BTS how do i win on warlord difficulty

[Ghetsis]

I always end up behind in tech, and losing money

[pmpdadypenguinmn]

I play on immortal and deity. Mostly immortal because deity is a real pain. If you are having trouble on warlord then you should watch some lets plays on youtube. Chris has the best.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Chris67132/playlists

This is a short guide I wrote up awhile ago. No strategy is perfect but hopefully this helps. If you really wish to get better then its always a good idea to watch a few lets plays. Watch Chris's videos

the key is the early game. You need to be on point in everything that you do. First and foremost, destroying your closest neighbor. I suggest playing as the Inca. The quecha's are cheap, are available from the first turn and eat through archers. Find your closest neighbor and take him out. That's 2-3 free cities taken for you and twice as much area to settle. Have one city churn out military units. It needs a granary and a barracks, nothing else. And you can skip the granary. Maybe a monument. (Stonehenge is awesome) It should be your highest production city that's NOT your capital. Your capital you grow as tall as possible and churn out great people and wonders with. Build a barracks in your military city and load the queue with axemen. Just let it keep producing. Dont forget to get a few spearmen. Shore up your front line. Once a second city has a library with good production, give it a barracks, have it do the same. For techs obviously bronze working, pottery and writing. If you can get the oracle and don't have stone to get the pyramids then I would grab monarchy with it and trade it for alphabet once another civs got it. Start growing your cities tall and then start teching currency. Currency fixes your economy and lets you grow beyond 4-5 cities. Once you get currency go for aesthetics and literature. Go for the boosted great people wonder and the great library in the capitol. Once you get a library in your capitol, turn two citizens into scientists, between that and the great library, that's 4 scientists in your capitol. Settle the great scientists in your best science cities when you get them. Capitol first. By now others should have mathematics, trade for it. Then either tech or trade for construction and get catapults. Now you have proper defense. Have your production city start building catapults. You use them for defense when the enemy comes. give them an extra first strike. When the large stacks come now you just hit them with a few catapults to weaken them, and clean up with your other troops. Makes it possible to destroy 75 troops with just 40. Dont leave the forests next to your cities. Makes it impossible to destroy the enemy stack. Next make a beeline for trebuchets. Trebs you want attacking cities, catapults are more for defense but you can use them for offense as well, just give them city raider instead. Once you have trebs you need alot and should start thinking about a target. This should be someone worthy of being a vassal. The AI, on higher difficulties gets boosts, and taking on 7 cities, where two are good and the rest mediocre aren't great for you but if you take 4 of his cities, get him to vassal to you and keep the good ones and give him back the crappy ones, he can make better use of the bad cities because of his bonuses, and can help you tech.

Your next tech should be going for feudalism, while you attack your next target. you can begin assaulting with less than ten trebs or catapults, and ten axemen. Always bring a couple spearmen. You should have already planned out an attack. Stand on a defense tile such as a forest or hill whenenever you can. And head for his capitol. But who's? You should be going after the biggest immediate threat. If shaka is next door and is in another religion, stacking troops at the edge of his territory, and making demands that you are refusing, he's going to attack soon. Dont attack the dutch because they are further ahead in tech and larger and would make a better vassal because shaka will attack from the other direction. Go after shaka first. Take his capitol and a few cities. you should get feudalism before everyone else. Vassal shaka. Give him back any cities you dont really want. High production cities, keep. You should have at least two new good cities from your conquest and a vassal. ALWAYS tell him what to research so you can trade with him, also, a vassal cant kill your spies. So if you have a good techer as a vassal, you can put all your spy points on him and just grab technologies from him. Especially nice if you have a great spy and have the 100% bonus. You should have gone for some good production cities. Make sure they have a barracks. And start cranking out units. You should have 4 military production cities now, or 3 at the least. Fix your economy, heal units. Continue building your stack. Once you have a good number, go after your next target. They should have a border with your vassal if possible, so he is fighting on two fronts. Don't declare war unless you are certain you can take out his stack. By now you should have had open borders for a little while and an old unit wandering his territory to find his army. I like to find a city that's not on a hill but has a hill right next to it. I perch on the hill and destroy all the units in the city, then take the city with my horses and leave immediately. Let the AI reinforce the city with his stack, and then wipe it out. If its a city that you actually want to keep dont take and retake it more than once. otherwise it'll destroy the town. Take it and leave, destroy the ones who retake it, then destroy all the units down to the last one until you're relatively certain you've gotten most of his stack. This I've found is the best way to get rid of a stack without the worry of him slamming all of his units against yours and wiping you out. If there isnt a city like that at the edge of his territory then improvise.

