COMPLETELY dont understand the game

[Kerphunk]

Hi, I just got Civ IV as a gift, and i'm lost!

I played the tutorial a few times, and read the manual, but basically i dont know why i am to do what i was told in the tutorial.

for example, you are meant to found your first city, then build cottages, farms, mines. But why? The manual says that research points are generated from 'commerce' (population) of your city. so i built a ton of farms and only farms to get food to increase the population...but it didnt seem to make the research points go up. Only working ont tiles with production points seemed to affect that, so how can the population affect pdouction rates?

Obviously you're meant to expand and grow, which is common sense. But unlike most other games, i dont get what i am expanding for. Can't i just sit and do nothing and wait for each technology to be researched?

And what does it matter about my population level? If i have a huge one, what happens? if its tiny, what happens?

I really want to know what affects what, cos i'm building cottages, mines, farms etc and to be honest, i dont know what each one does or gains for me.
If you can exp;ain it would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[HectorSpector]

If you don't even understand the instruction manual, you're as well going back to pacman or something

 

[svv]

Double click on your city name to see what's going on in there. I don't think a farm by itself will generate commerce (shown as gold coins). It will generate food (those bread things) and if on a plain, a production (anvil).

Commerce, food, and anvils are the three things squares will generate. Commerce can be converted to science (beakers) through adjusting the science rate (percentage).

If you want to be generating commerce, click on different squares for your citizens to work until you are happy with the results.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Think of it like this. Look at your city's fat cross, and look at the pretty symbols. The more food, production, and commerce your city is producing, the better. If your city is small, it is working fewer tiles and thus producing less of everything, which is bad. You're looking too deeply. It's simple math. If you have two cities, you're generating more food, hammers, and commerce and can thus build more stuff faster and research techs faster because you're producing more beakers to research techs with. Naturally, there's a point where you should just sit tight and build, but you're really overanalyzing everything....

 

[Sisiutil]

Welcome to CFC!

Civ is a complex game, meant to simulate the evolution of large human communities over time. Be patient, both with the game and with yourself. You'll get the hang of it.

Basically, the game is all about balance.

You need food to grow your population, yes, and farms do that. However, population by itself does not generate commerce, which in turn funds your technology research. For that, your citizens need to not only work farms, but also tiles that are rich in commerce--which cottages eventually are, but so are resources like gold, silver, and gems. And you also need production ("hammers") in order to build things in your cities, many of which aid growth (granaries), production (forges), and commerce or research (markets, libraries).

The challenge comes from the fact that resources and tile improvements are usually good at providing one or two of the magic three items (food, production, commerce), but not all of them. For example, by improving a tile with a farm, you increase its food production, but forgo the chance of making it commerce-rich with a cottage. If you take a citizen off of a food tile and make him work a mine, you gain hammers, but your city grows more slowly.

You can't just sit back and wait for the technologies to finish because they get more expensive as the game progresses. Your cities need to grow, and you need more of them, in order to produce more commerce, which in turn gets converted into research. You also need to build military units, too, otherwise the other civs will view you as weak and attack you. But if you build units, you're not building things like libraries to enhance research...

Are you starting to get the picture? Sid Meier, the game's original designer and grand overseer, says it's all about making "a series of interesting choices".

Try re-reading the manual with this in mind. Also try reading through my beginner's strategy guide (link in my sig, below). Feel free to come back into the forum with your questions. Most of us are more than willing to help out...

 

[Shillen]

Well the guy in the post before me mostly answered your question but I just want to say you came to the right place for information. In fact, I think the in-game tutorial should tell you to come here. This game is easily the most complex game I've ever played. You might have to research a bit to understand it (read the civilopedia and the strategy articles on this site) but it will pay off in the long run as your play will improve and this game is unbelievably fun and addictive when you know what you're doing. Eventually you can move onto multiplayer if you want or you can continue playing single player - either way it's a great game.

