I will never be as good as you at Civ 4.

I bought this game for my girlfriend last Christmas. Oddly she only played it once and got sidetracked with the Sims 2, so I said what the hell, I'll play it then. I hate the Sims. But it wasn't long until I hated Civilization IV more than any game I've ever played. I wanted to win, but I couldn't, and the AI seemed to cheat. But I perservered anyway. I looked around on the net and found a few tips that helped, but it just wasn't enough. Sooner or later I finally won my first victory, though. A Space Race Victory with Elizabeth. But I still know it was luck, because I played on a Continents map and just happened to wind up with only one neighbor. Whoop-dee-doo! I won another Space Race with George Washington. Both games were on Noble difficulty and I've never tried higher than that. Soon after I moved on to other games.

My girlfriend continues to be odd, as she requested that I install Civilizations IV about a week ago. It sure took her long enough to get interested... well anyway, I helped her out as best I knew how, though I probably did more damage than good. I directed her here for info and she is already as good as me, though that isn't saying much. I've played a game every day since, and haven't won a single game. Besides that, I'm tired of the Space Race.

Bah. I'll never understand this game, or master it. People talk about winning on Prince and Monarch, and even Deity. And I can't even win on Noble unless it's a Space Race, and by luck. I can't compete for land with the AI. They're simply too fast and greedy, and too smart for me. I always get sub-par land while they get green fields, gold mines, etc. I get tundra, desert and mountains. WTH, it's B.S. The only thing I've been able to do is destroy a civilization. Again, it was my only neighbor on a Fractal map (Bismark). I played as Montezuma for poops and giggles. I built up 3 armies, each with 4 catapults, 3 war elephants, 4 jaguars, and I just raided his sorry butt. It was still a struggle. By the time I killed him, I was so far behind in technology it was pathetic, and there was no point in continuing.

I just don't know how you're supposed to build up enough to keep up with technology, defend your land, keep good relations with your neighbors so they don't kill you, and most important of all, WIN. Aside from a Space Race, which is just sad. I'm about to quit on Civilizations IV once again, and play a game that won't give me brain cancer. Maybe someone who's won can... I don't know, help?

You have come to the right place

Check out the war academy from the front page.

Also I'd recommend reading through some of Sisiutil's and aelf's games in this section of the forums, and Sisiutil's beginner's strategy guide. Lots of experienced players offer advice on those games and they are played out over several weeks.

Plus don't be afraid to ask questions.

If you want to get away from space race wins try teching to bronze working, build some axes, take over some nearby cities. Then get swords (iron working) and catapults (construction, this enables elephants as well, which are great) and carry on breaking heads. Macemen (civil service and machinery - machinery enables crossbows too) next, then detour to liberalism to try and get the free technology, then get grenadiers (chemistry) or cavalry (military tradition and gunpowder) with cannons (steel) and you should have nearly won domination by then. You may need astronomy to bash heads in foreign lands.

If you haven't won domination with those bad boys, go for rifles, artillery, tanks and infantry after that.

^^Agree fully with ParadigmShifter

I understand where you are. I took almost a year to get past Noble ( mostly by lack of confidence on my skills ) and in that time I lost more games that I won.

If you want to try the taste of a bloopath to victory, I advice you to train early war, and the famous axe rush:
Settle 1st city
Research Mining + BW + wheel
Settle 2nd city near cooper, mine it and connect it to your cities
Produce 6/8 axes
Declare war to the nearest civ. Keep the capitol city ( and some really good city that appears ) and burn the rest.

You can do a similar move with swordmen + catapults later in game

Early aggression can be critical in winning (or losing) Civ4. The classic "Axeman rush" is a great way to get an advantage that will last the entire game ... if you play it properly.

First: Know who to attack. Protective civs will have highly-promoted archers in each city, which will grind your offense to a standstill. Big cultural defenses will require either siege weapons or overwhelming force to succeed. Civs that are too far from your "core" cities will kill your economy with maintenance costs. Ideally, you want to choose a non-Protective, non-Creative civ that is right next to your "core" as your first target. Rich lands to exploit are also a plus!

