Hello all! I am starting this thread to serve as a comprehensive play-through of Chieftain difficulty for newbie players. I'm not that great of a player so I'll be learning at the same time you do. The important thing is that my write ups will be thorough so that everyone here knows exactly what I am doing at all times. I'd like to get the advice of both newbies and veterans as I go through the game. However, if you grab a save and play it ahead of where I am, don't spoil it for anyone please. Also, keep in mind that we aren't focused on perfect play - we are focused more on fun and some learning mixed in.

Without further adieu, let's get started! I created the game with the following settings:

Game Edition: Beyond The Sword v3.17
Map Type: Pangaea
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: Medium
World Size: Small
Shoreline: Random
Civilization: Random
Difficulty: Chieftain
Game Speed: Normal


And the intro screen:

http://georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0001_IntroScreen.JPG

It looks as though the computer has decided we are playing as Hannibal of Carthage. Let's look at Hannibal's leader traits (which I got from this page (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/civilizations/)):

FINANCIAL

+1 commerce on plots with at least 2 commerce.


CHARISMATIC

+1 happiness per city.
-25% XP needed for unit promotions.
+1 happiness from Monument and Broadcast Tower.


For those of you who don't know, commerce is the little coin icon on a tile when you double click a city (there are bread slices, hammers, and coins). Commerce is turned into either research (beakers) or wealth (gold in upper left). So it looks like our cities will be both happier and wealthier than normal, our empire will produce research faster, and our troops will upgrade faster, but we don't get any buildings at half cost. I always find that happiness is a bigger limiting factor in my games as opposed to health, but that may be because I sometimes go a little crazy sacrificing population to rush builds with slavery. The song "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5zFsy9VIdM) is playing in my head right now for some reason...

Anyway, let's take a look at the unique unit for Carthage, the Numidian Cavalry which replaces the Horse Archer. It has the following statistics (which I found from this page (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/units/)), of which the changed items are bolded in red for penalties and blue for bonuses:

NUMIDIAN CAVALRY

Strength: 5
Movement: 2
Cost: 50
Tech Requirements: Archery, Horseback Riding
Resource Requirements: Horse
Immune to first strikes
Doesn't receive defensive bonuses
Can withdraw from combat (20% chance)
Flank attack against Catapults and Trebuchets
Starts with Flanking I
+50% attack vs. Catapults and Trebuchets
+50% vs. Melee Units


Quick tangent, the page I linked to above has outdated material for the regular Horse Archer. It's missing a couple of things (like the withdrawal chance). I double checked with the civilopedia in game. I think it wasn't updated after BtS came out. Who do I contact about that so that it can be updated?

OK, back to our game... So our replacement for the Horse Archer unfortunately has 1 less strength than a regular horse archer (which is strength 6), but against Melee units it is actually better with the special bonus, ranking at a 7.5 (strength 5 * 150% vs melee = 7.5). I guess that means it's a bit weaker fighting Mounted and Archery units (which are the only two other types we'll experience while our unique unit is useful before upgrading). Let's hope we're the only ones with horses and our enemies build a lot of melee. It also gets a free promotion - Flanking I. Now, what the crap does Flanking I do? I have no idea, so it's a good thing this page (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/promotions/) exists! :D

FLANKING I

+10% Withdrawal Chance


Ok that's kind of cool... I guess? I don't intend to throw my units at anything I probably won't win, so having a 30% withdrawal chance (20% base + 10% from Flanking I) isn't that important to me. Maybe it's more useful at higher difficulties? I dunno...

Moving on, let's take a look at our unique building, the Cothon which replaces the Harbor. It has the following stats (which I found from this page (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/improvements/)), again with the bolding scheme I used before:

COTHON

Can only be built in a coastal city
+1 trade route
+1 health from Fish, Crab, Clams
+50% commerce from trade routes


OK so our unique building gives us an extra trade route for our cities, but they have to be coastal cities. I won't lie, I don't have the foggiest clue how powerful trade routes are (or even really how they work), but I suppose this is a good thing since we're Financial too. I guess this would be the perfect game for me to force myself to learn about trade routes then. Let's hope we have some coastal cities.

Finally, let's do a quick review of our starting technologies - Fishing and Mining. I used this page (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/techs/) to get the info:

FISHING

Can work water tiles
Can create Fishing Boats


MINING

Can build mines


So it looks like our civilization would be really good near water. Coastal tiles give 2 base commerce without any improvements or modifiers, which means with our Financial trait that would be 3 commerce from the get go. We can already work coastal tiles from turn 1 because we start with fishing. And we want coastal cities even more because then we can make good use of our unique building.

Now that we've reviewed our leader and civilization traits, let's take a peak at our starting position:

http://georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0002_StartingPosition.JPG

YAY! Coastal city! We'll get to try out Hannibal's unique building and take advantage of his starting tech & coastal commerce boost for faster research. We have 3 clams too - that's a good start! We'll grow fast. But now I notice something else... WE HAVE 2 FISH RIGHT ABOVE THEM!!! I didn't see the little splashy splashy animation of the fishies immediately, but notice that 2 of the farther ocean tiles have 2 food instead of 1. So even if we settle in place, that's FIVE (count 'em, FIVE!) seafood resources right there!! NICE! We have a bunch of grasslands with forests as well, and one plains hill, one grasslands hill, and one oasis. We'll be able to work the hills as soon as we get a worker because we start with mining, but we'll need bronze working to improve any other tile since we'd have to chop the forest first. At least we can build farms in almost all of those tiles immediately since the oasis provides fresh water. There are no land resources that we can see from here, but the fog of war might be hiding stuff tot he south. I think it might be a hill 2 south of my settler based on the curve of the tree line just entering the fog (I zoomed in real close to see). We'll be even luckier if horses are near our starting position to make use of our unique unit! Overall, a great starting location I think!

As far as initial city placement, what do you guys think? The AI is telling us to settle one east, or we can settle in place. We should probably move the warrior first before we make a decision. And with that, here is the save file:

http://georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/saves/Civ 4 Dummies - Game 1 - Hannibal Chieftain - BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

Starting on a plains hill is nice because you get an extra hammer in your city which will help you get out your workboat quicker (which btw should be your first build and possibly your second too), but the fact that it's not forested highly suggests that it has copper or iron, in which case it's better to mine it than settle on it. There may also be a resource 2S of your warrior, but still, I'd recommend settling in place. After Bronze Working you can chop the forests to boost production, but farming them right away is overkill with all that seafood and you'd be better off using your workers to improve your new cities.

