csar508
cartographer
I am fairly new and I am looking for some advice on how to start out with a bang! 
how to begin?
- Thread starter csar508
- Start date
csar508
cartographer
What a vague post.
I meant to ask what do you build first. How many cities etc etc
I meant to ask what do you build first. How many cities etc etc
Harbourboy
Deity
The beauty of Civ IV is that there is no one right answer to that question. There are a number of tactics that can be employed, but not all of them are appropriate in every situation.
Some general comments would be:
- in the early game, resources have a massive impact. For a city that can only work 1 or 2 squares, the effect of having access to a square that can provide twice as much food, commerce, or production than a normal square is huge.
- research the techs required to utilise the resources around you, for example, animal husbandry to use cows.
- use scouts to quickly reveal the surrounding terrain and discover goody huts
- take advantage of the fact that barbarians won't attack you straight away so workers can often be prioritised over warriors
- remember that animals won't come into your culture zone
- use workers to chop forests to help build settlers
- don't expand too much as the maintenance is crippling
Some general comments would be:
- in the early game, resources have a massive impact. For a city that can only work 1 or 2 squares, the effect of having access to a square that can provide twice as much food, commerce, or production than a normal square is huge.
- research the techs required to utilise the resources around you, for example, animal husbandry to use cows.
- use scouts to quickly reveal the surrounding terrain and discover goody huts
- take advantage of the fact that barbarians won't attack you straight away so workers can often be prioritised over warriors
- remember that animals won't come into your culture zone
- use workers to chop forests to help build settlers
- don't expand too much as the maintenance is crippling
There's one huge mistake I used to make because I was still in the Civ3 mind-set.
Do NOT build more than 3 or 4 cities early game before you have a strong economy. You'll need some techs, like Code of Laws (which gives you courthouse to lower maintanence), Currency (gives +1 routes and marketplace). Without these, you can't support the maintance of more than 4 cities.
Do NOT build more than 3 or 4 cities early game before you have a strong economy. You'll need some techs, like Code of Laws (which gives you courthouse to lower maintanence), Currency (gives +1 routes and marketplace). Without these, you can't support the maintance of more than 4 cities.
ordinaryguy
Back to Civ!
True, but there are also other ways, such as having a shrine, or emphasizing a city on commerce by cottage spamming or having money producing resources in the commerce city radius.
You could also conquer enemy cities. Yes, when you capture a city, you get SOME gold. But avoid keeping captured cities as they would hurt your economy. Just RAZE them. You can always rebuild them.
Keep in mind that the amount of cities you can support largely has to do with your difficulty setting. Maintenance costs greatly increase as you move up in difficulty.
As a rule of thumb I keep expanding until I hit a deficit at 60% rate. The situation varies of course. Sometimes you may not want to expand more because you are preparing for war and need the gold to support military in enemy territory. At other times you might want to push it a bit further to grab important resources or lucrative city spots.
As a rule of thumb I keep expanding until I hit a deficit at 60% rate. The situation varies of course. Sometimes you may not want to expand more because you are preparing for war and need the gold to support military in enemy territory. At other times you might want to push it a bit further to grab important resources or lucrative city spots.
Ecofarm
Deity
Hook up a war resouce, and destroy a civ before 1AD.
You will need 5-10 troops, some of which can be reinforcements built after declaration.
You will need 5-10 troops, some of which can be reinforcements built after declaration.
OTAKUjbski
TK421
Check out the links in my sig ... they were monumental in helping me overcome the beginner blues.
I'd make my top 5 points:
I'd make my top 5 points:
- Never stop building troops. If the AI smells blood, Friendly goes out the door quick.
- Abuse your UU/UB. Every Civ has one ... plan for its arrival, and maximize its strengths.
- Kill, mame, mutilate. (Human flesh tastes great!) Don't be afraid to pillage the countryside and Raze captured cities.
- When you kill, kill quick. Long, drawn out wars are not your friend.
- Choose your friends wisely. You can either be friends with some or enemies with all.
csar508
cartographer
thanks for the replies. What is UU/UB?
