I was thinking of making an in-depth guide video like the cuirassier one but it would end up 30+ minutes long and take forever to compose (days/weeks) when I started to compose it, so I decided its not worth it and would rather do a let's play version with a TLDR at the start of some important things to note. Appreciate any feedback on the format of this video!
i mean you could have called this video like any of your other videos really Civ IV Immortal XX Saladin "The Engineering Guide"; that is the nature of this game and why we love it, you cant zoom zoom around that much really and skip turns in the recording and do all kinds fo sloppy shit. any of your other videos are already very in depth due to the high level of thought it requires on almost every move; sometimes a bit more, sometimes you play a bit faster. i found your additional explanations at the beginning very concise but as someone said below, maybe thats bcs i already knew most of the stuff anyway. regarding the setup i would have probably preferred a cooked map. your early game got carried a lot by the gold mine, and this is immortal anyway. you could just get anyone to roll a few maps and select a below average map. and we'll see how this one develops, but i would have probably opted for a continents map. bcs these are the two main problems in the engineering attack at least when i play: i can get out a medieval army and slay with it, but can i do it and fast enough without going broke on a poor commerce start? and if i have then slain an enemy or two, can i recover and before mansa musa has infantry? i love your content as always.
My first experience with this Sid Meier's work was Alpha Centauri. It got to the point where even on Transcend difficulty, by 50 turns in I"d know I've already won. I moved on Civ 4, and it felt like everything I knew previously meant nothing, and I still can't get past Prince. Glad to see peoples still out there explaining the mechanics.
I loved Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire, but the AI in that game is not nearly as good as in the Civ games. Partly because it just doesn't cheat well like emperor+ AIs do in Civ, but also they are way too easy to exploit, much moreso than Civ. you can do crazy things with supply crawlers, satellites, even base(city trading) that you can't do in civ, and the AI can't handle that. Tech trading also benefits the human player much more than AI in SMAC, which is the opposite I htink in Civ games.
There is Engineering rush missed. This one is extremely specific. If you get stone, rush The Pyramids. This should allow you to produce two Great Engineers. This is insanely synergenic with Sitting Bull due to Phylisophical (quicker great people) and buff archery units (totem pole). While producing the two Great Engineers you tech/trade for Metal Casting and then push to Construction. By the time you get Construction, you should be ready for a double bulb. The first bulb gets Machinery and the second bulb gets Engineering. In doing so, you are bulbing the most expensive techs for the rush. This gives you Crossbows (which are insane with Sitting Bull) and Pikemen. These are your defense against basically anything before Rifling and Military Tradition. To be fair, if you get lucky and get elephants, then you roll with that. Then you just go crazy with cats and trebs and everything falls.
sounds like option B the fishing skip with 2 bulbs just slightly different with engineers instead of scientists crossbows are ok but weak vs elephants and horse archers.
@@henrik9658 Correct. That is why this 100% requires teching Engineering to have pikes to defend against those. The key difference between the two is that because you are bulbing with engineers instead of scientists, you don't have to skip techs. That it, you can do the bulbing with engineers even if you have Fishing and Sailing teched. As such, while it 100% requires having stone, which makes it an unreliable strategy, it avoids the mental requirement to avoid specific techs. That means this could be done on coastal maps without hurting those coastal cities. If you ingore this, then it is definitely similar to B.
Heard you saying in the middle of the video that Engineering usually has a much better date than Cruissers. Though I'm finding they're really only about 100 years apart (4 to 5 turns). Like most games you get Cruissers between 500 & 700 AD, while Engineering about 400 to 600, right? Are those few turns worth it? considering that Cruissers are double the movement speed, hence they reach the cities much faster and don't waste turns bombarding
Depends on the map. Immortal cuirassier date tends to be later because you don't get many trades it's more like 800-1000ad. Deity you can get cuirassiers like 600ad consistently but you can get engineering at literally 100ad, see the shaka game, Zara game, etc, even the Genghis Khan one. Cuirassiers take many losses it can be hard against stronger opponents while the goal with engineering is a quick strike before enemy castles go up with minimal losses. In this map cuirassiers would not be good I think - my economy wasn't that great, the trading wouldn't be great and it'd happen a lot later like 1000ad
Love your videos and Discord content. Such a teacher! Amazing that you can play so much and still be as enthusiastic as if you're playing for the first time. Having said that, only a few minutes into this particular vid, I found it literally hard to watch. You were moving the mouse all over the tech tree very fast while you're talking, flashing all these techs and to me at least it was very distracting. I got the essential points but had to stop the vid several times to take in what you were trying to get across. So just...yeah... think about keeping off the mouse a bit more and focus on talking through it.
