New to the whole Civ thing...

[Shawnzer]

Hello all I just wanted to get some basic tips on how the game works and such. I went throught the totorial last night and helped a bit and plan on reading the 150 page manual tonight but I was wondering if I could be some really basic info. The game seems very complex but I am not a stranger to stratagy but I am to turn based (I have played alot of Battle for Middle Earth). Now the most confusing thing to me seems the production of resources. I get the whole tile thing but how does it work...if there is 2 food and 1 hammer on a tile do you get that every turn and do all your other tiles add up and you get that every turn? When building farms and so on I understand that they give bonuses but for example I found i the totorial I was running out of money so i tried to put more cottages on but my money never went up. I am just having a problem understanding the whole resource thing since in BFME all you do is build a farm or furnace and according to what you need either will give you boneses off thing but they both give you money....I am somewhat confused with this...It would be much apperciated if someone could be patient enough to help me with these very basic questions. Thank you...

 

[Astax]

You get the resoruces from the tile only if it is worked by one of your citizens. So if you build cottages you might get no extra money unless there is a citizen working the tile with the cottage. The stuff you get from each tiles is per turn. In this game not all tiles give you money (commerce). Some tilef can with improvements. Usually special resource tiles will give you most money. Like a gold resource once you mine it. But it still needs to be worked by one of your citizens.

 

[cleverhandle]

I get the whole tile thing but how does it work...if there is 2 food and 1 hammer on a tile do you get that every turn and do all your other tiles add up and you get that every turn?

Yes, provided they are being worked by citizens (viewable in the city details screen). All the food, hammers, and commerce icons from worked tiles go to that city every turn.

When building farms and so on I understand that they give bonuses but for example I found i the totorial I was running out of money so i tried to put more cottages on but my money never went up.

Cottages generate commerce, but commerce is split between research and taxes (and culture later on) according to the percentages in the upper left corner of your screen. The game design is rather unfortunate in that it uses the same "coin" icon for both "raw" commerce and the taxes you get after the research/tax split. If you were running low on cash, you probably needed to lower your research rate. The cottages you were building were generating raw commerce (assuming you had citizens working them), but much of that commerce was probably going to research rather than to taxes.

 

[Shawnzer]

Ok thx...I prob was not having workers work them...I will try to learn how do do that.....i assume there is just a botton like the fortify button...it's too bad that they don't really show you all the basic in such a critical part like resource managment in the tutorial...but whatever I wil read other posts and read the instuction manual and see what i can get...thx again for helping me

 

[cleverhandle]

Ok thx...I prob was not having workers work them...I will try to learn how do do that.....i assume there is just a botton like the fortify button...

You don't understand. Working a tile is not something you do from the main map, like fortifying and such. Double-click on a city. In the middle of the screen you'll see the tile manager - tiles being worked have circles around them. To change these, click on a worked (circled) tile to "unwork" it and then click on the tile you want to work instead.

it's too bad that they don't really show you all the basic in such a critical part like resource managment in the tutorial.

They did - you just missed it or forgot it amongst all the other stuff. Civ is a complicated game, far more so than most of the other titles that pass for strategy games. So no need to point fingers - you're bound to miss important ideas while you're learning the ropes. There's a reason why people spend years playing Civ games, and it's not because they're simple.

 

[Goombaz]

They did - you just missed it or forgot it amongst all the other stuff. Civ is a complicated game, far more so than most of the other titles that pass for strategy games. So no need to point fingers - you're bound to miss important ideas while you're learning the ropes. There's a reason why people spend years playing Civ games, and it's not because they're simple.

Actually, I suspect it is because they *ARE* simple in the right places, and complex in other places. The trick is to make the ACTION simple and make the INTERACTION complex. Many so called "complex" games have very complex rules, but they have a stiflingly small number of strategies that are actually viable "in the wild." I won't point fingers, in fact there are SO many games like this that it is hardly necessary to do so.

To me the ultimate example of "the right kind of simple" is Magic: The Gathering. It's actual gameplay is so simple it borders on ********, but the simple trick of allowing the cards to carry their own rules literally blew the door off the hinges.

Also, the ultimate reason I respect M:TG, is the fact that they didn't have any overarching rule like "every white spell heals you for 4" or "red spells do double damage versus blue", but they built the strengths and weaknesses of each color PURELY into the cards themselves, on a one-by-one basis.

As for the OP, just keep at it. Trust me, it's worth it. I for example still totally suck at Civ(all civs, even Alpha Centauri). I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the execution of effective strategy, and I always find myself standing there dumfounded as to what to do next. The detail devil whips me and I die just as surely as pac-man touching a ghost. I am confident, however, that it will *click* with me at some point, and I will paint the earth red with the blood of my foes

 

[cleverhandle]

Actually, I suspect it is because they *ARE* simple in the right places, and complex in other places. The trick is to make the ACTION simple and make the INTERACTION complex.

I understand what you're getting at, but I really don't think it applies to civ. There are just way too many details, even in the basic rules and formulas apart from their further interactions with terrain and resources and AI's. For a game that's truly simple in principle but endlessly complex in execution try Go. Or chess, but Go is better...

