Condensed tips for beginners?

I'm new to Civ4, and after playing through several games and reading some articles I have a decent grasp of what to do. However, I never know when I'm doing well or when I am behind.

What are the common benchmarks to shoot for? Like, for example, how many cities should I have by a certain turn? By turn 100, say, how many beakers should I have minimum, or conversely, how many would I need to run away with a tech lead? When should I get my first Great Person?

If I knew these standard benchmarks I could evaluate my play so much easier. As it is, I have to play the game out before I suddenly discover I have a research shortage or lack of production.

JoeZoo, I think I might be at about the same circumstance as yourself; I certainly have the same question. I think I've found not one definitive answer (which there probably isn't one) but a number of possible indces.

At first I watched the scores but this only indicates the current actual status and not the potential of a civ in the near future. Then I learned to check-out the [F9] Info Screen/Demographics but I only got a general sense of how I was doing but I didn't have a clue what, exactly, I was looking at.

Then, a few days ago, I came across Robi D's article http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php explaining the Demographics (updated for Warlords & BtS).

I found section "3. So what does it all mean?" particularly useful, particularly the subsection, "Mfg. Goods and Crop Yield".

While this won't tell you how well you're doing compared to what a more efficiently skilled player would be doing in your stead it can indicate how well you're doing compared to the other, AI, civs in your game.

One other note, if you search YouTube, keyphrase: "civilization IV walkthrough", Sullla (Icscullla) and CF's own TheMeInTeam and have some good vids to watch. They may help get a sense of how fast/efficient/etc. one should be to play well on the higher levels. Vids by other posters tend to be, well...not so worth one's time.

BTW, I discovered I have a real knack for efficient worker management, compared to what I saw in the vids, which makes me feel hopeful I have something going for me.

Hope this helps. BTW, Sisiutil has two "Civ IV Strategy Guides for Beginners" be sure to read the updated for Warlord/BtS version 5.0 dated Oct. 17, 2011 (and not just the Vanilla CivIV version 2.0 of Dec.22, 2006).
 
I must admit, I've never employed the Slavery civic, mainly because the idea of sacrificing ones population to increase production with the resultant unhappiness doesn't make sense to me--but then that's my liberal side.

If you have monarchy, each unit in the city gives 1 happiness. So, grow to size 2, and pop out a unit. Keep the unit in the city to offset the unhappiness. Start a new unit, and pop it out when you hit size 2 again.

Lather, rinse, and repeat. This is the fastest way to grow an army in the early game. Once you move your army, your size 1 city will be unhappy for a LONG time, but just ignore it and build another city (you did remember to pop out a settler, too, right?) (or go conquer a few).
 
Many people tend to find the slower game speeds a little easier because basically you get to make more of the main advantage we enjoy over the AIs. That is unit tactics and war strategy. When it is closer to being an all out economy game, and it is closer to this on the faster speeds because you get fewer turns in each era to wage war before your units are obsoleted, the AI can make more direct use of its bonuses. After all, it does not receive any bonuses in combat (excluding some technical issues like barbarian combat etc.).

The extent to which you find the slower gamespeeds easier would depend largely on playstyle.

These days I tend to play Epic speed if I play a large map or greater, and I will play either Normal speed or Epic speed on a standard map (I rarely play anything smaller), for obvious reasons.

If you are finding the game significantly easier it may even be a combination of coincidence, better skills and the effect of gamespeed. I know personally that even with using similar settings in many games you sometimes get games that are far easier than others.

Well, I think there is a factor of 3 difference between standard and epic (or is it marathon?). So, if it takes you 6 turns on standard to grow a city by 1 on standard, it will probably cost 3 times as much, and take 3 times as long. Also, it takes 3 times as long to chop a forest or build a farm.

BUT...it takes the same amount of time to move around. Say you need to move a worker 4 tiles to improve a mine. On standard, that will take you 2 turns to get there, and on turn 3 you get started. On epic, it will take you 2+ turns also, BUT...those 2 turns on standard are equivalent to SIX turns on epic. So, your worker gets there in 1/3 of the time, effectively. This makes development of land, and travel to make war faster on marathon games.
 
I'm in my second round of Epic, and even after isolating myself very early one (by killing off my only neighbor WAY before we could make any trades), I STILL ended up being the score leader when I found the rest of the world. I have no idea of exactly why, but something about this speed makes me play significantly better. It has to be the fact that I have more turns to notice I am being sloppy.