This city has a ridiculous amount of food and can be turned into a crazy-good great person farm. In the early game it will be your settler and worker pump, but later I recommend focusing on buildings that let your run specialists (for when you're not in Caste System) and building the National Epic and Globe Theater as your two national wonders. I also recommend moving your capital to your best commerce city by the time you research Civil Service, to take advantage of the Bureaucracy civic. None of that is really necessary at Chieftain, but it's good to develop good habits.

Great writeup, very detailed! This is an excellent start to your tutorial, and I look forward to later installments. :)

I want to cast my vote for settling in place as well; no trees on that plot almost certainly points to a resource (though, if you're unlucky, if I remember correctly it could be a later one like Uranium...let's hope for copper or iron!). If it's Iron, excellent; strong units here we come! If it's copper, man could the Carthaginians use The Colossus! :)

Nice to see this thread actually started! Good job and lots of detail! I will sure be following it!
I say settle where you are right now. You will loose a turn for moving (which is not a big deal but still is a turn). Also, it will be easier in the future if you want to make a city southeast, right bellow the forest you can see before the fog starts. Since I am a fan of looks, in the future, the plains hill with a railroad will guarantee an anvil instead of the four hammers the grassland hill shall give when railroad. But that's only me :-D
My 1st tip would be (prepare to sound stupid) : turn on the marks for the special resources! It is the small tab located over the minimap at low right corner, the one with the yellow circular outline, black background and white question mark :-D
Now, the question is what unit to get out first? A Worker or Fishing Boat? Also, what is going to be the first tech you will research?

This is a perfect start for Hannibal's starting techs, since all the food is seafood and the only thing for a worker to do is mine and chop. Bronze Working first is a no-brainer, and my first instinct was to go with a work boat for the first build, but now I'm actually wondering whether it might be better to go with a worker so you can get started chopping right away. If you get lucky and copper pops up on that plains hill, you might consider axe rushing a neighbor, since you're likely to have one nearby on a small pangaea map.

I am not familiar with that speed so I woudn't know exactly.. BUT! As you can see, he has an oasis which gives him 3 commerce and 3 food. How long would it take for a fishing boat to come out? I think that if he goes for fishing boat while researching BW, he can get it out by the time he reaches city size 3. That would mean that he would then be getting a worker out with a total of 8 food (5 from fish and 3 from oasis) , 3 hammers from the plain hill and 5 commerce to keep his research up! The worker will come out to build a mine, then chop another worker, a settler and possibly another fishing boat. But I am not sure, since I am not very familiar with normal speed...

Good start. I vote settle in place, tech bronze working first, build a work boat, get roaming with that warrior.

Choice between working the 3:food:3:commerce: oasis or the 3:hammers: hill to start. I would recommend the oasis, growth is a luxury you will appreciate when we get to building the workers and settlers. Then an improved Clam for 4:food:3:commerce: and the 3:hammers: Hill when at size 2.

The AI is telling us to settle one east, or we can settle in place.

If you settle on the plains hill, the city centre tile will produce 2 hammers instead of the usual one. Not so important that you have to move, but worth thinking about.

We should probably move the warrior first before we make a decision.

Definitely :goodjob:

I'm actually wondering whether it might be better to go with a worker so you can get started chopping right away.

It depends how long it takes to build a worker v how long it takes to research bronze working. If you can start a worker now and have bronze working about the time he's finished, then do it. The sooner you start chopping, the faster everything else you want to do will happen.

Nice to see this thread actually started! Good job and lots of detail! I will sure be following it!
I say settle where you are right now. You will loose a turn for moving (which is not a big deal but still is a turn). Also, it will be easier in the future if you want to make a city southeast, right bellow the forest you can see before the fog starts. Since I am a fan of looks, in the future, the plains hill with a railroad will guarantee an anvil instead of the four hammers the grassland hill shall give when railroad. But that's only me :-D
My 1st tip would be (prepare to sound stupid) : turn on the marks for the special resources! It is the small tab located over the minimap at low right corner, the one with the yellow circular outline, black background and white question mark :-D
Now, the question is what unit to get out first? A Worker or Fishing Boat? Also, what is going to be the first tech you will research?

Oh DUHHHHHH! Haha sorry, I completely forgot to turn resources on. I am learning how to host these games at the same time as I play! Thanks for the tip - I'll remember to do that from now on.

Ok here's the new screen shot. I also took the liberty of moving the warrior SW one tile to see what it would reveal. Looks like we have a forested plains tile and a forested grasslands hill, both of which have fresh water.

http://georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0003_StartingPositionWithResources.JPG

My vote also goes to settling in place. I didn't know that having a non-forested hill tile means there's probably a resource there. Are resources you can't see at the beginning (copper/iron/aluminum/coal/etc) never allowed to appear on originally forested tiles?

As for the city build, I like the idea of making a work boat first as well. Now it's just a matter of deciding whether getting the work boat faster is better by working a forest tile with hammers and growing slower, or working the oasis is better for faster growth of our city and more commerce to start.

Bronze Working sounds like the ideal tech for us to get first on my side as well. With mining already researched, it will let us get there quickly and see if copper is there.

I'll play the first set of turns either late tonight or tomorrow after I give it a bit more time for people to insert their 2 cents.

I would move the worker onto the hills first thing. While your starting location is excellent, it's always a good idea to move your starting unit before building -- just in case there's a nearby resource that would affect your placement.

Why the hills? Because remember that hills give you a vision radius of two, rather than one.

About the starting techs bit, you may want to add that you also get roads and agriculture at the start due to the difficulty level :rolleyes:.
Your right about the forests thing, if a metal/horse resource is on that tile, no forest can be there whether you can see the resource or not, most a lot of other things can be in forest/jungle though.

I would move the worker onto the hills first thing. While your starting location is excellent, it's always a good idea to move your starting unit before building -- just in case there's a nearby resource that would affect your placement.

Why the hills? Because remember that hills give you a vision radius of two, rather than one.

Oh I already moved the warrior in that 2nd screen shot. The warrior was originally placed 2E of the Settler. I moved him SW one tile to wear he is in that last screen shot so he can't move again this turn.


About the starting techs bit, you may want to add that you also get roads and agriculture at the start due to the difficulty level :rolleyes:.

