Extremely frustrated...

[Dieters]

I bought Civ IV about a week ago. It's the first game in the Civ series I've played, and I'm nearing giving up. It's a great game, but I'm just getting my arse handed to me over and over.

I've read the manual in full, along with various threads here (like the Condensed Beginners Tips thread). I've also read through the Walkthrough at Sulla's website.

I'm just having a lot of trouble 'combining' all of the facets, I think. I understand how to generate more culture, or more military units, or more research (kind of), but when I try to put all of that together, I fall flat on my face.

I'm playing on Noble, and a few things keep happening over and over:

1) Barbarians won't leave me alone. However, I checked some threads about this, and I'm now trying to station archers around my borders to cut down the number of barbs that show up. This seems to be helping a lot.

2) I get a huge lead in score in the beginning of the game (50-200 points), and then it just stops. The AI civs keep hopping up in score, and I maintain a slow crawl.

I'm a bit confused about city specialization, i.e. how to create a city specifically for production, commerce, etc. More shields = better for production, but what about population? Is it better to have a city that works 4-5 awesome tiles, or a larger city that works lots of smaller shield producing tiles?

I'm not even sure what I really need help with to be honest. I'm just really sick of putting in 2 hours of playtime only to have to start over after I get run over. I'm trying to build decent relationships with AI civs, but I don't seem to get the chance. The moment I have a different religion than them, they get angry with me and cancel Open Borders. I can't send missionaries at that point to convert them, and things just go sour from there.

Argh. This may just be more of a rant than a cry for help (or a balance of the two). I'm not bragging, but I'm usually pretty good at 'picking up' new games.

Civ IV is just making me feel like an idiot, as well as making me want to break the discs in half and never fire it up again.

 

[Willem]

I'm playing on Noble, and a few things keep happening over and over:

If you're new to Civ games, don't play on Noble. It's meant for people who have a relatively good grasp of the game concepts. I've been playing Civ since the very first version and even I had trouble on Noble when I started playing Civ 4. It's no wonder you're getting frustrated. Start out on Settler and work your way up.

 

[UnspokenRequest]

As said by Willem. Your main problem is that you're playing on Noble.
Start with lower difficulty levels. It helps you get a feel of the game.

When I got Civ 4, I had been playing civilization games since the mid 90s and I still played my first game at warlord, just to make sure I got the basics.

On city size. Most experienced player will tell you larger cities are better. There are other marginal strategies, but at first, start with the mainstream. This means: pick a spot, with good tiles and good resources and try to limit city overlap as much as possible. (Every city should have most of its city radius free from other cities).

On religion, if you can't convert them and really need good relations, you've got to convert. If not, pick free religion and different religions won't be a problem. Religion is almost always crucial to a good relation with Ai (it depends on the leader though)

On specialization
If you want a city to specialize in commerce: chose a spot where the resource in the city radius have good potential for commerce (i.e. rivers and sea tiles). Build as many cottages as possible on the tiles in such cities. + Make sure it has enough food to grow (as long as there are tiles left that are not worked by your citizens, the city has to grow) and a few hammers to produce some stuff. Concentrate on building the improvements that emphasize commerce and science (market, bank, university, etc.).

For production cities. Hills, Hills and Hills (with mines on them) that's what you need. + enough food tiles (grasslands, floodplains) around to make sure your citizens can work all the hills. There are other ways to make production cities (workshop, watermill, lumbermill add hammers too), but this is the most efficient and the most mainstream.
Concentrate on buildings that enhance production (i.e. forge).

Other tips.
Don't overexpand, as it will crush your economy (as rule of thumb: don't get below 50% in science) Build cottages to boost commerce.
At the start. Make sure the first worker you create has something to do. This means, if you have a Cow near your capital, get animal husbandry ASAP, if it's Wheat, then you need agriculture.
Also, get bronzeworking as soon as possible. It allows you to cut trees, which generates free hammer to produce stuff (settlers at first) faster.

Other than that, Civ is a game where you've got to balance things out. After getting a decent defense, your first priorities should be the growth of your cities (ASAP) and of your empire (not too fast for this one or you're dead economically), Commerce (it enhances science output and enables expansion) and Production.
Concentrate on stuff (tile improvements and buildings) that enhance these traits. Hapiness and Health comes next (as they can stop cities from growing if not taken care of).
Other stuff like good relations, religions, culture, wonders are good tools, but they come afterwards.

 

[Willem]

2) I get a huge lead in score in the beginning of the game (50-200 points), and then it just stops. The AI civs keep hopping up in score, and I maintain a slow crawl.