(I still can't bring myself to build a GP Farm, however. I see all that food and grassland, and I cottage the bejesus out of it and rake in the commerce. I REALLY need to stop doing that.)

Well, blowing 1 turn on standard is like blowing THREE turns on marathon. So, if you blow 1 turn on marathon, it's comparable to 1/3 of a turn on standard. This has the effect of minimizing your errors.
 
Epic probably helped you in that early rush--your units probably arrived at his cities before your opponent could defend with effective counter units. The general consensus is that warfare is the big recipient of the slower speeds' benefits, because your armies don't become obsolete by the time they get to the front.

Even if you're running a CE, all you need is one city devoted to GPs; you can cottage most of the others to your heart's content. It's amazing how effective it can be, especially when combined with the National Epic.

Heh, combine it with philosophical, pacifism, representation, and mercantilism, too. Oh, and throw in the ole Statue of Liberty play, the Parthenon, and that one that gives +2 culture per specialist.
 
Lather, rinse, and repeat. This is the fastest way to grow an army in the early game.

I debate this. The most you can get from 1 tile early on is 6 :food:. Whipping gives 30 :hammers: per pop, so you'd be looking at 1:food:=2.73:hammers: = 16.4:hammers:. Pretty good! 13.6 for 5:food: and 10.9 for 4:food: is less impressive however.

First of all, it's probably doable to sustainably mine and/or use other productive tiles (pastures, special resources) and get over 16-17 :hammers:/turn, though not easily.

More realistically, the :food: to :hammer: conversion doesn't start getting bad until pop grows quite a bit. Because of that, you are actually better off growing and then whipping for multiple pop, even in HR dump cities. Here's a brainless set of rules of thumb for whipping cities:

1. Don't whip away 4:food: or better specials.
2. Don't whip away grassland mines (instead grow past the # available while working them and whip down). Exception: your :food: overwhelms your :) cap enough to make it worth it.
3. Otherwise, whip as frequently as possible for as much pop as possible.

Doing helps keep you away from very long-term useless cities. It won't optimize like actually calculating out whip cycles and doing the math for specific scenarios will, but it will be reasonably solid.

Also note that monarchy is generally not available for rushes, so chain-whip monarchy tactic tends to be a classical or later era tactic (HA or Swords with resource denial, catapults, or later).
 
Hi Roger and other noobs! I'm relatively new to Civ - bought the Civ4 Complete on a whim and got HOOKED fast. I'm playing Civ4 Build 1.7.4 - have the Warlords, BTS and Colonial expansions, but haven't gotten to them yet.

In my experience - and I should qualify this by saying I'm STILL struggling to win at warlord-level - I've had the most success when I disregard religion at first, and go for MINING > BRONZEWORKING > ARCHERY as my first three. Then, depending on the resources nearby, I research one or two "working technologies": for example, if I have corn, I'd go for AGRICULTURE next, or ANIMAL HUSBANDRY if I had pigs/cows/sheep. I also try to get POTTERY asap, since the earlier you start building those cottages, the more time they have to mature into treasury-fattening hamlets and towns.

Religion tends to find its way in sooner or later, especially with open borders and trade, and you can always jump on the bandwagon when it comes 'round - let someone else do the heavy lifting to research and spread it. True, you do lose some advantages, but you weigh it against what you GAIN by researching and building other stuff. THAT SAID... if I get lucky in a tribal village and they GIVE me Mysticism or Meditation, I might switch tacks fast and research a religious techs just to scoop one up ...but even then, I tend to "bank it" vs. converting right away - saves me the "you follow a heathen faith!" flak from competitors.

THEN AGAIN.... I haven't won yet. So take that for what it's worth. :crazyeye:
 
In my experience - and I should qualify this by saying I'm STILL struggling to win at warlord-level - I've had the most success when I disregard religion at first, and go for MINING > BRONZEWORKING > ARCHERY as my first three. Then, depending on the resources nearby, I research one or two "working technologies": for example, if I have corn, I'd go for AGRICULTURE next, or ANIMAL HUSBANDRY if I had pigs/cows/sheep. I also try to get POTTERY asap, since the earlier you start building those cottages, the more time they have to mature into treasury-fattening hamlets and towns.

Glad you're enjoying the game. You'll find this forum is a great resource and there are plenty of good players (much better than myself) who are happy to give advice. The most frequently repeated recommendation you'll probably get here is, "play the map." One of the great things about this game is that there's no one formula for winning.