Oh yea!!! I forgot about that. Because we started on Chieftain difficulty, it gave us 2 extra technologies past our regular civilization starting techs. Here are the summaries:

THE WHEEL

Can build roads


AGRICULTURE

Can build Farms


So it looks like even if we made an early worker, he would be able to make roads even before Bronze Working. My vote is still for a work boat however.

Moved to the Strategy forum, as that's usually where this type of thread goes.

Settle 1 E for sure. Work the plains forest when you can, otherwise go workboat/highest hammer you can get.

BW is the opening tech. Work a fish with your first WB (which you build first since basically all your food is seafood here), whip another WB for 2nd fish. Definitely get a worker after that, probably a settler too.

1E is better by far. The start will be faster at minimal cost.

Sailing early is somewhat a priority with all the food, but we need to see more of the map.

Settle 1 E for sure. Work the plains forest when you can, otherwise go workboat/highest hammer you can get.

BW is the opening tech. Work a fish with your first WB (which you build first since basically all your food is seafood here), whip another WB for 2nd fish. Definitely get a worker after that, probably a settler too.

1E is better by far. The start will be faster at minimal cost.

Sailing early is somewhat a priority with all the food, but we need to see more of the map.

I don't understand why the start will be faster if we settle 1E. We get the plains forest in the fat cross of our city no matter which of the 2 hills we settle on. In fact, we get the identical same tiles no matter which hill we are on except for choosing either the forested tile in the bottom left if we settle in place or the non-forested plains in the bottom right if we move east. The only other difference is that if our coastal tiles in the west have seafood we can't see, then that makes them better than the coastal tiles in the east we would gain by settling 1E, which is another reason I think we should settle in place.

1. It's extremely unlikely you have more seafood. There's already 5 there.
2. Your city tile gets 2 :hammers:/turn if you settle 1E. Not true for in place. It takes about 3 turns before the plains hill spot becomes superior production wise. You'll recoup the lost turn from moving long before finishing even one work boat.

In conclusion: it's the fact that we KNOW we'll be getting identical tiles (or close) either way that makes the plains hill obviously favorable.

I believe TheMeInTeam is counting on the extra hammer you'll get in the city center plot by settling on the plains hill to speed up the game. However, I think that can be a waste in the long run, particularly if there is a resource on that plains hill (which it is pretty likely) because you can mine it (and the resource if there is one...depending on the resource), and grassland hills aren't worth as many hammers. I can't find the code right now (I'd have to look a little harder), but I've looked through the map generation script before and if I remember correctly* the game attempts to cover up all eligible plots in the starting city radius (based on where you settler spawns) with forest; if there is a resource like horses or copper, then it cannot cover up that plot.

*Someone who has looked through this code recently correct me if I'm wrong! :)

There is a probably a resource hidden in the plains hill.

Anyway, where to build the capital is a totally inappropriate debate for someone struggling to beat Chieftain.

There is a probably a resource hidden in the plains hill.

Anyway, where to build the capital is a totally inappropriate debate for someone struggling to beat Chieftain.

Hey, he started it!

Now that you mention it, I think you're right on the plains hill thing, but it isn't necessarily going to be early metal :(. Does oasis count as 1/2 resource? Seafood surely does. He's already got 2.5-3 resources here though, so I'm not so sure we're going to see iron or copper in this BFC, though I guess it can't be ruled out. Would you avoid settling on that to see if you get the resource dave?

Also, I have mixed feelings on the merits of such a debate. The micro is way, way over the heads of someone chieftan level, but as someone who was at that level about 14 months ago, I still recall such discussion helping me. It gives an idea of the mindset used while playing and you might even remember a thing or two for later.

Anyway, where to build the capital is a totally inappropriate debate for someone struggling to beat Chieftain.

Point taken. :) And here I swore I wouldn't get sucked into a debate over the finer points of this game...:lol:

I honestly thought that cities were always 2 food 1 hammer, no matter where they were?

Nope, it's even possible to get a 3h city tile, if you settle on something rare like plains hill stone.

I would recommend just settle in place and get a couple workboats out while teching BW.

I would recommend just settle in place and get a couple workboats out while teching BW.

+1.0000000

This discussion has become Micromanagement 101. I thought we would discuss simple strategy for the noob. Micromanagement is covered superbly in all its inane detail on other threads. Simple strategy. Build where you start. You should never need to choose another site to build your 1st city at the lower levels. We are discussing playing at the lowest level. We should attempt to describe the reasoning in that regard not in why we want 1 more gold than a slice of bread on our 1st few turns. I say again Simple Strategy for the noob. Putting your city on Auto Management and concentrate on Discovery. Tech mangement, buy cheap techs that support your city cross or happiness. These choices are what I as a new player would find more useful and understandable.:confused:
Then again Yorgi may be teaching how to go to the next level. This could be a discussion on Micromanagement for beginners.

City location isn't micro, and settling on plains hills is a part of that. At chieftain, it's best to focus on techtree, units, infrastructure, and various game dynamics like open borders, strategic resources, etc.

Fro now I wouldn't complicate thigs beyond; settle in place and get out some workboats working the highest hammer yield tile available.

This city will have a lot of food and commerce but with little production. It will be good for your economy and science. I would research Bronze Working for the Slavery civic. Settle in place. Build workboat. Or work on devoloping those food resources to get out a few settlers and workers. Make my second city a production one. In the long run let this city focus on commerce and science. Let subsequent cities build units for war. Also, you have more than enough food to cover the the hill, oasis and plains tiles. This is probably one of my bad habits that keep me at my level but I would be tempted to keep those forests for lumbermills later on. Replaceable Parts I think.

After you settle the city you can open the city screen. Select a workboat (or whatever you decide to build) in the build que. Then you will be able to select different tiles to see which one gives the best possible combination of growth/production to get that first build out.

When you build that first city you are going to have a really high science rate, I think. Going for an early religion might be a possible move here. You have a financial leader and your on the coast. With all the money you can generate from religious buildings thrown in you will be ahead in tech and be able to afford large armies. I usually play marathon speed so I can't give values for normal. On marathon my initial science rate (for non financial leader) ranges from 9 to 11. With 11 beakers I stand a good chance of founding a religion. At 9 beakers my chances aren't so good.
Scouting and finding out who the enemies are would help here.

