entrada_sinful
Chieftain
I'm sure religion recommendations have already been posted here, but for all n00bs read up on religion in Civ4 gameplay because it is vital to your victory I promise....
Condensed tips for beginners?
- Thread starter Roger_Mellie
- Start date
enigmagic
Chieftain
Is there any way to scrub an entry in the Hall of Fame ? I accidentally pressed resign when I'm nowhere near finished and annoyingly I now have a really crap score in at second place (this is only my second game)
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Yeah, I had a game like that in my HoF early on as well.enigmagic said:
Just delete the appropriate file in C:\Documents and Settings\your_ID\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Replays.ProfessorK
Chieftain
I have some questions about how the actual game mechanics work when attacking a city over a period of time (ie. seige):
I know the benefit of destroying critical improvements like iron and copper mines and horse pastures, but am uncertain of the benefit of destroying other improvements like farms, food source pastures, and windmills and such.
Do you think that pilaging these other improvements is worth pulling units from the attack on the beseiged a city?
Thanks for your help.
- 1. Does posting a unit on a trade route from the beseiged city to another city cut off the ability of the beseiged city to obtain food and resources from the other city?
2. How much impact does pilaging farms surrounding the beseiged city have on effecting the food available to the city and the currency generated from the farms?
3. How much and in what way does pilaging other improvement affect the strength of the besieged city (ie. windmills, workshops, lumbermills, watermills, etc.)?
4. How does pilaging roads affect the supply of resources from ajoining titles to the beseiged city?
I know the benefit of destroying critical improvements like iron and copper mines and horse pastures, but am uncertain of the benefit of destroying other improvements like farms, food source pastures, and windmills and such.
Do you think that pilaging these other improvements is worth pulling units from the attack on the beseiged a city?
Thanks for your help.
Zophos
Greater Ape of Antics
ProfessorK said:
Sea units can block coastal/sea routes. Land units, oddly, do not block land routes. You have to pillage away all the roads to cut land routes. Rivers cannot be cut at all, AFAIK.
Well, it removes the benefit of the farm. On a regular tile, that's +1 food (+2 after Biology). On a resource...it depends. Farms don't produce extra commerce, so that is unaffected.
If the city is working that tile, then it will lose the food mentioned above. Of course, the city might be able to switch to working a different farm, so it very much depends on the situation.
Basically the same as above. Pillaging removes the improvement, so the city can't get the benefit that the improvement provided (though it may be able to work other improvements for the same benefit). It doesn't directly weaken the city - knocking down walls and killing defenders is just as hard - but it may reduce the food/hammer/commerce output of the city until the improvements are rebuilt.
Resources have to get to a city through some route consisting of roads, rivers, coastline (with Sailing), and ocean (with Astronomy). It is possible, though often difficult, to cut all the routes into a city and thus deprive it of resources. However, if even one route remains that connects the city to its capital, then it has access to all the resources available to the civ.
Generally, if you're going to keep the city, pillaging is counter-productive. Even if you're just sacking the city and moving on (e.g. for a Conquest victory), pillaging is mediocre. Pillaging the countryside does not in any way help you take cities. It DOES:- Give you some money (Towns are best for this)
- Tick off or distract your opponent
- Deprive your opponent of improvements and possibly resources
You already mentioned pillaging strategic resources, so I'll stop there.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Zophos has ably covered the specifics, but I fell compelled to deal with a bigger issue:ProfessorK said:
Why are you attacking a city over a period of time? Ideally, you should be waltzing up with a big enough stack to get the job done in one turn. Build more units and/or bring more Catapults to remove the defense bonus in one go (4 Cats with Accuracy promotions will do the trick). The longer your forces linger outside the city, the more vulnerable they are, and the more time your opponent has to move in, build, whip, or buy reinforcements, and to subject you to direct or collateral damage attacks--weakening the units you'll need to take the city. You've also lost the element of surprise by sitting your force in one place. Strike like lightening: hard and fast and never in the same place twice.
