How do you keep attention to the game

[Danil]

When I'm playing in about medieval/renaissance era I just get too tired of all these what do you want to build/research next and I don't know what to do with my workers and I don't remember how many cities do I have and everything pretty much falls apart.
Are there any reminders what to do next or something?
How do you manage all this stuff?

 

[lymond]

Welcome to the Madness....and to CFC...or maybe that is one and the same.

Anyway, it sounds like you may be fairly new to the game. CIV is a strategy games and that is somewhat synonymous with having a plan. It takes some time and practice, but once you get the basics down you can have a better idea of what you need to be doing at a given point in time and set up strategies towards achieving your victory condition.

Yeah...that all sounds pretty generalized. However, your questions are very general and open ended. There's not much I can tell you with out having a better understanding of your game, level, etc.

I encourage to mosey on over to the Strategy & Tips forum as well as the War Academy to read some articles. The S&T forum is a great place to hang out in order to learn the game and see what other more experience players do to win.

So a few points tied to your questions - very generalized:

1) Build/Research next. First, I recommend getting an understanding of city specialization, if you do not have on already. Again, articles and S&T can help or more pointed questions as to what you don't understand. The point though is to have cities directed toward a purpose, such as:

Burea Cap
Great Person FArm - high food Natonal Epic city
Production Cities
Heroic Epic city, if needed
Commerce Cities - usually cottages
etc

Once you figure that out, it will give you a better idea of what to build in cities. You don't need all building in every city. Hammer cities usually get Granaries and Forges. Coastal with Lighthouses. Plus, and other military building suitable for your needs (No horses/ivory=no stables) Commerce cities get buildings that boost research or gold as needed (Libraries, Markets etc) When you covered most of the basic buildings for the city type - often around Medieval - you might set your cities to building Wealth so that you can tech faster and win Lib or otherwise set yourself up for a winning strategy (military advantage, Diplo, space, etc).

Workers - You obviously won't plenty to get your land improved as fast as possible and trade routes built. If your reach a point where you land is all improve, which may never happen if you keep taking cities or expanding, you can a) start stacking them which minimizes dealing with some many workers and gets improvements up faster b) start automating them - usually trade routes. Just be careful with automating as they can get sniped and make sure you really have your land improved how you want as workers can do stupid stuff.

Also, note that better improvements show up later like windmills, watermills, workshops and railroads, plus late resources, so you still want those workers around.

How many cities - Are you not using your advisors. Press F1. There's a lot of info in the advisor screens.

Also, try the BUG and BULL mod. The provide a lot more info in the UI and improve the advisor and city screens. Very popular here. They do not change gameplay.

Are there any reminders what to do next or something? This question is really too broad to answer. It's really a matter of getting more familiar with the game, learning tips and strategies to win certain victory types and so on. Again, go to S&T and start practicing the game and asking more pointed questions. Eventually all this will come into focus. Trust me, we have all been where you are at one point.

How do you manage all this stuff? see above

 

[Kaosprophet]

When I'm playing in about medieval/renaissance era I just get too tired of all these what do you want to build/research next and I don't know what to do with my workers and I don't remember how many cities do I have and everything pretty much falls apart.
Are there any reminders what to do next or something?
How do you manage all this stuff?

Depends a bit on the status of the game, and what you're trying to do. If it's just generally being unsure where to go next... (assuming not MP) take a break, either to think about it for a bit and figure out where you want to go and how to get there, or just to do something else for a bit and come back fresh.

If it's the tedium of micromanagement, start shifting to macromanagement instead.
Often at that stage, I've got most of my land improved so I start automating most of my workers and just keep a few on manual for tweaking (or fixing stupids by the auto-workers.) It's not optimal if the situation is dicey or if you're pushing for a high score or super finish, but it works for getting rid of that particular tedium.

If a given city has all the infrastructure you think it needs, there's a couple options. Spam Units: Alt+click on the unit you want to build, and the city will build that unit till you tell it to stop. (Shift+Alt+click can set up queues, if you want a mix of units.)
Build wealth/research/culture: will build that till you tell it to stop.
Automate production: not optimal, but will at least queue in new buildings as they become available, or toss in anything non-essential if there's nothing better to do.
All of these, again, minimize the whole "what do you want to build next" popups.

Research: if you're gunning for conquest and have the techs you need for it already, feel free to shut if off and just stockpile gold (or run the espionage slider way up and play with spies.) If you're gunning for culture and have what you need, shut research off and crank the culture slider. Either slows the tech rate to a crawl so you're not being constantly pestered on what to research next, while still supporting your goal.
If not, stop a moment to think about where you're going to and what the likely path to get there is. Once you have an idea what the path is, queue up the orders.