Why would settling on the gold at the start be crazy? I think it's the best spot by far. You get an extra hammer and an extra commerce for free and with low food, you'd struggle to work the gold anyway. This way you don't have to. A plains gold mine by a river in a low food start is the best possible scenario for settling on gold and makes it a very strong play. People tend to discount it off hand without realizing how strong it actually is.
Because you're destroying an 8 commerce tile to get +1 in the capital. 8 commerce doubles your early game research and really helps you get everything faster in the first 100 turns. Sure settling on gold might eventually be stronger long term, but working that high commerce tile helps you get your early techs and not go broke. Especially useful with saladins awful starting techs. There's more than enough food with a corn + cow in the capital, plus that gold can easily be shared to another city. Also you are going to hit happy cap eventually then you don't even need food so you can work the gold for a good while.
For some reason my comment keeps getting deleted but please google "settling on riverside gold" for a good analysis of the pros and cons. It's definitely better if you're financial though.
It's definitely an interesting idea, not as crazy as I stated, I think has more play in longer-term games like cuirassiers, or no tech trades (?), isolation, etc. For an engineering rush I think the 3 hammer + 8 commerce tile has more immediate benefit at the cost of the food, and helps for a quicker attack overall. I don't think my capital or 2nd city were hurting too much for food in this game. I also agree its much much more practical with financial to settle on the gold.
It’s not rare to see barbs behave like this archer did in my games. I play on huge maps so I see a lot of them. Sometimes they will march right through my land without causing me any problem. Only thing I can guess is they are moving to another barb city or … shrug
this game is fucked i blitzed my neighbor as rome on monarch. he had 4 cities i had 8. someone else wared me when my army was weakened from invading. I peaced the civ i blitz, regrouped and defended my empire. I started getting pretty strong. Peaced everyone. Then got warred again, after waring for a while, i realized the civ i blitz had curaisers when i had knights. Like what the fuck. How? How does he get ahead when i absolutely destroyed them. Its technology trading and brokering. I wasn't doing it enough. Tech trading is the one mechanic that makes civ 4 un fun. Otherwise it is one of the best civs. My empire ended up being 9 cities and the the civ i blitz was 4-5, they had terrible land but their score was like 50-100 more than mine. We were weakest in the game. Purely from technology they got ahead. I dont get tech trading it doesnt make sense on any level. Its some wack shit. I need to understand the mechanism cause it ruining my fun.
You can disable tech trading if you play via custom game, I somewhat agree it's pretty cringe especially when someone vassals and the master gifts them every tech for nothing.
seriously so cringe. He had cannons i had knights. like dude. you have 4 cities some in tundra get fked. so unfair. And they want my gunpowder for meditation like yeah ok, how am i supposed to make tech trading work for me lol. @@henrik9658
Written guide version
forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ4-bts-engineering-attack-guide.684800/
"rather than spamming cheesy horse archers or cuirassiers" haha made me laugh. This is great!
I was thinking of making an in-depth guide video like the cuirassier one but it would end up 30+ minutes long and take forever to compose (days/weeks) when I started to compose it, so I decided its not worth it and would rather do a let's play version with a TLDR at the start of some important things to note. Appreciate any feedback on the format of this video!
i mean you could have called this video like any of your other videos really Civ IV Immortal XX Saladin "The Engineering Guide"; that is the nature of this game and why we love it, you cant zoom zoom around that much really and skip turns in the recording and do all kinds fo sloppy shit. any of your other videos are already very in depth due to the high level of thought it requires on almost every move; sometimes a bit more, sometimes you play a bit faster.
i found your additional explanations at the beginning very concise but as someone said below, maybe thats bcs i already knew most of the stuff anyway.
regarding the setup i would have probably preferred a cooked map. your early game got carried a lot by the gold mine, and this is immortal anyway. you could just get anyone to roll a few maps and select a below average map.
and we'll see how this one develops, but i would have probably opted for a continents map. bcs these are the two main problems in the engineering attack at least when i play: i can get out a medieval army and slay with it, but can i do it and fast enough without going broke on a poor commerce start? and if i have then slain an enemy or two, can i recover and before mansa musa has infantry?
i love your content as always.
