Condensed tips for beginners?

mabellino said:
You can "pop rush" production only when you have the "slavery" civic operational. Go to the City screen (double click on the city) and look at the bottom just above where you can emphasise production/gold/food etc.
There are 2 larger buttons that look like a big hammer, the one on the left is the "pop rush" (red vertical arrow)button.
For those who are unaware of the terminology, pop rushing is where you sacrifice citizens to build an improvement/unit a bit faster. It causes increased unhappiness for 10 turns after.
(building on that) (bolded for clarity)
Slave rushing works best when you can increase your population quickly on two food squares. Don't worry about population recovery as you can recover faster with a small population that has a smaller food requirement, than a larger population that ends up covering one food squares.
Every turn you use it increases another ten turns of anger.
 
nice thread.

Only playing first game.

A few quick questions.

1) You don't put a cottage on a camp right, mutually exclusive.
2) When you have a missionary go to a foreign city, I thought you could "see" in the city.
3) My biggest issue with the game, versus CIVII, big fan of that one, is I can't tell what happens with food and shields. I move the squares around and food growth doesn't pop up. I had a city and it had no growth when I would move to a 2 food square from a 1, it would NOT show food growth. I know I need to read the manual, but the interface is good, I just don't get the city screen, yet.

thanks
 
1. Improvements will override the other.
2. Only if they converted and you have made it state religion.
3. Workers and settlers eat all your food and stops growth.
 
Also you should check that you don't have specialists citizens eating your food (on the right-hand side of the city screen, all those little portraits eat food when you enable them)

Other tips:

Naval forces:
If you have built fishing boats or clamboats or any other searesource to sustain a city, try to build a few galley's early on to protect your coast and resources. Searesources are one of the first things being attacked when someone declares war on you. Galleys (or later naval units) may allow you to destroy units before the ever reach your shore.

Economy:
Don't neglect it. You can save your skin by lowering the science, but you should have an early plan to boost your income (some kind of masterplan). Cottages help a great deal, build them often (and don't let the enemy destroy them)! Courthouses reduce costs as well. You should open borders with as many other leaders as you can ONCE you filled your area with cities and there's nowhere left to build one. Open borders gives you better trade routes. You can also try to found a religion and build a shrine with your first great prophet, but you'll have to build missionaries to convert your cities as well as others'.

Build enough cities, but not too much:
Like the title says. Don't neglect building enough cities in the early stage. Don't go crazy on granaries, libraries or temples before you have a few settlers out and founded your first cities. Try hard to build every city near at least one special resource. Tiles that say 'fresh water' will provide you 2 extra health. Also, rivers act like trade routes: two cities on a river share their resources - so it helps to build your second city on the same river as your first, as you don't have to wait to discover the wheel and build roads to connect them. Resources around that river don't even need roads to be connected! You can also just build roads towards the river instead of all the way back to your capital! This can save you a lot of turns with your workers. Lastly, use workers to chop down forrests to finish building things faster (you'll need bronze working). If you're surrounded by jungle, build more workers than usual and start clearing jungle like it was the plague. Jungles should be cleared ASAP.
 
Protect your cities well against Barbarians. If you lose one city to them, they will gain much more power than they already had, causing more problems.
 
anton_z1 said:
1) Start your game.
2) Save your game.
3) Explore the game around you.
4) Get bronze working to know where copper is.
5) With all this info, load the save you made before, then play to end without reloading.

Early exploration helps you to know quickly what kind of game you want to play without investing too much of your time.

:eek: That's cheating in my books.
 
Injuries affect a unit's combat readiness quadratically: a 50% strength unit is fighting at both half health and deals half damage per turn. The displayed combat odds in game do NOT take health into account, only comparing strength ratings, so be wary of injured units! A 5/10 strength Knight attacking a 5/5 strength Axeman has less than a 25% chance of success.

You can set city rally points by selecting the cities and Shift + Right-clicking on the tile you want troops to go to. To select multiple cities, hold down Shift and left-click the city names.

An enemy ship prevents the city from working any tiles on, or in the 8 tiles adjacent to, the ship. Currently it doesn't block trade routes or negate the bonuses from a Harbor in the city though, which will hopefully be added.

Ships can also destroy the improvement required to access a sea-based resource, cutting off access to that resource until a work boat can rebuild the improvement.
 
anton_z1 said:
1) Start your game.
2) Save your game.
3) Explore the game around you.
4) Get bronze working to know where copper is.
5) With all this info, load the save you made before, then play to end without reloading.

Early exploration helps you to know quickly what kind of game you want to play without investing too much of your time.

Drakan said:
:eek: That's cheating in my books.

And it's too much work. Just turn on the worldbuilder and snoop, if that's your thing.
 
Some of these have been touched on in one form or another but I'd though I'd my 2 cents.