I say, for now, settle in place and start working on the food to spit out some settlers and workers.

- Great start location

- You should build your first city on the plains hill as it will produce your workboats / workers and settlers faster

- There is just as little chance of there being a resource on the starting tile as there is 1E.

- This isnt your fault, but a nit pick at using random civs and maps - Hannibal, one of my favorite leaders, on a Pangea map is just :(, because of the UB. An extra trade route grows in commerce as the city does, starting off at +1 :commerce: and growing to well over 10. With extra trade routes in your cities, maintenance costs are significantly countered making expansion easier, plus the increase in maintenance costs as the city grows is countered by the growing trade routes. The best way to see the advantage of trade routes is to play an archipelago map with Hannibal and to build coastal cities only, the Great Lighthouse, and cothons in every city. Depending on the city size, and :science: rate, you will be able to see your GPT increase by 1-5 for each one built.

It hardly matters on Chieftan, but on higher difficulties, playing either Hannibal, Willem or Jauo on pangea maps is giving yourself a great disadvantage.

Too bad you didn't get hunting as a starting tech. On chieftain I would even go scout first to get all the goodie huts with possibilities of popping techs and even settlers if I am not mistaken.

About settling in place or not. I would settle in place even though settling on the plains hill gives an extra hammer at start. There is a bigger chance that settling in place nets you some extra hills which you would want with this much food. And then there is also the chance of a hidden resource. But this is one hell of a start. Nice write up so far.

About the flanking you could mention that flanking II units now can damage siege engines which is incredibly usefull. Also flanking II gives 50% retreat chance, which means when you loose a fight with that unit it has 50% chance of surviving. Not bad at all.

I just finished the game.


It was a relax one. Wasted a lot of time research non-important tech on this level.

I think this game can be won just with BW and Pottery. I was a little too conservative at the start. But ended up warrior rushed India. Then I rex a little bit and axe/cat rushed the world with macemen came along in the end.

Only wonder was nice to have is SH. And we happened to have stone nearby. Can't think of any other wonder. It's worker+chopped army. And later, cottage back economy with chopped supported army.

BTW, I only built 3 WB at Capital, never built WB for the fishes at all. They didn't have enough commerce for me to borther.

Beeline Construction after BW/Pottery and you are ganrenteed to win. Can't say much.

1E is obviously better than in place. If plains hill is copper - the better for us, we'll whip a ton of axemen almost immediately and rush 1-2 neighbours. They'll barely do any resistance or maintenance issues on chieftain.
I mean, with all this seafood and forests you don't really need early production - you can whip a lot.
EDIT: 1 see i was a bit self-contradictory, i'll explain.
my point is that you only need more production in the very beginning, when you build your first worker or WB (i think worker is even better here, to chop WB's out faster)
when you have at least 2 fishes improved, you no longer need hammers.
this and actually i hope that THERE IS copper on plains hill - to get axes faster and bash some heads.

I tinkered with this save game last night. It's a slavemaster's dream. I never left slavery.

well it does not like i'll have any free time to play any serious game, but small pangea looks like an hour's business. i'll give it a go.

My advice is to not be stingy with the whip. Learning how and when to whip helped big time for me when I was still on Chieftain. Don't be afraid of slavery - I know the real person playing the game goes, "Oh hell no, I'm much better than that!" but in terms of the game its an important civic.

i admit i have mistaken.

Actually it was a matter of half an hour.
to -950 - conquest.

Settled 1e as intended, starting with a worker, researching BW.
The entire techpath was BW.
i did research other techs, but they really did not matter at all. Axes is all you need on this map.
-3800. popped worker from a hut!!! a hut! I did not even know it is possible. kind of overpowered. well, switched production to WB.
-3640. met Gandhi. founder of buddhism. The same turn BW researched, i revolt to slavery and find copper right under carthage. starting axespam.
-3240. met MM. this one may come tricky if he gets to archery.
-3080: DoW gandhi with axe+warrior, and axe en route.
-3000: Gandhi dead. warrior died attacking Delhi without inflicting any damage, but the axe did fine.
-2760: DoW MM. He has 1 warrior in his cap, but he whips a skirmisher.
-2560: 3 axes kill skirm+warrior and MM is dead.
-2480: met Sal - hinduist.
-2280: met Hammu
-2120: DoW hammu with 4axes in case he has a bowman.
-2080: nope, no bowmen, 1 warrior in babylon. Hammu is dead.
-1840: DoW Sal.
Wow this one has 2 cities (medina guarded by 1 warrior - autorazed)
and spamwhips Protective archers in cap. i blockade his cap and send in 2 catapults.
-950: cataoults arrive. it took long 1000years to tow them across the continent. Sal dead.
207551
207552


2OP. I don't mean to be snobbish or anything like that, but i think this level is far too easy to play. Don't you think that even a newbie deserves some challenge to make his game a slightest bit interesting? Even "CIV dummies game" would be much interesting at noble.

Hey all, first I want to apologize for being absent for a few days. I am leaving for the GDC in San Francisco tomorrow, and a big deadline for work came up that I had to scramble to finish the past couple of days before I leave.

So I think this thread has lost its focus quite a bit in getting too detailed (my fault too! :) ) so I am going to reign everything in here and make some thread assumptions and goals:

ASSUMPTIONS
- You have difficulty winning on Chieftain, Warlord or Noble difficulty
- You automate workers
- You don't manage tiles in the city, they just work whatever tiles the governor chooses
- You don't understand commerce & trade routes
- You frequently choose whatever the governor suggests your city builds
- You generally are afraid to declare war
- You don't know what an "axe rush" is, let alone how to do it

If you don't fit into at least one of the above assumptions, then the remainder of this thread will probably be boring for you. Feel free to stop by and check it out and help out if we need a tidbit of info or to double check my info accuracy, but honestly it's slightly disheartening when people say things like "beat it in 2 hours" and leave spoilers with how easy it was. If you are that good, do you need to be posting your awesomeness in a thread like this? The point of the thread is to help newbies who are struggling with the lower difficulties or who want to learn more, not serve as bragging rights for a ridiculously easy speed run of a difficulty 5 levels below your usual.

