Extremely frustrated...
- Thread starter Dieters
- Start date
uncarved block said:Dieters, I'm going to sound a more pessimistic note, and say that playing Civ4 well is not something that happens quickly
I agree. It took me a month of playing before I got my first victory on Noble, and I've been playing Civ games since the 90's. I've played Civs 1, 2 and 3 and so am well acquainted with the basic game mechanics. Yet Civ 4 still was a challenge for me to get used to at first. It's a much more difficult game than any of the previous versions.
ArmoredCavalry
Warlord
I too am a new recruit to the civ world, since 2005. I've worked my way up to warlord and I can tell you this,
1. diplomacy is dependand on religion, even after you discover free religion you will still reap the benifits from early frendship. there are two ways to make lifelong friends.
a) discover the first 3 religions (beline reasearch), one of them is bound to spread to your neighbors.
b) Don't give a damn about religion and work you way up the other side of the tech tree, your neighbor's religion will spread to you and thus you have a good religion relation. the disadvantage of no holy city is more than balanced by the increadably advanced reasearch and economic base.
2. Find a production formula that works for you, I usually have 4 hammer squares, 2 towns(were upgraded), and the rest as food. I've gotten some great cities this way (like a size 22 shagnhai that could pump out modern armour in 2-3 turns). forests are good becaus ethey could turn into any of the 3 types of squares. costal cities are good for food and money but unless near hills of forests are just there to make money(they can't produce much). If you are not playing an island map, built your 1st , 2nd, or 3rd city beside a river if you can. There are 3 benifits, early trade route/city connection, fresh water, and way in the future the 3 gorges dam (free power for every city on the continent, enough said).
3. remember when the advisor says "sire, our empire is now ready to expand, we should start the training of a settler". before you decide your response to the advisor, look at the mini-map and count your cities, look at your economy and see if it won't collapse with the addition of another city. Then follow these pieces of expantion advice
expanding to cover significant choke point: good,
expanding to claim the new world(or a sufficiantly sized land mass): good, early expantion to island 34000000km away from your nation: bad,
placing settlement in a culture hole in someone elses nation: Bad,
placing settlement surrounded by ice for no particular resource: bad,
putting settlement on a 2 square island: bad
As for resource expantion, if you really need a reasource, or will need (like in my last game, oil) that you do not have, remember 2 things. you can either use the guidelines above to aquire the desired resource, or if you cannot, chose the weakest civ on your boarder with the resource, or the civ with the resource closest to you and proceed to crush them before you are forced to fight with obsoleste units. there are a few exeptions. If you have to fight someone who is at friendly status(just pick another civ) or who is more powerful then you are(get a few friends to declare war on him/her to draw away units, then send in your units and "liberate" the resource city). Another major exeption is if the resource in question is iron AND copper, without these just build defencive units like archers or longbowman, foucus on tech and peaceful expantion so you can prepare for an offensive war with the discovery of gunpower (or if ur patient like me, get military tradition and conquer everything in sight with cavalry, cannons, and riflemen<=====UNSTOPABLE)
4. If you want points, war is a good way to get them (then again, war is good for everything). After a conquering a weak civilization, your score can shoot up 1000 points!!, however, going to war too often can result in your economy and research crashing. also your citizens stop working due to war weariness. I usually start wars in the renassance or modern eras because with my superproductive cities I can capture 3 major cities after about 6 turns (by now, the benifits of peace have allowed the quiet constrution of 7 + Cavalry, 3 cannons,and 5+ offensive riflmen, or in a later scenario 15+ modern armour, 6 gunships(upgraded), 8+ stealth bombers, and 5+ fighters. without disturbing normal production). A great trick for late wars is to build railroads right to your future enemy's boarder cities, or place units right on the boarder so that when war starts your army rushes in without giving them a chance to defend themselves, along with air support or cannons this kind of war is a slaughter.