A further question, everyoen seems to say only build 3-4 cities. If you do this how do you expand later(in a space race campaign) when all the land has been grabbed?
A further question, everyoen seems to say only build 3-4 cities. If you do this how do you expand later(in a space race campaign) when all the land has been grabbed?
OscarWildebeest
Prince
Destroying your nearest neighbour usually works for me.
(And remember that Space Race is only one of six ways to win!)
OTAKUjbski
TK421
Unique Unit / Unique Building.
Check out http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/acronyms.php for a ginorma-post.
That pretty much sums it up.
I try to time my first huge military campaign to roughly coincide with my discovery of Currency and/or CoL -- thus ensuring I have the option to keep the land I just cleared out.
EDIT: If you think about it, if you can maintain n good cities pre-CoL, then post-CoL with the introduction of -50% Maintenance via the Courthouse means you can theoretically maintain 2n cities. (Plan to double your empire's size around the discovery of CoL.)
csar508
cartographer
the last few games I have played I have started out with spacerace in mind. I can win noble games as long as I don't get attacked and I only build enough units to have 1-2 per city. The trick is getting enough cities built before all the real estate is gone. This seems cheaper/ more effective to me than first building a small army to take over your neighbor and in the process make more enemies. I haven't really tried to expand through war when I'm in space race mode and I usually pick up the military boosting techs later. I guess that was where my original post was heading. Whats the fastest way to churn out about 7-8 cities right away.
UU/UB must be warlords, I'm playing reg
UU/UB must be warlords, I'm playing reg
1. Read these articles:
Beginners Guide - By Sisiutil
Stack O' Doom - By Sisutil
Beginners Tips - Sticky at top of page
A Guide to City Specialization and Land Improvements - By Excl
I also can't recommend reading some of the ALC's by Sisutil enough, everyone gives input on the game, so you get to see what people think and how games develop. I learnt a lot by reading them.
2. Look at your civ. What is its unique unit (and building for warlords), what era is it? Look to take advantage of that unit, if the map/game permits you to war during that time (don't just war for the sake of it).
3. Look at your leader. What is his/her traits, are they war mongers? Are they great person farmers? Are they cottage spammers? Look to use these abilities where you can.
4. A initial plan. So you know your faction/UU/UB, your leaders traits, plan how to use them. Playing Rome? Prat's are great city takers so look to use them to do that once you get access to them. Mansu Mansa, cottage spam.
5. Don't expand to quickly but get the 2nd and maybe the 3rd city setup quickly ONCE you have found good locations.
6. Decide who to war with, or if lots of land left and no one near expand some more. But don't ignore your economy.
Go from there... you can only play how the map allows, forcing a strategy doesn't usually work to well, use what is given to you, or take it..
Beginners Guide - By Sisiutil
Stack O' Doom - By Sisutil
Beginners Tips - Sticky at top of page
A Guide to City Specialization and Land Improvements - By Excl
I also can't recommend reading some of the ALC's by Sisutil enough, everyone gives input on the game, so you get to see what people think and how games develop. I learnt a lot by reading them.
2. Look at your civ. What is its unique unit (and building for warlords), what era is it? Look to take advantage of that unit, if the map/game permits you to war during that time (don't just war for the sake of it).
3. Look at your leader. What is his/her traits, are they war mongers? Are they great person farmers? Are they cottage spammers? Look to use these abilities where you can.
4. A initial plan. So you know your faction/UU/UB, your leaders traits, plan how to use them. Playing Rome? Prat's are great city takers so look to use them to do that once you get access to them. Mansu Mansa, cottage spam.
5. Don't expand to quickly but get the 2nd and maybe the 3rd city setup quickly ONCE you have found good locations.
6. Decide who to war with, or if lots of land left and no one near expand some more. But don't ignore your economy.
Go from there... you can only play how the map allows, forcing a strategy doesn't usually work to well, use what is given to you, or take it..
OTAKUjbski
TK421
A common mistake in CivIV I think we've all made is treating all of your cities the same way.
