Noob have lots of question

[pavel1269]

Hello,

I've currently started to play civ4:bts again. At first, I want to say, that I've never played civ2,3. I jumped right from civ1 to civ4.

Building cities
In civ1, the most important thing, is to build as much cities as you can. But in civ4, I can't use this strategy, because maintemance kills me. At the moment I usually build as much cities as i can before I must drop down sience to 70%. (1a) Is this sufficient or at start research doesnt matter very much? (1b) Is sufficient to build cities which BFC would overlap? (1c) How do i search best place for my cities?

Leaders/Civilizations
I know some pros/convos about civs just from this site, but I really dont know how can you choose your leader. I read lots of topics here and when you say, you prefer this or other leader I just ask myself 'why'. At the moment i choosed George Washington, because at first i look at traits. Expansive and charismatic are, at least for me, best what i could choosen. But traits like Creative, Industrious, Philosophical and Imperialisticare also very good. At least at first sight for me. (2) But how do you choose the one which fits you the best?

Civics
Let's look at civics. I revolt to Hereditary Rule as I can. Then only Universal Suffrage, because I can hurry production and +1 hammer from towns is also very nice. (3a) Is this okay or when i use some strategy i should use some other "Government Civics"?
The vassalge recieve +2 experience to new units, thats great as long as i want to win conquest/domination. But what means "More free units"? (3b) Is that free maintemance for units? I play on "chieftan" atm so maintemance is near nil. (3c) Or does affect difficulty also units maintemance? I guess yes. Then all other civics except Free Speach doent look usefull for me :-/ So, when i can revolt to Free Speach i do it immidietly.
I will not write about it so long, because you know better than me pros/convos so here is, how i do it:
Tribalism -> Serfdom -> Emancipation
Decentralization -> Environmentalism
Paganism -> (Organized Religion) -> Free Religion
(3d) Tell me something about this please :-/ .

Trading
Now to AI. Everytime as they research some tech to allow Open borders, everyone want it. So no problem for me, I open them for all, but later sameone want me to cancel it with sameone else. (4a) How do i choose good ally? They usually want me to choose some state religion. I dont go for religion whole game, because i dont see pros about building lots of missionaries. (4b) Why should I? Also AI want very often just to give free tech from me. (4c) Should i ever give to him that? (4d) Also sometimes AI want to exchange rescoures, how can i know if that or other rescoure will be good for me? (4e) How do i choose good vassal? (4f) How do i cancel vassalage, because i want to remove him?

Rescoures
I know some rescoures are very usefull. But what if i have copper. Okay +1 hammer. (5a) To this city or to whole empire? I made city and i have another copper. (5b) Does another copper give me something or haveing more than one is for trade? (5c) If answer to '5a' is only city, and when i trade some rescoure for some else, how is picked up city, which will recieve that bonus?

Health/Hapiness
If i have unhapiness in some city, some citien doesnt want to work. (6a) But do i have some bonus for having extra hapiness? (6b) Whats bad about having unhealth? (6c) Whats good having city with extra health?

Game settings
I usually uncheck the spacerace victory, diplomatic and cultural. Because this ones are 'lame' victories for me. I also check Lock modified assets. (7a) Whats this really for? It only prove that I havent cheated in my game? Also i checked No Espionage, if I wont do that, (7b) will I have to defend my cities with spies against enemy spies? Also my first game was on Settler, and taht was very fast game ... Now i play on Chieftain. (7c) How do i know if i can challenge harder AI?

Atm I don't remember more to ask. I hope sameone will help me

 

[MrCynical]

1a) I would probably expand till the research slider has to be dropped a bit further than 70% before I'd stop.

1b)Overlap (within reason) is not a major problem, since it will take a long time before a city is big enough to use all 20 anyway. It is certainly preferable to leaving unused tiles between cities.

1c)Much the same as in Civ 1. Look for concentrations of resources, food rich areas and similar.