 

[pigswill]

Hi, welcome to CFC. The basics are food, production and commerce (commerce is further divided into research and gold by using the science slider). Food is measured in the little wheat sheafs, you need two per population of the city, more than that and the city population increases. Production is measured in hammers, these are used for making buildings and units. Buildings make your city better in varying ways. You need units to fight other units either in attack or defence. Commerce is measured in coins, science is measured in flasks/beakers, gold in gold fleeces (or whatever they are). Each technology requires a number of beakers before you research it, the more advanced the tech the more beakers it costs. Gold is used for things like city maintenance and paying for your army among other things.
The aim initially is to get the balance between food, hammers and commerce so that your city gets bigger (which means it can work more squares in the city's fat cross), you produce units and buildings, you discover techs without going bankrupt and eventually you can expand enough to build more cities and eventually take over the world!!

 

[Kerphunk]

I still dont understand. What do cottages, farms and mines do and why should i build them? They dont seem to have any major effect on anything.

Another thing that i find...well, almost pointless..is the tech research and city improvements. I can simply click on the manhattan project at hte end of the tech tree and my civ will research until it gets there, defeating the point of me making decisions at all. The game doesnt even allow me to NOT research!! It forces me to research! Where is the challeneg there?

Also, after i build a unit of improvement in a city, i MUST build something else. What if i dotn want to build something else? Say i build a barracks. OK, its completed and thats all i want. But it turns out i HAVE to build something else, like a castle or aquaduct or obelisk. Whats the point? If the game is about managing your civilization, the computer takes the majority of that repsonsibility out of your hands by forcing you to KEEP developing. Shouldn't the challenge be to choose when to build/research yourself? I found myself often choosing to build whatever took the most turns just so the computer would stop asking me to build so often.

To me, it seems i am just clicking a bunch of buttons againd and again and thats it. I see no major change. Sure my city now has a library and they are smarter....but then what? Nothing happens. They got smarter and thats it. Sure they can research faster, only for me to have another load of stuff that may not get used.

I think the main thing is that you build and build and build...and thats it. You just build it. I'm told to put a cottage here, a farm there, a mine over there....but if i dont, it seems that i'm just sitting in the map as i would be if i HAD built them. You know what i mean? I build stuff....and then build some more...and then more...and i dont even see what adding a castle or aquaduct or cottage etc does to my city, except prompt me to repeat the cycle of building. Building for what?

Have i missed something?

 

[pigswill]

If you don't get the bit about building up a civilisation and how all decisions affect the type of civilisation you end with then it might pay to look in the succession games sub-forum; you'll find plenty of games there with saves every few turns, following these might give you more of an insight about what civ building is about (even if you don't follow all the jargonistic arguments).

 

[Todd Roy]

I still dont understand. What do cottages, farms and mines do and why should i build them? They dont seem to have any major effect on anything.

Cottages produce more commerce (which gives you money and research), farms produce more food (which grows your population) and mines produce more production (which allows you to build units and buildings). You may not see any result because the tile may not be worked by your population yet. Each city can only work as many tiles as it has population points. So, if you have a size 2 city with farm, mine and cottage near it, that city will only be able to work 2 of the three tiles until it grows to size 3.

Cottages, farms and mines have a huge affect on every aspect of the game.

Another thing that i find...well, almost pointless..is the tech research and city improvements. I can simply click on the manhattan project at hte end of the tech tree and my civ will research until it gets there, defeating the point of me making decisions at all. The game doesnt even allow me to NOT research!! It forces me to research! Where is the challeneg there?

Yes, you can simply click on the manhattan project and your civ will research towards it. But it won't research very useful techs off to the side of that tech path. Nor will it research the techs in the most efficient order. And you don't have to research at all. On the top left of the screen, you can simply move the slider to 0% research. Let me ask you, why would you want to not research anything?

Also, after i build a unit of improvement in a city, i MUST build something else. What if i dotn want to build something else? Say i build a barracks. OK, its completed and thats all i want. But it turns out i HAVE to build something else, like a castle or aquaduct or obelisk. Whats the point? If the game is about managing your civilization, the computer takes the majority of that repsonsibility out of your hands by forcing you to KEEP developing. Shouldn't the challenge be to choose when to build/research yourself? I found myself often choosing to build whatever took the most turns just so the computer would stop asking me to build so often.

If you don't like to be bugged by the game to build stuff, you can queue up items for a city to produce. The challenge isn't to remember to make a city build something. Once you got to a dozen citys, that would be tedious. The challenge is to build the right thing at the right time.