Hovever, I also remain peaceful because of my lack of stratagy in an early offensive warfare scenario. Because of this, I am limited to either space victory, cultural victory, or diplomatic victory. However, the cities I conquered allowed me to prevent two civs( arabia and persia) from a space victory, Arabia from crushing production and the Persia by production of nuclear missles from the cities I took from the aztecs during the renassance, the war that started didn't result in a single shot being fired as the Persia was too far away. I nuked the cities through the SDI (I needed a lot of nukes) and crippled the production of the SS engine.
This is all of the advice I can offer, and hopefully it helps. Otherwise, I may need to refine my stratagy.
1. diplomacy is dependand on religion, even after you discover free religion you will still reap the benifits from early frendship. there are two ways to make lifelong friends.
a) discover the first 3 religions (beline reasearch), one of them is bound to spread to your neighbors.
b) Don't give a damn about religion and work you way up the other side of the tech tree, your neighbor's religion will spread to you and thus you have a good religion relation. the disadvantage of no holy city is more than balanced by the increadably advanced reasearch and economic base.
2. Find a production formula that works for you, I usually have 4 hammer squares, 2 towns(were upgraded), and the rest as food. I've gotten some great cities this way (like a size 22 shagnhai that could pump out modern armour in 2-3 turns). forests are good becaus ethey could turn into any of the 3 types of squares. costal cities are good for food and money but unless near hills of forests are just there to make money(they can't produce much). If you are not playing an island map, built your 1st , 2nd, or 3rd city beside a river if you can. There are 3 benifits, early trade route/city connection, fresh water, and way in the future the 3 gorges dam (free power for every city on the continent, enough said).
3. remember when the advisor says "sire, our empire is now ready to expand, we should start the training of a settler". before you decide your response to the advisor, look at the mini-map and count your cities, look at your economy and see if it won't collapse with the addition of another city. Then follow these pieces of expantion advice
expanding to cover significant choke point: good,
expanding to claim the new world(or a sufficiantly sized land mass): good, early expantion to island 34000000km away from your nation: bad,
placing settlement in a culture hole in someone elses nation: Bad,
placing settlement surrounded by ice for no particular resource: bad,
putting settlement on a 2 square island: bad
As for resource expantion, if you really need a reasource, or will need (like in my last game, oil) that you do not have, remember 2 things. you can either use the guidelines above to aquire the desired resource, or if you cannot, chose the weakest civ on your boarder with the resource, or the civ with the resource closest to you and proceed to crush them before you are forced to fight with obsoleste units. there are a few exeptions. If you have to fight someone who is at friendly status(just pick another civ) or who is more powerful then you are(get a few friends to declare war on him/her to draw away units, then send in your units and "liberate" the resource city). Another major exeption is if the resource in question is iron AND copper, without these just build defencive units like archers or longbowman, foucus on tech and peaceful expantion so you can prepare for an offensive war with the discovery of gunpower (or if ur patient like me, get military tradition and conquer everything in sight with cavalry, cannons, and riflemen<=====UNSTOPABLE)
4. If you want points, war is a good way to get them (then again, war is good for everything). After a conquering a weak civilization, your score can shoot up 1000 points!!, however, going to war too often can result in your economy and research crashing. also your citizens stop working due to war weariness. I usually start wars in the renassance or modern eras because with my superproductive cities I can capture 3 major cities after about 6 turns (by now, the benifits of peace have allowed the quiet constrution of 7 + Cavalry, 3 cannons,and 5+ offensive riflmen, or in a later scenario 15+ modern armour, 6 gunships(upgraded), 8+ stealth bombers, and 5+ fighters. without disturbing normal production). A great trick for late wars is to build railroads right to your future enemy's boarder cities, or place units right on the boarder so that when war starts your army rushes in without giving them a chance to defend themselves, along with air support or cannons this kind of war is a slaughter.
Hovever, I also remain peaceful because of my lack of stratagy in an early offensive warfare scenario. Because of this, I am limited to either space victory, cultural victory, or diplomatic victory. However, the cities I conquered allowed me to prevent two civs( arabia and persia) from a space victory, Arabia from crushing production and the Persia by production of nuclear missles from the cities I took from the aztecs during the renassance, the war that started didn't result in a single shot being fired as the Persia was too far away. I nuked the cities through the SDI (I needed a lot of nukes) and crippled the production of the SS engine.
