Newbie Plays Settler Level Civ4 Vanilla

I hope it is OK to start this thread here. I have started and retired many times since I bought this game on Sunday (August 30th). All day yesterday I spent my time reading on the forums here and did not even open the game.

I know this game is nearly 10 years old already but there may be some people who would like to give Civ IV another try. This could become a walkthrough for the confused rank beginner. Myself and others who find this game very difficult could maybe benefit from my mistakes and the help I hope to get here.

Civilization IV version 1.4.7.0 Downloaded from Steam for $19.99 US.
No other expansion packs.
downloaded and installed Modded Gold Symbol by ?? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3370089&postcount=6

Question 1: should I also download and install this?
Civ4 - BTS Unaltered Gameplay (BUG, BAT and BULL)
the link above does not work so that answers that question!


Going to start with Settler level to learn the basic game interface.
Standard Map, Average sea level with Continents and Temperate climate --> balance of ocean and land with all terrain types. There will be 7 other civilizations scattered about plus Barbarians.
the rest of the choices will Normal speed and of course Settler difficulty level.

A. Choosing a Civilization and Leader

I am reading this guide --> http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/civilizations
There is more about civilizations and leaders here --> http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info
a guide to the civilization traits --> http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/traits_analysis.php
analysis of strongest leader traits -->http://www.civfanatics.com/files/Civilization IV Leader Traits 2.1.pdf

I have been having trouble with Health and Happiness.

I want a leader with the Expansive trait. This type of leader will give me +3 health per city. Some unhealthiness comes from Floodplains, Jungles and # of citizens. I can try to found my first city where there are Forests and fresh water and these special Resources (Banana; Clam; Corn; Cow; Crab; Deer; Fish; Pig; Rice; Wheat).

Queen Isabella (Spain) is Expansive & Spiritual. Starting technologies are Fishing & Mysticism.
Julius Caesar (Rome) is Expansive & Organized
Cyrus (Persia) is Expansive & Creative.
Genghis Khan (Mongolia) is Expansive & Aggressive. I don't want to learn combat right now so I will not pick this one.
Queen Victoria (England) is Expansive & Financial.

Click to expand...

To deal with the unhappiness I will try to build my first city near some of these special Resources (Fur; Ivory; Gems; Gold; Silver; Dye; Incense; Silk; Spice; Sugar; Whale; Wines). Another thing that helps happiness is Religion. I want to build Temples (research Priesthood & specific religion) and use Missionaries to spread the state religion and thus get +1 happiness in every city. Somehow I need to get all 7 religions in every city. So a civilization with a starting technology of Mysticism will be very helpful. A Spiritual leader means I won't have anarchy every time I change a civic. This could be useful as I will make mistakes and will need to change things around often.

Question 2: How do I get more than one religion in every city?
OK let's fire up the game!

That all seems sensible to me. Props & good luck !


- Regarding the BTS expansion :
It has sort of taken over the role that Vanilla played. So, eventually, you should look to get it but it isn't necessary to begin with.
It has nice interface enhancing features and adds a few mechanics to the game.

- Regarding your map settings :
They look very reasonable. A small map is a good choice for a faster game.

- Regarding your leader choice :
For the purpose of learning, any would do. You can go with your heart.

- Regarding your expansion prospects :
Yes, settling by the food resources is most important, since that allows growth in your cities.
Settling happiness resources is a good objective, too, but secondary to the above. Each of your cities have a happiness cap to start with (like size 6 or so). So, as long as you're below that cap, you don't need the extra happiness (although, eventually, you'd want it).


Some other things you may want to look into :
- tile improvements. Your cities work a tile for each citizen they have. All tiles are not equal. Workers improve tiles. Tile improvements require technologies.
It's important to learn distinguish tiles between themselves, learn their strengths and weaknesses.
Then you can look to your cities or Empire's needs to decide what tile to work and how to improve it.

- just some broad theory about what the game is about. It's a strategy & management game that is played on a map.
You're aiming to develop an Empire, so you need to spread horizontally (accross the map) and vertically as well (grow cities, research up the tech tree). You've got rivals, who develop their own Empire, playing by the same rules as you do. They can be partners, ennemies. Mostly, they're rivals.
If you've played any other map-based type of game, many analogies can be made.
When there's a map and resources and tiles to work, that means the map is there to be harvested. Rivals need to be dealt with before they get out of control. Just a few examples. They may seem silly but the implications can go deep. What it is to play on a map.


Hope you have a blast. There are many ways to play this game.

Ad 1) You should install BUG + BULL in the custom assets. If you install it as a standalone, so not in the custom assets, everybody that wants to load and look at the game, also needs BUG installed as a standalone. If you install it in the custom assets, everybody can open your saves, even with no mod installed at all.

