Civiclopedia

[aehaya]

Hey yall,

Im new to civ and was wondering whats some good reading material for me to read so that i can prepared when I get the game. I read the first page of Sulla's walkthrough, but im looking for something maybe even more basic. Maybe if there is an online civ 4 civiclopedia. Things from civ 3 may help as well. Please let me know what i should look at. Thanks.

 

[tristangreer]

Hey buddy, glad to hear you want to get prepared.

I'd say the best thing to do is wait until the game comes out, and, at first, take it really slow. When I first started playing the first few games of civ3 I poured through the civilopedia every single turn to read about what was going on. Also, a lot of it comes from simply playing the game. You'll find out what works and what doesn't.

Also, expect a ton of walkthroughs here and on Apolyton. They will be of immense help.

 

[aehaya]

Hey thanks for the responce. yeah i guess ill just have to wait.

 

[andy52584]

Ah.... if only they had an online civilopedia for Civ 4. Of course, most people on this forum would have read it already front to back..... in three languages and possibly brail on top of that. (dont ask how you read brail online)

I would reccomend reading some of the articles by the beta testers (can be found in the articles section under Civ 4 on this site) and well..... unfortunatly reading too much about Civ 3 may just confuse you more with Civ 4. So many changes have been made that even some veteran Civ players may be going through the tutorials.

 

[JakeCourtney]

But the game seems to never be coming out, poor europeans.

 

[dpaajones]

But the game seems to never be coming out, poor europeans.

Well, I don't see many Americans with it either!

 

[aehaya]

im looking for the real basics, things aobut shields, food, hammers(?), things like that. Dont even realy know what a shield is. thanks

 

[oxonian2001]

im looking for the real basics, things aobut shields, food, hammers(?), things like that. Dont even realy know what a shield is. thanks

Shields no longer exist. The overwhelming majority of Civ may be reduced to three basic things:

1. Food, which is (mainly) used to feed your citizens and grow your cities;

2. Production, which is used to build almost everything in the game, from banks to city walls to phalanxes to jet fighters to the Pyramids; and

3. Commerce, which is either taxed and converted into Gold (useful for paying maintenance costs) or Research (which is used to acquire new technologies).

Now, each of these items is represented graphically in the game -- if one of your citizens produces a unit of Commerce, it will appear as a little gold coin. If you convert that Commerce into Research, it will turn into a little beaker. Hence, we frequently refer to Research as "beakers," as in, "I need 200 more beakers to develop Optics."

Production is represented in Civ4 as little hammers. Hence, you'll see that a Marines unit costs 200 hammers; that just means that your city needs to produce 200 hammers to build a Marine. The problem arises in that, in all previous versions of Civ, the symbol for production was a little shield. Hence, veteran players frequently refer to "shields" out of habit even thoug the modern term is "hammers." As a newbie, you actually have an advantage in that you don't have to unlearn all the old reflexes.

Did this answer your question?

EDIT: Yes, everyone, I understand that I've glossed over a lot of the details here and there's a lot of Civ that isn't covered by this. You have to feed newbies slowly, or they'll get sick.

 

[dpaajones]

Technology is pretty big...

 

[andy52584]

im looking for the real basics, things aobut shields, food, hammers(?), things like that. Dont even realy know what a shield is. thanks

Hmm. I honestly cant say I know a place to find such concise basic information. I've been playing since Civ 1 and, to be honest, never thought about what it would be like to start from scratch at like Civ 4 say. It made me take a look at all the wonderful resources this website has and unfortunatly the closest thing I found for the basics of basic was maybe the manual from Civ 1 It may not give you much idea about what Civ 4 is like, but it does cover a few basic concepts like city-building, terrain improvement, and the three basic "resources" (food, shields/hammers/production, trade/commerce) And who knows, maybe you can look at some of those old screenshots and see just how far this series has come in 14 years. Personally, I recently went back to my copy of Civ 1 on the SNES and played a game... just so I'd have a greater appreciation of Civ 4. Sorry I cant help any more than that.

