Condensed tips for beginners?
- Thread starter Roger_Mellie
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Terrance888
Discord Reigns
Esp when the crush your Classical Army...
URSExelcior
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2007
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Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
see the elephants rape them...
Demands will give you a 10 turn peace treaty with said civ. So if you are going to attack someone, you can ask or demand from the civs (10 gold) that you fear will come to their aid and have them off your back for 10 turns..
This worked in my last game I was going to attack the Vikes to my west, but had China and Mongals to the north. I was pleased with all said civs, so I asked China and Mongals if they could each spare 10 gold and they did, so I was able to have one front for ten turns, and by then the war was over.
Is this an exploit or not?
This worked in my last game I was going to attack the Vikes to my west, but had China and Mongals to the north. I was pleased with all said civs, so I asked China and Mongals if they could each spare 10 gold and they did, so I was able to have one front for ten turns, and by then the war was over.
Is this an exploit or not?
If diplomacy didn't factor into this game it would be an abuse of game mechanics. But to me it sounds like its just playing smart.
Hey everyone, I just discovered this amazing game... it's so detailed !! Which seems to be the key problem, because there is just so much to learn.
I play on the chieftan difficulty and everything is pretty chilled. I usually build my cities without any fear of invasion, my civ score is usually considerablly higher than the others and I can just bully everyone into giving me gold.
After a while I'll build up an army with a few siege weapons thrown in and just zerg the whole countryside destroying everyone in my path. Seems pretty mundane and easy, I want to step up and try a harder game, but before progressing, I'm trying to get a firm understanding of the key principles of civ4. Each game I play, I find myself discovering more and more about the game.
However, the one concept I can't get my head around is city specialisation... I've read the various guides on it located in the 'Civ4 War Academy'... but when it comes to putting it into practice, i never know when and what to do.
When is the best time to spec a city???
I've been focusing all my cities on growth with the intention to later spec them. Reasoning is that all cities, no matter what spec, need population!
In the end, all the cities just end up the same overcrowded places without any particular specs.
I play on the chieftan difficulty and everything is pretty chilled. I usually build my cities without any fear of invasion, my civ score is usually considerablly higher than the others and I can just bully everyone into giving me gold.
After a while I'll build up an army with a few siege weapons thrown in and just zerg the whole countryside destroying everyone in my path. Seems pretty mundane and easy, I want to step up and try a harder game, but before progressing, I'm trying to get a firm understanding of the key principles of civ4. Each game I play, I find myself discovering more and more about the game.
However, the one concept I can't get my head around is city specialisation... I've read the various guides on it located in the 'Civ4 War Academy'... but when it comes to putting it into practice, i never know when and what to do.
When is the best time to spec a city???
I've been focusing all my cities on growth with the intention to later spec them. Reasoning is that all cities, no matter what spec, need population!
In the end, all the cities just end up the same overcrowded places without any particular specs.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
If that is the way yyou play, go for alexander. His Phil will get the most from your Specialise Eco (use the farms I am sure you are doing and assing specialists!) and Aggressive so all your Swords you are using with your Cats are 7.2 attacking citys and all your Maces 9.6 attacking cities!
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
In the early game, you can't really specialize; your production, building options, and population are both limited, and your few cities need to generalize. Specialization, as you sense, comes later.
What you can do in the early game is start planning for specialization. Decide which city (or city site, if you haven't founded or captured it yet) will be your science city, which one your commerce city, GP farm, military city, etc. I primarily base this on the terrain and especially resources. GP farms need food, military cities need production, etc.
As the game progresses, then, your specialization goals will begin to guide your decisions about what to build in each city and how to improve its surrounding tiles.
"Okay, this is going to be my science city. I want to build the Great Library here, which means I need to build a Library soon, so it's in place before I finish researching Literature..."
"This is going to be my GP farm, so I'm going to farm these grassland riverside tiles rather than putting cottages on them..."
Thanks for the replies guys.
So city speccing is more about end game sustainability????
Another thing I have only recently noticed is that tile improvements are never consistant. At first, when i was just spamming farms and cottages, the yield +/- was easy to understand. But then with the introduction of windmills/workshops the yield values differed from tile to tile.
Theres just so much to learn about this game, recently discovered the espionage screen too which has been a bit of fun.
So city speccing is more about end game sustainability????
Another thing I have only recently noticed is that tile improvements are never consistant. At first, when i was just spamming farms and cottages, the yield +/- was easy to understand. But then with the introduction of windmills/workshops the yield values differed from tile to tile.
Theres just so much to learn about this game, recently discovered the espionage screen too which has been a bit of fun.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Absolutely not. It's more about gaining a mid-game advantage. In most of my games, by the late game (if I get that far) I've pretty much won. I just have to go through the paces and try to do it as quickly as possible. This is almost always because my specialized cities starting taking off right around the mid-game.
