We're in the late 1500s, and I'm playing an epic length game, but that still means I may need to pick up the pace a bit if I'm going to get a domination victory. I still have not decided who I may have to stab in the back - I guess Saladin - but hopefully, one of them will decide to screw me over first. I have pretty good relations with everyone except Ghengis, probably because even though we've been to war repeatedly, Ghengis has started the hostilities every time.

 

IIRC, Isabella goes up to +8 over time. The same goes with Zara Yaqob of Ethopia, I think.

Speaking of Zara Yaqob, anyone used him? His traits and UB seems to mesh very well, and his UU looks ultimate with two drills BEFORE any upgrades.

 

I started a game with Zara, and got a pretty good start, see above . I like Creative leaders because I don't have to build monuments and/or Stonehenge. In that sense the stele is sort of useless in the early going IMO, because at that point the +25% to culture isn't that much. Later on that bonus will kick in better, especially with wonders and religious buildings. Zara Yagob might be a potential cultural winner?

Oromo warriors are quite strong with their drills and they replace a totally useless unit to boot.

 

All the creative leaders are solid choices for cultural victory. +2 culture per turn doesn't sound like much, but over the course of the game, it is significant.

The Oromo for Ethiopia is very good. I also think the Ottoman Empire's Janissary (which also substitutes the musketman) is very good. I think the reason those units were given such good upgrades is that the musketman unit has a very short functional lifespan. Even if you are playing an epic game the time it takes you to get from gunpowder to replacable parts (which allows you to build riflemen) is typically quite short.

There may be some tricks out there that allow you to get gunpowder more quickly that would extend the functional life of musketmen, but short of that, even an improved UU musketmen just isn't good enough for a long enough period to effectively use them.

In my game, I did not completely wipe Ghengis off the face of the earth. It turns out he had a few other cities on other islands, and so the five or so cities on the continent he started on only represented half of the Mongol civilizaiton. War weariness was starting to make things difficult, so I desisted with the war.

I'm about to get tanks now, so that means Panzers as I'm playing the Germans, and I also just required access to my UB, the assembly plant (I concede that I have no idea what difference exists between an assumbly plant and a regular old factory). There is going to be a strong temptation to go to war again once I have tanks, as it's nearly certain that I'll get them before anyone else gets them. The only thing is with the exception of Ghengis, my relationships with everyone else are pleased. I have a bunch of trade agreements with the Ramses and Saladin, and I've sold off some lesser techs to people like Charlemagne and Elizabeth, so everyone likes me. It is ironic that I deliberately turned off the diplomatic victory condition, even though this is one of the very few times I may actually have been able to win that way.

 

I like that +2 bonus, it's basically free area without lifting a finger. Zara Yagob might have a small edge compared to other creative leaders since he's the only one who has access to a special +25% culture bonus - although some other leader could invade his cities (and steles). Pericles has also nice combination with Creative and Philosophical (=more Great Artists), plus his UB gives slightly more culture and 2 possible artists.

You can turn more citizens into engineers with assembly plant than with the plain factory. Not spectacular IMO, but I'm lousy using specialists.

 

1. Aldeth - what level are you playing on?

2. Aldeth - you say that technological superiority is required for both domination and space. I would disagree. Technological superiority is not required for domination, just more units, better military tactics, and good large empire economies. If you are focusing on a tech lead in a domination game, then you're not focusing enough on war.

3. Aldeth - you have 15 academies!? How did you get so many Great Scientists and why would you go for so many academies rather than just bulbing some key techs?

4. Aldeth - I agree that musketmen are one of the least useful units in the game.

5. Assembly Plants allow you to run more engineers. This is super important for a space race game because you can't get engineers from Caste System so you need to get them from your buildings. And you need two Great Engineers to rush the Space Elevator, which comes so late in the game that you need it instantly for it to be of any benefit, plus the geographical restrictions on where you can build it mean that you often can't build it in your highest hammer Ironworks city. Also, in the final push, a space game is ALL about hammers, so being able to run more engineers can make a big difference.

 

1. Noble

2. True, but more units mean more moeny. I try to keep my wars short and use a minimum number of units. I took over a good chunk of the Mongolian empire with about 10 units. (Granted, after capturing a city, I had to spend a few turns allowing my units to heal before moving to the next city.)

3. About 15, yes. Basically every city that has a population size of at least 8 or 9 has an acadamy, which is most of my cities. I did bubble some key techs. I have probably received somewhere around 25 great scientists in this game, with at least half of them coming from my capital city. When I say technological superiority, I mean it! Every city I own is running at least two scientists, and when I had vassalage I had some cities running four or five scientists. I built all my national wonders and great wonders that increase great people production in the same city. Whenever I got a great artist or great entertainer I used them to start golden ages (I've had four I think so far, and I'm in the late 1700s now).

4. A lot of games I don't build a single musketman, which considering I always play on epic game speed is quite telling.

5. Hmmm... I don't think I have more than one engineer specialist in any city. I will have to address that, although I'm just now starting to build assembly plants, and I think I was only able to get one engineer before that from the forge. However, with my civics, a lot of my cottage spamming may really pay off, especially the ones that also have some mines. I have quite a few really high hammer cities.