This sounds to me like you're expanding too quickly at the start of the game. If you try to build more cities than your economy can handle, you can cripple yourself for the rest of the game. Build a few cities, stop, then let the ones you already have develop a bit before you build anymore. Once your first cities start paying for themselves, which usually means building lots of Cottages, then you can think about establishing new ones. Gold is the key in this game, if you're not making enough of it you won't do very well.

 

[Bezhukov]

When in doubt, build a worker.

 

[The Tyrant]

I bought Civ IV about a week ago. It's the first game in the Civ series I've played, and I'm nearing giving up. It's a great game, but I'm just getting my arse handed to me over and over.

I'm playing on Noble, and a few things keep happening over and over:

Whoa! I've been a huge fan of Civ and playing it since the first one came, what, about 15 years ago? Even with that I played my first three Civ IV games on Settler difficulty (the easiest setting) to get a feel for the game. I'm up to Prince now, one setting above Noble. I'm absolutely amazed that you are able to play on Noble for any length of time. Definitely start playing on Settler difficulty and move up from there.

Barbs: yeah, they're a pain. They only show up in tiles that no player (including AI civs) can see. That means that in the early stages what you're doing is best. Stationing archers on forested hills not only acts as barb bait, but it pushes back the fog so there is less chance of them spawning near your cities. Once you start getting hemmed in by bordering nations there will be fewer and fewer barbarians with the trade off of more predictable (but ultimately more dangerous) neighbors.

Don't worry too much about the early-game scores. If the AI pulls ahead, that's okay. That just means that you've invested in cottages (long-term gain) while the shortsighted AI is investing in farms (short-term gain but not as good in the long run). I'm almost always behind at first in score, but that changes as my cottages mature. Once I'm into the late early stage (or early mid stage) of a game, then I'll start checking score/power ratings but before that I actually expect to be behind in score.

City specialization: Since you're relatively new to the game, just follow the basic rules UnspokenRequest gave. You don't have to understand the nitty-gritty super-fine-tuning you'll find in some of the guides. Stick with that and you'll do well enough that you can fine-tune things as you get more comfortable with how things work. When you're ready, there are some in-depth studies of city specialization in the Articles forum.

Also, I found WoundedKnight's Strategy Guide to be very helpful.

In short, welcome to Civ -- one of the most enjoyable games you'll ever play. Just remember that experienced Civ players are recommended to start playing on Noble difficulty, but many of us still started on Settler and worked our way up. I applaud your willingness to jump right in, but go ahead and start from the beginning until you can survive long enough to learn some of the finer points of the game. If you do that, though, then there is one thing you should be aware of. You will come to truly understand the meaning of "Just... one... more... turn."

 

[Dieters]

Thanks for all of the responses. I'll give the suggestions a try.

 

[katank]

You are probably not overexpanding as another poster suggested. Most likely, you are underexpanding. Once the AI develops their bigger lands, you get overrun.

What you need to do is aggressively bash them with your superior military and/or settler rush to grab lots of land.

Learn to chop rush (beeline to bronze working and using workers to cut down trees for shields).

The crucial techs to turn around your economy to afford the big empire without crippling your science rate is Code of Laws and Currency. Code of Laws is perfect for Oracling. On Noble, you are almost sure to get the Oracle if you tech to Priesthood ASAP and chop rush. Try to time it so that the Oracle finishes the same turn or a few turns after you get writing. This allows you to pick Code of Laws as your free tech. This gives you Confucianism as a religion and opens up courthouses.

I suggest you try Tokugawa. His aggressive trait makes for cheaper barracks and a stronger axe/sword rush with free combat 1. His organized trait means cheaper courthouses and can help you recover your economy faster.

 

[Dieters]

Katank,

I'll give your suggestions a whirl. Part of my problem perhaps, is that I've been trying to succeed with no combat - at least, no wars against other civs.

This would be doable I'm sure, if I knew what I was doing. But I don't, so I keep finding myself hemmed in by other civs. I usually only have 3-4 cities before I find myself surrounded by cultural borders from other civs. Trying to win peacefully at that point seems impossible to me, at least at this point.

 

[Willem]

Katank,

I'll give your suggestions a whirl. Part of my problem perhaps, is that I've been trying to succeed with no combat - at least, no wars against other civs.

This would be doable I'm sure, if I knew what I was doing. But I don't, so I keep finding myself hemmed in by other civs. I usually only have 3-4 cities before I find myself surrounded by cultural borders from other civs. Trying to win peacefully at that point seems impossible to me, at least at this point.

If you really want some solid advice, you should include a save game where you're having trouble. It's a little hard to tell where you're at in the game just by your description. I mentioned over expansion, but under expansion might be the problem too, as Katank mentioned. With no time frame to go by it's hard to tell which way you should improve.

