Condensed tips for beginners?

[adrianj]

One guide you can use to decide how many cities is a good number: how many universities are required to build Oxford University? It changes with the map size - on a standard size map the number is 6.

In pretty much all of my games I want to build Oxford Uni in my best science city ASAP - this means having at least 6 (standard sized map) 'mature' cities by the time I learn Education.

Edit: Disclaimer - any piece of advice is only really relevant in the right context. If your aim is fast conquest, domination or even culture, who cares about Oxford?

 

[Sisiutil]

If I only have 6 cities by the time I research Education, I tend to think I'm doomed.

Even if I'm pursuing conquest or domination, I still care about Oxford. If you just focus on military, it's easy for a distant AI to zoom past you in techs and clobber you with Marines when you've still got nothing better than Muskets.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I play for Cultural victories. There comes a point in the game where you have to decide whether to plan for 6 cities or 9 cities. The people who always advise to beeline to Liberalism, then run Free Speech and the Culture slider at 100% with 3 cathedrals in the 3 cities targeted for 50K are basing the strategy on having 9 cities and access to at least 3 religions by the time they get to Liberalism.

Others say you can work it with 6 cities if you are super strong on science and can research all the way to Hollywood, Broadway, etc. buildings that boost you an extra 100% on culture rate. I usually combine that with Pacifism and a Defensive Pact with a strong military civ for late-game protection.

I am in an Emperor game now where I have a ton of land available. I have 9 cities and could built 3 more good ones, but I still have access to only one religion after I was first to discover Liberalism around 1200AD. I am in second place on points to Cyrus by 300. If I can stay in second place and trade enough stuff to my partner to bring him up the points ladder, I am thinking of a possible Diplomatic victory. That would be my first Diplo ever, but it is looking like my best option.

 

[AtriumComplex]

I'm making the switch from Noble to Prince and I've noticed a big flaw in my game. I was wondering if anyone could help me out out with some guidelines.

I don't put enough military pressure on my neighbors. I'll rush axes if I have a pushover close to me, but after that I tend to wait a long time until upgrading my army. My last game was particularly bad, because I had nothing but than axemen and a few longbowmen until I teched communism and rush-bought a kill stack of redcoats (playing elizabeth is crutch for me). In the meantime I was caught in 3 opportunist wars that hampered my tech advantage. I tend to avoid machinery because it messes up the GS-liberalism slingshot, but should I forgo that trick in order to build macemen? Is it better to smash and grab some land with macemen or merely try to keep the power ratio up to point where no one is likely to attack me?

Edit: Do you typically prefer a large siege stack or a espionage fueled revolt to bring down cultural defenses? I tried the revolt strategy, but it seemed like slowing down my tech just so I didn't have to build a dozen trebuchets was impractical.

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Siege... there's nothing better.

I am a noob, I've only won two games so far, but what I have noticed in my civ learning is a huge difference between when I was attacking with only units such as swords and when I brought 3-4 catapults along. The good part about siege isn't the culture defense weakening, that's great, sure, but the absolutely best part is the fact that by sacrificing 3 catapults on a city with 10 units in, 10 of your units can win the battles in the same turn, even at large differences between the initial strengths of your units and theirs, and usually with a good enough situation after the battle to go for another city fast.

Espionage looks fun, but... you really can't go wrong with siege.

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm making the switch from Noble to Prince and I've noticed a big flaw in my game. I was wondering if anyone could help me out out with some guidelines.

I don't put enough military pressure on my neighbors. I'll rush axes if I have a pushover close to me, but after that I tend to wait a long time until upgrading my army. My last game was particularly bad, because I had nothing but than axemen and a few longbowmen until I teched communism and rush-bought a kill stack of redcoats (playing elizabeth is crutch for me). In the meantime I was caught in 3 opportunist wars that hampered my tech advantage. I tend to avoid machinery because it messes up the GS-liberalism slingshot, but should I forgo that trick in order to build macemen? Is it better to smash and grab some land with macemen or merely try to keep the power ratio up to point where no one is likely to attack me?

