Condensed tips for beginners?

Disband them. If there's nothing left for the workers to do, they aren't much use. Keep a couple around for repairs, or if you start conquering fresh land. OR, If you don't want to disband them, and you're at war, try using them as bait to draw AI units into less defensive positions.

No shields, unfortunately. And no way to add domestic units to your cities. I kinda miss these features, but at least we can't abuse them now.

Ballisto said:

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?

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you can gift them to a "friend", you can use them to improved further conquered land, you should keep a few for rebuilding improvements after pillaging

and to answer your other question, you don't get shields for disbanding

After communism is good to have at least 6 or better 10 (depends of the land) workers around to rebuild the improovments destroyed by spies, especialy if there is a close race. You don't want your last spaceship part to be delayed by a nasty spy just as mush as Mansa Musa win the space race.

Hallo there!

I like to play with Ghandi and have developed a very nice start that allows me to have the stonehenge and the oracle as well as a second town very quickly. Usually the free technology I choose is Monarchy and I also have foundid Hinduism. So then I research writing and alphabet to allow trading of techs with other civs. From there it just goes very slowly.

Can anybody suggest what should be my next aim? A tech or a number of towns? What should my objective be?

Thank you!

Build or capture 6 cities, and fill at least 3 of them with cottages.

Cobus J van Wyk said:

Hallo there!

I like to play with Ghandi and have developed a very nice start that allows me to have the stonehenge and the oracle as well as a second town very quickly. Usually the free technology I choose is Monarchy and I also have foundid Hinduism. So then I research writing and alphabet to allow trading of techs with other civs. From there it just goes very slowly.

Can anybody suggest what should be my next aim? A tech or a number of towns? What should my objective be?

Thank you!

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Monarchy, that's a cheap civ for the oracle. I only use the oracle for Code of Laws or Theology. Careful management of your tech tree can easily get you those via oracle. The extra free religion is great, plus the bonuses (Courthouses if you have lots of cities, or theocracy for the second level promotion of your troops) is great. It is possible to get as far as Nationalism via the Oracle, but it requires some luck and some careful management.

With Ghandi, I would try for a diplomatic win. You should be able to found 5 religions easily. Use open borders to spam your neighbors with the missionaries from your state religion only. Use the good relations to gang up on the founders of the other religions. Once you control the religions of other states, keep trading and keep relations at pleased/friendly. A diplo win is within your grasp.

Hello all,
I am a longtime lurker, first time poster. I recently managed to get my g/f hooked on civ, and one thing she keeps asking me, I can't figure out. While playing the larger maps, her units tend to get spread out throughout the world. Is it possible to select ALL units of the same type, and have them regroup on a particular tile?

TIA

-H&M

Jayron32 and DaveMcW, thanks alot for the input! I'll definitely try them out. I have one follow up question though to Jayron32: What if I play against human players? Then diplomacy is not something likely to win me the game... or is it?

Thank you for the help and have a great day!

Cobus J van Wyk said:

Jayron32 and DaveMcW, thanks alot for the input! I'll definitely try them out. I have one follow up question though to Jayron32: What if I play against human players? Then diplomacy is not something likely to win me the game... or is it?

Thank you for the help and have a great day!

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to win a diplo in MP, you need to nuke everyone to the ground and have 2/3 of the world population...

in MP, you can use your massive religions to get a cultural win

Cobus J van Wyk said:

Jayron32 and DaveMcW, thanks alot for the input! I'll definitely try them out. I have one follow up question though to Jayron32: What if I play against human players? Then diplomacy is not something likely to win me the game... or is it?

Thank you for the help and have a great day!

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I don't usually play multiplayer. Diplomatic win in multiplayer is moot: No other player would vote to lose the game themselves.

In multiplayer, you can use the multi-religious strategy to build a HUGE cash cow. If you can found 5 religions and build the shrines, spam the religions wherever you can. You should be making a huge amount of cash. Build Wall Street in the city where the most lucrative religions are founded.

Still, this is risky in MP, since holy cities (especially MULTI-holy cities) make you a HUGE target. Human diplomacy doesn't work like AI-Diplomacy, so you would have to have a sizable military to defend yourself.

One more note on the diplomatic win strategy: You want to keep a strong enemy until the end: This works best if one of the top 2 civs does NOT have your same religion. You ideally want yourself to be civ#1, you want civ#2 to have a different religion, and civs #3 + to have YOUR religion. If you and the second place civ are friends, than YOUR FRIENDS also like THEM. This happened to me in a game where I tried this strategy. They got voted for a diplomatic victory (and not me) everyone liked them as much as me.

Wow! Thank you very much! I'll definitely incorporate this knowledge into my next campaign!