Usually the acquisition of Monarchy and running Hereditary Rule marks the transition point for me into specialized cities, because it allows me to grow my cities beyond their initial (very low) happiness caps. Right around that same time I also probably have a state religion, a decent-sized collection of Workers, access to Calendar resources, and Metal Casting to build forges. Forges give me +1
for every precious metal and they accelerate the build of other buildings required for happiness and for specialization. All of this means my cities are able to support a larger population without exceeding the happy cap, and that means they can begin to specialize by working certain tiles and/or running certain specialists. I find Organized Religion very useful as well for its production boost, as well as the ability to easily produce missionaries to spread my state religion. As I start the mid-game, I'm usually behind the AI in terms of score, power, techs, etc. By the time the end game is just getting started--say around the time I move from the medieval to the renaissance era--I'm usually ahead of the AI in several categories, or nipping at its heels.
Just as I think that I have a slight grasp on this concept.... it goes all confusing again From my current game, I have come to really appreciate the importance of GPs, I got sent my first Great Merchant off to some far away capital city, and ended up with a massive 5k bonus to my treasury!!
Now, I understand that one of the benefits of city spec, is that you lower overall maintenance costs by not building unnecessary buildings in each city.
But!! What i have experienced is that I always end up building the same buildings to accomodate the cities growth or the requirement of wonders. ie: oxford university requires 6 universities, so in order to get that wonder I end up building libraries and universities in every town. Same with the globe theatre etc etc.
The forge is beneficial in every town since it increases production, same with the markets, aqueducts... all so confusing.
From my current game, I have come to really appreciate the importance of GPs, I got sent my first Great Merchant off to some far away capital city, and ended up with a massive 5k bonus to my treasury!!Now, I understand that one of the benefits of city spec, is that you lower overall maintenance costs by not building unnecessary buildings in each city.
But!! What i have experienced is that I always end up building the same buildings to accomodate the cities growth or the requirement of wonders. ie: oxford university requires 6 universities, so in order to get that wonder I end up building libraries and universities in every town. Same with the globe theatre etc etc.
The forge is beneficial in every town since it increases production, same with the markets, aqueducts... all so confusing.
JujuLautre
Deity
buildings do not increase maintenance, so this false.
Lot's of buildings are built in lot's of cities: forges, granaries, aqueducts... That is true.
The main questions for buildings should be:
- if I think a builing is interesting (market for happy faces, forge for production...), is it really that important?
Ex: I produce 10 beakers in that city; library is noit important
- if yes to the previous question, is any other build MORE important?
Ex: I am under attacked; even if building an aqueduc is important, building troops is more important
- if I need to build certain buildings somewhere (wonders, buildings for requirements (oxford, wall street, quests)), in which cities should I build them? THe best being to build them in cities which need them AND can build them, and otherwise, if I really need a specific building somewhere, like a university, which city can build it without too much handicaping its other tasks?
Ex: I need to build oxford, so I choose a city in which it will both be effective and buildable. I need a 6th bank but have only 5 commerce cities, so I choose one of my production city which produces a little bit of gold -> not too much time to build it + little benefit
Thanks juju, I think I understand this process a lot more now. However, since buildings don't increase maintenance costs ( btw what does increase maintenance ), why wouldn't you build all the buildings?? Is it good to train troops from no military cities, right now most of my production comes from the city i attatched my general to. I've made a few units from non military cities and they usually just get chewed up in their non upgraded state.
I'd like to thank everyone thats responded to my posts, I've gone back and read some tutorials again, and now that I have a little in game experience and some knowledge from what you have all told me. The tutorials make more sense.
JujuLautre
Deity
Usually because of my second rule: you need more important stuff
And also consider cottage-heavy cities,which have usually low production and thus have troubles building everything.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
As JujuLautre said, it's all about prioritizing. Specializing your cities helps you make decisions about what to build in them and how to improve their tiles, and especially in what order. Early in the game, with few cities, you may indeed have to build several things in each one, but as the game progresses, this is less true. You might build a library or perhaps even a university in your military city, but would you build a bank there? Unlikely--or, rather, it's a lower priority than another unit, or a stable or a drydocks.
Also remember that you can only build two national wonders in each city. City specialization also helps you make proper decisions about those. You wouldn't, for example, combine the Heroic Epic with the Hermitage; one is for military, the other is for culture. HE and West Point, however, is a popular combination; so is HE and the Red Cross or the Ironworks. Oxford and the National Epic is another popular NW combo if you're mainly trying to generate great scientists.
On maintenance: Two things increase city maintenance costs--population and distance from the capital. In BtS, cities on a separate land mass from your capital incur additional "colony" expenses, especially as the number of cities increases.
As for training your troops, try to only build units in cities with barracks so they'll at least have one promotion and be relatively close to their second one. Also check the odds before each battle and use the unit with the best chance of winning.
Learning more and more, which is great. In the city screen I discovered the commerce, culture and science output (top left area). Finally taking those into consideration, I can understand why certain buildings would be a low priority compared to others, like the example you gave Sisiutil (bank in the military/production city)
I think I need to step up the difficulty, so I'm forced to make good choices with my production queue. I'm playing chieftan now and I'm basically a kid in a candy store. Just running around taking what i want, when i want.
Thanks again for the responses, I appreciate them.
I think I need to step up the difficulty, so I'm forced to make good choices with my production queue. I'm playing chieftan now and I'm basically a kid in a candy store. Just running around taking what i want, when i want.
Thanks again for the responses, I appreciate them.
JujuLautre
Deity
only the general; prefer to get him morale for extra movement.
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