I need help (in more ways than one)

Hi.
New to civ 4 and this site. Great site btw, very helpful.
I do many things wrong and need some help. Sorry there are so many questions.

I normally play vanilla, standard size, pangea, normal speed, all other settings standard.
Sailed through the first few difficulties, did ok on noble.....then hit a wall on prince.

I'll get the questions out of the way first, before my general strategy......

How many turns are there between 4000bc and 2050 ad?

How do you work the tiles outside the 21 around the city? I often have cities larger than the area shown on the city screen, but no way to get white circle on them. If you cant, should I overlap cities?

If you trade a resource for gold per turn, do you lose access to that resource?

Why do cities get overcrowded when there are plenty of unworked tiles and how can I avoid it?

How soon should you trade alphabet? (I often leave it too late, but worry it is too soon otherwise?

If I start getting braver and rush, should I wipe out 1 civ at a time or go for several civs capitals, then finish them off later?

If you take a city with wonders in, do you get their benefits?

Would continents be easier than pangea? and why? Stuck with pangea solely to avoid extra grief building navies and transporting units.

Should I stick with vanilla until I improve or jump to BTS?

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I have generally been playing as a spiritual civ as I'm not good at working civics effectively.
Had 16 days off work and played 12+ hours a day (I need help) and didn't win once on prince. Eventually went roman, won a diplomatic victory, but felt like it was cheating. Managed a cultural victory with spain by stopping research and building culture.
I generally have 3 cities to start, too few I know. I ignore buider techs like animal husbandry unless I have several resources, ignore bronze and iron working and trade when I get alphabet and code of laws. I am generally not attacked often, I dont even research archery!
I think I concentrate too much on wonders.
I don't build enough cottages.
I always forget representation 'til about 30/40 turns after pyramids.

I always lose the tech race mid game....is this because I only have 6 cities?
This is true even if I am at 100% research the whole game.

I figure I need to expand more, but I can never afford to.

I also tend to build too many buildings in each city.
Sususil (sorry if spelt wrong) has a great walkthrough that helped a lot, made me go saladin and religious....though I often fail to capitalise on the religions (often get 5) as I'm busy building in cities, rather than building missionaries.
Also enjoying Sullla/Sirians cuban isolation between games.

Thanks for any help, it is greatly appreciated.

revco said:

How many turns are there between 4000bc and 2050 ad?

How do you work the tiles outside the 21 around the city? I often have cities larger than the area shown on the city screen, but no way to get white circle on them. If you cant, should I overlap cities?

If you trade a resource for gold per turn, do you lose access to that resource?

Why do cities get overcrowded when there are plenty of unworked tiles and how can I avoid it?

How soon should you trade alphabet? (I often leave it too late, but worry it is too soon otherwise?

If I start getting braver and rush, should I wipe out 1 civ at a time or go for several civs capitals, then finish them off later?

If you take a city with wonders in, do you get their benefits?

Would continents be easier than pangea? and why? Stuck with pangea solely to avoid extra grief building navies and transporting units.

Should I stick with vanilla until I improve or jump to BTS?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I have generally been playing as a spiritual civ as I'm not good at working civics effectively.
Had 16 days off work and played 12+ hours a day (I need help) and didn't win once on prince. Eventually went roman, won a diplomatic victory, but felt like it was cheating. Managed a cultural victory with spain by stopping research and building culture.
I generally have 3 cities to start, too few I know. I ignore buider techs like animal husbandry unless I have several resources, ignore bronze and iron working and trade when I get alphabet and code of laws. I am generally not attacked often, I dont even research archery!
I think I concentrate too much on wonders.
I don't build enough cottages.
I always forget representation 'til about 30/40 turns after pyramids.

I always lose the tech race mid game....is this because I only have 6 cities?
This is true even if I am at 100% research the whole game.

I figure I need to expand more, but I can never afford to.

I also tend to build too many buildings in each city.
Sususil (sorry if spelt wrong) has a great walkthrough that helped a lot, made me go saladin and religious....though I often fail to capitalise on the religions (often get 5) as I'm busy building in cities, rather than building missionaries.
Also enjoying Sullla/Sirians cuban isolation between games.

