Condensed tips for beginners?

[Roger_Mellie]

Hi,

I'm new to Civ4 although I played Civ3 quite some time ago. I was wondering if you "experts" could put some short, concise tips in to help us beginners. From my own experience and reading the other threads, I've picked out the following:

-> Build fewer, quality cities.
-> Build near resources
-> Chopping down forrests boosts production, helping early production of buildings and units
-> Build roads to move units across the map much faster
-> Build roads to resources like horses and elephants with roads to enable production of mounted units at all cities (if you have the right techs)


If anyone can post their tips then that would be really great. Please try to keep is in Layman's terms!

[vinstafresh]

- Research mysticism first to be able to create Stonehenge and obelisks (this will give you culture to expand your borders)
- Move your scout or warrior around the land in order to discover good spots for a new city or to meet other civs (other civs means: go for defense and expand towards the enemy, fill the gaps at the poles and jungle later)
- If both a warrior and a worker cost 15 hammers, go for the worker in order to develop your city sooner. Choose the warrior if that takes 8 turns (so your city can grow to 2 in the meantime)
- After mysticism, research meditation or polytheism in order to get a religion. If meditation is researched while you are still researching it, change it to polytheism (use the tech-screen by pressing F6). If polytheism is researched also, go for iron working. A holy city gives you benefits.
- After iron working, go for alphabet. Once researched, you can trade your techs with other civs. Trade with distant enemies first, you don't want to give your neighbours the edge. Don't trade your alphabet-tech just yet, you don't want others to be able to trade as well, do you?
- Once you discover currency, sell your technology to the other civs. They're glad to hand over all their money to you for inferior techs. Spend this money on research. The first time is the most lucrative one.
- If you have weak defenses, always accept demands from your closest neighbours. Work on your defenses, especially with 'friends' nearby! Bribing won't stop an attack, when they smell blood, you're theirs.
- If there are horses around somewhere, claim that resource!! Iron and copper are around more often (especially near the poles). Research horse back riding only if you have horses. Don't accept it when you trade if you don't have horses, since it's not useful to you. Never trade it with Cyrus, since his unique unit is mounted!
- If you are at war, attack with mounted units and pillage iron, horses and copper resources first, so they can't build strong reinforcements. Try to sneak in a chariot or mounted archer to move and pillage at the same turn.
- Build barracks in every city for a free promotion.
- Choose promotions in accordance to your attacker's army. Choose +25% cover when your enemy attacks with archers for instance or hills/forest defense if you are near hills or forest

This will get you started (I play on noble, will try prince soon)

Edit: some additions, more examples.

[ElderDruid]

Thanks very much for those tips. I hope other experienced players post as well.

[vinstafresh]

After you researched a religion (or failed to do so), don't go for iron working just yet, but check your surroundings for resources. If there's corn, hover over the tile and see what you need to improve the tile and get that resource. In the case of corn, you'll need a farm, so you'll need to research agriculture. If you have sheep, get animal husbandry. Get the wheel to make roads (important!) and pottery to create cottages (perhaps somewhat advanced tactic this early in the game, there are a lot of threads with indepth tips).

So, after religion, research a couple of basic worker actions (don't go for agriculture if you don't need it yet) and then go for bronze working (reveals copper) and iron working (reveals iron). If you can settle near these resources, it means your enemy can't! Never trade iron or copper, unless you absolutely have to! If you are demanded to give copper or iron or else, you know their units suck since they lack that resource! (Unless it's further on in the game, they might have horses)

[Brota]

Make friends early in the game. Use your neibghors as buffer zones.

[Jonny211]

The best earliest unit for attacking cities seems to be the Swordsman, and if you have the Theology civic (enforced state religion or whatever its called) you can bump up the swordsmen by an additional level, that's two if you have a barracks.

These can be great when the 'city attack' bonus is increase by a couple of levels, and if your enemy doesn't have Longbowmen or Macemen yet then their cities are yours!

[brokguitar]

Posted a guide in a attempt to help newcomers. Hope it helps.

[Stilgar08]

Maybe I missed something and I don't know if this thread is appropriate for this question, but I have it and I pass it to you :

When researching industrialization you can make "Alliances" There's no description in the civilopedia (surprise surprise), nor a real one in the manual...

