From a complete Noob's perspective...Part 2...

Good day all,

Having left it with you all the last time, I'd began my first game and gave up on it after the first hour, as I completely wasted about 25 moves trying to figure everything out.

Well, my first and second full game, I'm proud to say were victories (Chieftain albeit), with Abe Lincoln and Otto VB respectively. My first full game lasted probably 4 hours and the second about 2 hours. I began to feel pretty proud of myself, so I decided to skip warrior level and go right to king...ahh yes, the male ego. That game didn't go so well...Got zombie stomped by Russia within about 75 minutes. I wasn't dead, but I was dead to rights, so I shut it off knowing full well that I had stepped over my abilities.

Now, I'm about 2.5 hours into an epic game on Warrior mode and things are going okay, not great, not terrible, and good ol' Otto and the gang seem to be trending upwards as we strive to conquer the last of Abe and then on to the Romans.

I do have a couple of questions for the more experienced players out there:

How do you manage your cities as they begin to grow in numbers? Do you set all workers on balanced, do you go heavy on one category in each city, or otherwise?

What do you look for in a plot of land that says, 'Yes, put settlers here'? Do you spread your cities out, keep them close together, or settle them close to enemy territory to make attacks easier?

I think my biggest issue is to know get my head around managing a long game. The intricracies of this game is mindboggling, and I guess that's what makes it so fun, I suppose.

In any event, I promised a follow up, and certainly appreciate any thoughts on the above questions.

Regards,

Mark

CivNoob said:

...
I do have a couple of questions for the more experienced players out there:

How do you manage your cities as they begin to grow in numbers? Do you set all workers on balanced, do you go heavy on one category in each city, or otherwise?

What do you look for in a plot of land that says, 'Yes, put settlers here'? Do you spread your cities out, keep them close together, or settle them close to enemy territory to make attacks easier?...

Click to expand...

Nice to hear of the improvement. I'll try to answer what I can.

1. I custom work each city all the time. Generally I'll work all of the tiles with 2 or more food and 2 or more production and anything over 3 trade. Every other tile goes unworked. I'll have one dedicated "gold" city where all gold enhancing great people go with markets and banks and heavy commitment to trade (last game nearly 700 gpt). I'll have one dedicated "science" city where all science related great people settle with libraries and universitites (last game nearly 500 spt). I'll have one dedicated "production" city with workshops, iron mines and any great people that makes stronger military units (last game only around 100 pt due to poor land). Most other cities are mixes of the above.

2. For placing new cities, I avoid an overlapping fat cross, but otherwise put cities as close as I can as long as resources are good. For placing a new city there is one and only one question I ask myself. How much food can I squeeze out of this location. Food means more than everything in this game. Everything else is less than secondary.

Anyway, those are my opinions for the way I play. The best thing about this game is that you can go about it any way you want and still maintian success. Good luck.

Just a few suggestions: Specialize your cities, so you have science cities, gold cities, military cities that favor production, etc. So then, with some exceptions, you generally don't want to keep your cities at balanced. Not every city needs a library, or a barracks, or a market; if it's not a research heavy city, don't bother building a library there. When it comes to building your cities, just make sure there is enough food available for them to grow. If it's a city surrounding water tiles, it will make a good science or gold city. If there's a lot of forests and hills surrounding the city, it'll be a better military/productive city.

Thanks Fish and Bona...much appreciated advice!

I didn't realize that I could move the great people. The box always says, 'Hey, here is so and so...do you want to get 50% better this, or finish x'. So, you can say no to both and move them to another city where he/she may benefit said city the best?

Thanks,

Mark

I am new to Civ as well. I picked up CIV IV last fall and joined this site. I hate to admit I had a tough time wrapping my brain around CIV IV. The depth and intricacies of the series is amazing and brilliant, but overwhelming to the newcomer.

CivRev is more accessible for me. It seems to have plenty of depth ( at least for a "newcomer" like myself ) and most importantly I am having fun. Here are some humble things that have made me feel more comfortable with the game. Kind of noob to noob advice.

I try to build my cities close enough so the borders will touch within a reasonable amount of time as they expand.

After you build a city, take advantage of whatever resource is most available on the surrounding land. Don't try to force production on a money making city. Build buildings within cities to take advantage of the terrain nearby.

In the later stages of the game it does become difficult to keep track of citites. For me, I just picked a goal and worked towards it. Like a specific victory condition. Focus on that goal and build your cities to help you towards it. On the easier difficulties I have had little trouble achieving those goals as the AI is forgiving and you can experiment.

If you are playing on the 360, my gamertag is Ziiv. I would be glad to share ideas and strategies.

CivNoob said:

Thanks Fish and Bona...much appreciated advice!

I didn't realize that I could move the great people. The box always says, 'Hey, here is so and so...do you want to get 50% better this, or finish x'. So, you can say no to both and move them to another city where he/she may benefit said city the best?

Thanks,

Mark

Click to expand...

Yes, I believe the choice is "Let me think about it."

One nice thing to do here is to save a great builder so it can rush an important wonder later on. Start working on an important Wonder like Leo's Workshop and then rush build it with the great person.

