Condensed tips for beginners?

[Ronojoy1917]

jaiko, just wanted to point out that on the coast its +2 commerce rather than 'money' or 'gold'. Likewise with the river tiles its +1 commerce. I find this is very confusing sometimes, but it only becomes gold after it goes through the slider, so if you are running 100% science, than you won't be making any gold from it. I'm sure you know this, but just wanted to clear it up. Well that's an uber early rush, I usually wait till I have axes, but thats an interesting strategy.

 

[yanner39]

I have read in a number of threads as well as articles where the authors make a big deal about being the first Civ to get to Liberalism and I was just wondering why it seems like it's an important tech to research.

I understand the benefits in the terms of that in enables Free religion and free speech which brings a number of benefits to your Civ.

Does reaching it first show that you Civ is more advanced than others?

It just seems that Liberalism is no more important that say Astronomy or Democracy, etc...

 

[henrebotha]

What, didn't you know you get a free technology from it?

The first civ to research Liberalism gets to choose a free technology from among those they would be able to research.

Therefore, if you want (for instance) Astronomy, it often makes much more sense to research Liberalism instead, and choosing Astronomy as your free tech - thereby you get Astronomy plus the benefits of Liberalism.

Lib and its prerequisites are also great trade fodder.

The other advantage of nabbing a free tech with Lib is that you can basically get free beakers this way - Astronomy, for instance, is much more expensive than Liberalism.

 

[yanner39]

What, didn't you know you get a free technology from it?

The first civ to research Liberalism gets to choose a free technology from among those they would be able to research.

Therefore, if you want (for instance) Astronomy, it often makes much more sense to research Liberalism instead, and choosing Astronomy as your free tech - thereby you get Astronomy plus the benefits of Liberalism.

Lib and its prerequisites are also great trade fodder.

The other advantage of nabbing a free tech with Lib is that you can basically get free beakers this way - Astronomy, for instance, is much more expensive than Liberalism.

Oh yeah, that's right. I knew that actually. I just thought there was some sot of milestone reached or something.

Is it worth beelining to liberalism to get the free tech (I know, I know, it depends ) I read this a number of times I would not want to ignore a few techs simply to get Lib. Also, would it be accurate to use the free tech on the most expensive one?

 

[Sisiutil]

Is it worth beelining to liberalism to get the free tech (I know, I know, it depends ) I read this a number of times I would not want to ignore a few techs simply to get Lib. Also, would it be accurate to use the free tech on the most expensive one?

Usually a bee-line to liberalism is worth it, yes, but not always. Techs get more expensive as the game progresses, so getting a mid-game tech along the way for free can be very advantageous. The techs along the way are mostly worthwhile as well. They are Philosophy, Paper, and Education. (If you can generate enough Great Scientists quickly enough, you can use them to lightbulb the first two and most of the third one while you research other techs on your own.)

Philosophy is, in my books, the weakest of the three. It enables the Pacifism civic, which may be worthwhile if you're running a specialist economy; the Angkor Wat world wonder, if you have built several temples and would benefit from running priest specialists; and you found Taoism.

Paper enables the trading of world maps. This could allow you to win the circumnavigation race without having to do all the exploring yourself. In addition, selling your world map for gold a few times over can bring in a good amount of cash. You can also build the University of Sankore--handy if you've built several religious buildings. It also opens up access to Printing Press.

Education enables universities and Oxford, buildings which will boost your research. Besides opening up access to Liberalism, it also opens up Economics (free Great Merchant) and Gunpowder (though Guilds does that as well).

Finally, once you have Scientific Method, Liberalism is a pre-requisite for Communism, which enables the State Property civic (invaluable if you have a large empire), the Kremlin world wonder, intelligence agencies, and the first one to research it gets a free Great Spy.

As henrebotha mentioned, all the Liberalism-path techs are excellent for trading, especially because the AI doesn't tend to prioritize them as much as other techs. So you can use them to back-fill techs you've missed. Just don't go trading them away too soon after you get them, otherwise the liberalism race will suddenly look more accessible and attractive to the AI. I usually don't trade away any liberalism techs until I have the next one on the path.

