Condensed tips for beginners?

[BornInCantaloup]

Hello I got a question. How can I move a unit right at the moment when new turn begins? This can make a life or death difference in multiplayer games and there are players who obviously know how to set a unit to move it/attack exactly at the moment when one turn ends and another begins(before Im able to do anything)..
I Got my ass kicked this way a few times and despite the fact that Ive been playing this game(and dozens of modes) for years I still don't know how they do it

The option you're looking for is probably :
- Minimize pop-ups. That will delay all the pop ups (advisors, city builds, etc.) to the end of turn. If you give the orders anyways, the pop ups won't show.

Don't forget to also set your options to :
Quick moves (no animation) ; stack attack (no 20 clicks to attack a tile).

Do not check "units autopromote", though.
There are probably a couple of other intelligent options to turn on/off but theydon't come to mind atm.

 

[reljanovic]

What's the difference(not counting multiple production projects) in having 3-4 smaller cities, let's say 4cities pop5 each to having one huge 20pop city. I'm wondering what the upkeep, maintenance, civic upkeep, research possibilities, economical differences etc, anything you can think of basically.

So difference between more snacks cities and huge metropolises.
Fire away!

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Well, obviously having more cities means you pay more city maintenance, and you'll have to duplicate basic infrastructure like granaries and forges and libraries.

So it sounds bad at first. But.

It takes a long long time in order to accumulate the happiness and health and grow a size 20 city. So long that it is much more effective to have a larger number of smaller cities working all those tiles. Plus, the way happiness works, a luxury resource will raise the cap by 1 in all cities, meaning you can gain 4 population if you have 4 cities, and only 1 pop if you have 1 city.

So yes, I advocate packing your cities tight, even doing 3 tile spacing, and utilising as many tiles as fast as possible. Because while it's weaker in the late game, it is much stronger during the early-mid game, which is where the game is decided.

The rule of thumb I use is that every city needs a food resource, and every food resource needs its own city. So get out there and start claiming land!

 

[Tristan_C]

What's the difference(not counting multiple production projects) in having 3-4 smaller cities, let's say 4cities pop5 each to having one huge 20pop city. I'm wondering what the upkeep, maintenance, civic upkeep, research possibilities, economical differences etc, anything you can think of basically.

So difference between more snacks cities and huge metropolises.
Fire away!

Because new players have such an obsession with buildings, packing cities is a good way to start shrugging that off and get citizens working harder, earlier, towards strategic goals. Things like markets, grocers, temples, and aqueducts make no sense if, by the time the cities reach their caps, all the best tiles are already working. You can build units and kick butt, or build wealth and beat tracks towards a tech advantage.

 

[ChaosSlayer]

Hello

would you please point me a good guide to creating and using Corporations to most benefit.

thanks!

 

[dalamb]

Try Corporation: The Power of Sushi. It focuses on Sid's Sushi, possibly the most popular along with Mining, Inc., but a lot of the advice helps with other corporations, too.

 

[ChaosSlayer]

thanks great read!

 

[civac]

Mining Inc is usually the better corp. It comes earlier on a way more useful tech and pays back it's setup cost (which is considerable for all corps) way faster.

Moreover, corps come at a point in the game where production gets more important than food. The timing just before assembly line is also ideal. You can build your factories/coal plants with Mining assistance which multiplies the advantage gained by Mining Inc itself.

 

[RedAndWhiteArmy]

quickie for you, i only have vanilla and want to buy expansions as alot of the good threads seem to be based on BTS. is this the best/should i get them all? im buying today so would love to know asap, cheers!

 

[Kesshi]

quickie for you, i only have vanilla and want to buy expansions as alot of the good threads seem to be based on BTS. is this the best/should i get them all? im buying today so would love to know asap, cheers!

I cannot remember the last time I heard anyone discuss Warlords. Read as: get BTS. Everybody talks about BTS, and on occasion there are a few vanilla threads. But everything is catered towards BTS.

Edit: I don't think you can get BTS without Warlords, but I am not 100 % sure about this. Sorry.

