Just converted to Civ IV from Civ III, Big difference!

Long time Civ player but only just recently, like 2 nights ago, i decided to download and try Civ IV and give it a real go. Soo far its a love hate relationship, sum things i love more in civ III but sum things are just plain more awesome in Civ IV. One thing i find annoying is the graphics in Civ IV, yes its nice that the whole word is 3d or close to it but damn is it annoying too. I have a hard time figuring out what units are by looking at them in Civ 4 i gotta click on them just to check not like in Civ 3 where you could just clearly tell what units are what from the nice aeriel view. Thats another thing too, i cant tell when a terrain has something special about it or if its grassland or hill its just looks freakin all the same, that makes the game crazy annoying cause i gotta put the cursor over every little piece of terrain to see what it is, the little sticks that have wine berries that sit right beside a forest blend in incredibly well. Meaby its all about getting used too but damn it was pretty easy in Civ 3, you just give it a glance at the screen and bam you could tell what everything is.

Another thing i miss from civ 3 is the simplicity of seing how many turns a city is gonna build something and how long till it grows again, the new progress bar is nice but i cant tell how many turns its gonna take till progress unless i used some sort of measuring method to measure out the progress bar on the screen in accordance with turns and do a freakin math equation to figure it out. LIKE WHAT THE HELL! i guess i can just click on the city and check with the super city screen of everything but god damn thats inconvenient.

The layout of the screen is kind confusing too, i like the old style wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better, meaby im more old fashioned or i just got accustomed to it but i spend literally like 5mins looking to see where the scroll bar was to give more spending to science and how much income im making per turn, bottom right to top left now, jesus christ thats out of place. AND whatever happened to the lines on the screen to show the terrain squares! why would you need to take those off they made it soo much easier to the distance from one thing to another.

But on a lighter note i like Civ 4 because of the end of stupid AI's getting crazy handicaps when you want to play on harder difficulty, now they just play smarter and you can now predict on a sensable level why they hate you or why they want to be your ally. The new fixes in units is cool too, no more tank killing spearmen with 90mm armour piercing spears, that was just ******ed before. The new techs i dont mind they all seem to be very balanced and work well with the gameplay, didnt really need to reramp my play strat style to adjust to the game. The cool little features with workers and warriors are just awesome, the promotions and the build a road to here feature makes the game more player friendly, which is nice.


Well i guess thats the end of my rant or review or whatever, im off now to go conquer rome being babylonians, no wait i cant they dont exist anymore in the game, i guess ill settle with india and use war elephants, god damnit... I guess the game will grow onto me more and ill become as much of a fein for it like Civ3. What were sum changes you hated or loved in Civ4 compared to previous games?

Just a few little things. Firstly, the AI does cheat at higher levels.
Secondly, you can turn on the tile grid with ctrl+t and show the food/hammer/commerce yield of a tile with ctrl+y.
Thirdly, in the row of buttons near the bottom right there's a little signpost yellow thing. Click it and it will highlight all the visible resources on the map.

You should check your options for city information, it will tell you exactly how long the building and city growth is. As for the identifying terrain and units I don't find it annoying at all to pass the cursor over the units or zooming in. Though it can be tricky to see hills sometimes when forests are hiding them.

I also believe there are several mods out there that can change the graphic look of the game as well.

BUG Mod will tell you when your city's are due to grow, amongst other useful bits of info.

There is an option that shows detailed city info. I believe this will tell you how many turns until growth or completion.
The units might be more distinguishable if you select single unit view on the same option page.
Already mentioned but tile grid display can be toggled by an icon in the lower right corner of the interface.

Your post looks familiar from those made a long time ago. Like when the game first came out. Kind of a cool sneak peek at the past.