 

Sounds good, Aldeth. Once you've nailed Noble, you can apply your talents to Prince level.

 

I did win with a space race victory, although construction of the space ship took considerably longer than I anticipated. I didn't not win until the 1980s. I probably took a pretty big hit on my end game score because of that. (I'm assuming that with something like the space race, the earlier you win, the more points you get.)

I'm started another game on Noble difficulty, and this time I want to win with a cultural victory. I do not think that a single successful game on Noble difficulty is adequate for me to move up to Prince. My strategy is pretty simple: I plan on founding three different religions, and at least nine cities, so that my big three cities can get cathedral equavlents in them.

 

That's awesome, Aldeth. Well done.

Good on you for trying Cultural now.

What leader are you playing as? What other AIs are you up against? What size map?

Remember that they key to cultural victory is farming as many Great Artists as you can (in addition to what you have already mentioned about the cathedrals), so make sure you find at least one site jam-packed with food (and build National Epic there).

Keep us posted.

 

Well, I have just started the game, so I don't have all the details yet. I'm playing as Pericles, on a standard sized map. I definitely wanted a creative leader, and I figured since great people was important for this too, that a combination of creative and philosophical made sense.

I'm very early in the game, and I don't even know who all of the other AIs are at this point. The only thing I'm sure about is that I'm sharing my continent with the English and the Russians. (Fortunately the English are between me and the Russians. Although the Russian leader is Catherine, so perhaps that won't be as bad compared to Stalin. On the other hand, I think Catherine is creative too.) I have had no contact with people from other continents yet. However, I have explored the entire continent and I can see no other land masses from any point on the continent. I surmise the reason I have not contacted anyone else is because we cannot get to each other yet. I just recently got drama and so now I have the ability to get a great artist once I build some theatres. I was the first to found Hinduism and Confucianism, so I already have two of the three I need, and the plan is to get Taoism as the third.

The one point I am keeping the same from my previous game is I did build both the Parthenon and the Oracle in my capital. Unfortunately, up until I got drama I was unable to generate great artists, so both GP I've received thus far have been Great Prophets, which I used to found a shrine in my two holy cities. That was a good move, because I'm running the religion civic that allows you to build missionaries without building monestaries. I spread Hinduism to both the English and Russians, so I'm making a ton of money from the Hindu shrine. It also makes for good relations as we're all the same religion. As soon as I get Philosophy I'm switching to Pacifism, so I had to do the missionaries early unless I want to build monestaries (which I will eventually, but things like courthouses are more important in the early going, and I used my more developed cities to build missionaries instead of monestaries).

In one sense, I got lucky, as I am the only civ on my continent to found a religion, and I only exported ONE of those religions. Someone got Buddhism and Judaism, but it's the as-yet-to-be-discovered foreign civs. While I cannot be certain that confucianism or taoism won't spread to other civs, I don't see why they would just switch religions for the heck of it, espcially considering Hinduism is already well established within their territory.

 

Catherine is a really bad girl. She keeps making demands, asking for gifts and will bear a grudge. Even if you please her (get her to pleased I mean) she will still turn on you. She is as bad as they get.

 

I'm with Aldeth here. When I first speed read Caradhras' post, I read something like:

But anyway, I agree with Caradhras (his actual meaning, that is ). In a peaceful game I did, she was pleased with me for most of the game, but still attacked me out of the blue towards the end. Definitely falls into the category 'backstabbing enthusiast'.

 

I started a new Prince game with Pericles and decided to test out the Hemispheres map (4 continents, normal islands). The first part of the game was totally weird, but very interesting: I started alone in a very small continent or possibly on a very large island. At some point I had contact with the Ethiopians. Oddly enough, they seemed to have only one city, even after few thousand years. After a while the Ethiopians just disappeared . There wasn't any text that their civilization was destroyed or anything. I went to investigate as soon I got galley and found out that their capital (and only city) was captured by barbarians! I haven't seen this before in Civ4. The coastal city was fully developed with LOTS of resources and towns nearby, but it was defended by a single barbarian archer , which was no match for two Greek swordsmen. This island was slightly smaller, but it kept constantly spawning barbarians until I conquered it completely. Maybe that's the reason the Ethiopians couldn't get started?

For some reason the early part of the game included a lot of random events; I even managed to complete the Holy Mountain quest, although the reward (+1 happiness in all cities) was kind of disappointing. However, building all the religious buildings possible turned out to be very profitable in the long run: Church of Nativity gave already some income, but building Spiral Minaret meant total CHA-CHING!

After meeting the other civs, the game continued like usual (with the exception that I was behind in tech race). Luckily, my first contact was Mansa Musa, who was willing to trade some techs. All other civilizations seem to have started on large islands, and there's a lot of smaller islands too. Very fun game so far

 

I have never seen this either. Having barbarians all over the place could certainly slow your growth, but that's pretty pathetic to get pwned by barbarians...

I have NEVER been able to complete that quest. Granted, I've only got it once or twice, and I had no intention of going looking for a sacred mountain the world over. Basically, if it wasn't on my continent in an area I intended to place a city anyway, I wasn't about to find it.