[PB75] Newbfragar and Rusty's Beginner's Guide to Civ4

[Commodore]

Small injury detected.

[naufragar]

I'm not sure how to make it into a lesson. Don't be needlessly antagonistic? Be more paranoid? Let my example be sufficient, I guess. And yes, I do get the irony of calling myself paranoid two turns prior and then missing this.

It certainly is a small injury, but it's only a mistake if GT comes to regret it. His power's climbing. No idea what his tech is like. He's got Iron Working and Metal Casting and is in a golden age. Crossbows? Horse Archers? Well, we'll poke and prod a bit.

In the meantime, Gav and Superdeath both earned great generals, so that's a real war at least.

Better reporting to come when I get back on Friday.

[naufragar]

Lesson Eighteen: Stack Combat

One of the most repeated criticisms of Civ4 is that combat involved "stacks of doom." You loaded up a single-player game and were happily building your markets and monasteries when all of a sudden, Montezuma showed up with 40 units and you lost the game. On a basic level, it feels wrong to lose. That's why most games don't let it happen anymore (autosave/reload) or if they do, they throw you back in as soon as possible (roguelikes). In Civ4, you might've spent 10 hours of game time, only for Montezuma to show up with a 40 stack army for your 10 units.

How did he build all of these? Well, maybe he used slavery. More likely, he just invested his resources in soldiers. One market is like 4-5 axe men. Instead of 5 markets, you could've had 20+ soldiers. But it feels bad to build soldiers. Soldiers don't get you anything. When you build a market, you see your gold income go up. The soldier just stands there.

So the immediate criticism of stacks of doom, I believe, comes from builder-type players who found out that the AI builds armies. Other players criticized stacks of doom because the numbers could get unwieldy. 40 units! How am I supposed to click that many times!

Luckily, Sid Meier thought of that and put in a bunch of hotkeys to make unit control easier. For example, if you have a unit or group of units selected and press the Ctrl key and a number together, you'll create a "control group." You can press that number key at any point to automatically select your custom unit group. It's little tricks like this that separate the amateurs from the pros.

Civ4 also has a system called Collateral Damage, which will be its own lesson. But this makes it so that you can hit multiple units at a time.

Lots of text. Have a map:


On it you can see that GT has 5 catapults, 1 axe, and 1 spear next to my 2 axes, 2 spears, and 1 catapult.

The only thing is that the map the map the map the map is not the territory. My units are standing on a hill in a forest which gives them a +75% defensive bonus. On the other hand, do you see the blue icons next to GT's units? Those are "promotions." As the Aggressive leader Boudica, GT gets bonus promotions which strengthen his units. It's likely that if GT attacks me with what he has, the battle will be a draw.

Here's how stack combat works, when you select a unit with which to attack, the game lets your opponent defend with the situationally strongest unit in the tile. So if I'm attacking you with a spear, the game will chose to let you defend with your own spear rather than a horseman. Wait, naufragar, I hear you sputter, isn't this blatantly unfair for the attacker? The attacker's units always go into unfavorable match ups if possible! Yes. But the attacker chooses the place of battle and attacks when he feels he has sufficient force.

The attacker also gets to use the Collateral Damage system. If GT attacks me with a catapult, he damages a handful of units at once, whereas if I defend with a catapult, no Collateral Damage occurs.

If GT attacks me, he'll likely lose a few units weakening my forces and then my weakened units will die to the rest of his stack. This is actually a terrible example to start off a wartime lesson. This combat is too small and too uncertain to be evaluated quickly. In general, one stack will be bigger or more advanced than another and victory will be pretty obvious. Well, if he attacks, we can follow up on this to see mechanics in action. Note: I can only evaluate the units I can see, GT might have an entire army in the fog that changes the battle. Moving into enemy territory is always nerve-wracking.

This was too long already. Remind me to show you Ginger's Golden Age stats  and explain why peace is better than war.

[Tarkeel]

Note: I can only evaluate the units I can see, GT might have an entire army in the fog that changes the battle. Moving into enemy territory is always nerve-wracking.

Which is why roads and workers are so important.

[naufragar]

Note: I can only evaluate the units I can see, GT might have an entire army in the fog that changes the battle. Moving into enemy territory is always nerve-wracking.