I've enjoyed reading most of this thread but got to wondering -- which of these ideas are "always" and which "depends on style of play"? So, for example, everyone probably needs some commerce advice, such as good use of cottages, since you need a strong economy to fund all your units if you're a warmonger. "Build up a decent army of defensive units" seems necessary for anyone given barbarians and aggressive AI civs. But "ignore religions" vs "use lots of religions" -- doesn't that really mean advice #1 comes from a warmonger and #2 from a culture/domination/diplomacy player? "Always kill off a neighbouring civ early" -- is that just warmongers or does it apply to (almost) everyone?

So, in general, how do I decide which of the advice in this thread applies to the style I want to play (or the victory conditions I like to aim for)?

If you're stuck in a starting position with a lot of jungle, go for Iron Working ASAP to clear it.

I think this is a reasonable piece of advice, but I'm a beginner.

dalamb said:

If you're stuck in a starting position with a lot of jungle, go for Iron Working ASAP to clear it.

I think this is a reasonable piece of advice, but I'm a beginner.

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More than reasonable, I'd kick it up a notch to sage advice. And after you clear it, cottage it. Build as many farms as it takes to feed as many cottage workers as possible.

At Monarch level, I find it impossilbe to win without an early elimination of a neighboring AI. Having two starting city locations within your civiliation is a Good Thing (TM).

dalamb said:

I've enjoyed reading most of this thread but got to wondering -- which of these ideas are "always" and which "depends on style of play"? So, for example, everyone probably needs some commerce advice, such as good use of cottages, since you need a strong economy to fund all your units if you're a warmonger. "Build up a decent army of defensive units" seems necessary for anyone given barbarians and aggressive AI civs. But "ignore religions" vs "use lots of religions" -- doesn't that really mean advice #1 comes from a warmonger and #2 from a culture/domination/diplomacy player? "Always kill off a neighbouring civ early" -- is that just warmongers or does it apply to (almost) everyone?

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play style is one thing,
objectives are another.
Of course, if you're a real warmonger, going for cultural would be tedious. Not impossible though.

Many advice are level dependent, and not only style dependent.
Going for religions at higher levels is a lost cause.
Going for early war is always good (assuming you kill the target).

So, in general, how do I decide which of the advice in this thread applies to the style I want to play (or the victory conditions I like to aim for)?

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many players (including me) aim for a specific victory condition right from the start or even before : choosing Rome is often choosing conquest, choosing a spiritual leader is often choosing cultural (often isn't always, don't flame me please).

My advice is choose your objectives first and then look for advice that could be useful following your goals.

dalamb said:

If you're stuck in a starting position with a lot of jungle, go for Iron Working ASAP to clear it.

I think this is a reasonable piece of advice, but I'm a beginner.

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sound advice, just don't forget pottery, since under the jungle there is always grassland (you know, the tiles that cry "cottage me")

dalamb said:

So, in general, how do I decide which of the advice in this thread applies to the style I want to play (or the victory conditions I like to aim for)?

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Synergy. If you find a piece of advice that matches the strategic demands of your game, you use it. If it doesn't match, you ignore it. If you can't tell, play a scrimmage or two, kicking the tires to figure out how it works. That'll also tell you if the idea is fun - if it isn't fun, then screw it.

VoiceOfUnreason said:

Synergy. If you find a piece of advice that matches the strategic demands of your game, you use it. If it doesn't match, you ignore it. If you can't tell, play a scrimmage or two, kicking the tires to figure out how it works. That'll also tell you if the idea is fun - if it isn't fun, then screw it.

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This sounds very reasonable to me, VoiceOfUnreason.

TECH TIPS and A QUESTION for more experienced players

Ok I have only played a couple games of CIV4, and I don't have the manual due to downloading from Direct2Drive. I discovered this tipwhile playing my second game There is one caveat to this tip, it assumes that residual research is lost when you finish researching a tech. For example: suppose it takes 10 flasks to develop tech X and when you have the research slider set to 100% you generate 4 flasks of research per turn well it will take you 3 turns to develop that technology, but you will use 12 flasks to do it. So, on your last turn reducing the technology slider to 50% will producer 2 flasks and 2 gold, giving you exactly the ten flasks you need to develop it, but minting two pieces of gold only the way. When playing the numbers are bigger of course. Once again this valuable only if residual research is not applied to the next technology you develop. So if those extra two flasks are applied to the tech Y you develop next then you have just slowed down your overall rate of development (you may still want to do it just get some gold, but it does't help maximize you tech VS. gold production.

If this tip is true you can also use it even when you slider is not set at 100%...alot of times I notice that the development time for a tech will not change with a plus or minus tech slilder adjustment, dialing the slider down while the development doesn't change helps you get that extra gold (which you can use for upgrading units, purchasing buildings, buying needed resoures etc).


ONCE again: this tip only holds true if residual flasks are lost when a technoldy is developed. ANYONE know the answer?