Try to minimize 1-pop whips. For example, axeman are 35H. A good whipping cycle is when you can produce 4H or 6H/turn. Why? If you put in 4H into the axeman, you have 31H left. Since each whip is 30H, you need to whip 2 pop to finish the axeman. Since you whipped 2 pop, you produced 60H. 31H gets used to finish the axeman, and then you get an additional 29H. If you can produce 6H, then you can produce ANOTHER axeman. Thus, in 2 turns you can produce 2 axeman. In a rush situation, every turn counts, so the ability to manage your whips helps a lot.
Also, TT, you should link to the Dune 2 mod and FfH2.
The thing that I have started doing recently that seems to be making the biggest difference in my performance is (as a thread from 2005 suggests) getting your first worker from someone else. Pick someone starting near you to be your bitch and steal their first worker with your starting warrior – you may have to be a bit lucky to get them back to your area without being picked off by barbarians, but that’s a big gain for you and a crippling loss for them.
Civ IV > pie
And I really loves me some pie.
Also, caesarbear, you da man!
I’ve played Beyond the Sword a lot, although in many ways I’m still a novice.
Right now, I’m in to playing the Americans. I can win with Roosevelt, but like to play as Washington. The thing is, I find it hard to maintain a stable economy/steady research under this regime.
Any advice on how to play better with Washington would be appreciated. Thank you.
Charismatic + Expansive means you can let your cities grow to higher pops earlier on, and get more usage out of Slavery. You also get double-speed granary which is a great bonus since granary is one of the most important buildings and also ties into these bonuses, as your cities can grow more and grow back from slavery usage a lot faster.
Wow, this thread warms the heart. I’d be happy to answer any questions too - although you guys are probably much better at it than I am by now.
I’m not! But after years of being lazy and only playing on low difficulty I’m trying to step it up.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone to war early in the game so I decided to try being more aggressive. My first two huts yielded a scout and a second warrior so I decided to throw both warriors at the first target I found, who turned out to be Mansa Musa. Due to my Mike Cathcart personality traits (Illiteracy, Apathy), I have no idea who that is. He seemed really nice when he asked for open borders, though, so I figured it was a good idea to attack him. Unfortunately he had a Skirmisher or something? Turns out I hate Skirmishers now.
I like this plan, I think I’m going to start a few more games until I can steal a worker. FieryBalrog made Willem van Oranje sound cool so I’m starting with him and looking for a map where I can start on a coast with a couple of workboat type resources. I also found this post on CivFanatics that is quite a bit above my difficulty level but still has what seem like good tips. So: free worker, fish boats, 4 cities by around 1k BC. This game is awesome.
Did you leave Firaxis before or after BTS was done and did you have much to do with it?
What is your build order. Mine is warrior, worker, warrior, settler, and than often wonder if I have an industrious civ.
Mike, any of the All Leader Challenge Threads are amazing. They are great fun to read and full of so much information, it’s how I learnt to play the game after my initial forays.
I left before BtS came out, and it was mostly Alex and Jon’s bag. The only thing I did was push hard for the events system as I thought it would make for a nice orthogonal feature that could extend the core game without overcomplicating it.
I had to STEAL INTERNET* today in order to get this onto my Mac so I can (finally) start playing along. I hope you are all happy with yourselves.
- not really, but having been on 3G internet for a month, being on an actual Internet connection was quite liberating.
I’ve been waiting years for the new Civ IV expansion. Whats the deal with the delay?
OK - real question (for everyone). I like watching replays/reviewing hi scores. But its segregated in the game by mod and version (original, warlords, BTS). Is there a way I can get a unified hi score table/review all my replays from one place?
Or - if thats impossible - is there a way I can get map building mods like Perfect World working, without using the official mod loader (trick it into thinking its part of BTS), so I can play those maps without “breaking” the high score table?
Whats triggers events? I have had some games where I get continuous quests. And I have others where I get none at all! I’m playing on BTS unmodded with large Tectonic maps (mostly).
I’ll definitely be checking them as I try each new leader. I really like that this one had a “pre challenge thread” linked at the top where he discusses the general strategy before the game even starts (leader traits, unique units, etc). I’m pretty psyched about firing up my next game now. It’s going to be a long day at work. Maybe I’ll learn things about being Dutch. I should buy that Benelux board for Power Grid when we stop by the game store at lunch.
The dutch may well be the most powerful Civ in the game.
But really, there’s financial civs and then there’s everything else.
Financial is a good trait at all times, but it really shines on lower levels when it can outpace raw AI bonuses and you can keep apace (and usually pull ahead) of the computer in tech without tech trading. You can also just spam cottages and a mix of windmills/mines everywhere (for the most part, provided you have enough good food specials) and have a pretty effective tile improvement strategy.
Once you get to higher difficultly levels, Financial is actually more of a boon early on since it funds early expansion much better than other traits, allowing you to keep up with expanding rapidly (often necessary on Immortal / Deity if you want decent land of your own). It won’t keep you ahead in tech at that point-only smart bulbing strategies and things like Liberalism and The Oracle (the latter often having a huge opportunity cost) keep you ahead-even with the huge beaker multiplier of tech trades and brokering-until you get endgame playing field levelers like Biology, State Property, Factories/Coal Plants, or simply eat another Civ and have a ton of land.
That being said, only Philosophical and Spiritual (single player only) are up there with Financial in the rankings. Organized and Creative are right behind them, IMO. Organized is one of those traits that just gets better as you get to higher levels and later game-the cheaper Factories and Courthouses on top of the cheaper maintenance really makes midgame conquest and expansion easy to do (provided you can deal with the Longbows).
oh you definitely don’t want to actually try taking a city or anything with your starting warriors, even if you get one or two extra; on any difficulty level above trivial it’s just not going to happen. Even if they only had a warrior of their own at home, you’re probably looking at a 40% defense bonus from culture, 25% fortify bonus, 25% warrior city defense bonus… not good.
Just scout around their area to figure out where they’ll send their worker first, then jack him when he shows up. If you are feeling mean you can pillage their roads too, but after that get out of there. You can offer peace at that point – maybe he’ll let you steal another soldier later!
- Mike
p.s. hi Soren! I’m one of Timi’s friends.
Yeah, I didn’t plan on taking the city but I figured if I could grab the worker and get out I’d be in good shape. He had roads built to all of his improvements, though, so as soon as I got close to the worker his guys were able to attack from a couple of tiles away. It also didn’t help that by the time I got there his culture border had expanded a couple of times so I was just too far away at the start of the war.
ah, yeah. Do it early. You want to get there in the first 30 turns or so, so that their cultural borders are no bigger than their city’s harvesting area and the workers are having to come right up to the borders.
(note that this means it doesn’t work quite as well against Creative leaders.)
That thread’s overview of how to really supercharge your civ in the early game (like, the first 30 turns) is the best discussion I’ve seen.