jaron swartz's economic blog

Civ. Blog

2007-04-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

This week, I tried to win with a cultural victory. After looking at a website to see whom would be the best leader for a cultural victory. I decided to go with Ghandi, because of his spiritual history. I was given a great piece of advice, wherein I learned that in order to acheice a cultural victory, I needed to focus every single one of my moves on obtaining a greater culture.

Expansion is key in this game. I focused early on, on expanding rather quickly. However, I learned from past experience that rushing my expansion would lead to my demise, as I needed to give it time for my culture to build up. It was def. more advantageous of me to build my cities near a good food source, this would help to keep up with my growth. I focused less on making money, however, one of my cities did primarily specialize on commerce. Only one of my cities did this, though. This was really good for me in terms of technology.

Getting to how I used technology to my advantage, I realized that I needed to build up my civs. writing. I really just traded for most things after that however. There were certain periods throughout my game, though, that I needed to boost my technology in order to get neccessary improvements.

Now to religion. Seeing as my military was not the strongest, I knew that the best way to become friends with my neighbors was through religion. I did start my own religion, however I did this whilst keeping a few civs. by my side as good friends. At this point, however, I had some nations on my bad side for not excepting their own relgion as my own.

Although I was begining to build wonders, and even had a vast relgious base, I was defeated because of my weak military. Perhaps next time I can get my military and religion to be just as strong, or even connect.

march 21st post

2007-03-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

I realized one of the core elements of Civ. this week: population. The more people you have, the better chance you have for success. And success is exactly what I acheived this week, even though it did take some cheating along the way.

I made sure to build a worker on my first move. This would help in building my first city. I was met with no difficulty in having a worker unit, and continued to fortify my city. However, instead of waiting to build combat units, I actually put them into place rather early on. I immediatly placed improvements on these units. What I learned from playing this game is that if I do not have enough defense, I enemy will declare war on me without hesitation. Pretty true to life. Later on in the game, I would make a few cities as far away from the major civilizations as possible. These would be used to provide certain materials for my army, and since they are pretty far away, I do not have to worry about them being conquered.

After I had a good amount of soldiers, I focused alot on destroying the civ. closest to me. Usually, the civ. closest to me gives me the most problems. Also, I was given some great advice. Everytime anyone wants to trade with me, I always game them what they asked for. This was helpful in avoiding some wars. However, when asked for things to help improve scientifically, I refused.

I truely tried to focus alot of my development on creating two things: horses and iron. After acheving these two things, my fighting skills were much improved. Than, after taking some advice from a strategy guide, I placed all my emphasis on scientific development. While I did fall behind, a little, in terms of my defense, I gained much ground after I was able to produce University and observatories.

My biggest problem: GOLD. And the solution to my lack of gold? Cheats of course.

Civ. Blog

2007-02-28T17:27:00.000-08:00

Another week down, another great attempt at victory. This week, at least in terms of culture, I was valiant. I played as Great Britain. I was able to build my city pretty freely, whilst discovering areas with my scout. My main strategy was to move and build as many things at as fast a rate as possible. This, I thought, would work towards my advantage. My civ. was rather strong during this attempt, for I gained as much technology as possible. I was far ahead of neighboring civs., such as the Romans, who were both culturally and technologically inferior. Yet again, however, my resources were too limited. I tried as hard as I could do build graineries, mine, and find food. But, in the end, I barely had enough money to support my second city. This attempt taught me that having resources is obviously more important than having the material that follows. Victory in this game is feasible if resources are at all times available. Possibly, next attempt, I will place more workers in a position to gather more food, gold and other things that will make success much more possible.

civ. post

2007-02-22T07:28:00.000-08:00

My attempt at success this week was marked with, yet again, more failure. However, I learned more about the civ. 4 game, and developed a few strategy that have made success seem closer than ever before.

I began my civilization accordingly, building units and warriors, and focusing on getting my barraks arranged in order to ensure firm defense.Whilst building my defense, a little blurb popped up about religion. I than decided to switch my strategy from pure defense, to a more culturally centered attempt. I built my original city around my culture and religion. This city would later come to be dedicated my "holy city".

My workers and settlers were of importance to me this attempt. I made my worker, after doing many other tasks, go out and build some fields and pastures near my original city. This helped its growth emensely, and I move some settler to another region within my state to build another city.

I forgot to mention that I was playing as England during this attempt. At one point in time, a scout from neighboring Egypt stopped by my area, wherein I was brought into contact with Victoria. Here she offered me peace, and there was no other option but to accept.

I had two cities at this point. However, I have so much trouble being consistent with: A)keeping my citizens happy. B)having enough money to finance certain things, like building barracks and other things. C) Organizing my defense- which ties into having enough money.

My civ. was rather successful this time, however I could not "win" because I ran out of money. Maybe next time my attempt will result in success.