Civ IV

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Never neglect units. Keeping your power ratio up is good to avoid some AI attacking you or if it comes to that crushing the opposition.

If you go for free religion you'll lose your penalties for being a heathen but you'll also lose your bonus for sharing religions.

You can't become a vassal (withou using a mod) so Feudalism is good if you can upgrade units into longbows (great city defense) or if you want to trade it around or buy peace with it (which is problematic because that opens better units for your enemies to attack you later on).

Besides once vassal states are available you can't count on your puny peaceful allies. If an AI crushes your long term ally it will probably become the AI's pawn so vassal states make the necessity for building up units and keeping your power ratio high even more important.

 

Why do you have Great Scientists and Great Spies? In a culture game, you only want Great Artists. Every Great Person you get who isn't an Artist delays your finishing time considerably.

 

Trying for a cultural victory with just five cities is tough. Even six is tough, although at least that would let you build two cathedral-type buildings for each religion you spread throughout your kingdom. I usually advocate for nine cities, so that you can build three cathedral type buildings - one in each of your cities that are going for max culture.

I'm also a big fan of going for rifling before I max out culture to get riflemen - if you were playing the English, all the more reason, as you'd get Redcoats. I think the only other tech you'd need as a prerequisite once you got Liberalism is Replacable Parts. I also usually go for the Democracy (or at least Constitution) tech before I max out culture.

I don't see a way out of your current plight. But it's not like Civ is such an easy game that you win every time you play. (In fact, at higher difficulties, winning is a rather unusual outcome for me.) Despite this, I think there's a lot of things that you did correctly in this game, and you can definitely build on this for a winning strategy in the future. To wit:

I definitely agree with your decision to stick with Pacifism. Especially useful for a philosophical leader, as you can really bang out the GP. (Elizabeth is probably may favorite leader, as she is financial and philosophical, which IMO are the two most powerful traits in the game. They both provide benefits that are difficult to get any other way.)

You also did quite the job in developing culture in the cities that you had. It's not that easy to get a city to flip, especially one of Zara's, as he's cultural, and it's difficult to swamp out a cultural leader's city with your own culture.

You also did a very good job of being the first to tech things like drama and music, for the cultural boost from theaters, and getting the free GA.

I really think the only thing you did wrong was not getting Rifling. As HB will tell you, there are people who can win cultural victories in the Middle Ages. I am not one of those people, and it usually takes me a good number of turns after techinig liberalism (or Democracy when I go that route) to win.

The thing is, the AI does NOT stop teching when you do, and you cannot leave your cities bereft of a defense. Even longbowmen are not always a solution, as the AI will bring trebucets and sacrifice them as needed to take your cities. The advantage with riflemen is that they have both offensive and defensive capabilities. You can, of course attack with longbowmen, but it's usually not a great idea.

 

Yeah, not enough cities (depending on what map size you were playing).

 

I find it quite difficult to build a lot of cities as I have trouble supporting them, and then I generally fall into an economic slump. Should I normally try for a large number of cities, or should I, in this case, build cities merely for the sake of the Cathedrals?

What is the best way to belt out these cities? Chop-rushing the Settlers? When should I do this? I presume I have to do it quite early, before all the prime locations are taken.

 

I used to have this same problem, but now I've shaken it off.. or at least I like to think so. Build enough workers and start building cottages to prime locations early. With a financial leader there shouldn't be huge economic problems. Try to get Code of Laws asap for courthouses and possibly finding a religion.

Pacifism is the best choice in cultural victory, and it seems cost effective since there's no upkeep. Support cost for units makes it tricky, you'll need to find a balance between sufficient army and acceptable maintenance.

Expanding early just for the sake of expanding usually means problems. Build three or four cities, get your economy going (and code of laws), then expand some more. Sometimes blocking out AI's expansion with your city works fine, but it might be hard on some maps.

 

Well, you definitely want to get as many prime spots for cities as you can, but that doesn't mean getting all nine up as quick as possible should be a top priority - if you expand too rapidly, your economy will most certainly crash. I find that the best way to do it is to get three or four cities as soon as I can, but while I'm doing that, I'm trying to get the Code of Laws tech as quick as I can. As soon as I get CoL, my next build in all of my cities is a courthouse. (By getting CoL early, you also get the side benefit of founding Confucianism, so you already have a religion to spread in your civ.) After I have my courthouses, my next goal is to get currency so I can build markets. If you have courthouses and markets in your major cities, you shouldn't have too much problem supporting a civilization of nine cities.