But even still you shouldn't be playing on Noble until you have a feel for the game. As for no wars, that is possible, but not very likely. Chances are at least one civ is going to declare war on you so you should be prepared, even if you don't want to be the aggressor yourself.

 

[5cats]

I've also played since Civ1 and the first few games of Civ4 I got smacked around real bad... on Warlord difficulty! Lmao!
It took several games at that easier level just to figure out how to keep things balanced, what works and what doesn't. And the Barbarians (and nasty animals) are easier to deal with too

 

[Gumbolt]

Best way to learn is play lots of starts. Take a scenario and keep playing till you improve. Chopping forest to speed up settlers is great at start. I always build worker worker settler on my capital city. I Chop the forest to speed up second worker then using both workers to make the final settler. You can use this on your second city too. On noble this should give you a huge success as the AI does not do this. Helps to have warriors to protect from animals and barbarians as you move those settlers about.

Workers warriors settlers till you have 4 cities is a good way to set up a empire to build on. From then on once you start working cottages in your cities with high growth and produce military in your high production cities connecting up resources such as copper to start producing lots of axemen to bash your foes.

To war!!!! No prisoners!!

Be good to see the saved game

 

[mcnich]

I'm nearly as new as you are! So take what I say with a grain of salt.

I'd be wary of dropping all the way back to Settler. The player gets such huge advantages over the AI at that level that you don't learn much beyond the very basics of how to play. I've been playing Civ on and off (mostly off) since Civ2, but never really learned anything. I'd play a few games on Warlord, but I was the world's worst at re-starting, re-generating the map, only playing one civ, quitting if the AI popped a hut before me, the works.

Civ4 is different for me though. I've disciplined myself for the most part to randomize everything I can and to play it as it lays (mostly ) I lost or was losing a dozen games before I started getting the hang of Noble. Now I'm thinking of jumping up to Prince.

If I were you, I'd play 2 games at Cheiftan, the jump to Warlord until I started regularly winning. Then Noble. Play games that challenge you, but aren't completely out of your depth. That way your skills improve without making the game totally no fun to play.

Everybody says read the manual, but really, READ the manual. There's a lot of helpful info there. For instance, have you looked at the city bars on the main map? Do you see that your top producers in hammers and cash have little icons showing that? Makes it easy to decide where you're going to put stuff like the Pentagon and West Point. I don't even want to tell you how long it was before I realized a city celebrating We Love The King Day paid no maintenance that turn.

And missionaries? Honey, those are cash in the bank! And cash is EVERYTHING in this game. Open those borders after you've consolidated your initial territory and spam your neighbors. Don't forget your own cities too!

 

[Dieters]

mcnich,

I'm avoiding Settler for that very reason. I'm going to try Chieftain or Warlord for a bit, probably Chieftain until I've won a few games, and then move up to Warlord. I'll do the same on it until I've won a few, then try Noble. As an aside, so far, I've been very bad about doing what you said you did: starting, getting frustrated, starting over, etc.

I'll start a game and try to follow some of the advice in this thread. Then I'll put up a savegame. You guys can tell me where I'm going wrong.

Thanks again.

 

[UnspokenRequest]

It depends on the size of the map you're playing on. But usually, 3 or 4 cities is not enough.

Early war is not a necessity. I'm not a fan of early wars. They're usefull and I'll do it if I have to. But if I can achieve a decent size without an early war, I'll concentrate on strenghtenning my Empire's economy and production first. I believe early wars are more random, than medieval or industrial age wars. The relative power of each civ is constantly changing with each tech acquired or each city founded... By the medieval age (or sometimes late classical age), you usually know your ennemies (powerful or not), your allies and the AI you will end up competing with for the final victory.
+ There are so much stuff to take care of at first in your Empire. War can become a distraction. Early war is a short term boost, but it can lead you to neglect important buildings, tile improvements and the general state of your economy. If you chose to wage an early war. Define precisely your objectives (cities, key resources, shrinking the other civ, etc.) and stick with it. Keep it as short as possible and always check where you are at with science and economy. Avoid total war as much as possible (by total war I mean a war where all of your cities produce units and nothing else for a long period of time).

When I can, I usually invest in longer term benefits. When i feel I have decent control of my Empire. I carefully plan a war of expansion. Unplanned wars are hazardous.
At higher difficulty levels however, Early war often become a necessity. AI's expansion and science are so great you often have to expand early in order to survive.

 

[Sisiutil]

You've gotten excellent advice from everyone else, so I won't belabour any points, except one little thing as yet unmentioned regarding barbarians.

