Forum:Where does a Newbie start?

Tired of Imperialism

First of all, let me establish that I am NOT new to this. I played my first combat simulation game 45 years ago, and have played scores of titles over the decades. As my name states, I am losing interest in the Imperialism PC game because I can easily beat the AI even at Hard Level. I just want to know how I should start to learn this game without getting wiped out by the AI.

I printed out and read every tutorial from

http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Tutorials

I wrote out notes for myself to ensure I understood stuff like Spice being 3 F, 0 P, and 4 T. Then I started playing at Novice Level, against one AI player.

I figured out pretty quickly that this would mean I would be on a continent with that one other player, and that would mean I would soon be involved in a land war against the AI. Diplomacy has been simple: the AI meets me, signs a truce, and then declares War on me about twenty turns later -- The End. As such, I see that I need to develop Technology and Wonders to win such a war -- for instance, it does no good to seek Magellan's Voyage if sea exploration yields nothing. I also conclude that Monarchy is the best Government for such an early war, as I could put most of my effort into military strength instead of avoiding Unhappy Workers.

And tonight I got wiped out AGAIN at the NOVICE Level. I know how to found cities, develop the "right" technologies, adjust production in Cities (heck, tonight I even figured out how to adjust which Squares are being developed in each City -- even though the PC invariably makes the right choice), use Terrain to increase Defense, and to seek the Great Wall and Sun Tzu Academy for my Wonders. And every game I've played so far, I've ended up quitting after the AI is capturing my cities almost at will, defending every one of its Cities no matter what I do, killing my units in 90% of the battles (doesn't matter if I or the AI attacks, or with what units -- the AI wins just about every time), and is ahead of me in both Technology and in Wonders. I've even tried using Caravels to land my Musketeers on back shores, but they just wiped like my front line Units.

I'd LIKE to learn this game, but I see no sense in trying if there is NO chance whatsoever of winning -- and I don't even develop any camaderie with my opponent!

Any suggestions on how to start to learn how to WIN this game? Is there ANY way to know what's in a City before I just rush pell-mell into it, losing six units in a row? Am I building too many cities (I usually get up to about 15). Should I develop a Republic instead of a Monarchy? (tried that and, as I suspected, I lost even FASTER) Should I put less effort into building roads? (I usually have every city connected -- this allows me to get my Knights to the front line, so they all can get wiped out VERY quickly) Should I worry more about Unhappy Workers, even if I've never had ANY City go into Civil Disorder? (they also don't grow much, but I knew that was a disadvantage of Monarchy) Should I develop Land War Technology or Masonary (to start Great Wall) BEFORE Monarchy?

I'm fully aware there are MANY ways to win this game, which is what SHOULD make it so much more interesting than Imperialism. But, at the Novice Level, you KNOW you're going to be in a land war with exactly one player. If this a BEGINNER level, there should be a way to not get whipped by the AI after about ten "learning" games. If the AI massacres me every time at THIS level, I don't see any reason to go to "Easy" Level and get slaughtered even faster.

I really WANT to like this game. But right now it's like playing the solitaire card game that is so nearly impossible to win that it's called "Idiot's Delight." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tired Of Imperialism (talk • contribs) 06:36, January 29, 2010

24.9.130.226

The difficulty level of the AI has no affect on where you'll be situated or if you'll be on a single continent in an early land war. The options to look at are 'generator' and 'size' You can also play against 30 novice AI, 1, or any number in between.

You are probably losing so many battles because you are not taking into account veterancy and defense bonuses. If you attack a city with a wall, all the defender's defence values will be multiplied by 3, same on a mountain, 1.5x on a hill, etc. These are also compounded and can create places that are very hard to attack and very easy to defend. If you plan your attacks, don't send in one unit at a time, don't stack them on top of eachother if they might be attacked, pick easy targets, etc. you can overtake the AI very easily. Pair defensive units with offensive ones to prevent them from being killed. End the turn on a terrain with a defense bonus if possible. Use attack boats to soften of a city before you move in with land units. Same with air units when you get them.