As for which tech to choose for free--choose whichever one will provide you with the most benefit in your situation. Astronomy, for example, is probably the most common Liberalism tech choice because of its expense. However, if you're playing on a Pangaea map, Astronomy's benefits are considerably reduced and you may want to select something different. Nationalism is another popular choice as it allows you to get a head start on the Taj Mahal. If you have a significant lead in the Liberalism race, you may even want to research Liberalism to within one turn of finishing then research other techs to open up something even more advanced like Chemistry.

 

[yanner39]

Thanks to both of you, henrebotha and Sisiutil.

Just to clarify, the free tech can be any tech, even if you don't have the prerequisite techs, ie: I could get Astronomy as my free tech, even if I haven't research Optics?

I've just started dabbling in Tech trading. It's amazing that will the little tech trading I have done how it has improved my game - I never really tech traded before. I'm starting to make sense of what I can/should trade and when.

 

[adrianj]

Thanks to both of you, henrebotha and Sisiutil.

Just to clarify, the free tech can be any tech, even if you don't have the prerequisite techs, ie: I could get Astronomy as my free tech, even if I haven't research Optics?

I've just started dabbling in Tech trading. It's amazing that will the little tech trading I have done how it has improved my game - I never really tech traded before. I'm starting to make sense of what I can/should trade and when.

Tech trading is very powerful, great to hear you are using it

For your free Liberalism tech, you certainly do need the prerequisites for the tech, so no you could not take Astronomy without knowing Optics. But combine it with your tech trading and you could pick up a lot of valuable prerequisites and then still get Astronomy.

What Sisutil described for taking something more expensive like Chemistry is very common. If you have a good head start on the AI for getting Liberalism first you can purposely delay completing Liberalism so that you can further advance up the tech tree. Only once your head start is threatened (eg, someone has completed Education) or you have the prereqs for something valuable (eg, Gunpowder+Engineering for Chemistry) do you complete Liberalism.

 

[yanner39]

Tech trading is very powerful, great to hear you are using it

For your free Liberalism tech, you certainly do need the prerequisites for the tech, so no you could not take Astronomy without knowing Optics. But combine it with your tech trading and you could pick up a lot of valuable prerequisites and then still get Astronomy.

What Sisutil described for taking something more expensive like Chemistry is very common. If you have a good head start on the AI for getting Liberalism first you can purposely delay completing Liberalism so that you can further advance up the tech tree. Only once your head start is threatened (eg, someone has completed Education) or you have the prereqs for something valuable (eg, Gunpowder+Engineering for Chemistry) do you complete Liberalism.

Good advice. Thanks for this.

 

[ljupcecar]

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.

best tip in this forum

 

[dalamb]

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. =]

This post is from 2005; I don't think this is true anymore. I've looked at doing this in BtS 3.17, and was only able to give away cities that were "close" to the AI. Likely had something to do with needing the AI's culture on the tile; I suspect somebody decided to fix an exploit.

 

[yanner39]

Question about diplomacy and tech position:

What is the best way to see how you rank in terms of tech advancement versus other techs? Is it a question of simply pressing F4, looking at what the other techs can research at that point in time and comparing with with what my Civ is researching? How do I know who's ahead in the tech race?

Also, where do I click to find out which era I am in during the game?

 

[DMOC]

The era in the game doesn't really matter, and I don't know how to find out because I use the BUG mod which automatically tells me the era.

Anyway, for who's the most technologically advanced, just check F4 and see which AI's have lots of techs that you don't have. An AI who has 10 techs you don't have at 1000 AD is probably more advanced than an AI who has no techs on you at 1000 AD. You can also use some "common sense knowledge" (as I like to say) and figure out that AI's with Electricity are more advanced than AI's with Printing Press as their most expensive tech.

