Condensed tips for beginners?

When I change to the "free religion" civic, do I loose all my income from the previous "state religion" buildings that I put up???

What does everyone think of the "free religion" civic???

Thanks
 
When I change to the "free religion" civic, do I loose all my income from the previous "state religion" buildings that I put up???

What does everyone think of the "free religion" civic???

Thanks
:gold: and :science: generated by the Spiral Minaret and Uni. of Sankore will be lost when you switch to Free Religion.

:hammers: from the Apostolic Palace religion will be kept though.

:gold: generated by the Holy Shrine of the religion (the one built using a Great Prophet in the founding city) is also kept.

When I think about going to Free Religion I usually base the decision more on the diplomatic situation, ie, do I want to stay in a state religion to be good friends with others in that religion - or do I want to lose my religion because others don't like me because of it.

If I don't care what the others think, then Free Religion is pretty handy when in a space race for the extra :science:, and maybe in some games I'll appreciate the extra :) if my big cities have multiple religions in them.

But usually I find that the benefits of Pacifism (I like running specialists), Organised Religion (building infrastructure in important cities, or wonders) and Theocracy (preparing for war) outweigh what Free Religion offers.
 
This topic should be known as "Here everyone can ask a newbie question and get an expert answer".

Love this topic :-)
 
[hello i am living in crete iam knew to civ 4 still trying to master the basics of the game can someone tell me how to read or obtain the manual as sugested thanks
 
The manual either came as a PDF or print copy with your legal edition of Civ IV.
 
1. Research bronze working and archery to protect from barbarians
2. Drive straight to rifling; this enables you to almost always found Judaism and Christiananity.
3. Now yo will have a major technological advantage. Use it against the A.I., drive straight to other military technologies ,and win domination!
 
1. Research bronze working and archery to protect from barbarians
2. Drive straight to rifling; this enables you to almost always found Judaism and Christiananity.
3. Now yo will have a major technological advantage. Use it against the A.I., drive straight to other military technologies ,and win domination!

just missing a few steps in between to make this advice useful ;)
 
1. Research bronze working and archery to protect from barbarians

I would dispute this point. If we're talking difficulty levels where barbarians pose little real threat, it's hardly necessary to research two techs to deal with them.

If, on the other hand, we're talking about difficulty levels (maybe Prince and up) where barbarians are truly dangerous, we face the problem that the AI players are getting advantages over the player, allowing them to tech faster. At this stage, it's suicide (particularly in the early game) to research techs you don't need. Research BW first, and then only if there is no copper anywhere nearby and the barbarian hordes are knocking at your door do you go for Archery.
 
This may not belong in this thread but I'll give it a shot anyway.

How can I change the difficulty level of a saved game? For example I wanted to play one of the Immortal Universities in this forum but ramp down the difficulty considerably.
 
This may not belong in this thread but I'll give it a shot anyway.

How can I change the difficulty level of a saved game? For example I wanted to play one of the Immortal Universities in this forum but ramp down the difficulty considerably.
Perhaps an organiser of the Immortal University can comment better than I can - but don't they often post WorldBuilder saves?
If this is the case, then rather than playing a custom game, choose to play a scenario - if that WorldBuilder save is in the right place (in the directory with other WorldBuilder saves...:crazyeye:) it should come up in the list, and if done correctly you should be able to change things like game speed and difficulty level.

Another option might be to take any ordinary game which doesn't have the "locked modified assets" box checked, and create a world builder save yourself. From the main menu in game, go to World Builder and save it - then load it up in a custom scenario as described above.
 
Perhaps an organiser of the Immortal University can comment better than I can - but don't they often post WorldBuilder saves?
If this is the case, then rather than playing a custom game, choose to play a scenario - if that WorldBuilder save is in the right place (in the directory with other WorldBuilder saves...:crazyeye:) it should come up in the list, and if done correctly you should be able to change things like game speed and difficulty level.

Another option might be to take any ordinary game which doesn't have the "locked modified assets" box checked, and create a world builder save yourself. From the main menu in game, go to World Builder and save it - then load it up in a custom scenario as described above.

Second method worked quick and painless. Thank you, sir.

EDIT: Question about Wealth/Research/Culture, If I'm building one of these in a city and I chop a forest for the city, does that add to what I'm building or is that a waste?
 
I read this somewhere, i will try it today
building a warrior in ur city, then one turn b4 it is finished, switching the production to a settler/worker. this is a good way to grow and still get settler/workers rite?
 
I read this somewhere, i will try it today
building a warrior in ur city, then one turn b4 it is finished, switching the production to a settler/worker. this is a good way to grow and still get settler/workers rite?
No; you may have come across some advice for an older version of Civ. In Civ IV, the production points ("hammers") for the current build will not go toward the next build if you switch builds. In fact, because of production decay, you will likely lose hammers by doing this. (Unfinished builds in a city's build queue start losing hammers after 10 turns for units or 40 turns for buildings; so if you stop building a warrior to switch to a settler, after 10 turns of building the settler you'll start losing some of the hammers you put toward the warrior.)

However, if you're talking about using the slavery civic to accelerate production, whipping a citizen away with one turn left in a build is one way to do it; the extra hammers will indeed go toward the next build. But not usually the best way to use slavery. Check out these articles on Hammer Overflow and using slavery for more information.
 
Question about Wealth/Research/Culture, If I'm building one of these in a city and I chop a forest for the city, does that add to what I'm building or is that a waste?
If you chop a forest while building wealth/research/culture it does not go to wealth/reserach/culture. It is also not wasted. It'll wait there until you eventually build something real. Although, and I'm not sure exactly how long it takes, the 'stored' :hammers: might start to decay away over time.
 