Which is why roads and workers are so important.

Let me do a lesson on that next turn. It'll be easier to visualize after troop movements. Speaking of which, I want another turn to play!  I hate mailing off an interesting turn and having to wait a day or more to find out the next episode. We've had a phenomenal turn pace, by the way. We started on January 17th and have now played 126 turns in 87 days. That's incredible, so I have no grounds for impatience. Still, I love Civ4! Give me more Civ4 turns to play! 


In the meanwhile, might as well write more.

Intermediate Interlude: Why are You Fighting?

War is expensive and risky. Take a look at the power graph:



I've lost Gavagai's graphs, but he's either rank #2 or #3 after a bloody battle burning one of Superdeath's cities. (Yes, the top three powers are all in my area. It's not like I could've gotten a peaceful neighborhood.  ) GT's power graph is scary. No two ways about it. A gap that big and undoubtedly widening poses a huge, maybe even existential, threat to me.

But look at the cost:


GT (light green) is in a golden age and has barely produced any research. I keep opening the turn expecting Horse Archers or Crossbows, but I think he needs the economy techs badly enough that he goes for them first. That very impressive power graph has gotten him nothing. Yet.

So you ask yourself, why are you fighting. Here's the usual culprit:


I've been hammering on Food as the most important statistic for the entire game. Everything you do requires food. Food is the measure both of how big your civilization is and also how much it can grow. Food is everything. So the big use of soldiers is to turn power points into crop points by means of conquest. I should say here that I approve of GT's war (if not his piddly little city snipe). We're on a donut. You must either fight left or right. He chose left, so I have to choose right to return the favor.

I think GT's has good reasons to fight me. I'm not sure we agree on those reasons, however! Twice in three turns I've gotten an offer for peace from him in exchange for my entire treasury. Both times this amount would have been peanuts. GT, brother, you should be fighting me! You need to eat me to stand a chance against Superdeath or you need to eat Ljubljana to prevent him from being eaten by Ginger. (Donut politics are simple politics.)

My reasons for fighting (or not accepting the tribute demand) are a bit more complicated. Right now, GT is way stronger than me. A brute force push is very, very scary. But my only way back into even earshot of the contender's circle    is to eat a neighbor, and GT's treachery pushed me into Superdeath's arms. (Scary place to be.) I can't eat GT now, but if I stay alive, I hopefully accomplish two things. I get him spending production on units that aren't very good against knights and I drain his armies west. Hopefully Ljubljana can read a donut map, realize he's not going to make grounds against the absolutely dominant Ginger, and see that this is his best chance at changing his fate. If these goals demand I play the punching bag for a bit, so be it. The huge, huge weakness is that my empire can't stand the loss of cities or the whipping of specialists. I've got no food surplus and my land is weak. If I don't keep up the specialist turns, I can't tech.

[naufragar]

I'm surrounded by jerks.


This worker is all the way out of Superdeath's borders so he can chop a forest for +8 hammers. Leave the trees alone!

Less frustrating but still a minor annoyance is Gav apparently dying to Superdeath:


This reads like a desperate plea for help. I responded with the reverse offer: You declare on GT, buddy. I'm in a fight for my life, too, you know.

Of course, since Gavagai has continued to put Espionage Points into me, I have no idea how his army is doing. But here's the power graph anyway:


Why yes, my two neighbors completely dwarf the field. My luck in this game continues as usual. 

But at Tarkeel's request, here's a short bit on roads:

Lesson Nineteen: Battlefield Movement, Part One

I missed a turn report, but here's how the front currently stands:


GT with his massive army is positioned strategically between the routes to his two front line cities. Because of his road network he can defend either route from one central tile.

This is one of many defender's advantages in Civ4. While my units are marching along at 1 tile per turn, his are flying by at 2 tiles per turn. A way to think of this is as a force multiplier. If our best military production centers are each 10 tiles from the front but he has a roads advantage, I can get a unit to the front every 10 turns, while he gets a unit to the front every 5 turns. If we imagine we're each producing units equally quickly, he would effectively have double my army despite producing the same number of soldiers.

He also has a vision advantage. Those peak tiles give him vision over all my garrison and troop movements, whereas I can see anything in his land. If I move, I move in the dark, whereas he can move based on better information.

