Since the Civilopedia is woefully incomplete and the manual has no index...

What strategies/tips are people desperately seeking? And what answers might some of you be able to provide?

I'll start.

1) What's a good mixture of continent size and map size for someone more accustomed to Civ2's style of space-between-starting-civs? I went with what seemed like middle-of-the-road options for Civ4 and wound up surrounded immediately.

2) Why won't certain units upgrade?

I'm having a hard time trusting the "recommended" build for each city. Half the time I think my advisor is royally screwing me! It'll take time to work out what a good build order is.

And OT - nice lyrics to one of my favorite Tull songs Mike. Sweet music to play Civ by. :)

The funny answer: More time to play the game. Would be cool if I wouldnt need sleep and the day would have 48 hours...

But to be serious, I didnt like the advisors choice either. Sometimes it seems a little bit "stupid" what he suggests. But thats only a minor problem.
The Game rocks all the way. I am so pleased with it.

Just like you were a kid again. I love it!

Wish I knew...

What are the advantages / disadvantages of founding a second, third, etc, religion when I have already founded a religion and made that the state religion?

Wish I knew...

What are the advantages / disadvantages of founding a second, third, etc, religion when I have already founded a religion and made that the state religion?

Advantages
1) You deny the religion to another civ.
2) You have less religions to compete against, when spreading religions.
3) If you don't send out missionaries, the religion spreads slowly.
4) Each religion can have its own Shrine (with the Line Of Sight into all cities with the same religion--even a 1% share--and +1 gold for each city for EACH Shrine)
5) When you get Freedom of Religion, each religion in each city provides happiness.
6) Each religion can have its own temple-series buildings (temple, cathedral, monastery).
7) Each Holy City has a nice culture boost.
etc.

Disadvantages
1) To found multiple religions, you have to focus on religious techs at the expense of other techs.
2) To build a Shrine requires a Great Prophet, which can be expensive (each Great Person increases the cost of the next Great Person; you'd be making it more expensive to get Great Artists, or Great Engineers, or whatever).
3) To get your towns to have the religion, you're going to have to build the Missionary-building structures, and you're going to have to send in missionaries to each town. (You can wait and hope it spreads naturally, or you can spend a lot of production time. Your choice.)
etc.

Having multiple religions doesn't cause unhappiness. That was a biggie in my worries.

I wish I knew the game wouldnt work on my computer :P.

I wish I knew the game wouldnt work on my computer :P.


and we have a WINNER!

I played my second game on Noble (no artificial advantages for human or AI) as Ghandi (Spiritual and Industrious). I was able to easily found every religion in the game and generated enough Great Prophets to build all the Shrines. It was great not having to worry about others trying to convert my people or making money off of their religion. However, I'll do some things differently if I pursue this strategy in the future:

1. Hold off building the Shrines for the non-state religions. Use missionaries to spread the state religion throughout the empire. Consider denying open borders until you've stockpiled some missionaries for the state religion. Why? Because if the state religion is, say, Buddhism but a Holy City for Hinduism is located next to another civ, Hinduism may spread to that civ and be adopted as its state religion. Now the Hindu civ will hate you for your "heathen" Buddhist faith!

2. Limit yourself to Temples of the state religion in the early to mid-game, even though you have the ability to build Temples of many religions. Remember, each temple will be spreading the faith in surrounding areas, and you want other civis to share your state religion, not one of the others you discovered.

3. Go ahead and save a Great Prophet or two after building the Shrine for the state religion. Despite your best efforts, some other civs will adopt different religions. When another faith starts to become widespread, then go ahead and build the Shrine for that faith. You can't stop its spread anymore, so you might as well "prophet" (yuk yuk) from it.

(...) 2) Why won't certain units upgrade?

Without knowing which units are affected in which situation , it is hard to tell why.Possible reasons:

- lack of money (button greyed out)
- lack of ressources
- lack of the tech(s) needed for upgrade
- units outside cultural borders
- promoting units in a certain way might effect possible upgrades (unsure)

1) How do you destroy a city that you own? Is it possible?

2) Is there a way to turn off the messages you get where the game tells you to build settlers all the time and you have to say "No, I'm in charge here"?

1) How do you destroy a city that you own? Is it possible?
Leave it undefended or let it culture flip, and then attack and raze it when you recapture. It seems like there is no option to simply disband it.

You could make everyone a specialist and starve them down while adding to your city, though I am not sure if you can starve a city below population 1.

1) How do you destroy a city that you own? Is it possible?

Worldbuilder delete the city, or give/raze.

2) Is there a way to turn off the messages you get where the game tells you to build settlers all the time and you have to say "No, I'm in charge here"?

I think it stops after you say "GO AWAY AND LEEME ALONE!" once. Seems to in my games anyway.

You could make everyone a specialist and starve them down while adding to your city, though I am not sure if you can starve a city below population 1.

City square produces 2 food, and you can't change/remove it, which supports 1 population on it's own so no, no starving it.

How do you get a Holy City?

What is "Culture Flip"? You can literally take over another country's cities by 'soaking' them in your own stupendous culture?

How do you get a Holy City?

By founding a religion. You do this by being the first one to research one of the appropriate technologies.

What is "Culture Flip"? You can literally take over another country's cities by 'soaking' them in your own stupendous culture?

Correct. If your culture basically smothers an enemy city, there's a chance it will revolt and join your civilization like it did in Civ III. However, it's a lot less arbitrary in Civ IV and there's usually a bit of warning.

I'd like to know what is the largest viable city possible. Are cities limited to around size 10? Or can we get that size 30 city, like in Civ3?

I've managed a size 15 city once before it got unhappy/sick(noble difficulty, expansive), without future tech, and not modern, with factory+forge. I would assume a size 30 would be possible at some point.

Is there any indication if a city is a Holy City or not? I've founded lots of religions before my competitors but never noticed if the city became 'holy' or not.

Is there any indication if a city is a Holy City or not? I've founded lots of religions before my competitors but never noticed if the city became 'holy' or not.

You can either go to the religion changing thing, or look under the city at it's religions. If it is a holy city, a star will be next to the religious icon.

What is the best offensive unit in the gunpowder era? Riflemen and Grenadiers are both defensive.....Cavalry can be used to counter them but once you get up to infantry what do you do?

Xeos, sorry, one more thing: If only one city can become holy, how does the game determine which one that is?

What are the buildings and wonders you can build, and what are their powers? (Those aren't on the tech tree poster.)