That being said, I'm also guilty of this thread becoming a discussion of things more complicated than what it was intended, so I apologize for that. Good KISS reality check for me. Ok, moving on to goals for this game:

GAME GOALS
- Conquer at least 1 rival civilization to learn how to run a basic war
- Do not automate any workers for the entirety of the game
- Learn how commerce & trade routes work and utilize them in our empire
- WIN! :D


With that, I will be playing the set of turns and post the summary in extreme detail tonight. Sorry to all the newbies out there for the thread hijacking into Micro 101 (which, as I said, I was guilty of too! :) ). We're back on track!

2OP. I don't mean to be snobbish or anything like that, but i think this level is far too easy to play. Don't you think that even a newbie deserves some challenge to make his game a slightest bit interesting? Even "CIV dummies game" would be much interesting at noble.

You sound snobbish :sad:

I'm a veteran of the whole franchise, including Civ4, and I never play higher than noble (sometimes I even drop down to Warlord for some games). I want no more challenge than it provides, and sometimes even then it's just not fun. Remember, for the vast majority of the game players in the world, difficulty does NOT create fun; rather, it detracts from it.

The mechanics of the game are very hard to wrap one's head around. A few games at Chieftain difficulty is good for that. This comes from someone who's currently in the process of teaching the game to a few of his friends who've never played any turn based strategy before, let alone Civ. I recommend you try it; you'll see their struggle and frustration.

Hey all, first I want to apologize for being absent for a few days. I am leaving for the GDC in San Francisco tomorrow, and a big deadline for work came up that I had to scramble to finish the past couple of days before I leave.

Well come to Bay Area. The allergy has been killing me.


GAME GOALS
- Conquer at least 1 rival civilization to learn how to run a basic war
- Do not automate any workers for the entirety of the game
- Learn how commerce & trade routes work and utilize them in our empire
- WIN! :D


I'll try to answer the first question. Built 3 warriors before you start building anything else. And use 2 food 1 hammer tile to do the job. (yes, city micro) if your city grow to 2 in the process. changed to oasis and a 1f2h tiles to keep the warrior out fast enough. send your first warrior out and find your first neighbor, the use that warrior circle around the neighbor's border and scout. when all 4 warriors arrived, declare and heading to his capital, and use sheer number to kill him. This should work on your level. Try it out and report back. :)

i admit i have mistaken.

In regards to the worker from a hut thing... I just got BtS and started my first chieftan epic game with Alex a few days ago just to get a feel for the changes from vanilla. Popped two settlers from huts and had three cities before 3000BC as well as several techs and bunches of gold. Needless to say the game was basically over at that point. The two cities I made with the settlers provided support and I wonder-spammed in Athens. I think I missed two whole wonders until the middle ages when I quite due to boredom. Hut popping can make a huge dif on chieftan.

Hall of fame games typically see people run around with their starting units collecting workers/settlers everywhere en-masse'. On marathon even using the settler for this is a good idea ----> you'll probably get a worker or settler, and in less turns than you could possibly build one.

Well come to Bay Area. The allergy has been killing me.



I'll try to answer the first question. Built 3 warriors before you start building anything else. And use 2 food 1 hammer tile to do the job. (yes, city micro) if your city grow to 2 in the process. changed to oasis and a 1f2h tiles to keep the warrior out fast enough. send your first warrior out and find your first neighbor, the use that warrior circle around the neighbor's border and scout. when all 4 warriors arrived, declare and heading to his capital, and use sheer number to kill him. This should work on your level. Try it out and report back. :)

Heh I'd like to conquer a rival with more than 1 city. I want to show how to run a successful campaign and take over several cities to increase territory. I'll do a "rush" in another game to show how that's done, but this game is going to be more basic. :)

Heh I'd like to conquer a rival with more than 1 city. I want to show how to run a successful campaign and take over several cities to increase territory. I'll do a "rush" in another game to show how that's done, but this game is going to be more basic. :)

Later on, AI got archers up, then you will be on the mercy of where AI builds there cities. It usually requires 2:1 Axe/Archer if not more to take down any plain city be to safe... If you do that, it takes a LOT longer... see you in ADs... and maybe you'll have a Axe/Cats combined army like what did in the test drive. Anyway, have fun...

Hello again, everyone! :) I played the first 16 turns of the game tonight, but I will only be posting a summary of the first turn and a detailed explanation of some game concepts that will help us later on. Here it is:

TURN 0
- [UNIT] Warrior moved SW
- [UNIT] Settler build city - Carthage founded - queue Warrior

On the first turn, I decided to simplify things by just plopping down immediately where the computer placed me. Carthage is founded! Hurray! :) The city immediately starts production of a second Warrior unit (we started the game with one Warrior already). At this stage in the game, my goal is to get out there and explore as much as I can. Exploring serves three purposes - meeting other civilizations, scouting the land for resources, and finding village huts.

Before we finish the first turn, I want to take a few moments and describe an extremely critical concept in Civ 4, one that is rarely understood quickly by new players (including myself back when I first started): Commerce.

Commerce is represented by a little coin icon (:commerce:) in a city screen. Let's open our city info screen to learn a little bit more about how commerce works. You can open the city info screen of any city by double-clicking the city on the map (just above the city name).

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0004_T0-BC4000_CityScreen01.JPG

Before diving into the guts of commerce, let's step back for a moment and take a look at the concept of city management in general. Even if you are a newbie, you have probably figured out much of this already, but I don't want to assume so I'll go through it anyway.

Notice the two white circles within my city screen. Those circles represent the tiles that my population is "working" for food (:food:), production (:hammers:), and commerce (:commerce:). You get to work the tile your city is founded on for free, and then you get an additional tile for each point of population in the city. Because Carthage is population 1 (shown at the top as "Carthage: 1"), that means I can work a total of 2 tiles: the city tile, and one other tile of my choosing. If you never mess with this screen, the governor (AI) will automatically select which tiles your citizens will work, but you can always override this at any time. Currently, my governor has selected the oasis tile just south of my city as the tile my 1 population will work.

Between the two tiles, I am producing 5 food, 1 production, and 4 commerce. Food and production are fairly simple. You need to feed each population point 2 food per turn. In order for your city to grow, you must make more food than the bare minimum needed to feed your population. The greater the surplus food you have, the faster your cities grow. Production is used to produce whatever is in your build queue. Each item has a cost in production points, and each production point you gain from working tiles is applied to that cost every turn until the cumulative production exceeds the cost. For instance, if my city produces 2 production points per turn and my item costs 10 production points, then I will build that item in 5 turns (10 / 2 = 5).

