New Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword expansion

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Hooray! I have finally completed a Cultural victory on Deity level. What a mission that was. Elizabeth on Standard sized Inland Sea at Quick speed.

Now I can think about trying to find a cheap copy of Beyond the Sword so I can join in the main thread of this conversation.

 

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I don't quite get how specialists work. Other than the free specialists you get from certain wonders, every time I've tried to force a specialist it made my city starve. Do they suck up food or what? I've always worried that their presence would stifle my cities.

Any help is appreciated, with details please. I are dumbest.

 

Specialists?

Well, there are two generally accepted approaches to managing your economy:
- the cottage economy – where your beakers come from your share of commerce slider
- - the specialist economy – where your beakers come from scientists and lightbulbs and the extra beakers from running Representation.

People will swear black and blue that one is better than the other, but I tend to go for a mixture of the two.

The most powerful use of specialists is to get more of whatever Great Person will best support your current tactic.

Take for example, my recent Deity level Cultural win. My empire was made up of 6 cities (7 at the end). My cities were:
- a capital which had just about every tile cottaged
- 5 other cities with every tile farmed / pastured

To reach legendary status in 3 cities before Mansa Musa launched in 1650 AD, I relied on maximum commerce in may capital, supported by as many Great Artists as I could get from the other cities.

I built National Epic in the city with the most food and ran as many Artist specialists as I could. They brought in about 90 culture per turn, but more importantly, 88 great people points per turn (with the Philosophical trait plus Pacifism). On quick level, every Great Artist is worth 2680 culture points, so I needed to eke out about 14 or 15 of them.

The only exception to my Artist spam-a-thon was my very first Great Person, who was generated by running a single scientist in my capital as soon as the library was built. This Great Scientist was used to lightbulb Philosophy, which allowed me to found Taoism to get an early Pagoda in the capital, but also gave me a precious monopoly tech that I could trade to the other AI civs in order to gather up loads of cash and missing techs.

In the last few turns when it was clear I wasn’t going to get any more Great Artists, I switched all the artists into merchants to cover my cash deficit so I could run the slider at 100% Culture to get the capital over the line a few turns quicker.

So that is how you use Artist specialists to support a Culture victory.

If I was going for a Space Victory where tech pace was important, I would probably go for early Metal Casting so I could build a Forge (or just build Pyramids if I had stone) and run an engineer to get an early Great Engineer. I’d use the GE to rush the Great Library and then run as many scientists as I could in order to lightbulb other key techs on the beeline to Computers. I’d also run Representation for the added science.

And yes, they do use up food, which is why you usually run them in high-food cities. You usually want a location with 2-3 food resources along with flood plains or river grassland.

Short story is that strategic use of specialists can be ultra-powerful, but it does take a bit more thought. It also much more powerful with Philosophical leaders.

 

My current pet peeve: The Apostolic Palace.

They can make you go to war or declare peace. They can force you to stop trading with someone or even force you to cede a city to another civilization!

If you like the Axe Rush Gambit, you'll LOVE the Sumerians! I can't stop raving about the Vulture. 6 power axeman. Sure it's only +25% ve Melee but with the extra point base, they are on par with the average axeman (Dog Soldiers just a little better). But with Combat I and Shock, the Vulture is 9.6, the axeman is 9.25, and the Dog Soldier is 9.4. And the Ziggeraut, a courthouse that is available at Priesthood, is cool for an early assimilation run. It also boosts your early Espionage too.

Playing Boudica (Agg/Charismatic) with the Sumerians on a standard size maze map with 18 civs. Next target is Monty of the Spanish...

 

Wow - lots of good info here.

I guess I'll start with DR - building the Oracle in order to get Code of Laws is a great idea. It shouldn't even require much timing. There should be adequate time between the discovery of Priesthood and the completion of the Oracle to get the other prerequisite techs for CoL.

You also mention that Stonehenge and the Oracle provide a science boost. Have they changed the effects of Stonehenge in the expansion? I was under the impression that it gave you a monument in each city, which would help culture, not science. I do like how it lasts through Astronomy now - it wasn't nearly as useful earlier when it ended with the discovery of Calendar.

I'll add a little to what HB said regarding specialists. Specialists do not consume any more or less food that a typical citizen. All the people on the citizen screen whether they are happy, content, unhappy, entertainers, scientists, etc. require two food to support. The reason why you are having problems feeding your specialists is that they consume food, but since they aren't utilizing a square in your city's radius, they aren't producing any food.