Having said that, I usually settle the great people in my corresponding specialized city as opposed to the quick reward.

fishlore said:

One nice thing to do here is to save a great builder so it can rush an important wonder later on. Start working on an important Wonder like Leo's Workshop and then rush build it with the great person.

Click to expand...

That's a great idea! I assume that would work on the World Bank or United Nations, as well?

Hey Ziv,

Thanks for the note back, seems like you are far more knowledgeable than I, so I do appreciate your thoughts. I'm only 2.5 games into this entire genre of games, so believe me, when I say noob, I mean NOOB!

Cheers,

Mark

P.S. I'm on PS3; however, I'm eqknix on Xbox, where I mainly play COD4. Although, I think I need to renew my subscription to Live??

Hey Fish,

That makes a ton of sense, thanks! Just presumed that if they showed up, you had to place them there...

This game just gets more and more in depth as the days go by...great fun!

Cheers,

Mark

fishlore said:

One nice thing to do here is to save a great builder so it can rush an important wonder later on.

Click to expand...

This completely saved my butt once. I was getting the crap kicked out of me from all sides, but the Americans were breaking through my southern borders and set to take the capitol. I randomly got a great builder, chose not to settle him, then jumped into the city screen and selected the Great Wall wonder, and had him complete it right then and there, and everyone made peace with me the next turn.

My pleasure everyone. I've been playing these "life-sucking/consuming/destroying" games since Civ 1. I'm glad I can help.

That's a great idea! I assume that would work on the World Bank or United Nations, as well?

Click to expand...

Yes, I believe it does work. It's a far cry from Civ 4 where great people can't rush wonders. It's nice being able to do it again.

@Bismark96

Very well played. I'm still new to the tech bonuses in Civ:Rev and would have lost that one since I thought the Great Wall was simply a defensive bonus. Now I see that part about being offered peace. Very nice.

Most of the bonuses from Wonders are more about extra science or production and all that, so the Great Wall bonus for peace makes it sort of an oddball. It was dumb luck when I did it, but I was still pretty proud of myself for pulling it off.

then I nuked washington a few hundred years later

I keep my cities close. Have 3 major cities of my civilization, not incredibly close but at least 5-8 tiles away from each other. I then usually capture one city in every other terrortory, for easy attack/counter attacks as well as being able to kidnap great people etc.The place i build my cities depends on who i am playing as, Usually i am germany and so built near at least 2-3 forest tiles.
I NEVER move the first settlers that you are given at the beginning. They are usually in very good places. Take some time to see what the surrounding tiles are and you generally get the picture of where to built future cities.
My tactics work for me

@ Im_An_Eejit

How often would you say your spy fails when trying to abduct a great person? Time and time again I forget about having this ability and it seems like it could make all the difference in some of my previous games. Do you get penalized for a failed abduction?

The only problem with placing your settlers on the starting spots is that it never seems to start you near any resource tiles. I obsessover city placement with resource tiles, and when I play games that automatically place your first city, that city is always lagging behind my others. I can usually get it so all of my cities are touching at least 2 or 3 (with a courthouse). I tend to stop after about five cities, but will go for six if the spot is good and it's not overextending myself. I put all but one on science duty, then take off another one for gold production once I start getting bonuses and great people. Just last night I had a city with the Trade Fair and the ast India Co wonders on it and it was pulling in 1530 gold per turn.

Just to clarify something regarding city development. Is this right?:

In Civ IV (PC), a city could work a fat cross of up to 21 tiles, but its cultural influence could expand beyond that area. The city always worked the tile on which you settled.

In Civ Revolutions, my understanding is that the city does not work the tile you settle on. Further, the area the city can work is ONLY the eight tiles surrounding the city, and no more. Cultural influence can go beyond that .... I assume/guess that the borders I'm seeing around my cities show my Cultural influence?

Right? Wrong?

Bonus question: can you change the name of the first city you settle? Looks like no.

CharlieM said:

Just to clarify something regarding city development. Is this right?:

In Civ IV (PC), a city could work a fat cross of up to 21 tiles, but its cultural influence could expand beyond that area. The city always worked the tile on which you settled.

In Civ Revolutions, my understanding is that the city does not work the tile you settle on. Further, the area the city can work is ONLY the eight tiles surrounding the city, and no more. Cultural influence can go beyond that .... I assume/guess that the borders I'm seeing around my cities show my Cultural influence?

Right? Wrong?

Bonus question: can you change the name of the first city you settle? Looks like no.

Click to expand...

In Civ Rev you can build a courthouse which enables you to work a full fat cross instead of the just the first 8. I believe that the tile you settle on doesn't produce anything, except for the palace. And no, you can't change the name of the capital.

Yeah, and you lose whatever the effect is of the tile that you settle on. I think you can change the name of the capitol, though, as long as you're playing a game that allows you to chose where you settle it.

'Fat Cross'? Sorry, this term is thrown around a lot, and it seems important...anything to do with city development is important, imvho at least.

Thanks!

@Bismark...

Could you differentiate a 'resource tile' from food producing tiles, or hammer producing tiles, or gold producing time that I see? Is a 'resource tile' something different?

You mention that the spot where they place you first don't seem to have the amount of 'resource tiles'...might you elaborate for me, just so I can begin to differentiate between 'resource tiles' in your definition and 'resource tiles' in my understanding.

Thanks!

Mark