This is all of the advice I can offer, and hopefully it helps. Otherwise, I may need to refine my stratagy.
I think you are quite wrong, or missing the point. This is again the same STATIC info that is reflected in your current score. Now you are 1-2 techs ahead, but this doesn't say whether in 30 turns you will still be ahead or not (remember, we are talking about PREDICTION and estimation).Willem said:
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
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- Dec 5, 2005
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Dieters said:
Buildaholics Anonymous may be worth a read, later.
CIV 4 is really big - there are a lot of different mini-games going on; you'll need to learn most of them, but you don't need to learn them all at the same time.
My suggestion would be to play some starts, with the specific objective of learning how various parts of the game work. Example: fire up a Pangaea map, pick Julius Caesar as your leader, and set yourself the goal of wiping out the first civ that you locate. Maybe duel a specific opponent. Try a duel map as one of the Mongol leaders against the Greeks. Try a an early war using India (which doesn't have an uber war unit). Get a feel for how combat and promotions work, how cities contribute to the war effort, and so on.
Then put the early war toys away, and learn about civics - choosing one of the spiritual leaders (Mansa, Hatty, Gandhi) with the idea of changing civics a lot - figure out what the civics do, what techs are required to unlock them. Here, I'd suggest a map like Archepelego, so that you've got some elbow room.
Play a game where your goal is to create as many Great People as possible, and figure out what sorts of things they can do.
Play a game where your goal is to slave rush as many buildings as you can - figure out how that works.
I play lots of starts - I take the idea, run with it until I feel like I'm not learning anything, then shut it down.
atreas said:
But as I said, it's entirely possible to out-tech a civ that has higher GPT score by having a better science infrastucture. So you don't want to rely on just that graph alone. If your GPT is a bit lower yet you're still keeping ahead tech-wise on a consistant basis, then you're doing alright. You need to look at both in order to truly know where you stand. Research rates are not just determined by the amount of gold you're producing, there are other factors to consider as well.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Yes, I agree with this too. I also go back to Civs I & II (skipped III). After playing through the tutorial, I tried my first game on Noble, because that's where the game itself said experienced players should start.Willem said:
It should come as no surprise that Monty eventually handed my a** to me on a platter.
I sheepishly went all the way down to Settler, and have only just now begun playing Noble after a couple of months.atreas said:
Another thing that's not reflected in the GPT graph is how much of that revenue is being spent on city/military maintenance. If the GPT leader has a larger empire and/or a larger military, much of that gold is being spent in areas other than research. I've had games where a smaller civ, with less GPT, was able to out-tech me simply because I was larger and more powerful. That graph should only be considered as a rough estimation of your tech standing and you shouldn't just ignore the "static" indicators. Both have their uses in determining where you stand.
And once you start getting the hang of things, it's great to randomize your civ. I just got Japan yesterday and I mopped the floor with Cyrus and Peter using my Samauri. Those Samauri ended up with better combat odds than my musketmen in most of the fights. And they upgrade straight to Riflemen.
Barbs are a pain, but those cities they build are a gift! Right now I've got some axemen standing outside 2 cities with good resources nearby, just waiting till the cities hit size 2 so I can move in......meanwhile my core cities are still growing and I'm working on buildings that I need in them. I'm saving myself about 15-20 non-productive turns.
Barbs are a pain, but those cities they build are a gift! Right now I've got some axemen standing outside 2 cities with good resources nearby, just waiting till the cities hit size 2 so I can move in......meanwhile my core cities are still growing and I'm working on buildings that I need in them. I'm saving myself about 15-20 non-productive turns.
Hey guys,
Just an update from the newbie.
I played a game yesterday, size standard, Chieftain setting. I was Spanish.
When I'd made the game, I thought I'd turned off all but one AI. I was wanting to be able to work on learning more about the system itself without having to bother with a bunch of AIs hemming me in. Well, when the first "highest culture" screen or whatever popped up, I saw FOUR civs
, mine, Mongols (on the left side of the same continent that I was on), and 2 unknowns. Oops, guess I turned off some of the AI civs and left some on.