Thanks for any help, it is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

How many turns depend on the speed you're playing:

Quick-250? I honestly don't know as I never play quick...
Normal-500
Epic-750
Marathon-1500

You can only work the 20 tiles in the BFC (Big Fat Cross). Anything beyond that only signifies your cultural borders. You can gain access to any resources, but you don't get the bonus from working them. Also, if they are outside the BFC, then you can put a fort on them instead of mining/pasturing/etc.

If I understand you right, you're talking about the unhappy faces from overcrowding? Each new population point as an angry face. You need happiness resources to offset these. In the early game, a lot of these might be calendar resources so you won't gain them until you research calendar. Others that provide happy faces are gold, ivory, gems, silver, fur, etc.

As for how soon should you trade alphabet, I guess there will different answers about this. Me personally, I rarely research it myself. Once the other civs have it they can trade with you anyhow. Unless you need that early spy, it's not a big deal.

Early rushes usually involve taking out 1 civ when he has only 1-3 cities. The sooner the better. If you get copper in your capital, you can probably rush 2 neighbors. But you might leave yourself isolated, or with a WHOLE lotta land for the AI to settle before you can. Personally I think just rushing one neighbor early is enough. Play the map though.

When you take wonders, you get their benefits. I don't think you get the culture from them, but other than that, it's as good as building them.

I could be wrong, but I find continents a lot easier than pangea. Less opponents, less diplo, etc. You can build up your infrastructure, then take over your continent, pretty much all but guaranteeing any victory type you like. It's easier for the AI to dogpile you in pangea if your diplo skills aren't up to snuff.

And while certainly civ is civ, I'd say don't delay-make the jump to BTS. It's got so many cool features that vanilla and even warlords don't. Plus it's what a majority of the players here play now.

Hope that helps ya out a bit!

revco said:

Hi.
New to civ 4 and this site. Great site btw, very helpful.
I do many things wrong and need some help. Sorry there are so many questions.

I normally play vanilla, standard size, pangea, normal speed, all other settings standard.
Sailed through the first few difficulties, did ok on noble.....then hit a wall on prince.

I'll get the questions out of the way first, before my general strategy......

How many turns are there between 4000bc and 2050 ad?

How do you work the tiles outside the 21 around the city? I often have cities larger than the area shown on the city screen, but no way to get white circle on them. If you cant, should I overlap cities?

If you trade a resource for gold per turn, do you lose access to that resource?

Why do cities get overcrowded when there are plenty of unworked tiles and how can I avoid it?

How soon should you trade alphabet? (I often leave it too late, but worry it is too soon otherwise?

If I start getting braver and rush, should I wipe out 1 civ at a time or go for several civs capitals, then finish them off later?

If you take a city with wonders in, do you get their benefits?

Would continents be easier than pangea? and why? Stuck with pangea solely to avoid extra grief building navies and transporting units.

Should I stick with vanilla until I improve or jump to BTS?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I have generally been playing as a spiritual civ as I'm not good at working civics effectively.
Had 16 days off work and played 12+ hours a day (I need help) and didn't win once on prince. Eventually went roman, won a diplomatic victory, but felt like it was cheating. Managed a cultural victory with spain by stopping research and building culture.
I generally have 3 cities to start, too few I know. I ignore buider techs like animal husbandry unless I have several resources, ignore bronze and iron working and trade when I get alphabet and code of laws. I am generally not attacked often, I dont even research archery!
I think I concentrate too much on wonders.
I don't build enough cottages.
I always forget representation 'til about 30/40 turns after pyramids.

I always lose the tech race mid game....is this because I only have 6 cities?
This is true even if I am at 100% research the whole game.

I figure I need to expand more, but I can never afford to.

I also tend to build too many buildings in each city.
Sususil (sorry if spelt wrong) has a great walkthrough that helped a lot, made me go saladin and religious....though I often fail to capitalise on the religions (often get 5) as I'm busy building in cities, rather than building missionaries.
Also enjoying Sullla/Sirians cuban isolation between games.