The reason why nine is so important is that you can only build one cathedral-type building for every three temples you have of that religion in your civ. Assuming you spread a religion to all nine cities in your civ and build a temple for that religion in each of them, it will allow each of your three cities that you are maxing culture in to build a cathedral, and get the massive culture boost from doing so. Having multiple relgions spread throughout your empire is obviously useful, as you can build more than one cathedral type building per city.

The only other thing you have to remember is that you need at least one city in your civ to build a monestary for each of the religions you want to spread before Scientific Method is discovered, which prevents the construction of further monestaries. (It doesn't matter which cities you decide to build the monestaries as the culture boost isn't large - just make sure you have one for each of the relgions.) While monestraries become obsolete once the Scientic Method is discovered, cities that already have monestaries can still build missionaries. If you haven't spread a religion to all your cities when scientific method is discovered, and you don't have the appropriate monestary, you are pretty much out of luck in terms of speading that religion to all your cities.

 

In my (somewhat limited) experience it's much easier to win the game when I have a larger territory and a larger military. If I get behind in land I will probably get behind in power and tech as well so I try to keep up.

Going for a cultural victory what would be the drawback of having three culture cities and many cities that would focus on producing specialists and military units?

There is nothing as frustrating as getting close to a cultural victory and getting attacked by incredibly large armies that just crush you because you've neglected military units production.

Of course I'm a Marathon player so war has a more important part to play in Marathon games.

 

I have noticed this as well, and I usually play marathon games too. Even though everything takes longer to build everything in marathon games, it still seems like you need more units to both take and defend cities. I'm not sure why this is. You would think that because it takes longer to build stuff in marathon games, that things would basically balance out. You have more turns, but it takes more turns to build everything.

 

You still build things comparatively faster in marathon games. I tend to reach the modern age a century or two earlier on marathon games than I do on normal games.

 

I had not noticed that either. I don't play marathon games though to reach any particular age quicker though. The reason I play marathon games is because I like being able to actually use my military. On a normal game, in the time it takes you to build an invasion force, it's obsolete.

 

Unit movement rates are the same in all game speeds, which makes epic and marathon game slightly easier. Aside from warmongering, scouts, missionaries, settlers and workers can move further than in a normal game, which means you get a little more from them.

 

I'm not sure that it is actually easier but it does make war much more important and probably makes neglecting military production more detrimental to your games.

There are 1,500 turns in a Marathon game and only 500 turns for a Normal speed game. I don't have the numbers for unit production, building and research but it wouldn't be too hard to find out. I'll try and check later.

 

Check out CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml at Assets\XML\GameInfo folder. Edit at your own risk .

If I read the file correctly, unit production is relatively faster in Marathon. Research times,buildings costs etc. are in marathon three times longer than in normal speed, while unit building cost multiplier is just 2. There's also some other small differences.

 

Thanks Kullervo. Basically that means that units are cheaper and that they can be used more which explain why they matter more in a Marathon game. It probably makes the game easier if you're going for a war oriented game of course depending on the difficulty the AI still gets enough perks to make it competitive (free units at higher levels and more importantly free upgrades).

 

Simple story - Domination and Conquest is much easier on Marathon. Culture is much easier on Quick.

The number of cities you need for Culture varies depending on map size.

If you are using 9 cities for Culture victory, a couple of them can be rubbish cities that just have their three temples, a courthouse, then just build Wealth for the rest of the game.

 

After reading the advice here I decided to try a new game where I will intentionally rapid-expand as practice. Settings: Charlemagne, Noble, Normal, Standard size, Pangea.

Results? Charlemagne is mighty. I chop-rushed a few Settlers and spread them around my capital. One city is in the middle of a desert, so I had my workers plant heaps of cottages there. It worked; and my empire didn't crash this time. Quite soon I have six cities set up, some pushing the boundaries of my neighbours. They are, interestingly enough, Joao II, Julius Caesar, and the Khmer guy (not going to try) - all of them are expansive buggers! I was quite happy that I managed to lay down my empire before they got to take the choice chunks. The other AI are De Gaulle, Cyrus, and Hammarubi.

I've neglected early religion, and Mr. Khmer has founded Buddhism. Hammarubi founded Judaism, but didn't manage to convert anyone. Probably because of my decent economy, I hit Code of Law quite quickly, and founded Confusianism, which I spread to Julius and Joao (they converted without qualm - Joao had a brief Buddhism swing some 100 years down the track, but then quickly switched back). My empire was well on track after planting Rathuses everywhere, and they were well-defended by Protective Longbowmen.