Ad 2) Stay away from Religion. It's a newbie-trap, all newbies think, that they needs a Religion and should research it first. That's a fault. What you should research, are the techs that you need to improve the tiles around your capital, so 1. the food-techs and 2. Pottery for Cottages. You then start with a Worker first, and improve the food once you got him, afterwards, you build Cottages on the riverside tiles. Make sure your citizens work them (distribute "white circles" in city-screen) .
Grow to size 3, then build a Settler. Settle near a strategic resource like Horses or Copper (if you don't find Horses near, research Bronzeworking) .

BUG & BULL can not be installed on vanilla (just one more reason to get BTS among many others )

To make a useful newbie guide, i suggest to play a few games totally fresh as a newbie yourself! Stop reading civ fanatics and stressing about strategies and game versions and mods Any will do... Make some notes on your impressions. Maybe even try to win without "book" strategies, and see what works and what doesn't - then when you get sucked into all the mind-scrambling tricks on here maybe they'll make more sense...also maybe you'll have some actual fun with the game before it becomes the full-time obsession/curse it is for the rest of us

If you want people to follow along and advise then a good starting point is to post a starting save and a starting screenshot. Don't get fixated about getting every religion or having lots of resources for your first city. In fact don't get fixated about anything at the moment.

I'm not sure how many people still have their vanilla discs lying around collecting dust but there should be a few.

Thanks for the replies.

BornInCantaloup. I love any map based game. I was a Geography major in University (Urban Planning). I was active in the SimCity community since 2004. I played Travian for a couple of years - then I decided I needed to eat, sleep and shower. And more recently (hides head in shame) I have been playing Farmville 2.

Great advice KidR. I started making notes with screenshots using Open Office Writer, Irfanview and GIMP. I uploaded all pictures to Photobucket. Doing this really helped me to think about what I was doing instead of just hitting return and following the AI's hints - which gets boring fast.

Yea the choice was between paying $19.99 or $29.99. The exchange rate was killing me. In 2008 we went bankrupt and moved to India from Wisconsin. (I grew up in Alberta; I'm Canadian of Indian heritage). Money is very tight.

OK first screenshot. Using IMG link. Changed to Direct link with the Insert Picture button.

Decided to use Standard Map size because it has something to do with game mechanics - or was that Game Speed which is Normal. Whatever. Everything kept as middle-of-the-road as possible. Settler Level gives me 4 Health & 6 Happy in every city. The Tech Tree shows that I already have Mining, Agriculture and The Wheel techs researched. Must be a bonus from choosing Settler Level.

In Window mode I have to use the arrow keys to scroll around the map. I turned on show single units and show health bar in the Graphic Options Tab. I also turned off automated moves because I like to micro-manage. In game though the Governor will automate Citizen allocation.

CHOOSING A CIVILIZATION/LEADER
Needed some sort of goal or guiding logic to follow. I will play to accumulate points and expand as much as I can. I will make friends by spreading Religion to everyone. I love to explore the Map.

Queen Isabella of Spain is an Expansive & Spiritual leader. All cities will get +3 health and there will be no anarchy when making Civic changes. Her unique unit is a Conquistador with 10 strength and 2 movement points. Conquistadors are immune to first strikes (Archers) and have a 50% defense bonus against melee units. The starting Technologies are Mysticism & Fishing. I thought Mysticism would give me a head start on the Religion front and help me with Happiness problems. Fishing allows me to exploit coastal resources and get to Sailing faster so I can explore coastlines.

Another Screenshot using DIRECT link

4000BC. This spawn spot does not have an immediate good place to establish a city. I don't like Floodplains because they give too much unhappiness. I should move closer to those hills & forests behind the Settler.


First City. 3920BC. I finally established my first city, Madrid, on this hill beside a river. Not my most favorite spot, but can't delay forever. I get a 25% defense bonus from the hill & +2 from the adjacent River. I prefer the Capital City to be in a safer inland location.


Madrid City Window. I have 3 surplus Food and 1 Hammer per turn. The 10 Commerce I harvest here all goes into Research. Settler Level, Expansive Leader & River location are really helping my city Health. The 4 Floodplains in my FatCross (FC) give me 2 Sickness. Settler Level and Palace gives me 7 Happy citizens. Becomes a Buddhist Holy City in 3740BC. Borders expand in 3720BC when I accumulate 10 Culture. Finally finish Worker in 3320BC. Will build a Warrior next so that Madrid can grow. 3200BC Madrid expands borders again.

First Mistake. I should have built a Warrior first to further explore the area and to allow Madrid to get a second citizen. I chose Worker instead to develop the city, forgetting that this means no city growth. I could have changed production if I had noticed this mistake.