If you can get to Republic, set up trade routes (with Trade), build some (select) improvements, and rapture, you will easily beat the hardest AI every time. Build roads, but don't make it top priority to connect every single city if they are very spread out. Create a few strategic roads into the battlefeild instead of many of them. Remember to build your economy, and grow your cities (through rapture). A large city with improvements and some nice specials will be able to produce a unit every turn with the production and gold it will generate. If you build diplomats you can investigate the city and see what improvements (though you can see the city wall around the city on the map), units (you can also see if its empty or not by the graphic of the city), and other stats. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.130.226 (talk • contribs) 20:41, January 29, 2010

Kernigh

I can often defeat the Freeciv AI at Hard Level. During November 2010, I played a game of Freeciv with 2 players: myself and one AI player at Hard Level. I dominated the entire game, overwhelmed my opponent, and won by conquering all cities. I know the weaknesses of the AI, and I play Freeciv better than AI, including at Hard Level.

> Then I started playing at Novice Level, against one AI player.

If you want an easier game, then play with 5 players: you against four AI players. The AI players will often war against themselves, instead of against you. This provides your chance to make peace or alliance with some players.

> Am I building too many cities (I usually get up to about 15).

No. You always want more cities (on empty space, not too close to other cities), because more cities can build more units and research more technology.

> Should I put less effort into building roads? (I usually have every city connected -- this allows me to get my Knights to the front line, so they all can get wiped out VERY quickly)

No. I like to build roads on Desert, Grassland and Plains for the +1 trade bonus. I also like to connect all cities with roads, because I want to move units between cities.

> Is there ANY way to know what's in a City before I just rush pell-mell into it, losing six units in a row?

Build and send a Diplomat. When it enters the city, use the "Investigate City" button to see everything inside the city. A typical AI city has Barracks, City Walls, a few defenders, and one defending Diplomat or Spy.

> I've ended up quitting after the AI is capturing my cities almost at will

During such emergency, you might buy an extra unit to defend your city, or buy City Walls. Sometimes this is enough to keep the city. If you need more gold, you can raise tax rates, or build Coinage in some cities.

The best defenders are Archers, Phalanx or Pikemen (before you learn Gunpowder).

If I have doom to lose a city, then I declare an "open city" there.

1. I evacuate all remaining units to another city.
2. If they cannot evacuate, then I sell them. I change the production to Coinage, and I disband all units in the city.
3. I also sell the city improvements. I can sell only one per turn, so I sell the most expensive improvement. I might use the gold to build City Walls in a different city.

While the enemy conquers my open city, I use the extra time to prepare defenses for my other cities.

If the enemy has my city, I send a Diplomat to bribe the city ("Incite a Revolt"). The bribe cost is cheaper if I originally built the city, and if the city is not close to the enemy capital.

When you have enough units, then fortify some defenders on good terrain (Mountains, Hills, Swamp or Forest), making Zones of Control so that enemy cannot reach your cities. Read about fortresses on the Terrain page. Build fortresses to buff your fortified defenders, then add Catapults to the fortresses. Use the Catapults to kill the invaders.

AI players never build fortresses. A fortress is an advantage over the AI.

> Should I worry more about Unhappy Workers, even if I've never had ANY City go into Civil Disorder?

No. Unhappy workers are only bad because they cause civil disorder. If your city is not in civil disorder, then unhappy workers are not a problem.

> (they also don't grow much, but I knew that was a disadvantage of Monarchy)

Build irrigation, so that the city grows more food. Perhaps build a Granary improvement.

> I printed out and read every tutorial from http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Tutorials

Perhaps we need better tutorials... --Kernigh 02:42, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Don't get discouraged

Don't get discouraged! This is such an excellent game, and well worth the effort of both developers and players! I routinely play 15-20 AI in 'Normal' to 'Hard' setting and win. I don't consider myself an expert or anything, but if you thought it would help, I'd play a game and post a diary with some screenshots here. There are many playing styles one can employ in the game.

Knowack 16:03, February 3, 2010 (UTC)

Don't Panic

I just thought I'd offer that classic advice first. This game is one of the best strategy computer games ever made and is well worth the effort of learning how to play proficiently.

First and foremost, 1 vs 1 is not the "right" way to play. Diplomacy and dealing with multiple cultures on multiple fronts is a very important part of the game. I suggest you start playing some games with 4-6 novice AIs first, then move on to 1v1 when you just want to wage wars of annihilation.

