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[Civ4] A budding empire, a novice ruler...my kingdom for a tutorial!
shanis
LCDR, US NavyMaryland, USARegistered User regular
LCDR, US NavyMaryland, USARegistered User regular
This is my first OP! Huzzah!
In the beginning the earth was without form, and void.
But the sun shone upon the sleeping earth,
And deep inside the brittle crust, massive forces waited to be unleashed.
The seas parted, and great continents were formed.
Mountains arose, earthquakes spawned massive tidal waves.
Volcanoes erupted and spewed forth fiery lava,
And charged the atmosphere with strange gasses.
Into this swirling maelstrom of fire and air and water,
The first stirrings of life appeared.
Tiny organisms, cells and amoeba, clinging to tiny sheltered habitats.
But the seeds of life grew, and strengthened, and spread, and diversified, and prospered.
And soon every continent and climate teemed with life.
And with life came instinct, and specialization, natural selection, reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals.
And finally there evolved a species known as man.
And there appeared the first faint glimmers of intelligence.
The fruits of intelligence were many:
Fire, tools, and weapons,
The hunt, farming, and the sharing of food,
The family, the village, and the tribe.
Now it required but one more ingredient:
A great leader to unite the quarrelling tribes,
To harness the power of the land,
To build a legacy that would stand the test of time:
The civilization.
I feel terrible calling myself a video gaming aficionado whilst staying away from one of the cornerstones of gaming itself -- the vast money-tree franchise that is Civilization. Having fixed this with a discounted Steam purchase of Civ4 and its merry band of expansions for so little coin, I am now faced with the daunting task of learning this game from scratch.
I played the demo's tutorial, and while I feel I have a grasp on the very, very basic core of this game (i.e. doing everything the advisors tell me to do and not deviating for fear of having a brain hemorrhage), I want to dive into epic games in which I dot the landscape with my cities and dominate my enemies. To do so requires knowledge! I could read dull, brownish write-ups and guides on this, but I would rather hear the PA community wax nostalgic about Civ4 and how it can be played to great enjoyment.
Impart to me (and the community at large) some beginner's tips and strategies for Civ4 and its expansions!
In the beginning the earth was without form, and void.
But the sun shone upon the sleeping earth,
And deep inside the brittle crust, massive forces waited to be unleashed.
The seas parted, and great continents were formed.
Mountains arose, earthquakes spawned massive tidal waves.
Volcanoes erupted and spewed forth fiery lava,
And charged the atmosphere with strange gasses.
Into this swirling maelstrom of fire and air and water,
The first stirrings of life appeared.
Tiny organisms, cells and amoeba, clinging to tiny sheltered habitats.
But the seeds of life grew, and strengthened, and spread, and diversified, and prospered.
And soon every continent and climate teemed with life.
And with life came instinct, and specialization, natural selection, reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals.
And finally there evolved a species known as man.
And there appeared the first faint glimmers of intelligence.
The fruits of intelligence were many:
Fire, tools, and weapons,
The hunt, farming, and the sharing of food,
The family, the village, and the tribe.
Now it required but one more ingredient:
A great leader to unite the quarrelling tribes,
To harness the power of the land,
To build a legacy that would stand the test of time:
The civilization.
Civilization IV is a turn-based game in which the player builds an empire from very limited initial resources. All standard full-length games begin in 4000 BC with a settler who builds a single city. From there, the player expands an empire while contending with rival nations, using the geography, developing infrastructure, and encouraging scientific and cultural progress. By default, players can win the game by accomplishing one of five goals: conquering all other civilizations, controlling the majority of the world's land and population, being the first to land a colonizing ship on Alpha Centauri, increasing the Culture ratings of three different cities to "legendary" levels, or by being declared "World Leader" by winning a popularity election through the United Nations. If the game's clock runs out (by default in the year 2050 AD) with none of these goals fulfilled by any nation, the nation with the highest score is declared the winner.
I feel terrible calling myself a video gaming aficionado whilst staying away from one of the cornerstones of gaming itself -- the vast money-tree franchise that is Civilization. Having fixed this with a discounted Steam purchase of Civ4 and its merry band of expansions for so little coin, I am now faced with the daunting task of learning this game from scratch.
