I need major help :(

[sworm09]

Hi everyone! I'm sworm and I'm kind of new to Civ Fanatics. Anyway I've been "playing" Civilization for about 3 months now...... and I still don't think I'm doing it right!

I read the manual and everything but I still screw up somewhere along the line!

Here are my problems, please help me find the solutions!

1. First of all my people end of starving to death or dying of disease before it's all over with. At the start of the game when I have few cities and a few citizens, everything is fine! Everyone get's fed and there is stuff left over. Well mid way everyone runs out of food and people start dying. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong!

2.Eventually my treasury runs dry.

3.In the City Display I don't understand the thing where you move your citizens to different squares.

4.What do shields and commerce do and how does Irrigation, Mines, and Roads help?

5.I can't expand as fast as the other civs do.

6.Because I grow broke and my people starve to death, I have a small military and my science suffers.

7.My cities stop growing.

8.What can I do about corruption and civil unrest?

I know that when you all read this and see all these simple question, you won't reply.

 

[Spoonwood]

My advice: post a save.

 

[sworm09]

Post a save?

 

[vmxa]

Using the Post Reply, you can scroll down to the manage attachments and then browse for the save and attach it to the post.

 

[Theov]

Hi everyone! I'm sworm and I'm kind of new to Civ Fanatics.

Hi Welcome to the forums.

Anyway I've been "playing" Civilization for about 3 months now...... and I still don't think I'm doing it right!

1. First of all my people end of starving to death or dying of disease
2.Eventually my treasury runs dry.
3.In the City Display I don't understand the thing where you move your citizens to different squares.
4.What do shields and commerce do and how does Irrigation, Mines, and Roads help?
5.I can't expand as fast as the other civs do.
6.Because I grow broke and my people starve to death, I have a small military and my science suffers.
7.My cities stop growing.
8.What can I do about corruption and civil unrest?
I know that when you all read this and see all these simple question, you won't reply.

First of all: don't play any higher than 'regent' when you're new to the game.

3: I will start off with problem number 3... That's why you have problems 1 and 2. (and 4 to 8 )
The faces you see are people. One face represents a tile you work in your city. A tile brings in gold, food and shields. Money in the bank, food for the people in the city and shields to produce things respectively.
You can take away a people/face to turn them into an entertainer to make your people happy, but this will cost you money, food and production. You can also move the luxury slider (F1) up and see if the unhappiness goes away. Try that first.
I think that is your problem because....
1: they don't get food. You probably take food away in the city screens to keep em happy. You can see if they're starving by looking at the food box in the city screen.
When you click on a city, you see whether you're adding or losing food.
2: you take away income from the city income. Same as 1.
4: mines increase the production in a tile, explained at 1. Roads improve income. Irrigation improve food.
5: you grow when there is more food than you eat. You can see that in the city screen.
6,7,8.... when you get how the city screen works... you will be able to solve this. Get the hang of it and you'll be fine.

Goes without saying that the best advice is to post a save, so we can pinpoint what you should be improving.

 

[Aabraxan]

Welcome to CFC, sworm09!

Posting a save is an excellent way to get specific advice about your game. Some of these can be answered without a save, though:

Hi everyone! I'm sworm and I'm kind of new to Civ Fanatics. Anyway I've been "playing" Civilization for about 3 months now...... and I still don't think I'm doing it right!

I read the manual and everything but I still screw up somewhere along the line!

Here are my problems, please help me find the solutions!

1. First of all my people end of starving to death or dying of disease before it's all over with. At the start of the game when I have few cities and a few citizens, everything is fine! Everyone get's fed and there is stuff left over. Well mid way everyone runs out of food and people start dying. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong!

Each citizen eats 2 food. Each citizen who is working a tile (IOW, not entertainers, tax collectors, scientists, or other specialists) can produce food. A city with extra food puts it in the food bin and the city can grow up to its pop limit. A city with too little food loses food from the bin and eventually starves.

Disease comes from jungles and flood plains (& marshes?). If a citizen is working one of those tiles, there's a chance of disease striking & killing a citizen.

2.Eventually my treasury runs dry.

Hit F1. Up in the upper right hand corner are two sliders. These are the luxury and science sliders and you can control how much you spend there.

Also, treasury problems are usually symptoms of other problems, usually basic empire mismanagement. If I were to guess, I'd say that your treasury problems probably stem from:

• Too few workers;
• Too many defensive units sitting in your cities;
• Too many unnecessary structures;
• Too few roads;
• Poor citizen assignment.

3.In the City Display I don't understand the thing where you move your citizens to different squares.

Zoom to a city. Find a tile with food, gold and/or shields on it. Click the tile. One citizen will become an entertainer. Now click an empty tile & that entertainer should go back to work.

4.What do shields and commerce do and how does Irrigation, Mines, and Roads help?

Shields go into whatever you're building.
Commerce pays for things and can be spent on science, happiness, traded to other civs, buy workers, etc.

Irrigation = adds 1 food to the tile.
Mines = adds 1 shield to the tile.
Roads = add 1 commerce to the tile; decrease the movement cost for units travelling on them; connect resources to the trade network and let your cities have access to them.

5.I can't expand as fast as the other civs do.

Hit the War Academy. Look for "Cracker's Opening Plays," "Bamspeedy's Deity Settler" and RFHolloway's "Spotting Settler factories."

6.Because I grow broke and my people starve to death, I have a small military and my science suffers.

I'm guessing that you're not expanding fast enough in the early game & that you may be overloading your economy with junk. Figure out what your desired VC is and play with an eye on that.

I also suspect that you have too few workers and too few roads.

7.My cities stop growing.

They run out of food. Have citizens work more food-rich tiles. Water some turf.

8.What can I do about corruption and civil unrest?

Civil Unrest -- hook up some luxuries and use the lux slider. If you want some culture, you can build some temples to help with that, too.

Corruption -- Build the Forbidden Palace, some courthouses and maybe police stations. Download CivAssist II from the utilities section to help you in figuring out when and where those are worth it. There will be some cities where a courthouse and police station just aren't worth it. In those, pack 'em in, water everything, and hire lots of specialists. (See the War Academy, Bede's "The Role of the Specialist Citizen" for more information on specialist farming.)

Hope this has been of some help.

 

[sworm09]

Thanks everyone!

 

[ChaosArbiter]

7.My cities stop growing.

They run out of food. Have citizens work more food-rich tiles. Water some turf.

Or the city needs an Aqueduct or Hospital - cities that aren't next to a river/inland lake need an Aqueduct to grow past size 6, and all cities need a Hospital to grow over size 12.

 

[Aabraxan]

Oh, yeah. Could be that, too, ChaosArbiter.