 

[RedAndWhiteArmy]

thx BTS it is!

 

[Sisiutil]

Edit: I don't think you can get BTS without Warlords, but I am not 100 % sure about this. Sorry.

Yes you can, and it includes everything Warlords has except the scenarios.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Civ4 is dirt cheap on Steam these days. $15 for the complete set during the summer sales, I grabbed it for $10 a few years back.

 

[JayaTheCat]

Wow! just spent quite some time reading all 2000+ posts - thanks for all the useful ideas and strategies.

As much as it goes against my personal preference as to how to play the game, I've learnt from this thread (and the site as a whole) that a strong military is a necessity for victory and that units should be built if a city has no definite building it should be constructing. Is it therefore wise to create a barracks in any city where you are going to build units? As in if the next construction is going to be a unit, then build a barracks first for the xp boost for the next (and any subsequent) units.

This makes sense to me but I have seen many posts explicitly state that barracks should only be built in your military producing cities, yet the general consensus seems to be that if a city has nothing to build, build military. Surely therefore a barracks prior to any military unit construction would be preferable (barring any immediate issues such as requiring reinforcements when under attack).

If it has any bearing at all by the way, I play BTS exclusively at Marathon speed and flit between Warlord and Noble (I'm not the best at this game!).

 

[duckstab]

Actually, my own opinion is that it's often more worthwhile to build Wealth (if you have Currency) or Research (if you only have Alphabet) instead of units. Units carry maintenance costs and once your power rating is big enough relative to the AI, you're often better off throttling your military production for a while. Building Wealth allows you to upgrade veteran units instead of building more inexperienced cannon fodder, or can be turned into beakers with the slider.

However, to answer your question, I will almost always build a Barracks first before building land units in a city. Cities without Barracks I mostly use for other units that don't require it. When they become available, I usually try to get my primary production cities outfitted with Stables, Drydocks, and Airports, before I produce a lot of the corresponding unit types.

 

[Deckhand]

I'd say, yes - build barracks. Especially on marathon speed, where military units are relatively cheaper and you will probably be building more of them. There are exceptions of course, and you shouldn't build them if you aren't going to be building units there.

 

[Sisiutil]

If you're planning on building military units in the city, then yes, build a barracks; likewise, if you'll build any mounted units there, build a stable; naval units, a drydock.

However.

Most veteran players of Civ IV highly recommend specializing your cities. If nothing else, this makes your choices of tile improvements and building priorities easier. Therefore, while you might build a barracks in a commerce or specialist city, other builds such as libraries and/or markets take a higher priority. As you said, if there's nothing else to build there, build military, and your first military build will be a barracks.

Another thing to keep in mind is if you use the queue loading/Golden Age/switch to war civics ploy to produce a large number of highly-promoted units will minimizing your time in the less-economically attractive war civics, you'll want barracks in any and all cities building units, which should be all of them.

 

[damerell]

Most veteran players of Civ IV highly recommend specializing your cities. If nothing else, this makes your choices of tile improvements and building priorities easier.

... and if you're a settler of Great Generals, that's a specialised city in and of itself; obviously, you want as much as possible of your military to be produced there, save (for example) siege you're only going to use for bombardment. One high-quality unit is worth two low-quality ones; save the hammers.

 

[Sisiutil]

... and if you're a settler of Great Generals, that's a specialised city in and of itself; obviously, you want as much as possible of your military to be produced there, save (for example) siege you're only going to use for bombardment.

Yes; I usually settle generals in my Heroic Epic city (sometimes in other production cities), because the HE city will be pumping out units pretty much exclusively for the whole game.

However, I do produce a few highly-promoted siege units; Cats with Bombard/Accuracy can take down cultural defenses much faster. Siege units that are likely to be sacrificed for collateral damage, however, can be low-promoted.

 

[mtr12]

I noticed some players conserve using their promotions on units when they go to war, choosing to use them after a battle to heal quickly. The downside, of course, is that you have weaker troops. What is the optimal choice?