Madrid finally grows to 2 citizens in 3020BC. Now we have 3 hammers to speed up production. The Worker is improving the Desert/Floodplains with a Farm (+1). Surplus Food is still 3 & Commerce is still 10 - all going to Research. Got 1 more Sick but Health stays the same. Got 1 more, but Happy has increased because of Buddhism/Holy City status.

The Warrior is circling Madrid looking for a good place to put the second city. He finds Tribal Villages which gave me 41 gold in 4000BC, Sailing Technology (tech) in 3760BC and a Settler in 3440BC. He meets a Japanese Warrior - we stay peaceful towards each other.

Researching Technologies. Finished Meditation in 3740BC. This allows me to and convert to Buddhism in 3740BC which gave me +1. Someone else founded Hinduism in 3600BC. I get Bronze Working tech in 3440BC which allows me to adopt the Slavery Civic and to see a Copper resource in Madrid's FC. I get Pottery in 3240BC, Priesthood in 3120BC & Hunting in 3000BC.


Second City. 3000BC. Barcelona is established along the coast. There is a Fish resource, a Banana resource, a couple of hills and lots of forest. The city harvests 2 surplus Food, 1 Hammer & 1 Commerce. Barcelona gets an extra 3 Health from 7 Forests in its FC. It gets 1 Sick from population. Why is that Jungle on the corner is not causing sickness? Only 6 Happy here until I convert Barcelona to Buddhism.

Worker from Madrid is connecting the cities with a road. I will build a Work Boat in Barcelona to harvest the Fish resource. The Warrior continues to explore. Each city will have a Warrior to stationed to defend itself.

And that is the first Thousand Years!

greenbelt said:

I played Travian for a couple of years - then I decided I needed to eat, sleep and shower.

Click to expand...

Oh dear... I've been there!!

Played Travian... a LOT some years ago, before they went down the silly "Pay to Win" route. It was a lot of fun, and at some point I joined a team that fell just short of winning the whole lot. Remember suiciding an absolutely massive army in the very end-game....

Sorry for OT, but that takes me back. "Need to sleep for a few hours and get up at 4:30 to attack..."

*at uni* "Okay, wonder what my cities are up to.... better check so I can queue some more buildings or units"

Hey... Don't know, why you went for Buddhism first, I advised the opposite.

Also, moving the starting-settler is an advanced tactic. The move you made, makes you miss out on the wheat-resources, which is not that tragic, because it's non-wet and therefore quite weak, but you should trust SIP more imo.

Make sure you improve that Copper-tile at your capital, it's 1 and 5 , so a lot stronger than a FP for building Settlers. You also need a 2nd Worker, because of all those FPs, FPs take longer to be improved than normal tiles. Best build him at size 3, directly after the Settler.

Thanks Seraiel. I was thinking of your advice when I converted to Buddhism. For some reason I really want to try playing with the Religion stuff.
I think moving my settler around to find a good place to put a city is a Travian habit. I do have to forget old habits from those other games.
I researched in a different order but now I have all the basic techs to put my 1 Worker to work. I need more workers but I hate to not grow and harvest more resources. Dilemma.

Pangea: One day my husband and son woke me up saying "Your villages are getting attacked!!" I popped out of bed in a panic before realizing "Hey how could they log into my game anyways?" Brats!!

Question: A City Center has to be adjacent to the coast to be able to put boats and ships in the Ocean, right?

greenbelt said:

Thanks Seraiel. I was thinking of your advice when I converted to Buddhism. For some reason I really want to try playing with the Religion stuff.
I think moving my settler around to find a good place to put a city is a Travian habit. I do have to forget old habits from those other games.
I researched in a different order but now I have all the basic techs to put my 1 Worker to work. I need more workers but I hate to not grow and harvest more resources. Dilemma.

Pangea: One day my husband and son woke me up saying "Your villages are getting attacked!!" I popped out of bed in a panic before realizing "Hey how could they log into my game anyways?" Brats!!

Question: A City Center has to be adjacent to the coast to be able to put boats and ships in the Ocean, right?

Click to expand...

Answer to the question: Yes.

And regarding Religion: On Settler, I may have even been a good choice, to research Buddhism, because having a Religion is a big advantage. Notice that I wrote "having" though, not "founding" . If an AI can found a Religion for you and spreads it to you, you get the same benefits, but have 0 investment, because the AI does your work. Letting the AIs do as much for you as possible is one of the most powerful concepts when you advance through the levels.

By the way Greenbelt.. I am in the same boat you are.. yet you seem more organized and even showed me a few things.. You can take a look at my massive Ghandi game post that is going on, which is on Noble setting.

