Condensed tips for beginners?

[Deckhand]

I still have trouble kicking my Civ 1 habits (expand expand expand grow grow grow ).

Ah, Civ1 !
My introduction to civ was visiting a friend who had civ 1. I stayed up most of the night playing.

 

[Deathcrush]

I love forests.
Convince this chronic Noble player that deforestation is really as great as everyone says it is.
~first post ~

Yup- it is. :
Chop that trees, man. It is good for you!

 

[MAvL]

I still have trouble kicking my Civ 1 habits (expand expand expand grow grow grow )

That's still the best strategy in Civ 4 actually (as opposed to civ 3 where corruption anhihilates completely and thouroughly the benefit of ubounded growth). You just have to remember to grow vertically from time to time so as not to go bankrupt.

 

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

That's still the best strategy in Civ 4 actually (as opposed to civ 3 where corruption anhihilates completely and thouroughly the benefit of ubounded growth). You just have to remember to grow vertically from time to time so as not to go bankrupt.

There always pops up tips i did not know. So the cost of cities is calculated horizontaly? It is cheaper to expand vertically?

 

[AcaMetis]

Every extra pop in a city does increase that city's maintenance cost, both in terms of Distance Maintenance and Numbers of Cities Maintenance, but it's dependant on the base maintenance cost of your city (basically how distant it is from the Palace and how many cities you've got). Unless you've got a massive empire or cities settled on literally the other side of the world, the extra maintenance incurred from growing an extra pop is going to be covered by that pop working a Citizen and building Wealth. Probably several times over. And this is doubly true for your capitol, since your capitol's Distance Maintenance will remain at 0 regardless, so the extra maintenance from growing it is effectively reduced. Hence why cottaging and growing your capitol, and later running Bureaucracy, is such a popular strategy.

In short it is cheaper to expand vertically, but it's better to expand horizontally. Think of horizontal expansion as an investment - it'll cost more now, but it'll pay back more later. Especially once you can expand your horizontal empire vertically.

 

[ArchGhost]

Every extra pop in a city does increase that city's maintenance cost, both in terms of Distance Maintenance and Numbers of Cities Maintenance, but it's dependant on the base maintenance cost of your city

Really? I thought population just increased your civic costs, which is why ORG leaders can expand a bit more with the same budget.

*test*
Holy cow, yeah it does. Crazy how I could just never look at it for like 3 years

 

[AcaMetis]

Yep. I also did some more testing (on a Deity save, for reference): Every pop beyond the first seems to add 1/8th of a city's base Distance Maintenance to it's DM cost - a city with 8 Distance Maintenance at pop 1 will cost 9 DM at pop 2, 10 DM at pop 3, etc. The Numbers of Cities maintenance does not increase using the same factor and does not increase linearly with pop growth as Distance Maintenance does. But it does increase with every pop beyond the first, and of course with every city added to your empire, up to it's difficulty-based hard cap (5 per city on Noble, 8 per city on Deity). Hitting that cap will not influence how your city growth impacts it's Distance Maintenance cost, so hitting the NoC maintenance cap effectively makes every city your capitol in terms of cheaper growth, since it's NoC maintenance doesn't increase.

Of course it takes 30-odd cities to reach that cap on Deity, and if you've got that many cities than city maintenance is probably the least of your worries. Oh, and for reference, Courthouses don't do anything fancy in terms of city growth affecting it's maintenance cost. it just takes the calculated cost and cuts it in half (or a fourth, if you've got Rathauses).

 

[krikav]

It's one of the reasons why it isn't always a no-brainer to just build a gazzilion of warriors in every city with HR in isolation.
Partly each new pop does increase your maintenence, and partly the unit cost maintenence.

 

[Anysense]

Is there a way to choose great people to start a GA or is it completely random? I thought that simply selecting the ones you want to use is good enough but

Spoiler :

Whoops, looks like I need another 100% GE for Mining inc.

That was duel size map, that is not a big deal, and I managed to get that GE just in time, but I'd rather not repeat this mistake in a game that has already taken 18 hours.

 

[Deckhand]

Is there a way to choose great people to start a GA or is it completely random? I thought that simply selecting the ones you want to use is good enough but ...

It ought to work the way you would expect. I'd call that a bug. [Maybe it will be fixed in version 3.20 ]
What I do (after experiencing the "feature" you encountered) is to stack the great people I want to use by themselves. It seems to work when no other GP are in the same stack.

 

[ArchGhost]

Is there a way to choose great people to start a GA or is it completely random? I thought that simply selecting the ones you want to use is good enough but

Unstack the ones you don't want used up and move them away.

Same deal with selecting units for GG promos, if you want a super-medic, make sure only one unit is on the tile with the GG.

 

[lymond]

Ha..this reminds me of when I blundered a used the wrong great people for a golden age years ago in an SGOTM game. They have never forgiven me

Yep, separate the great people you want to use from the group and move them to a separate tile. Only way to be certain you use the right ones.

 

[rah]

I keep all mine in one city then move the ones I want to use out of the city and select them.
Once I forgot to move them out and I had enough GPS for 3 GAs and it triggered all 3 in a row. DOH.

 

[Deathcrush]

I've just two very impressive and fast domination victories on prince. is it time to move on to monarch ...I dont know really- i feel very confident when i play with CRE leader... but i am not so sure for the others.
What do you guys think ?

 

[AcaMetis]

Personally I'd recommend staying on Prince (or whatever difficulty you seem comfortable with) until you're comfortable winning with random leaders, against random opponents, on "random" maps. As in, maps that don't all allow you to use the same strategies every single time, at least not without some kind of trickery. Being able to Cuirs rush is great, but can you get the tech quickly enough as Toku? Or if you lack Horse, can you use diplo shenanigans to get some, or switch gears and do Cannons instead? Stuff like that.

No need to win a map with every leader, or course, just play a few rounds and see if you're comfortable with using whatever tools the RNG deigns to give you. And not give you.

 

[Deathcrush]

Yeah i was thinking the same .
I play almost always Pangea, i dont like naval wars and that's why I dont like water maps like fractal or continents and such. I didn't play as Toku too.
As for the diplo i manage it but not with all of them. I think it's impossible to be friends with everybody. But i usually have one or two at pleased or friendly.

 

[AcaMetis]

Maintaining good relations with everyone is indeed impossible, most of the time. Keep a close eye on the diplo situation and who you can bribe into war, as well as who might get bribed in turn. I've had at least one situation where bribing one AI onto someone who was plotting on me escalated into a full-blown world war. Except for me, of course .

 

[Deathcrush]

Guys, I am pretty sure i saw the answer to my question some time ago I think there was even a tread about it but i can't remember and can't find it!
So the question is - > what is the keyboard command for selecting the healthy guys in a stack and leaving only the wounded ones behind ?

 

[lymond]

Yep, there was a thread not so long ago that brought it to folks' attention, including myself. I was using it some but can't remember exactly at the moment. I think if you have a full stack selected (by whatever means), you use Alt+H - or maybe ctl+h - to weed out the wounded.

 

[Deathcrush]

That's it!
it's CTRL+H - nice !