GT has not yet advanced. In fact, this turn, he offered a peace treaty with no tribute demand attached. 3 turns ago, Ljubljana said he would attack GT in 10 turns. I've sent Ljubljana a reminder of this. If Ljubljana confirms, I'll stay at war to let Ljubljana deliver my vicarious revenge on the other side of GT's empire. If Ljubljana backs out, I'll sue for peace. Maybe. We'll see.

[naufragar]

Long time, no chat. Been busy. Luckily the game's been quiet. GT and I just stare at each other over a defensive hill range, which makes for a very pretty picture:



Since we're both building up at roughly the same pace, neither of us can really afford to make a move.

Somebody just researched Engineering:



Let's see if we can figure out who it is:



We can rule out Ginger (Washington) since he just grabbed the Music Great Artist. (For what it's worth, this makes them a shoo in for Liberalism. They already have Paper as well.) Greenline (Catherine) seems to be doing some weird breakeven research thing, so I don't know about him. Dreylin (Napoleon) was saving gold two turns ago, so I doubt it's him. This leaves Superdeath and GT. Oh goody. Out of all the field, it's my neighbors who are burning through the military research line. This games is so cursed.

Doesn't really matter since Ginger has this sewn up. Mjmd's plan was to grab the religious wonders. Don't know how Ginger/Civac have managed to so completely eat his lunch.


P.S. GT offered peace and intimated that either I should go to war with Superdeath or Superdeath would go to war with me. Superdeath is scouting my land greedily and he's just the kind of guy to attempt this sneak attack. Oh well. I don't get anything out of pulling away from GT to defend against Superdeath. I just lose to Ginger (or SD) slower. So we're not going to do that.

[naufragar]

Well, here's an interesting development:


Ljubljana declared war on GT. Ljubljana stuck to his proposed timeline. I'm very, very fond of players that do what they say they'll do. My job is relatively simple. Keep distracting GT on his western front. Since what appears to be his entire army is staring me down, I suspect GT is about to be in a world of pain. Lesson there. Don't stick the knife in halfway. Sniping a city and engaging in a protracted war gave Ljubljana time to get interested. We'll see what happens.

The revenge is satisfaction enough, but we should try to get some land. That all depends on GT, though. He has to choose whether to defend in the west or the east, and since his army is already in the west, chances are he just gives up ground to Ljubljana and eventually peaces out. That's ok. So long as he suffers for his atrocities at Placid Bull.

[naufragar]

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
~Edna St. Vincent Millay, "First Fig"



On our last turn of golden age, we produce our first Knight. After the golden age, all our capacities plummet and we resume our appropriate place at the bottom of the scoreboard. It didn't have to be thus. I could have tried to chain scientists to reach things like Education or Printing Press, but GT decided to attack me unprovoked and on top of that demand payment for the injury that he did to me. And I'm just not the kind of player to not declare vendetta for such a thing. (And of course I accidentally bulbed Machinery. )

Ljubljana has begun his attack. GT has started to drain some units from his front with me to defend. It'll be too little and too late. He'll lose a lot to Ljubljana, I suspect. How much will I get? I don't know. More than I'd get without his intervention, though, so I'm grateful. Death, death, death!

[naufragar]

Did you hear that the best living American female singer-songwriter came out with a new album recently? She's practically a poet. Enjoy a song.

(Yes, yes. Bait.)

Was burning Placid Bull worth it, GT?


Oh this is the sweetest feeling. GT's about to lose his capital because he underdefended his East since he had to park his army in the West to defend against me. And with every city he loses, his production capacity in the face of a two front war dwindles. He's doomed. Shouldn't have sniped my city, friend.

In the wider world, Superdeath and Gavagai made peace, so we are on high alert for the inevitable SD wheel-around. The politics of this little game are fascinating. The two top dogs in this game (Ginger by a huge margin, Superdeath a very distant second) are on opposite sides of the continent, but Ginger has to worry about a well-fed Ljubljana. Superdeath seemed unsuccessful in profiting from his Gavagai expedition. If he fails to now make progress against me, he's in a real pinch. Ginger's still the massive favorite, but there's many a slip twixt cup and lip.