If, on the other hand, you're pillaging because your aim is to cripple rather than to conquer, parking your pillagers in the tiles next to a city is the worst thing you can do. Your opponent can attack your units while remaining within the safety of the city. Try to keep your pillagers at least one tile's distance from a city at all times. If you have to pillage a strategic resource right next to the city, get in and get out ASAP. A moving target is harder to hit, right?
Welnic
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2006
- Messages
- 1,057
Setting on the squares outside of a city keep the city from working those squares as long as you are there. A ship also keeps any adjacent water squares from being worked. So that you can do without messing up the improvements for when you take the city.
If your opponent has chained irrigation, you may be able to pillage the square that actually connects to the water source and reduce the food output of the rest of the chain.
If your opponent has chained irrigation, you may be able to pillage the square that actually connects to the water source and reduce the food output of the rest of the chain.
Publius Turr
Chieftain
Can some kind soul tell me the requirement for City Legendary Culture status at Epic Speed? I'm currently trying for my first serious Cultural Victory at Prince level.... I've got about nine Great Artists stored up for the final culture bombs but I don't know what level I'm aiming for.... thanks.
Publius Turr
Chieftain
Disregard above. Just discovered Legendary City Status is 75k culture pts per city. Won my first cultural victory today (Ramesses) ... made some early mistakes but wrapped it up in 1977. A very useful defensive pact with the Chinese lasted over 200 years and kept me largely safe from attack. I stopped my military research at riflemen.. threw the culture switch at around 1750.. a bit late but I was behind on the necessary techs.Fortunately, the only civ that attacked me was Toku and he was as backward in research as I was. I was able to easily fend him off. Fractal map/standard/epic/Prince/Warlords 2.08. I'll try for a similar victory in my next game but the goal will be to get it by 1900.
ordinaryguy
Back to Civ!
Tip #? (in my personal opinion)
Whatever you do, have a reason for it!
Don't build barracks if that city isn't going to produce any units.
Don't declare war on anyone if you have no reason to!!!!!!
Otherwise, you will regret it later. Trust me, I went through this before and you wouldn't wanna experience the feeling of having to research at 40% (for example).
I also have a question myself. Should you chop forests in your city radius or those outside your city radius? Why?
Thanks.
Whatever you do, have a reason for it!
Don't build barracks if that city isn't going to produce any units.
Don't declare war on anyone if you have no reason to!!!!!!
Otherwise, you will regret it later. Trust me, I went through this before and you wouldn't wanna experience the feeling of having to research at 40% (for example).
I also have a question myself. Should you chop forests in your city radius or those outside your city radius? Why?
Thanks.
good tipordinaryguy said:
barracks account for your power+give happiness under nationhood, could be a good set of reasons
moctezuma? is that you?
40% science is good when you have 2000 commerce
various situations, various answers
I chop outside my borders first very often, because I don't want to let another civ chop those trees.
On the other hand, i also chop early on hills where mines give more hammers than forests and in the first ring (meaning right next to a city) to avoid a possible invader to camp there.
ordinaryguy
Back to Civ!
Yes, but I seldom use nationhood cause I'm not the warring type
Personally, I feel that you shouldn't build unnecessary things in your city. I don't build barracks in my commerce/science city as I am not going to produce units there (I send units there from my production cities).
What do you mean?
yes, but not when you are being attacked by technologically advanced civs. you have the money but not the techs to upgrade units (though I think that you keep trading techs in mind)
I play on chieftian level, and like to keep a tech lead (easier coast to victory)
You can kill off irritating ais who either beat you to wonders or who constantly ask for techs/gold
QUESTION: I have been reading some threads, and it was mentioned that a victory can be done without wonders. But I don't see how it can be done.
Forgive me for being noob
ordinaryguy said:Yes, but I seldom use nationhood cause I'm not the warring type
when you try prince or higher level, you'll find war more convenient
You're right of course, although in specific situations, you can use barracks in those cities too (like I mentionned before).
Moctezuma is the kind of AI declaring for no reason...ordinaryguy said:ordinaryguy said:What do you mean?cabert said:
Just a joke, don't worry.