I would like to ask you guys how you handle copperless defence at monarch. (A similar issue might be more or less valid for prince as well, although this particular part is only starting to annoy me now, when trying monarch)

The thing is, there's a certain framework I've grown accustomed to, and that goes: worker techs, defence, culture/writing, and then whatever the map offers, although monarchy should start to be more important (I almost always ignored it early on playing noble, early prince), along with the usual currency and/or aesthetics.

Such an approach usually works well enough at prince: agr/ah/mining/bw, and either I find copper, which means all barb worries fade away, or I find horses, which, at prince, meant the same thing, with very few exceptions. It happened very rarely that I didn't come across one of these two early strategic resources.

My main problem is that at monarch, spearmen show up earlier. At higher difficulties, I get the feeling that they don't get the chance to spawn too often, as barb cities emerge earlier, but at monarch, they're a terrible pain.

So... anyway... do you usually tech archery early on, if you're without copper? And if you do, what if you're playing a civ which doesn't start with hunting? And what about the other techs, mainly pottery, writing, mysticism? And if you choose this path, what do you do when axemen show up and you're forced to keep your archers garrisoned, hope they don't die, while the barbs pillage your improvements?

Do you tech IW? (I almost never do this; should I reconsider?)

grrr... well... this is mostly a rant, as I've abandoned most of my monarch games as a result of barbs, and in particular because of spearmen. But I'm hoping that maybe I'm missing something and that someone has some nice tips? :D
 
I would like to ask you guys how you handle copperless defence at monarch. (A similar issue might be more or less valid for prince as well, although this particular part is only starting to annoy me now, when trying monarch)

The thing is, there's a certain framework I've grown accustomed to, and that goes: worker techs, defence, culture/writing, and then whatever the map offers, although monarchy should start to be more important (I almost always ignored it early on playing noble, early prince), along with the usual currency and/or aesthetics.

Such an approach usually works well enough at prince: agr/ah/mining/bw, and either I find copper, which means all barb worries fade away, or I find horses, which, at prince, meant the same thing, with very few exceptions. It happened very rarely that I didn't come across one of these two early strategic resources.

My main problem is that at monarch, spearmen show up earlier. At higher difficulties, I get the feeling that they don't get the chance to spawn too often, as barb cities emerge earlier, but at monarch, they're a terrible pain.

So... anyway... do you usually tech archery early on, if you're without copper? And if you do, what if you're playing a civ which doesn't start with hunting? And what about the other techs, mainly pottery, writing, mysticism? And if you choose this path, what do you do when axemen show up and you're forced to keep your archers garrisoned, hope they don't die, while the barbs pillage your improvements?

Do you tech IW? (I almost never do this; should I reconsider?)

grrr... well... this is mostly a rant, as I've abandoned most of my monarch games as a result of barbs, and in particular because of spearmen. But I'm hoping that maybe I'm missing something and that someone has some nice tips? :D

Iron Working.
 
@Yxklyx
So IW immediately after BW if there's no copper in sight? :D
And... what if you find no iron either? Do you consider this a worthy gamble, or do you have time to take archery if you don't find iron? (Or, perhaps, you train a lot of warriors and sac them till you get archery?)

@Sisiutil
I have tried fogbusting, but... I almost never manage to clear all the land I need to clear before spearmen appear. Many of my games, for instance, place me on an island with another leader, and almost always, I rush them. After that is done, I send the units I used to spawn bust (I also guess I should try to use warriors for busting, since other units cost more), but by the time I cover 90% of the island, spearmen pop up in the uncovered area.
 
Yes, Warriors are extremely cheap and very effective at fog-busting. If you have Hunting, Scouts can serve this purpose too, though they have to cut and run rather than standing their ground should barb units appear. (A Warrior with Woodsman promotions fortified on a forested or jungle hill can effectively hold off barb Warriors and usually barb Archers as well; they have to run away from Axemen and Spears, though.)

The Me In Team, were he posting, would remind us all that no barb unit will spawn within 2 tiles of a unit, creating a 5x5 "safe zone" around any-fog buster beyond the tiles they "light up". So you don't need as many fog-busters as you might initially think. (I used to regard this info as an exploit, but I'm coming around to TMIT's way of thinking. Scary, I know... ;)) By using this information effectively, you can wind up with the effect of the Great Wall without ever having to build it. Even if you can't fog-bust completely--which I find can happen on larger maps with fewer civs--then you can at least use your fog-busters as a "distant early warning system", allowing you to deploy fewer anti-barb units and to direct them more effectively.

As for IW if no copper... it's situational, in my opinion. If you're playing as a protective leader, Archery should be a high priority, possibly even more so than Bronze Working. Protective Archers are formidable units, especially when fortified on hills or in cities. They're relatively cheap, too. Without Protective's benefits, though, it's a judgement call. If you have a high-commerce tile in your capital's BFC (gold, silver, gems), then you can almost definitely, on all but the highest levels, research IW before barb units appear. If you have a low-commerce start, though, IW is a very expensive tech, especially compared to Hunting and Archery.

On the other hand, if you can fog-bust your vicinity effectively, then you don't have to worry about barbs and can go after whatever techs suit you.
 
Thanks!

I'd like to ask one more question on this subject: I like marathon speed very much. Is it possible that barbs spawn a bit more often at epic/marathon than at normal speed? Or do these things scale up perfectly? I know that it's a lot more difficult at marathon to train units in time if you're caught by surprise, but that's something I accept when playing marathon. But... is it also possible that you get 1-2 spears at normal and 3-4 at marathon?
 
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