TMIT's Guide to Speed Civving

Another thing I just remembered is the increasing amount of 'lag' as you progress through the game. It happens because BTS, after many patches still has some memory leaks.
Saving the game and then Loading it completly removes those issues.
If your game lags, ie. entering city screen takes a second or so, try saving and reloading.

Also, alt-tabbing out of and back in the game, works to similar extent.
 
Another thing I just remembered is the increasing amount of 'lag' as you progress through the game. It happens because BTS, after many patches still has some memory leaks.
Saving the game and then Loading it completly removes those issues.
If your game lags, ie. entering city screen takes a second or so, try saving and reloading.

Also, alt-tabbing out of and back in the game, works to similar extent.

This is a good piece of advice. One must weigh the slowdown with their predicted finish time and see if they gain or lose time by restarting the application or finishing the game first ;).

If it starts happening early though it might be better to restart the application. I'm blessed in that my computer seems to hold up long enough to get me through games in one sitting unless I play a huge map past 1800 AD or so. Depending on the PC though it might be far earlier...
 
(...)and see if they gain or lose time by restarting the application or finishing the game first ;).

If it starts happening early though it might be better to restart the application.

I didn't mean restarting the whole application. You just need to save the game, and immedately load it. Works every time.
 
aww...but I like those wonder movies. I don't start using build ques until the industrial age, same for worker automation. I guess I'm a plodder then?
 
Everyone has their own tolerances. Just because I'm telling you how to play more rapidly doesn't mean I'm saying it's right or wrong if you choose otherwise.
 
I must say, thanks to this guide, I can now lose in HALF the time I used to! ;)
 
I believe you forgot to mention queuing techs and worker actions. Other than that, a fairly comprehensive guide.
 
I believe you forgot to mention queuing techs and worker actions. Other than that, a fairly comprehensive guide.

I'm trying to get some pics into it. Also, while I agree on queuing techs I am not so sure on worker actions. Too often, the situation will change or you will have to stop to think about making further worker actions and what order they should come in down the road. If you make one mistake, you end up having to realize it and stop the worker. This takes more time than just ordering it one thing at a time IMO.
 
Yes, just hold down shift. You can also just click down a tech path and the pre-reqs will be targeted. By mixing this you can queue up 2 beelines.
 
You can que worker actions?

Woo, this is indeed a time safer! thanks for the tip!
 
TMIT, obviously you want to be selective about what/where/when you queue a worker action but I think it at least deserves a mention. I mostly just queue a road after building an improvement but there are some other times when a more extensive queue would be helpful.
 
Didn't use queues at all (didn't know how, so came to this thread to learn).
I don't have any tips of my own, I guess I just don't spend much time "thinking" about things.

-edit- It could be that by spending so much time reading every thread and guide I can find on this forum (possibly more time than I spend actually playing Civ), it's entirely possible that I've subconciously been picking up tactics and strategies that I'm implementing without concious thought, thus reducing the amount of time wasted "thinking".

-2nd edit- read the succession game of the month (SGOTM) threads (in the GoTM sub-forums) for multiple teams for the last few challenges. Everything you need to know about civ is actually in those threads, and seeing the various strategies in context is the best way to learn from them. All the thinking has been done for you! I know Murky Waters have some good writeups and debates, they also have Klarius who could rewrite the entire Civ IV code from memory.
 
Great article, cheers.
The waypoint selection isn't working for me. I play on a laptop. I lose enjoyment later in the game as moving units is too slow. Can anyone help? I press the city bar and shift at the same time try to right click but it doesn't seem to work??
How do you airlift to different cities automatically as well?
 
Great article, cheers.
The waypoint selection isn't working for me. I play on a laptop. I lose enjoyment later in the game as moving units is too slow. Can anyone help? I press the city bar and shift at the same time try to right click but it doesn't seem to work??
How do you airlift to different cities automatically as well?

I'd like to know how to auto-airlift myself.

To waypoint, simply select the cities you want, THEN hold shift and right click. Note that if the city you are waypointing to is selected, it will clear waypoints rather than selecting them.
 
Another random thing I was thinking about on queuing worker techs:

If I want to see which city a chop will go to that is in territory that is not in any of my BFCs I'll queue a worker move and chop and the chop button will tell me how many hammers will go to which city without having to move the worker to a tile that I may end up not needing to chop. This is useful later in the game when I want to chop something big like a wonder for a specific city and the only trees I have left are on the outskirts of my territory.

Doesn't have anything to do with playing faster but it's useful.
 
Used waypoints for the first time last night. It didn't help me with my HoF finish date, but it sure did remove an element of tedium during military build up phases =)

Ty TMIT
 
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