1. Do not neglect your military early on in the game, especially when you're expanding. You could get a way with only having one unit in a city, or sometimes none, in Civ 3 but not in Civ 4. Try and have at least two units in your border cities. Also, try and keep at least one unit outside your cultural borders, preferably on a hill with a forest or jungle. This serves a number of purposes. One, it takes away the barbarian breeding fog of war. Two, it enables you to potentially deal with barbarians before they can enter your borders and it can also delay the barbs enough for you to get an extra unit into your city. It can also stop the barbs from pillaging your hard worked for, and sometimes critical improvements. TAKE THE EXTRA TURNS TO BUILD AN EXTRA MILITARY UNIT. Always escort your settlers with a military unit. Two if you can spare them. But make sure that you keep an eye on your economy to make sure you're not losing too much money with all these units moving around. Shuffle defending units around to appropriate border cities if you find yourself in that position.

2. Try and be the first to circumvate the globe. I always neglected ship building and found opposing civs accomplishing this task before I do. I happened to stumble across it by accident and it can be a great help. +1 movement to ships can be a great benefit, especially early in the game when ship movement is rather limited. You also don't need one ship to do this by itself. I FOUND BY ACCIDENT THAT IF YOU SEND TWO SHIPS IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS, IF YOUR'E ABLE, THEY CAN CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE GLOBE TOGETHER.
 
Here's a table of all the major improvements and the final benefits they can provide.




Lumbermills also provide +1 happiness per tile (compared to having a different improvement on that tile) while under the Environmentalism civic, once that civic is fixed to actually be useful. The ability to replant forests would certainly be an option...they'd be the best source of production in late game.

Windmills, Watermills, and Towns also receive +1 commerce with a Financial leader.
 
always always remember to open the tech advisor screen and start your research on turn 0. if you wait, you've wasted a turn of research!
 
That applied in Civ3... in Civ4, it won't let you end a turn without having first set a tech to research.
 
Marquez said:
I FOUND BY ACCIDENT THAT IF YOU SEND TWO SHIPS IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS, IF YOUR'E ABLE, THEY CAN CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE GLOBE TOGETHER.

I've done this without having a boat leave my territorial waters. I achieved "circumnavigation" by trading maps! All you need is a World Map - however you may come by it - that reveals one tile in each "longitude".

I guess that makes it possible to get the bonus without ever building a single ship or boat.
 
Hit submit by mistake, edit erased everything I added. Will try and remember everything here.

First off. Eldar, that is a great discovery! Maybe now I won't be so hesitant to trade maps early in the game. Will definately save some time too. Thanks.

Here's the rest of what I could think of. A lot of it will seem 'duh' to experienced players. BUt this is a beginner's tips thread.

3. ALWAYS NEGOTIATE TRADE OFFERS. When a civ comes to you offering a trade ALWAYS click the negotiate option. Clear the table and then select what he was asking for. Then click on the "what will you offer for this" option. The requesting civ will often offer more than what they had originally offered. This is often worthless with open borders offers however.

Also, don't be afraid to switch up potential offers. If you want another tech, the civs can sometimes be persuaded to give it to you.

4. Maintain good relations with your neighbors. Don't be afraid to give in to a demand early in the game. Refusing a demand can often lead to sour relations and eventually war. Finding yourself in the middle of a war you're not prepared for can be a real pain. Especially when it could have been avoided by simply handing over a tech.

This next point is obvious to those that have played the game but for newcomers it may save a headache or two. If a civ cancels it's open borders with you it is very likely (though not always) a prelude to war. When a civ cancels it's open borders with you, immediately begin transferring military assets to your border with that civ. Also, the civs are a bit more sneaky this time around. Don't be surprised to see an enemy ship dropping off some units somewhere away from the border. Keep a group of units handy to respond to such excursions.

5. Don't freak out if you don't found a religion. Sure, you might miss out on some cash but you can still command a dominant empire. Not founding a religion enables you to be more flexible. You can convert religions at will without the worry of how that will affect your income. You can also convert to a religion that can help relations with your neighbors. Which neighbor's religion to convert to depends on a number of factors. This includes the proximity of them compared to you, their military strength, leadership tendencies (Genghis vs. Asoka for example) and generally their overall power. Religious differences are often the major factor between good relations and all out war.

Also, you can even go the way of not converting to any religion at all. Although you won’t get any bonuses from having the same religion as another civ but you also get the benefit of no penalties with other civs that would have a different religion.

6. Don't be afraid to trade the one tech you have that no one else does. I have often found that I can get even in the tech race (usually after a prolonged war) by going from civ to civ and shopping around for all the techs I don't have. This can be extremely effective in getting back in the tech race. I have even researched especially hard techs just for this purpose. Spending a number of extra turns going to an unresearched tech can save me the number of turns it can take to research 5 others by themselves. I have found that Medicine is a prime example of this. It seems to me that this tech is usually not on the top of many civs research list. Of course this all depends on what the 'one' tech you have is. Military Tradition is usually one tech I keep to myself early in the game.

