Condensed tips for beginners?

You're right on, Fetch. Got my game pegged. I am doing exactly your advice -- getting some boats on the water. Caravans will go ocean, right?

It's now about 1000 AD. Freddie tanked up around 0 AD. My cities are coming into their own, but man am I behind on tech. Running 8th. But I've got Mansa, and research now approaches 50%. Getting ready to set my GP farm now, hopefully with Globe (though it appears my best city will get to size 28).

Civ4 is a much different game from Civ3, that's for sure.

Thanks for "custom game" guys. I didn't notice it. Will look harder next game.

SMOKE CITIES: After reading the manual, and looking at the board, it appears that city growth just affects city growth. IE, the angry people eat 2 food, which can lead to a decline in pop. But apparently no city destruction. I've got lots of smoking cities right now so I'll watch buildings carefully.

NO MONEY: Yea, I had a negative cash balance even at 0 tech there for a turn or two. All kinds of units got disbanded, probably 10. A little bit of micromanagement got things turned around. Civ4 plays so much faster than Civ3 that I just haven't gotten the habit of management down again. We'll see if it costs me my first game.
 
A powerful way to keep city growth in check is to adopt slavery and 'spend' some citizens, if your unhappies are from overcrowding. (mouse over the red face in the city screen) This is called 'pop rush' around these forums. It will decrease the population and you can use them for units or buildings.

In the same place where your civs flag is on the bottom of the screen is where you'll find the city mgmt options when in 'city view'. The bottom right icon will slow the city growth and the top left icon is for poprushing. Just mouse over all the little icons and you will see what they are used for.

Hope this helps
 
XOVERX said:
You're right on, Fetch. Got my game pegged. I am doing exactly your advice -- getting some boats on the water. Caravans will go ocean, right?

It's now about 1000 AD. Freddie tanked up around 0 AD. My cities are coming into their own, but man am I behind on tech. Running 8th. But I've got Mansa, and research now approaches 50%. Getting ready to set my GP farm now, hopefully with Globe (though it appears my best city will get to size 28).

Civ4 is a much different game from Civ3, that's for sure.

Thanks for "custom game" guys. I didn't notice it. Will look harder next game.

SMOKE CITIES: After reading the manual, and looking at the board, it appears that city growth just affects city growth. IE, the angry people eat 2 food, which can lead to a decline in pop. But apparently no city destruction. I've got lots of smoking cities right now so I'll watch buildings carefully.

NO MONEY: Yea, I had a negative cash balance even at 0 tech there for a turn or two. All kinds of units got disbanded, probably 10. A little bit of micromanagement got things turned around. Civ4 plays so much faster than Civ3 that I just haven't gotten the habit of management down again. We'll see if it costs me my first game.
Click to expand...


CARAVALS can go into ocean tiles, yes. BUT they can't transport troops, just GP, settlers, and (I think) workers. Whipping some population to get rid of the 'excess' isn't a bad idea. Also be on the lookout for tech trades. Try and research something nobody (or few) have and use it as a barganiing chip for getting other techs.
 
Caravels and submarines can carry only a GP, scout, explorer, missionary or spy. :)
 
@ cardin411

Thanks, stupidly i have never attacked a city with a catapult whilst it has had a stack of defenders.

@'Sheep

'Spoony? rtcw Spoony?' Sorry I have no idea what you're asking?
 
Whoa, big tip here:

Read this entire thread!

I spent about 1/2 hr just reading this monster, and already I have a bunch more strategies to try! Thanks gents!
 
Religion: So you want lots of faiths. Hmmm. Sorry now I disbanded my Toaist priest. Ok, is it important to go out to my cities that are not a member of my state faith -- send a priest to establish the state faith in those cities that are not currently members the "true way," but which are members of other faiths acquired from the heathen gods? Are they less likely to . . . I don't know? . . . flip, maybe?
Click to expand...

Cultural flipping is based upon a city's culture. Religious buildings produce culture and can only be produced in cities that have a religion in them. Simply having a religion - even your state religion - in a city won't influence the likelihood of flipping, but it will give you the ability to build culture-producing religious buildings, which will contribute to the city's culture.
Click to expand...

