Condensed tips for beginners?

[kcd_swede]

Hmm well I play on noble/prince and it is perfect, I do keep about another half dozen in the nearest city so incase its a huge wave of stacks but yeah I imagine its more 3/1 siege vs stack unit on deity.

If you are playing basic Civ4 or Warlords expansion, all you need is seige (and something to protect your seige). In these expansions, seige will kill. However, in BtS, you will need to bring enough regular combat units to kill all the defenders after you attack and weaken them with seige. The latter requires a great deal more consideration than just spamming siege units!

 

[yatta77]

Can someone explain why in this save adopting free market there are not foreign trade routes?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=293986&d=1309316054

Thanks in advance

 

[Sisiutil]

Can someone explain why in this save adopting free market there are not foreign trade routes?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=293986&d=1309316054

Thanks in advance

I haven't looked at your save, but there are many reasons why you may have no foreign trade routes even though you're running a civic that allows them (i.e. anything but Mercantilism).

1. You're isolated and don't have Astronomy yet.
2. All of the other civs within reach of you are running Mercantilism (the most likely explanation--the AI loves running that civic for a long, frustrating time. )
3. You're cut off from foreign trade routes by war, by barb cities, or even just by barb galleys imposing blockades.

Solutions:

1. Get Optics, build Caravels, research or trade for Astronomy. Duh.
2. Trade/gift Economics to them, bribe them and/or use espionage to get them to change civics. Warning: don't expect them to stick to that civics change. Like I said, the AI love Mercantilism long time.
3. Astronomy, again, will solve this. So will ending the war one way or another, or razing or capturing the barb cities, or sinking those troublesome galleys--whichever one is the source of the problem.

 

[yatta77]

I haven't looked at your save, but there are many reasons why you may have no foreign trade routes even though you're running a civic that allows them (i.e. anything but Mercantilism).

1. You're isolated and don't have Astronomy yet.
2. All of the other civs within reach of you are running Mercantilism (the most likely explanation--the AI loves running that civic for a long, frustrating time. )
3. You're cut off from foreign trade routes by war, by barb cities, or even just by barb galleys imposing blockades.

Solutions:

1. Get Optics, build Caravels, research or trade for Astronomy. Duh.
2. Trade/gift Economics to them, bribe them and/or use espionage to get them to change civics. Warning: don't expect them to stick to that civics change. Like I said, the AI love Mercantilism long time.
3. Astronomy, again, will solve this. So will ending the war one way or another, or razing or capturing the barb cities, or sinking those troublesome galleys--whichever one is the source of the problem.

I have open borders with only an AI, which I'm connected with, and has economics (I trade it from them, LOL): but the mercantilism thing i have to check! Because you might very likely be right that this might be the issue, in which case: silly me to don't check before switching Civics!

So thanks!

 

[smartiebill]

where do I find a good printed manual as a newcomer to all civ games

 

[cabert]

where do I find a good printed manual as a newcomer to all civ games

in the box

 

[kcd_swede]

where do I find a good printed manual as a newcomer to all civ games

Nevermind Cabert... he's French.

You could also go to this LINK and click on the "Printer-friendly version" and print one out yourself, if you are so inclined.

 

[vorlon_mi]

where do I find a good printed manual as a newcomer to all civ games

Welcome to CFC!

Since you posted in the Civ4 forum, I'm assuming you would like a copy of the Civ4 manual? I have an old one I could send you in the post. PM me, if you're interested.

 

[Choeimok]

So, after not having done it for a month or two, I felt like playing a Civ4 game today. I have two Prince victories, 1 or two relatively good-looking Prince games I never finished, two Monarch victories and a Monarch game that wasn't going too well when I abandoned it. So, to get back into the game, my first choice was picking Noble or Prince as my difficulty... but then I decided against it and picked Emperor instead - what could possibly go wrong? My leader pick was Willem of the Dutch, CRE is my favorite trait and FIN is always nice to have. The UB is late but nice to have, the UU probably won't matter since I'm playing a Pangaea map. I played until 100 AD (yes, 100, not 1000).
So, first my coastal start with a Clam, a Plains Cow and two FPs didn't look to impressive and I wasn't exactly happy about the AIs either - lots of tech whores such as Mansa, Pacal, WK. Joao and Surya, both of which are annoying and tend to do well. And Churchhill, I don't know a lot about him except that I have to cancel a gold tribute to him as soon as I can.
So, at first having a mediocre start, jungle in the North, an arid area in the west, the Khmer in the east and the Ocean in the South didn't look too appealing, but I did manage to expand to 7 continental cities and one off-shore island city (without GLH, not sure if that was the best idea). There also is a barb city to my north and I am in the process of capturing it.

