Top 10 Tips to Get Started in Civ

Hi guys,

I hope you don't mind me parachuting in to your forums but I was wondering if you'd mind helping me out. I work on managing the Sid Meier titles in the UK for 2K Games and I'm looking for some advice I might be able to share with people new to the Civ world.

Every month in the UK we keep our subscribed fans up-to-date with all our games through our 2K Edition e-zine (www.2Kedition.com). This month we're going to do a Civ Special looking at Civ 4, Chronicles and of course the up-coming Beyond the Sword. What I'd like to include is a little feature on the Top 10 Tips to Get Started in Civ 4, to really help those guys who haven't played the game yet to get a footing in it.

So I thought I'd turn to the might of expertise on this forum for ideas. If you have a one-sentence tip for getting a game off to a flying start, something you swear by doing or an early tech must-have I'd love to hear it.

We'll grab the best ten and tell the readers of the May issue of the 2Kedition all about them. Immortalising your wisdom in the hearts of new Civ devotees! In addition I'm sure I can lay my hands on a copy of Beyond the Sword for a random lucky contributor when it gets released.

So what do you say? What should a new player do (or not do) in their opening moves?

All the best,

Harpe

Kind of hard to realy say IMHO, realy it all depends on your starting resourses. And also which leader/civ you take.

but.... 1 Never leave a city undefended for a long period. DUH!!(I constantly look at Military rating, if I am not in the top 3, I will make Military Units until I am. It keeps other civs off your back)

2 Most wonders are realy not worth building, so focus on other things.

3 There is no reason to go for all 7 religons. (besides it gets real boring if you have no Religous wars) *wink*

4 It is unrealistic to be friends with all the Civs. (pick 2 or 3 and the rest are enemy's. Try and get a block of same religion friends)( also, if you try, diplo win will be almost immpossible)

5 Barbains can ruin your day, always have enough Military to keep them off your land!!

6 Never leave a city undefended for a long period. DUH!!(I constantly look at Military rating, if I am not in the top 3, I will make Military Units until I am. It keeps other civs off your back) *wink*

7 Never, ever, ever build a worker unless you have worker techs done. (nothing worse than having a worker set around for hundreds of years with nothing to do.)

8 The great wall looks great, but is it realy worth it?

9 If you are at war, make sure your water resourses are covered!! (gah, it realy sucks when you have 40 or 50 land units and no water, and all of sudden they decide to pillage your water resources)

10 Think long and hard before you either declare war, or decline to help in a war.


Thats a few, just general stuff!!

oh and #11 Never leave a city undefended for a long period. DUH!!(I constantly look at Military rating, if I am not in the top 3, I will make Military Units until I am. It keeps other civs off your back) *wink, wink*

Harpe said:

If you have a one-sentence tip for getting a game off to a flying start, something you swear by doing or an early tech must-have I'd love to hear it.

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Build a warrior/archer and kill your closest neighbor....especially if they're Mongols.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Make sure your first two or three cities each have at least one special resource.

2. Get about 2-3 cities settled as fast as possible, even if it means delaying building improvements or wonders. The one exception is military - don't neglect building at least a couple defensive units early on unless you are sure of what you're doing.

3. Always escort your settlers with at least one military unit.

4. Consider maintenance costs of settling early cities far from your capital. Sometimes it's better to build close by.

5. Research bronze working and switch to the Slavery civic as early as possible to speed up production.

Never fight a land war in Asia.

Pace your initial expansion carefully. If you grow your empire too slowly, it will be difficult to keep up with your opponents, but if you grow too quickly, your economy will collapse under its own weight.

Snacks are good in moderation?

some technologies are key in the early game: bronze working, animal husbandry, archery, pottery. Some others are very good options: religious technologies that give religion, technologies that let you build some wonders. The rest are only part of special strategies...

When you begin, go on the easier level and play with all the shiny stuff. Then up a level and begin to focus on what you think is important.

The key thing is to know that in civ4, you're jack of all trades but king of none. Give up some aspects of the game, and become the king of something.

When you first get the game just play it through having fun. When you get to the point where you want to significantly improve your play and learn more about the various strategies that the game provides, begin by playing a few games in which you found no religions and build no wonders. These features are very glamorous and can disguise the effects of other features in the game.