Yes I trade techs very largely.
But what I meant is 40% of 2000 is 800 base beakers. Which with some modifiers comes to 1600 beakers/turn.
Which is much better than 90% of 500, which gives 450 base beakers, painfully leading to 800 beakers/turn.
The % is nothing, what counts is beakers/turn. (And even then, a Great person can lightbulb some 1000+ beakers and make up for some lagging)
It would be really bad playing to be outteched at chieftain!
Of course you need a techlead, there! You cannot expect the AI to be of any help at this level.
Try this:
- You build only national wonders
- When you feel the urge to build a wonder, you build units instead
- when you have some units doing nothing, you attack a neighbour
- when you have enough land and enough pop, you win
Et voilà.
no problemForgive me for being noob
ordinaryguy
Back to Civ!
cabert said:when you try prince or higher level, you'll find war more convenient
You're right of course, although in specific situations, you can use barracks in those cities too (like I mentionned before).
Moctezuma is the kind of AI declaring for no reason...
Just a joke, don't worry.
Yes I trade techs very largely.
But what I meant is 40% of 2000 is 800 base beakers. Which with some modifiers comes to 1600 beakers/turn.
Which is much better than 90% of 500, which gives 450 base beakers, painfully leading to 800 beakers/turn.
The % is nothing, what counts is beakers/turn. (And even then, a Great person can lightbulb some 1000+ beakers and make up for some lagging)
It would be really bad playing to be outteched at chieftain!
Of course you need a techlead, there! You cannot expect the AI to be of any help at this level.
Try this:
- You build only national wonders
- When you feel the urge to build a wonder, you build units instead
- when you have some units doing nothing, you attack a neighbour
- when you have enough land and enough pop, you win
Et voilà.
no problem
1) When I mentioned outteched, it was an example where I was playing at a more difficult level.
2) 80% of 2000 is better than 40%, isn't it? (though I understand your logic behind the explanation)
3) Sorry, I wasn't so specific. When I referred to wonders, I am interested in how you can win a cultural victory without wonders and researching only to Liberalism (after that cultural slider at 100% without research coming from specialists with representation civic). I wasn't referrring to domination or diplomatic or conquest.
4) Thanks for the tip on warring
I eliminated Roosy with barracks and vassalage 6xp with Mali UU guarding my borders and cities. 
OKordinaryguy said:
sure, but it's not always an option. You can have better results not focusing too hard on the research slider and expanding a bit further.
you always go for culture? try a domination for a change...
But even when going for culture, the keys are:
- large numbers of mature cottages in the 3 big cities
- large number of available religions in your empire, spread them wide to have a "cathedral" of each religion in each wanabee legendary. Since you need 3 temples of a specific religion for each temple, you "need" (I've just won one cultural victory with only 8 cities, but I had a few wonders) at least 9 cities.
The culture slider at 100% will indeed prevent real research, but on the other hand the fast growing culture will make it so that you won't have to wait too long. If you build units in the other cities all this time, you should be safe...
There are lots of good articles on this subject. It's quite easy, if you do it right, and you really don't need any wonder.
4) Thanks for the tip on warring
it's easier to keep up when you're large enough, isn't it?
I played my first multiplayer game yesterday. Fortunately, I was up against a newbie who only kept one warrior in his capitol all the way up to 600 AD. But I'm inexperienced with multiplayer, and moderately good at singleplayer (beat Prince several times)
What tips do you have for multiplayer play? What should I keep in mind about going up against human players.
What tips do you have for multiplayer play? What should I keep in mind about going up against human players.
ordinaryguy
Back to Civ!
cabert said:OK
sure, but it's not always an option. You can have better results not focusing too hard on the research slider and expanding a bit further.
you always go for culture? try a domination for a change...
But even when going for culture, the keys are:
- large numbers of mature cottages in the 3 big cities
- large number of available religions in your empire, spread them wide to have a "cathedral" of each religion in each wanabee legendary. Since you need 3 temples of a specific religion for each temple, you "need" (I've just won one cultural victory with only 8 cities, but I had a few wonders) at least 9 cities.
