Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners

maybe you can add this order into section Space Ship Victory：
Rocketry→Computers→Plastics→Genetics→Satellites→Fiber Optics→Fusion→Ecology

Good work, Sisiutil!!

Sisiutil, this guide rocks. I did have a general question for the entire thread though:

What do you do with those cities that don't really fit the criteria for a specialist city?

Now before everyone cries "you must not be placing your cities right!", let me explain what I mean.

Often times in order to ensure a copper mine, I have to place a city in a spot that either has too many plains, or has no fresh water. These cities are hard to develop, let alone specialize. How do you get around this problem?

You're always going to end up with a few cities like that, in my experience. Not every city has to specialize, and many players don't specialize their cities at all.

So long as you have other cities that compensate for that one's lack of growth and production, you should be fine. I would probably look into targeting helpful techs like Civil Service and Biology sooner rather than later, so you can irrigate the plains sooner.

Minor point:a religion adds 1 culture to a city so spreading a religion via trade-routes or missionaries can help a city's initial growth as an alternative to obelisk or stonehenge.
Another minor pointIMO) a wealth city is one that gains wealth independent of the wealth/science slider i.e. shrine,great people.

Sisiutil,
this is great guide, thanx for it and to those who added to it. along with the suggested add for space ship order, i'd like to see more in the religion section, specifically how temples, shrines and cathedrals work.
i'm also confused about the table for wonders. is the added culture and GP points just for that city and per city (vs. mult cities or per citizen). also, where the benifit is free specialists or "can turn # citizens to scientists", is that in all cities or just the wonder city?

thanx again for all your work.

opti0n said:

Sisiutil,
this is great guide, thanx for it and to those who added to it. along with the suggested add for space ship order, i'd like to see more in the religion section, specifically how temples, shrines and cathedrals work.
i'm also confused about the table for wonders. is the added culture and GP points just for that city and per city (vs. mult cities or per citizen). also, where the benifit is free specialists or "can turn # citizens to scientists", is that in all cities or just the wonder city?

thanx again for all your work.

Click to expand...

Thanks opti0n,

I tend to think of a Wonder's benefits as twofold: there are the direct benefits specific to that Wonder, and there are the "residual benefits" as well.

The direct benefits are specific to the Wonder: for example, how the Pyramids make all the government civics available. These benefits may be available to your civilization as a whole, or to every city on the same continent, or to just the city containing the Wonder. As the saying goes, read the fine print.

But all Wonders also have additional residual benefits. Almost every Wonder contributes additional culture and Great Person points of one type or another to the city where it is located.

It should be noted that these residual benefits are no longer generated if you capture the Wonder rather than building it. That's part of the "game balance", ensuring that there is a price for seizing rather than building.

Anyway, I will try to work this, and a little more information on the religious buildings as you requested, into the next version of the guide.

Sisiutil said:

But all Wonders also have additional residual benefits. Almost every Wonder contributes additional culture and Great Person points of one type or another to the city where it is located.

It should be noted that these residual benefits are no longer generated if you capture the Wonder rather than building it. That's part of the "game balance", ensuring that there is a price for seizing rather than building.

Click to expand...

You may want to check this one. Examining my games indicates that the cultural value is lost when capturing a wonder, but the GPP value persists.

thanx for the info. it brought a question to mind that i haven't figured out completely. what units/buildings, can/cannot be captured and what changes when it happens. i've noticed in 4, i can't capture catapults anymore, just destroy them. what i haven't figured out is what happens if a city i capture had GP specialists joined to it. more importantly, what happens if i capture a city that has a priest or a GP on it, but not used? will I aquire the priest or GP for my own like i would a worker?

different question... is there a table that describes the increments for city culture levels or GP build levels? can improvements lower the culture/GP points needed for the growth/GP build? do these numbers change with game speed and possibly map size. Voice, you say the culture value is lost when you capture a city... does the number needed to grow it drop back down to the first level?

opti0n said:

thanx for the info. it brought a question to mind that i haven't figured out completely. what units/buildings, can/cannot be captured and what changes when it happens. i've noticed in 4, i can't capture catapults anymore, just destroy them. what i haven't figured out is what happens if a city i capture had GP specialists joined to it. more importantly, what happens if i capture a city that has a priest or a GP on it, but not used? will I aquire the priest or GP for my own like i would a worker?