Thanks for any help, it is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Yes if you trade a resource you lose access to it. The obvious tack here is to trade your excess resources. ^^
The overcrowding works like this. 1 unhappy face per point of population. Either keep your happiness cap high with resources and buildings or use slavery to kill off the excess population.
Alphabet is one where evvryone likely has a different opinion. I usually like to pick up a few other techs rather than beelining to it. I'll trade it away if I see that another civ has it.
Regarding rushing. Going for multiple civs capitals hmmm? I like the idea, but in the long run likely not worth it. You'd suffer multiple diplomacy penalties, both for declaring war on each civ, and a -1 friends for all friends and so on. It could be a hefty cumulative penalty. Not to mention the loss of trade partners. It would also mean moving multiple stacks of units to various locations, likely leaving your empire open to a sneak attack or pillaging. I'd say choose a neighbour and crush them. You'll get a capital out of it which may have a religion or wonders, nice early benefit.
Continents vs Pangaea. Tricky. I'm like you, naval units are just one more thing stretch my attention. I have my hands full with buildings, wonders, improvements, diplomacy, aircraft and so on. But I knew I didn't want to always play Pangaea. I'm currently going through all maps one by one. Perhaps you should try some of the others, see what you think. Great Plains was good fun as is Hub. I just won on Ice Age and am winning again on Inland Sea. ^^ Branch out and enjoy the diversity.
I'd say jump to BTS. Might as well start with those differences in place than getting really good on Vanilla only to find all your usual tactics have changed. If you've passed noble, then it's time to jump.

Strategy is a matter of personal flavour. You should expand pretty constantly. I like to try get 5 cities in place before the calendar ticks over to AD. After that I squeeze them in where there's space or try and pry some off the AI via a good old war.
Tech and wonder wise depends on leader. If I have mysticism I like to go for meditation, grab a religion, build the oracle and the AP. If not then bronzeworking and AH to see where the bronze and horses are and then the obvious worker techs like agriculture and pottery to get my empire rolling. Once I've got my necessarys it's time for writing, alphabet and construction. Cities generally start by building units, slipping in a building as and when necessary with the capital usually aiming for any wonders I have a shot at. Workers improve what squares are needed and then chop forests to rush more workers, settlers and wonders. Cottages are a must. Like to get those down early.

"I always lose the tech race mid game....is this because I only have 6 cities?
This is true even if I am at 100% research the whole game."
Yes. Get more cities, through settlers or war. Pay attention to the output of each (those cottages increase research not just gold). I like to put research increasing buildings and academies and Oxford Uni in the ones churning out the most beakers. It's possible to run at 100% research and be doing well, but usually that's a sign that you have too few cities. I like tot ry and keep tech around 60% early on and try get my cities producing enough cash to move it up to 80 later on.
"I figure I need to expand more, but I can never afford to."
Cottages. Founding a religion and building the appropriate shrine helps too. Market, grocer and bank in that city will rake the cash in.
Sisiutil's games rock. ^^ I read all those too and learnt a lot. You'll improve with time. It might be worth dropping back down to noble when you switch to BTS until you get the hang of the changes.
Have fun.

games are won through having a strong economy, which allows you to support a larger empire with more units whilst researching faster. search the forums for articles on the finer details of economies, though the crux of it is to build more cottages.

To make things easier for initial games, try a financial leader which are hard to go wrong with.

6 cities is generally not enough on a standard map unless you are a great player who loves micromanagement.

Finally, not researching bronze working early is a mistake (or improvement techs for that matter - if you don't research improvement techs or metal working techs, what do you research early in the game?!?). Again, search the forum for articles on the power of chopping and slavery. Systematic and planned chopping of forests give you a massive production boost that the AI never uses --> big advantage.

Hope this helps.

- It's different in vanilla/BTS. Quick- 320/330, Normal- 460/500, Epic- 660/750, Marathon- 1200/1500

- You can't work more than 20 tiles per city. The excess population is turned into specialists. But other cities can work the tiles. For example, if you settle a new city it can work a tile, in the second ring, even at poor culture level, if the tile is claimed already by another city.

- You need only 1 source from each type to gain the benefits. If you have more than one, you can trade it for gold/resource and you'll still enjoy the benefits. You don't need to work the tile in order to trade it and it must be in your cultural borders, but not nessesary in a city BFC. If you have only 1 source and trade it, you lose the benefits. Trading or not you never lose the tile benefits. It's unclear in vanilla, but very clear in BTS.