The culture slider at 100% will indeed prevent real research, but on the other hand the fast growing culture will make it so that you won't have to wait too long. If you build units in the other cities all this time, you should be safe...
There are lots of good articles on this subject. It's quite easy, if you do it right, and you really don't need any wonder.
it's easier to keep up when you're large enough, isn't it?
I don't always go for cultural victory. I asked this question because there is so many different ways people mentioned in The Beginner's Guide to Cultural Victory that I am confused which strategy to use
. (btw, could you answer my question there, please?)When you go for cultural, do you build obilesk, library, banks all these stuff? How much commerce do you three main cities produced? wouldn't too much commerce lead to lousy production in these cities?
and how much culture do your main cities produce each turn? mine is only about 450 per turn and this occurs only when I build wonders
anyway, thanks for your replies. Really appreciate it
Edit: By the way, I find domination too easy (have done it accidentally while going for cultural and intentionally by going to war/ICS)
Hey all-
Looking to see if there's a quick way to take over stuff like in the previous Civs. In 2 I sent in the bombers with paratroops or partisans; in 3 I used a lot of helicopters to drop marines and infantry behind enemy lines, but where are the units I can insert in Civ4? I've used hordes of gunships to go in and soften up the D, but they can't occupy anything... Any tips?
Witek
Looking to see if there's a quick way to take over stuff like in the previous Civs. In 2 I sent in the bombers with paratroops or partisans; in 3 I used a lot of helicopters to drop marines and infantry behind enemy lines, but where are the units I can insert in Civ4? I've used hordes of gunships to go in and soften up the D, but they can't occupy anything... Any tips?
Witek
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
This is one of the biggest changes in the game, and I understand where you're coming from. I miss Civ 2's Paratroopers!KingWitek said:
Despite several people dissing it, a strong navy can provide what you're looking for in Civ 4. I find it much faster to move units by water than over land. You can use Galleys, Galleons, and Transports (escorted, of course) to insert units deep into enemy territory. You can even try employing the Sirian Doctrine, where you attack cities directly from your ships even if they don't have amphibious promotions--the idea is that you avoid having them attacked on the turn after they make landfall next to your target.
Your other option in this regard is not air units per se, but airports. In the late game, capture a city on a remote continent. When it comes out of revolt, rush an airport there (make sure you have airports in your own cities). You can now airdrop as many units into that city on one turn as you have cities with airports back home.
Magnus of Borg
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2006
- Messages
- 36
This is my first post:
I’ve just played my first couple CIV sessions. Unpatched Warlords to be precise (I plan to patch in near future). Before that I played mainly SMAC, Civ II and a little Civ III. Anyway, here are some early observations and questions:
1. Kublai Khan/Noble/Marathon/Large World/Continents
- I’ve restarted several times to have a nice starting position. How important is good starting position anyway?
- With all those luxury resources I found keeping people happy to be fairly easy. I mean come on – gold mine and net of roads is worth a temple in each city. And there is also the fact that having a revolt in your city no longer shuts it down completely – some citizens just refuse to work. Question: Is that because of low difficulty level or is happiness just easier to handle in CIV?
- Lions diet consist mainly of workers building roads and barbarian archers pillage your improvements! Those barbarians really are a menace. So I decided to station two chariots instead of archer and spearman in my cities – so that they could intercept the barbarians before they do any damage. Is this a valid tactic, or would it backfire on higher difficulties or with massive war with other empire?
- I found it difficult to choose an optimal early tech path. Mysticism fallowed with religion tech is not worth it – this religion thing has rather small impact early in the game and my workers end up doing nothing. Going for Animal Husbandry worked better. What are popular early tech paths?
- Having many cities actually hurts you. Is there any was to destroy a city after you captured it? If not, I’ll just raze them all. Or most of them.
- Overall it was fairly simple victory, so I decided to try jump to Prince.
