Condensed tips for beginners?

Quick question that doesn't really deserve a new thread:

Liberalism is reached at 980AD by Justinian.

Details:
Monarch
Fractal (Pangaea), 7 civs, standard settings otherwise.
Justinian and Mehmed are Buddhist, everyone else (Ragnar, Augustus, Lincoln, me as Pascal) is Hindu. Lots of shared borders.
Justinian has nearly all the Holy Cities apart from Hindu and built Oracle and Henge for Prophets.

How out of the ordinary is this?

I usually am ok getting to Lib by 1200AD at Monarch, was v surprised to see it go @ 980AD, especially given map settings/religions.
In my experience that's a little unusual; the AI is usually slow to get around to researching Education. But if Justinian has all those holy cities with shrines for some of them, then that would have boosted his income and therefore his research.
 
There were probably several factors. Hidden diplo modifiers lead to good AI-AI-diplomacy and lots of trading. Or there was lots of bulbing going on. That is quite random so you can say it is as far unordinary as random actions are unordinary... there were probably just a few "accidents" that lead to an early lib.

In my last deity game (ABCF's open game) I nailed lib @ 620AD (I'm justinian btw :p) but didn't pull the trigger until 1020AD. Only a few turns before, one of the AIs finished education. We were 4 happy buddhist buddies and there should've been some AI-AI trades going on... I guess that's just randomness (which makes the game interesting).
 
Thanks for replies.
It surprised me mostly because in the sample games in the forum when people post game reports at Emperor/Immortal 1000AD seems to be the standard expected time to reach Lib.
 
Another thing I forgot: bulbing philosophy early (say, 1AD), no AI started researching philosophy, which, at that time, is high priority to the AI because it founds a religion. If you bulb it, there is no religion to be founded (anymore) and the priority decreases. If the AI doesn't have philosophy, liberalism becomes less of a priority too since they're further away from it.

Yeah, 1000AD is pretty standard indeed.
 
Yes, you can negotiate a permanent alliance, but an AI will ONLY accept if they are friendly AND you've had a mutual war for a while or you've had a defensive pact for a while.
Also, remember to pick civics that complement each other, for example, if you have to go on a long war, get police state, vassalage, and theocracy to build a lot of powerful units quickly, with little expense.
 
Once you have flight it (inter-continental invasion) becomes incredibly easy, just rushbuy an airport in the first city you capture. You can only fly 1 unit per turn out of a city with an airport, but you can fly as many units into a city with an airport as you have other cities with airports :lol:.

You can fly fighters into a carrier from anywhere in the world

I did not know that! Thanks for the input! Airport info. was Very helpful in my last game on Noble. Almost won a Dom victory, but... The crushing of my enemies, seeing them driven before me, hearing the lamentations of their women, and winning a points victory... priceless!:satan:
 
The problem only is waiting for a city to come out of revolt. Mature cities usually take 8-13 turns so bringing a great artist may be a good idea (he can culturebomb the city to get it out of revolt instantly). NE seems to always produce one, sooner or later, regardless of the small chance of GA :rolleyes:
 
The problem only is waiting for a city to come out of revolt. Mature cities usually take 8-13 turns so bringing a great artist may be a good idea (he can culturebomb the city to get it out of revolt instantly). NE seems to always produce one, sooner or later, regardless of the small chance of GA :rolleyes:

Good point! Capturing two nearby cities seemed to allow the first city to come out of revolt faster for me. Is this right? Because it pushed back the cultural boundaries? Also, If you are a cultural powerhouse on your home continent does that affect culture in cities on another continent?
 
No and no. I believe the # of turns it takes a city to get out of result depends on the population, not 100% sure though. Capturing a nearby city doesn't help.

If you are a culturemonger on one continent helps you no bit on another one I'm afraid :(. Culture only has an effect near the city that produces it - no further. So unless your culture reaches across the ocean, it won't help you there.
 
Say I have a weak, warlike ally on Friendly terms. I give him as much as I can as far as techs and gift resources because I want him to declare on my enemies, while I keep building. But because I culture-swiped so many cities from him, he can't really produce much. If I gift him military units, does that affect his standing with me? Will he be more friendly? Will his gain and my loss of power make him see me less of a helping hand, and more of a quick meal?
 
AFAIK gifting units doesn't help diplo. Also, AFAIK, no AI declares on you unless bribed at friendly so your drop in power wouldn't be a factor.

Having him declare on other AIs is a good idea.

