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[Civ IV] Damnit!

Blogs > {CC}StealthBlue
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{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 17 2009 05:57 GMT
#1
Crappy resources at start of the game as my first time playing America with Washington as leader. French have all the good resources and with the difficulty they will swallow them up pretty fast

[image loading]


*****
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
Racenilatr
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
United States2756 Posts
April 17 2009 06:01 GMT
#2
Use the worldbuilder thingy
Dead9
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States4725 Posts
April 17 2009 06:01 GMT
#3
I have never understood how to play that game
My cities just sit there :[
Then a couple of hours later I get run over with tanks or something
Ecael
Profile Joined February 2008
United States6703 Posts
April 17 2009 06:23 GMT
#4
Why did you put Boston there? What difficulty?
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 06:28:52
April 17 2009 06:27 GMT
#5
Still not ruling out invasion of France to grab the resources even though I settled Atlanta I might be able to grab the pasture simply by a culture push of sorts. The other area I have no idea. With the first screen shot I had 6 military units now I have 13 counting 1 naval. There is still 12 nations out there...

[image loading]


Edit: This is Noble since this is my first time playing America I have grabbed the lead, so far, but it's still quite early.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
Ecael
Profile Joined February 2008
United States6703 Posts
April 17 2009 06:37 GMT
#6
What was the map type?

War is probably the best option, you want to eventually off Asuka anyway, and in the immediate future France is a huge pain with Creative. Still no idea why you put Boston there though, 2unworkable tiles, no river and 3 overlap is just scary ><
defenestrate
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States579 Posts
April 17 2009 06:41 GMT
#7
You need way more cottages for a sustainable economy. Farms are a poor choice in most scenarios.
We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 17 2009 06:42 GMT
#8
On April 17 2009 15:37 Ecael wrote:
What was the map type?

War is probably the best option, you want to eventually off Asuka anyway, and in the immediate future France is a huge pain with Creative. Still no idea why you put Boston there though, 2unworkable tiles, no river and 3 overlap is just scary ><


The map is continents and I needed the copper resource so I settled there, I have settled worse. Besides it's growing
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
latent
Profile Joined March 2009
United States428 Posts
April 17 2009 07:03 GMT
#9
You know, I've never understood the proper way to maximize resource utilization and empire economic growth, and that's despite having played Civ 3 and 4 for hundreds (omg it's addictive) of hours. That game is so complicated. Are there any good sites out there that clearly explain the subtleties of economic growth in Civ 4? Any info would be much appreciated.
Moo
Ecael
Profile Joined February 2008
United States6703 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 07:04:56
April 17 2009 07:03 GMT
#10
Farms are fine, though Washington is an odd one to play anything close to a specialist econ with.

On April 17 2009 15:42 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 17 2009 15:37 Ecael wrote:
What was the map type?

War is probably the best option, you want to eventually off Asuka anyway, and in the immediate future France is a huge pain with Creative. Still no idea why you put Boston there though, 2unworkable tiles, no river and 3 overlap is just scary ><


The map is continents and I needed the copper resource so I settled there, I have settled worse. Besides it's growing

Hm wow that's a lot of people on one of those small divided continents that's closer to an island, you are going to want to warmonger it up soon. As for settling in worse places, you try to avoid anything with over 2 overlaps, and that's discounting unworkable tiles and low food, etc. For example, the hill tile on 1 left 1 down to the copper is a much better one, 2overlaps (with plenty of time for a forest to grow there if you are lucky), river, wheat + copper.
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 17 2009 07:07 GMT
#11
On April 17 2009 16:03 latent wrote:
You know, I've never understood the proper way to maximize resource utilization and empire economic growth, and that's despite having played Civ 3 and 4 for hundreds (omg it's addictive) of hours. That game is so complicated. Are there any good sites out there that clearly explain the subtleties of economic growth in Civ 4? Any info would be much appreciated.


http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/civilopedia
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
karelen
Profile Joined October 2003
Sweden2407 Posts
April 17 2009 07:11 GMT
#12
must resist urge to reinstall... time waster #1... arghh
zzzzzz
Ecael
Profile Joined February 2008
United States6703 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 07:16:48
April 17 2009 07:12 GMT
#13
On April 17 2009 16:03 latent wrote:
You know, I've never understood the proper way to maximize resource utilization and empire economic growth, and that's despite having played Civ 3 and 4 for hundreds (omg it's addictive) of hours. That game is so complicated. Are there any good sites out there that clearly explain the subtleties of economic growth in Civ 4? Any info would be much appreciated.

