Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners

i can't open the guide, i get pop up box telling me
"there was an error opening this document. the file is damaged and cannot be repaired"
I'm running vista, could this be the problem?

cbr600mark said:

i can't open the guide, i get pop up box telling me
"there was an error opening this document. the file is damaged and cannot be repaired"
I'm running vista, could this be the problem?

Click to expand...

It works fine for me. Do you have Abode Reader installed?

yes, adobe works fine, i have opened the other guides, just not the beginners one!! help

Great work. Thank you!

Great guide, really helps me getting on.

Great, great guide. I've been playing Civ 4 for what seems like three years, now, and I recently got stuck on Noble. Although I've beaten Noble, I keep getting Warren G. Harding-like results. Also, I've been trying to win a cultural victory (mostly b/c I've had every other victory at this point), but to no avail. I will almost certainly take these tips to heart and use them for a new strategy.

The best things I learned have to be worker un-automation and specialist specialization. I will try to let you know how it goes. Thanks


EDIT: Played through last night and won my first cultural victory. Not only that, but I did before 1950 hit! Thanks to some of the tips here and elsewhere on the board (mainly, manually using the Workers) I had what was probably my best play through. Although I still have a way to go to master this strategy (I only ended up with 5-6 cities), I feel well-armed going forward. Now playing for a domination victory, things are going well for Montezuma.

Thanks again!

This guide is very interesting. Just a precision, what is early game exactly? Before middle age?

bushido said:

This guide is very interesting. Just a precision, what is early game exactly? Before middle age?

Click to expand...

The on-set of the medieval period can vary from game to game because it's dependent on technology. In vanilla, for example, you could pull off a CS slingshot that would make the medieval period start abnormally early. So I tend to think of the game's "phases" as more organic, though with the changes in Warlords and BtS the game's eras usually start when they're supposed to. Then again, keep in mind that terms I use in the guide such as "early game" and "late game" are mostly arbitrary. But here's how I think of them.

I guess I've become such a warmonger that I generally think of the game's eras in terms of military capabilities. For me, the "early game" is the period before Construction, because tech that brings the ability to build the first siege weapons, Catapults, which in turn mark a sea change in terms of warfare. Before that, you're attacking cities without removing their cultural defense or other bonuses first. I tend to think of the period between Construction and Feudalism (for Longbowmen) as the "late early game"; that period can be very short because the AI makes Feudalism such a priority.

When the first medieval units start appearing--Longbows, Crossbows, Macemen, and so on--I tend to think of myself as being in the "mid-game". This is also the period when you have Code of Laws and Bureaucracy and can usually handle a larger empire.

The transition to the industrial units--Rifles, Grenadiers, Cavalry, Cannon, Frigates--marks the "late mid-game" to me. These units indicate a significant jump in military capabilities, especially since gunpowder units (especially Cannon) ignore the defensive bonuses from walls and castles.

The acquisition of Assembly Line usually marks the beginning of the "late game" to me. Not only do you get a jump in military power thanks to Infantry, you also get to significantly boost your production thanks to factories. Usually, by this point, you know if you're going to win or not.

Thanks for this comprehensive response Sisiutil. This is clearer for me now.

By the way, I just finished your other guide about "early rush", what a laugh. I like it!

Awesome Guide! Just one quiff: when you mention cultural vicories taking 50000 culture per city, I think you should specify that you mean a normal game. Or explain that it's 25-50-75-150 for quick-normal-epic-marathon cultural victory. Other than than: PERFECT! (loving the Saladin ALC so far-hard one to play)

To the O/P, thank you for this document. Going to read it now, after downloading Adobe Reader , and hopefully try my first Warlord game after.

Cheers!

I just posted version 3.3, which contains some minor revisions and clarifications.

This looks like a good guide for me.

I have been a Civ fan since II.

On every version including this one I mop the floor with the bottom couple difficulties... But once I get into the mid-difficulties I dont stand a chance.

I am doing something fundamentally wrong and I have never been able to figure it out. Maybe this guide will show me.

May Day 10 said:

This looks like a good guide for me.

I have been a Civ fan since II.

On every version including this one I mop the floor with the bottom couple difficulties... But once I get into the mid-difficulties I dont stand a chance.

