Condensed tips for beginners?

sequence said:

If you want to negotiate a permanent alliance via diplomacy, you need to tick permanent alliances before you start the game, and you need to research fascism.

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You're right: It's fascism! So I get it correct that this WOULD mean a permanent alliance... Thanks!

most important rule for newcomers
Save, and save often

Make your path towards enemy through forests, jungle and hills. That'll provide you with def bonus from +25%(hills) to +75%(hills+forest).
Also in MP after making turn ALWAYS Fortify - just hit F when selecting already moved unit.

Phyr_Negator said:

Also in MP after making turn ALWAYS Fortify - just hit F when selecting already moved unit.

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Why? A unit won't begin to receive a fortification bonus until they've been stationary for a full turn. Am I missing something?

No you are not getting the bonus. The only bonus I can think of is that on your next turn you don't cycle through a lot of units to tget to the ones you want because they are all fortified. This probably isn't worth it compared with the fact that you could miss moving your unit because you will not cycle to it.

For religion, go straight towards Hinduism, as the AI always goes for Buddhism first. If you still miss Hinduism, try for Judaism (monotheism) next, after getting a military unit tech (archery or bronze working). The value of having a native religion is quite important, especially if you can convert one of your neighbors.

Early on, research the techs you need to allow your workers to do something useful!

- If you have Cows, Horses, or Pigs, research Animal Husbandry to build pastures.
- If you have Rice, Wheat, or Corn, research Agriculture to build farms (or even if you have plenty of fresh water, particularly with a plains start).
- If you have Gems, Silver, or Gold, research Mining.
- If you have Fish, Clams, or Crabs, research Fishing. Added advantage: your city still grows when building a work boat!
- If you have Game, Ivory, or Furs, research Hunting.
- For everything except sea-borne resources, you need to be able to hook them up - so unless you're going for a religion, research The Wheel before anything else (because believe me, it's frustrating when you get that Gold Mine completed, then realise you can't build a road back to your city! )

Research & build according to your Civ's traits.
- If you're Aggressive, build barracks and units, and go for Mining->Bronze Working. Early Axeman rushes can be very effective. A Cover promotion is better than a City Raider II promotion, as well (+25% vs. Archers opposed to a general +20% city attack; given most early defenders are Archers, it makes sense).
- If you're Philosophical or Spiritual, you usually start with Mysticism: go for commerce (thanx Sirian & Sullla!) over food, and you should get Polytheism first. AIs tend to beeline for Meditation before Poly.
- If you're Industrious, head for BW and IW - for the same reasons as being Aggressive. (Napoleon is probably the best for ultra-early rushes in this respect.)
- If you're Organised or Expansive or Financial... er... bear with me. I've not really played with them Seriously, though, these are traits (much like the Commercial trait in Civ3) with subtler, longer-term benefits. Though Organised does seem to be a bit of an all-round Edsel so far.

Always, always, always, escort Settlers, unless you already have the route to the new city patrolled.

Give in to demands early on. Just keep a note, and come back with the payback later

If you have an early UU - research towards it, and make use of it. More so than in Civ3, the UU is tuned to the era it belongs in. Use it or lose it.

- Feel free to sell copper later on in the game (renaisance). It's useless by then, but the AI still pays good for it.
- Sailing allows your religion to spread across all coastal cities on your own and nearby islands.

Youri said:

- Feel free to sell copper later on in the game (renaisance). It's useless by then, but the AI still pays good for it.

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..except to double production of Statue of Liberty (very important wonder), and Internet (not so useful).

- To know how many of each resource you have, just open any city's window; the simplest way to do this is by clicking on your flag next to the minimap, that will open your capital's city window. Then, just look at the info on the top right corner.
- When the AI comes to you offering a resource deal, click 'renegotiate', in order for you to know how many of each of those resources you have. Take any resource out of the bargaining table and it will go back to the upper part, where its proper amount will be displayed; if you see that you do indeed have extra of that resource (or if you don't but you see that you can spare that kind of resource) go ahead and put it back on the table and close the deal.
- After you have alphabet, every time you finish researching something, press F4 to check the foreign advisor and click 'technology' (or 'science', I don't remember). There you will see who is willing to trade you which techs, and since you have just discovered something, maybe they won't have that. It's impossible to trade techs for resources, and it's usually better not to trade it for money, so the best thing to do is trade one tech for another.
- If you hover your cursor over the techs on the bargaining table, it will show you how many beakers each one costs, and it will even tell you how many you have already invested in a particular tech, if that is the case.
- If you open the file 'Civ4Config', you can easily edit it, since it's a text one. Two things worth modifying are: The number of turns between autosaves. The default is 4, but you may prefer to adjust it so that it saves your game every turn, so substitute 4 for 1. And the other thing is to enable the cheatmode, which is really the way to get the worldbuilder to work properly. The password to the cheatmode is "chipotle". So, if it says something like "CheatCode=0", substitute 0 for 'chipotle'.