Second, it is my opinion that this site has few good tutorials. I suggest you search for civilization 2 tutorials and strategy guides online, there are several sites like civfanatics that have great ones. Obviously, these are tutorials for civ2 and civ2 is a bit different from freeciv, but the differences are fairly slight and you can play by the civ2 rules in freeciv if you want to anyway. Anyway, read some of those guides rather than memorize silly things like exactly what each resource square gives. I don't remember that stuff (except for basics like grassland being better than plains, forests giving good production but little food, and whales being the best resource) and the game lets you check very easily.

Third, I would like to offer you some basic information and rebut some of the things you said. The AI does NOT often give the best assignment of citizens to squares in my opinion. The AI value cares far too much about food, when production is often more important early on. In the beginning stages of the game you need to pump out warriors quickly so you can explore very fast. I generally try to have my capital grow in 20 turns and produce 2 warriors and 1 settlers by that time rather than grow in 15 turns and still be working on the settler till turn 20. So if you have a choice to boost your production a bit early do so, you need warriors going in all directions. Furthermore, by the time you have 3 cities or so, you NEED to get some trade from somewhere so you can develop a quick science lead and it's worth sacrificing a bit of food or production to do this.

Here is my way to win freeciv, as you said there are many ways to win and this is just mine:

1) The big ideas: Population = Power, Peace = War, AI = Dumb

It's important to know how you plan to play the game, don't just make random decisions that make sense at the time, have a goal and a grand strategy.

The way I play is to try to have both more and bigger cities than the Ai, which gives me more science, production, wonders, units, money, and chance of winning. Therefore, Population = Power.

Since I know I can crush any opposition as long as I have a much greater population, I don't try to fight and start wars early when I don't have an advantage. War is expensive, gets your explorers killed, and has about a 0% chance of winning any cities early since the ai cities are always about size 1-2. I wage peace instead by signing a ceasefire, then aggressively expanding into territory the enemy might want, standing units on their resource squares, taking their goody huts, and generally being a nonviolent nuisance. It is easy and cheap to do this to all ai players at once, whereas a war is expensive on even one front.

The AI doesn't know that it faces a relentless and subtle threat from human players, ai civs don't try to expand fast and don't team up effectively or develop science quickly. They do however know how to fight early wars and defend cities. So don't try to fight them at things they are good at, just get a massive technology gap going and out expand them.

2) Tactics I Use:

• My primary research goal is to tech to republic ASAP. This means my technology goes alphabet, writing, code of laws, literacy, republic. I'm always glad to get horseback riding, ceremonial burial, and bronze working from goody huts and trades, but they can wait till republic. Republic is probably the best early game government because you get incredible money, science, and growth and can still defend cities.

• Expand, expand, expand. Get your first city down immediately, or within the second turn if there's a great resource square nearby. Get as much production as you can while still growing your city within 20 turns. Build warriors until your city will grow before you finish settlers, at which point make settlers. Do not fortify your warriors, just rush them off in different directions and snag every goody hut you can. Your settlers should finish as close to immediately after your city grows to size 2 as possible, consider paying to finish it. Send them toward the best square your explorers discovered and make a city there (Try to have your cities close together but not overlap on anything important). Have your first city go back to warriors till it can expand again. Have the second city do likewise. In fact, have every city you make do that until it is ringed in by cities or terrible terrain on all sides. The frontiers of your empire should keep expanding, but the interior can now start making basic improvements like temples. Once a couple of cities on the interior reach about size 3, get a couple of settlers to make irrigation, roads, and mines. With such improvements, start with important squares (The ones actually being used) rather than long term projects like roads between all cities. Those can wait a bit. Once you have Republic, try to get monotheism as your next goal and build Michelangelo's chapel as fast as possible while your other cities get their temples down. The instant you have a lot of cities of size 3-5 and lots of temples/the chapel done set your luxuries to 40-60% and watch them grow to size 6-8. This pretty much means you win since your population will soon equal that of all other civs combined since you now have the most cities and the biggest cities. Keep expanding though and when you get a lot of 3-5s again, or have aqueducts in the size 8s, get your luxuries back to 40-60% again.

