Beginner questions

[cheddar]

I am pretty new to the whole Civ franchise, so far I am loving the game except a few minor issues which hopefully you guys can help me with.

1. Firstly what are some good settings to get a map I like. I often find I can play 12/15 hrs on the third difficulty setting (newbie here!), and I go on the rampage taking over other civs etc. However I am often simply overwhelmed once I get that far as I have 15+ cities and it's all getting a little bit crazy.

Is a smaller map with less Civs and no city states the way to go here. I rarely finish games as it gets insane, with messages constantly about events. I'm not explaining myself well here, I enjoy the planning aspect with the cities but I also love the combat, but sometimes it gets so crazy that I can't enjoy either.

2. On a similar point to the above. In my current game I have somehow managed to acquire 18 workers. I have no idea what to do with them all. DO workers cost you coin each turn, if so how much?

At the beginning of the game I build the road, and do the obvious upgrades myself but again once you get to the end game I have a insane amount of stuff going on and its hard to figure out what to do. Do you guys have a rule or something later on in the game, 1 worker per city or 1 every three cities etc?

3. What is the point of a city state? I gave 500 to one and I expected him to share his luxury tile with me, but instead he gave me a crappy military unity which I didnt need. I find them all very annoying, they seem to simply get in the way rather than help me.

4. How can I stay out of trouble/combat till later. I was playing a game recently with the only purpose to be nice to be people. I built a city on a luxury item somewhat near India, and then everyone was getting all pissy and before I knew it I had people at war with me and denouncing me for no reason.

5. Can all units be upgrade, I presumed they could, are there rules regarding which units can be upgraded and which cannot?

6. At the beginning of a game, what should my goal be for a military victory? It seems that it's almost pointless to even start thinking about taking out people with low tech stuff like catapults etc. I normally wait till I get cannons before even going for other civs as without some serious bombardment I find I can spend forever taking out even the simplest civ.

7. Somewhat different type of question, are there any other games like Civ out there? I enjoy the turnbased/city/unit building process, I was curious if Civ is the only one worth playing?

I realise a lot of these questions are just rambling but im tired and need to goto bed, any help you could provide would be fantastic.

 

[Haig]

1. Well I like to play Small or Standard map, with one or two Civs added, and I NEVER use the default number of city-states, I always have them at the same number as Civs or sometimes a bit less even.
I think this way it's easier in having a clearer picture of what's going on in the world and all the relationships with Civs and CS's.

2. I think workers cost upkeep each turn, so delete or gift the extra ones away!

3. There's three types of City states:
Cultural ones give you some culture each turn to gather for the social policies. Good for those games where you want to amass lots of SPs.

Maritime gives food to your capital when friends with, and food to ALL cities when allied with.
Very important for faster growth!

Militaristic states give you units, also they tend to attack your enemies more aggressively than other CSs.

Also when you are allied with them you get their luxury and strategic resources, and they fight wars against your enemies, so you can use them as your colonies that help you when needed.

Also some Social Policies give benefits to city state stuff, like United Front makes the CSs to give you units more often, and there are ones where you get science or Great Persons from them.


4. Being friends with everyone is a bit more trickier, look for a thread that has discussion on the topic. One of the most important things is to look how the world works, which Empires are friends together and which ones tend to become another group. Best thing to do is not to give too many Declarations of Friendships because that tends to piss off some Civs.

Also always have an up-to-date army, many Empires simply cant resist to attack a Civ that doesn't give attention to defence forces.

5. Units have upgrade paths, like Musketman -> Rifleman -> Infantry etc., check out Civilopedia in the game to see how they upgrade.

 

[jacobwt226]

I will go in order but first about me...I have well over 100 hours, but still am a noob at multiplayer, but I find duel-tiny maps are what i use, and i think for beginners online is the way to go, I recommend finding some players that are on at different times so when you want to play a game you got a friend on...

Now onto your worker problem. I have gone whole games with 1, or less workers. You don't need many to do your work, and they cost (depending on difficulty) 1-3 gold.

City-States, are like mana sent from God if you know how to use them, need culture? pay and they give you culture. Need food? Pay another Food and they give you it! Need units once and awhile? Pay and they give you! If your Siam you get double the amount of food and culture from them!

How to hold off war:
1. Have a army.
2. make sure there are no city borders of other empire's within 5 tiles or you got a war on your hands, you just may not know that yet..

No, not all units can be upgraded, just in special area's. Once you start upgrading alot you will get in the swing of things...

Yes, and no. If you have cannons, make sure someone does not have infantry...the longer you wait the more tech they get, and 3 cannons, cant do nothing to 3 infantry if used right!

I cant find one, or at least a good one worth your time/money. Hope this clears up a few problems, and makes even more questions, P.S. Military Victory in one symbol:

 

[Scarpa]

I won't repeat answers, here's some additional info..

1. You don't have to take all the cities for a domination victory, just capitals. On larger maps ignore or raze the outliers, puppet the good ones and capitals. Note too that *you* don't have to have all the capitals, you just have to be the last civ in possession of theirs. (eg You are playing against France and Germany, Germany already took Paris, if you take Berlin you win)

2. Delete workers in your own territory to get some gold back. Workers can be useful scouts late game, when you've captured one out on the front lines just send it ahead to draw out AI units and see what's there.

3. City States only give you luxuries, strategic resources once they've improved them.

4. Aggressive expansion will annoy people. Taking luxuries will trigger the 'covets your lands' diplo hit. Diplomacy is tricky and somewhat opaque. I generally assume my neigbors will hate me eventually and occassionally will DOF with a nearby warmonger if they offer to keep them off my back. Proxy wars help a TON in keeping the heat off you. If two neighbors are threatening, bribe one to war against the other.

6. Early sword rushes (beeline ironworking, build warriors to upgrade) can be effective if you are fast and aggressive. If you don't take out another civ's capital with the initial rush you'll be left with poor infrastructure though so be committed. Medieval era wars are fun with cats or trebs/knights/longswords, too.

 

[pxpdoo]

Mining some of the "Sticky" threads (the threads at the top of all of the rest), especially the Quick Q&A one. Loads of useful stuff in those. Also, as previously mentioned, the in-game Civilopedia can certainly help.
Of course, it's probably more fun to talk to actual players...

 

[Janig]

cheddar small maps are the best. small pangaeas allow easy movement and quick contact. i like the hierarchy of barbarians, city states and civilizations but everyones different. Theres no game quite like Civ, so when I get bored of Civ (quite regularly) I go back to life.
^also

 

[Optional]

7. Somewhat different type of question, are there any other games like Civ out there? I enjoy the turnbased/city/unit building process, I was curious if Civ is the only one worth playing?

A lot depends on your taste, and which elements you find most important.

Rise of Nations has a lot in common with Civ, but is real time, and after a couple of editions the series didn't continue.
The Settlers also comes fairly close in its basic idea, but is more about economics and is real time as well.
Europa Universalis is more than Civ based upon real history, I think the diplomacy is fairly worked out here - I don't know the game extremely well.
Then there are games like Heroes of Might and Magic or Age of Wonders, they are turn based and have cities as economic centres for unit building, but they are in the fantasy genre, so you're rather researching 'fireball' or 'sonic blast' than 'gunpowder'.

If you don't know any of these games it's worth googling for them at some stage.