Click to expand...

From my own experience, workers and settlers (which get converted to workers) are the only types of units that can be captured. The rest of the non combatants simply get killed (also true for boats in port when a city is captured.

Units can change sides when a city culture flips, but thusfar I've only seen that happen for combat units.

Buildings: World wonders/Shrines can be captured (but they lose their cultural effect). Buildings which generate culture (libraries, temples, etc) are destroyed. Other buildings may survive - randomly, to the best of my knowledge. See bNeverCapture in CIV4BuildingInfos.xml.

opti0n said:

different question... is there a table that describes the increments for city culture levels or GP build levels? can improvements lower the culture/GP points needed for the growth/GP build? do these numbers change with game speed and possibly map size. Voice, you say the culture value is lost when you capture a city... does the number needed to grow it drop back down to the first level?

Click to expand...

I haven't seen one.

Culture pops on Normal speed are set for 10/100/500/5000/50000.

The first 10 GP cost 100 more than the previous, the next 10 cost 200 more, then 300 after that (I presume following the same pattern, but I've never spawned more than 32 GP).

Rates are affected by game speed; see CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml.

I believe the amount of culture does drop back down to the first level; captured cities are on precisely the same culture schedule as founded cities.

Hi everyone,
I'm a new here. I used to play Age but Civ4 is a great game. Thanks for all your tips and guide. It truly helps. I'm trying Noble at the moment.
I have some questions though. Is there a way to destroy your captured city later after capturing it and realizing that u don't like it?
Most of the time I just don't know what an enemy building has and try capturing it.
One more thing, where can i get the game manual? because i don't have one. I try to look for it but can't find so far.

Thanks a lot guys.

Jayavarman said:

Hi everyone,
I'm a new here. I used to play Age but Civ4 is a great game. Thanks for all your tips and guide. It truly helps. I'm trying Noble at the moment.
I have some questions though. Is there a way to destroy your captured city later after capturing it and realizing that u don't like it?
Most of the time I just don't know what an enemy building has and try capturing it.
One more thing, where can i get the game manual? because i don't have one. I try to look for it but can't find so far.

Thanks a lot guys.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CFC!

This is one of the most common complaints about capturing cities in Civ IV; it can even be difficult (though not impossible) to tell if there are any Wonders in the city. You basically have to zoom in before capturing and have a close look at all the graphics, which is a little ridiculous. Once you get Spies, send them in beforehand for a look-see.

Even without a good look at the city, you can usually decide pretty easily if you want to keep it or not. If the city is a holy city (look for the star on the religion icon), if it contains any Wonders (again, look at the city graphics--Wonders usually stick out), if it is in a good location and hooked up to resources, and if it's a decent size, keep it.

If none of these apply, you may still want to keep it just to deter barbs and other AI civs from settling there UNLESS your economy is teetering on the brink of disaster and you think maintenance of the city will hurt more than help. The other main reason for razing is because the location sucks--for example, the city is one tile away from ocean. The AI loves to do that for some weird reason, but it means you may have several ocean tiles in the fat cross but you can't build a Lighthouse to make them produce 2 food instead of 1.

I usually try to keep most cities I capture if at all possible--otherwise I'm just going to have to build a Settler later and send it to the same spot.

As for getting rid of a city, sorry, not many options there. You could try gifting it to another AI, but if it's not already close to or within their cultural boundaries they'll usually take a pass. You could leave it undefended, starve it (just make every citizen a specialis), and hope for a barb or AI to come along and raze it.

VoiceOfU, great info, thanx for the insite. The culture levels will help. Do you know how that correalates with the value of the culture bomb from the Great Artist, or the amount of beakers a Great Scientist might contribute to research. (Is there any way to know what Tech the next GP will be able to help with?)

It seems I'll have to start looking at the game code. Tho, I'm fearful of doing so ... as the game is addicting enough without getting into its guts.

Here's another question... seems to be a game play / interface question.
Whats the best way to get out of the game prompts to look at your "advisors" before making a decision. Example: I can choose a U.N. Resolution to put on the table, but i want to look at my current civics first. Or, I get to pick a free technology, but i want to look at the tech tree first.
Is there a way to "pass" on the prompt and then get it back at end of turn?

opti0n said:

VoiceOfU, great info, thanx for the insite. The culture levels will help. Do you know how that correalates with the value of the culture bomb from the Great Artist, or the amount of beakers a Great Scientist might contribute to research. (Is there any way to know what Tech the next GP will be able to help with?)