2)Can't really help here beyond; try a few leaders with different sets of traits and see what suits your style best. Financial and Organized are good traits for a new player, since they don't require much effort to get the most from them, and help in early expansion.

3a)Not too bad, though you might want to use Representation if you run a significant number of specialists (or can get it from the Pyramids). I generally don't find Police State very useful unles a war has gone seriously wrong.

3b)More units are exempt from the maintenance costs, yes.

3c)Difficulty also affects the unit costs. Bureaucracy is a very good alternative to Vassalage if your capital is a good city (which it usually is), and I'd probably go via that until Free Speech is available.

3d)I really wouldn't use Serfdom. Slavery is far more effective. You also aren't using many of the column 4 civics. You almost certainly want to switch to one of Free Market and Mercantilism once they are available. Enviromentalism is a dubious civic at the best of times. Either go for State Property or stick with Free Market. Sounds like you need to be a bit more flexible with civics, and make use of more of them.

4a)Well civs with the same religion as you are generally good allies (that's half the point of having a state religion). Otherwise, look at who you're planning to conquer, who'd be useful to have on your side, and make deals accordingly.

4b)You don't need a state religion to missionary spam, or vice versa. It is however a useful boost to happiness and (sometimes) diplomacy to run a state religion. Also needed for stuff like Apostolic palace to be useful.

4c)If they're demanding it and you need to stay friendly with them - then yes, assuming the demand is not for too important a tech. Otherwise, no.

4d)Quick question - Do you understand how the health/happiness system works? Generally the AI will only allow resource trades which are in both your interests anyway.

4e)Vassals are for cases where it is more trouble than it is worth to conquer the remainder of the civ. One example might be where your military is stretched thin, and war weariness is too high to drag out the war long enough to mop up the remains. The other case is where the AI has a load of irrelevant cities (e.g. stuck on tiny islands or in the arctic) that are worth nothing, but will take ages to get to. Then you can just save time and effort by making them a vasal.

4f)You cannot break a vassal agreement as the master. Only the vassal can break it, so do not make a vassal that you'll want to attack again later.

5a)Neither. This +1 hammer is extremely misleading, as it applies only to the tile the resource is on. It is meaningless in the trade screens.

5b)Multiple sources are only useful for trading, or to feed corporations (extra copper for example will increase the hammers you get from the Mining Inc corporation).

5c)As mentioned above, this is merely a misleading label. There is no direct hammer boost anywhere.

6a)No.

6b)Unhealthy citizens cost 3 food per turn to support instead of 2. This is inefficient, and may cause problems feeding them all.

6c)There isn't an advantage. As with happiness, as long as your total health is as high or higher than your toal unhealth in the city, all your citizens will be healthy, and you have the maximum benefit.

7a)This stops you using worldbuilder or using modified rules to benefit you. Basically for if you want to compare single player games, it proves you haven't cheated. Don't enable it just for the sake of it - it has been known to cause glitches.

7b)No. Turning off espionage simply removes that game aspect.

7c)If you're winning easily, and the game becomes uninteresting, it's probably time to move up.

 

[digitCruncher]

Building cities:
1a) I normally run between 50 and 60% science, 0-10% espionage... the AI runs between (depending on the AI) 30 and 60% science, so 70% is plenty. Probably it would help to expand just a LITTLE more... so you can get more beakers.

1b) You can do that... in fact if you are playing a quick game, its highly reccomended... however I still have to learn from this (I am currently playing a 'quick' game... with no overlapping BFC's, except for an INSANE production powerhouse with 2 iron sources and a marble source .