To me, it seems i am just clicking a bunch of buttons againd and again and thats it. I see no major change. Sure my city now has a library and they are smarter....but then what? Nothing happens. They got smarter and thats it. Sure they can research faster, only for me to have another load of stuff that may not get used.

To take your example, a library increases the amount of research a city produces, which increases the rate you learn new technologies. If that city doesn't produce much research to begin with, a library might not be the best thing to build in it. Maybe units like warriors or archers are a better idea. That's where part of the challenge comes from, picking the right thing to build at the right time. You pretty much have to build something, you're right, but what you build makes a lot of difference.

I think the main thing is that you build and build and build...and thats it. You just build it. I'm told to put a cottage here, a farm there, a mine over there....but if i dont, it seems that i'm just sitting in the map as i would be if i HAD built them. You know what i mean? I build stuff....and then build some more...and then more...and i dont even see what adding a castle or aquaduct or cottage etc does to my city, except prompt me to repeat the cycle of building. Building for what?

Have i missed something?

Well, each of those buildings gives your city something. An aquaduct allows it to grow more population. A castle protects it from invaders. Cottages increase your commerce, which in turn increases your research rate and the gold you make.

Let me ask you, have you played a single game long enough to run into other civilizations? On a standard map, there are 7 other countries out there producing citys, and improving them, all with the intention of ruling the world. The game ends when either you win, your civilization gets destroyed, or time runs out. Play a game to the end, whichever end you come across first, and I think the point of the game will start to become a bit more clear.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Hi, I just got Civ IV as a gift, and i'm lost!

Welcome to the Forum. The game is really fun.

I noticed one thing. You said you just played the tutorial? Play a game already! The goal is to WIN! There is more than one way to do it, and they all involve making your civ more powerful (more cities to build more units to outpace the opponents and reach a victory condition first). It's a race.

The tutorial is a staged non-game to teach you basic game mechanics. I don't know that there are any actual opponents. The tutorial just goes through various stages of how to play. The tutorial is not that fun if you have already done it before.

If you are actually playing a game, not just the tutorial, you will meet neighbors, interact with them, and try to beat them at the game. You do this by growing your food , production , and commerce (divided into research and gold ) to keep up with the computer players, or with other players in multiplayer.

Food makes you grow your population. Production builds stuff. Commerce gives you points towards research and gold for paying your maintenance costs. (Early in the game your commerce will all be going towards your science since you have no maintenance costs, but that will change quickly enough.) More population points means you can work more land tiles, which means more food, production, and commerce. This is the foundation of your civ.

It's always fun when you get ahead of the AI racing through the technology tree and be the first to circumnavigate the globe with your caravels or galleons. It's not a victory condition but it's still fun.

 

[Kerphunk]

You've all been very helpful, thanks. I'll bear all this in mind and play some more games, give it a proper chance. It sounds like a great concept, i've always wanted a game where you race through technologies. The idea of having nuclear wepaons before anyone else sounds like a fun indulgence in power, even if its just a game! Hopefully I can get to grips with it and experience all this. Thanks everyone.

 

[mice]

Set up a game on Settler or warlord difficulty. build a few warriors to protect against barbarians, then set yourself the task of settling another 2 cities.ie build 2 and 2 workers. research to Bronze working. This will reveal copper. settle one of your cites right next to the copper. settle the other one right next to a food resource like wheat or sheep.

Build a mine on the copper and conect it too your city with a road. If poss, connect all your cities with roads. Then you can make Axemen. build about 10 and go to see your nearest nieghbor. See how much fun it is to take someone else's city.

Back in the homeland ,research pottery. This means you can make cottages build cottages in your cities. double click on the city to open the city screen. Make sure one of the white circle is over the tile where the cottage is. his means you are "working"the cottage, and it will grow, giving you commerce. other wihte circle could be on hammers, which help build units,etc. Find a good balance

Next check the slider at the top left of the normal screen. It should be on 80% or 70%. This is good.It means 70% of your coomercecommerce:
from the cottages, or sea tiles,or some land tiles) is going to resarch.

Research is a good thing. It gives you techs to make better military units aswell as a lot of other things.Yes you can click on manhatten project, but on levels noble and above, the AI will kill you first. It's better to climb up the tech tree, using your military advantages along the way.

