Help beginner

[Glendston]

Hey guys,

I just started to play Civ 4. The first game was a total failure, applying the strategy from older Civ games (building all buildings and wonders, destroying enemy with high-tech weapons). Then I read quite some articles here and I managed to win a Chieftain game. However, it seems that my skills are not enough to win Warlord.

I uploaded my BtS-savegame and would appreciate any feedback.

Some information:
- England, Elizabeth as leader
- CE strategy
- -cities: York and Hasting (producing military units non-stop)
- -cities: London, Canterbury, Nottingham
- I planned to take over some cities from AI, but my units were not strong enough. Also, when attacking one AI, 2-3 other declare war on me
- The katas are lined up for the attack

Somehow, the beginning was ok. But then my cities did not grow anymore. So production went down, research went down, ...

I really, really like this game and would highly appreciate any feedback to improve my gaming. Alright, feel free to comment on anything...

[vranasm]

I think it would be best for you to go into the Strategy articles and read Sisutil's beginner guide.
Then read some games here (again Sisutil ALC series)
watch TMIT youtube videos.

The save is unjudgable...

[MarigoldRan]

Uh....

1. You need Currency.
2. You need Calendar.
3. You need Organized Religion (Monotheism)
4. You need Metalcasting.
5. If you're going to tech to Cavalry, don't attack with axes and catas. Just set all your cities on research.
6. You need more cottages.
7. You need to trade for more techs. Or maybe it's because it's Warlord.... Still, not having Sailing?

EDIT: Well, you ARE winning btw. Set everything to Research. Beeline to Gunpowder. Get Currency. Get Curraisers. Rely on Wealth to keep econ afloat. Spam cottages. Win.

Ignore everything I said earlier. The only thing you'll need besides Gunpowder is Currency. Maybe Calendar, but that's optional. Metal-casting is also optional. You have the Pyramids? Do you know about Representation and Police State? Otherwise, Easy-as-pie.

[AutomatedTeller]

A few things:

1) You are still in your starting civics. You could be running hereditary rule (which would help solve the happy problems in the cap), slavery (another way to deal with happy issues) Also, you have no religion. Picking one will help your happy, plus might help diplomatically.

2) It is 880 AD, you are philosophical... and you have no specialists and have generated no great people. This is a waste of philosophical. One of your cities should absolutely be heavily farmed and running specialists.

3) You should probably expand more. You can get wheat and deer just by putting in city to the south, and fish and fur with another on the tundra. That said, I'm not sure why you have Hastings. Corn is nice, but it's very difficult to defend. Nottingham should probably have been built a tile to the west to get the gold.

3) You could make a ton of trades to catch up in tech - find people not near you and trade for things like sailing and iron working and getting to calendar for your several calendar happy resources

4) You tile improvement needs some work. You have no wineries, even though you have wine in your cap and can build them. You have a town on a plains tile, with unimproved floodplains.

[ond_magiker]

Improving and working the right tiles would help a lot. I worldbuilt a couple of examples of what your cities could have looked like.

London:

Spoiler:

Farm the floodplains and mine the hills. You've got the tech for wineries, so improve the wine.

Do NOT work plains cottages.

Nottingham:

Spoiler:

Nottingham has floodplains and no hills, so is a good commerce city. Build cottages on the floodplains early and work them.

Chop or whip a library, and you can run scientists on the excess food.

[Habitus]

VoU's Foundation and Empire threads should be a good read for you as well, they help you figure out a plan and how to go about it in the early game. Most of it applies for the whole game thou and as they are actual play thrus with SS it helps you see what he is talking about

#1
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=420153
#2
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=421044

[NetGear]

Civ4 is vastly different from older civs but most basic skills still apply. You might not be apt at handling se/gpp, but things like rexing and happiness should be familiar even tho its handled slightly differently. And beelining for high tech units are still there. Im not sure why you'd struggle at warlord if you have all that basics down to be honest. Ill take a look at save once I'm off work.

[stimpyhoek]

Friend of mine started playing and the best advice seemed to be, build oxford. It kinda focusses the mind. Doesnt have to be fast just remember to build it in your top science city(listed under f1)