1c) There is a method called 'dot-mapping' that will basically mean that you can work all the possible tiles. I won't go into it here, someone else will, because I suck at it

Leaders / Civs:
2) How are you going to win? Choose your civ and leader to best exploit that. If you want to win via culture, a "Creative" leader is good... (+2 is small, BUT the cheap theatres are good... and also allow newly conquered lands to stave off rebellion ) If you want to win via conquest, Aggressive, or Protective is good (Protective requires a bit more 'unconventional' tactics, and is especially good in the late game, but is a slightly underrated ability). Space Race? Financial

3a) Each civic has a use. For the government civics:

Despotism: Cheap upkeep, and no tech requirement
HR: Good if you have a large standing army, and no troops
Rep: GREAT for running a specialist economy, and still quite good if you have huge cities (like mine >.<)
Police State: If you have War Weariness through the roof (as in all wars before the 3.17 patch... that patch has done WONDERS for War ), then police state is your man. With Jails, and the Mount Rushmore National Wonder, you have NO WAR WEARINESS AT ALL.
US: For production, a cottage economy, and for gold rushing. Its a good peace-time civic if you are REALLY strapped for hammers (like most of my late game )

"Free Units":You don't need to pay a small number of 'extra' troops in upkeep. Normally Beurocracy is better than this, unless you have a low production capital, and you don't have science multiplier buildings in your capital. To find out how many troops you are supporting, check out the finances tab.

ALL civics have thier uses.

4) Firstly, you don't need to open borders with EVERYONE. In fact, that is bad. I normally open borders to everyone who is either has a holy city, is far away, friendly with my allies, and has a trade route possible, or who I just want to get along with (IE. Same religion etc.)

Choosing the same religion gives BIG diplo bonuses (+3, +7 O)). This is sometimes can't even be canceled out by DECLARING WAR ON THEM (I sometimes am at war with a civ, and they are still Cautious / Pleased!!) So default to the most common religion. Give techs if it won't help them terribly much... it gives you a +2 "You gave us techs" diplo bonus, instead of a -1 "You didn't help us" diplo hit.

Generally, trade strategic resources for other strategic resources (horses / iron etc.), and luxury/health resources for other luxury/health resources, with luxury resources being worth more than health resources, slightly.

5a) To that TILE
5b) It can only be used for trade. In addition, having 1 banana will give +1 health for the WHOLE EMPIRE (with a Fort, or a plantation). but having 2 bananas will still only give +1 health (again, to the whole empire).
Strategic resources (Copper / Iron / Horses etc.) unlock specific units (In coppers case: Axemen, Spearmen, Macemen), and double the speed of certain buildings (EG. The colossus)
Luxury / Health resources give benifits to the entire empire, give production / food / commerce bonuses TO THAT TILE, and can be used in corporations.
5c) N/A

6a) Religions, temples, cathedrals, the culture slider (requires Music), luxury resources (gold / silver / dye etc.), random events, and some technologies all give extra happiness
6b) Unhealthiness reduces food supply by 1. Thus, 2 units of unhealthiness is worth 1 unit of unhappyness, as each reduces the working population by 1. However, that is only with a population that exceeds all the maximum working values (for no overlap in the BFC, that means a population of 21 or higher). For lower populations, unhealthiness is less bad. Note: If you have HUGE unhealthiness, feel free to trade luxury resources for health ones to a very weak civilisation... its better for you!
6c) Nothing. But the more health you have, the larger the city can become. But happyness is more important than health... you can live with unhealthiness, but you CANNOT live without happyness. No-one will want to work (One of my plans for a small mod is to give unhappy citizens +1 for the city, so that a city with 12 happiness can have 16 working citizens, with a population of 20 (12 from base happiness, and 4 from the happyness from unhappy citizens.

7a) Yes. It means you cannot enter World Builder to add some extra troops when you need it

7b) If you want to. Defending against espionage attacks is (relatively) easy. Just set your espionage slider to 10%, keep it there, focus your espionage against the people who are hurting you the most (In the espionage screen), and place a few spies (4 or 5) in the 4 or 5 most critical locations (your only source of iron / Your capital city). Spies do NOT stack, and having a security beurau acts as a spy in that city.