You dont want your next target to suddenly vassal to another AI so get his capitol as quickly as possible. They never capitulate if they still have their original capitol. Don't worry if your vassal steals a city, especially if its right in the middle of the ones you just took, it will flip to you eventually. Try to bribe other AI's into not trading with him if you can reasonably, or switch them into a religion that's not his. Any way you can you want to prevent him from vassalling to another civ. Then his new master will declare war on you. It can be bad especially if they border you, declare war, and your army is on the other side of the map. When he seems close to giving up. You can beg for gold. Ask the other AI's on the continent for 1 gold, for help. It will prevent them from declaring war for ten turns. That means your enemy can't vassal to him for ten turns. So hurry and finish him off.

Once that's done you either keep on rolling or stop and build. That really depends on the tech level of the next biggest guy on the continent. If you've taken half the continent, but while you've done that. Gilgamesh has taken the other half. And you both have two vassals. That's alot of troops he's gonna throw your way. It really depends if he's ahead in tech and what your army looks like. If you have a ♥♥♥♥ ton of troops still and Gilgamesh looks soft and isn't ahead of you in tech. I say just keep rolling, But build a second stack first, Because you will need two armies unless his vassals are on the other side of his territory and aren't anywhere near you. Then one will do it. But his vassals will still send the armies so expect several stacks of troops heading your way. If he looks strong and you don't think you can take him. Then make a beeline for cannons. Stop military production, build libraries in your military production cities. universities and what not. Once you get cannons get rifling. Begin upgrading the trebs to cannons. If he's not ahead in tech then I say stop teching a few turns and upgrade all the trebs to cannons and attack. If he's got cavalry and alot of it. You need to wait for rifling. Once you have cannons and rifles. Stop teching, stop building. go into full military production. Switch civics into war production. Burn a golden age if you can so you dont lose turns. police state, vassalage, theocracy. Theocracy isn't necessary and my last major war I actually stayed in pacifism for the great people. But if you have alot of cities without barracks then its quite nice. Just have all cities crank out military units. Once you have all your old units upgraded turn the tech slider back up and begin attacking when you are ready. If you can't wipe the continent with rifles and cannons then I dont know how you made it this far to begin with. I like to play on marathon, on huge continents maps. So once I wipe 9 civs off the continent, I've gotta go after the next continent.


I recommend going corporations instead of state property. and I prefer creative commons and cereal mills. Because then you can get civilized jewelers which is amazing once you have spread all three. Don't forget to settle the great people in your wall street city. If you can manage to get these three then you shouldn't have any problem producing the tech needed to get to stealth bombers and mech infantry relatively quickly. Cereal Mills is amazing with Representation. +15 food in a city means lots of specialists in every city. If you are this far in the game and still have land to conquer (I also only play with conquer as the only path to victory), corporations will get you there.


This strategy works on immortal. So you should wreck it on lower difficulties.

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Sounds like finances are your biggest problem. You might want to build more cottages (especially on grassland and floodplains), connect your cities better for trade routes, and research economy-based techs early. If you're putting too much focus into military then your economy can suffer - constant warmongers will often fall behind technologically.

Also, try to balance building new cities with the city maintenance cost that they'll incur. Researching Code of Laws early for courthouses and building them quickly in new cities can help with this a LOT.

[CHE]

I suggest you play the tutorial, which is in the original Civilization 4 game (not in Warlords nor BTS). I'm guessing you might have missed some knowledge that was contained in that tutorial.

I also suggest you look at the game manuals, which are available in PDF form on the internet (the links to them are on the Steam store pages for the Civ 4 games). I also suggest you use the in-game Civiliopedia to learn abut aspects of teh game that you want to understand more.

I don't attack other civs unless they are big civs that are already attacking little civs (most of my wars start when another civ attacks me).

I also never use slavery, but I do fine on Noble level (the one closest to equality between AI and human players). I keep my population and happiness instead.

I use other ways to win. E.g. I try to found cities on coastlines and rivers, in forested areas, and with resources nearby. Food resources are useful not only for growing cities fast, but also for producing worker units and settlers fast. Gold, silver and gems are very useful for getting money early in the game - this enables a constant ability to research technology faster.

To produce buildings and units in cities fast, I chop down forests in the 8 squares directly next to my cities (I generally leave forests in the 12 squares of each city, to work those squares with my city - especially useful with lumbermills and railroads, later in the game - and/or for the National Park national wonder and environmental civic that gives bonuses from forests and jungles).

Clearing the 8 squares next to my cities also has the benefit of allowing no +50% defensive bonus to enemy units next to my cities. One of my methods for winning wars is fortifying in a defensive position (which gives many unit types a bonus, especially in cities, in forests, jungles, on hills, across rivers and/or defending a coastline from amphibious assault). Once my enemy has attacked my defensive position, I often then attack their remaining forces.

I produce granaries and barracks when I see a benefit.

I open borders with many civs, which allows trade and thus increases my income.