Commerce, however, is a bit trickier. Commerce isn't directly used by a city. Instead, it is converted into some other benefit for your empire as a whole. This early in the game, your commerce can only be converted into research (:science:) or gold (:gold:). Later on, after discovering any other civilization, it can also be converted to espionage (:espionage:). Still later, after discovering the Drama technology, commerce can be converted into culture (:culture:) as well.

Going back to the city info screen, I can manually override my governor's selection of tiles to work simply by clicking another tile. The little white circle will then move to that tile, indicating that it is being worked now. Let's try some different tiles and see the effect on my city output.

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0007_T0-BC4000_CityScreen04.JPG

By working the plains hill tile, my city produces a total of 2 food, 3 production, and 1 commerce from tiles. Notice that the little food bar now says "Stagnant" - this is because I am not producing any more than the bare minimum amount of food needed to feed my population. I have no surplus, so my city cannot grow. However, the benefit is that my Warrior will be produced 3 times as fast as before. Notice that it only takes 5 turns instead of the previous 15.

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0008_T0-BC4000_CityScreen05.JPG

By working the forested grasslands tile, my city produces a total of 4 food, 2 production, and 1 commerce from tiles. My city is once again growing because I have a surplus of food, but my warrior is going to take 8 turns to build now (15 / 2 = 7.5, rounded up to 8).

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0004_T0-BC4000_CityScreen01.JPG

I'm going to switch it back to the oasis tile. This early in the game I just want my population to grow as fast as possible, and this tile provides more food than any other (3:food:). I get an additional 3 commerce as well which, as explained before, can be converted to research or gold depending on the settings I choose for my empire.

To try and simplify the commerce learning curve a bit, you can think of commerce as funding for different government departments. You get to decide at all times just how much of that funding goes to each department. Imagine the 4 departments are as follows:

Department of Science (research)
Department of Finance (gold)
Department of Arts & Entertainment (culture)
Department of Foreign Affairs (espionage)

I might choose the following distribution scheme:

40% commerce - Department of Science
30% commerce - Department of Finance
10% commerce - Department of Arts & Entertainment
20% commerce - Department of Foreign Affairs

If my empire generates a total of 100 commerce, that means I have 100 "units" of funding distributed as described above (40 research, 30 gold, 10 culture, 20 espionage points). You can use the little +/- icons next to those icons in the upper left to change the distribution empire-wide. Note that you can't change this distribution on a city-by-city basis - it always affects all the cities in your empire the same way.

Going back to our game as an example, notice that I am producing 12 commerce total, as shown by the following image (you can see the summary box I have in the upper left by hovering over the numbers for research or gold):

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0005_T0-BC4000_CityScreen02.JPG

If I am only producing 4 commerce from my tiles, where is the other 8 commerce coming from? Notice that this city has a building in it - the Palace (listed in the left side of the screen under Buildings). The Palace has the benefit of producing 8 commerce for the city all by itself. Ahhhhh, so that's where the other 8 commerce is coming from.

I have my commerce "funding distribution" set to 100% research, and 0% gold. That means every single point of commerce is being routed to our Department of Science to research new technologies. You can see a mathematical summary of this ratio by hovering the mouse over the number next to the beaker. My base commerce from the city is 12, and 100% of 12 = 12, so my city is producing a total of 12 research.

What happens if we change the ratio in the upper left using the +/- buttons? Let's try it! Let's move research down to 50%.

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0006_T0-BC4000_CityScreen03.JPG

Notice that I am now producing 6 research and 6 gold. 12 * 50% = 6, so that makes sense. You can play around with this to see the effect, but for now I am going back to 100% research. I don't have any particular need for money in my treasury right now, but I do want those technologies faster, so it makes more sense to stay at 100%.

Ok, now that we've dug into the guts of city management and gotten a basic understanding of how food, production, and commerce work as well as how to force population to work specific tiles, we are official done the first turn. Don't expect every turn in the game to have a huge post like this. I just wanted to make sure I explained this finer point of managing a city (in particular, commerce) so that future decisions make more sense. Please let me know if you have any questions on this topic. I'll try to post the remaining 15 turns tomorrow night if possible, but no guarantees as I am flying to San Francisco.

I hope you are enjoying Civ 4 Dummies so far. Until next post! :)

Good thread. I'll be keeping up with this one as I'm a bit of a noob and need to figure out some of the game mechanics.

Once again, excellent writeup. I remember my start in Civ and my complete ignorance of the commerce system...for a long time, I just thought it was gold! :)

Very nice guide! This would have saved me hours of time when I first started.

nice starting point!:goodjob:
this is actully my first chieftain game lol. i played it through and won a diplomatic victory in 1917 for 5000 points.

spoilers:
no horse and only 2 iron on the map! :( + your stuck with a bunch of leaders that can expaned at crazy speeds. [world was all claimed at 1000 ad :eek:]

Keep it up. For new players and low level players this is golden. I see so many things explained that I was wondering about when I played my first game with this.

Thank you ... i was looking for something like this.
Very nice write up, and i actually learned something from it :)

:goodjob:

Hello again! :)

On to the next few turns:

T1: 3960 BC
- [TECH] set research to Bronze Working
- [UNIT] Warrior moved SW - revealed Stone, Corn & hut


At the beginning of Turn 1 (which is actually the second turn since it starts with Turn 0), the game prompts me to select a technology to research. I had forgotten to do so on the first turn, but that's ok because any progress I made last turn with no tech selected will automatically be applied to the tech I select this turn. The game is forgiving in that respect.

We begin research on Bronze Working for a couple of reasons, one of which is specific to our civilization:


COPPER - One of the most important strategic resources in the early game is Copper, and it is revealed after researching Bronze Working. Copper is vital for building the better early military units like Spearmen and Axemen. Let's hope we have it in or around our starting city.
SLAVERY - Slavery is enabled, allowing us to sacrifice population points in a city to speed production. This may sound counter-intuitive, but when a city produces a lot of food and little production it serves as a nice way of "converting" food into production. You do have to be careful when you use it as it negatively impacts a city's happiness for some time, but it's extremely useful for finishing buildings early or instantly squeezing out a military unit to help defend.
FOREST CHOPPING - Bronze Working allows us to chop down forests, which is required before building tile improvements like mines & farms on forested tiles. The other advantage is that chopping a forest down will result in an immediate influx of production for the nearest city, speeding up production of whatever it is building. Many players chop forests to help speed production of Wonders.
COMPASS - Our unique building, the Cothon, requires the knowledge of Compass. Bronze Working is a pre-requisite for that technology so we would have to research it anyway.