7c) If you can win easily, move up, unless you have fun winning easily (like my brother). If you are losing all the time, move back a level, and try to practice on the aspect that you are losing in, and then move back up. If you don't move up, you will never improve, but you might still have as much fun as normal, so it is up to you

 

[harusame]

Building cities
In civ1, the most important thing, is to build as much cities as you can. But in civ4, I can't use this strategy, because maintemance kills me. At the moment I usually build as much cities as i can before I must drop down sience to 70%. (1a) Is this sufficient or at start research doesnt matter very much? (1b) Is sufficient to build cities which BFC would overlap? (1c) How do i search best place for my cities?

60-70% is sufficient
overlap doesnt matter, main priority is the resources you must grab

Leaders/Civilizations
I know some pros/convos about civs just from this site, but I really dont know how can you choose your leader. I read lots of topics here and when you say, you prefer this or other leader I just ask myself 'why'. At the moment i choosed George Washington, because at first i look at traits. Expansive and charismatic are, at least for me, best what i could choosen. But traits like Creative, Industrious, Philosophical and Imperialisticare also very good. At least at first sight for me. (2) But how do you choose the one which fits you the best?

if you like peaceful victory, FIN, PHI, SPI are great traits
other trait like CRE, EXP and IND are also nice to have
you also have to see synergy with UB
warmonger may prefer such traits like AGG, IMP, ORG, and of course SPI
axe rush your neighbour, and try to get your UU fast

Civics
Let's look at civics. I revolt to Hereditary Rule as I can. Then only Universal Suffrage, because I can hurry production and +1 hammer from towns is also very nice. (3a) Is this okay or when i use some strategy i should use some other "Government Civics"?
The vassalge recieve +2 experience to new units, thats great as long as i want to win conquest/domination. But what means "More free units"? (3b) Is that free maintemance for units? I play on "chieftan" atm so maintemance is near nil. (3c) Or does affect difficulty also units maintemance? I guess yes. Then all other civics except Free Speach doent look usefull for me :-/ So, when i can revolt to Free Speach i do it immidietly.
I will not write about it so long, because you know better than me pros/convos so here is, how i do it:
Tribalism -> Serfdom -> Emancipation
Decentralization -> Environmentalism
Paganism -> (Organized Religion) -> Free Religion
(3d) Tell me something about this please :-/ .

HR is very good at warring and for free happiness
and Representation is great for science (from pyramid)
US is good later to rush building
small empire, commerce capital = bureaucracy
big empire, lots commerce cities = free speech (also great for cultural game)

Trading
Now to AI. Everytime as they research some tech to allow Open borders, everyone want it. So no problem for me, I open them for all, but later sameone want me to cancel it with sameone else. (4a) How do i choose good ally? They usually want me to choose some state religion. I dont go for religion whole game, because i dont see pros about building lots of missionaries. (4b) Why should I? Also AI want very often just to give free tech from me. (4c) Should i ever give to him that? (4d) Also sometimes AI want to exchange rescoures, how can i know if that or other rescoure will be good for me? (4e) How do i choose good vassal? (4f) How do i cancel vassalage, because i want to remove him?

choose to please aggresive allies
and also your neighbours has more priority than distance civilisations

Rescoures
I know some rescoures are very usefull. But what if i have copper. Okay +1 hammer. (5a) To this city or to whole empire? I made city and i have another copper. (5b) Does another copper give me something or haveing more than one is for trade? (5c) If answer to '5a' is only city, and when i trade some rescoure for some else, how is picked up city, which will recieve that bonus?

copper = axemen
also good because of cheaper cathedral later
food and health = most important resources

Health/Hapiness
If i have unhapiness in some city, some citien doesnt want to work. (6a) But do i have some bonus for having extra hapiness? (6b) Whats bad about having unhealth? (6c) Whats good having city with extra health?

there is no bonus if you have extra happiness
and unhealthiness reduces your food, it will slow down growth, and eventually will starve your city to death

 

[pavel1269]

Thanks so far, for your replys.