It seems like you've picked up some good ideas already. FWIW, I, personally, almost always go for the worker techs first, especially those related to food resources in the BFC: Agriculture, Animal Husbandry (AH), and/or Fishing. That way you get a jump start on growth. The faster your first city grows, the sooner you'll be able to crank out those early workers and settlers, and Slavery will be much more useful. Bronze Working (BW) often comes next, but if I teched AH and found horses nearby I will usually tech The Wheel and build my early defense around chariots. I usually don't tech Archery unless I have AH, BW, and Iron Working and find that there are no horses or metals around. By the time I need Archery for horse archers, one of the AIs will probably be willing to trade it to me.

Have fun!
 
Hi Roger and other noobs! I'm relatively new to Civ - bought the Civ4 Complete on a whim and got HOOKED fast. I'm playing Civ4 Build 1.7.4 - have the Warlords, BTS and Colonial expansions, but haven't gotten to them yet.

In my experience - and I should qualify this by saying I'm STILL struggling to win at warlord-level - I've had the most success when I disregard religion at first, and go for MINING > BRONZEWORKING > ARCHERY as my first three. Then, depending on the resources nearby, I research one or two "working technologies": for example, if I have corn, I'd go for AGRICULTURE next, or ANIMAL HUSBANDRY if I had pigs/cows/sheep. I also try to get POTTERY asap, since the earlier you start building those cottages, the more time they have to mature into treasury-fattening hamlets and towns.

Religion tends to find its way in sooner or later, especially with open borders and trade, and you can always jump on the bandwagon when it comes 'round - let someone else do the heavy lifting to research and spread it. True, you do lose some advantages, but you weigh it against what you GAIN by researching and building other stuff. THAT SAID... if I get lucky in a tribal village and they GIVE me Mysticism or Meditation, I might switch tacks fast and research a religious techs just to scoop one up ...but even then, I tend to "bank it" vs. converting right away - saves me the "you follow a heathen faith!" flak from competitors.

THEN AGAIN.... I haven't won yet. So take that for what it's worth. :crazyeye:

I go for Hunting>>Archery>>Mining>>Agriculture>>Pottery as a typical start-up because Archers are so great for city defense. Early game tactic is to have three archers defending in every city--pretty tough to sweep. After that I go for Monotheism(Judaism) if available, or Confucianism. It is good to found a religion, not only because it strengthens many civics if you have the Holy City, but also because as it spreads you can gain gold for new cities that it spreads to(keep a great prophet handy to build the trademark religious building--this spreads the religion and gives a +1 gold for each city).
So, defense first, then religion, then expansion.
For city building, I go for anything that gives Culture because you want your cities to expand quickly and cover more usable territory.

Any of this can be adapted to a given situation, such as having a very close neighbor. However, I have found that if you can sack a nearby rival early, it puts you in very good shape later with a better science base and virtually a second capital city.

Good luck out there!
 
If you have monarchy, each unit in the city gives 1 happiness. So, grow to size 2, and pop out a unit. Keep the unit in the city to offset the unhappiness. Start a new unit, and pop it out when you hit size 2 again.

Lather, rinse, and repeat. This is the fastest way to grow an army in the early game. Once you move your army, your size 1 city will be unhappy for a LONG time, but just ignore it and build another city (you did remember to pop out a settler, too, right?) (or go conquer a few).

No, that never seems worth it to me. I prefer to build up strength in a city with both citizens and units. A city with 1 pop is a waste of time. You need your cities to grow, and every new citizen adds to your science, your hammers, your commerce, your culture...slavery really seems to go backwards imho.

I understand your point, but I like to maximize my cities....of course, I usually play MODS, and these have different features, especially Revolutions, that make you think twice about a situation like that. I have never had a revolution happen yet.
 
Thanks - to you AND Gudinsdiv - for the welcome and pointers! My thinking is, Axemen seem essential to fending off early barbarian attacks, so, the faster I locate copper (or Iron - Plan B for when there's no copper around), the better. That tells me where to build City #2.

MY BIGGEST NOOB A-HA MOMENT: USE THOSE RIVERS to link up cites and share resources! It's made a HUGE difference, as previously I was either tying up workers building unnecessary roads (plus combat units to protect the "road crews"), or rejecting great city sites as too far away.

(yeah, I coulda figured that out in 2 minutes reading the tips or a forum, but I'm just too impatient....much more fun to keep getting killed until I figure something out by accident.)
 
^ ALWAYS do what is most FUN, not most efficient.