I played the demo's tutorial, and while I feel I have a grasp on the very, very basic core of this game (i.e. doing everything the advisors tell me to do and not deviating for fear of having a brain hemorrhage), I want to dive into epic games in which I dot the landscape with my cities and dominate my enemies. To do so requires knowledge! I could read dull, brownish write-ups and guides on this, but I would rather hear the PA community wax nostalgic about Civ4 and how it can be played to great enjoyment.
Impart to me (and the community at large) some beginner's tips and strategies for Civ4 and its expansions!
Origin(BF4) - hunter28100 / Steam - Shanis
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
shanis on
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I played Civ 4 for a while until one day I started playing at 3pm and then suddenly it was 1am. Then I stopped.
My advice - get a Civ 4 alarm clock.
remember to improve your land tiles with workers and fishing boats - especially those with resources like wheat, horses, copper, etc. on them - but don't rush into building too many farms too soon, because if you grow too fast, your cities will stagnate. check on your city screen and make sure you don't have grumpy faces - if you do, slash back some population with slavery to recruit units for free, and/or move some of your used tiles to production
one of the best things to remember is not to over expand with new cities. build as many as you can to start, but as soon as your income (top left!) hits around 60%, cut it out and focus on getting more money for a while. also when placing cities, remember that two cities can't work the same tiles. it's less important in civ iv than in previous civs, and you're pretty safe if just a few squares are overlapping, but cities right next to each other will not flourish
what else? not everyone likes religion. i do. it's necessary for the culture victory, and can be a huge boon for money, especially if your religion catches on across a continent. getting a strong religion in all your cities and backing it up with a religious wonder can be a great financial stepping stone between the start of the game and code of laws, which will give you precious courthouses, and with them a lot of extra cash.
have fun! choose a civ you like to start with and learn their benefits. i like isabella because she can build quick fishing boats, rarely gets sick and conquistadors are fantastic for mid-game offensive wash-outs - but they all have their charms.
start playing and ask questions!
Don't try to build every Wonder in the game. Some Wonders are just more useful than others (especially if you aim towards conquest and domination). Wonders require lots of production points that may be better spent towards an important building or military unit. In the early game I usually try to build the Great Pyramids, the Oracle, the Great Library, and leave the others for the AI. You can always conquer an enemy city with a Wonder and use its benefit.
Focus your research. Don't research culture-related technology if you are pursuing a military victory; you only need enough culture to spread your borders to work all the tiles around a city. Do research technologies that reveal and grant access to resources. Bronze Working is an important early technology; not only does it reveal Copper (letting you build spearmen and axemen), it also grants the Slavery civic, enabling you to sacrifice a city's population for increased production. This is critical for beating the AI to a Wonder.
Some general tips:
- Specialize your cities: Production cities near hills and forests, with forge, barracks etc. Commerce cities with lots of cottages. Commerce cities can be further specialized for science or money.
- Don't grow beyond your happiness/health. (use the avoid growth button on the city screen)
- You don't have to go to war, but have an army big enough to discourage other civs invading you
- Research stuff that lets you use nearby resources
- You can chop down some trees to rush early wonders, but it's probably a good idea to let some of them stay, for production and health
- If you can, found a religion and spread it to other civs - this gives intel, money (with a shrine), and better relations
- When you DO decide to attack, have a mix of units move together - axemen vs melee, spearmen vs mounted, swordmen for city attack - not just one kind
Just mess around on the low levels until you get an idea what you are doing, you can't really go that wrong until you get up to noble or so.
So I should be building settlers first, then workers? I've been putting workers on autopilot since I don't have the smarts to micromanage them yet, and they seem to be busy-bodies of the good sort.
Also, the citizens in my capital are always grumpy after a while, complaining about over-crowding. There should be an option called "the culling."
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
First off, specialise your cities. How you specialise them will depend on where you put them. At the start of the game, you'll want all your cities to be near a water source, thats a given. Otherwise getting food (and thus growing your city) will be hard as hell.
If your city is near abundant fresh water and grassland, it might be a good economic city. Build lots of farms wherever you can, and fill the remaining space with cottages. Cottages don't do anything when you first build them, but will eventually mature into villiages and towns which can generate coin, thus some planning ahead is required here.
