Ok, so I am having a tough time learning how to focus

[Cstasny]

Well a quick introduction I suppose, I am new to the forums and new to civilization. After playing and liking the demo for Civ Rev on the 360 I went ahead and bought Civ4 for the PC, mostly due to its more complex and the price tag looked better. I am liking it so far and can tell once I get it down my summer nights will be wasted into the wee hours of the morning.

However, I am pretty much overwhelmed with the entire game and just end up building and researching without any goal or intention in mind, which is where my problem is and why I am making this thread. I've been trying to read as much as I can about players strategies but I end up only getting so far with them before I get lost again.

I have the basics down(well some of them) but where I completely fail is having a clear goal for my civilization and how to achieve what I am going after even if I had a goal. I guess im just looking for pointers on what to do to create a civilization that actually has direction towards victory.

Also, I am a pretty non aggressive, so I would likely going for any/everything but a military win.

 

[Willem]

Also, I am a pretty non aggressive, so I would likely going for any/everything but a military win.

Your best bet then is to aim for a tech lead throughout the game so you can win a space race victory. Just do whatever you can to stay ahead of everyone else so that you're the first one in the end to get all the space ship techs. Build lots of Cottages, Libraries and run Scientists wherever you can. Just don't completely ingore your military or the other civs will consider you weak and cause you all sorts of grief.

 

[Gwynnja]

Civ iv is a complicated game. there's no substitute for game experience. I'd suggest you print out a copy of sisiutil's strategy guide for beginners. Read it and re-read it and re-read it again, then put it into action.

 

[snoochems]

I like to research as much as I can to get a good military advantage... then, once i can build some better units than my neighboring civs, go and pwn there arses.

 

[Mad Professor]

The above mentioned strategy guide is a good one. you'll find heaps of good articles at this address:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

When you get there just follow the links to the various categories. These articles are not the be all and end all of CIV strategy, but there's some really good stuff in there.

 

[General Tso]

After reading as much as possible on game strategy, I'd recommend that you concentrate on trying to win just one of the victory conditions (just pick one). Once you're good at that one - try another. You eventually want to be good at winning different victory conditions so that you can make use of what ever a given map has, but the above method worked well for me when I started.

 

[Blackthorn27]

It's very easy to become bogged down by over-analytical study of Civ IV gameplay. My advice for beginners is to forget about any notions of how to win at Civ IV by following the advice of more experienced players, and simply set the game at its lowest skill level and play a number of games just for fun. As you become used to playing the game, you will be able to appreciate more what the experienced players are alluding to when they advise a certain course of action in strategy guides or in succession games. (And don't be surprised if you discover that many of your own decisions of what you consider to be the correct methods to win concur with lot of the advice you'll read about). I also suggest you play a small planet at first with just two or three rival civs.

 

[SharpMango]

The essence of civ is quite simply really. You want the bestest civ in the whole wide world. You can stomp em down (the original conquest), you can dominate them (conquest lite), you can make em all love you (not for real men, the diplomatic victory) or make your cities into the best in the world (cultural)...
now basically, its all competitive, one cant play civ with no AIs fighting it out for that no1 spot..so thats all there is to it really... youre goal should be to be the biggest baddest civ out there...
developing random hatreds and vendettas against computer civs also adds flavour..like a missionary failing to convert isabella single handedly to islam is valid grounds for a massive ground invasion....for example.

 

[Balderstrom]

I learned a lot due to the mid-to-late game boring me silly. So I would never get much past the renassaince or early modern. Thus I wound up playing many games to the early/mid stages only.
Reading about CIV (guides, etc) are really only helpful once you can feel how it applies. What I mean by this, is it takes more than a handful of games to get a feel for how and when the Tech's are acquired. Once you can see that - strategies that talk about beelining or the Oracle jump or the like begin to actually make sense.

I've played Civ for a number of years (off and on) now, I doubt I've ever done the "Oracle jump" (on purpose). I take a step-back-view approach to my empire (take a step back, look at the empire as a whole, where is it weak, where can it be shored up/strengthend...). The tech's will come as they do.

One of the key things to learn is how to balance/differentiate the difference between short term and long term goals. The easiest way to play when first learning CIV is not to even bother with long term goals. The more you play - the more you'll see how short term goals /lead to/affect/ long term ones.

Anyways I've babbled, hope you can make some sense out of it

 

[Cstasny]

Thanks for the replies, they've helped a lot.

 

[MyOtherName]

Smaller maps (and the corresponding smaller empires!) can simplify the game a bit too. Managing a large empire of 4 cities on a duel map is somewhat easier than managing a large empire of 10 cities on a normal map!

 

[Balderstrom]

Smaller maps (and the corresponding smaller empires!) can simplify the game a bit too. Managing a large empire of 4 cities on a duel map is somewhat easier than managing a large empire of 10 cities on a normal map!

Or 40-50 cities on a Huge map hehehe.