early goals
- Thread starter Siaphi94
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ParadigmShifter
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Get bronze working for slavery civic. Or Animal Husbandry for horses. Then kick some donkey!
I would suggest the following as a general start for new players to Civ4;
Take your time with learning the game - you have over 60 posts, so I assume you've played a bit of Civ3, and if so you'll understand a lot of the basics, but 'REXing' has been largely countered as a strategy, and of course expect to become addicted! 
- Patch your game (there's a drop-down menu above under Civilization IV that will take you to the patches).
- Play the tutorial if you've yet to do so. From that point play on a bit further until you're frustrated by your own indecisiveness!
- Read Sisiutil's Guide, the more 'readable' parts of the Civ Manual, and go through Sulla's Introduction and Walkthrough bearing in mind that this was written with the earliest version of Civ4 and some things have changed since then (e.g. Horses are no longer revealed from the outset).
- Play your first 'proper' game at a low level such as Chieftain, but from that point move up to Warlord or Noble.
- Continue to use CivFanatics and the War Academy to develop familiarity and ideas.
- If you decide you like 'vanilla' Civ4, consider buying the Warlords expansion (although Beyond the Sword is coming out soon).
- Religion - to convert to a new State religion will cost you one turn of Anarchy unless your leader has the Spiritual trait, but it will add a happiness modifier to those cities that share your State religion, and you can access the benefits of Organised Religion, Theocracy, or Pacifism if you have the required technology. Founding a religion will give you a Holy City that is eligible to build that religion's Holy Shrine with a Great Prophet, which has further benefits. On the other hand, religious differences can lead to big diplomatic splits, where some leaders will despise you for following another faith (e.g. Isabella of Spain, Montezuma of the Aztecs, and Saladin of Arabia spring to mind) just as they will adore you for sharing the faith as their own State religion. Sometimes it is best to have no State religion and remain neutral than upsetting a threatening rival tribe. This is a big addition to previous versions of Civ, and there's lots more to it than this quick overview.
- Civics - it might take you a bit of time to get a handle on the Civics, but Civics and their uses might be an interesting discussion thread for you.
- First things - look at your terrain and technology, and determine whether it's better to research 'Worker tech's' such as Agriculture, Mining, Hunting, etc., and go straight to building a Worker, or whether you want to try to found an early religion by going after Meditation or Polytheism. If you start with Fishing and found your city on the coast with seafood near-by, a Work Boat might be your best choice. Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry, and Pottery are important Ancient Era technologies, and the Slavery civic through Bronze Working is powerful. Use your Warrior or Scout unit to scratch around to find future city sites as well as meeting neighbours and popping tribal huts. Many players will recommend that early-on you should look at building up a stack of Axemen units (say six) and declaring war on your nearest neighbour.
Take your time with learning the game - you have over 60 posts, so I assume you've played a bit of Civ3, and if so you'll understand a lot of the basics, but 'REXing' has been largely countered as a strategy, and of course expect to become addicted! 
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