Here's an overview over the Netherlands:

Spoiler :

I haven't revealed a lot of land outside my borders yet...

My capital. I settled in place btw, I wasn't too impressed but didn't see any reason to move either. Behind the FPs there could have been a massive desert. and I think I didn't see any of the Golds yet. And I don't know if settling on non-riverside wine will have extra commerce in the city tile or just become 2/1/1. Amsterdam has been my main Settler- and Workerpump up to now, and now I have no idea what to do with it. Recently it turned out one of its hills (of course the only one that didn't have a mine yet) has Iron, so maybe production. I am going to leave these two well-developed cottages alone though.
Right now I'm building a Sword without Barracks here. Not sure why without Barracks, but the Sword is going to the Hittites.

To the east, we have Utrecht, a city with two Gold. Probably the reason why I could expand so well and am still researching at what I consider a decent pace. Not sure if the plains cottage was the best idea, but what else was I supposed to put there?

This one has copper, but until recently lacked food, that's why the FPs are farmed. I'm probably going to leave those farms (especially the one on the border, I hate losing towns to culture), cottage the plains and put my WS here. Especially if I can get around to getting a prophet and shrine Confu some time.
Barracks mainly because of the untrustworthy Sury. He isn't in WHEOORN yet, but...

Rotterdam here has lots of junk tiles, but I think it was still worth settling. Two FPs, two spice, some lake tiles... Most of its good tiles being in the second ring was not a problem, not only am I creative, I also was already controlling one or maybe even both of the FPs.
Library because it has a decent research output

Nijmegen was and still is largely jungled, but the site was just too good to pass up. Most of my workers are currently busy here. I'm building barracks for same reason I'm building one in Utrecht, it doesn't make as much sense here though.

This settler was originally going to settle east of Rotterdam for Iron (not sure if I knew that yet though), P.Cow and Lake, but Pacal beat me to it. So I walked to the north and settled this even better Gems site instead. It lacks food, but it's mostly flat grassland, so farming one or two tiles next to the lake should do. Granary because it doesn't have one yet. Maastricht is still heavily jungled, I need some more worker activity here.

The desert east of my capital does have a corn and a gold, so why not settle here? What I am probably going to do here is as many farms as I can which isn't a lot and irrigating the corn by farming the plains, which I can. Makes that tile more useful for Rotterdam, too.
Anyway, the purpose of this city is of course production. Even with the extra food from getting more farms after Civil, I might need a windmill or two though.

And the island city, Delft. It's not very old yet, but it already managed to steal an improved clam from Pacal The workboat is going to improve the second one, after that I'll go Granary-Lighthouse-Library or Lighthouse-Granary-Library. Not sure which is better. Delft is probably going to become my specialists city, the hill is going to help building NE. Mansa and Korea have Literature. I have nothing I can trade to Mansa and probably wouldn't if I could because I hate the guy and 3-city-Wang doesn't want to trade yet. But I can wait until then.

Speaking of tech... So, Mansa is far ahead, but I'd say I', doing pretty well here. A lot of the techs these guys have on me are trash. Wouldn't I have misclicked earlier on when getting 4 or so early techs for Aesthetics from someone, they would have Hunting and maybe even Mysticism on me too since I lack both Elephants and Deer.

So, while I am apparently leading the scoreboard, how well am I really doing? Do I have enough workers? Did I build nonsense buildings such as these barracks where I could have built Wealth instead? Have I already wasted too much time before even thinking about specialists? How good or bad are my city placement and specialisation plans? Am I overcottaging? How good was my tech path so far (I think I went AH>Wheel>Mining>Pottery or BW>the other one of the two (or maybe even Pottery before Mining..?)>Writing>Aes>Maths>Currency>COL>Calendar>Civil (not sure how true and accurate that is, but roughly it must have been like that), I traded for most of the rest.)? Is my assumption correct that this game is winnable if I don't screw up pretty badly or get dogpiled or AP (I don't have the main religion, Judaism, yet) or peace-vassal screwed? What's my best bet from here on? Maybe Cuirassiers? Or Rifles/Cannons? Or some earlier variaton of that? Just teching and hoping Sury stays calm? Anything else?

 

[GGracchus]

Why are you building barracks? It's useless in cities where you aren't building units. No library in the cap by 100 AD and no rushing going on is not right. You should be building courthouses everywhere. Worker-wise you appear to be find, but Delft IMO isn't the best city and I probably wouldn't have founded it and would have spent it building infrastructure or wealth. I would also suggest teching monarchy after CS, because you need to boost your happy cap. You also need to road those happy resources and connect them ASAP. After a month or two without civ, I would not suggest starting at emperor(I've been playing for 8 months and I'm only at immortal(and shaky there, emperor I can handle).