My first experience with this Sid Meier's work was Alpha Centauri. It got to the point where even on Transcend difficulty, by 50 turns in I"d know I've already won. I moved on Civ 4, and it felt like everything I knew previously meant nothing, and I still can't get past Prince. Glad to see peoples still out there explaining the mechanics.
I loved Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire, but the AI in that game is not nearly as good as in the Civ games. Partly because it just doesn't cheat well like emperor+ AIs do in Civ, but also they are way too easy to exploit, much moreso than Civ. you can do crazy things with supply crawlers, satellites, even base(city trading) that you can't do in civ, and the AI can't handle that. Tech trading also benefits the human player much more than AI in SMAC, which is the opposite I htink in Civ games.
I think transcend in SMAC is probably equivalent to Monarch in Civ 4.. maybe Prince even.
I don't know how many of your videos from the past I've seen recently, it's a pleasure to follow you now in the present :D
These are perfect for passing the time on a job site and then enjoying BTS after work haha
47:54 They probably lost most defenders in another barb city and then they try to reinforce that city. You somewhat often see the barbs do that.
good video i like the theory behind the strategys
Awesome video, so well explained. Thank you!
There is Engineering rush missed. This one is extremely specific. If you get stone, rush The Pyramids. This should allow you to produce two Great Engineers.
This is insanely synergenic with Sitting Bull due to Phylisophical (quicker great people) and buff archery units (totem pole). While producing the two Great Engineers you tech/trade for Metal Casting and then push to Construction. By the time you get Construction, you should be ready for a double bulb. The first bulb gets Machinery and the second bulb gets Engineering. In doing so, you are bulbing the most expensive techs for the rush. This gives you Crossbows (which are insane with Sitting Bull) and Pikemen. These are your defense against basically anything before Rifling and Military Tradition. To be fair, if you get lucky and get elephants, then you roll with that. Then you just go crazy with cats and trebs and everything falls.
sounds like option B the fishing skip with 2 bulbs just slightly different with engineers instead of scientists
crossbows are ok but weak vs elephants and horse archers.
@@henrik9658 Correct. That is why this 100% requires teching Engineering to have pikes to defend against those. The key difference between the two is that because you are bulbing with engineers instead of scientists, you don't have to skip techs. That it, you can do the bulbing with engineers even if you have Fishing and Sailing teched. As such, while it 100% requires having stone, which makes it an unreliable strategy, it avoids the mental requirement to avoid specific techs. That means this could be done on coastal maps without hurting those coastal cities. If you ingore this, then it is definitely similar to B.
@@winoodlesnoodles1984 yea it's a nice variant it's just very rare for me so I didn't bother to mention it. But yes engineer bulb can be good.
i feel like somewhere on the tube there is a similar strategy where Chris played as china and rushed cho-ko-nu with it...
@@yearnrommel711 I would believe that.
Welcome back!
2:19:28 "It's time to smash" Henrik 2023
yaa, it is time, tu smashh
Heard you saying in the middle of the video that Engineering usually has a much better date than Cruissers. Though I'm finding they're really only about 100 years apart (4 to 5 turns). Like most games you get Cruissers between 500 & 700 AD, while Engineering about 400 to 600, right?
Are those few turns worth it? considering that Cruissers are double the movement speed, hence they reach the cities much faster and don't waste turns bombarding
Depends on the map. Immortal cuirassier date tends to be later because you don't get many trades it's more like 800-1000ad.
Deity you can get cuirassiers like 600ad consistently but you can get engineering at literally 100ad, see the shaka game, Zara game, etc, even the Genghis Khan one. Cuirassiers take many losses it can be hard against stronger opponents while the goal with engineering is a quick strike before enemy castles go up with minimal losses.
In this map cuirassiers would not be good I think - my economy wasn't that great, the trading wouldn't be great and it'd happen a lot later like 1000ad
I think when you have 8-10 cities peacefully and need longer to build up is a more ideal scenario for cuirassiers.