If you're building a Barracks and unit(s) in all of your cities, I'd recommend devoting at least one city to generating 75%+ of your military units. (This is usually my 2nd city -- heavy in hills & ore.)
The enemy of your friends is your enemy, too. Attack the guy nobody else likes, so you don't get any penalties. Attacking early often ensures you're attacking a "nobody".
Q. What's the fastest way to grind your economy to a halt -- ensuring you'll never catch up to the AI?
A. Churn out 7-8 cities right away.
Maintenance doesn't allow for REX-ing (Rapid Expansion) in CivIV. Every city has an intrinsic cost based on its distance from your capital city and the number of cities in your empire.
The first major countermeasures you'll have at your disposal come in the form of the Market [+25%
] (Currency) and the Courthouse [-50% Maintenance] (CoL).Especially since your initial cities are small, you quickly reach a break point where any new city is going to cost more than it can produce. It's usually at this point you stop expanding and either wait for a countermeasure or grow your current cities larger to compensate.
The easiest way to compensate for REX-ing pre-Currency is Gold, Gems, Silver and Fur. Mining and Hunting are starting techs, so it's possible to make good use of these very early -- either boosting your
or boosting your for more expansion.Cottages are good forms of
but take 70 turns to reach full maturity as a Town (even then only barely squeezing in as much as Silver until Printing Press and Free Speech).Incense and Dyes are great resources, but Calendar is quite a few turns down and can usually be researched about the same time as Currency and CoL.
If you try to "gobble up" too much land too quickly, your Science slider will find itself too low to keep up with the AI -- which usually means they either beat you to space or that they bring Trebs and Macemen out against your Axemen and Archers.
Unique Units are in vanilla, too. Warlords introduced the Unique Building. For example, the Chinese Crossbowman is actually a Cho-Ko-Nu. If you look up a Civilization in the Civilopedia, it'll tell you all about the UU/UB along with lots of other cool info about the Civ.
TRJS
Warlord
Since reading the guides etc I quickly realised that an early war is almost always needed. Without this you simply do not have enough real estate to achieve any victory condition.
But if the AI is also expanding you can run over it with a 8 unit stack due to its weak defences. Giving you more land early on to specialize better than the AI will, giving you more gpp and more research/production power.
If your fighting no/low culture archers your swordsmen should do well. Only attack with them, other units such as archers/axemen are for defence, so make sure you have enough city attackers as there are defenders. You want to take the city in 1 turn once you attack.
Once you have won a few battles you get more promotions (XP), so look after your veterans. I have swordsmen I used in BC times now in the 1800 AD with City Raider I, II, III and Combat I which i've upgraded through the years to act as my elite city capturing force, they've helped take countless cities with the support of catapults/cannons/artillery. Which is extra useful when units such as riflemen and infantry don't get the option of City Raider.
Advantage of capturing cities is:
you don't have to build a settler. Settlers stop your city growing, use the hammers for a swordmen instead.
they come with a decent sized population to make them productive quickly.
you get gold for capturing cities keeping your research slider up higher.
cities come with some of the buildings that were built, saving you some more hammers as you don't have to build them yourself.
the tiles around the cities will usually have improvements saving your worker some work.
Where as if you settle cities yourself you have to build the settler, grow the population, build every building (that the city needs), improve the tiles yourself, adds to maintenance instantly possibly lowering research slider....
Its not how many cities you can spam and the most land, its the resources in them and the quality of the area. Get the good sites with the resources you need. Its not like civ 3 where getting a perfect grid of cities is best, civ 4 you want quality cities or maintenance will kill your research.
Ian Kognitow
Deserter
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2006
- Messages
- 151
I have usually found it possible given a few particular circumstances to mitigate the maintenance problem so that it is quite possible to have around 6-8 cities (8 would be something of an upper limit) while still around the medieval/early renaissance periods--and it does involve some other common strategies for general early play:
--If civilization has the Financial attribute, be sure to lay down cottages early and work them so that they grow. This would make production quite low (horses and cows help if they're around) so at least one of your original cities should be dedicated to building units)
-- Explore widely in as many directions as possible--even if other civs are found, don't go perimeter scouting. Focus on finding huts before the AI. This will often give you some money (which can hopefully last reasonably well until some of the cottages start paying off) but can also give you early techs. If you're lucky (I once got it on the 2nd turn of the game) you can get...