I am doing something fundamentally wrong and I have never been able to figure it out. Maybe this guide will show me.

Click to expand...

I certainly hope it will help you.

If you find you're still struggling, post a saved game file in the Strategy forum. You'll get lots of tips.

well, Im on page 5 and I already learned a lot of early-game facts I never realized.

Also I think I have pinpointed one of my major fundamental problems... REX as you call it. My early game is still based on settle/build, settle/build and I guess I am slowing down my civ more than expanding it.

Attempting to employ REX in Civilization IV will cause your maintenance costs to rise, your research to
drop to 0%, and your treasury to empty. Your units will eventually go on strike—meaning the game will
automatically begin to disband units—because you can’t pay them. Since the other civilizations are
continuing to research new technologies and expand their armies with more advanced units, you’ll
eventually become a sitting duck.

Click to expand...

Im still making some money and it doesnt get to the point of units disbanding... probably b/c I am playing on the Noble difficulty... But the sitting duck statement is right on. Basically no matter how hard I try, I lag technologically, and whenever a neighbor decides to pay me a visit, I am in big trouble.

May Day 10 said:

well, Im on page 5 and I already learned a lot of early-game facts I never realized.

Also I think I have pinpointed one of my major fundamental problems... REX as you call it. My early game is still based on settle/build, settle/build and I guess I am slowing down my civ more than expanding it.



Im still making some money and it doesnt get to the point of units disbanding... probably b/c I am playing on the Noble difficulty... But the sitting duck statement is right on. Basically no matter how hard I try, I lag technologically, and whenever a neighbor decides to pay me a visit, I am in big trouble.

Click to expand...

It takes a while to get to "STRIKE!" mode. Usually it requires a combination of too many units and too many cities.

Base your early expansion on the neighbours. If they're easy to get along with, like Gandhi and Mansa, expand as much as you can, because that's what they'll be doing. On the other hand, if you have one of the psychos like Montezuma and Shaka next door, limit yourself to a smaller number of cities--two to four, I'd say--and focus on military.

Great guide this one . I learnt important details that I had not given a thought previously. It is also a very balanced document for what should be included in a beginners guide. I’ll keep it next to me at coming games. I can tell lots of work has been put into this document, but I have some questions. With the strategy of eliminating citizens to get rid of unhappy faces mentioned at several places in the guide, can one be sure to kill off an unhappy face? What if a happy face is killed off? Or is that just not ever happening? At the promotions section, is not also the preceeding percentage of successful outcome in a fight impacting XP earned after fight won?

I also found some stuff I’d like to flag in v3.3:

- I was under the impression that one cannot trade a tech that one has not researched oneself. If that is true, the next to last point on 3.2 needs to be changed.
- In 4.1, point three, there is an incorrect reference to section 4.3. It should say 4.4
- At 4.3.1, point four, I think the statement “having more than one of them” should be changed to “having more than one of the same resource”
- At 4.6.3, “Stable” should be added to point one: “High-priority builds”
- At 5.5, point four, there is an incorrect reference to section 4.2. It should say 4.3.2
- At 13, there is a spelling error: “Sid’s Sushi Co.: G[r]ants”
- At 13, point nine dealing with Mercantilism, the section is now confusing and I think it should be worded “Mercantilism prevents foreign corporations from spreading to the cities of the civ running the civic and will nullify the effect of branches already established there.”
- At 15.6, it should be explained what factors that affect score and maybe a summary of whether they carry equal weight or not.

Again, thank you for a great guide.

You don't exactly kill off either happy or unhappy faces: you kill off population, and each population always produces an unhappy face because of "overpopulation", which gets balanced by various factors producing happy faces (hover over the happy/unhappy region of your city display to see all the factors). So when you whip, you gain an unhappy face because of "your cruel oppression" but lose as many as there were citizens killed. So if, for example, you ave two excess unhappy faces, whipping at a point where it kills off 3 citizens puts you back in balance (2 excess - 3 population +1 oppression = 0).

ok, gotcha

Here is a question.

I am getting the concept of specialized cities and specializing specific buildings/wonders for them.

What buildings should be placed in all cities... and also, if the only buildings are undesirable for the specialized city, should I just build units until another building is available?