Don't Focus too much on Religious Techs, as religion can become obsolete later in the game

Make sure not to let the AI claim too much land, you may need that land for a city later on

Do not declare war early in the game, unless the AI declares on you

If you are the only one on a continent, EXPAND! That's free land! Don't wait for the AI to take it

Don't always keep Despotism, Barbarism, or Tribalism they all backfire later on

Wonders help, but don't focus too much on them, improvements make sure your citizens can actually build those wonders

Keep troops posted in cities at all times (Unless you have Pacifism)

Don't slow down with the Techs, don't think that the AI can't overtake you even after you are #1

Forts help along borders or around major cities, but if you can tell your enemy will take them, Demolish them!

Use most Great People for Tech Advances

Use Great Artists for Culture in newer cities, especially ones near rival cities, maybe your culture can take over theirs!

Don't declare war on a far away opponent if you can't get troops there, your enemy may invade and/or war anger may overtake your cities.

Police State is a great civic to switch to before a war.

There's not really a hard and fast set of top 10 tips because so much of the game is variable and reactionary. A ton of your initial moves depend on your starting location and resources, your civ's and leader's traits and your neighbors. That said my top tips would be:

1. Know yourself.

You must understand everything about your civ's unique unit and your leader's traits. You need to know how to use them to their full potential. For example, don't pick a financial leader and then not build cottages- you basically waste his trait this way. Simple stuff, but important. Your leader's traits are going to go a long way in determining which path of victory you pursue and how you get there. Your units may determine which techs your shoot for and when you go to war, like if you're the Romans you'll probably push for iron asap and rush a bunch of praetorians for an early land grab.


2. Know your enemy.

Understand which leaders make good friends, which make bad ones; which foes are a powerful threat, and which are merely an annoyance. Monty can make a nice lapdog if you handle him right. If ignored he's sure to come wipe your out early (or try to). Guys like Mansa Musa are usually not much of a threat early game, but you need to watch these builder types, as they'll be poping out tech like made end game and real competition for your spaceships.


3. Know your terrain.

Explore as much as you can and locate resources. Exploit resources, trade them, use them. Use choke points when available, secure your cultural borders to keep other civs from overexpanding.


4. Know the game mechanics.

Learn how whipping and overflow work, and worker chopping. Learn about cottage spam. Read up on a specialist economy in case you want to implement one someday. Figure out how to specialize your cities for production, research, commerce or culture. Practice the tech slingshot. Obviously you won't employ all these specialized strategies all the time, and you don't need to use any of them to win at lower levels, but it makes the game much smoother if you understand these mechanics.


5. Have a plan.

I often get really sidetracked trying to build every wonder and every improvement and research every tech, while neglecting my military, or not simply going for a tech niche to give me the upper hand against my neighbors. Don't get sucked into that. If you've decided to go for a space victory realize what steps that'll take and plan for them.

If you are turning a profit at 70% science, you can build more cities.

Send out the scouts! If you know the lay of the land you can find key locations to place cities that can cut off the other civs expansion.

1: Always have a military unit where you want to settle if there is the slightest chance of something eating your settler or escort him.

2: Position warriors on hills outside your land to remove the fog, barbarians cannot appear in tiles you can see!

3: Early on don't convert your civics or religions right away if you aren't spirtual, best to finish building a worker or settler if your in the middle of making it, so it can get to moving and benefiting you sooner.

4: Check the charts with F9 to see how well your doing and how the other civs stack up, can save your life if you see your neighbor with twice your power score.

5: Catapults are like stone age nuklear weapons, the amount of damage they can do to a large army or city with each hit can let the rest of your army breeze through the enemy.

6: Never waste a special food resource! even one can let a city quickly grow into a very useful city, even without hills or such for production slavery can be used to quickly get things built.

7: Don't be afriad to place a city on top of resources, they give your city a extra +1 production food or commerce bonus if you settle in the right place. Settling on a food resource on flat grassland gives +1 food, settling on elephant, horse stone/marble or metal on a hill or plains, and even better a plains hill can give 1-2 base production to the city, settling next to a river on top of incense dye wine or spices can give you a extra gold, two if your financial.

8: Plan Ahead, you only have so much land for your cities, think ahead on how you can best fit as many cities to use the land and resources around you, do you want 1 mega city with 2 food resources for it, or 2 good cities with 1 food resource each?

9: Your cities can only build 1 thing at a time, decide how best to use your production and turns, is it best spent building 1 wonder, or is it best used building settlers and workers to be able to build better and faster, or troops to defend and capture new land?

