Condensed tips for beginners?

[Aeiouv]

hi, i just started playing civ iv a few days ago and i absolutely love it. i used the search function and looked though the first few pages but couldn't find an answer to my noob question.

when attacking a city i want to capture, it sometimes gets automatically destroyed. typically i attack a city with a stack. im guessing i need to attack the city one by one to make sure i capture it but im not sure whats the deal.

 

[Yibbledorf]

I think it's because the city has nothing in it. That's just my own theory, so I'm not really sure.

 

[Sisiutil]

hi, i just started playing civ iv a few days ago and i absolutely love it. i used the search function and looked though the first few pages but couldn't find an answer to my noob question.

when attacking a city i want to capture, it sometimes gets automatically destroyed. typically i attack a city with a stack. im guessing i need to attack the city one by one to make sure i capture it but im not sure whats the deal.

IIRC, cities will be automatically razed if they've never grown beyond 1 population or if they lack enough culture for their first border pop. If I want to keep a small city but I see it only has one pop point, I will wait until it grows or pops it borders. If you're impatient, bring along a Settler; a city that small and new is unlikely to have any buildings in it that would survive the capture.

 

[Infantry#14]

IIRC, cities will be automatically razed if they've never grown beyond 1 population or if they lack enough culture for their first border pop. If I want to keep a small city but I see it only has one pop point, I will wait until it grows or pops it borders. If you're impatient, bring along a Settler; a city that small and new is unlikely to have any buildings in it that would survive the capture.

you can play a custom game w/ the no city razing setting on. This allows you to keep size one city that autoraze when captured. The downside is you are forbidden to abandon crappy cities build by ai. I use this setting in low diff map on marathorn or epic where I rush the opponent's capital before their pop reach size 2 and the ai hasnt build their first warriors. Very useful for hof games.

 

[Malchar]

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.

In a perfect world, players should use up all of their EP so that it doesn't go to waste. I usually like to send all my EP against a likely war target asap. I occasionally send in a few spies to use up the points and do as much damage as possible. Realistically, I always bring ample siege, and I think that the best advice is to use both approaches whenever necessary.

 

[newblenderbeer]

I got Civilization IV for christmas and I just won my first game. It had these settings.

size: duel
difficulty: warlord
map: archipelago
start: ancient

When I finished the game I was researching flight and I was ahead of my rival in technology. What settings should I start a game at to finish with more advanced technology to go for a space race victory? Is it possible without having to start in a later era?

 

[duckstab]

I got Civilization IV for christmas and I just won my first game. It had these settings.

size: duel
difficulty: warlord
map: archipelago
start: ancient

When I finished the game I was researching flight and I was ahead of my rival in technology. What settings should I start a game at to finish with more advanced technology to go for a space race victory? Is it possible without having to start in a later era?

You can absolutely win a space race victory with the settings above. However, since you're just starting out I'd recommend a standard size map with more opponents. With only one you're greatly restricted in your ability to trade for techs rather than researching them yourself. I like Archipelago maps myself but you might find you have an easier time using one of the other map types that provides larger land masses. If you do play Archipelago I'd suggest choosing a civ that does well with lots of coastal cities. The Dutch and the Portuguese come to mind here.

And don't hesitate to post a save, there are plenty of players better than myself around here who'll be glad to advise you.

 

[adrianj]

I got Civilization IV for christmas and I just won my first game. It had these settings.

size: duel
difficulty: warlord
map: archipelago
start: ancient

When I finished the game I was researching flight and I was ahead of my rival in technology. What settings should I start a game at to finish with more advanced technology to go for a space race victory? Is it possible without having to start in a later era?

Congratulations on your first game. And welcome to the forums

When you say 'finished' the game, do you mean the number of turns expired and you had what would be called a time victory. Or did you achieve a different kind of victory, eg, domination or conquest?

You don't need to start in a later era - all this does is gives you a technology boost and some other things like starting with extra units and newly built cities start with some buildings. But at the cost of advancing the game date. Generally you can get to the same position earlier having started from the ancient era - plus you'll learn more by playing from the ancient era.

If you want to aim for space, prioritise research in your cities more. The simplest way to do this is to build cottages early in the game. They may look like a pretty crappy improvement at first (only +1 ) but over time as your city works them they will grow and get much better.

 

[Soundwαvє ▼]

I won it in Christmas too, won my first game on Earth-Standard-Gandhi-Settler

Then I tried the same but in Warlord and won! Now I'm trying to win on Noble, I'm almost sure that will in this new game (I had 2 and I lose both) the last one I lose just by 20 points (I always try a tech victory) but when finally win the noble game will start trying other conditions.

Thanks

 

[Wveth]

What are some good tips to get lots of hammers early on?

So far I've only played on Settler, on Marathon length. Should it really take 75 turns to make that Barracks? Or 30 to make that worker?

 

[Sisiutil]

What are some good tips to get lots of hammers early on?

So far I've only played on Settler, on Marathon length. Should it really take 75 turns to make that Barracks? Or 30 to make that worker?

Two words: Chopping and whipping.

(i.e. chop forests and use Slavery to accelerate production)

Two more: Advanced Start. (Get a worker or two and maybe Bronze Working to enable Slavery and chopping, and you're off to the races.)

 

[UWHabs]

What are some good tips to get lots of hammers early on?

So far I've only played on Settler, on Marathon length. Should it really take 75 turns to make that Barracks? Or 30 to make that worker?

Or play on normal speed, and not Marathon. Marathon makes everything really slow.

 

[vhhawk]

Question about espionage. I'm still very new to BTS. I've found that when another civ discovers my spies, it creates a diplomatic hit to our relations. And I'm wondering now whether I can turn that to my use as an efficient way to get another civ to DOW on me. Does a spy have to do anything, or just be in enemy territory, to be discovered? If I keep a few spies stationed in his major cities, will that alone over time cause our relationship to degrade significantly? And I guess more importantly, have any of you more experienced players used spies in this way?

 

[Silu]

Question about espionage. I'm still very new to BTS. I've found that when another civ discovers my spies, it creates a diplomatic hit to our relations. And I'm wondering now whether I can turn that to my use as an efficient way to get another civ to DOW on me. Does a spy have to do anything, or just be in enemy territory, to be discovered? If I keep a few spies stationed in his major cities, will that alone over time cause our relationship to degrade significantly? And I guess more importantly, have any of you more experienced players used spies in this way?

Just idling is enough for them to be caught eventually. Note though that the only way in which this makes them more prone to DoW on you is the decay in attitude, up to Furious; even that doesn't have that much effect (usually 0-40% more probable to declare over Annoyed).

A faster way to degrade relations is to demand stuff multiple times for "You have made an arrogant demand!" penalty.

 

[Wveth]

Er, what's "DoW"?

 

[Silu]

Er, what's "DoW"?

Declaration of War, used liberally either as a noun or verb

 

[Wveth]

I SEE. Thank you.

I thought it was war, but then I couldn't figure out how "declare war" became "DoW," but this crazy verbation confused me.

You shouldn't verb nouns.

(zing!)

 

[Arakhor]

Likewise, "verb" isn't a verb, but a noun. You're shouldn't turn nouns into verbs

 

[Silu]

Likewise, "verb" isn't a verb, but a noun. You're shouldn't turn nouns into verbs

You're sarcasm detection and the use of the word "you're" are a tad off

 

[Arakhor]

I have no idea why I wrote "you're". Mea culpa. Then again, I don't have a sarcasm detector