OTOH, if you don't want to spend all your time fighting barbarians, learn to "spawnbust". Barbarians won't spawn within two tiles of another unit. Depending on the map, a few strategically place warriors can keep you completely barbarian free.
 
Founding a Holy City and Generating a Great Prophet to build a Holy Shrine can be a great early strategy. Giving a missionary to Mansa Musa, Asoka, Hatshepsut and other religious zealots will usually result in that Civ spreading it to all their cities. Doing this to several Civs can result in a huge profit in the Holy Shrine.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
The most efficient way to defend against Barbarians is spawn busting or building The Great Wall.

If spawn busters fail, Chariots are the best way to kill Barbarian Axemen with their +100% bonus when attacking. Avoid defending with them, since they can't use defensive bonuses and their +100% bonus versus Axemen only apply when actually attacking.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I think the fastest way to learn is to play (read, lose) a few multiplayer FFAs online....you can ask questions as you play and some players are social enough to answer you :) but not all.

Generally, bronze->animal husbandry->archery is the standard start. Bronze for possibly axes, but most importantly, for chopping and possibly the whip. AH for horses and for workers to improve high yield animal tiles. If you have either axes or chariots handy, you can skip archery for now.

Then go for rest of your infrastructure techs, mysticism (if you're not creative), maybe fishing, then onto the classical age with iron working.

Now the typical warpath techs are the following: construction/horseback (pults, phants, horse archers), followed by code of laws/calendar/currency/civil service (economy). Maybe with a detour for monarchy or literature if you can afford it, and feudalism if you need extra defense (longbows) then metal casting to engineering (crossbow, pikes, trebs).

This is what I end up doing 90% of the time, because I can assume that I'll be at war at some point early. Wonders, holy cities, resources, can all be captured. Anyway, this is just something to keep in mind as the strongest military tech path. If you deviate, then remember that someone out there might not, and might have a better military as a result.

Hope this helps!
 
Can your capital revolt? I have a nice border city (Paris) that I conquered but was forced to take capitulation from De Gaulle to avoid him peace vassaling to someone. He has a high culture city next to it, and Paris has a ~4% chance of going into revolt.

I was thinking, if I move my palace there, would the chance go down to 0%?

Furthermore, is there a source explaining the revolt mechanics somewhere?

Edit: Apparently there's no other way but to place a stack of units sitting there.
 
Hi Roger and other noobs! I'm relatively new to Civ - bought the Civ4 Complete on a whim and got HOOKED fast. I'm playing Civ4 Build 1.7.4 - have the Warlords, BTS and Colonial expansions, but haven't gotten to them yet.

In my experience - and I should qualify this by saying I'm STILL struggling to win at warlord-level - I've had the most success when I disregard religion at first, and go for MINING > BRONZEWORKING > ARCHERY as my first three. Then, depending on the resources nearby, I research one or two "working technologies": for example, if I have corn, I'd go for AGRICULTURE next, or ANIMAL HUSBANDRY if I had pigs/cows/sheep. I also try to get POTTERY asap, since the earlier you start building those cottages, the more time they have to mature into treasury-fattening hamlets and towns.

Religion tends to find its way in sooner or later, especially with open borders and trade, and you can always jump on the bandwagon when it comes 'round - let someone else do the heavy lifting to research and spread it. True, you do lose some advantages, but you weigh it against what you GAIN by researching and building other stuff. THAT SAID... if I get lucky in a tribal village and they GIVE me Mysticism or Meditation, I might switch tacks fast and research a religious techs just to scoop one up ...but even then, I tend to "bank it" vs. converting right away - saves me the "you follow a heathen faith!" flak from competitors.

THEN AGAIN.... I haven't won yet. So take that for what it's worth. :crazyeye:

BTW, that "Colonial expansion"...whole different game bundled w/ CivIV. It's a remake of Colonization using the CivIV engine. There's a CFC Forum for CivIV Colonization.
 
Hello all! I'm still relatively new to Civ iv and I have a some questions I would like to ask if that's ok, thanks :).

1. This one my sound silly but "Are farms really that important or useful for a Financial Leader?" I rarely build them (even with non-financial leaders) at all really and just opt to put cottages everywhere. I understand that more growth/food means more workable tiles or specialists but I feel that if a tile is grassland or only generates food and little else, it would be a waste to build a farm. I'm also taking into account the fact that if I have a tile focused on creating food, when war time comes the enemy will pillage that and completely starve my city, I'd rather have cottages pillaged rather then lose people to starvation. I feel like I'm missing something complete obvious though :/

2. "Should I build walls and defensive structures or just produce more military units?"