Now that our civilization is happily researching a technology, the only other task that remains is giving orders to our Warrior. We move the Warrior SW one tile onto the forested hill tile. Notice that the Warrior can see everything up to two tiles away instead of the usual one:

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0009_T2-BC3920_WarriorOnForestHill.JPG

This is because when you are on a tile, you can see "past" any other tile with a lower elevation than yours. The elevations are as follows, from lowest to highest:


Water
Flatland
Hill
Mountain


Since our Warrior is on a hill and all the other tiles next to him are flatland tiles, he can see "past" them to the next tile below. Also notice that hills give defending units a +25% defense bonus and forests/jungles give defending units a +50% defense bonus. Defense bonuses are cumulatively added, so our Warrior on a forested hill is receiving a 75% defense bonus (25% + 50%) which raises his power to 3.5 (base 2 power * 1.75) when defending. You can find a small summary of a tile's defense in the lower left just above the unit stat summary built into the UI by rolling over a tile. Wild animals and barbarians can potentially appear anywhere there is fog of war, so it's good to make a habit of ending your turns on these defensive tiles as much as possible.

Our extended hill vision has revealed Corn and Stone resources which we'll be able to snatch up with a city later on. Corn provides additional food and health to allow a city to grow faster and larger, while Stone is a strategic resource that allows our cities to make certain buildings and wonders twice as fast. We've also revealed a village hut 2 tiles SE. Village huts can be "popped" by landing on their tile to provide a random benefit (or sometimes hostile barbarians if you are unlucky). Let's head SE to pop that hut before anyone else!

T2: 3920 BC
- [UNIT] Warrior moved SE

On this turn, we've moved one tile SE towards the hut. Notice that no new tiles are revealed. Since all the tiles around us are the same elevation (flatland), our vision is reduced to 1 tile and contains only tiles we had already revealed last turn from the 2 tile vision of the hill. Also notice that our defense bonus is gone. We're on non-forested flatland, which provide no defense bonus whatsoever.

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0010_T3-BC3880_WarriorOnPlains.JPG


T3: 3880 BC
- [UNIT] Warrior moved SE - popped hut, got new tech
- [TECH] discovered Hunting
- [CITY] Carthage queue Scout


On Turn 3, we move our Warrior SE one more tile and pop the village hut. The villagers have given us the secret of Hunting! Woohoo!

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0011_T3-BC3880_DiscoverHunting.JPG

Hunting gives us a couple of advantages. First, our works can now build Camps, which are a tile improvement that allow us to make use of certain animal resources such as Ivory, Fur and Deer. That doesn't help us immediately, but we might find something that needs it down the road, and hey we got it for free, right? We can also train Spearmen if we find Copper, and Bronze Working will reveal all copper as soon as we're done researching it. Last, but most importantly at this stage in the game, we can now train Scouts! Scouts only have 1 power and can only defend, but they get 2 movement points instead of one and they have the added benefit of never receiving hostile barbarians from popping village huts. This makes them the perfect early game explorers.

This is important enough of an event that we should switch production in Carthage from a Warrior to a Scout. I double click on the city of Carthage to open the city screen, and then click on the newly available Scout button at the bottom.

http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0012_T3-BC3880_QueueScout.JPG

Notice that the Scout appears in the build queue on the bottom left ABOVE the Warrior. Clicking to build something while something else is in the build queue tells your city, in essence, stop whatever you are doing to build this FIRST. Then go back to whatever build you were doing before. I'll get into more details about queue management and build decay in another post, but for now it's enough to know that you can make a city produce something else for a while without losing your production on the other build. It will resume where it left off, so the 3 production points we've already invested into the Warrior don't just mysteriously vanish.

The next few turns were fairly uneventful:

T4: 3840 BC
- [UNIT] Warrior moved SE - revealed Spices


We reveal Spices the next turn, which provide happiness and eventually health to your cities with a plantation. That's not for a while though - we'll need the Calendar technology to build those.

T5: 3800 BC
- [CULTURE] Carthage's borders expand
- [UNIT] Warrior moved SE


On Turn 5, Carthage's cultural borders expand. Just in case you don't know, cultural borders define the size of your empire's influence. You get certain advantages inside of your cultural borders, such as the ability to build any tile improvement, faster healing for your units, the ability to upgrade units, and the ability for a city to work tiles. As your city accumulates culture, it will pass certain thresholds that increase its cultural rank:


0 - Poor
10 - Fledgling
100 - Developing
500 - Refined
5000 - Influential
50000 - Legendary


Cities with Poor cultural rating (0 to 9) have cultural borders equal to the tile of the city and all tiles next to it, including diagonals (3 rows of 3 tiles). Each time the borders expand, each column and each row of tiles expands by one tile on both sides. Since the starting boundaries are a 3x3 grid, they expand 3 times on each of the 4 sides, resulting in a "fat cross" shape.

Carthage's borders have increased to this "fat cross" shape, and at this point the maximum possible workable tiles area of a city are defined. Even if the city's cultural borders expand again and encompass more tiles, only the tiles in the fat cross are eligible for citizens to work. This makes it very important for a city to get at least 10 culture for that first expansion to allow your citizens to work the most amount of tiles. Anything past that is gravy - good for expanding borders but not required for the city.

T6: 3760 BC
- [UNIT] Warrior moved NE - revealed Dyes & another civ's borders


http://www.georgeskleres.com/civ4/civ4dummies/game1/screenshots/Civ4Dummies_Game1-0013_T6-BC3760_SpottedCivBorders.JPG

Exploring NE this turn reveals Dyes, which are great for boosting happiness, but once again we have to research Calendar to get Plantations first.

But wait, what's that? I spy a sliver of dark yellow civilization borders to the east, just barely peeking out of the fog of war. Looks like we're about to meet our first neighbors!