To me the ultimate example of "the right kind of simple" is Magic: The Gathering. It's actual gameplay is so simple it borders on ********, but the simple trick of allowing the cards to carry their own rules literally blew the door off the hinges.

That's not simplicity, it's just distributed complexity. You can't be a good Magic player without knowing exactly what cards are available to you, knowing what they do, and then doing laborious analysis of how they interact. It's no different in practice than reading a 300 page manual, just different in format. Again, try Go.

 

[DwWinnebagos]

Wholeheartedly agree on the Go comparison.
Simplest game I've ever learned the rules for. Hardest game I've ever played in my life.

I find the principles of Go apply in CIV as well, as they did in Rise of Nations. Which makes sense, I suppose; both of these games are war simulators. (CIV is much more, naturally)

City placement in this (more so in Rise of Nations) has huge echoes of Go.

Anyway, to circle back to the original topic:
What you might be missing:
1) Your resources (hammers, food, commerce) are developed at a city level by your civilians. The number of pop in your city determines the number of tiles you can work.
2) Your workers can improve these tiles, making your citizens more efficient.
Food and hammers are at the city level - your hammers only impact production for that city, food only impacts growth.
Commerce is national, driven by your commerce at the city level - the coins on the tiles. Maintenance costs and science are at the civilization level - each city contributes X beakers and Y coin to your national number, based on commerce.

 

[Shawnzer]

Ya I have played a bit and have been developing it and it seems to be working better. I have a few other stupid questions....how many ppl to you need to get more tiles and is the farm tool used at times to make your land better because it seemed that way?

 

[erfael2]

Since go was mentioned, I have to swoop in and mention this: If you're interested in finding out more about how to play go, a good place to start is http://playgo.to/interactive It's a very basic tutorial that gives the basic ideas. I've been playing for years and it, by far, beats the crap out of any other game I play (and I play a lot of strategy games).

 

[Ray Patterson]

that's all very nice but Civilization is really complex, especially IV. It seems to me the designers counted on having the vast majority of the players playing at least one of the earlier games, or they wouldn't have made the mistake of eliminating the trade arrows...

still there are many changes which mean that you have to rethink every strategy. But in a way I'm tempted to say that people new to civ in general should start at civ II.

 

[Shawnzer]

Yes I thought that might be a concern about starting at Civ 4 but I have played rise of nations and it has somewhat of a similar concept. This game is very complex but I am starting to pick up the basic's. I know that I will be able to pick up this game but it will take much effort on my part on the reading and some very appreciated posts by you all (which I want to thank you for). I am in the middle of my first single player game and I am winning on the easiest setting (that's a joke i'm sure) but i know that i have TONS more to learn but this game is flippin awsome...thanks all any other tips for a newby keep them coming...

 

[crazybeard]

Don't worry about the difficulty level. When you are unfamiliar with a game, you should start at the easiest level and work up. It's only a knock if you have to turn the difficulty back diown.

 

[erfael2]

that's all very nice but Civilization is really complex, especially IV. It seems to me the designers counted on having the vast majority of the players playing at least one of the earlier games, or they wouldn't have made the mistake of eliminating the trade arrows...

still there are many changes which mean that you have to rethink every strategy. But in a way I'm tempted to say that people new to civ in general should start at civ II.

I'll bite. What's a "trade arrow," and why was it such a mistake to eliminate them?

 

[Ray Patterson]

Okay. A tile in your city radius that is worked on, can produce commerce. That commerce is distributed over research, wealth and culture. Buildings like banks and markets operate only on wealth, not total commerce. Modifiers like printing press, financial trait etc. work on total commerce generated for each tile, regardless how that is distributed. But in civ IV, the same icon is used for both commerce and wealth, so it all becomes very confusing: if you don't already know from earlier versions that banks are only useful if your wealth slider ('tax' slider) is above 0%. Oh, except for shrines and such, which produce wealth, not commerce. Seriously, how can you expect people to grasp all that without visual aid?

Now in civ II, you first got a total sum of commerce in your city, which only included modifiers on commerce. Below that it was split up into research, tax and luxury, with their respective modifiers in place. So you could actually see how big the effect of the modifiers was, as sometimes the total of research tax an luxury was many times the total commerce. In IV, such double-checking is really complicated and made incomprehensible by the same icons: there was a seperate icon for commerce and tax in II. Never played much III, can't recall how it worked there exactly.

 

[erfael2]

So the trade arrow was the commerce symbol?

Sorry you had to type all that out. I understand how it's broken up and such. I just didn't remember a "trade arrow" from Civ II. You're just talking about the old symbol for commerce? Gotcha.

And I see why you say it can be confusing. I was understanding it just fine (at least well enough for my purposes so far) in my current CivIV experience without the two different symbols and the breakdown, but it would be much nicer to have it broken down better. I agree.

 

[rabottens]

For complexity I have to give Europa Universalis 2 the award. I agree civ 4 is complex but it has pieces of all the previous civs present making it easy to learn if you have had previous civ exposure. I have played from dos days until now and each release is better than its predecessor. In many ways I hope they resurrect colonization and put it on a civ 4 type engine. I think that would be awesome.