I just started playing this game a few days ago, and I like the game. But I seem to get behind early on...in size (number of cities, cultural boundaries) and in tech. In Civ 3 early exploration is very important...to find resources, and pop goody huts. Is early exploration as important in Civ 4? Should I get hunting quickly to get scouts and start exploring? Or shoud I make do exploring with warriors, and make the beeline for Bronze Working so I can chop-rush?

Thanks

I'm hardly the best player on this forum, but I'm currently holding my own on the Prince level.

Civ is now extremely relative. So, before I try to answer your questions, can you answer a couple questions:

*are you patched to 1.61?
*what skill level are you on?
*do you play pretty vanilla? meaning, normal # of AI civs, normal size map, etc...

It depends on what Civ you are, and as Shane suggests, what settings you have setup. But if you have a Scout already at game start, use that. Otherwise, yes use Warriors. It is relatively important to scout about. You don't want to send off a Settler into a black unknown territory and risk a possibly forced bad start for your second city, when another better location was available but only a short scout away. Personally I now make a beeline for Bronze Working as the early chop is a good head start. Send initial Warrior out scouting, build Worker, Warrior, then Settler. Seems to be doing well for me so far on Prince level. If you're on a continent with at least one Expansionist civ though, you might be up for a hard time either locating a goody hut or getting to it in time. Anyhow, it'd be good to hear your answers to Shane's questions -- especially what difficulty level are you on. If you've only been playing a few days, I'd suggest starting really low, then work your way up the difficulty levels every say 5 or so games (depending on how you go). :)

It really depends on how much of a risk you are willing to take. You can delay building a second city to find the best spot with your warriors and/or scouts, or you can take whatever comes first and hope that you're not missing anything better.

Personally, I always take the risk. Getting the second city early allows me to assemble an army earlier and kill off rivals. Once I do that I can build the cities in the good spots.

Unless you want early religion, IMO research BW ASAP.

Why you ask? I will tell you why.
Slavery, Copper revealed, Axemen, and Chopping.
There is no single other tech that gives such a huge advantage so early in the game and it is always useful, unlike certain other worker techs, at least early on.
If you start off with a worker first build it becomes even better because most likely your worker and BW will finish about the same time so your worker can chop as soon as he comes out.

Also, depending on the map type / size, you may want to produce a few extra warriors / scouts before anything else to explore and pop goody huts.
Playing small islands? Don't bother.
Playing continents / pangea? Definitely make a few extra scouts.

Civ4 is very different from Civ3. In Civ3 you had a one-fits-all strategy. That is not the case here. Sure, some techs stand out, but you still have to analyze the terrain, your neighbours, your starting techs etc. and exploit the situation as best as you possibly can.

One of the most important things that made my skill vastly improve was city specialization.

I highly recommend you read a couple of articles as well. Sisutil's Strategy Guide really helped me out a lot. I will try to see if I can dig up the link.

Civ is now extremely relative. So, before I try to answer your questions, can you answer a couple questions:

*are you patched to 1.61?
*what skill level are you on?
*do you play pretty vanilla? meaning, normal # of AI civs, normal size map, etc...
May 31, 2006 10:30 PM


*Yes.
*Chieftain (Like to start new games easy :p )
*Vanilla? Maybe Rocky Road. I use a huge map (old habit from civ 3), normal # of civs. I sometimes select a few of my AI rivals...sometimes not. I use either a continent or terra map script...temperate climate...normal sea level...ancient start. Did I miss anything?

Started another game when I got home from work today. This time I fought the temptation to get hunting and make scouts, went straight for Bronze work. I used the first warrior for some exploration, but didn't take him far (felt kinda vulnerable :eek: ). But the first goody hut gave up a scout :goodjob:. So, it all worked out...this game is going much better. Its 1600BC, classical age, founded Judiaism (sp?), have four cities near good resources. I've also explored maybe a third of my continent (I think). So, I think I have my answers....but your input is welcome anyways :D. You can never be too good ;).

Thanks

Mainly you need to secure either Iron or Bronze with your second city. Maybe make a third. Don't make more than that at the start.

Conquer cities.

Mainly you need to secure either Iron or Bronze with your second city. Maybe make a third. Don't make more than that at the start.

Conquer cities.
You can make more cities than that and may need to.

As a beginner, I usually followed the 60% rule: plunk down cities until the maintenance costs mean you're running a deficit if the science slider is over 60%. That's usually 4-6 cities if you choose the locations well.

Having one city with a gold, silver, or gem mine helps, as does the old stand-by of cottage spam.

But yes, I usually conquer a lot more cities than I build. In most games my first 4-6 cities are often the only ones I built.

Esp. on a huge map, you'll need more than 4 cities. However, unlike past versions, you don't need to have dozens of cities.

I'd recommend standard sized maps until you get used to Civ IV (vs III). Civ III was all about spamming tons of generic cities. In Civ IV city quality is more important, you will often specialize cities for a specific task (unit production, wonders, great people, econ, sci, etc), and even though you can easily have a huge empire it's not always necessary.

There are a lot of differences between III and IV and starting off with smaller maps and empires will let you focus on learning those differences instead of attempting to manage a huge map.