Finally took the plunge and need a few tips

[moorie678]

All right, I finally took the plunge from Civ 3 to Civ 4. I would like to say thank you to this community, it helped me out a great deal in Civ 3, and I finally decided to join this great community.

Anyways, I read most of the guides here and couldnt find what i was looking for. It would be amazing if a pro could help me out a bit with these questions.

I will provide a little bit of my game, I usually expand slow at the beginning, usually ahead of the AI on prince lvl in terms of research and an average army. This is at the early stages of the game. At this stage I have no problems however in later stages of the game I am usually so behind in research due to building and army production and play catch up till the end of the game. I try to have a scientist city that makes about 450 research and usually achieve that goal.

I have never won a game through space victory nor total annihilation of opponents. The only way I can win is by time, but this usually leads to my demise when all the Civs start to attack each other and blackmail me. If I chose the army route through out the game, then I usually end up with outdated units and get my ass whooped. If i go the scientific route then the AI passes me in research and I cant seem to wage an offensive war, AI destroys me faster than I create them.

So I would love it if someone could help me out

1) Is there a way to have a really strong army while doing huge amounts of research?
2) Can you sell city improvements like in Civ 3 ? ( i tried to find info about this but couldnt.
3) How can I improve my research output? Even after the time victory it is taking me forever to complete the shuttle? ( in my last game I had a city that was 419 research and another one doing roughly 100, with the rest of my cities having all the research buildings.)
4) How is it possible for AI to be pleased with a Civ that does business with the AI that its furious towards? This creates a dilemma for me in terms of foreign relations and was wondering if you could give me a few tips in regards to this.

thank you for your feedback in advance.

 

[KMadCandy]

howdy welcome to the posting side of CFC!

1) other people can tell you better, i often go with a paper-thin military

2) no you can't sell buildings at all in civ4

3) my first thought on seeing what you wrote is "with the rest of my cities having all the research buildings". maybe part of your issue with 1) is that you're not specializing your cities? i usually have some cities that have a lot of commerce (or science/gold from specialists) and some cities with next to 0 commerce but a lot of hammers. those production-oriented cities never get a library/university unless i need them for culture or to qualify for Oxford national wonder, because the +25% beakers wouldn't do me any good there. they only get markets if i need them for happiness, etc. those cities are important tho since i can build units there, or wonders.

basically, you don't have the time/hammers to build every building in every city, so be sure you know the answer to "how is this going to benefit me" when you put something in your build list. if that's part of the issue, then saving hammers on those useless buildings in production cities will give you time to make a stronger army.

4) a civ has maximum one worst enemy. they might have no worst enemies at all. worst enemy = the person they're annoyed or furious with who they hate the most. so if they're cautious or higher with everybody, no worst enemy.

if they're annoyed with 4 people, still only one is the "worst enemy" that you get the penalty for trading with. but, it's sometimes hard to figure out which leader is that worst enemy, since the numbers you see on the diplomatic screen (-8 annoyed etc.) aren't the whole picture. there are behind-the-scenes numbers too. one example is "warmonger respect" which biases monty to like alex but dislike gandhi. that number is there before the game ever starts and stays forever, but you never see it on-screen.

of course who their "worst enemy" is can change during the game, so you have to keep checking the screen.

one thing i find useful when trying to get AIs to like each other less is to figure out why they like each other in the first place. maybe gandhi is in Free Market, that's mansa's favorite civic so it makes mansa like him more. if you get gandhi out of FM, that instantly causes mansa to give him less +credit. bribing might work, since FM isn't gandhi's favorite civic, but it doesn't always work. spies in BtS make changing their civics a lot easier. the same approach can work for religion, which has a huge impact on how much everybody likes each other. and, you can apply that whole theory in reverse if you want them to like each other more.

 

[DaveMcW]

Cottages!!

 

[oyzar]

What you seem to need is how to manage economy. For many people the best answer is what DaveMcW just said. Don't neglect cottages while your cities have enough food to support them. There are plenty of articles on economy and you should look into them. Alternatively you can read some of sitsuils guides.(starting at prince and progressing through to emperor). There is plenty of info if you know where to look for it.

 

[moorie678]

Ahh.....thanks alot, let me check out my game after i incorporate these tips. what KM said is correct, I usually try to have all my cities with the exception of couple build everything that they can build. My specialized cities usually kick ass but I guess I need to get out of this habit.

in terms of cottages, I usually do this which could be really wrong, on hills with a few exceptions, I build mines, 2 irrigation/farm and the rest cottages.

thanks a lot for the info.

 

[xanadux]

A couple questions ... are you playing vanilla, warlords, or BTS? My guess is you are playing large or huge maps? And what speed?

There is not enough info to tell for sure, but it seems that you may not be expanding enough quickly enough, and probably could also develop your economy a little quicker. The fact that you are getting a city with about 450 beaker output proves you must be doing a lot of things right.

There could be just 1 or 2 small things you are missing that are keeping you from doing better. CivIV is way different than the other civs IMO. I've played them all, and after beating Civ1 at Deity, when I got Civ2, I started out at monarch, beat it easily and moved up, and did the same at Civ3. I had heard Civ4 was very different, so I thought I would be easy on myself and just play at Prince. I lost horribly about 10 times then swallowed my pride and just manage to win at noble. So I came here and read the War Academy articles, and quickly got up to monarch. But it has taken many months to improve to emperor.

When I started CivIV, I had already played a ton of civ in my life, and it really kicked my ass. There are a lot of fairly small changes that can be the difference between struggling at Prince and dominating Monarch level.

I would suggest starting what seems to you to be a fairly normal game, and posting a picture of your capital the turn after you found it, and play until you get your second city founded. Make a note of the exact order you chose techs, and the exact build order in your capital. Stop there, and people can give some advice, and then move on from there. I've found that the first 50-100 turns are the most important in the game, and if someone isn't beating Prince, I can almost guarantee there is a flaw in the early game.

 

[moorie678]

Ahh I have no idea what vanilla is, I am assuming its the CivIV without the expansions. That is the one I am currently playing. I play normal speed (avg I am guessing) and large maps. I have problems expanding early in Civ4 because it is nothing like in Civ3 in which I would make a settler/worker city and just make it just make those units. In this producing these units arent that big of a deal, however the problem I have with expansion is I do not really know when to do it. In one of my games I expanded real early and my economy just went down to the crapper due to distance between cities. When I expanded by conquering, I was ok for a little bit then saw the AI take over the terrain that I opened up so decided not to raze cities but take them over, this ended up being a grave mistake and my economy went into the red with 0% research and I started to lose workers and military units. Then the AI ganged up on me and tore me to pieces.

Regardless, ty for all the tips, my game is already improving. I will make sure to read more econ articles then post the game screen caps for fine tuning.

It is really appreciated.

One final thing....Am I in the wrong by not starting out with the easiest difficulty? In civ 3 what improved my game the most was to play in average difficulty and not build any wonders to see what part of my game was lacking. Which was an advice that I have obtained from this site. Again thank you for making this such a great community.