 

[lymond]

oh...as for city builds, you can setup auto-queues as well that help with the tedium.

For instance, say you want your HE city to build units constantly. Queue an item...say a Mace. Shift and click a Pike and it will go in the queue next. Or Ctl-click on item to put it above the current item. Do that as many times as you like with the same unit or different units.

However, you can also setup rotating auto-queued items by pressing ALT+Item. Press ALT+Mace and Mace will go in the queue and be built forever unless you change it. Press ALT+SHIFT+Pike and an auto build Pike will go below the Mace. Now the city will build Mace and Pikes forever - one after the other. Press ALT+SHIFT+Treb and the city will build Mace/Pikes/Trebs forever. (ALT+CTL+Item puts an auto queued item above the current item) Also, note that you can do this more than once to the same item...say..if you want a lot more Trebs that mace and pike. For instance:

ALT+SHIFT+Macemen
ALT+SHIFT+Pike
ALT+SHIFT+Treb
ALT+SHIFT+Treb

The above combo will build Macemen, Pikeman, Treb, Treb forever. If you want a build at some point in that city just SHIFT+Building and it will go to the bottom of the queue and the city will build the building when it reaches that point and then go back to building all those units. OR CTL+Building and it will build the building immediately and then go back to building the auto units.

oh..when you setup auto units you will see an asterisk (*) next to the unit name in the queue. If you see that you no it is on auto-build.

You can set a way point from that city to another point on the map where you want your army to mass up. Click the city bar and SHIFT+Right Click on a tile where you want all those units to meet up. Now you have army build up where you want it without having to think about it.

 

[happyturtle]

Definitely head over to Strategies and Tactics. Playing in games like the Nobles Club, where different players are playing the same map and opponents, and reporting on their progress, can help keep it interesting.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Alt+S and place signs so you don't forget stuff.

Also you can just save and play again later. It's tough to do late game all in one go.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Alt+S and place signs so you don't forget stuff.

Also you can just save and play again later. It's tough to do late game all in one go.

I forgot about Alt-S!!

And breaking the game up in the late game is a great idea. It can be difficult to keep focused after a long session. Especially when you get past the middle ages and into industrial.

A good war will keep you focused, too. But don't neglect your cities!

 

[Seraiel]

Alt - M > Alt - S

 

[joanne]

Civ4 games under standard settings usually take several hours to finish, so they're not meant to be finished in one go. By the time I get bored with a game I just sit in front of the computer doing nothing but staring at the map and info screens for a few minutes then deciding if the game is still worth playing, based on my personal subjective opinion. If I still want to continue I step back from the game and evaluate my options depending on the info, decide on which victory condition I want to pursue, and lay out a plan to get there. I use notepad and read forum games for inspiration.

Alternatively, you can rushbuy a win.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Group workers into teams of 2, for less micro.
Turn on Quick Moves in the options.
Play the smallest map you are comfortable on.
Normal speed, of course...

The single most important tool is the BUG mod that you can download here on these forums. This will help you with reminders about growth, opportunities to rush production, and advantageous trade deals (among other conveniences).

Like you, I often find the late game can wear a bit, but I tend to focus too much on minutia. There are lots of ways to manage late game fatigue, and they all involve learning to manage units/cities more efficiently.

 

[The_J]

[x] Play smaller maps.

I mean, if you don't know anymore how many cities you have, what to do with your workers, just because it's too much, then the map is obviously too big for you.
I already noticed that from MoO2, where I can't play any maps bigger than tiny. It's not as bad in Civ4, but standard is already getting too big for me.

 

[happyturtle]

Alt - M > Alt - S

Alt-M is for time based reminders, such as remembering to unthrottle growth on a city when its whip anger has worn off. (or 'You've played 50 turns, now shut down the damn game and get some work done' )

Alt-S is for placed based reminders, such as 'farm this tile to make an irrigation chain' or 'don't chop this forest - two cities are using it for health'. Or just naming a river or a mountain range for flavour.

They're both awesome.

 

[s.bernbaum]

If memory serves correctly, Alt-M is not part of the basic BTS. It is added by BUG. (of course, maybe memory doesn't serve correctly )

 

[GA econ FTW]

My chess coach always flippantly tossed out ...."when in doubt, push a pawn or do a spite check on the opposing king"

...so if all the other, better ideas didn't work
"....when in doubt in Renaissance....
build a Musketman and revolt into Hereditary Rule ...."

Seems to work for Catherine as an AI!

 

[noto2]

play on smaller maps, quicker speeds

 

[digitalcraft]

I often will save around that time so I can come back to it. Of course, next time, I don't feel like coming back to it and start a new game. I probably have around 50 saved games around the industrial revolution. I usually make it through the renaissance because that's the time I'm smashing someone's face in with knights/calvary.