From Civ 3 to Civ 4

[Hookamenace]

Hi,

So ive been playing civ 3 on and off ever since it came out and I am decent at it, best difficulty I can beat is prince (or whatever the one after reagents is). So I tried playing civ 4 warlords using the same idea on monarch and I got creamed. I am kinda unfamiliar with tech on this one. I start off well, I rush for budism, hinduism, and judaism. I usually get them (starting with Ghandi). But after that I have no idea what techs I should give priority too and will just get whatever. Also, my capital does well, but the other cities I build lack production. I have no idea what to do with my workers, so I set them to automate. As for structures I'll just build whatever pops up. I am really disoriented when I play civ 4 and its driving me nuts. Also, how many cities should I have early on and when should I stop producing them.

Thanks,
Any tips are welcome or links to strategy guides.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Hi,

So ive been playing civ 3 on and off ever since it came out and I am decent at it, best difficulty I can beat is prince (or whatever the one after reagents is). So I tried playing civ 4 warlords using the same idea on monarch and I got creamed. I am kinda unfamiliar with tech on this one. I start off well, I rush for budism, hinduism, and judaism. I usually get them (starting with Ghandi). But after that I have no idea what techs I should give priority too and will just get whatever. Also, my capital does well, but the other cities I build lack production. I have no idea what to do with my workers, so I set them to automate. As for structures I'll just build whatever pops up. I am really disoriented when I play civ 4 and its driving me nuts. Also, how many cities should I have early on and when should I stop producing them.

Thanks,
Any tips are welcome or links to strategy guides.

I also play both. I wouldn't rush for Buddhism or Hinduism. Worker techs are more important. Monotheism is good for Organized Religion, but it should be done a little later. You really need techs for your workers to be working tiles (and bronze working for various reasons - really important tech).

Don't automate workers! This is probably why your other cities lack production. Automated workers build too many farms. Quickest Production would be to mine hills for production. Improve all resources, especially food, ASAP! I would chop grassland forests and build cottages for now on grasslands and floodplains.

Structures - Granary is very important. Others takes a little experience. Have one city just build military units. Unfortunately, the building recommendations in CivIV aren't any better than CivIII. A little later on you'll want to specialize your cities, which will dictate what you build in them. A granary goes up in nearly every city, however.

This guide is the gold standard: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/sisiutil.php

If you check the strategy articles on the forum, you'll find JuJu Lautre's strategy guide to beating normal. It's also pretty good for starting out.

A good rule of thumb for cities is about 7-10 at 0 AD if you can afford them. A little overlap is ok, but don't use a fixed pattern like CxxC in CivIII. You need fewer, better cities in Civ IV. You always want more cities, but make sure the cities you have are improved. The old CivIII rule of 1.5 workers/city still applies here. I can't give you any hard and fast rules about building cities after that - you probably won't have room on a standard map. You can and probably should capture some later. By the way, barbs can now build cities which you can capture from them.

You'll find your cities are more built up than CivIII, where you can win by just spamming cities. Best advice is to read Sisiutil's guide.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

The price for founding religions in Civ 4 is beyond steep, and it's hard to make a case for doing it under the vast majority of circumstances. Civ 4 really is meant to be played with a significant amount of diplomacy and trade interaction with the AI's.