Second: Know when to attack. Too many attacks fail because they launch too early, before the attacker has overwhelming force with which to crush the opposition. Other attacks fail because they are too late, after the attacking units have been rendered obsolete by either technological advancements or by increasing cultural defenses. Build up an attack force that is capable of quickly and easily capturing a city, then go! Three Axemen for each Archer is a good place to start. (Add a Spearman or two to defend against Chariots.) Swordsmen can improve your odds, but they'll probably have to contend against stronger cultural defenses.

Third: Know when to make peace. I usually miss this one, so I speak from experience here. Not every war has to be an all-out conquest. Limited wars are okay. Just take a city or two, then squeeze the loser AI in the peace settlement. Use the 10-turn truce to re-arm and re-supply, then attack again! Any of the following conditions might be signs that it's time to make peace: escalating War Weariness, crippling maintenance costs (rush some Courthouses during the truce!), and/or excessive casualties in your offensive force.

Fourth: Know how to exploit your conquests. With the per-city maintenance costs in Civ4, conquering a large empire can cripple your economy and eliminate any long-term prospects for victory. You can literally become a victim of your own success! Don't keep any cities that aren't useful to you. Enemy capitals are almost always good to keep, because they will be strong cities in strong locations. Feel free to raze useless cities instead of capturing them! You can usually re-settle the land later, after your economy has recovered from the war. In those cities that you capture, rush (using Slavery) the essential buildings ASAP. Granaries, courthouses, forges, etcetera. Turn your conquered subjects into power with the Wonder of the Whip! Any Wonder that gives free X in every city is good here, because it will make your newly-conquered cities more useful to you right away.

Those are some thoughts to get you started. Really, there are very few Civ4 problems that can't be solved by having a horde of Axemen at the right time and in the right place....

Yeah, this is normal. You're not exactly starting at the "newbie" level. Learn the basic, understand them, then bump the difficulty up. There's a lot to learn, but in time you'll reach the norm of military domination in 90% of your games (long before the modern era no less), with the occasional space/UN victory.

Bottom line, it's a game. Have fun... nothing wrong with kickin a$$ on warlord level to boost the confidence and learn little tricks.

"I built up 3 armies, each with 4 catapults, 3 war elephants, 4 jaguars"

I think this might be the rout of your problem. You realy only need one army to attack. Jag's are all about an early rush first of (notice they dont need Iron/ weaker then normal swordsman/cheaper) This means they should be built/whipped quick and then (perferably) given woodsman 2 for double movment and then rush a nabour with maybe 8-10. But I'm sidtracked.

What I meant to say was a problem alot of people have when they start civ is that they take too long to do things. By this I mean you always want to attack as soon as possible. Every turn is one turn closer to your army becoming out of date. This is why its best to only build one army. Id say 6-8 attackers (swords/axe/elephants are all good) and 4-5 cats. knock the deffence% down and then sacrafice maybe 2 cats in an attack to weaken the deffenders with Collateral damage. It can be a bit of overkill but this way most if not all the men will survive the attack. This way you can keep taking citys only needing to build a couple catapults reinforcment every citys or so.

... Also, for a confidence boost in early war, try playing the Inca and starting up with a rush with you Unique Units, Quecha, and supply with axes and swords once you get these. Even one city captured very early is good.

Oh, one other tip: Play Epic speed.

Slowing down the game gives more time for military action. Slower games also reduce the need to plan every turn for maximum efficiency, which can make the game more forgiving of mistakes.

I have heard that Marathon speed is broken right now, so I'd avoid it. Anyway, Marathon games take a really long time. Play Epic.

I'm not a fan of Quecha at noble level myself. The AI doesn't start with archery for free on that level so they face warriors in cities in the early game.

War chariots and Immortals though... magic.

Redcoats smack everything in their era so if playing as England make sure you get rifling as quick as possible. Similarly beeline for Military Tradition if you are playing the Russians.