Why never 1 pop whip? (I do not understand any of the whipping calculations)
Stacks up unhappiness real fast. Only gives 30 hammers. 2 pop is 60 hammers and takes long enough to regrow so the unhappiness cools off a bit
@@henrik9658 That's about as succinct an explanation you can make. Bully for you mate. Cheers!
Nice move on your capital to find an actual food source
Not sure if it’s a smart play but I like to make crossbows to promote to MGs. That way I can give them a variety of promotions.
yes I did that in always war with a friend, its very strong with city garrison promotions.
Love your videos and Discord content. Such a teacher! Amazing that you can play so much and still be as enthusiastic as if you're playing for the first time. Having said that, only a few minutes into this particular vid, I found it literally hard to watch. You were moving the mouse all over the tech tree very fast while you're talking, flashing all these techs and to me at least it was very distracting. I got the essential points but had to stop the vid several times to take in what you were trying to get across. So just...yeah... think about keeping off the mouse a bit more and focus on talking through it.
maybe reduce the speed a bit it might help, its just how I am, always moving my cursor around when im trying to talk. (Probs ADHD)
Agree with the enthusastic part. It looks so easy for him to be that I wouldn't be eager to make videos about it if I was him
I think the barbs think that they're am actual civ this game 50:30
Hey, the Madrassa isn't too bad in this situation. A few more culture per turn
yea and the faster golden age. it was quite handy
Why would settling on the gold at the start be crazy? I think it's the best spot by far. You get an extra hammer and an extra commerce for free and with low food, you'd struggle to work the gold anyway. This way you don't have to. A plains gold mine by a river in a low food start is the best possible scenario for settling on gold and makes it a very strong play. People tend to discount it off hand without realizing how strong it actually is.
Because you're destroying an 8 commerce tile to get +1 in the capital. 8 commerce doubles your early game research and really helps you get everything faster in the first 100 turns. Sure settling on gold might eventually be stronger long term, but working that high commerce tile helps you get your early techs and not go broke. Especially useful with saladins awful starting techs.
There's more than enough food with a corn + cow in the capital, plus that gold can easily be shared to another city. Also you are going to hit happy cap eventually then you don't even need food so you can work the gold for a good while.
For some reason my comment keeps getting deleted but please google "settling on riverside gold" for a good analysis of the pros and cons. It's definitely better if you're financial though.
It's definitely an interesting idea, not as crazy as I stated, I think has more play in longer-term games like cuirassiers, or no tech trades (?), isolation, etc.
For an engineering rush I think the 3 hammer + 8 commerce tile has more immediate benefit at the cost of the food, and helps for a quicker attack overall. I don't think my capital or 2nd city were hurting too much for food in this game. I also agree its much much more practical with financial to settle on the gold.
First
It’s not rare to see barbs behave like this archer did in my games. I play on huge maps so I see a lot of them. Sometimes they will march right through my land without causing me any problem. Only thing I can guess is they are moving to another barb city or … shrug
1:33:18 Asoka moment
this game is fucked i blitzed my neighbor as rome on monarch. he had 4 cities i had 8. someone else wared me when my army was weakened from invading. I peaced the civ i blitz, regrouped and defended my empire. I started getting pretty strong. Peaced everyone. Then got warred again, after waring for a while, i realized the civ i blitz had curaisers when i had knights. Like what the fuck. How? How does he get ahead when i absolutely destroyed them. Its technology trading and brokering. I wasn't doing it enough. Tech trading is the one mechanic that makes civ 4 un fun. Otherwise it is one of the best civs. My empire ended up being 9 cities and the the civ i blitz was 4-5, they had terrible land but their score was like 50-100 more than mine. We were weakest in the game. Purely from technology they got ahead. I dont get tech trading it doesnt make sense on any level. Its some wack shit. I need to understand the mechanism cause it ruining my fun.
You can disable tech trading if you play via custom game, I somewhat agree it's pretty cringe especially when someone vassals and the master gifts them every tech for nothing.
seriously so cringe. He had cannons i had knights. like dude. you have 4 cities some in tundra get fked. so unfair. And they want my gunpowder for meditation like yeah ok, how am i supposed to make tech trading work for me lol. @@henrik9658