10: When playing online always keep troops around early on to guard your workers, while a AI will pass up the chance to take a worker or even a settler with a scouting warrior, a human will see it as a early bonus if he captures it and sends it home, so be sure your able to defend what you own, even if its with a lowly warrior.

Before declaring war on another Civ, always check their diplomacy options and see how many cities they have. Some Civs don't surrender at once after you raze only 5 of 500 cities.

Never bring a sword to a gunfight ^^

1. On easier difficulties especially (it will be easier to build it first on easier difficulties), building The Oracle can be a very nice boost. Not only can it net you a late technology if you reserve it, such as Machinery if you have Metal Casting, but the Great People points will eventually build up to allow you to "lightbulb" Theology - meaning you can get Theology and Machinery just from The Oracle!

2. If you're far ahead in techology and technology trading is available, make an attempt to grab Liberalism, but wait until somebody else is close to getting it (they need both Education and Philosophy). The longer you can reserve it, the better the technology you can get out of it.

3. On higher difficulty settings, where city unhappiness can be a large problem, enabling the "Hereditary Rule" civic is a very effective and early way to deal with unhappiness.

4. On multiplayer and to a lesser degree on single player, never trust other civilizations. You have to be ready for a sudden attack, so be sure that you have units defending your cities and don't send off nearly every single unit you own into an offensive war in case another nation attacks you during your war.

5. Cottages are extremely beneficial, and should be built on nearly all tiles (though they can later be replaced by farms when a population cap is reached). Not only do cottages provide you with commerce, which improves wealth and research, but there are also three different civics in the game that all make cottages even better (and one technology)!

6. Be sure that you take your time - especially during a war. There is no "undo" button, so if you make an accidental click you can't take it back. Just relax, take your time, and have fun!

7. If Gandhi is a nearby AI, be sure to abuse the fact that he is the only AI who you can demand tribute from without suffering diplomatic penalties. It doesn't hurt to ask Gandhi for tribute every turn!



I guess that's about all from me for now. If somebody doesn't agree with one of my tips, please feel free to point it out.

Don't follow every tip that you find in the forums.

An early war is usually good, especially on the higher difficulties.

Steal enemy workers in the early game, they will be crippled and you'll prosper.

Learn to chop, learn to chop. Then, chop, chop and chop again.

Axemen are the best units to rush with (except for the Incan and Persian UU)

When you attack a unit, maximise your odds (don't cross rivers, don't attack fortified units on top of forested hills) if you can

Zombie69 said:

Never fight a land war in Asia.

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I saw this hint multiple times, but I never get the reason

If you are playing a multiplayer game as a team against the AI take care when planning which civ each player will be as maximizing the number of different starting technologies will give you an advantage for the early part of the game.

1. Be aware that there is NO way in-game to know how much your next city will cost you. So you will be guessing at how much your next city will cost. Be sure to watch how fast you expand. 5 cities seems ideal until you start getting your economy off the ground.

2. Early on scout around and look for nearby Gold, Silver, Gems, and Fur resources. These can greatly increase your commerce income and help you in both research and expansion. (Also available with early techs like mining and hunting.) Finding 2 or more of these can greatly increase your ability to progress rapidly in tech early or expand fast. It is usually a good idea to walk your settler a little further to reach these resources and lay claim to them early.

3. If you don't see Gold, Silver, Gems, or Fur at a reasonable distance, prioritize the tech Pottery and make some workers to pump out cottages for commerce. It also doesn't hurt to do that even if you do aquire those resources.

4. The technology Monarchy enables Hereditary rule to end your Unhappiness woes in your cities. Granaries (enabled by Pottery) will usually put an end to early health issues if they arise and additionally will help your cities grow 50% faster. (Extremely useful for a city working primarily cottages.)

5. Researching Bronze and Iron working early will help you lay claim to the "hidden" metals within the game on the map before your opponents do. Many resource revealing techs work this same way.

6. Don't get caught up building too many wonders. Pick which ones you really want/need, and go for them.

7. Pick friends that get along with one another. If 2 of your friends are fighting, they will ruin your relationship with both of them by constantly asking you to betray the other. If this ever happens, pick a side fairly soon or you will lose both friends. I usually pick 1 friend and then choose my next friends by the people that they get along with.

8. You can never have too many artillery units.