There are easier ways, spam cottages, win. :p

It depends on difficulty of course lol, learning specialist is vital to advance onto harder difficulities though.

If you are going to link from Civfanatic, link that huge archive of strategy articles they have~

EDIT - http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 17 2009 07:17 GMT
#14
This?

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy

"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
April 17 2009 07:21 GMT
#15
fuck me Louis and Justinian signed a defensive pact
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
Insane
Profile Blog Joined November 2003
United States4991 Posts
April 17 2009 07:25 GMT
#16
You should drive the fall from heaven mod, it's great fun! I've played it a bit with Zelniq in the past multiplayer, too.
gchan
Profile Joined October 2007
United States654 Posts
April 17 2009 07:29 GMT
#17
By the looks of the map you probably shouldn't have gone down the horse track. Horse archers are terrible at attacking cities and you won't be able to effectively use their speed to harass resources because there are so many forests.

Honestly, it doesn't look like you need to war France. You have access to a lot of river grasslands so you can cottage + food spam and build up a huge economy. But because you already built up a fair amount of swordsmen, tech to construction and get catapults. Target one or two French cities that you could possibly take and have key resources (iron, horses, maybe even stone/marble).

You should probably also look into starting to specialize your cities. New York probably needs Maoi Statues because it has so many plains around it. Washington and Boston should definitely be cottage spamming cities; Philadelphia can be a strong production city if you take the French city north of it that is pushing it's borders and claiming that horse. Atlanta is just an all around terrible city this early in the game. It has access to no resources (the horses don't really add that much) and it doesn't have any much military strategy value. Your best option would probably just to let it slowly grow by using up all those coastal tiles. Also you're building your cities too close to each other. It's better to have fewer really good cities and waste 2-5 tiles inbetween them than to have cities that overlap anything more than 1 tile.
gchan
Profile Joined October 2007
United States654 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 07:32:18
April 17 2009 07:31 GMT
#18
On April 17 2009 16:21 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
fuck me Louis and Justinian signed a defensive pact


Not a big deal. Even if you attack France, you can fortify a couple archers/longbowsmen on the forest hills two blocks east of Boston. Justinian will sac all his units trying to get through there.
Ecael
Profile Joined February 2008
United States6703 Posts
April 17 2009 07:36 GMT
#19
On April 17 2009 16:29 gchan wrote:
By the looks of the map you probably shouldn't have gone down the horse track. Horse archers are terrible at attacking cities and you won't be able to effectively use their speed to harass resources because there are so many forests.

Honestly, it doesn't look like you need to war France. You have access to a lot of river grasslands so you can cottage + food spam and build up a huge economy. But because you already built up a fair amount of swordsmen, tech to construction and get catapults. Target one or two French cities that you could possibly take and have key resources (iron, horses, maybe even stone/marble).

You should probably also look into starting to specialize your cities. New York probably needs Maoi Statues because it has so many plains around it. Washington and Boston should definitely be cottage spamming cities; Philadelphia can be a strong production city if you take the French city north of it that is pushing it's borders and claiming that horse. Atlanta is just an all around terrible city this early in the game. It has access to no resources (the horses don't really add that much) and it doesn't have any much military strategy value. Your best option would probably just to let it slowly grow by using up all those coastal tiles. Also you're building your cities too close to each other. It's better to have fewer really good cities and waste 2-5 tiles inbetween them than to have cities that overlap anything more than 1 tile.

Won't trying to transit to a cottage spam economy at this point just put him behind for a good part of the game? Given the small starting area and few cities with low production value that's going to be tough later on I think.
gchan
Profile Joined October 2007
United States654 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 08:01:37
April 17 2009 07:47 GMT
#20
On April 17 2009 16:36 Ecael wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 17 2009 16:29 gchan wrote:
By the looks of the map you probably shouldn't have gone down the horse track. Horse archers are terrible at attacking cities and you won't be able to effectively use their speed to harass resources because there are so many forests.

Honestly, it doesn't look like you need to war France. You have access to a lot of river grasslands so you can cottage + food spam and build up a huge economy. But because you already built up a fair amount of swordsmen, tech to construction and get catapults. Target one or two French cities that you could possibly take and have key resources (iron, horses, maybe even stone/marble).

