how do i mp

[Dhalphir]

so i tried to play a few ladder mp games in the last couple days to prepare myself for pitboss/pbem combat




i've read a few basic civ iv mp guides from CFC, etc, but most of them state stuff that is fairly obvious - or they tell you a lot about what to do, but not about in what order to accomplish or how to prioritise or how to balance expansion with military

does anyone have ANY suggestions for how best to start familiarising myself with MP, and more specifically, MP warfare?

Playing endless games on the ladder isn't likely to help very fast, because unlike Starcraft 2, when I lose, I can't watch a replay to see exactly what my opponents did so I can learn from them. If I was able to read what my opponents were doing, I wouldn't be losing so much.

When I was improving at Starcraft 2, I actually took a few lessons from a pro who was kind enough to offer - we sat down for a few hours of intensive coaching and it made me 1000x better at the game - can the same thing work in Civ?

[Dhalphir]

edit: pb13 spoilers

[plako]

Settings in usual gamespy games differ too much from usual pitboss to give much guidelines. Simplifying a lot, gamespy instrustions concerning war tactics are pretty good, but not that suitable basis for long term strategy.

Also you should remove PB13 spoilers from this thread.

[Dhalphir]

my apologies, was not thinking clearly about that! sorry plako!

[Jowy]

I'd say focus on learning the mechanics first. When you've got that down, then start reading up on how to best use all these tools you have. As a comparison to SC2 which you seem familiar with, the best players know exactly why their build order is what it is, and how to react to what their opponent is doing, what race their opponent is playing and what map they are playing on. You won't become a good SC2 player just by copying a build order from a pro; you might have some moderate success at your level, but no deeper understanding of the game than you had before.

Just my two cents, I'm actually not a very good Civ player compared to these RB guys

[Dhalphir]

yeah, the coaching for SC2 was a long time ago, I play at a grandmaster level now, so I'm trying to apply the same principles to learning Civ as I did to SC2, but there's nowhere near as many tools to help you learn (no such thing as replays, for a start) as there are in SC2.

[Dhalphir]

the trouble i'm finding with learning the mechanics is there are a TON of hyperspecialized guides out there for Civ dealing with one specific mechanic (like globe theatre draft camp setup, or how to get the most out of a corporation), but very very few guides that deal with how to tie it all together into a comprehensive set of empire management skills.

Reading spoiler threads in PBs and PBEMs doesn't really help either. Most are light on detail, and the few that go into depth about what they are doing often spend more time talking about grand strategy and gloss over the finer details of their empire management. Even threads like Sullla's which are hugely verbose in their descriptions spend very little time talking about where and why he is moving his workers, and much more time about which wonder he is going to build and why. Still useful, but lacking.

What I am also struggling to find is a way to measure my performance. For example, I see players getting off to absolutely flying starts in Civ games - and I think "is that just a lucky start, or is there something core I'm doing wrong?"

If Civ had such a thing as a replay system, that would solve literally every problem, but it doesn't, so I turned to here. What would be absolutely ideal is if I played an entire game hotseat style with somebody experienced sitting next to me and saying "do this because x" and "do that because y", so that I can understand the big picture and the thought processes that go into things.

Civ is a very hard game to practise and improve at because there are so few constants. What works in one game will not work in another, what works in a certain situation may not work in another almost-identical situation if one or two things are different.

[DaveV]

A lot of the maps from PBEM and pitboss games are in this thread. Pick a game and player, then try to duplicate their start in single player mode. Start a thread for advice if you need help. Post lots of pictures at frequent intervals.

[Jowy]

Videos might be exactly what you're looking for. Since it is in video format, you don't miss anything the player does. Search YouTube for Civ4 playthroughs. I only know Sullla from the Civ4 side of things. He has two games up.

[Sareln]

Quick thoughts before bed, not an authority but a starting point.

Moving units, taking cities, warfighting is micro. Workers, cities, production is Macro. Good macro, at a certain point, can make up for underdeveloped warfighting skills. Brilliant warfighting doesn't matter if your macro can't keep up - more so than SC2 where a couple of stalkers can micro away an infinite number of unattended marines - no such common case in CIV.

If you think your macro is weak, build more workers and cities. If you're at your happy cap in your cities, build more settlers. If your cities are working unimproved tiles, build more workers. Try games where you aim to keep 1 worker per city. Try other games where you take that to 2 or 3. See what happens. See how it feels.

Learn to get the most out of 2-pop whips. Play games where you stay in slavery the whole time and use the whip constantly in your cities every time the timer expires. See how it compares against your other games.

For warfighting, begin to analyze every map in terms of its terrain. How would you approach a city with the least exposure. How would you approach cities in an attempt to fork them? What units would you use, how much seige/collateral would you bring? How many units do you really need to take the city? How would you approach your own cities, if you were the attacker. What are the key tiles for a stack of attackers trying to burn your cities etc.

I think if we had time, we could throw together a bunch of variant game rules that would really teach some intuition about CIV. Perhaps we should start throwing together a list? It would have some (maybe alot!) of overlap with the epics actually, but hey, see what happens?

I second taking a look at some of the stuff on youtube as well, but I think the actual experience will be more valuable.