-- prioritize getting bronze working to chop forests. Use that chopping for:
-- Try to build both The Oracle and Stonehenge wonders. Be sure to hook up stone and marble as early as possible if they're around...not just for these but for most of the good early wonders. Oracle gives you a free tech, and you can pick the most advanced that is open to you. This can either be used for war purposes (say, getting early swordsmen), or for stuff like code of laws, which as noted in previous posts offers the courthouse. Stonhenge is pretty cheap, lets you keep working the cottages by reducing unhappiness, and combines with Oracle to help produce Great Prophets, which can be used to...
-- Get holy sites if possible. You may have to go up the spiritual line at some temporary expense of the bronze working/tech jumping task, but it is certainly useful to try to start at least one religion. It is possible as well to use the Oracle tech for that very purpose. With the Oracle/Stonehenge combo, you will likely get a Great Prophet as a first great person, who can be used to build the holy site. That should cover the maintenance for at least one extra city. Since hopefully you will have been able to keep the science slider up, a second new religion is certainly possible; and it's quite feasible that another Prophet could be born before maintenance is really crippling.
In any case, by that time cottages--whether or not you are financial--should be paying off, and you should be ready for war if you haven't had one already.
Stolen Rutters
Deity
In most cases, 6-8 cities right away can kill your tech, unless you have alphabet, currency, and code of laws (at a minimum).
It's not impossible to do well, though. There are ways to meet those costs without killing you. You will have awesome production when you total all of your cities up. You may have to divert production to build science in your science city (requires alphabet), and gold in your money city (requires currency), so a large empire won't kill you completely. At lower levels, you might even have been able to pick up one of the three early religions (temples let you work priests... which eventually give you a great prophet for the shrine ).
However your maintenance costs will be a bit too much for your economy under most circumstances without the three techs in the first sentence. Once you are past that era, your empire costs begin to be outweighed by your empire resource production
food:, 
, , , ) almost regardless of size. By Banking and Economics, you are set for supporting pretty much any growth.
It's not impossible to do well, though. There are ways to meet those costs without killing you. You will have awesome production when you total all of your cities up. You may have to divert production to build science in your science city (requires alphabet), and gold in your money city (requires currency), so a large empire won't kill you completely. At lower levels, you might even have been able to pick up one of the three early religions (temples let you work priests... which eventually give you a great prophet for the shrine
).However your maintenance costs will be a bit too much for your economy under most circumstances without the three techs in the first sentence. Once you are past that era, your empire costs begin to be outweighed by your empire resource production
food:, , , , ) almost regardless of size. By Banking and Economics, you are set for supporting pretty much any growth.
Harbourboy
Deity
Don't forget that it is possible to fund rapid expansion in some circumstances if you are able to fund things through the cash raised from, well, razing, and pillaging the enemy.
Also, another unorthodox tactic (used by Balbes in a recent game) is to fund your expansion by turning off research completely once you have reached a certain critical level of military unit (e.g. catapults).
But, for beginners, the lesson should be: don't just whack down cities all over the place to grab land. Each city costs in this game, so make sure that each one is a good one. You can't support a load of naff cities in Civ IV the way you could in previous versions.
Also, another unorthodox tactic (used by Balbes in a recent game) is to fund your expansion by turning off research completely once you have reached a certain critical level of military unit (e.g. catapults).
But, for beginners, the lesson should be: don't just whack down cities all over the place to grab land. Each city costs in this game, so make sure that each one is a good one. You can't support a load of naff cities in Civ IV the way you could in previous versions.
You may or may not want to move up in difficulty level, but just be aware that if you do you will no longer be able to count on not being attacked.
At Monarch and above, you will have AI cities next to yours (your capitol?) very early on. You simply cannot keep up with their settling ability, and are forced to make up the slack through military if you want to remain competitive.
