Hey all,

Over a year ago I dabbled in Civ 4. With the release of the complete set, I'll be grabbing a copy as soon as I confirm compatibility with my laptop. Meanwhile, I've been poking around here trying to get some tips. I'd appreciate some advice about which civilizations might make good starters, keeping in mind this background:

I'm not a fan, as many people here seem to be, of the "kill them all before the Pyramids are built" sort of tactics. I prefer a gradual development and growth of my realm, generally space race or modern age conquest victories. I normally play archipelagos, small continents, or other water heavy maps, and try to throw a bit of RP into it ("why would they build X there?" decisions, etc.)

I hadn't entirely gotten my bearings with all the vanilla leaders, and now there will be a whole lot more in the mix. I figured I'd try a strategy that's worked for me in other games of learning through failures.

I'll start a game or two on Noble with bad civs, or at least bad civs for my playing style, and probably fail miserably. That way, once I'm a little better at it, I can transition to civs that work better for that strategy and actually do well.

I apologize if this sounds completely insane to anyone, but like I said, its worked for me before, why not give it a shot.

If you guys could recommend a couple civs ideal for the first round (either generally bad civs/leaders, or just ones bad at the sort of games I described- from vanilla, warlords, or bts), and a few ones that excel at it that would be great.
-dph

I suggest that you try play a million little random games - random climate, sea level, map type, civ, leader - on Noble. It helps you learn a lot, believe me. :D

Elizabeth is probably a great leader for your kind of play style - she gains massive tech momentum in the later game, and her Redcoats are awesome.

I think that if you know how to play the civ, nothing can be bad since AI sucks at warfare :-P
Every civ or leader might have specific strategies that make him/her shine. In time you will get to know them.
A decent Civ to start imho would be the Ottomans under Mehmed. He is very balanced and you can try anything you want. Isabella is also a decent starting leader and Washington I think too. Try to avoid the Industrious folk

More of strong civs (at least I consider) would be : Persians(Cyrus for warmongering and Darius for the best economy), Carthagians (Hanniball), American (Lincoln), German (Frederic), Greece (Pericles), Russians (Catherine) and Ethiopians (Zara Yaquob). Romans also are very strong but not so much because of leader traits as of the overpowered Praetorian. The English also could pop in with Elizabeth who has the best two economy traits (Philosophical and Financial with strong starting techs, strong UB&UU) but I think she fails a bit because of the lack of cheap units or buildings. Last, the Egyptians are a very strong civ if played correctly since they have a killer UU only 1 tech away from start and the UB can help you abuse the early priest specialist for early GP and bulbing Religious techs..

hahahahahaha AlienSexFilth I love your sig.

hahahahahaha AlienSexFilth I love your sig.

It was an enlightment I had this morning. Thought it would be nice to share :-P

Generally bad civs are the ones with no bonus to economics. that would be any one with the protective trait - a weak trait in general - who does not combine it with philosophical (Sitting Bull is PRO/PHI) or organised (dunno if that combo is possible) or financial (ditto).

A very weak one is Tokugawa IMO, he has two of the weakest abilities in the game. His UU is solid, yet it cannot help the fact that he has nothing else going for him.

The role playing part does not sound weird at all. Just do not expect to succeed all the way up to emperor with a playstyle like that. Since it sounds to me like that is not the goal at all then all is well. Carry on! :goodjob:

Unlike AlienSexFilth I think industrious is a solid trait, that is to say I would not advice you to stay clear of leaders with that trait. It requires a deviation from your typical approach to any given game since you want to shoot for certain wonders and such, but when you focus on doing just that the trait really shines and it becomes powerful indeed.

I didn't say Industrious is a weak trait. I just said that he should avoid it. It is bad to start Civ and get a built-all-the-shinies-fever that works up to noble and then face the cold, harsh reality of.. Shaka :-P
I think that the most important thing in Civ is to learn to build only wonders that help you achieve your goal and nothing more...

First of all there are no 'bad' civs, and no civ that I wouldn't try your tactic up to Immortal with no problems.

The worst case choice would be a civ whose traits have no economic side effects and the only two are protective and aggressive, all the other traits in some way help your economy. This leaves Tokugawa of Japan as your only option. Unfortunately Tok starts with Fishing and The Wheel which allows you to tech straight to Pottery and start growing those cottages, which is obviously not what is wanted :)

Your best option would be to hit as many random buttons as possible and play what you receive, my understanding is the fractal map script gets you a fairly random map. Another option would be no wonders, they tend to offer a crutch for the player leading to poor skills.

I didn't say Industrious is a weak trait. I just said that he should avoid it. It is bad to start Civ and get a built-all-the-shinies-fever that works up to noble and then face the cold, harsh reality of.. Shaka :-P
I think that the most important thing in Civ is to learn to build only wonders that help you achieve your goal and nothing more...I understand what you said, that is why I added the 'that is to say...' bit. Industrious is a solid trait simply because there are quite a few wonders that you would very much like to get if you have a decent shot at them.

Stonehenge or the great wall are nice if you can get them with bonus :hammers: to chopping from IND trait, the mids come to mind, in some cases the oracle can be a good choice, the great library, the mausoleum if you can get a very good GP farm, taj mahal, every national wonder you will typically want...