I'd just read a bunch of the RCB1 game stuff from Sirian / Sulla, so I wanted to try the whole hydra thing. Obviously on Chieftain it's far easier to do, but since I'm a newbie and Sulla / Sirian seem to be Civ gods, I thought it was okay.
I ended up nabbing Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Taoism. I got enough Great Prophets to construct all of the holy site buildings for each religion. Then I spammed missionaries all over the place, and basically rolled in the money. At one point I was gaining about 150g/turn.
After playing the game in full (and barely winning by 300 points), I learned quite a few things:
* I need to focus on expanding more. At the end of the game, I only had 8 cities. I had about 2/3 of the continent I was on, but the Mongols had a decent chunk. In hindsight, I should have gone to war and wiped him out.
* I need to focus way more on naval exploration / intercontinental expansion. I ended up not having any cities on the other 2 continents. (The civs ended up being me, Mongols, Americans, Japanese.) Washington ended up having a whole giant continent to himself, and he's the civ that was giving me a run for my money. The Japanese had a continent mostly to themselves as well. There was actually 3 other continents, but 1 was rather small, and none of the civs touched it. When I was scouting down there with a submarine, I saw a size 8 barb city, with barb workers building roads. I didn't know they could do that!
Those were really the biggest issues I saw. I had a ton of money, and most of it didn't get put to much use. I could have supported cities across all the continents with my religion setup, but I was too busy doing.. something else to realize that. I guess I got in a mental rut. I had the religion thing going, I was getting a ton of money, and.. I just kept doing that a lot. Strike while the iron is hot, I guess; next time, I'll be hurling settlers across the sea like frisbees.
Near the end of the game, I declared war on Washington to try and knock him down a few notches. (He'd been being a jerk with me for a long while anyway.) It didn't go as planned. I just didn't have enough time to properly ferry tons of troops across the pond. I ended up taking one city from him before the game ended. While on the topic of war, I should note that I need to focus on border defenses a bit more. Washington landed some cavalry on my coast a few times, and I wasn't totally prepared. Universal Suffrage + tons of money saved me tho. He'd land a Cavalry, and I'd pop a Marine (or 4) on the next turn.
I tried to win a Diplomatic Victory, but I couldn't pull it off. The Mongols were pleased with me.. the Japanese were pleased with me..
And yet when I'd do a Diplomatic Victory deal, they always abstained! Washington voted for himself, I voted for myself, and they wouldn't vote at all. I was showering them with money every turn, but it didn't make any difference. Can someone more experienced explain this? I thought since they were happy with me, they'd vote for me.
All in all, it was a fun game, and I'm really glad I played it in full, instead of getting frustrated and starting over. Finishing the game let me look back and see where I made huge mistakes.
My frustration is ebbing, and my desire to learn and learn and learn is growing.
Sorry for the extremely long, rambling nature of this entry. It's almost a write-up for myself, but I thought it'd be nice to share it and let others pick at it.
Just an update from the newbie.
I played a game yesterday, size standard, Chieftain setting. I was Spanish.
When I'd made the game, I thought I'd turned off all but one AI. I was wanting to be able to work on learning more about the system itself without having to bother with a bunch of AIs hemming me in. Well, when the first "highest culture" screen or whatever popped up, I saw FOUR civs
, mine, Mongols (on the left side of the same continent that I was on), and 2 unknowns. Oops, guess I turned off some of the AI civs and left some on. I'd just read a bunch of the RCB1 game stuff from Sirian / Sulla, so I wanted to try the whole hydra thing. Obviously on Chieftain it's far easier to do, but since I'm a newbie and Sulla / Sirian seem to be Civ gods, I thought it was okay.
I ended up nabbing Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Taoism. I got enough Great Prophets to construct all of the holy site buildings for each religion. Then I spammed missionaries all over the place, and basically rolled in the money. At one point I was gaining about 150g/turn.
After playing the game in full (and barely winning by 300 points), I learned quite a few things:
* I need to focus on expanding more. At the end of the game, I only had 8 cities. I had about 2/3 of the continent I was on, but the Mongols had a decent chunk. In hindsight, I should have gone to war and wiped him out.
