So I've got a settler and a warrior...

Hello. I just installed Civ4 after having it buried in my basement for about a year or two and I need guidance. First of all, I can't seem to find a physical or electronic manual for the game (I have my bilingual charts and a quickstart booklet) - is there a full manual somewhere? Perhaps the numbers pertaining to units, techs, and buildings no longer apply since I've installed the latest patch.

Next, I'd like to learn the game's rules on a gradient scale. Would the best way to do this be to play a standard/quick game or marathon? And if I want to learn one concept at a time, which type of victory should I attempt to achieve first? I figure I'd learn military after I learn how to grow my civilization.

Finally, in regard to growth and advancement, which technologies, buildings and wonders should I be aiming for and in what order? I'm just looking for the most important ones, just to get me started. BTW, I'll be trying each civilization in alphabetical order, so Roosevelt is my first game.

Thanks for reading and any help you can impart!

I would advise strongly against the low speeds like marathon and epic. It will take so long to see the results of your actions play out that you will likely miss the connection between the two. Try standard first.
I wouldn't worry too much about what victory type to go for, I usually decide after the game gets going anyway. You can always grab a time victory.
Don't be afraid to fight wars a little bit. I think all aspects should be learned together. Its difficult to really compartmentalize different parts of the game.

Read some of the forums and prior posts about game basics. Others have likely said it better than I can. I would suggest you start on noble difficulty. Anything less just handicaps the AI so badly that you will never really learn how to play the game. Finally, if you are more accustomed to prior civ games like civ3, you will likely find that managing the economy is much more important than before and understanding just how it works is a challenge at first. Again, there are good articles on this topic and the difference between the two major economic options: cottage economy and specialist economy.

Hope this helps

I don't know how familiar you are with the Civ series as a whole, but my advice would be that if you've got prior experience, play Noble - if not, play Chieftain or Warlord. Noble can be quite tricky for someone who's never seen a game of Civ before. I agree that Settler verges on the ridiculous at times.

Otherwise, the main things to remember in the early game are:

- Prioritize workers early, they make growth accelerate by orders of magnitude,
- Bronze Working is a very powerful tech early on - it gives you access to the powerful Slavery civic, lets you see/access copper resources (and build Axemen) and lets you chop forests for 20 hammers a time,
- You won't be able to trade technologies until you (or the AI) get to Alphabet,
- Don't overexpand! Maintenance costs grow exponentially with each new city. Aim for 5-6 cities in the Classical era, 9-10 in the Medieval and more after that. Another good rule of thumb is not to build new cities if you're having to run lower than 60% science to keep yourself afloat.

This should give you a springboard. The manuals aren't a whole lot of use anyway, because there's so much information - I usually find a better way to learn is trial and error (or ask here!).

Ferenike said:

First of all, I can't seem to find a physical or electronic manual for the game (I have my bilingual charts and a quickstart booklet) - is there a full manual somewhere? Perhaps the numbers pertaining to units, techs, and buildings no longer apply since I've installed the latest patch.

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F12 is my best friend while playing. it opens the civilopedia, which i bet you've seen. it's not a manual, but you can look up specific buildings, techs, units, whatever and it gives you the numbers right there, don't have to leave the game to check the stuff. including what the unit upgrades to, which is the part i always forget. i play on a pc but somebody told me the key is F12 even on a mac, so that's convenient!

if you are just looking stuff up while you're not playing, note that if you access the civilopedia from the main menu when you open civ4, before you start an actual game, it gives you default information based on a standard size map, normal speed game. several things vary by game speed and/or map size, so to get the specific numbers that will apply to your settings you have to check from within a game with your settings. (one example of what i mean: on a standard map, to build one Christian cathedral you need 3 Christian temples. on a small map, you need only 2 temples, on large/huge you need more.)

i agree with JBossch about going with normal speed at first. you may find out later you prefer a different speed; epic is my favorite for most games now, but would have really bored me when i was trying to learn everything all at once. now i've played long enough that i narrow it down and just try to learn 12 things per game or so (slow learner here *giggle*). for difficulty, mileage varies. JBossch certainly isn't the only one that thinks starting at Noble is generally best. but my first games were at warlord (i think) because noble really would have been too much for me; making the jump later was a challenge, sure, but that's part of the fun for me so it all worked out. depends on what you consider fun, and how likely you are to get frustrated during the quite steep learning curve, or whether you're one to roll with your mistakes while futzing with details and still have a blast.

welcome to CFC, and have fun figuring out to do with your settler and your warrior! ps don't get too attached to the warrior ... if you go in alphabetical order, the 3rd civ you play will start with a scout instead, and you'll have to remember that he's not so good on the offense!

http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.3721


^^ The manual in PDF form

Play the tutorial?