Lastly, I think that once you get over the graphics you will find the game to be more in depth and challenging. Enjoy!

battlepancho said:

Long time Civ player but only just recently, like 2 nights ago, i decided to download and try Civ IV and give it a real go. Soo far its a love hate relationship, sum things i love more in civ III but sum things are just plain more awesome in Civ IV. One thing i find annoying is the graphics in Civ IV, yes its nice that the whole word is 3d or close to it but damn is it annoying too. I have a hard time figuring out what units are by looking at them in Civ 4 i gotta click on them just to check not like in Civ 3 where you could just clearly tell what units are what from the nice aeriel view. Thats another thing too, i cant tell when a terrain has something special about it or if its grassland or hill its just looks freakin all the same, that makes the game crazy annoying cause i gotta put the cursor over every little piece of terrain to see what it is, the little sticks that have wine berries that sit right beside a forest blend in incredibly well. Meaby its all about getting used too but damn it was pretty easy in Civ 3, you just give it a glance at the screen and bam you could tell what everything is.

Click to expand...

In regards to being able to tell between hills and grasslands and plains... that's just something that'll come more naturally as you play the game. It didn't take too long for me, there are only a few terrain types (just a lot of combinations) but once you get the hang of them it isn't hard.

For tricky resources like wine, there is a little ? balloon icon on the bottom right. It will clearly label all resources onscreen for easy identification.

battlepancho said:

Another thing i miss from civ 3 is the simplicity of seing how many turns a city is gonna build something and how long till it grows again, the new progress bar is nice but i cant tell how many turns its gonna take till progress unless i used some sort of measuring method to measure out the progress bar on the screen in accordance with turns and do a freakin math equation to figure it out. LIKE WHAT THE HELL! i guess i can just click on the city and check with the super city screen of everything but dang thats inconvenient.

Click to expand...

Options --> Graphics --> Detailed City Info, completely solves this problem. Odd that it's not default I'll admit.

battlepancho said:

The layout of the screen is kind confusing too, i like the old style wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better, meaby im more old fashioned or i just got accustomed to it but i spend literally like 5mins looking to see where the scroll bar was to give more spending to science and how much income im making per turn, bottom right to top left now, jesus christ thats out of place. AND whatever happened to the lines on the screen to show the terrain squares! why would you need to take those off they made it soo much easier to the distance from one thing to another.

Click to expand...

Yep just old-fashioned, times are changing. Nothing you can do about things moved around the HUD screen, just relearn where things are now.

Though terrain squares are still there. See the grid icon on the bottom right? It'll bring up the map grid for you. And if you press Ctrl+Left or Ctrl+Right you can shift the camera to get an angle more akin to ye olde days.

battlepancho said:

But on a lighter note i like Civ 4 because of the end of stupid AI's getting crazy handicaps when you want to play on harder difficulty, now they just play smarter and you can now predict on a sensable level why they hate you or why they want to be your ally.

Click to expand...

Sorry to disappoint you, but the deity AI is no smarter than the settler AI, it's all bonuses. It still works, but no improvement there. (On a whole though the AI itself is smarter, but still far from perfect.) The diplomacy is also more clear, but not perfect, there are some annoying quirks (such as worst enemies) and hidden information (some peaceweights that make warlike AIs dislike pacifist AIs and such).

battlepancho said:

The new fixes in units is cool too, no more tank killing spearmen with 90mm armour piercing spears, that was just ******ed before. The new techs i dont mind they all seem to be very balanced and work well with the gameplay, didnt really need to reramp my play strat style to adjust to the game. The cool little features with workers and warriors are just awesome, the promotions and the build a road to here feature makes the game more player friendly, which is nice.

Click to expand...

You can still lose bullcrap >99% odds battles (the 100% odds in vanilla aren't entirely accurate) but it is extremely rare. I've never had something quite as bad as a spearman beating a tank yet.

battlepancho said:

Well i guess thats the end of my rant or review or whatever, im off now to go conquer rome being babylonians, no wait i cant they dont exist anymore in the game, i guess ill settle with india and use war elephants, dangit... I guess the game will grow onto me more and ill become as much of a fein for it like Civ3. What were sum changes you hated or loved in Civ4 compared to previous games?

Click to expand...

Want Babylonians? Get Beyond the Sword. Gets you Zulus as well.