* I need to focus way more on naval exploration / intercontinental expansion. I ended up not having any cities on the other 2 continents. (The civs ended up being me, Mongols, Americans, Japanese.) Washington ended up having a whole giant continent to himself, and he's the civ that was giving me a run for my money. The Japanese had a continent mostly to themselves as well. There was actually 3 other continents, but 1 was rather small, and none of the civs touched it. When I was scouting down there with a submarine, I saw a size 8 barb city, with barb workers building roads. I didn't know they could do that!
Those were really the biggest issues I saw. I had a ton of money, and most of it didn't get put to much use. I could have supported cities across all the continents with my religion setup, but I was too busy doing.. something else to realize that. I guess I got in a mental rut. I had the religion thing going, I was getting a ton of money, and.. I just kept doing that a lot. Strike while the iron is hot, I guess; next time, I'll be hurling settlers across the sea like frisbees.
Near the end of the game, I declared war on Washington to try and knock him down a few notches. (He'd been being a jerk with me for a long while anyway.) It didn't go as planned. I just didn't have enough time to properly ferry tons of troops across the pond. I ended up taking one city from him before the game ended. While on the topic of war, I should note that I need to focus on border defenses a bit more. Washington landed some cavalry on my coast a few times, and I wasn't totally prepared. Universal Suffrage + tons of money saved me tho. He'd land a Cavalry, and I'd pop a Marine (or 4) on the next turn.
I tried to win a Diplomatic Victory, but I couldn't pull it off. The Mongols were pleased with me.. the Japanese were pleased with me..
And yet when I'd do a Diplomatic Victory deal, they always abstained! Washington voted for himself, I voted for myself, and they wouldn't vote at all. I was showering them with money every turn, but it didn't make any difference. Can someone more experienced explain this? I thought since they were happy with me, they'd vote for me.
All in all, it was a fun game, and I'm really glad I played it in full, instead of getting frustrated and starting over. Finishing the game let me look back and see where I made huge mistakes.
My frustration is ebbing, and my desire to learn and learn and learn is growing.
Sorry for the extremely long, rambling nature of this entry. It's almost a write-up for myself, but I thought it'd be nice to share it and let others pick at it.
ArmoredCavalry
Warlord
I have to ask, what was your tech level(what were you researching)?
But yes, CONQUER THE MONGOLS. having your own continent means never having to deal with land defense, more cities/pop, and more resourses. Those eight cities are the center of your empire, they are the only ones you need settlers for. the rest are gained by smiteing all those who had the misfortune of being on the same landmass. If you are a peaceful person. then use those eight cities to go for a cultural or space victory.
As for your diplomatic situation. you're trying to make friends with everyone arn't you? you have to be Friendy if you want them to vote for you. but unless you make enemies too, everyone is going to see you as sympatizing with thier enemies. pick 2 moderatly powered people to be your friends (3rd and 4th civs.[unless they are agressive civs, then just slaughter them and be friends with the next in line]) treat them with respect, when they ask for help, give it. when they ask for a trade, unless it's not stupid, do it. spread your religion to them or adopt free religion ASAP. If they go to war, agree to conquer thier foes if they ask. but if you really don't want to , don't bother sending troops. They should kiss the ground you walk on after all this.
But my advice is don't go for diplomatic victory if you don't have to, believe me, the movie is crappy, you WILL regret it. go for the other victories, I find it more fun(but maybe that's because of my style).
But yes, CONQUER THE MONGOLS. having your own continent means never having to deal with land defense, more cities/pop, and more resourses. Those eight cities are the center of your empire, they are the only ones you need settlers for. the rest are gained by smiteing all those who had the misfortune of being on the same landmass. If you are a peaceful person. then use those eight cities to go for a cultural or space victory.
As for your diplomatic situation. you're trying to make friends with everyone arn't you? you have to be Friendy if you want them to vote for you. but unless you make enemies too, everyone is going to see you as sympatizing with thier enemies. pick 2 moderatly powered people to be your friends (3rd and 4th civs.[unless they are agressive civs, then just slaughter them and be friends with the next in line]) treat them with respect, when they ask for help, give it. when they ask for a trade, unless it's not stupid, do it. spread your religion to them or adopt free religion ASAP. If they go to war, agree to conquer thier foes if they ask. but if you really don't want to , don't bother sending troops. They should kiss the ground you walk on after all this.
