Couple basic questions for a beginner

[augy]

First time posting, so thanks for the help.

1) How does the food mechanic work when creating settlers/workers? I noticed in civ 4 that your city no longer produces food towards population while these 2 units are being created.
2) Do buildings in a city contribute to the drain on your funds? IE, if I build a temple (example), will it cost me so much gold each turn? Or do buildings not cost gold/turn?

 

[hexem3117]

1.) Instead of just hammers going into the production of settlers/workers, both hammer AND food go into their production. That's why your population isn't increasing.

2.) No, there is no maintenance (which you call drain of funds) for buildings like there was in Civ2 and Civ 3. The only costs you have to pay regarding cities, depending on each city, are A.) Distance from your capital to the city B.) Number of cities, so more cities=pay more for each one and C.) Overseas costs, so if you settle an island far from your capital, each city on the island would have to pay maintenance for itself, in addition to the first two costs.

In addition, you have to pay upkeep for units, so the more units you have past a certain number, let's say 3, you have to pay one gold per turn for them. So if you have 7 units, 3 are free, then you have to pay 4 gold per turn for the others. That's only an example.

There is also inflation, which increases as the game goes on. AFAIK those are the only costs you incur outside of research, culture, or espionage, though I'm sure someone else on the board could give you a more definitive answer. Good luck

 

[kossin]

It looks like you've come over from Civ 3

1) :Food: surplus goes into the settler (and ). The concept is similar as in Civ 3, but instead of losing population you just can't get bigger while making settlers/workers.

2) ^^What he said. Courthouses (+Ziggurat, Rathaus, Ikhanda) actually reduce City maintenance and State Property eliminates distance+colony maintenance.

Don't expand as fast as you can because your economy will crash. Getting commerce sources will become important after the initial expansion (3~4 cities).

 

[TurdFerguson]

As a general rule of thumb (especially for a beginner) try not to let your your science slider drop below 60% during early game expansion.

 

[Willem]

As a general rule of thumb (especially for a beginner) try not to let your your science slider drop below 60% during early game expansion.

That's pretty high frankly. You could easily go down to 40-50% early on. And it's really not a good idea to use the percentage value of your research as your basis. As I've mentioned a number of times 100% of 0 is still 0. You need to keep an eye on your actual output instead. You can have a number of cities with your slider at 20% and still be producing more beakers than just a few cities at 80%. In the early game if you see your beaker output dropping below what it was when you started the game, then it might be a good idea to hold off on expanding and focus on developing your cities and economy for awhile.

 

[sherbz]

That's pretty high frankly. You could easily go down to 40-50% early on. And it's really not a good idea to use the percentage value of your research as your basis. As I've mentioned a number of times 100% of 0 is still 0. You need to keep an eye on your actual output instead. You can have a number of cities with your slider at 20% and still be producing more beakers than just a few cities at 80%. In the early game if you see your beaker output dropping below what it was when you started the game, then it might be a good idea to hold off on expanding and focus on developing your cities and economy for awhile.

I think for a beginner this is a slightly more advanced piece of information. Its worth bearing in mind, but certainly for your first few games, I would go with the 60% rule. You can learn all of the city specialization, specialist economy stuff later once you have the basics: like warfare, tech prioritization, victory conditions and city placement. The last one is the key thing to get to grips with. If I were you i would take some time to look through various dot maps and ask your self simple questions like "why place that city there? Am i placing my cities in good locations? etc. Seeming as its impossible to continuously produce settlers and settle in civ 4, city placement becomes a massive factor in your early game.

 

[Willem]

I think for a beginner this is a slightly more advanced piece of information. Its worth bearing in mind, but certainly for your first few games, I would go with the 60% rule.

Well granted it will take awhile to get the feel for how much actual beaker production is good, but I still think 60% is too high. Before I realized the fallacy of using percentage as a basis, I would usually go with 40-50% and I usually did just fine playing on Noble. If he's playing on a level lower than that, then 60% is going to be overkill. And even though it may be more advanced info, keeping an eye on your actual gold being generated into beakers is a good habit to get into. That info is right there on the main map screen, if you have BtS, so it's not a difficult thing to do.

 

[karadoc]

I also think 60% is too high for a lower bound on research. In the currently game I'm playing I'm still losing money on 40%, and I'm still building settlers so that I can grab a couple more strategic locations. It'll probably be at 30% for awhile while I build up some more cottages etc.