- Overcrowding is explained well

- In Pangaea maps is usually good to be first to Alphabet. Being the only one able to trade techs is most times a huge benefit. However there are many other strategies. The time for trading it is usually, when it's no longer a monopoly tech. AIs will trade it, so it's better if you do it first.

- Depends. If you are boxed between 2 AIs, it's usually good to rush them both, if you can. But huge ammount of empty land and too long distance is not a good idea. In most games rushing your closest neighbour is the best

- You do gain the benefits, except the culture. However you gain nothing from wonders that provide one time benefit, like Oracle, or Taj (but you gain GP points). You also gain nothing from wonders, that are already obsolete.

- Depends. Players style, your opponents, your goals etc.

- I strongly suggest moving to BTS

Some common problems faced by newer players:

-Not expanding enough. By war or peace, you need to expand your empire. Land is power. One of the big challenges in Civ4 is to grow your empire without tanking your economy.

-To offset this problem of tanking your economy, know how to avoid it. Build lots of cottages, research currency (trade routes, trade stuff for $$$, markets) and code of laws (courthouses) relatively early, etc. Also, don't expand too far too fast, unless you have a plan for it. Once you have pottery, currency, code of laws though you should be expanding at a consistent pace.

-More workers. You need about 1.5-2 workers per city in the early going. Military, workers, settlers are your non-rushing needs early on.

-More military. Having a strong military will help keep you from getting attacked and will also help you expand your empire by force. Especially mid-to-late game the amount of military you need is sometimes really surprising. Typically I will attack with an initial stack of 50+ units mid-game to be followed soon after by another 50+ units. Late game it is not uncommon for me to open an attack with 2 stacks of 60+ units.

-Less wonders. There are specific strategies where you can build a ton of wonders, and sometimes a few wonders can really help. However, when learning the game, don't build a wonder that you don't have a really, really good reason to build. Why? Because they slow down your expansion and they are not military units either.

-Read everything you can on these forums, especially the game threads. This helps a LOT. Try and understand the reasoning for why they are making the decisions that they are making.

A strange gap exsists between Noble and Prince, Noble being too easy for a progressive player and Prince being to hard.
The key is attacking early and taking a city and workers and gearing up for another round of expansion. Raze cities and pillage for cash and save but a few. Diplomacy, Trade and War. Currency afor Code of Laws.
"The gap between difficulty levels can be overcome by war" Attacko

Thank you all, some great advice.
I really need to concentrate on cottages. Been using farms instead of cottages for extra food for specialists. Good point about the workers too. I normally have 3 or 4 spread between 6 cities.
I need to stop researching too many religious techs early I think. I've been working on the principle that if I have all the religions, I can spread just one and get good diplomacy..... rarely works though, they spread themselves.
Need to be braver on expansion and war. I tend to wait too long to attack, thinking I need more units.
Will finish current game and try out BTS.
Thanks again.

troytheface said:

A strange gap exsists between Noble and Prince, Noble being too easy for a progressive player and Prince being to hard.

Click to expand...

If this is the case, you could always play "Prince Light." (Or any other difficulty for that matter). Turning off tech brokering will certainly make it a little easier, although I think that it might make it too easy. And actually, raging barbs if you make sure you grab the wall can definitely make it easier.

I actually went the raging barbs route with my first prince game, and I think it helped alot. Plus, got me over the "mental hurdle" as I won a game at the level. Now I can play prince without any gimmicks and win most of the time.

Looks like your mechanics questions (like overcrowding principles) were answered so...

The easiest way to win on prince is to play a financial civ, select good city locations with plenty of food and expand quickly without over expanding, and build a ton of cottages. Seriously, making a strong economy. It really is that simple. The trick is learning how to spot the best city sites and knowing how fast to go. For that I suggest reading all the game threads on this forum like any of the ALC threads or "cookbook" threads. They really offer the best advice for good starts.

futurehermit said:

Land is power.

Click to expand...

Infrastructure is power. You can win the game with four cities with 15+ Towns each (and one GP Farm and/or one military city), but I dare you to try that without a Library, Market, etc.