I personally prefer the cottage economy - and as a result I make a push for liberalism and democracy early to maximize the effects of the cottages. It doesn't make sense to run the cottage economy without utilizing emancipation (make cottages grow and upgrade to next size in half the time), free speech (+2 gold from town) and universal sufferage (+1 hammer from town).

Now, the reason the two strategies are mutually exclsuive is you won't have enough food to feed your specialists if all you do is build cottages. It is essential to build some farms for the extra food. If you go to the extreme like HB did and build farms on all the tiles, your city will eventually have a huge number of specialists. There are only 20 tiles in the city's radius so all population gains beyond 20 are automatically specialists. While I have never built farms on all of the tiles, I imagine it's possible to get a city size up close to 40 if you had a good mix of food resources and farmable land in the city's radius.

Gnarff - I hate the Apostolic Palace. I played my first game with it, and ever since I have turned off the diplomatic victory condition. It's the most annoying feature of the game.

Against melee, the Vultures are exactly the same as a standard axeman 5 + 50% = 7.5 and 6 + 25% = 7.5. The advantage of the vulture is they are better against archers, and they become much better than axemen as they gain experience, because all of their bonuses are from a higher starting value.

 

Wow - I've had a different experience than both of you, it seems. Yes, the Apostolic Palace sucks...when you don't control it. If you do, and can determine which resolutions to vote on, if something comes up you don't like - just say no. The rest of the time you can easily influence the other civs. I've been screwed by the AP when other civs have it, but hey - they built it before me and had the influence, so that's my problem.

I also made a typo when talking about the Oracle and Stonehenge's boost to "science." I meant culture, and their cultural boost is huge. I also agree about moving the obsoletion of Stonehenge from Calender to Astronomy is HUGE. To me this is one of the best changes they made, as I hated putting off Calender until I'd spread the culture in my outlying cities. This especially sucked when I had tons of plantation resources. Grrr.

I'm wondering if anyone else does the same thing as I do when trying to generate great people. Since I have yet to try a "greatperson farm" city approach (as laid out in the CivFanatic forums), I do try to make multiple specialized GP farms. I plan my Wonders ahead (I AM WONDERWHORE!!) so that I have three or four cities whose great person production is geared towards increasing instances of a specific great person. In other words: I'll build the Great Wall, Pyramids, Hagia Sophia, Ironworks etc., in one city, to deliberately generate more Great Engineers. I'll do the same for Artists, Prophets and Merchants if at all possible. This does make for somewhat slower overall great people production (edit: only compared to the GP farm city), but at least the generation is far less random and more of a guarantee of getting the kind of great peep you want, when you need it. I find this especially useful now that Corporations are a factor, as nothing sucks more than having 5 great engineers when all you want is one Merchant to found Sid's Sushi.

So to understand - if a city is at say, level 6 population, that means I have 6 total citizens in that city? And I can turn those citizens into specialists?

Typically, I've been a cottage monkey like you, Aldeth. When you're playing a Financial civ the amount of money you can generate per turn is insane. In my current game with the Incans (I only got about 10 turns in last night before passing out from exhaustion) I'm now generating 500 gold per turn, and I haven't even spread my newly-founded corporation yet (Sid's Sushi). I went with that because presently I have 5 fish, 4 clam, and 3 rice in my empire. Strangely, though...none of my allies want to trade way their fish to me, even though I have superior trading items and they all view me as friendly.

Thanks all, for the specialist tips, especially HB. I don't know why I'm such an ignoramus on this topic. I guess I just had one bad experience, panicked and never tried it again.

EDIT: Does anyone do anything with their Great Spies other than build Scotland Yards? So far I haven't. Subquestion: isn't it weird that you get Great Spies so early (at least I do), and when you found Scotland Yard in, say, the Classical era...it's a big modern skyscraper amongst all your cute little rustic huts?

Just sayin'.

 

Yes, if you double click the city and open up the detailed city screen, a city with a six next to it will have six regular citizen in it. Any of these citizens can be turned into specialists - within the limits of how ever many specialists you are allowed have - which is based on what buildings you have in that city.

This is where it becomes more complicated. If you do nothing, all six of the citizens work a tile in the city's radius, which provide some combination of food, hammers, and trade. If you switch one of them to a specialist, they will provide some benefit to your civ - but will cease working a tile thus depriving you of whatever resources you would gain from that tile. It's not that they are consuming more food - a city of 6 needs 12 food regardless of how many of the 6 are specialists - it's just that if you make one of them a specialist you now need to get that 12 food from just 5 tiles. That's why specialist economies rely so heavily on farms. They need to maximize food production per tile because they are trying to use as few tiles as possible.

