Jeremy E. Sarber

Civilization IV Strategy and Tips: General Early/Mid Game

Jeremy Sarber — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:47:30 +0000

Cities, military units, and civics all have associated maintenance costs, cities especially. Having a large number of cities is very expensive, especially early in the game. To deal with early city maintenance costs, limit the number of early cities you build (usually 4 to 6). Or, build cities until research must fall to 60% in order to maintain a budget surplus (which usually happens once you’ve built—you guessed it—4 to 6 cities). Later in the game, don’t expand (build or capture cities) until and unless your research level is at 60% or higher.

Civics changes result in one or more turns of anarchy, during which your civilization makes no progress—no research, no building, and so on. Excessive civics changes can therefore put you behind the other civilizations, especially those with the Spiritual trait that do not experience anarchy. (In Beyond the Sword, you can change civics without experiencing anarchy during a golden age.)

Workers are vital units that improve tiles, build roads, chop forests, and so on. Without them, your civilization will stagnate. A good rule of thumb is to try to have approximately 1.5 workers per city. If you have four cities, for example, you should have about six workers. Workers should prioritize tiles with resources first, as these provide the highest yields and, often, additional benefits as well (such as increased happiness or health). Remember that a road is almost always required on the resource tile to make the resource available to your civilization.

After resources, focus on improving tiles that a city’s citizens are working but that are unimproved. Forests can be chopped to provide production points (“hammers”). Have your workers chop down forests to accelerate production of the units/improvements/wonders you need. Do not set workers to auto-improve: they tend to build too may farms and not enough cottages, among other things. You’ll be better off if you manage the workers yourself. If you still want to automate workers, consider turning on “Automated workers leave existing improvements” and “Automated workers do not chop forests” in Game Options. You can assign more than one worker to implement the same tile improvement on the same tile. This will speed the completion of the tile improvement.

The most important early resources are: copper, horses, and iron (for military); stone and marble (for Wonders); and gold, silver, and gems (for your economy and happiness). The best initial city build orders involve Workers, Warriors, and Settlers. Any of these could be your first build in the city, for varying reasons and uses:

Worker: The Worker can chop forests to rush completion of other builds (once you’ve discovered Bronze Working). As noted above, they are also essential to improve tiles around your cities.
Warrior: Many players prefer to build a Warrior (or Scout, if you start with Hunting) first, timing the build by changing the tile worked by the capital’s first citizen so that the unit is finished on the same turn that the city grows to size 2. The Warrior then joins your initial unit in exploring the map, while the next build (usually a Worker) is completed faster because you have two citizens working tiles, not just one. A Warrior can also escort and protect Workers and Settlers on the way to a new city site; once there, the Warrior in turn becomes the new city’s first defender.
Settler: Building a Settler first allows you to have a second city in place very early in the game. However, you should research a tech that reveals a strategic resource (such as Animal Husbandry for horses or Bronze Working for copper) to determine where this city should be located.

The best initial tech research paths vary, but Bronze Working is generally one of the most valuable early technologies and should be a priority, if not your top priority. This is because it (a) reveals the locations of copper on the map, which can be used to build Axemen, a powerful early military unit; (b) grants you the ability to chop forests to accelerate production; and (c) enables access to the Slavery civic, which allows you to sacrifice population to accelerate production. Other valuable early techs are the “worker techs” (such as Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, The Wheel, Mining, Pottery, Fishing, Masonry, and Hunting) which allow you to improve tiles around your cities.

The best early military unit is the Axeman; Chariots are also useful because they are relatively cheap. Others are Unique Units (UUs) of Civs with an early one (Rome, Inca, Aztec, Mali, Mongolia, Persia; Carthage, the Celts, the Zulus; Maya, Native America, and Sumer.)

Once you discover Pottery, have your Workers create several cottage tile improvements to generate commerce. This is known as “cottage spam”. Best tiles for cottages: grasslands (especially beside rivers) and flood plains. Note: A cottage tile must have a citizen assigned to work it in order for the cottage’s revenue to increase. To assign citizens to work specific tiles, go into the city screen (double-click on the city). Each tile surrounded by a white circle has a citizen assigned to work it. Click on a white-circled tile to remove the citizen from that tile, then click on a different (non-circled) tile to re-assign that citizen. Obviously, the more citizens a city has, the more tiles it can work and the more food, hammers, and commerce it can produce.

Each city has a maintenance cost that detracts from the commerce it can contribute back to your civilization. Maintenance costs grow with the population of the city. They also higher the further the city is from your capital (unless you’re running the State Property civic). Build courthouses, which reduce maintenance by 50%. Build the Forbidden Palace national wonder and Versailles world wonder, which act as second capitals. Ensure that you build them a good distance from your capital to increase their effectiveness. Increase the amount of commerce produced by the city through the following means:

Cottages and/or merchant specialists.
Commerce/trade route multipliers such as banks, markets, grocers, harbors, and customs houses.
Technologies such as Sailing, Currency, and Corporation, which increase the revenue and/or number of trade routes, and Printing Press, which increases the yield from cottages.
Run lower-cost civics, or those that increase commerce (such as Free Speech) or reduce city maintenance (State Property).