I've won two games so far. I played only 3 , if i dont count games which i played year or so ago. My first one was on Settler, Great Plains, Marathon, Large, Ancient, 3civs. I achieved 17000 score. I attached replay if you wanna see.

Second game, i played and those questions were from it. It was Chieftain, Huge, Ancient, and map ... one huge island with almost only grassland, dunno name. I leaved only Conquest victori aviable and since i had one vassal, i was worried about winning that game. Fortunately, i didnt have to kill him and i acieved score of 44700. Is that good? Since i had 17000 on settler i dont know.

Now i play on Lakes, Huge, Ancient, Marathon with default number of civs and Warlord diff. This is my 4. game and i learnt lots from my third game. I play as Cyrus. I like him very much, because my first tech is animal husbanry. And while i build second city i must have horses, with them i rush some enemies just from the begining. I like worker stealing, but in the third game i stolen worker maybye from everyone. So "-" with everyone "You declared war on us" "You declared war on our friend". Then i converted to my religion which i wasnt spreading so "-" "You fallen under you hated religion". Then I didnt gave sameone tribute and .... 8 vs me. I stopped playing, because i didnt have any chance.
Now as soon as i discovered Confucianism. I build all three missionaries and spread to those, who i want to be ally with (*). After this i spread it in my own cities. Confucianism wasnt my first religion, because i captured budhist holy city. But that city have problems, so i havent got chance to spread budhism. Also now i have from each Confucian building +2hammers, +2breakers, +2finnance and maybye some culture. I have +~350breakers per turn when 0% tax, +~100gold to treasury. With 100% tax its -~100to treasury, +~600breakers. From beginning i rush Stonehance then Pyramids. With that lots of +2stuff from their building it looks for me, that next game, i will rush for all that and i will have temple in all cities, i dont know if building monastery is even worth after 100AD since scientific methods are just a few steps ahead. Also i noticed, that i build every single wonder and i dont even know, if it is worth for me. Also i have mess in techs. I go Animal Husbanry -> Mining -> BW -> IW -> for stonehence -> for pyramids -> for granary and then?

I add savegame. I run 3.17 with that unofficial patch. Any advice is greatly welcome. Also i have 3x score and so on. So if i will win, I will swith for harder difficulty.

EDIT:
* Also in this game, I spread to Gilgamesh, Hannibal and Victoria. After some time, Gilgamesh and Victoria swithecd to Confucianism so i quickly buld missionaries to convert more Hannibal/gilgamesh cities to Confu. Hannibal is still Confu, but for the Gilga, its late. I have the "-" "You falled under.." and he is only Pleased not Friendly, so i cannot trade with him to switch to my religion Every mistake i do here is good, because, later i wont do that again. Also, AI doesnt spread religion on its own? I must do it for them? Or they spread only their own and when they dont have holy city, they let the owner to spread?

 

[Bushface]

re tech path - there is no absolutely best path up the tech tree. Your choice must be guided by circumstances, such as the resources you have or can get soon and the attitude of your neighbours. For example, if you have a lot of resources that need plantations then Calendar should be your target; if you have aggressive neighbours, then go for techs that allow better units. But it's up to you to strike a balance between conflicting needs.

re religion - this does spread automatically, but that is very slow. Missionaries spread religion much quicker: to train these you need Monasteries (worth building even when Scientific Method is close, provided that you still want to spread your religion after getting Sci. Meth - at which time you can't build them and you lose their research boost, but can still train Missionaries in cities with Monasteries) or run Organised Religion (under which you can train Missionaries in any city where your religion is present, even without a Monastery). And definitely spread your state religion into all your cities and as many foreign cities as you can: this brings in more gold to your Holy City (which I hope you have). Check the Civilopedia for the benefits the various civics bring.

 

[thadian]

i was going to reply but you already got loads of good advice.

Welcome to the forums and enjoy civ! Just avoid multiplayer unless you want a turn-based version of warcraft/starcraft where its all about "zerg/orc rushers".