Picked up BtS recently after purchasing Civ IV about a month ago. I was getting comfortable winning consistently on Noble with Domination (vs. 6-7 other Civs). Never was huge about culture. Beyond the Sword is a much different beast and I was wondering if you guys had any tips. This is what I've picked up reading the Civ 4 fanatics forum (reading through Aelf's threads and the discussion that takes place) and through some practice. I don't know if they're correct, but it's what I've picked up on.
-Attack early. Normally I'll go to war before 3000BC comes around and wipe out at least one of my neighboring civs. Especially if someone like Saladin, Napoleon, or Charlemange is next to me. Sometimes the neighboring Civs dont have anybody in their cities and I'll just walk in and capture them.
-Build up cottages early. They become a huge economy booster for me later on in the game, especially after Printing Press.
-Chop axeman. I'll use axeman typically for my second raid and chop out a bunch of them. With barracks, I'll typically use the +25% to archers upgrade because it's still early game and while +20% to city attack is nice, I get better odds because of the archers. It's a decent amount of time until I get up to 5 xp for the +25% city attack. They typically won't have any units except archers guarding the city at this time.
-Fat cross technique. 3-555-3.
-The Great Wall. I don't know if I really should be doing this, but I'll always chop rush the Great Wall wonder to avoid having to worry about Barbs.
-Expand, Expand, Expand. I don't like doing this, but it seems I have to. Earlier on, while I had 3 good cities going and a higher research rate (80-90%), it seems like all the AIs have 7 or more cities with really crappy research rates (40%). While production is good for me, because of all the cities they pump out a lot of archers for city defense and if I don't attack early enough, I have to wait until I have Construction for the catapults. Otherwise my Axe's get shredded.
-Rushing to my UU. I'll typically play civs with early UU (Caesar, the Vikings, etc). The only thing is, I still lose some effectiveness on these units because of the city defense and having to wait for catapults and trebuchets.
-Disregarding religion early on and focusing on the rush to Liberalism.
I haven't dealt with specialized cites at all (Commerce, Culture, Production) and really don't have a game plan on getting Great People (Generals I'll build their academy or get the +XP in the city, Spies I'll infiltrate).
So if anybody has some pointers for BtS they've picked up for a newbie like me, or corrections on what I've written here, it'd be a great help. I'm slowly sifting through the Fanatics forum, but it's just a hefty task in reading all that stuff.
-Attack early. Normally I'll go to war before 3000BC comes around and wipe out at least one of my neighboring civs. Especially if someone like Saladin, Napoleon, or Charlemange is next to me. Sometimes the neighboring Civs dont have anybody in their cities and I'll just walk in and capture them.
-Build up cottages early. They become a huge economy booster for me later on in the game, especially after Printing Press.
-Chop axeman. I'll use axeman typically for my second raid and chop out a bunch of them. With barracks, I'll typically use the +25% to archers upgrade because it's still early game and while +20% to city attack is nice, I get better odds because of the archers. It's a decent amount of time until I get up to 5 xp for the +25% city attack. They typically won't have any units except archers guarding the city at this time.
-Fat cross technique. 3-555-3.
-The Great Wall. I don't know if I really should be doing this, but I'll always chop rush the Great Wall wonder to avoid having to worry about Barbs.
-Expand, Expand, Expand. I don't like doing this, but it seems I have to. Earlier on, while I had 3 good cities going and a higher research rate (80-90%), it seems like all the AIs have 7 or more cities with really crappy research rates (40%). While production is good for me, because of all the cities they pump out a lot of archers for city defense and if I don't attack early enough, I have to wait until I have Construction for the catapults. Otherwise my Axe's get shredded.
-Rushing to my UU. I'll typically play civs with early UU (Caesar, the Vikings, etc). The only thing is, I still lose some effectiveness on these units because of the city defense and having to wait for catapults and trebuchets.
-Disregarding religion early on and focusing on the rush to Liberalism.
I haven't dealt with specialized cites at all (Commerce, Culture, Production) and really don't have a game plan on getting Great People (Generals I'll build their academy or get the +XP in the city, Spies I'll infiltrate).
So if anybody has some pointers for BtS they've picked up for a newbie like me, or corrections on what I've written here, it'd be a great help. I'm slowly sifting through the Fanatics forum, but it's just a hefty task in reading all that stuff.
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