In addition to the things that have already been said, I wanted to mention a couple of pitfalls that I think really hampered my learning curve when I first started.

1. Automated workers. Micromanaging your workers may seem a bit tedious at first, but making worker decisions for yourself will really help you to understand the mechanics of the game clearly in a shorter amount of time

2. Not understanding how the economy works. (commerce) comes from working tiles, either cottages or valuable resources and is run through your economic sliders in the upper left to produce (science) and (Gold, the amount of money in your treasury). Trade routes with other cities also produce commerce. Don't confuse commerce and gold.

Finally, Orion071 has some fantastic walkthroughs of games he played on Noble. He does an excellent job of explaining both the mechanics of the games and his reasoning behind decisions. I have linked to his player profile and you can find those posts in his signature. (edit: I think that those walkthroughs use the BTS expansion, but you will still find them helpful to get the basics down.)

Have fun! It's a great game that continues to challenge as you move up levels.

Thanks for the help so far everyone! I played Civ 1 quite thoroughly, so I have the general concepts already. I'm reading through the Civilopedia and I'm playing on Noble for now.

In my first game with Roosevelt, I built six cities and a couple of warriors for each. I switched to Hereditary Rule and built a few temples, worried that my cities wouldn't be happy - only to find out that it was health that was the barrier of my growth. It seems I had chopped too much forest when I was building my settlers and workers!

Here are a few questions that might help me out:

1. What are the benefits of founding a religion? Is there a downside to adopting another's religion?

2. I read somewhere about upgrading obsolete units with gold. Is there a chart that someone can link or can I find this in the Civilopedia?

3. Do wonders go obsolete when I discover a tech that makes it go obsolete or when anyone discovers that tech?

Read everything you can on these forums. Start with Sisiutil's ALC threads. They will help A LOT!

Ferenike said:

Here are a few questions that might help me out:

1. What are the benefits of founding a religion? Is there a downside to adopting another's religion?

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The benefits of founding a religion are:
a. You get the holy city - when you get a Great Prophet (aka GP) you can expend it to create the holy shrine for that religion which produces gold for each city that has the relition.
b. You get the religion in one of your cities - if you don't found it then it may take a long time to get it, especially if you already have several religions.
c. For the 4 late religions you get a free missionary.

Disadvantages of (not) having a religion.
a. IF you have a state religion then you get diplomatic bonuses with other states with that state religion and penalties with other states with a different state religion.
b. In BTS The Apastolic Palace (aka AP) gives special significance to one religion (the state religion of the civ that built it) Having or not having that religion alters which motions can effect you.

2. I read somewhere about upgrading obsolete units with gold. Is there a chart that someone can link or can I find this in the Civilopedia?

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The Civilopedia will tell you what a unit can upgrade from and to, but I don't think it will tell you the cost.

3. Do wonders go obsolete when I discover a tech that makes it go obsolete or when anyone discovers that tech?

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Wonders go obsolete when the civ that owns them has the tech.

Ferenike said:

2. I read somewhere about upgrading obsolete units with gold. Is there a chart that someone can link or can I find this in the Civilopedia?

Click to expand...

the cost isn't in the pedia, and i don't know the exact formula, but it's a flat upgrade fee plus some number times the difference in the number of hammers to make the units. i want to say the fixed part of the fee is 25g, but that might be dependent on game speed, or i might just be misremembering. anyway, because there is that fixed fee in there, if you don't need the intermediate upgrades for a specific reason, it's cheaper to upgrade something from "baby unit" to "grown-up unit" in one step than it is to upgrade in stages along the way.

of course it's not always the best idea to wait that long for upgrades. every once in a while you need tough units between warriors and mech infantry for wars and stuff *giggle*. but you seem to like details so i thought you might wonder about that.

The cost of a unit upgrade is 25+3*(difference in hammer costs of the old and new units) gold. Since you pay the 25 gold base cost at each upgrade, you may want to skip out an intermediate upgrade if you don't really need the units at the time.

Suggestion on just starting:

1) Start at the easiest levels, standard speed until you get a feel for the game.
2) First game make at least one friend, and get one enemy that you war with to learn the game a bit.
3) When you get a concept you ar especifically confused about, post it in a new thread. Example: What are the problems with adopting another religion.
4) Learn how to post screenshots. Alot use photobucket.