NoDot said:

Infrastructure is power. You can win the game with four cities with 15+ Towns each (and one GP Farm and/or one military city), but I dare you to try that without a Library, Market, etc.

Click to expand...

Let's play a game. You play with four cities with 15+ towns. I, as your opponent, will play with 30+ cities with no infrastructure.

Of course it is possible to win with a smaller amount of cities, but especially as you go up in difficulty level having a larger empire is important so that you have enough power to 1) win wars when you need to; 2) avoid getting attacked/dogpiled; 3) have the teching power to keep up with the AI.

In most cases if I am able to expand to 20+ cities I know I will win the game hands-down. If I have only 4 cities, I am much less optimistic about my chances, especially if there are aggressive neighbours nearby.

Also, the more land you control, the more resources you will control for both and health. You can also trade more excess resources for $. Also, once your cottages mature across a large empire, your sheer beaker production will be waaay more than with only 4 cities.

And, of course, nothing is stopping you from building infrastructure in your 30+ city empire

But with only 4 cities with a lot of infrastructure, you will likely have a very hard time winning a war against an opponent with 3x the empire size as you.

futurehermit said:

Let's play a game. You play with four cities with 15+ towns. I, as your opponent, will play with 30+ cities with no infrastructure.

Click to expand...

"Quantity has a quality all its own." - Joseph Stalin

I'm not playing a game against someone until I can win on Noble continuously. Still, just for fun...

especially if there are aggressive neighbours nearby.

Click to expand...

I'm Elizabeth on the continent with Mansa Musa, Ghandi, and Willem van Oranje. You're Rome on the continent with Monty, Nappy, and Shaka.

(out of order)

And, of course, nothing is stopping you from building infrastructure in your 30+ city empire

Click to expand...

We have a word for that: Superpower.

(/out of order)

Also, once your cottages mature across a large empire, your sheer beaker production will be waaay more than with only 4 cities.

Click to expand...

As it turns out, I ran some numbers on this. It doesn't take into account Specialists or a WE/SSE mixed with a CE. Also, I basically pulled all of the maintenance figures out of a hat. The Non-Palace and Non-Versailles maintenance are from a recent offline game as Boudica of Rome (yes...), so they have some sort of backing, but I pulled all of the other maintenance figures from a hat.

My cities havea Library, Observatory, University, Academy (What did you think the GP Farm was for?), Market, Grocer, and Bank. All cities have a Courthouse, at least. All Cottages are Towns, everyone has Printing Press and Free Speech. Half of all Cottages are on rivers. All cities have exactly 15 Cottages and can work all of them.

30 Cities: 5 + 2 = 7 Non-Cottaged
23 Cottaged Cities + PP + FS + Half on River = 7.5
15 Cottages per City = 112.5 per city
5 GPT Maintenance per city * 28 cities + 6 GPT (Palace + Versailles) = 146 GPT
112.5 per City * 23 Cottage Cities = 2587.5 into the Slider
2587.5 BPT/-145 GPT
0 BPT/2441.5 GPT
End Result: 2587.5 * 16 / 17 = 1495.1 BPT Average

20 Cities: 4 + 1 = 5 Non-Cottaged
15 Cottaged Cities + PP + FS + Half on River = 7.5
15 Cottages per City = 112.5 per City
4 GPT Maintenance per city * 18 cities + 6 GPT (Palace + Versailles) = 78 GPT
112.5 per City * 15 Cottage Cities = 1687.5 into the Slider
1687.5 BPT/-78 GPT
0 BPT/1609.5 GPT
End Result: 1687.5 * 20 / 21 = 1511.9 BPT Average

6 Cities: 1 + 1 = 2 Non-Cottaged
2 Cottaged Cities + PP + FS Half on River = 7.5
15 Cottages per City = 112.5 per City
2 GPT Maintenance per city * 5 cities + 1 GPT (Palace) = 11 GPT
112.5 per City * 4 Cottage Cities = 450 into the Slider
450 * 225% = 1012.5 BPT/-11 GPT
0 BPT/450 * 200% - 11 = 889 GPT
End Result: 1012.5 * 80 / 81 = 1000 BPT Average

Make of these figures what you will.