Actually I was reading another thread somewhere that was analyising the flipping formula and religion does indeed influence it. It is only in effect when the two civilizations vying for control have two different state religions. Here's how it breaks down:

Attackers State religion is present / Defenders state religion not present - Doubles the chance of flipping
Attackers and Defenders state religion is present - No change
Attackers State religion not present/ Defenders state religion present - Halves Chance of Flipping
Both not present - No Change

I noticed this last game. Sometimes I'm lazy filling in the back end of my empire and other civilizations land settlements there. Last game I was particularly lazy and there was four settlements landed. 2 German, 2 English. I was Christian and the English were Christian as well. The Germans were Hindu. Christianity spread quickly to all the cities due to trade routes, no other religions show up. The German settlements were flipped suprisingly quick, but the two English settlements held on for pretty long. I'm pretty sure this was due to the religion modifier.
 
QuixotesGhost said:
Actually I was reading another thread somewhere that was analyising the flipping formula and religion does indeed influence it. It is only in effect when the two civilizations vying for control have two different state religions. Here's how it breaks down:

Attackers State religion is present / Defenders state religion not present - Doubles the chance of flipping
Attackers and Defenders state religion is present - No change
Attackers State religion not present/ Defenders state religion present - Halves Chance of Flipping
Both not present - No Change

I noticed this last game. Sometimes I'm lazy filling in the back end of my empire and other civilizations land settlements there. Last game I was particularly lazy and there was four settlements landed. 2 German, 2 English. I was Christian and the English were Christian as well. The Germans were Hindu. Christianity spread quickly to all the cities due to trade routes, no other religions show up. The German settlements were flipped suprisingly quick, but the two English settlements held on for pretty long. I'm pretty sure this was due to the religion modifier.
Click to expand...

wow! that's something you should know!:eek:
 
cabert said:
wow! that's something you should know!:eek:
Click to expand...

You can say that again! I had no idea. I've edited my original post to point to QuixotesGhost's post, above. Thanks, QuixotesGhost -- it's good to know that.
 
guys im sure its answered somewhere in this forum somewhere, but i just have to ask how you take over cities. ive been playing for some time now, still a noob, and like i play for ages then when i decide i wanna take over another civ, i cant coz i cant take over any of their cities.... its just too hard... any tips? thanks... PM if possible so i get some direct results thanks!!....
 
jinwoog said:
guys im sure its answered somewhere in this forum somewhere, but i just have to ask how you take over cities. ive been playing for some time now, still a noob, and like i play for ages then when i decide i wanna take over another civ, i cant coz i cant take over any of their cities.... its just too hard... any tips? thanks... PM if possible so i get some direct results thanks!!....
Click to expand...


Speak very softly and carry a big stick. Translation: be sure you've got the army to win before you declare. Check the graphs to see the enemy's power relative to your own. Use seige weapons to bombard the city's defenses, and then use the seige weapons to attack, causing collateral damage. Then send in your main units. Select a unit, and then hold ALT and mouse over an enemy unit to determine your chance of success against that unit.
 
Brota said:
Make friends early in the game. Use your neibghors as buffer zones. :mischief:
Click to expand...

On the higher difficulty levels, it's often best to kill off one or two of your immediate neighbours asap. (I normally use axemen, horse archers or elephants, depending on which resources I can get). identify the weakest one and conquer him/her, to expand your country and put military pressure on your rivals, and the plundered money should enable you to keep up technologically too. I only research military techs until the war is over.
I guess the best tip I could give to any beginner in civ4 is to be more aggressive, throughout the game, but especially in the beginning. Regardless of which type of victory I go for, I always try to conquer a weak civ early, and then establish the economy/culture.
 
Once a thread goes up to 9 pages, can we really still call it condensed with a straight face?

I'm something of a civ4 newb, I win 90% of the time on Noble, and I'd love to read some "condensed tips" but this thread is pretty intimidating to me with its oh-so-ironic naming scheme.

Maybe it should be renamed to "Kinda sprawled over several pages, spread-out tips for beginners"?
 
It has grown, yes, but that's the nature of the beast.:rolleyes:

If you've got questions or are looking for some help, you might try the Quick Answers/Newbie Questions thread.

One of the nice things about that thread is that no one minds if a question gets repeated multiple times. In fact, Civrules (a moderator, and the OP of the thread) specifically says "Just post your questions here without worrying about if it's already covered somewhere else, and hopefully some of the experts will answer them."

The response time is usually pretty quick, so ask away.
 
everybody should know them...good stuff
 
man this game is hard for me. i quit after about a month, but i'm gonna give it another try. these tips help out a lot.
 
what do you guys do when you have a whole bunch of workers sitting around, after you've developed every square in range of a city and covered every tile of the continent in railroads?

In civ3 I'd add them to my cities when I was done with them. Do they just have to collect dust in civ4?
 
Another question... does disbanding a unit in civ4 give you any shields? Or any benefit besides the maintainence reduction?
 
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