Am I right, that alliances with the AI in Single-Player would be just like Alliances in MP? Sharing everything, research, LOS, even the VICTORY???

Can you withdraw from such an alliance or is it forever? I have the problem to decide this right now in my game and HATE to save,try it out and maybe reload... (I know this might be easier, except for the victory-question - would take ages to find out ) Thanks in advance, folks!

Stilgar

[weimingshi]

If you are playing at higher difficulty, dont research alphabete, research writing and make a beeline to the tech to build oracle, then have at least 2 worker chop wood to rush build oracle, use the free tech bonus to get alphabete. alphabete is just too expensive to research early.

[Vizzini]

The two most important things you can do for both the Civ newcomer and the die-hard Civ fan...

1. Read the manual. (Seriously, READ it. Very important)
2. Read the manual a few more times.

[Ranos]

Originally Posted by Stilgar08

Maybe I missed something and I don't know if this thread is appropriate for this question, but I have it and I pass it to you :

When researching industrialization you can make "Alliances" There's no description in the civilopedia (surprise surprise), nor a real one in the manual...

Am I right, that alliances with the AI in Single-Player would be just like Alliances in MP? Sharing everything, research, LOS, even the VICTORY???

Can you withdraw from such an alliance or is it forever? I have the problem to decide this right now in my game and HATE to save,try it out and maybe reload... (I know this might be easier, except for the victory-question - would take ages to find out ) Thanks in advance, folks!

Stilgar

There are two different alliances that you can have in Civ 4. One is a defensive alliance that will cause you to declare war when your ally is attacked by somebody. The other is a permanent alliance that basically merges your two empires. This is the same for SP and MP.

[Vizzini]

Perm Alliance isn't something you can negotiate tho - it's set up at the beginning of the game. (e.g, teams )

[Roland Ehnström]

Catapults are absolutely essential.

To take a city with a big defence bonus (like 30% or more) defended by three or more strong units, you simply MUST use Catapults. Just throwing Swordsmen at the city is plain suicide. Facing Longbowmen or Axmen in a city with a big defence bonus, your Swordsmen will die at a rate or at least four to each killed defender. And you will provide the opponent with free promotions for his surviving units...

Instead, place three or four Catapults next to the city. (If the enemy doesn't have a Catapult in the city, you can place them in a stack, and add a strong defender to defend it, otherwise spread them out around the city.) Now bombard the city until the defences are down to 0% (this may take a couple of turns - be patient!). Then attack the city with your Catapults! Yes, you'll lose most (probably all) of them, but they are cheap to build. Their awesome (overpowered?) collateral damage ability will soften up the defenders enough to let you move in with moderately strong offensive units, such as Swordsmen (prefferably with City Raider promotion), and most likely kill all defenders without losing a single attacker.

Meanwhile, your other cities should keep building new Catapults, to attack the next city...

-- Roland

[Vizzini]

Originally Posted by Roland Ehnström

Catapults are absolutely essential.

Caveat that with "... unless you have units that negate many archery advantages, like Quechu or Immortals"

Persia + Horses = (super cheap!) Immortals = Ancient Era Nightmare

[MSTK]

This should be pinned tbh.

[Japanrocks12]

Go for Hinduism or Buddhism first (on Noble). Try hard to spread one of these religions. Make shrines such that you can collect the income.

[damxam]

Originally Posted by Vizzini

Perm Alliance isn't something you can negotiate tho - it's set up at the beginning of the game. (e.g, teams )

I think you can make permanent alliances if you tick the "Permanent alliances" box late in the game. I've heard someone do it, and there's a tech you need to research to get it just like with "defensive pact" etc, so you should be able to make a permanent alliance via diplomacy with the option enabled?

[Stilgar08]

Originally Posted by damxam

I think you can make permanent alliances if you tick the "Permanent alliances" box late in the game. I've heard someone do it, and there's a tech you need to research to get it just like with "defensive pact" etc, so you should be able to make a permanent alliance via diplomacy with the option enabled?

that's what I think it is... Industrialization is the tech and it's called "alliance" But can you cancel it? Is your alliance-comrade going to get all the techs you already have?

[Tunguska]

If you want to use the chop-rush strategy for your start game, you need bronze working as your first tech.

[sequence]

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.