But my advice is don't go for diplomatic victory if you don't have to, believe me, the movie is crappy, you WILL regret it. go for the other victories, I find it more fun(but maybe that's because of my style).
At the end of the game I was up to getting Biology, Plastics, etc. I had nukes researched, and had a few building. So I was almost done with the tech tree.
I was at 100% research pretty much the whole game. Needed more cities, though.
And yeah, I'm trying to make happy with everyone, which is another one of my problems. I need to accept that I'm going to have to trample a few people.
About the diplomatic victory.. that's how things were, basically. Washington was being a jerk, and pretty much hated me. The Mongols and the Japanese were both pleased with me. I had Free religion, gave them gifts, etc. But they always abstained.
I was at 100% research pretty much the whole game. Needed more cities, though.
And yeah, I'm trying to make happy with everyone, which is another one of my problems. I need to accept that I'm going to have to trample a few people.
About the diplomatic victory.. that's how things were, basically. Washington was being a jerk, and pretty much hated me. The Mongols and the Japanese were both pleased with me. I had Free religion, gave them gifts, etc. But they always abstained.
ArmoredCavalry
Warlord
gifts only get you so far. I find it really doesn't help at all. you do need more cities though, or to conquer more. I got up to future tech 60 with my research rate at around 90% the whole game and always get to the future techs.
Once your able to build frigate, you may wanna start dedicating a coastal city or two to start popping out a bunch of naval units and start fortifying them or settleing them around your coast. It will help stop invasions from sea. Also manager your city tiles and make sure to have plenty of cottages and people working them, I don't recommend automating workers other than to "build trade network" in the later game cause they tend to buld alot of farms. Build science buildings in every city... universities, libraries, observatories for better research... And if you can reach military tradition fairly early, build calvary and knockout alota heads! For an added bonus build Kremlin and use Emancipation civic and buy any improvements you missed out on including wonders.
The guides are great, but don't follow them step by step or you'll go crazy. The best tip I can give you is play a lot until you understand the engine. Just practice a lot. And I suggest playing on Chieftain, and when you dominate it - move on. You'll probably be ready on Prince faster than ya think.
ArmoredCavalry
Warlord
cardin411 said:
I think you meant universal sufferage. another good bounus for the navy suggested would be to circumnavigate using caravels, that extra movement becomes usefull in transports.
I'm a newbie too. Don't know if this will help Dieters but I come from a background of RTS (real-time strategy) games like Starcraft and Warcraft, and FPS (first-person shooters) like Doom and Half-Life. In these games, you have to make split-second decisions and make sure your fingers are quick on the trigger (or keyboard, as it were).
I found that for the first few games on Civ IV, I was playing it that way. Feeling the internal pressure to make a move NOW. I realize though that (duh!), there shouldn't be any pressure at all. You have all the time in the world to take a close and meticulous look at each of your units and cities, not to mention those belonging to the other civs, befure hitting the Enter key to end your turn. When that paradigm sunk in, I began managing my cities much better.
After three weeks of playing, I'm now getting the hang of playing at Noble. I've already won the Space Race, Domination and (most difficult for me to date) Conquest. I'm setting myself up to play just one more game, this time on a Large map. If I win that game, I'm moving up to Prince.
The last thing I wanted to say was that yes, the game could be really frustrating but that has been true for me for any of the other games I've played. But the frustration serves to fuel the passion and desire to do better. I'm glad you're getting over the frustration and getting to have more fun. I promise you that it will only get better.
I found that for the first few games on Civ IV, I was playing it that way. Feeling the internal pressure to make a move NOW. I realize though that (duh!), there shouldn't be any pressure at all. You have all the time in the world to take a close and meticulous look at each of your units and cities, not to mention those belonging to the other civs, befure hitting the Enter key to end your turn. When that paradigm sunk in, I began managing my cities much better.