 

[Choeimok]

Picking Emperor was more of a joke, but things didn't turn out as bad as expected. No rushing because there was just so much land to expand into, even though HA-rushing Khmeristan would probably have been better than settling anything that came after Nijmegen, yes. Calendar I only finiished researching a turn or two before this, that's why most of the resources aren't connected yet. If I had a few more workers I could have pre-roaded and de-jungled more of them, unfortunately it's too late for that. I don't know about Monarchy since I do have a lot of resources, they should suffice for size 15 cities, more if I can trade. Connecting the wine would be nice but I'm really not sure if that alone justifies going for Monarchy.
About my buildings... I agree, I made some awful decisions there. I'll have to work on that.
So, overall I don't agree with all of your critic points, but with most. Thanks for the input!

 

[GGracchus]

You can trade aesthetics for a bunch of stuff, and trade polytheism to sury for archery. Monarchy shouldn't require too big of a diversion from liberalism, and the bigger the happy cap the better. You should be able to get size 11 cities by yourself(happy cap 6, you could hook up gems, dye, spices, and wine, and colosseums if you tech construction. Monarchy could boost it from HR if you need extra happy.

 

[Sisiutil]

Just thought I'd share a small tip in case it hasn't come up before...

With the "Greed" quest, a random event in BtS, you are tasked with gaining control of a resource you don't own (usually copper, horses, or iron) that is within the territory of a foreign nation. Obviously this will involve going to war with said nation. The reward is four free units of whatever type the resource allows once you gain control of it (so, four free Axemen, Swordsmen, Chariots, Horse Archers, Knights, Macemen, etc.).

If the city next to the Greed target is the last enemy city, however, you will fail the quest. In other words, the civ from which you are acquiring the resource still has to exist on the turn when you gain control of the target tile. The game doesn't list this as a condition of the quest, but it's there. I call it the "rub-their-stupid-ugly-faces-in-it" provision.

 

[dalamb]

Hmm. If there's a city near the enemy's last that you could "liberate" after conquering it, that might game the condition. Of course if that's owned by a 3rd civ, starting another war may not be worth it. And liberation isn't always possible.

 

[Trapper439]

I haven't played Civ for around 6 months, and I haven't visited this site in all of that time.

That being said, I've just read the last 15 pages of this thread, and I'd like to congratulate Sisiutil and kcd_swede for being just awesome in the way they take the time to help new Civ players.

Give yourselves a pat on the back, guys. You deserve it.

/My (vanilla) Civ IV CD has apparently lost it, so I can't play the game. I should probably get BTS, as I hear it doesn't check the CD.

 

[Ataxerxes]

/My (vanilla) Civ IV CD has apparently lost it, so I can't play the game. I should probably get BTS, as I hear it doesn't check the CD.

It doesn't. If you had loaded Vanilla on your computer, you just insert the BTS CD to play BTS. I play BTS and don't even know where my vanilla disk is. You don't need to get complete if vanilla was already loaded, just get the Expansion for about $7 on Amazon. That's where I got my replacement disk.

 

[Ungeziefer]

Just thought I'd share a small tip in case it hasn't come up before...

With the "Greed" quest, a random event in BtS, you are tasked with gaining control of a resource you don't own (usually copper, horses, or iron) that is within the territory of a foreign nation. Obviously this will involve going to war with said nation. The reward is four free units of whatever type the resource allows once you gain control of it (so, four free Axemen, Swordsmen, Chariots, Horse Archers, Knights, Macemen, etc.).

If the city next to the Greed target is the last enemy city, however, you will fail the quest. In other words, the civ from which you are acquiring the resource still has to exist on the turn when you gain control of the target tile. The game doesn't list this as a condition of the quest, but it's there. I call it the "rub-their-stupid-ugly-faces-in-it" provision.

Actually if you gain control of the tile by "culture-flipping" it you will be rewarded and a message pops up saying that you fought valiantly or something of the kind . You could therefore complete the quest in the case you mentioned.

 

[Sisiutil]

Actually if you gain control of the tile by "culture-flipping" it you will be rewarded and a message pops up saying that you fought valiantly or something of the kind . You could therefore complete the quest in the case you mentioned.

You mean if you culture-flip their last city (i.e. their capital)? I've found that to be extremely difficult. I'd rather just invade and kill them all.

 

[Habitus]

I think he means just the tile itself so if it borders you you don't need the war and can still get the free units (spread culture esp mission probably being the easiest way if you don't already have much in the way of culture)

 

[krikav]

I have seen alot of screenshots on this forum, where people have placed markers in certain locations. For example "City 3 will go here".

How to I make these markings?