7. Siege Units. This point has been stated many times in these forums but I believe it is important enough to restate. Siege units are usually EXTREMELY important in combat. This is a point I found out the hard way. You will need to knock down the cities defenses before attempting to take it. You can try without but you will most likely lose way too many units than you planned for. Move them in with your army and take down the cities defenses. It will probably take a number of turns but it is worth it. After that, attack the city with your siege units for collateral damage. These siege units will almost always die as a result. You don't have to use all of them. When you're satisfied that the units defending the city are weakened enough, move in with your city attackers. Because your siege units will most likely get destroyed it is very important that you have cities devoted to their production. Depending on how many cities you want to take you will still need quite a number of siege units. If I have six cities building attacking units I will usually have at least 2 other building siege units. You can tailor this depending on the proximity of the siege unit building cities production and proximity to the front (siege units are slow moving).

Also, one tip that is heavily used by war mongering specialists is to check the odds of battle before attacking. There are so many battle modifiers that it can be a bit difficult to keep up with what is going on. When you're about to attack, use the go to mode with the right mouse button and hover the final destination over enemy unit. Look in the bottom left of the screen and you will see the odds of the potential battle. You are green and the enemy is red. It also includes the modifiers for each unit and may help you in choosing if to attack the unit then or wait until they move to more favorable ground.

If you're attacking a stack, the computer shows the odds of the best defensive unit for the unit you are asking to attack. I have found this to be an invaluable tool when fighting battles. I believe there is a way to do this with the keyboard but I don't know it right now.

Well, this is all I can remember from what I wrote before. If you are absolutely new to civ this should help a little. Also, don't be afraid if you don't do as well as you hoped the first couple of games. Before long you willing be ruling over an empire that will stand the test of time. Good Luck!!
 
Pragmatic said:
Before you put someone down for cheating, ask them two questions: (1) Did you purchase the game, instead of pirating it? (2) Are you cheating in single player, and never in multiplayer?

If they answer "yes" to both of those questions, it's none of your business how they play the game, and trying to drive fellow purchasing gamers away from a game you love is self-defeating.

They may not be as good as you at the game, but dagnabbit, their purchase makes it possible for the manufacturer to produce the game, and gives the manufacturer reason to produce expansion packs and sequels.

You do not get it Pragmatic.

First of all cheating does not belong in these threads. Cheating is hardly a strategy.

Second, this is a beginners thread and cheating from the start is a sure way to never get past Noble.

Third, most people frown upon reloading on this site and it is good for the newbies to know up front the feelings of the posters.

Fourth, I doubt anyone who has to cheat to win will end up being a Civ lifer like myself and most on these boards.

PS. To all players new to the Civ series. Do not CHEAT. Read the manual, watch Sid's tutorial, read strategy on civ fanatics and read up on GOTM's. You will become a better player much faster than cheating.
 
I have a few tips that i've accrued by reading a bunch of stuff on the forums. Here's the top 10 list in no particular order. comments will be appreciated.

1. Chop rush.
2. When chop rushing your first settler, build a warrior for the few turns it takes to clear the forest, then right when the forest is about to be cleared, change the production back to settler. Once settler gets the hammers, switch back to warrior. Repeat. This will allow your city to grow while you chop your settler.
3. Always micromanage your workers to start the game. Start with hooking up your civ to the important resources (like stone) and then build cottages.
4. Gift garbage cities (like ones in the middle of a desert: can be ones captured or ones created) to powerful civs far away to destroy their econmy with maintanence costs. You can also try gifting new cities in the middle of your empire that will be overcome by your culture and revert to your control. The bonus of the actual gifting is still there. =]
5. Know which techs give benefits to the ones that find them first (ie: Music? gives free artist and Code of Laws founds Confucianism)
6. Keep important wonders away from edge cities.
7. Know your starting civ and how to best play their strengths/weaknesses.
8. Find and spread your religion. If you miss out on the finding of a religion, take over a founding city and spread your religion. This has both huge economic and huge diplomatic benefits.
9. Avoid open borders if you have a weak and puny military.
10. Win.
 
9. Avoid open borders if you have a weak and puny military.

Have you been reading the Civ3 forums? There's no such thing as open border backstab in Civ4. You should sign every deal possible with stronger civs, to make them like you.
 
When invading an enemy country, have some fast units (horses), to pillage enemys special resources. Denying the enemy access to cobber, iron and horses can be a huge advantage early in the game. Works don't seem to come out and rebuild mines while your mounted archers are roaming nearby ;-)
 
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