Tons of people have been helping me as well as I am still farm fresh playing Civ 4

My suggestions that Seraiel and Lymond and Civfanatics have all given to me, its ok to regen the map if you do not get a good starting location.

As Seraiel mentioned, moving your settler, even 1 tile away, while not always game crushing, can tend to put you in a tighter spot than getting a good spot and SIP (Settling in place)

Also, and I learned this the hard way, post your saves, take maybe 10 turns, 15 would probably be my max before stopping and then ask for advice here on the forums AND WAIT! Don't keep playing. I did this so many times that Lymond is probably going to shoot me one day.

Post your save as well, some of the advanced players may pick your game up, play a few turns and give you advice on what to do then you can learn/mimic what they did so then you can learn WHY they did this move or that move instead of the other one.

Biggest thing though, play a few turns, ask for advice and WAIT. It's been the biggest help for me since I started here about a month ago.

TheCox: I will look at your Gandhi game. I will also take your advice on playing only about 10 turns and then posting. Unfortunately I am at 2000BC already. Good thing is that it is early game stuff and most of the turns was just moving my Warriors around.

Seraiel: Good idea to let the AI do the work. I was thinking of letting Barcelona become another Holy City and getting those bonuses but Hinduism and Judaism are already founded. No more plans to found any religions for the long run.

Like I said above I have played through to 2000BC which was probably not a great idea for getting help. I will post it in a little while after I cruise around this site for a bit. (I just woke up and am enjoying my first coffee.)

EDIT: reading through Gandhi game. Fun reading! Should I start another game and do it slowly? I can always keep the current game going just on the side.

#2 EDIT: I now understand why I should not research religions early

Jourdelune Nov 2005 in Condensed Tips for Beginners.
Let the other create religion.
Let the other work on the religion.
Focus on production and science output while other focus on religion.
At some time, 2 civ will have the same religion. It is the time to be of this religion. To work it, simply put a town near the foundator of the religion. Put a road to his empire and wait. The religion will spraid eventually. Accept to convert at this religion.
So, you will be 3 civ with this religion... it is time to work for the religion, spot other civs without religion and send them missionnary. Send some settler near the civ you want to convert, create a town and put your religion in it. Create temple and the monk place and see what happen... your religion will spread.
I always play on the HUGE setting, always play with no more than 8 civs to be sure that we will have large empire.
And it had always paid to be in the clan of the brothers in faith.
Yes, the holy city can pay (about 20 to 50 gold a turn) but having a lot of brothers and sisters in faith is always better when they are next to your empire.

Click to expand...

I reckon start another game, play more slowly, maybe upload the starting save and wait for discussion/advice about where to found your first city and why. Waiting for feedback can be tedious so certainly play another game offline at the same time.

So, you will be 3 civ with this religion... it is time to work for the religion, spot other civs without religion and send them missionnary. Send some settler near the civ you want to convert, create a town and put your religion in it. Create temple and the monk place and see what happen... your religion will spread.

Click to expand...

This is bs. Religion spreads only from the holy-city automatically or by missionaries. Building Temples and Monestaries is counter-advised, unless they're from the AP-religion or single Monestaries in a Burocratic capital or city that's diverted solely to Missionaries because it's small, bad, and the AI isn't spreading the religion one needs properly.

Looks like fun. Isabella was a nice choice. At some point you will want to play without goodie huts. But with them a religion is a decent first tech since that will never come from a hut. You won't pop a tech with one turn left on research.

OK New game. Still Isabella from Spain.



This is an IMG Thumb from Photo Bucket. Does this work better for this site? Also how do I include my Saved Game. I Saved this Spawn. I have a Dropbox account.

I would love to build my first city along that isthmus to connect the small inland sea with the coast.

Ew, right next to a large lake. It's weak because you have a ton of bad tiles that you will probably never work, without the benefits of a coastal start (seafood, foreign naval trade routes). I would move your warrior 1s to see what your options are, since I really don't like SIP here. I'm sure most people would suggest you just reroll this map. On Settler, this is certainly playable, but it might be one of those rare situations where you it pays off to look around a turn or two for a better capital spot. Just don't move your settler until after you reveal what the warrior turns up.

Spain on a Lake? Cuban Isolationists live again! If you haven't read the thread (its the classic classic) this is a good time to do so.

Maybe move warrior north, move settler towards the plains hill above the corn. Plains Hill gives city an extra hammer (may not seem much but that's 50 hammers in the first 50 turns for free). Location between coast and lake means you can build a lighthouse (requires coastal) which makes lake tiles 3f2c (three food, 2 commerce) without needing any worker turns.

Why new game?