 

[remconius]

CONTENTS
Your Civilization game should contain this manual and a set of high-density 5 1/4" disks or high density 3 1/2" disks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REQUIRED EQUIPMENT
Computer: This simulation requires an IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2, Compaq, Tandy 1000, or a computer 100% compatible with one of those models. The machine must have at least 640k of RAM.
Controls: The simulation is best run with a mouse and keyboard, but may be run entirely from the keyboard.
Display: The simulation requires a color monitor with an IBM EGA, MCGA, VGA, or Tandy 1000 graphics system. EGA systems must have 256k on the graphics card (standard on all but the earliest releases). The simulation will not run on a system with a monochrome monitor. If you are using a compatible graphics card/monitor, it must be 100% hardware compatible to one of the above.
DOS: You must have IBM or MicroSoft DOS, version 3.0 or higher.


Those were the days!

640k of ram, ega videocard, you do need a color monitor and version 3.0 or higher of MSDOS....

 

[Ninja Queen]

And they called it a "Simulation"...cute...

 

[bucsblazers34]

im with you too aehaya,im trying to learn all this stuff on the fly and i find myself thoroughly confused sometimes.

 

[oxonian2001]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Newbies have three saving graces:

1. Civ manuals have historically been some of the best in the industry. Most of the underlying concepts will be explained there, and you should read at least the first couple of chapters while you install the game.

2. The Civilopedia is an in-game resource, organized like an electronic encyclopedia, that is fantastically useful. In previous versions, it was pretty well integrated with the rest of the game. For example, if you were trying to decide which technology to research, you could click on The Wheel and see that it allowed you to build Chariots, then click on the Chariots and see that they required Horses, then click on Horses and see that they provided additional Commerce, then click on Commerce and see that it was turned into Research, then click on... you get the picture. By all accounts, the Civilopedia will be even easier to navigate and even more informative in Civ4.

3. Finally, you can ask a question of the Civ community. I'd recommend checking the FAQs before asking any question, just to avoid cluttering the boards, but I've never seen anyone here yell at a newbie for asking a question that had already been answered (no matter how many dozens of threads already existed on that subject). This is one of the nicest game communities I've ever seen, as well as well-informed. We'll be happy to help you with any questions you can't get answered elsewhere.

EDIT: I keep making typos. Perhaps waking up two hours early so I could get home and play Civ4 sooner wasn't such a great idea...

 

[azurefx]

I was considerin' throwing together a quick intro to the world of Civ, but then I had a quick flick through my Civ3 manual; between it, the 'pedia, and the apparently extensive tutorial, newbies have nothing to fear.

Just done a quick google search with no luck, but does anyone know if there's a .pdf of the Civ3 manual?


EDIT: If you're looking for something that'll help you understand the War Academy and all on the main website, say and I'll give a quick run down.

 

[Mujadaddy]

CONTENTS
Your Civilization game should contain this manual and a set of high-density 5 1/4" disks or high density 3 1/2" disks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REQUIRED EQUIPMENT
Computer: This simulation requires an IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2, Compaq, Tandy 1000, or a computer 100% compatible with one of those models. The machine must have at least 640k of RAM.
Controls: The simulation is best run with a mouse and keyboard, but may be run entirely from the keyboard.
Display: The simulation requires a color monitor with an IBM EGA, MCGA, VGA, or Tandy 1000 graphics system. EGA systems must have 256k on the graphics card (standard on all but the earliest releases). The simulation will not run on a system with a monochrome monitor. If you are using a compatible graphics card/monitor, it must be 100% hardware compatible to one of the above.
DOS: You must have IBM or MicroSoft DOS, version 3.0 or higher.


Those were the days!

640k of ram, ega videocard, you do need a color monitor and version 3.0 or higher of MSDOS....

Ahhh...those were the days...

 

[oxonian2001]

Remember when Super VGA came out? It was beautiful.