Feel free to skip techs if they aren't on the way to your unique unit or world domination plan. I often skip horseback riding until just before cavalry, and guilds until I need it for banking on the way to rifling. This gets you better units before the AI can counter them. Watch out for Knights from the AI if you skip guilds though, get engineering for pikes if you haven't got elephants. The AI loves its horse units but as long as you have a few spears to deal with horse archers and pikes to kill Knights you should be OK.

If you are able to win a space race victory, you should be able to win a shiny cultural victory as well.

If the AI out expands you at the beginning, you need to do something about your start. Tell us more about what techs you prioritize early and what you always build.

My most common build is Worker-warrior (pop 2, doesn't complete it until later), Settler, (Pop 3 while finishing warrior, starting barracks) Worker, Settler.
Worker should always be doing good stuff like improving high food/production tiles with focus on food so you can grow fast.

I research all the important resource techs around my capital and work them as soon as i can. I never bother with early religions, and will beeline Code of Laws via Writing/Priesthood after getting the resource techs i need. If you combine this with some chopping of trees (Bronze working is a high priority tech and should be done before settler pops out if you don't get Animal Husbandry first to pasture some animals)

When you get Code of Laws you can go to war easily and whip courthouses so your economy doesn't go boom , (or expand more if you got a lot of room)

If i have stone/marble i may build/chop a wonder (Pyramids/Oracle/Temple of Artemis) in my capitol. (i tend to have highest pop/production there)
But i won't do that until i have 3 cities or so. You will almost always get to Code of Laws first, so you get your religion eventually if you want to play with it.
Researching Writing and Priesthood then completing Oracle is a good starting strategy for you in the beginning since you then get a pricey awesome tech very soon (Code of Laws) and it's usually easy to get at lower levels.
Just don't make it a crutch when you are ready to moving up

Ofcourse if you're going for a cultural win, you'll have to have some kind of strategy you're sticking too. Saves you a lot of time and will hopefully get you an earlier victory than the AI.

You might want to crank down your difficulty as well. Warlord shouldn't be boring or too easy when you're trying to learn the secrets of the game.

Also, what is your starting strategy? That is, what do you build in your first city? When do you settle your following cities and how many do you build.
Often building a worker first gets you more hammers earlier, than for example letting the city grow a size or two and it has more beneficial effects than building a barracks first.
Watch your maintenance costs though.

Go have a look at the war academy, useful pointers and strategies there. And keep an eye on this forum, having a look at the right topics every now and then.

Civ4 skill is not about learning technology, or collecting wonders, or conquering enemies, or constructing buildings in your cities.

The most important skill is collecting and improving land tiles. Whoever has the most tiles, and the most productive tiles, will win.

Ways to acquire/improve tiles:
1. Settlers - Build cities to claim more tiles.
2. Workers - Terrain improvements double or triple the value of a tile.
3. Culture - 1 is enough to get the important first border expansion and work all possible tiles.
4. Food - The bigger your cities are, the more tiles they can harvest.
5. Health/Happiness - Also helps cities get big.
6. Buildings - Multiply the output of your tiles with matching buildings.
7. Conquest - When all the land is claimed, military force is needed to collect more tiles. Capture the most productive cities, and raze the bad ones.
8. Technology: There are tile upgrades scattered through the tech tree.

So far there have been many good suggestions posted above, so I'll refrain from repeating them.

My #1 point of advice: post saved games and screenshots here in the forums for advice.

You can read all of the advice on these boards and still end the day with no victories, because many of the strategies and ideas are either too general or too specific to understand and absorb.

But, if you post a screenshot or a saved game with specific questions and advice inquiries, the ensuing advice becomes very applicable and easier to absorb into your CivIV arsenal.

(Or even better, let your girlfriend get better than you and just ask her advice! )

Little by little, your game will steadily improve. You'll even find yourself answering other people's questions after a while!