One more thing. The city cant grow beyond its happy cap.
This is the number of happy faces in the city screen, eg 6 . When you're getting near population 6, you have to stop growth somehow. Take citizens(white cilrcles) off of food tiles, or build a worker/settler, which stops population growth.

you'll get the hang of it.

Edit: Just read your last post. If you want to indulge power, try having maceman agianst archer or axemen , or riflemen against macemen . There's plenty of ways to enjoy the benefits of a well put together economy. I have hardly ever built a nuke but I warmonger in every game.

 

[Shillen]

This isn't a simulation game like the Sims, it's a strategy game. Clicking the manhattan project tech at 4000BC is horrible strategy. Not building stuff is horrible strategy. Learn the mechanics of the game and then you can start strategizing. I'm having a hard time believing you read the manual or even payed attention during the tutorial.

 

[mice]

Also Kerphunk, go to this forum to ask any question you have. It doesnt matter if the question has been ask many times before. you get a quick response. quick answers to newbie questions

 

[Corporal Kindel]

This isn't a simulation game like the Sims, it's a strategy game. Clicking the manhattan project tech at 4000BC is horrible strategy. Not building stuff is horrible strategy. Learn the mechanics of the game and then you can start strategizing. I'm having a hard time believing you read the manual or even payed attention during the tutorial.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Civilization is not a "hand-eye-coordination" game like Doom (first person shooters) or a "Real-time" game like Age of Mythology (halfway between the two types, IMO). It’s a strategy game. The theme of Civ is centered on decision-making, not how quickly one can react with their hand-eye (which, aside, isn't much interesting to me), but rather it's based on how best one can use their brain (strategy & tactics) to best minimize "waste" and maximize “efficiency”. The gauge as to how well one plays is to compare their score at game end and see how high it gets (i.e. Neville Chamberlain, Nero, Dan Quayle, etc .. kind of like the strongman & hammer thing at amusement parks).

By the way, commerce also gets subdivided into culture (i.e. total commerce divides into gold {coins & wealth}, beakers {science & tech advances}, and culture {city defense & border expansion} ). I didn't see it mentioned in any of the posts above .. this is what’s happening when your culture borders expand during the game (also a very important concept I might add).

 

[jerVL/kg]

Sulla's tutorial is an invaluable resource for learning how the game works.

There are ways to avoid building & researching stuff -- just drop your science slider down to 0% (actually a good strategy for gaining cash in a hurry) or, with the appropriate techs, set your city to produce Wealth/Culture/Research. However, you really should always be building stuff & researching stuff -- after all, this is a game about researching & building stuff.

Best way to learn is to throw yourself into a Settler/Warlord game and have at it. It's daunting at first, but given enough time, the basics will become second nature to you. Have fun!

 

[Wyz_sub10]

Am I the only one that thinks he's just putting us on?

 

[Pogel]

Check out Sulla's tutorial linked above for a more thorough introduction to the game - it will really help.

The game is all about decisions. Choosing where to put your cities, what to build, when to go to war, when to stabilise your economy, what to research next, which civics to use, how to use your specialists, what tiles to improve and in what order, etc. Any decision has an opportunity cost - if you build a wonder or building you wont have as strong a military to defend your cities or attack the enemy. If you build units they cost you cash so you might struggle to maintain your research rate. If you build a mine on the hill you won't have a cottage on the floodplains.

As the level difficulty increases, the opportunity cost increases. In the tutorial there is no real cost so you can just build anything and it seems trivial. Bump up the difficulty and you can be wiped out pretty quickly if you don't make the right decisions.

To get a flavour of the sort of decisions that people make, take a look round some of the game threads on these forums - people will play a game, postig screenshots and saves at certain points and getting advice & suggestions on what to do next.

 

[Slade19]

Am I the only one that thinks he's just putting us on?

I'm glad someone finally said it so I don't have to.

I saw this post yesterday and immediately thought, "Troll!"

But then I thought about it again and couldn't understand why your typical troll type personalities would even bother with a Civ forum.

But we're all biased... because if you're like me, you've been playing Civ since you needed to find the third word on page 75 of the manual in order to play a new game. Or was it the word at the top of the page? Eh... I don't remember... I was only 12 or so at the time and just recall being annoyed whenever I couldn't find the damned manual.

Anyway, as a result of that bias... you just can't understand how someone couldn't get it!