You should probably also look into starting to specialize your cities. New York probably needs Maoi Statues because it has so many plains around it. Washington and Boston should definitely be cottage spamming cities; Philadelphia can be a strong production city if you take the French city north of it that is pushing it's borders and claiming that horse. Atlanta is just an all around terrible city this early in the game. It has access to no resources (the horses don't really add that much) and it doesn't have any much military strategy value. Your best option would probably just to let it slowly grow by using up all those coastal tiles. Also you're building your cities too close to each other. It's better to have fewer really good cities and waste 2-5 tiles inbetween them than to have cities that overlap anything more than 1 tile.

Won't trying to transit to a cottage spam economy at this point just put him behind for a good part of the game? Given the small starting area and few cities with low production value that's going to be tough later on I think.


It looks like he has a little bit more land south of Washington where he can put 2-3 more productive cities. I see at least 1 wheat down there and he has the coastal economy. He could also probably nab the spot NE of Boston with the copper and floodplains.

You are right in that it will put him behind for a fair part of the game, but it really boils down to where he stands right now in tech compared to everybody else. I figured he was in the lead already because he has the point advantage (he can take the hit in his research to build up cottages), and if he's researching horse archers, the other civs are probably getting close to getting longbowmen. Thats why if he is going to go offensive, he should beeline to construction and take a French city or two. Civ4 really suffers in war tactics from Feudalism up until you can get cavalry. There's not a whole lot you can do once a city has 3-4 longbowmen + walls/castle. It's not economically worth it to sacrifice 8 catapults and 10 swordsmen to kill 5 longbowmen. I usually just econ up at that stage and go for the rifleman/infantry invasion to the tank invasion.

Problem with mid-late tech push though is that he is playing against 12 civilizations, so he has little time to kill them all. It's hard, but it's definitely viable to achieve domination victory with your first pushing being in industrial age. Never understimate the power of blitzkrieg.

Edit: This is if he is aiming for a domination/elimination victory. If he wants to go for diplomatic victory, a strong economic backbone will definitely help him there, but he may have to declare France just to get through the territory and meet more civilizations. If he wants to aim for space race, it's really too early to tell. Any of the other victories probably aren't worth it for him.
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 08:46:20
April 17 2009 08:27 GMT
#21
GG no re. Paris captured.

Edit: Raines has now fallen, Orleans is under siege and down to 16% defense with another stack of Crossbowmen, Swordsmen, and Spearman on their way to make sure the city falls.

[image loading]
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
Sauron
Profile Joined November 2008
Romania169 Posts
April 17 2009 10:40 GMT
#22
Oh no..today one of my friends was talking about Civilisation and now you make this blog..
If I install this game again, I'll be doomed.
Soothsayer
Dknight
Profile Blog Joined April 2005
United States5223 Posts
April 17 2009 17:11 GMT
#23
Oh god. I just installed it the other day and am now playing it. Ughhhhhhh. There goes homework for today T_T
WGT<3. Former CL/NW head admin.
zulu_nation8
Profile Blog Joined May 2005
China26351 Posts
April 17 2009 18:02 GMT
#24
You need a lot more cottages and I would rush one of the neighbors as soon as I saw the horse. But since this is on noble, you'll have plenty of time to catch up. Seriously though build more cottages, you need commerce and beakers, not more people in your cities.
Durak
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Canada3685 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-04-17 20:37:36
April 17 2009 20:36 GMT
#25
On April 17 2009 16:25 HnR)Insane wrote:
You should drive the fall from heaven mod, it's great fun! I've played it a bit with Zelniq in the past multiplayer, too.


I've been trying to get fall from heaven 2 running but it fails. The bug solution guide addresses the problem but doesn't have a clear solution. Supposedly it's really fun.

Edit: Also, Civ 4 games take forever multiplayer. I don't think I've ever gotten to the "Second age" or whatever it is. My cities just explode in population, I go broke, and then my research slows.
So no fek
Profile Blog Joined June 2005
United States3001 Posts
April 17 2009 23:00 GMT
#26
Okay, I'm going to start playing Civ IV again because of this blog. :D
#1 Shuttle fan - TeamLiquid CJ Entusman #36 BW4lyfe
zatic
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
Zurich15362 Posts
April 18 2009 00:18 GMT
#27
On April 17 2009 19:40 Sauron wrote:
Oh no..today one of my friends was talking about Civilisation and now you make this blog..
If I install this game again, I'll be doomed.

This. Oh god it's so tempting...
ModeratorI know Teamliquid is known as a massive building
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