Edit: Do you typically prefer a large siege stack or a espionage fueled revolt to bring down cultural defenses? I tried the revolt strategy, but it seemed like slowing down my tech just so I didn't have to build a dozen trebuchets was impractical.

As you move up the levels, you'll find that forgoing an essential tech like Machinery for the sake of being able to lightbulb Liberalism is less and less viable.

Machinery enables some essential technologies such as Optics (to meet and trade with other civs on a map with some form of continents), Engineering (for Pikemen, Trebuchets, and +1 movement on roads), and helpful units like Crossbows and essential ones like Macemen. Delaying it will simply hamper your game. You can still research/trade your way through the mid-game military/economic techs like Civil Service, Machinery, Engineering, and Guilds while relying on Great Scientists for the Liberalism pre-reqs (Philosophy, Paper, Education).

I usually indulge in a big mid-game medieval war fueled by Macemen, Pikemen, Knights, Longbows, and Trebuchets, with a few Xbows thrown in. Remember that Macemen can get City Raider promotions and can later be promoted to gunpowder units (like Riflemen or Grenadiers) which can only inherit CR promos.

Finally, I find accumulating early/mid-game espionage points is too costly (unless I build the Great Wall, pop a Great Spy, and settle him--even then, his effectiveness starts to run out by mid-game). I usually build a stack of about 8-10 accuracy-promoted Catapults to remove cultural defenses, and a big stack of Trebs to help with that and to do the collateral damage.

 

[duckstab]

Edit: Do you typically prefer a large siege stack or a espionage fueled revolt to bring down cultural defenses? I tried the revolt strategy, but it seemed like slowing down my tech just so I didn't have to build a dozen trebuchets was impractical.

Usually I go with spies. It's not just a question of being able to go to war with fewer units in the first place, but also how many of them you'd going to end up suiciding and the impact of the resultant war weariness. It's not a hard and fast rule however -- there are times when I'd rather have the beakers or cash.

 

[Mickin]

I find that once I switch to state property, I never switch out for the rest of the game. Even if I can found multiple good corporations or if I'm having massive health problems.

Do you ever switch to state property, makes lots of workshops/water mills and then switch out of it?

 

[Sisiutil]

I find that once I switch to state property, I never switch out for the rest of the game. Even if I can found multiple good corporations or if I'm having massive health problems.

Do you ever switch to state property, makes lots of workshops/water mills and then switch out of it?

I did once after I'd built the Cristo Redentor and a potential ally asked me to switch civics to Free Market. Yikes! All my best production cities went into starvation. I switched back ASAP. That's the thing about SP: if you switch to it an exploit it, it's nearly impossible to switch away.

 

[AtriumComplex]

Just a quick update on my military problem. I played a game where I kept a rather constant flow of military units and rarely stopped expanding/warring. I completed a diplomatic win nearly 100 turns (!) before my previous win date. Things are so much easier when you have a continent secured in the BCs and islands to expand to.

 

[Sisiutil]

Just a quick update on my military problem. I played a game where I kept a rather constant flow of military units and rarely stopped expanding/warring. I completed a diplomatic win nearly 100 turns (!) before my previous win date. Things are so much easier when you have a continent secured in the BCs and islands to expand to.

Like I've always said:

+ FTW!

 

[yanner39]

One more note on the diplomatic win strategy: You want to keep a strong enemy until the end: This works best if one of the top 2 civs does NOT have your same religion. You ideally want yourself to be civ#1, you want civ#2 to have a different religion, and civs #3 + to have YOUR religion. If you and the second place civ are friends, than YOUR FRIENDS also like THEM. This happened to me in a game where I tried this strategy. They got voted for a diplomatic victory (and not me) everyone liked them as much as me.

I posted this on the main board but I thought i'd try it here. You mention a #1 civ and #2 civ in terms of votes. You can I determine this beforehand? If I go to the demographs screen, I can see I'm 1st in population for example. How do I know who's second?