3. "Is neutrality with everyone better at preventing wars against yourself then picking one side and sticking with them to the very end?" I find it very difficult to be on good terms with all of the computer players at the same time.

4. I tend to focus all my cities to synergies with my leaders traits and be exactly the same, rather then to focus each city to be a money generator, a producer, a great person generator, etc. Is this a bad thing and too much focus? Should I have my city be more diverse?

5. "I don't use the Slavery civic, is this a bad thing?" I have no idea why I don't use it, I just tend to forget about and ignore it after I've researched the tech for it.

6. "How do I get the most optimal gain of culture between three cities for a Culture Victory?" I'll clarify. By the time I won my first Cultural Victory on a civ iv game, one of my legendary culture cities had 2.5x more culture then the other two cites that were also legendary culture, though their cultural numbers were very similar.

This is all I have for now, sorry if these are complicated to answer. Thank you though for reading all this, I appreciate it! :D
 


1. Farms are useful when you want a city to grow and the tiles it can currently work provide too little of that. That may sound overly obvious, but it's the whole truth - if you have a city with two wet corn which you want at size 6, then you probably don't need other farms and can work cottages, mines, or specialists instead (or whip a lot of units and buildings - Slavery!). If your city has no other source of food, then you should a) ask yourself why you built it in the first place b) build a few farms so you can reach the happy cap sooner. Regarding Financial leaders and cottages - in an old thread, someone (I think Dave) showed that first growing to happy cap with farms and then building cottages for the now-enhanced population often gives more commerce than working cottages from the beginning but growing slower.

Regarding pillaging, you really should not get your tiles pillaged very often. If you do, the problem has to do a lot with diplomacy, and a bit with not declaring war on your neighbours soon enough.

2. Walls are sometimes a necessary build in cities which you suspect/know will get attacked in the Ancient or Classical era. Again, this should not happen often, because diplomacy can go a long way towards improving your odds of not getting attacked. It can happen sometimes though. Scout out the stacks of aggresive neighbours to know which city will get attacked, and either build a wall there or make sure you can whip one in (Slavery!) in an emergency. In other situations, walls are useless.

3. To make sure you don't get attacked, the most important thing is good relations with the AIs that share borders with you. AIs with no common borders (precisely: less than 8 tiles shared borders) are less likely to declare on you. It happens sometimes though, so you should also know which AIs are more likely to declare in general than others, and either have good relations with them or keep them busy by bribing them into wars. It's usually very hard to have good relations with everyone, so focus on those who would attack you otherwise first, followed by those who you want to conduct trades with.

4. Yes, it is a bad thing. Sometimes this can work (i.e. you built the Pyramids for early Representation and have lots of food so you can work specialists everyhwere) but usually having different cities is more efficient. I won't go into detail about specialization here...but it's usually good to have at least a few cities produce commerce (through specialists or cottages) and at least one of them be able to produce units fast (through wipping - Slavery! - or working mines).

5. Yes, it is a very bad thing. Slavery is the single most powerful civic in the game. A whip gives you 30 hammer on normal speed, which is usually a lot more than you would get if the person whipped away would just work a mine for several turns. Whipping allows you to get out faster Settlers and Workers in the beginning, set up your cities faster with Granaries and Monuments, and produce a lot more units when you go to war. So it gives you more and earlier cities, more productive cities, and a bigger army. Use it. General rules: a) Whipping is for cities which can regrow the lost population rather fast (so not for that city having only a Plains Cow as its food ressource) b) try to whip for two population points when possible c) in the early game, whipping can work without a Granary, but try to get one in cities you will whip a lot as soon as possible. There's a useful article by VoiceOfUnreason on the basics of whipping in the Article section.

Now Caste System - which you can't use in Slavery - is also a good Civic, as producing Great People will help your early to mid game a lot. The way many people go about it is to trigger a Great Age at a convenient time with your first Great Person, switch to Caste + Pacifism, run a lot of specialists for the duration of the Great Age, and switch back to Slavery before it ends. You can do it without the Great Age as well at the cost of two turns of Anarchy. Just trying to get across how powerful Slavery is.

6. I don't play Cultural victories, but there's a guide to Cultural Victories (forgot by whom), and there's the excellent write-up named "Replay #7" by Seraiel over in the Hall of Fame forum. These will probably help you a lot with these kind of victories.
 
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