I trade technology with civs (mainly with those who I want to help and become allies with, generally smaller, weaker civs), and by trading with many, I often get ahead of most or all of the world in technology.

[red255]

Hi.

Walls of text aren't needed to explain how to win on Warlord.

Warlord you just make scouts, find some goody huts, get a free settler early and make a second city near your capitol. you'll probably win with that much of a lead.

FInace wise stop making cities if you fall below 60% with profit, try to get some gold from goody huts and such to tide you over. If you find stone you can ALMOST make the pyramids, when a rival makes it you get paid cash which can keep you liquid.

Really just need cottages though, ideally on a flood plains river adjacent city, fill those up with cottages and it should keep you in funds. grass land gems. that sort of thing. Try to get enough happy and clean to have larger cities. Courthouses, and currency also help. but those are later.

But you are just choking on that early part where you expand your empire without a way to pay for it. hence research cottages and wait for them to grow enough that you can expand without going below 60% Research. Also you can do things with religions and great priests. Also you can research writing and then finish the oracle to get out code of laws early for the courthouses.

you should be fine with that on Warlord. Trying to be brief, I don't want to wall of text you.

[Purplefairy22]

My input would be.

Don't try to research everything.
Don't try to build everything.

Long term plans are fine to have but use the mentality of "What can i do now? I could be dead next turn".

Are you familiar with binary research?
Turn your tech slider to 0% and tell all cities to "Build wealth" for one turn.

1. Alt + left click on a city (this selects all cities)
2. Ctrl + build wealth (makes all cities build wealth)

Then push the slider to 100% until all the money runs out. (select all cities again, and if you click the "build wealth" on the cities build que it will cancel, meaning you'll be building what you were earlier)

This seems counter intuitive but mathematically you'll gain more beakers over a period of say 10 turns than if you stayed at 70%.

[red255]

gonna have to see your math there
actually no.

Its not counter intuitive, you are building wealth instead of building ..buildings. so you are sacrifcing your hammer to stay solvent. thats very ... well its very desperate.

as I mentioned build the pyramids with access to stone, but stop before it completes and get the cash. thats basically building wealth before currency with a 100% bonus.

Once you get to the point you were at. You've got currency. yeah you'l get more beakers because you are sacrificing your hammers for beakers, but the hammers get bonuses from Forge and whatnot. and hammers are generally more valuable than other things.

But I agree with the tactic in the early game, using the pyramids or some other wonder you don't want.

[Purplefairy22]

Why, oh why, Would you delibrately fail a wonder? What a waste of time and resources

You could of built more workers; to improve more land quicker or set up trade routes.
Built a settler to expand.
You could build troops; to pillage a neighbour or expand.
Build libraries and Pushed great people.
Build a wonder that would actually help you.
Built archers in preperation for Hereditary Rule.
Spread a religion.
Build research.
Anything would be better than nothing.

[red255]

Because its the same as producing wealth, except you get a +100% bonus for access to stone.

so its twice as good as what you just suggested. and it doesn't require you to have the mid-game tech of currency.

[Purplefairy22]

Its very gambit specific. what if you don't have stone?

early game wealth isn't that important, cottages grow and more cities = more workable tiles.
You can also trade for early techs you missed.

Currancy midgame? what the hell are you doing?

[red255]

Originally posted by Chris:

Currancy midgame? what the hell are you doing?

Winning the game. Look the game is over the moment I have my army and nobody's stopped me, it just might take some time to get all the ink dry on the capitulation agreements.

Currency is mid-game. I can go check, I do marathon, game ends around turn 800-1000 range technically but its all over but the crying turn 600 or so.

"Its very gambit specific. what if you don't have stone?"

Build it without the bonus or build a different wonder. Or manage your economy in a different manner. Look its a toy in your bag. deliberately failing a wonder for the coin influx prior to researching currency.

which is in my book a mid-game tech, because its over pretty shortly thereafter.

[duck511]

Use the World editor.
;)

[d!NO]

Originally posted by pmpdadypenguinmn:

I play on immortal and deity. Mostly immortal because deity is a real pain. If you are having trouble on warlord then you should watch some lets plays on youtube. Chris has the best.

I've watched Chris a lot and he's a superb player. But the way he plays, and well, the general method of any Deity win -- is having super-niched, borderline exploit strategies. I've won on Deity several times myself but it's simply not fulfilling in the same way because you're forced to abuse AI's poor tech trades for slinging or similar.

Also his map settings clearly benefit human players, and afaik Chris doesn't play with K-Mod - vanilla BTS AI is horrible at warfare tactics. Immortal is infinitely better balanced, and then you can tweak difficulty by adjusting the map (I prefer a lot tighter maps with no tech trading).

I really don't mean to dismiss Chris' skill because I learned more from his videos than any others - but to me the way he (and many others) beat higher difficulties is about as exciting as just entering world builder right away lol.