2. Cyrus/Prince/Marathon/Large World/Pangea (still playing)
- I haven’t realized it before, but Khans’s Creative trait is very convenient. I found myself forced to build Monuments in every single city besides my capital. Surely, there must another way to extend your cities borders?
- Immortals are way cooler than Keshiks.
- Are early wars worth it? I found that Mansa Musa is my very close to me and I went to war with him being still in first era. I won and destroyed him completely, but my cities were busy building Immortals instead of buildings and developing themselves.
- On a related note – I takes long time to actually build something. Slavery and cutting trees help – but forests and population are limited commodities – any idea how to speed things up? Or is this just that Marathon setting responsible?
- Cyrus is churning out Great Generals – what do you do with them? I found attaching them to units nice, but not very effective. I mean having this Leadership/Combat IV/City Raider III/Commando Swordman is cool – but he can’t win the whole war by himself.
- What promotions are the best? In particular is it worth to focus on Combat X or take more specialized promotions?
- Noticed that while conquering cities is rather easy – just steamroll over them with masses of Immortals and Swordmans – but capitals and walled cities are entirely different matter. AI packed no less than 7 units, fortified on hills, with culture bonus. I can’t afford to lose my soldiers on 1:4 ratio and catapults come late in the game. Any easy solution?
- Is there any way to force the conquered leader to give you his precious techs?
I’ve just played my first couple CIV sessions. Unpatched Warlords to be precise (I plan to patch in near future). Before that I played mainly SMAC, Civ II and a little Civ III. Anyway, here are some early observations and questions:
1. Kublai Khan/Noble/Marathon/Large World/Continents
- I’ve restarted several times to have a nice starting position. How important is good starting position anyway?
- With all those luxury resources I found keeping people happy to be fairly easy. I mean come on – gold mine and net of roads is worth a temple in each city. And there is also the fact that having a revolt in your city no longer shuts it down completely – some citizens just refuse to work. Question: Is that because of low difficulty level or is happiness just easier to handle in CIV?
- Lions diet consist mainly of workers building roads and barbarian archers pillage your improvements! Those barbarians really are a menace. So I decided to station two chariots instead of archer and spearman in my cities – so that they could intercept the barbarians before they do any damage. Is this a valid tactic, or would it backfire on higher difficulties or with massive war with other empire?
- I found it difficult to choose an optimal early tech path. Mysticism fallowed with religion tech is not worth it – this religion thing has rather small impact early in the game and my workers end up doing nothing. Going for Animal Husbandry worked better. What are popular early tech paths?
- Having many cities actually hurts you. Is there any was to destroy a city after you captured it? If not, I’ll just raze them all. Or most of them.
- Overall it was fairly simple victory, so I decided to try jump to Prince.
2. Cyrus/Prince/Marathon/Large World/Pangea (still playing)
- I haven’t realized it before, but Khans’s Creative trait is very convenient. I found myself forced to build Monuments in every single city besides my capital. Surely, there must another way to extend your cities borders?
- Immortals are way cooler than Keshiks.
- Are early wars worth it? I found that Mansa Musa is my very close to me and I went to war with him being still in first era. I won and destroyed him completely, but my cities were busy building Immortals instead of buildings and developing themselves.
- On a related note – I takes long time to actually build something. Slavery and cutting trees help – but forests and population are limited commodities – any idea how to speed things up? Or is this just that Marathon setting responsible?
- Cyrus is churning out Great Generals – what do you do with them? I found attaching them to units nice, but not very effective. I mean having this Leadership/Combat IV/City Raider III/Commando Swordman is cool – but he can’t win the whole war by himself.
- What promotions are the best? In particular is it worth to focus on Combat X or take more specialized promotions?
- Noticed that while conquering cities is rather easy – just steamroll over them with masses of Immortals and Swordmans – but capitals and walled cities are entirely different matter. AI packed no less than 7 units, fortified on hills, with culture bonus. I can’t afford to lose my soldiers on 1:4 ratio and catapults come late in the game. Any easy solution?
- Is there any way to force the conquered leader to give you his precious techs?
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