Even if you do not get all the wonders you can still start buidling them. If you stop a few hammers short of finishing you will get quite a bit of :gold: for missing the wonder, and you produced that wonder with a bonus to :hammers:, so it is even more effective than building wealth and it can be done even before currency is in...

Industrious is a very solid trait indeed, fighting the 'build-the-shinies-fever can be combatted regardless of this trait. Build what you need, maybe get some cash from almost building what you do not need and keep your eyes open, then you are golden! :goodjob:

Darius is a good starter Civ, or hatty.

Both have good UU's you can rush with (getting war started early will help you learn it early) and Darius is organised which allows for more forgiving empire expansion.

Given you map preferences and your "RP" preference, Try the following

Consider Marathon speed if you can handle the longer game. A ong modern age game adds alot of enjoyment to CIV!

You need not conquer the world before the pyramids, but you should be warring early to expand (every civilization did this in reality!). So get yourself some realestate, a few loyal friends, and hunker down for a space race win (I actually do this often).

Suggested leaders

Hannibal: Great on water heavy maps being financial and the best UB for a wat map. The UU is fun although takes a little strategy. You want a littel RP angle, add some hated ancient leaders for a flair (Romans/greeks/Persians)

The Russians. All with good traits and starting techs. A great UB for the space race (maybe the best) and a dominating UU for it's age. And all three leaders have certain "Personalities" you can play as.

Ragnar: Want to flex a little power on those water maps, go raiding those coastal cities. A great techer and more than competant fighter with a good UB and a great UU for water maps. Can't you feel the pirate in yah!

Willem, perhaps the king of the sea with his UU, UB and great traits. All arround, the best on teh high seas.

Joao: Feel like exploring, the Carrack is your UU! His traits means alot of early settling on distant islands, and a later UB that really helps commerce!

But there is more to the game. I have heard runor that there is a Role Play Story involved in every leader in this game! ;)

(Hint, follow the link in my signature!)

To be honest, my advice has already been given. Set up a few random settings for the maps, (landmass types, not climates) and let the random generator pick your leaders.

However, if you're intent on picking a bad (for you) leader, I can think of a couple that don't fit with the style of play you want to use. More importantly, I think I can rank the traits that would be most helpful for what you like to do, and then you can just pick from the list of leaders without them.

If you're going to play on a watery, small land-mass map, and prefer to expand organically until late in the game, then the most helpful traits are:
-- Financial (extra commerce from all of those coastal tiles, will be a big advantage over the non-financial AI civs)
-- Creative (No need to spend precious early hammers, often rare on water maps, on monuments. Double speed Libraries will also really helpful for the peaceful expansion plan.)
-- Organized (You get a double helping of goodness here. First you get half-price Lighthouses and Courthouses, both of which are required buildings for your early game strategy. Second, when the world starts to become a dangerous place for you, you'll start to see nice benefits from the civic upkeep discount.)
-- Expansive (The +2 health bonus, plus the half-price granaries and harbors, which every city will also probably have, make this another VERY useful trait for the peaceful water-map plan. On some of these maps, you might not have access to all of the grains until you can start trading for them, but with the +2 bonus and the seafood/half-price harbor kicker, you won't even notice. On top of all that, 25% discount on workers, which is handy on a map where some remote new cities might actually have to build their own workers rather than just running a team over to the new site.)

If you avoid all of those traits, you should be giving yourself a pretty decent disadvantage. I can also see some benefits from Charasmatic (the reduced XP is quite useful on a water map, as your drydock cities build level 3 ships out of the box, and who doesn't like +1 happy everywhere?) but all of the rest of the traits will provide less dramatic help for your style.


So, if you want some leaders to give a shot, why don't you try the following (who also have unique units and buildings that won't be useful either:)
-- Either Celtic leader. Boudica will be more useful in the late game if you want to shoot for the conquest, and Brennus will give you a reason to experiment with the benefits of Spiritual, especially playing around with the different civics.
-- Alexander. He'll give you a shot to work on what to do with the Philosophical trait. You might find yourself with a lot of food rich/hammer poor cities. He would give you a good reason to play around with specialists that you might not otherwise try.
-- Charlemagne. His unique building is excellent for your style, and you have a shot at founding an early religion, but other than that... blech.
-- Tokugawa. Yeah, as mentioned above, not much for you here. If you shoot for the late conquest win, at least you get some supercharged gunpowder units.
-- Genghis Khan. He's got half price settlers for you early, and nothing for you late other than the combat 1 promotion. The Mongolian horse related units and buildings don't do you any favors on a water map.
-- Augustus Caesar. Half price settlers are nice. You might get an extra wonder (and if you DON'T build the Great Lighthouse on this kind of map, you need to be sent to your room to think about what you've done) but it is the refusal to use the massive advantage of the praetorians that will make him a bad leader for you.
-- Stalin. Another aggressive guy with a UU that won't help you in this type of game.
--Sitting Bull. He's actually not bad for a protective guy. Build Stonehenge and then the Great Lighthouse. Expand like crazy and run lots of specialists to keep the economy afloat.

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Complete is installing as I type this. Sounds like Tokugawa got quite a lot of comments as good ones to try for a difficult match, so I'll start with him.