I jumped from Civ II to Civ IV, so some of the biggest and funnest changes for me was "new" stuff like the resource system (hooking them up, strategic resources, etc) and possessing culture.

There's still other important and nice changes you haven't mentioned yet... the new maitenence system where corruption is gone and cost is based on your number of cities rather than specific buildings, or governments divided up into unique strategic civics. Lots of stuff!

I also recommend getting the BTS (Beyond the Sword) Expansion Pack.

The BUG and BAT mods are very popular and useful.

Welcome to the Forums battlepancho.

battlepancho said:

Meaby its all about getting used too but damn it was pretty easy in Civ 3, you just give it a glance at the screen and bam you could tell what everything is.

Click to expand...

It is just a matter of getting used to it. In no time you'll be able to tell exactly what everything is.

Another thing i miss from civ 3 is the simplicity of seing how many turns a city is gonna build something and how long till it grows again, the new progress bar is nice but i cant tell how many turns its gonna take till progress unless i used some sort of measuring method to measure out the progress bar on the screen in accordance with turns and do a freakin math equation to figure it out.

Click to expand...

In your options, click on Detailed City Info, or something like that. That will give you all that info.

The layout of the screen is kind confusing too, i like the old style wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better, meaby im more old fashioned or i just got accustomed to it but i spend literally like 5mins looking to see where the scroll bar was to give more spending to science and how much income im making per turn, bottom right to top left now, jesus christ thats out of place.

Click to expand...

Again, that's just a matter of getting used to it.

AND whatever happened to the lines on the screen to show the terrain squares! why would you need to take those off they made it soo much easier to the distance from one thing to another.

Click to expand...

Ctrl-T. There's also a series of buttons over top of the world map. One of those will toggle the tile as well.

But on a lighter note i like Civ 4 because of the end of stupid AI's getting crazy handicaps when you want to play on harder difficulty, now they just play smarter...

Click to expand...

No, that's not true. The AI is the same at all levels, they just get bonuses as you increase the difficulty.

Well i guess thats the end of my rant or review or whatever, im off now to go conquer rome being babylonians, no wait i cant they dont exist anymore in the game, ...

Click to expand...

They do if you have BtS.

My transition to Civ IV from Civ 3, as I recall (since it's been years), felt the same at first. However, within a month, I preferred Civ IV and rarely have gone back to Civ 3.

The trick was really to just play a casual game or two using the menu buttons/icons to put the tile outlines on/off, show resources, add signs/markers, etc.

I actually think Civ IV plays much more smoothy, and the AI more logically, but that sort of judgment is hard to quantify in a short post.

Thx for all the posts in such short time everybody, its really cool that to see that the forum is pretty damn active. From reading some i realize that some of my complaints were kinda goofball if i spent more time looking for the answer then just continuing to playing the game, but its soo hard its just too good! Ya i notice too the game runs hella alot more smoothly and nicely then civ 3 for sure. I still gotta gotta reramp my strat abit with the new technologies that were in place kinda screws up my playstyle but whatever civilization is all about adapting to the known and unknown world that resides you, soo ill manage. Soo far ive been playing with gandhi or MasterG as the civ leaders call me and i love the quick worker special unit guy but still sucks he doesnt get a special military unit but the quick worker can really give your industry an advantage thus promoting quicker and faster unit production hence bigger quicker military, so it evens out i guess.

But I would like if some of ya could give me some quick tips like for exemple soo far i research wheel first, agriculture, masonry or husbandry depends on sorroundings and quickly try to get the stonehenge wonder. Unit wise i just keep pumping out 1 worker per town, axemen or settlers till pretty much i maxed out my expansion then begin infrastructure. And once that begins i like to build library over granary first to give me an edge over research. But one thing i notice is my GPT is just crappy as . .. .. .. ., i try to get fish and commerce squares to get more GPT but i still seem to be doing poorly in that part. Is there something im missing from the game thats penalising me like this?

Thx for any answer backs.