I've been caught a few times where i was good friends with the civ that ended up being number 2. Where do I look to see where I stand in terms of votes and who my chief rival would be. By knowing this, I could them properly design my diplo strategy.

 

[beest]

I just started playing civ4 (the vanilla version I believe), built an spy and I would like to destroy the production of the AI city. Their building the space elevator and I'm not very happy about that ;-) Anyway, I moved my spy to their city but the option of destroying the production is sort of not available (I can't press it..). Neither is any other option of espionage, can't steal anything, can't pillage etc. Tried declaring war but that didn't help.

This should be so obvious but it nothing works. So....what am I missing?

 

[dalamb]

Every espionage mission has an EP cost, and I think it does't show you an option in the spy's list of activities unless you have the points for it. Go to the screen, select the civ, and it should show you raw costs (which will be discounted if your spy doesn't move for a few turns).

Edit: that's for BtS, and you asked about vanilla. Oops.

 

[cabert]

I just started playing civ4 (the vanilla version I believe), built an spy and I would like to destroy the production of the AI city. Their building the space elevator and I'm not very happy about that ;-) Anyway, I moved my spy to their city but the option of destroying the production is sort of not available (I can't press it..). Neither is any other option of espionage, can't steal anything, can't pillage etc. Tried declaring war but that didn't help.

This should be so obvious but it nothing works. So....what am I missing?

"vanilla" espionage missions cost gold.
(bts has espionage points)
You obviously don't have the money to stop the production.

 

[Yibbledorf]

I'm playing as Darius on Warlord/Epic, and I have lots of prime land. Lots of space to grow, lots of floodplains, and so on. However I met Shaka from the south while scouting around. Should I try and eliminate him ASAP or should I try and butter him up?

 

[cabert]

I'm playing as Darius on Warlord/Epic, and I have lots of prime land. Lots of space to grow, lots of floodplains, and so on. However I met Shaka from the south while scouting around. Should I try and eliminate him ASAP or should I try and butter him up?

If you manage to send him to war with someone else, it's better to settle the good land than to war :
- war costs more, for a lesser return in this situation (except if he built a nice wonder, or has a very nice capital)
- shaka's unique unit will destroy yours!
- shaka will fall behind in tech if you don't play his game (aka war)
-

 

[Yibbledorf]

If you manage to send him to war with someone else, it's better to settle the good land than to war :
- war costs more, for a lesser return in this situation (except if he built a nice wonder, or has a very nice capital)
- shaka's unique unit will destroy yours!
- shaka will fall behind in tech if you don't play his game (aka war)
-

Ah. Thanks for that. I've played more and it turns out he's the worst enemy of Mansa. However I'm between them, so Mansa may just declare war on me if I bribe Shaka, and that would be bad.

I can bribe Shaka to attack Pericles, who is closer to him, but we're all Jewish and I'm trying to keep us all happy just in case I want to sneak in a diplo victory.

But so far, rather peaceful. Noone's gone to war with each other AFAIK.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Ah. Thanks for that. I've played more and it turns out he's the worst enemy of Mansa. However I'm between them, so Mansa may just declare war on me if I bribe Shaka, and that would be bad.

I can bribe Shaka to attack Pericles, who is closer to him, but we're all Jewish and I'm trying to keep us all happy just in case I want to sneak in a diplo victory.

But so far, rather peaceful. Noone's gone to war with each other AFAIK.

I had Shaka as a neighbor recently and secured a Defensive Pact with him by adopting his religion and gifting him a couple nice techs. Unless your goal is a Domination Victory, he will be no problem for you long-run unless he attacks. Good luck.

 

[Yibbledorf]

I'm friendly with him and Pericles right now, so we're one happy Jewish block against the Buddhists comprising of Charlemange, Mansa and Isabella. Unfortunately I'm the closest to the Buddhists. Fun fun fun.