And then I became ambitious. I got Machinery and trained catapults and crossbowmen; around this time Julius declared war on Khmer and I joined him - his Creative empire is getting quite threatening. With my Crossbow-Catapults I easily overtook Khmer's axemen, and captured the holy city of Taoism. Currently, the year is 900 AD; I recently researched Engineering; and I'm about to unleash the unholy power of the Landsknecht onto my enemies. I'm even tempted to take out Joao (who is also still stuck on Axemen, etc); but then he's very friendly towards me at +11. Is there a point in destroying him?

(the thing that makes him and Julius such tempting backstabbing targets is that neither of them have Feudalism, and thus, lousy defences...)

Conclusion: Charlemagne is *mighty*. He can quickly create an empire, manage it with his UB, defend it with Protective, and then unleash hell with his UU and doublespeed Great Generals. Amazing.




Update: the time is now 1820 (actually, it's 12:46. When did it get so late?!)

- the Khmer empire has long been a thing of the past. I made it my vassal, and then ran it into the ground soon after when he foolishly refused my demand for Iron.
- I placed my Palace in his former capital (incidentally the Buddhist holy city). I am now facing two huge empires - Hammarubi and Cyrus, who are great friends since they share the same religion (Judaism).
- I teched up to Grenadiers, and invaded Hammarubi with cannons! At this point I had a great general super-medic grenadier, and he was extremely helpful on my campaign. Slowly I attacked his cities, but Hammy is no fool and teched up accordingly. A small tech race then followed, and gradually my Riflemen and Machineguns began entering the field. I now have the definite advantage: my cannons bombard his cities, while he is helpless due to my Machinegun protecting the stack. I have just taken Babylon, which was formerly a cultural capital of the world (Holy city to TWO religion, with appropriate Prophet buildings, AND a bunch of wonders).
- France is stuck on a little peninsula way behind Cyrus and he's basically did nothing the whole game. Oh, I was at war with him briefly when Khmer capitulated to him, but that was no big deal - there was a whole empire between us and he could do nothing.
- Joao and Julius has been consistent, if ineffectual, allies. They were good for grabbing tech trades though, and Joao even sometimes gave me stuff for free. Nice guy.
- I am well on my way to victory - Hammarubi is helpless against me really - but I'm unsure of what to do after that. Going after Cyrus seems like the logical move. For some reason he hasn't attacked me yet, but I'm sure I can hold off his attacks if he does.
- I now have control of five holy cities - Confusianism, Taoism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. When/if I go Free Religion, I will presumably have a wad of cash from the holy buildings... Islam is in France, and I have no idea where Christianity is.
- What kind of victory should I go for? If I beat Hammy into the ground and make him capitulate, I should be able to win a Diplomatic victory since both Julius and Joao love me. Domination is quite possible, but it takes time (but then Tanks speed up warfare considerably, I think?)

- I've learnt a lot from this round: how to expand early, how to maintain the economy, how to successfully attack an enemy, how to use Great Generals, how to use specialist economy, the uses of an obscene number of cities...quite nice.

 

What level are you playing on?

 

Better than what I've gotten on Noble before, though.

 

Started a game last night as Dutch, Standard Map Size, Archipelego, Snaky Continents (yeah, I want to exploit the Dutch UB). Started on a continent with Peter and Ramses. The Egyptians got unlucky and didn't have access to copper or iron, so I steamrolled them with an axe rush, and took all three of their cities in short order. So I'm now up to six cities.

I then tried to take out Peter, but for some reason, my axes did a really poor job. I had a stack of six axemen, and they all died in an effort to take out St. Petersburg. I may have to do a Powerword: Reload and rethink that attack. I cannot believe that my axemen were so ineffective. From my conquest of the Egyptians three of those axemen had City Raider III and Combat I (and the other three just had City Raider I), and my group of six were unable to take out two archers and an axemen defender. No city walls, and the cultural bonus was only 40%, so I'm perplexed as to why this was so.

The alternative is to forego the assault completely, but that doesn't seem too smart, as Peter is not known for playing nice with others. I was hoping to go for a conquest or domination win this game, and that's going to be difficult without taking out Peter. I suppose I can wait for macemen and catapults and try again, but it's disappointing.