I notice that whenever I already have a resource, if another civ has that same resource, it's red in color (meaning they won't trade it). I thought this was a good feature, because if you already have a resource there's no benefit in trading something to get an extra copy of it. Actually, I'm perplexed - why would you would need to trade for other civ's seafood resources to spread Sid's Sushi? Just build an executive, send them to the city that has the resource, pay the fee and - bingo - you've spread the corporation. The fee is higher if it's another civ's city - but the method of spreading it is the same.

To answer the main question - no. To answer the second question - I don't spend anything on espionage in the early parts of the game, so I have never developed a great spy even during the medieval era, never mind the classical era.

 

It has no impact on the mechanics of spreading the corporation but it has an impact on whether it is worth while to do so. If you have more of the resources then the corp provides more +ves so you will want to spread it more in your empire and if you can ensure that the other civs have relatively little (by trade or other means) then you will want to spread it to those civs where the costs will exceed the benefits.

 

So can you choose which tile ceases to be worked when recruiting a citizen to be a specialist? I would think that removing a citizen from a desert tile would be a much better choice than, say, a farm or cottage tile. Right?

It's not about that, as you can always spread. The more of a key resource you have that's used by that corporation, the bigger bonus is applied to each city. In the case of Sid's Sushi, the more fish you have, the more food is generated in every city you spread it to. So it's not like when building say, the Pyramids, it doesn't matter if you have 1 stone resource or 6 - the same construction bonus still applies. In the case of corporations, you get an extra bonus applied from the key resource in every city. So having 20 fish plots is far better than just 1.

Neither do I, yet a Great Spy is almost always the first GP I get. This may be an error, but I have the latest patch, so I doubt it. The most I ever spend on Espionage is 20%, and even then I wait until my economy is cookin' before I go there. Usually around the industrial era.

 

What level do you play on? I'm not sure I could make your strategy work on any level higher than Prince.

Generally I find that building lots of wonders is usually sub-optimal. Usually there are only 2 or 3 that are specifically useful in any situation, compared with, say, using your 200 hammers to build one wonder, or 7 axemen, which you can then use to take multiple enemy cities.

The best piece of advice anybody every gave me was when they said I should try playing with no wonders. That's not optimal either, but it is mind-opening to see how much else you can build.

I rarely build more than 3 wonders in any game.

Yep.

Another benefit of the specialist economy is that it is better for warfare, because you don't have to worry about the enemy pillaging your precious 200 year old mature cottages.

 

As stated above, I teeter between Warlord and Noble, but don't generally go higher. I do Prince once in a while when I'm feeling frisky, but I don't enjoy it as much because it means I have to sacrifice wonders and focus on military rather than culture and expansion, which I enjoy much more. My strategy is difficult to pull off, but more enjoyable for me than just a straight ass-kickathon. If it's not working out within the first 100 turns, I often simply start over.

EDIT: That said, I've never properly utilized my sepecialists up to this point, so that all may change soon once I get the hang of managing them.

I like building so many wonders because I like the idea of providing my society with an exclusive perk that is denied to everyone else. This enjoyment becomes cumulative with each new wonder built, especially if I know another civ had been building it and get screwed when I finish it first.

 

Evidently, I have a lot to learn regarding corporations. One more thing:

Of course - just like you can also decide which tiles your citizens work even if you don't have any specialists.

EDIT: I don't get it then with the Great Spy. I haven't ever seen one very early in the game. I had assumed you were running something like a 10% espionage rate, but if not, then I don't get it.

 

Both games I have played I have received a great spy very early on - pretty much as soon as I did my first espionage mission.

 

You don't HAVE to focus on military at higher levels. As mentioned, I just won cultural on Deity level.

 

@ Aldeth,

Try this: CivFanatic's Corporations for Dummies

 

You get the same result from building the amazing "Horde of Axemen" wonder. It costs the same as other wonders, but it provides a certain number of free cities and wonders.

If there was a wonder that instantly gave you 3 enemy cities, including the wonders that are in those cities, you'd race to build it every time.