This is a good stopping point for now. I'll post the results of the next couple of turns sometime soon. The Game Developers Conference has been great fun, but kept me very busy so again I apologize for the delays. If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them! Until next time... :)

So far, so good! The resources here look very nice, covering both health and happyness issues.
You forgot though to mention that you have also found clams, which are a nice food source.
Things seem pretty solid so far, I also spotted two possibly good areas to settle :
1) 1S from the Corn : A decent harbor city which can work (when borders expand) both the Corn and the Stone. It will also be a Harbor city which will get advantage from your Cothon. You should scout the area south from that place to see the rest of the terrain in order to decide if you want to settle there and what that city would make out of it. From looks, it could become a production city (mine, stone quarry, Workshops + lumbermills if more food) or a commerce city with cotages if grassland is revealed south from there, which will also have decent production for the needed buildings.

2) Your other city could be 2N from spices, where it could claim the spices, dye and clams for food. That should become a commerce city though definately, with a workable plain hills mine, good food (to even support a scientist or two) and cottages. By making the city 2N from spices, you will settle on that desert tile, actually ignoring the fact that it is desert and getting 2F1H1C more out of a desert tile ;-)

Now, the fact that you got stone out is very important since it can lead the way to some crucial wonders. (also counting the difficulty of the game, it will be very easy to get all the wonders that you want-stone at least). Having stone, Maoi Statues, Oxford, West Point (from National) and Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Stonehenge (possibly), Spiral Minaret, University of Sankore,Ankgor Wadatt and the Great Wall pops up to mind. Building any of those wonders could dictate the course of your game.. but we shall speak later on that.

I would advise (especially if you hook up to some bronze) to make your capital a Gold-making city, focusing on Great Merchant and Great Prophet wonders and specialists. More specific : Great Lighthouse, Maoi Statues, The Colosus, Angkor Wadatt, Spiral Minaret, Wall Street, Statue of Liberty and Eifell Tower, founding possible a couple of Corporations there. If you also find Marble, you could make The Versailles as well and move your capital further to the center of your empire either to cut down maintenance or to run a nicely cottaged Bureocracy Capital to make out your science ;-)

Having stone helps also getting an early Great Engineer and Great Spy (the hardest type of Great People you can get) by building the Pyramids (+Hanging Gardens) and Great Wall respectively.. Now, an Espionage Economy would not help out, so the Great Wall seems a bit of no use... Keep your eyes open though for a place with river and good hammers (hills or forests for lumbermills) + food (perfect if you could get it by sea as well). If you find a place like that, make a new city by the river, chop the pyramids, have a forge and let an engineer specialist run it and make the Hanging gardens, producing wealth/troops untill the time you can make it your Ironworks city.

But that is a bit far ahead in the future.. so back to the present : Your scout will be out in 12 turns. Bronze working in 2. Have your Warrior scout the areas arround the two cities I proposed, then place him on a hill to fogbust the area and save your from any early barbs.
Get your scout out then make a worker. Bronze Working will defo be out by then. When your first worker is out, chop a second, then use both of them to chop a settler out and speed up your initial expanding.

With your new settler, I would make City 1 (Corn + Stone). There, I would use the workers to chop a settler for City 2 (Clams + Spices + Dye)

In Capital I would build Lighthouse,Stonehenge, Great Lighthouse, Maoi Statues for sure. Start building Stonehenge when your BFC expand to cover the stone.

To do all those, you will need to research (in the following order) : Sailing, Mysticism, Masonry (after BW). I do not remember if you have Roads + Agriculture from the difficulty level. If you have them, good. If you do not have them yet, try to research Roads Before Masonry and Agriculture after Masonry. After those techs are done, get Animal Husbandry, since you will need to see if you have Horse out for your unique unit. If you do, Horseback Riding becomes a priority. If you do not find any Horse, Consider Iron Working. After those techs are done, it is time for Pottery/ Writing / Alphabet, following Mathematics, Calendar and Compass.
If you DO find Bronze, Metal Casting becomes a priority to make forges and The Colossus.

From the 1st City (Corn + Stone), Chop settler for 3rd, then make a couple of boats for your capital, following a barracks to crank out some defenders.

From your 2nd City (Spices + Dye + Clam) make sure to chop a settler first and use him to cap any source of Bronze you might find.

At that point you will have 4 Cities, which is a nice number to work out your economy, scout the land and decide what kind of victory you want to pursue and further adjust your strategy (expand peacefully or via war, colonize, etc).

(Big post :-P)

PS : If you DO go for wonderspam in Capital, have City 1 crank out defenders and City 2 focus on commerce + 2 scientist specials to help out a bit with the research.
In case I forgot, Pottery will help out getting Cottages to boost your economy. Try to build any cottages on river tiles, so your Financial trait kicks in from the start.

Update? Comments from anyone?

Update? Comments from anyone?

Press Ctrl+Y to show the tile yields, and which tile was worked.

Good city site suggestions from AlienSexFilth. I found proper city placement to be one of the most important subjects to get a good grasp on when learning the game.

To that end, I recommand installing the newest BUG mod. Most of the options in BUG is for more advanced players, but by pressing ALT-X, you bring up a dotmap editor which is a tremendous help in city planning.

Good city site suggestions from AlienSexFilth. I found proper city placement to be one of the most important subjects to get a good grasp on when learning the game.

To that end, I recommand installing the newest BUG mod. Most of the options in BUG is for more advanced players, but by pressing ALT-X, you bring up a dotmap editor which is a tremendous help in city planning.

Where can I get that BUG mode?I think I need to get it (if it is the one I think it is from all the screenies) Is it easy to install? I am running on Vista... :-S

The BUG Mod is available here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274636).

Is very easy to install, but you need to make sure that your BtS is patched up to at least 3.13, although I expect you will have 3.17.

Where can I get that BUG mode?I think I need to get it (if it is the one I think it is from all the screenies) Is it easy to install? I am running on Vista... :-S

it's a question i have asked myself. :)

here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274636)

Oops, a bit of too late. :(

The BUG Mod is available here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274636).

Is very easy to install, but you need to make sure that your BtS is patched up to at least 3.13, although I expect you will have 3.17.

I have CivIV Complete so I think it comes with 3.17 patch by default. Correct me if I'm wrong please :-D

If you want to make sure, Civ4 displays the version number at the start-up screen. You can also see it in the Advanced option, I believe.

I have Civ4 Complete. It didn't come with 3.17, maybe 3.13 but I'm not sure, I know I definitely have to patch to 3.17 each time I install.

On a side note do not patch from within the game, it never seems to work.

How to patch then to 3.17?

The thread here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279381) shows possible download locations.

I would recommend checking what version you have first as directed in the above thread.

Is anybody there? Anyone?