qaturn said:

most important rule for newcomers
Save, and save often

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Maybe it's just me, but saving does make the game less satisfying overall.

I prefer to play on an easier level, than a harder level relying on reloading whenever I muck something up.

Yes, it does hurt watching an hour's production worth of chariots get eaten alive by a few archers in a city. Believe me, the load button looks mighty tempting at times like this.

But I find myself less likely to go for the reload button with Civ4 - goody huts are less dangerous, cities won't go into civil disorder, and you can't go back a couple of turns to switch production either.

You may want to reload because barbarians take out your unescorted settlers, but you should have learned by now that unescorted settlers just don't work.

go to -http://civ4info.com/Sulla/civ4_walk
this will take you thru one complete game
excellent for all

RULEROFALL said:

go to -http://civ4info.com/Sulla/civ4_walk
this will take you thru one complete game
excellent for all

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...no it doesn't. it takes me to 404 Not Found-land

Here is the working link: Moderator Action: Did you mean this link?
http://www.garath.net/Sullla/

i found there is two way of playing your own traits (with some exception):
A)maximise their effect or B) let them fill the gap...

A) spiritual: changing civics often
Organized: don't hesitate to take the most expensive civics, play great empires
financial: cottages powerhouse, rush build with money while you're on universal suffrage
industrious: focused on wonders
philosophical: lots of specialists
creative: early culture war, for land grab
aggressive: early war, allways war
expansive: put city on jungle and such disavantageous spot

B) limited to some traits, some HAVE to be max out
Creative: don't bother with culture, it grows by itself
financial: don't bother with money, focuse on production food
aggressive: don't bother with XP civics, take beakers-prod one
expansive: don't bother with aqueduct, you're healthy
industrious: don't bother focuseing on stone and marble
philosophical: don't bother with specialists

i think spiritual and organized need to be played, and you need to focus on those traits

It's true too that some traits are much powerfull depending on difficulty level (organized and expansive, the higher, the better), maps (financial on a archipelago map = great danger, creative on a pangea one = danger) and other things like that

my 2 cents

Specializing your cities for specific great people is a good tip. Great Merchants and Great Artists are my two favorites. With a great Merchant, get an open borders agreement with somebody and move them to the furthest city from your capital. You can then make a heap of money with the push of a button. Great Artists can create a great work, which will add an instant 4000 culture to the city it is place in. If you're going for legendary culture status on some cities, or just trying to push your borders out over an area of land that you haven't built a city on, this is an easy way to do it.

I also like to make settlers and build cities around the globe (usually on the same area as my rivals). This is tough to do early, as none of the early ships will carry settlers (I cannot remember which ship it is that can carry settlers). Having a city near all of your rivals makes war easier (especially when you build airports).

- To gain the +1 movement bonus for rounding the globe with one of your units, you DO NOT have to connect the "trenches" in the fog of war with each other- you can accomplish it by moving on a tile on the same vertical line on the map, regardless of how much fog of war is in between vertically.

Consider who you want to trade with. If you're friendly with one civ, don't trade with civs that they don't like unless you absolutely need to. There's a diplomatic penalty for trading with their enemies and trade and strategy bonuses for civs that are happy with you.

If you can focus your trade with a group of civs that get along with each other, then you can improve your diplomatic relations and create a bloc that can be useful later in the game.

Rule #1: Never get involved in a land war in Asia

Actually, the general rule is to take advantage of your Civ's traits as best you can, and try all of them to see what suits your style of play. For example, many here feel that Organized trait is 'useless', but if used properly, it can be very useful to have. I enjoy playing as the Romans, and using the Praetorians (UU) to ravage the neighbourhood.

I always put missionaries in my original scouting vessels. That way I can drop them off at any Civ I run across, HOPEFULLY one that has no religeon.