Gifting him units so he can fight is a bad idea. The AI is quite bad at warring. You're better off fighting yourself. You can bribe the weak AI still (but you get a -1 "you brought in a war ally against us"), fight him yourself, or don't fight him at all. Pick your favourite according to your plan of winning the game.

BTW, don't wait for the AI to declare on someone. This can take ages.
 
Hi,

I'm new to Civ4 although I played Civ3 quite some time ago. I was wondering if you "experts" could put some short, concise tips in to help us beginners. From my own experience and reading the other threads, I've picked out the following:

-> Build fewer, quality cities.
-> Build near resources
-> Chopping down forrests boosts production, helping early production of buildings and units
i ve just start playing civ iv
chopping down trees looks good in the short term, 30 free production
however you lose the 1 production per turn of the forest square
isnt it better in the longterm to keep the forest if your only considering production?????
 
i ve just start playing civ iv
chopping down trees looks good in the short term, 30 free production
however you lose the 1 production per turn of the forest square
isnt it better in the longterm to keep the forest if your only considering production?????
You can't only consider production! :p
Chopping is almost always best for a few reasons:

-It provides a large short term benefit and during the early game, your cities can't get big enough to work many forests anyway. If you chop them they can contribute without being worked.

- Faster expansion by getting more workers and settlers earlier leading to more land, chopping these units is the only way to get the most out of the expansive and imperialistic traits.

-Getting wonders before an AI usually involves maximising all the production you can get in a short time, chopping is almost mandatory.

- Having a specific building complete fast really matters in a lot of cases, granaries allow more slave whipping, libraries allow scientist specialists and theres even a useful trick where you can make quite a lot of gold from overbuilding things ;)

-Forests give enemy forces defensive bonuses making it very hard to stop them attacking cities, this alone is a good enough reason to chop all forests directly adjacent to a city.

-Tiles improved by workers with mines, cottages and later workshops, waterwheels etc are a lot more productive than a forest, building over them is beneficial. The improvement to improve forests comes late and isn't much good either.

-Chopping with slave whipping is the fastest way to build an army early on and early war can win games often.

In short, early advantages in civ 4 snowball very quickly
There are some reasons to keep forests, primarily due to :health:. But I routinely chop 95% of any forests in my territory.
 
i ve just start playing civ iv
chopping down trees looks good in the short term, 30 free production
however you lose the 1 production per turn of the forest square
isnt it better in the longterm to keep the forest if your only considering production?????

Ghpstage is right in pretty much every way, but I feel efficiency is the most important aspect. If you're focusing a city on production rather than commerce (and city specialization is a great idea), you will want to settle it near hills rather than near forests. A forested grassland hill is 1:food:2:hammers:; a Mined grassland hill is 1:food:3:hammers:. This should make it abundantly clear that Mines are better than forests. Later in the game, Watermills are better than forests too. Forests are only really useful to keep around for the :health: bonus; and even then, there will almost always be a better tile to work.
 
isnt it better in the longterm to keep the forest if your only considering production?????
I usually keep my plains forests, assuming that I'll probably have Replaceable Parts (lumber mills) by the time my city is big enough to actually work those 1-3 tiles. If you're running a cottage economy, my favorite, then a forested plains tile with a lumber mill and a railroad ends up being a pretty nice tile late in the game, giving one food, four hammers and half a health.

Grassland and hills forests get chopped as soon as I need them to either be worked or to contribute the hammers to a build. I never chop a tundra forest. As a matter of fact, a city with seafood and/or deer and lots of tundra forest will often end up being my National Park city.
 
Agreed on not chopping tundra forests - tundra tiles are useless without them.
 
Try to keep always an even number of forests per city, preferably those forests in 2 BFCs. I always chop grassland forests and all hill forests. Riverside plains forests usually don't make it either :p Thing is, these tiles are not good at all and shouldn't be worked anyway. Reason that plains forests usually survive is that I usually don't work those tiles either.

:health: can be aquired through trade and isn't that important anyway.

Also consider that early hammers (chop) are much more valuable than late hammrs.

edit: X-post. I consider tundra forests useless tiles anyway. I only keep them for NP.
 
I actually often find myself having health difficulties in my GP Farm around the Renaissance. Every bit helps.
 
The GPFarm is special in that regard but usually you'll want NE up ASAP and since GPFarms often are low on hammers you need the chops... marble helps a lot there OFC.
 
- Having a specific building complete fast really matters in a lot of cases, granaries allow more slave whipping, libraries allow scientist specialists and theres even a useful trick where you can make quite a lot of gold from overbuilding things ;)

Ok, you provided food for thought, will try chopping.

Meanwhile I was wondering what this overbuilding trick is?
 
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