 

But the early wonders - the Pyramids, Great Wall, Stonehenge, Oracle, Statue of Zeus - are some of the best wonders available, especially in the early game. If I can build them quickly and efficiently - meaning 20 turns or less per wonder, sped up with chopping - then I'll take that over a stack of axemen any day. Plus your theory only works if your neighbor builds the wonders you want, and that rarely happens (it's always the doofus on the other side of the map who you don't want to settle in the early game anyway because the maintenance costs will kill you). Using my method, the cumulative benefits to my Civ from my new wonders allow me to reach Macemen while my neighbors are still dicking around with axemen. THEN I show them what's up. I only do early axe rushes to take out a single neighbor, and use the newly-aquired space to dominate everyone else for the rest of the game.

I don't just build wonders because they're pretty.

EDIT: The strategy goes like this, and you start it in your first three cities. Capital: after working the city up to level 3 or 4 and building my first settler and worker, I immediately start Stonehenge. This will give free culture to all my cities the instant they're founded, spreading their influence out to resources even quicker. Then, a second settler for my third city, followed by the Oracle (this is my Great Prophet generating city). The Oracle I use to rush-research either Code of Laws or Theocracy, depending on my current priority (if it's war, Theocracy). After that, a healthy stream of axemen , etc.

My second city builds scouts for exploring and warriors to fend off Barbies until level 3 or 4, at which time I build The Great Wall. This doubles my likelyhood for generating a Great General, which are very useful for building Military Academies or giving a single unit enough experience to qualify for West Point later on (both great for you military lovin' city). Immediately following the Great Wall is the Pyramids, which will allow me to turn on Representation (for the great science boost) or, if I really have a hard-on for war, Police State. Thus begins my military production city, which will also churn out fairly regular Great Engineers, who will allow me to instantly create MORE wonders.

By now I will have built my third city, which will be where I'll want to make my Great Artists. I usually try to get the Parthenon up first, but that's often a challenge as others seem to get there before I do. Either way, the build the Statue of Zeus as soon as I can here, to generate more Great Artists for conquest (to quickly spread the culture borders of newly conquered cities), but more importantly, double the war weariness of any society I'm fighting, making their defense that much more feeble.

It's nearly always worth the few extra turns it takes to start cranking out more axemen, and by the time you have a decent enough stack of them you've researched construction and can send a healthy contingent of catapults along for the ride.

[ August 09, 2007, 23:47: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

That's the beauty of this game, that there are so many different ways to play it.

By the way, how do you get a big science boost out of Representation if you say you don't use specialists?

 

I just settle the great spies to get a modest science boost adn a HUGE espionage bonus. When you play on marathon that 12 extra points per turn is really nice.

I started a game today on a standard size map with 18 civs. It's a maxe type map, and I'm running Tokugawa of the Ottoman Empire. I eliminated the Koreans early and had to fight the Celts for some early land expansion. Eventually a couple rounds with Kublia Khan of the Ethiopians netted me a seventh city. After a joke war with De Gaulle of the Aztecs (He's far away, crossed into my land and I destroyed his deathstack and he paid me off), I eventually got to Gunpowder and Military Tradition. Jannisaries (with Combat I, CG I and Drill I) are nice, and the Cuirassers are a great unit (especially coming out with 11 exp). I then finished off Justinian of the Celts, and am sizing up either Izzy of the Dutch, Hammurabi of the Sumerians (Yeah, I've been on pins and needles all game on that combo) and Kublai Khan of the Ethiopians. I'll likely look for a war shortly into tomorrow's session with one of them at least. If Khan declares another war, then I'll get rid of him once and for all.

I want to see the game go far enough to get a corproation up and running, but I don't know if I can balance the civil demands with the military punch I will need to fight on possibly three fronts...

 

OK, I'd like to say that the explanation given in the manual for corporations is terrible. First of all, I was under the impression that you could only place a corporation in a city that had access to one or more instances of the required resources. So that you were limited in that if you had 2 clams, 2 fish, and 1 rice, you'd have a maximum of 5 instances of Sid's Sushi (well 4 actually, plus 1 HQ).

Regarding building early wonders - it depends. The Statue of Zeus can be very useful in war. I never bothered to stack wonders in certain cities based on the GP they produce. The only time I make a point of building certain wonders in certain cities is because of an obvious dual benefit. For example, if I'm building the Collosus, you can bet that the Moai Statues (a very good national wonder IMO) are going up in that city too. Add in a lighthouse and a city with a bunch of ocean squares, and the ocean square actually turn out to be more producive than land square for much of the game!

One final question - what do you guys actually do with ANY spy. I've got to the point where I spend all my espionage points on my closest rival to do them the most harm, but it seems like the effects of most of the missions are so minimal that I hardly ever bother building spies, and just rely on the passive espionage.