Fair Tax on Freedoms Wings Thursday

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:57:21 +0000

“Marc Bohemier joins me in the first hour to discuss the Fair Tax. What is the Fair Tax? How is it different from a flat tax? What benefits are there to a fair tax? Is it possible to change to a Fair Tax? Plus any of your questions. The second hour will be the regular conservative libertarian irreverent commentary on the current events in news and politics.” – Freedom’s Wings

Are Teachers Paid Enough?

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:55:12 +0000

“How often do you hear people rail against the sports figures who make millions while our teachers – our teachers! – struggle to get by. I hear it more than I care to remember. Athletes are paid what the market will bear. If Americans decide to stop watching sports, and paying for game tickets and merchandise, the salaries of professional athletes will be reduced accordingly. For the most part, our tax dollars do not fund the salaries or pensions of professional athletes.” – The Lonely Conservative

Redirect Wordpress Pages and Posts

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:37:28 +0000

There may not be many cases in which you would need to redirect pages and posts of your Wordpress site to new pages or sites, but occasionally there does come a need. For instance, I was looking to do this very thing yesterday. If you’ve noticed my new homepage, I have what is called “Asides (Notes, Blurbs & Such)”. I create these notes by publishing a new post in a specific category that is designed to display only on the homepage. But let’s say I link one of those notes to another site and a trackback link is posted on their site. In other words, their visitors have a back-door way of getting to that post. You may not understand why, but I don’t want them to be able to do that since those posts are not intended to be anything more than notes on the homepage (sort of like a Twitter or Facebook status but longer).

One of the great advantages of Wordpress is the number of plugins available. I did try out a number of redirect plugins but none could compete with the one I am using now. It’s called the Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin by Fischer Creative Media. It’s very much plug-and-play. You download it, install, and you’re set. Then on every page/post edit screen, you will see a new box that looks something like this:

It’s just that simple to use. You turn on the redirect, type the address you want to redirect to, and choose the type of redirect (temporary, permanent, etc.). Want to see it in action? Trying visiting one of those aside posts I was telling you. Here’s one: http://jeremysarber.com/2010/03/11/does-pelosi-have-the-votes/ (You’ll be redirected to my homepage.)

More information on the plugin and download link can be found on the Fischer website or by searching “Quick Redirect Plugin” in the Wordpress plugins gallery.

Your Help Is Needed

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:17:14 +0000

“…we’re getting ready for this year’s migrant worker clinics. These free clinics are sponsored by local non-profits like SEGCP and with the help of local businesses and schools. These on-site clinics provide health care, health education, and quality of life items to poor migrant workers who might not otherwise receive important medical care. Often, these migrant workers end up in emergency rooms because of medical problems that could easily be treated or prevented by clinics like these; these clinics aim to prevent that. However, we need your help to do it.” – Ric Stewart

Does Pelosi Have the Votes?

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:13:22 +0000

Nancy Pelosi said she believed the House would end up having the votes to approve healthcare. Really? Then why does she need the “Slaughter Solution”? Read more at Big Government.

Superman’s New Beginning?

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:45:34 +0000

I have been anxiously waiting for the day when they would make my favorite comic hero, Superman, into a really great movie. If you ask me, Superman Returns was not a really great movie. On the other hand, the new Batman movies are really great. So what if the creator of those movies made a new Superman movie? He is! Read the Movie Talk Interview with Christopher Nolan.

Change the Conversation (Mini-Sermon #0001)

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:15:27 +0000

Conservative talk show host, Rick Hansen, approached me a few weeks ago about recording a segment for his weekly show, USActivist with Rick Hansen. He asked me, as a church pastor, to prepare a sort of mini-sermon that he could play during his show. He wrote to me, “Is there a possibility that you could provide me with a 1-2 minute weekly audio clip for a weekly devotional segment? As we change the conversation in America, I believe God needs to be a central point in the discussion.”

How could I say no? So, I agreed and here is the segment from this past Saturday’s show:

Sermon Notes

And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. – Ephesians 5:2

He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. – Proverbs 18:13

A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself. – Proverbs 18:2

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: – James 1:19

The heart of the righteous studieth to answer: but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things. – Proverbs 15:28

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died…And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. – Romans 14:13-15, 23

The music you hear in the background is “io (This Time Around)” by Helen Stellar:

In case you’d like to hear Rick’s show in its entirety, have a listen:

Wednesdays with the Patriot Hour 61

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:18:58 +0000

Join Sir Malachi and General Rachel tonight on Wednesdays with the Patriot Hour. The show begins at 9:30 PM ET.

Give An Answer To Every Man

Jeremy Sarber — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:15:44 +0000

“But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.” – 1 Peter 3:14-16