If your city is near abundant hills / mountains, it might be a good spot for a production city. Any buildings need to be built with the goal of either increasing the city's production, or increasing the city's population (thus increasing it's production). Otherwise, this city should crank out units constantly, whether you think you need them or not (the Romans declaring war on you is a very bad time to start building an army). Bear in mind you need more than just mountains to keep a city running; you will need some farms. In my first couple of games I often made the mistake of thinking "Wow, lots of mountains, that looks like a great spot for a production city!". It wasn't. Without food, the population would never grow enough to use all of those mountain squares, and the city would remain a shithole until discovering irrigation.
Secondly, don't be tempted to build a structure in a city just because you just finished building something else. Consider whether the building will actually be useful for the city's specialisation of choice. Some structures (granaries, aquaducts) are pretty useful in all cities, but for the most part you have to ask yourself "Will this structure help the city to do better at what I want it to be good at?".
I'm starting to ramble so i'm going to start using headings here.
Diplomacy
Keeping on good terms with everyone will be hard, if not impossible. Civ leaders are generally very receptive to bribes, whether in the form of money or tech. Occasionally, they will ask you for things out of the blue. If you say yes, they like you more. If you say no, they like you less. Whether you should say yes or no depends on a number of factors:
- How large are they?
- Are they close enough to feasably conduct a war with me?
- Who are they friends with?
- Are they already friendly / unfriendly enough that refusal won't matter?
- Will this come back to bite me in the arse later (trading military tech)?
At the outset of the game, choosing a religion is a pretty important decision. You will become instant friends with civs from the same religion, and you will immediately piss off civs from other religions. Religious differences can be surmounted over time, but it is quite feasible to not choose a state religion early on if you're torn between two sets of allies you want to stay friends with.
Bear in mind you can't always choose your allies; at least one of your neighbours will have it in for you from day one. Someone will make an unreasonable demand and then thrown a hissy fit when you tell them to fuck off. Someone won't like your religion, someone won't like your civics, and some civ leaders are just bastards (Tokugawa, Stalin, Mao). The issue here is to figure out which nations are willing to be seen with you, and do your best to appease them. War is a surefire way to piss someone off, especially if you capture or raze any of their cities. They will pretty much never forgive you for such activities.
In short, there is definitely such thing as "the in crowd" in civ. You want to be in it.
More later...
I recommend trying Fall From Heaven at some point, though with the caveat that it's pretty different from generic civ.
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
these guys might disagree with me, but when i'm doing well all my cities will have all the buildings pretty quickly
You only need barracks in production cities. That's where you'll be training your army. So yes.
You can do that, but your overall production/commerce might suffer a bit. I prefer to let each city have a specific role.
When it comes to national wonders, it's a good idea to plan a bit ahead. For example, if you have a production-focused city, you can build National Epic (double military production) and Ironworks (+production) there. Just remember that you can only have two national wonders in a city.
but the flipside of that is that you can generally get more national wonders and other modifying buildings than you can have cities. why limit a city to only produce when you can have as many academies as you have great scientists, or as many mandirs as you have cities with your religions? why reign back on production here when it can quickly be boosted to a powerhouse with merely a forge and, eventually, a factory? there's no reason - if you manage your stuff well, a good city can do everything
that said, in the end a poor city will do poorly, no matter which way you you try to specialize it or diversify it
Your first academy should go in your best research city, after that you can use them for the culture bonus or whatever.
Cathedrals (/mandir/other names) need 3 temples, so you can only have one for every three cities with that religion.
Specialization is what turns a good city into a great one - but you still have to know where to place them and how to manage them.
this specialization thing never made sense to me
I generally don't like to stop my military production cities from building military units unless I'm very well off or I'm building something like a factory to help me build more military units. So it's not that I wouldn't build science buildings in a production city, it's just that I usually don't have time. So I make up for it by keeping non-production economically stable cities up to date on science buildings.
maybe it comes from my play-style as well; i don't like to keep a constant military, i shell up with good defence for a large portion of the game and strike once, if i have to, devoting all resources in all cities to military when it's that time.
you only need to be slightly ahead of the tech curve to have a defence that'll keep you out of trouble, and you only need to beeline to one specific tech to get a one-time army that'll win you the continent
that said i'm usually just as happy to turtle up and go for culture
Isn't there a way to have the game display a clock?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
The Church of the Nativity has been built in Nidaros.