 

[sherbz]

Well granted it will take awhile to get the feel for how much actual beaker production is good, but I still think 60% is too high. Before I realized the fallacy of using percentage as a basis, I would usually go with 40-50% and I usually did just fine playing on Noble. If he's playing on a level lower than that, then 60% is going to be overkill. And even though it may be more advanced info, keeping an eye on your actual gold being generated into beakers is a good habit to get into. That info is right there on the main map screen, if you have BtS, so it's not a difficult thing to do.

yea thats why i said for his first few games, cos he is still a noob. But it seriously is worth bearing in mind. Whn you get up to the dizzying heights of advanced play then it is quite possible to run your science slider at the not so insignificant figure of 0%, and still generate more science than you would at 60% base rate. But i maintain, that as this is a new player, following the 60% rule is best. Lets not bamboozle him/her with strategies that shouldnt\wouldnt even cross a players mind at this point. The CE is the best way to lear. Start playing around witt specialist when you get up to monarch and prince is what i say. Before the it is totally unnecessary. Although it can be fun of course

 

[Dampier]

I find it hard to keep the slider above 50 because I'm so used to building cities quickly I still expand too fast.

 

[Thain Esh Kelch]

1.) Instead of just hammers going into the production of settlers/workers, both hammer AND food go into their production. That's why your population isn't increasing.

Just to understand this correctly - The more surplus food the city produces, the faster the production of settlers/workers? I always tried to build settlers/workers in any cities that had extremely slow/stalled growth, since I thought it was all about hammers.

 

[kaltorak]

Just to understand this correctly - The more surplus food the city produces, the faster the production of settlers/workers? I always tried to build settlers/workers in any cities that had extremely slow/stalled growth, since I thought it was all about hammers.

It's like everybody said, the production of settlers and workers is food+hammers. Your food surplus goes to production, so you dont grow meanwhile. But you also dont lose population like in previous civs

Yes, the more food surplus and hammers, the faster you produce it

 

[Willem]

I always tried to build settlers/workers in any cities that had extremely slow/stalled growth, since I thought it was all about hammers.

Not anymore, food is just as important when building Settlers and Workers. To complicate things though, if you're playing an Imperialistic civ then Hammers becomes improtant again. That trait gets a 50% bonus with Hammers when producing a Settler, and Expansionist civs get that Hammer bonus for Workers.

 

[tijup]

But you also dont lose population like in previous civs

It was so useful, to be able to get rid of a city at 1 by creating a settler. I miss
that functionality of Civilization1

As other said, don't REX, it's definitively not a good idea on Civ IV. Take a look
at the Strategy and tip forums, you will find a lots of articles to help you to
understand the mechanics.

Have fun

 

[deanej]

To all the people saying 60% research is too high of a min: you do realize that it takes time to get cities up and running, right? Especially if you're new. You have to build a worker, build cottages, wait for the cottages to grow, wait for the city to grow so you can work the cottages, etc.

 

[kaltorak]

To all the people saying 60% research is too high of a min: you do realize that it takes time to get cities up and running, right? Especially if you're new. You have to build a worker, build cottages, wait for the cottages to grow, wait for the city to grow so you can work the cottages, etc.

The tip is definately not true for advanced gaming. I go down to 10% now on most of my games in early stages.

But the tip really helped me get used to civ4 when I started, since in previous civs you could expand like crazy and were actually encouraged to do so. I had hard times in civ4 before knowing this tip.

 

[6K Man]

IMO, if you have a fast-growing city that is at its happy cap and you don't want to whip it, you can turn that into your Settler/Worker pump. The surplus food isn't wasted that way, unlike 'avoid growth'.

 

[Willem]

To all the people saying 60% research is too high of a min: you do realize that it takes time to get cities up and running, right? Especially if you're new. You have to build a worker, build cottages, wait for the cottages to grow, wait for the city to grow so you can work the cottages, etc.

Yeah so? I quite regularly let my "percentage" drop to 10-20% and my research usually doesn't suffer for it. That value is meaningless, you need to look at your actual gold output into beakers to get an accurate assessment of how well you're doing. Or compare how long it's taking you to research a tech. I tend to use Code of Laws for that as it's a fairly expensive tech and I usually take it when I'm nearing the peak in my early expansion. If it's taking me 100 turns to research, on Marathon speed, then I need to cut back on expansion and focus on my economy. If it's only going to take 50 turns then I have plenty of room for further expansion. It's a hell of alot better way to judging your progress than worrying about your percentage.

 

[deanej]

Well, for undeveloped cities, is it really going to be more raw commerce at that lower percentage? It won't be more commerce at a lower percentage until those cities are developed and working tiles with lots of commerce! For a new player, it can be a very long time before those new cities are supporting themselves. Trust me - I still can't develop cities quickly (ie, less than 50 turns on normal speed), probably due to my inability to whip properly.

 

[Silu]

60% is a good baseline recommendation for new players (stems from Sisiutil's beginnger strategy guide AFAIK). For the higher levels it's obviously not the way to go but overexpansion is a much more bigger danger for new players than getting boxed in. When you thoroughly learn how things work then you can expand to the brink of 0% strike and get away with it.