-- my 2

SlipperyJim said:

Second: Know when to attack. Too many attacks fail because they launch too early, before the attacker has overwhelming force with which to crush the opposition. Other attacks fail because they are too late, after the attacking units have been rendered obsolete by either technological advancements or by increasing cultural defenses. Build up an attack force that is capable of quickly and easily capturing a city, then go! Three Axemen for each Archer is a good place to start. (Add a Spearman or two to defend against Chariots.) Swordsmen can improve your odds, but they'll probably have to contend against stronger cultural defenses.

Click to expand...

I'm by no means an expert and I feel like the OP more games than not but reading here has definitely resulted in improvement and this was one of the big ones - HUGE.

I would always wait too late - or wait until I had enough units to take the entire empire at once which isn't always necessary.

So what I started doing (and I post this hoping it will help you but also for some free advice, hey can you blame me!) is this:

I'd build my initial stack usually 5-6 axeman, a spearman and 3-4 cats (unless it was just an early axe rush in which case it was like 8 axemen) and send them off. Actually based on usage, I think my # of axemen is still too high, lately I've been able, on a early rush, to take the city using 3 cats (losing 2 usually) and an axeman or 2 who get happily promoted.

Note, no swords - I read here as well that axemen do a fine job as city attackers and are more multi-purpose. If you run into some defending axemen in a city or on terrain your swords are at a disadvantage. Once I stopped bothering with swordsmen my early warring seemed much more effective. Though this is a point that someone will likely chime in on - maybe I was just doing something wrong.

Anyway, hopefully I'd scoped some terrain and I knew where and what resource nodes were around. So my first target would be the closest iron/copper mine and the city nearby. I'd pillage the mine and attack the city and move on. (alternatively I'd send a pair or two of mounted units, chariots usually, to pillage and camp more distant resources.)

Meanwhile I'd have my cities cranking out a secondary stack with some cats and a couple of axes for escort and some... archers! Yep, if I decide to take a city I realized - oops, if I leave my axemen in the city to protect it I don't have enough to fight with. Archers are cheaper than axemen and do a fine job as city protection. So the second stack is usually ready to go by the time the first stack has the city taken, if I keep it I heal my units inside and by then the archers and replacements have arrived and I could carry on with my destruction.

Also the third point about declaring peace (usually just to make sure you can gouge the crap out of your opponent for techs and heal up your units) meant that while, during the war I would fall behind in tech after it I would usually be ahead as I'd have all of my warring techs and then some religious/builder ones too. Just make sure that you've researched Alphabet so you can do this.

It just depends what type of player you are. I don't think I'd ever manage to be a warmonger, but I can win Cultural victories at every attempt on Noble, which is the only difficulty I use.

It took me ages to understand every aspect of the game. Like everything, practise and you'll get better.

And even if you don't become "as good" as other people, its only a game. I'd probably get my bum handed to me if I played online, so I only ever play single player knowing for sure that I'm the best player in that game.

hubby got me addicted to civ2, it's carried on to civ3 and smac and civ4. i play a lot more than him, and in some ways i'm better. but trust me, i am totally a permanoob, check the title by my avatar .

i think that if you like it, you'll figure out a style that's fun for you and works out often enough to be enjoyable. not that wins every time, that would (probably, varies by personality i suppose) be boring. my style is really different than most folks. the whole rushing an opponent early thing? to me early is like, before trebs. if i get my choice, i prefer to wait for steel or just plain not go to war at all. am i an oddball or what?

so what this permanoob oddball who you shouldn't listen to at all thinks is, read the advice and the war academy but apply it in your way. it's not an exact recipe, what works for, or is fun for others won't necessarily be for you.

don't feel like you have to win on Noble when you're starting out. it's a game, the point is to have fun not to be frustrated, oops i mean get brain cancer. there's a difficulty gradient for a reason, so that you can start out easier and then play higher so that it gets more challenging as you get better. that's a good thing, means you don't get bored. i started out below Noble, and i was even coming from the background of having played civ before. now i can usually win on a much higher level.

you can trust me about that part. i lose on a variety of difficulty levels

technically the "usually win" statement does not include games i save at the "oh man this is really hopeless" stage and just never go back to, since i never actually lose those. i just don't finish them /halo. but sometimes it's a blast to see if i can save myself from almost sure disaster!

ps DaveMcW i went away for several weeks and you have apparently been replaced by an alter ego? i've seen numerous posts from you without a single mention of the "c" word *giggle*

KMadCandy said:

if i get my choice, i prefer to wait for steel or just plain not go to war at all. am i an oddball or what?