After three weeks of playing, I'm now getting the hang of playing at Noble. I've already won the Space Race, Domination and (most difficult for me to date) Conquest. I'm setting myself up to play just one more game, this time on a Large map. If I win that game, I'm moving up to Prince.
The last thing I wanted to say was that yes, the game could be really frustrating but that has been true for me for any of the other games I've played. But the frustration serves to fuel the passion and desire to do better. I'm glad you're getting over the frustration and getting to have more fun. I promise you that it will only get better.
Darkhrse,
Actually, that does help. I'd thought the same thing, actually! I too came from RTS and FPS games. I played Warcraft 2/3 religiously, as well as Starcraft. Half-Life 1 and 2, along with Counter-Strike are on my list of FPS games I played. The playstyles from those games had moved over to my Civ IV playing. My first few games, I was playing as quickly as possible. I'm not sure why - I guess I just had it in my head that I had to move quickly. Like you, it finally clicked: duh, no I don't. I can spend 3 hours on 1 turn if I want to.
Once I realized that (shortly after reading the responses to my thread here), things started getting a lot better. They also became much more enjoyable. Instead of frantically clicking things each turn, I'm now finding myself going "Hm.. now what do I want to do? There's a nice piece of land up there, which I really should grab. But the Chinese are pushing on my borders a wee bit too much to the south, which I don't like, and *they* have some nice cities already made. Eh.. war."
It takes far longer, but the reward is far greater, too.
I'm still playing on Chieftain (I started a game last night, maybe 1/3 done with it), but I think I'm just about ready to hop up to Warlord. Now that I'm getting the hang of things, I'm starting to roll over the AI, in just about all areas.
I rolled over the Chinese capital last night, actually, with a huge stack of cats and swords.
Actually, that does help. I'd thought the same thing, actually! I too came from RTS and FPS games. I played Warcraft 2/3 religiously, as well as Starcraft. Half-Life 1 and 2, along with Counter-Strike are on my list of FPS games I played.
The playstyles from those games had moved over to my Civ IV playing. My first few games, I was playing as quickly as possible. I'm not sure why - I guess I just had it in my head that I had to move quickly. Like you, it finally clicked: duh, no I don't. I can spend 3 hours on 1 turn if I want to.Once I realized that (shortly after reading the responses to my thread here), things started getting a lot better. They also became much more enjoyable. Instead of frantically clicking things each turn, I'm now finding myself going "Hm.. now what do I want to do? There's a nice piece of land up there, which I really should grab. But the Chinese are pushing on my borders a wee bit too much to the south, which I don't like, and *they* have some nice cities already made. Eh.. war."
It takes far longer, but the reward is far greater, too.
I'm still playing on Chieftain (I started a game last night, maybe 1/3 done with it), but I think I'm just about ready to hop up to Warlord. Now that I'm getting the hang of things, I'm starting to roll over the AI, in just about all areas.
I rolled over the Chinese capital last night, actually, with a huge stack of cats and swords.
Darkhrse said:I'm a newbie too. Don't know if this will help Dieters but I come from a background of RTS (real-time strategy) games like Starcraft and Warcraft, and FPS (first-person shooters) like Doom and Half-Life. In these games, you have to make split-second decisions and make sure your fingers are quick on the trigger (or keyboard, as it were).
I found that for the first few games on Civ IV, I was playing it that way. Feeling the internal pressure to make a move NOW. I realize though that (duh!), there shouldn't be any pressure at all. You have all the time in the world to take a close and meticulous look at each of your units and cities, not to mention those belonging to the other civs, befure hitting the Enter key to end your turn. When that paradigm sunk in, I began managing my cities much better.
After three weeks of playing, I'm now getting the hang of playing at Noble. I've already won the Space Race, Domination and (most difficult for me to date) Conquest. I'm setting myself up to play just one more game, this time on a Large map. If I win that game, I'm moving up to Prince.
The last thing I wanted to say was that yes, the game could be really frustrating but that has been true for me for any of the other games I've played. But the frustration serves to fuel the passion and desire to do better. I'm glad you're getting over the frustration and getting to have more fun. I promise you that it will only get better.