They are a nuisance...at first. Stationing a few obsolete and/or cheap units to push back the fog and reduce their chances of appearing is a good idea UNTIL you have your game basics down. When you're feeling a little more comfortable with everything else after a couple of successful games, pull those outposted units back in and let the barbarians come at you.

Reason #1: Good melee units like axemen and swordsmen will almost always defeat barbs (provided you don't go after them on a good defensive tile like forest, jungle, hills, or a combination). In the process, these units will gain experience and earn some early promotions (though this has a limit with barbarians). Keep these units around and upgrade them. They'll become your elite forces later.

Reason #2: The barbs may found a city near you. Talk about a GIFT. More good experience for your units (and for their commander--you), and some free gold when you sack it. If you like the location, keep it; if you don't, raze it and build your own on a better tile.

The barbarians do have a tendency to go after settlers, workers, and improvements, so you'll want to assign units to accompany the former two and to guard any really important tiles like copper/iron mines or horses pastures. This is good practice for later, when you have to protect things like oil wells from enemy spies seeking to sabotage them.

If you prefer to play peacefully, building and maintaining a strong military is ironically vital. It ensures the other civs respect you and will be more reluctant to invade you. Those barbarians could wind up being your best friends.

 

[atreas]

One small advise: stop looking at your score - score is determined mainly by the population and CURRENT tech discoveries, and therefore tells you only WHERE YOY ARE NOW.

If you want to "predict the future", develop the habbit of ONLY looking the Demographics section of the game. Especially the 1st parameter (GPT) shows with quite good accuracy how well you are researching compared to the other civs. Of course, if you stay with 3-4 cities I can assure you that your position will not be good here - the fact that you are first now in score says nothing about what will happen in a few turns: but if you are last in GPT, I can guarantee that in some turns you will be backwards in science (and a bit later, in score).

Stop looking too much in your science slider (it is also much less important than GPT). Remember that LAND IS POWER - more land means more cities, and in this game you can gother money and science beakers only in cities, plus you can build anything only in cities. In the very game mechanics it is integrated that A LOT of national wonders can be built only if you have something built on more than 6 cities - you can understand you will not go far without Oxford, etc.

If you feel that you don't want to start wars but want to expand a bit more, try playing in a map that prevents early contact (like custom continents with only 1 civ per continent) or "construct" yourself a suitable map through WorldBuilder (or even without that: just play custom games with less than the default number of AI opponents). Don't hear the "screams" about "cheats" or whatever else: you want to learn, and the best way to learn if something can be done is to try it first in ideal situations. If you feel that Barbarians disturb you, DISABLE them. Learn first how to win without them, and then you can reenable them and try this time with them in the game. You have set yourself quite a task by starting immediately in Noble - I assure you that Noble without Barbarians is much more difficult than Warlord with Barbarians (the same is true for all levels).

PS. Have as big cities as possible. There are many reasons for that, but one simple way to show it is that after Biology all these farms will produce +1 food, so the more citizens you have the more specialists you will be able to support. And you usually will not want to wait for that moment to start growing the cities - it's better to be ready and just seize the opportunity.

 

[Willem]

Especially the 1st parameter (GPT) shows with quite good accuracy how well you are researching compared to the other civs.

That's not necessarily true. If the AI doesn't have a good science infrastructure in place, you can out tech a civ that has a higher GPT than you. It's happened to me lots of times.

 

[uncarved block]

Dieters, I'm going to sound a more pessimistic note, and say that playing Civ4 well is not something that happens quickly. I've been playing more than a bit since I got the game (a week after release), and only in the last couple weeks has the "flow" of it finally started to sink in. In that time, I've quit a lot of games that I screwed up badly: some I could have saved, others where the loss was not really in doubt. After having all my fingers burned- some twice!- I've finally started to "feel" when it's good to give tribute or not, when to build certain units and in what numbers, which tech will get me to a better spot 50 turns from now, and so on.
One concrete bit of advice I can offer is to start out, at whatever level, and begin with the notion of winning a cultural victory. I did this a couple times, and it really provided me with a good view on city management. Play the game without any real pressure to win, or even finish-- the whole idea is to think about only one aspect of a city, how the civics options effect it, how you can maximize it, and at what cost to your overall empire. Once you can do this for culture, making decisions for hammers, GP points, and commerce should come a lot more naturally.
Just a free tip; take it at face value

 

[atreas]

That's not necessarily true. If the AI doesn't have a good science infrastructure in place, you can out tech a civ that has a higher GPT than you. It's happened to me lots of times.

It can also have variance with many other ways - one of them is for a civ to build research in his cities. But it is THE ONLY method that gives some kind of good prediction (if I am not mistaken, this is the meaning of "quite good accuracy") about how you are doing in science. The science slider, especially, says absolutely nothing.