Click to expand...

Thats what I'm like. I could usually crush atleast one civ early on, but I'd rather let them develop and keep as many active civs for as long as possible. I rarely declare wars. I go for cultural victories, mainly because they take a long time. I like to see my empire grow to maturity.

Wow! That was a lot of replies, too. I appreciate them all. I've been running around all day and I'm so tired I can barely keep my head up, so I will need to sleep soon. Before I go, I will try to muster up some intelligable questions. Hm. #1. Religion, what's it for and why's it so good? Seems to me it only makes those of differing religions loathe you and attack before you're ready. Is religion necessary? Doesn't seem to be. #2. How do you war all the time and keep up in technology? When I goofed around with Montezuma, I destroyed Bizmark, but I was in the stone age when he was gone. And green smoke wafted from every city. Hm, my mind is fried. Though I will try to answer that question above about how I start my games. Well, I usually always build a worker first and research bronze working or mining and then bronze working, enable slavery, chop-rush a second worker, have them both chop-rush a settler while my scout/warrior is fortified in a decent spot not far from my capital. I try not to get tiles that share space with the capital, or has mountains or desert. But it's usually unavoidable. I then research Animal Husbandry, Pottery (for Granary), Mysticism (Obelisk) and Iron Working and try to lay down cities for horses and iron immediately. It is rare that I don't succeed in this. When I can't find iron OR copper I quit. What's the use. Then I try to get Writing to build a library and get started on making my capital into a great scientist domain. Usually my capitals have floodplains. If not, I make another place my science city. From there, things get messy. I try to get Literature for the Great Library as well. I build Obelisks in every new city first, then a Granary so the population grows back faster after I enslave them. Then a Barracks and some defense. Then I build a lone axemen and scout for another city location, until there's no more room. Then my neighbors turn on me and start demanding tribute, asking me to war against their neighbor, etc. etc. until everyone kills me.

Others will probably have better advice but I'm going to throw a few things out there that were common mistakes for me:

Animal Husbandry - only get it if you need it. WHat I mean is if your early UU isn't horse dependent and you don't have sheep or pigs or whatnot in your BFC then skip it for now. There are other things that are more important in those situations.

How do you war and keep up in tech? It takes some playing around with, but a huge one is what slipperjim said - demand every single tech the other civ has for 10 rounds of peace. It's amazing what you can get when you've taken their cap city and all but some tundra burg.

It also sounds like you took too long to destroy Bismark. You don't always need to go for total domination - sometimes just knocking a competitor back can still yield some good results. If you can't take them out relatively quickly then steal what techs you can for peace and go from there. But again, it sounds like you took too long, if you're going to early warmonger, do it early, do it hard and do it fast.

Also, why do you have your scout/warrior fortified somewhere? I hope you mean that they're fortified AFTER exploring all possible terrain. If not, you're handicapping yourself.

But really it sounds like you're not single-mindedly pursuing a goal. Maybe it's just the way I'm reading it but you're going after culture/science techs AND warmongering? But then again, maybe I'm not playing well - if I'm going for early war, I go for writing/math/Construction (then currency and CoL for my shiny captured cities). But then again, as snazzy as the GL is, I've crippled myself chasing wonders before so I'm on a strict wonder policy.

Decide how you're going to play and pursue it relentlessly - the other techs will come. If you're going to early war, research early war (and then maybe expansion) techs, if you're going to go SE/CE research techs that are going to bolster that - this is simplified but you can see where I'm going.