Some recommended reading:

Sulla's Civilization IV Walkthrough
Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners
War Academy

battlepancho said:

But I would like if some of ya could give me some quick tips like for exemple soo far i research wheel first, agriculture, masonry or husbandry depends on sorroundings and quickly try to get the stonehenge wonder. Unit wise i just keep pumping out 1 worker per town, axemen or settlers till pretty much i maxed out my expansion then begin infrastructure. And once that begins i like to build library over granary first to give me an edge over research. But one thing i notice is my GPT is just crappy as . .. .. .. ., i try to get fish and commerce squares to get more GPT but i still seem to be doing poorly in that part. Is there something im missing from the game thats penalising me like this?

Thx for any answer backs.

Click to expand...

Cottages.

Roads don't give you commerce anymore, so most of it will be gained from cottages. Make a majority of your cities "commerce cities", preferably near locations with lots of green grasslands (riverside are best) or floodplains. Prime locations can be found under jungles, though you'll need a lot of workers to clear them. Then build and work all the cottages! They start off small, but grow to become real powerful in time. (+3 from natural growth, +1 from Printing Press, +2 from Free Speech, +1 from Universial Suffrage) The financial trait is powerful in that it makes them even stronger, and can help ease you into the new system.

As for wonders, stonehenge is nice, but I wouldn't recommend sticking to a single wonder. Obviously you can't build them all every game, so experiment with different wonders and see how they help you. Pyramids, Oracle, Great Wall (expansion pack), Great Lighthouse, Great Library... all can be very helpful early wonders.

Also workers and settlers halt growth, so its best to not force newborn cities to build them and have bigger already-grown cities build them instead. Well you can, but it's usually better overall to let your new cities grow as fast as possible. (prioritize settling near food and getting food resources online!) The exception is your very first build... worker first is almost always the best idea. (to improve food asap)

battlepancho said:

... and quickly try to get the stonehenge wonder.

Click to expand...

Don't bother with Stonehenge, it's really not worth it. It's also a favourite of the AI so it can be a real crap shoot as to whether you get it or not. An Industrious civ or one who starts out with Stone will snatch it away from you, and you'll have wasted a bunch of Hammers that you could have used to get another city or two up and running. Monuments are cheap, once you get Bronzeworking you can almost build one in single chop. There's no point in building a Wonder to get them, especially since it will go obsolete eventually. If you play a Creative civ, you definitely don't need it.

Joshua368 said:

As for wonders, stonehenge is nice, but I wouldn't recommend sticking to a single wonder. Obviously you can't build them all every game, so experiment with different wonders and see how they help you. Pyramids, Oracle, Great Wall (expansion pack), Great Lighthouse, Great Library... all can be very helpful early wonders.

Click to expand...

To be honest, for a new player - even if you've played previous Civs - I'd recommend that you completely ignore world wonders. The used on them are far better spent on more cities and units, plus many wonders require you to go down tech paths you might not really want immediately. If you really need wonders, well, if the AIs are spending on them, they've got less to spend on units....

Don't get me wrong, wonders are not a bad thing at all. Some (GLH, GW, TGL, 'Mids etc) can be very powerful, but, from my experience, it's much easier to pick up the core of how to play if you completely forget about them. Ignore them until you can regularly win at Prince, then start incorporating them into your play.

Even then, Stonehenge isn't particularly special. If you're industrial, or have a lot of forests to chop it can be worth it, but it's far from being a priority.

Well stonehenge/great wall is one of my favorite combos, let's you REX like a maniac with a lot of convenience and the wonders quickly save hammers that would be spent on monuments/barb defense. Obviously doesn't always work out though.

I agree that playing a few games would be a good way to improve until you know what you're doing, though I went from settler to immortal without ever actively avoiding wonders... probably always built at least one.

Great Wall in particular is one I would recommend new people avoid. It's a huge crutch - much better to learn how to deal with barbs before you get to the difficulties where getting the GW isn't pretty much guaranteed.

he is playing Vanilla ,no Great Wall to build