Yes it also has a built in alarm that you can set to time periods of play.
Whether I like it or not, I'm about to get an overdose of Civ goodness. I need to learn how to play this game fast.
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
That said, each city has a great person bar on the city screen. Certain buildings, civics, leader traits etc. increase the rate at which your city(ies) accumulate great person points. Fill the bar and you spawn a great person. After getting a great person, the amount of poins required for the next one increases.
The type of great person depends on the building spread you have. You'll notice that wonders specify a type of great peson, e.g Stonehenge (Great Prophet).
So if you build Stonehenge, you'd have 100% chance of receiving a great prophet. If you built the pyramids as well, you would have a 50/50 chance between great prophet and great engineer. This way you can specialise a city to produce a certain type of great person.
Their uses vary. Great Engineers can hurry construction, Great Prophets can build a religion's special building in the city it was founded in, Scientists can build an academy that givs +50% science output etc.
You can also use great people to start a golden age. The amount increases after each successive golden age, so 1 for the first one, then 2 great people for the second etc. The great people used have to be of different types as well (I think). Golden Ages last a set number of turns (depending on game speed) and gave a bonus of (I think) +1 hammer +1 monies in each tile.
Because I picked that up during the Steam sale and... god damn. That shit is rough!
1) While you do not barracks in all cities, you should have them for military production cities AND cities on the front line.
2) When given Great People early on, its generally better to settle them for the bonus. Sure, a Great Merchant wont give you very much +% early on, but later on that city will crank out the gold.
3) While I will have specialization cities (especially early on, mainly one to crank out units and the other to crank out wonders) later on in the game (especially at lower levels) you'll probably find that your cities can do everything pretty well. Use that to your advantage (whether its building for total war, space ship, or money)
4) Build workers before Settlers. They build quicker for one, and the bonuses to the tiles they can provide are worth it. In addition, use the first one to build roads in between your cities.
I cant really think of anything else right now.
Yeah I did too, haven't got very far into my first game though. It seems a bit Civ-Lite at the moment, certainly not as much depth.
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This one speaks the truth.
Someone should probably put together a game on thread (not me though, Im both lazy and inept). I for one would be doubly interested if anyone wanted to play a game with the 'Fall From Heaven 2' mod, which is awesome beyond words.
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Just for clarification I would be up for normal games (+ expansions) too.
However I can't recommend the FFH2 mod enough, its practically a whole new game and is of a professional standard.
That and unleashing demonic horrors to devour rival civs and corrupt the land never gets old.
FFH2 is in fact amazing and everyone should at least play it for a while.
Colonization has some flaws (nearing the end of my first game, it seems like small colonial empires would have a better chance of actually winning; also, the original Col had vastly superior music) but is still a fun alternate experience. It's probably not as deep but after you've played a ton of Civ it's a good alternate thing to try.
As for Civ tips/tricks: all hail the glory that is the whip (slavery). Early game, slavery is an amazing civic, both for limiting growth so you don't get unproductive unhappy people and for dramatically increasing production. If you get copper when you learn Bronze Working, you can generally pump out 6-8 axemen really quick with slavery and pretty easily conquer your nearest neighbor (or Isabella, if she's around, I hate that crazy bitch). Ideally you want to conquer a holy city with this invasion as they can become cash cows to support the rest of your early game expansion.
I like building a worker first, certainly before a settler. Wonder wise, Pyramids are great but hugely expensive, I don't tend to build them unless I have stone or am playing an industrious civ. Great Library is the one I always try to get. Oracle is also spectacular. I like the Great Wall (if you have Warlords or BtS) because I hate needing an early garrison. Most of the rest of the wonders are situational except maybe Three Gorges (Hoover, dammit!) because not needing to build power plants and saving the unhealthiness is great.
Financial is easily the best of the leader traits, almost all of the financial leaders make things significantly easier, but you have to cottage spam to make it work. My personal favorite is Willem von Orange of the Dutch because financial + creative + dikes is just silly.
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