• Aggressive Peace. Early wars of conquest are nearly impossible to win, unless you were really lucky and got 4 chariots in one small area. So don't wage war. When you meet an AI player, you usually encounter a size 1 undefended city first. They will ask you for a ceasefire. Put it off for 1 turn to destroy the weak city if applicable. Then sign the ceasefire. You just won a battle without a war. Now comes the fun part. Explore through their lands with 2-3 units, take their goody huts, stand on that wheat square they were using. Laugh at the stupidity that makes them stick to the treaty while you crush them without firing a shot. Don't break the ceasefire though. It's virtually impossible to capture an early city without destroying it, and destroyed cities are worthless.

• Defense. While early on I don't fortify anything because I need to explore, once you have about 4 cities you should fortify a warrior in each. Once you get Bronze Working (After Republic and Ceremonial Burial, but before teching to monotheism assuming you discover nothing in huts) then build 1-2 phalanxes in every new city. 2 Phalanxes are basically invincible early in the game, and will even hold out against musketeers if you have city walls and a barracks (And if you play right, you can have tanks before the enemy even gets riflemen). There is usually no need to fortify anything but the city square itself early game, your exploring units will warn you of any impending danger. Later on though, establishing a zone of control and maybe a fortress or two somewhere important is good.

• Offense. Just don't. Unless you get horseback riding free and find out you have several high production cities near the enemy, don't even try an early offensive war. In that case though, horsemen are excellent in the pre-phalanx days and if you get about 6 of them you can usually take down 2-3 very small cities, crippling the enemy for about 500 years and giving you access to what used to be their territory.

• Important Improvements. Warriors and settlers are all that matters very early if you are going to use Republic Rapture to get your growth. Have your interior cities build some temples before that though, and get a really high production city or 2 for the michelangelo's chapel and maybe 2 other wonders early. The novice and easy AIs suck at getting wonders.

• Mid Game. Ok, that was the early stuff. Assuming everything went well you now have about 20 cities and growing, 6-8 of which are probably size 6-8 and the rest of which are still getting settlers and phalanxes out but will be ready for Rapture growth of their own within a century. At this point your goals should be: 1) try to have control of more than 1/4 of the map (Against 4-5 opponents. Against 1 Opponent you probably want more than half) 2) Get about 30 cities highly functional cities, even more if you can still expand without war. 3) Dramatically out science-your opponents 4) Make internal improvements like widespread irrigation, roads/railroads, and selective mining. 5) Develop many wonders and making many internal improvements particularly those related to happiness, trade, science, and aqueducts for the size 7-8s. 6) Get the important techs like democracy, explosives, espionage, gunpowder, sanitation, and industrialization 7) Avoid wars, but minor skirmishes are now ok to keep enemies weak. 8) Prepare for a second wave of massive growth, leading to invincibility.

• Late Game. The Mid Game goals are usually pretty easy if the early game went well. Your civ is now the envy of the world, with staggering population, science, good defenses, roaring economy, and high happiness. Now it's time to either sit back and build a spaceship or go for world domination. If the former then: 1) Tighten your defenses. Put Riflemen or better in border cities, have spies in your cities, build some fortresses to guard against enemy approach. 2) Switch to democracy fast. 3) Do the second wave of massive growth while making lots of improvements and wonders, just make sure your cities can grow and crank up the luxuries. Try to get lots of cities to 12-16, though you can go further. 4) Get your discovery rate very fast and speed through the technologies toward tanks, battleships, and space. 5) If you must or want to wage war, have a quasi-war with legions of spies. Buy enemy cities with your vast hoard of money, sabotage their improvements, poison the water supply, whatever you want. 6) Defend against the inevitable wave of attacks. The ai will team up but they will suck and if your technology is better you will flatten them.

I'm not very good at world domination compared to spacerace, but tanks are a must have and fundamentalist government owns once you have tanks.

• The Oceans. I almost forgot to mention this. I usually play on maps with mostly land, but if you play with oceans then you will need to establish control of the seas with superior naval technology.

That's how I play anyway, try it out.

Xanthophyll 07:07, February 22, 2010 (UTC)Xanthophyll