 

[Sisiutil]

Question about diplomacy and tech position:

What is the best way to see how you rank in terms of tech advancement versus other techs? Is it a question of simply pressing F4, looking at what the other techs can research at that point in time and comparing with with what my Civ is researching? How do I know who's ahead in the tech race?

Also keep in mind that this is relative depending upon the situation in the game, especially your goals and strategy. Several other civs in mid-game, for example, may have a few techs on you like Constitution, Communism, Divine Right, etc. However, you may have Rifling and Steel and be preparing to launch an industrial-era war against an opponent with the aforementioned techs but whose cities are defended by Longbows and a few Muskets.

Ask your opponent who's more advanced when all his cities are either in your hands or smoldering ruins.

 

[Gudinsdiv]

Question about diplomacy and tech position:

What is the best way to see how you rank in terms of tech advancement versus other techs? Is it a question of simply pressing F4, looking at what the other techs can research at that point in time and comparing with with what my Civ is researching? How do I know who's ahead in the tech race?

Also, where do I click to find out which era I am in during the game?

If you store-bought vanilla Civ and still have the fold-out, it will show you which techs are in which era on a color-coded tech tree.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Also, where do I click to find out which era I am in during the game?

I think AIs get increased bonus with later era... but it's so small you won't notice it .
Check out the tech tree to find out which era you are (I think the regular game tells you when you change of era)

 

[mystyfly]

If you use the BUG mod you have it written on the upper part of the GUI.

 

[yanner39]

I am currently in the year 1913 in a Warlord game. I am doing very well and presently at war with Shaka, mostly a defensive war. There is no War weainess.

In one of my cities, I am healthy and happy (+2 or +3 for both). However, my city is producing negative food. Why is that? Nothing has changed in terms of my improvements. Is it possible to grow to a level and then not being able to sustain it?

I must admit that during this time of war, I have neglected to properly check my cities (part of the learning process I guess) but I can't see why I have a food deficit. All my tiles have circles, I am running some specialists. Even if I remove the specialists, there are no other tiles to work.

I would just hate to remove my towns for farms. This city is my wealth city. What happens if I just leave as is?

Any thoughts?

 

[dalamb]

If you are working all your tiles and have +1 food, your city will grow again when your food bar fills up. However, the new population will require 2 more food -- net -1 -- so your food bar will shrink until 0, at which point you will lose 1 population. I usually have to freeze city growth before that because of health or happiness, but it has happened to me sometimes when it's late-game and I'm not watching my cities closely enough.

Some mods -- anything containing Civ4lerts, I think -- will warn you when a city is about to grow, but as I've mentioned, it's easy to lose track late in the game.

 

[adrianj]

I am currently in the year 1913 in a Warlord game. I am doing very well and presently at war with Shaka, mostly a defensive war. There is no War weainess.

In one of my cities, I am healthy and happy (+2 or +3 for both). However, my city is producing negative food. Why is that? Nothing has changed in terms of my improvements. Is it possible to grow to a level and then not being able to sustain it?

I must admit that during this time of war, I have neglected to properly check my cities (part of the learning process I guess) but I can't see why I have a food deficit. All my tiles have circles, I am running some specialists. Even if I remove the specialists, there are no other tiles to work.

I would just hate to remove my towns for farms. This city is my wealth city. What happens if I just leave as is?

Any thoughts?

About the tiles having circles - are they red circles? And you say you are fighting a mostly defensive war. Are there enemy units actually in your territory?

Any tile that an enemy unit is standing on cannot be worked by your citizens. Once the enemy unit moves onto the tile the citizen is automatically reassigned somewhere else - and to be a specialist if there is no room anywhere else.

In this situation it is important to keep checking back at your cities (something I also often forget to do in the later part of the game) to make sure that when that enemy unit has been removed the citizen goes back where it should.

 

[yanner39]

Map sizes - are they related to difficulty? What I mean is, is playing a huge map for more advance players or is it more difficult? Is a smaller map more difficult because more Civs are crammed into a smaller space? Why would a player play a huge map as opposed to a smaller or standard size map?