Click to expand...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=157667&page=2

opti0n said:

It seems I'll have to start looking at the game code. Tho, I'm fearful of doing so ... as the game is addicting enough without getting into its guts.

Click to expand...

Naaah, I rarely do that. I'd rather play the game (or talk about it). Besides, as you can see from the link above, some very capable (and nice) people have already analyzed the game code for us and posted the results here.

opti0n said:

Here's another question... seems to be a game play / interface question.
Whats the best way to get out of the game prompts to look at your "advisors" before making a decision. Example: I can choose a U.N. Resolution to put on the table, but i want to look at my current civics first. Or, I get to pick a free technology, but i want to look at the tech tree first.
Is there a way to "pass" on the prompt and then get it back at end of turn?

Click to expand...

Sometimes you can bring up the advisor screen while another screen is open. Just try clicking on the button like you normally do.

Frankly, though, when it comes to getting a free tech from the Oracle or Liberalism, most players decide well ahead of time which tech they're getting. Code of Laws or, on the lower difficulty levels, Civil Service are the two most common Oracle "slingshot" free techs. For Liberalism, there's usually a lot more to choose from, but Astronomy or Printing Press are two of the most common. Also, if you hover the mouse pointer over each tech, details about it will appear, including its "cost"--you don't want to waste your gift tech on something cheap.

This has done wonders for my game in about three days.

They should pay you for this.

I just picked this up a few days ago and have been playing non-stop. I loved Civ II, never got much of a change to play III so this was a big jump. I get the basics and have just finished my 5th game which was a win on Noble I think(the 4th easiest).

Anyways, my strategy has always been to go big. Lots of cities, spread out early. I'm getting the feeling that this may no longer be the best way to go. This guide calls for building 4-6 cities to start. Is it best to spread these cities out?

stappawho said:

I just picked this up a few days ago and have been playing non-stop. I loved Civ II, never got much of a change to play III so this was a big jump. I get the basics and have just finished my 5th game which was a win on Noble I think(the 4th easiest).

Anyways, my strategy has always been to go big. Lots of cities, spread out early. I'm getting the feeling that this may no longer be the best way to go. This guide calls for building 4-6 cities to start. Is it best to spread these cities out?

Click to expand...

Not too much, no.

The chief restraint on early expansion that was introduced in Civ IV is city maintenance costs. These costs increase with distance from the capital (whichever city contains the Palace).

In addition, spread-out cities are difficult to defend from barbs and other civs. It takes longer to build roads to connect them, and your workers and even military units are more vulnerable as they have to be out in the open, away from the safety of your cities, for longer periods. There's also a very good chance that the opportunistic AI will plunk down a city in between two of yours, effectively cutting one of them off from the rest of your civ.

Ideally, the first few cities should be arranged in a fairly tight hub pattern around the capital, but the map doesn't always lend itself to that (and your rivals are unlikely to cooperate). Later in the game, you can use things like courthouses, Forbidden Palace, Versailles, and--best of all--the State Property civic to mitigate the distance-from-palace costs. (Don't be reluctant to move the Palace and make another city the capital if it will help.)

Also, with cottages and commerce multipliers, your cities begin to pay for themselves.

Given the importance of military resources (copper,iron,horses) hooking up one of these early can be an exception to the hub rule except that you should then aim to put another city in between resource city and capital to stop it getting isolated.

This made me so happy :')

Thanks, CP.

I just posted the latest version. Besides a few clarifications and corrections, I also added sections on early exploration, barbarians, and city placement, including dot mapping. I also revised the City Specialization section to make Science and Wealth cities sub-categories of Commerce cities.

My thanks, once again, to all of you who have provided feedback and/or encouragement. It appears this guide is not just popular and appreciated, but is now starting to get recommended in board posts--which is both gratifying and humbling. Lest I get a swelled head about that, I remind myself that the guide has had many contributors--a point to which three pages of posts in this thread will attest.

In addition, since most of its contents were gleaned from this message board, the guide would not exist without CFC. So I also want to add a heartfelt thanks to the hard-working and often unnoticed folks who operate, maintain, and mod this board.