Question from a relative noob.

[axlrose]

I've played "vanilla" Civ 4 for a couple of weeks now, and I need some help. I play on Warlord difficulty(I believe, whatever the 3rd easiest is). And I have never been able to win. The games I do finish I get a Dan Quayle rating .

Anyways here are my questions:

1) How many cities should you have. I know this is probably a hard question to answer because of map types and stuff, but what is the general rule. I usually have around 5, and I'm guessing that's not nearly enough.

2) Is it better to have a fewer big cities, and alot of small cities? Whats more beneficial?

3) When making new cities, is it best to keep them out of another cities "fat cross"? Or is there some times that it's alright to share a fat cross between 2 cities?

4) Do you want all cities to get huge, or is there some points where you should make sure you're city doesn't grow?

5) I read about watching the happiness cap. I don't really understand that. Because alot of my cities get angry because "it's too crowded". Is there something that you can do about that, or does that always happen.

6) I here alot about Beyond the Sword. Should I wait to get that until I'm better at Vanilla, or would getting it now make the game experience better for me? Also do you need Warlords for BtS or can you do without out it?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Jet]

These are all just rules of thumb -
* For most victories, at least enough cities to unlock all the national wonders. You'll have plenty for a peaceful victory if you conquer one neighbor.
* Fewer big cities.
* Don't worry about overlap.
* Grow to the happy cap, then raise the happy cap and grow more.
* Read ways into happiness.
* Vanilla may be a little more elegant, but BtS is fun, and I prefer it. No need to wait. Don't need Warlords.

 

[MrCynical]

1)You're right that this is a hard question to give a meaningful answer to. What map size are you on? 5 would be rather low except on the smallest maps.

2)Since cities cost money to maintain, small or low quality cities may actually cost you more than they're worth. Bigger and more developed cities are preferable, but don't waste land spacing them too far apart.

3)Overlapping a few tiles between cities isn't a major problem, and is preferable to wasting space. There is a limit though - I wouldn't want to have more than 2 or 3 tiles per city overlapping in most cases.

4)Once a city can use all the tiles in its radius it may be as big as necessary. It depends what you want the city to do. If it's there to make great people, you do want it to be as big as possible. If it's there to build military, it hould only be the bare minimum size needed to work all the production tiles.

5)You can't remove the "It's too crowded" so you have to counterbalance it with happiness boosters (luxuries, religion, buildings, civics etc.) The happiness cap is when the number of = the number of . Any population beyond that will be angry citizens, who refuse to work and are dead weight in your cities unless you increase the number of

6)BtS contains everything from Warlords except the scenarios, so unless you're really keen on those you can just get BtS. The game is much better with BtS, so I'd recommend getting it if you enjoy vanilla.

 

[Verge]

1) How many cities should you have. I know this is probably a hard question to answer because of map types and stuff, but what is the general rule. I usually have around 5, and I'm guessing that's not nearly enough.

I found as many cities as my economy allows. This allowance will vary from person to person, but I generally do not found any additional cities if it means dropping my science slider below 60%. If my science slider is operating at or in excess of 70%, I'll consider founding more cities provided there is a) room, and b) a reason to do so.

2) Is it better to have a fewer big cities, and alot of small cities? Whats more beneficial?

The general rule of thumb is, in Civilization 4, quality is superior to quantity in regards to cities. That said, there isn't anything wrong with a city that can't work many tiles and therefore won't be particularly large/useful. However, it's important found your initial cities with the goal of superior quality in mind; this is because maintenance costs are relatively prohibitive early on, so cherry-picking optimal sites is the best route. Later on, when money is flowing, you can start founding cities on less optimal land.

3) When making new cities, is it best to keep them out of another cities "fat cross"? Or is there some times that it's alright to share a fat cross between 2 cities?

In general, you shouldn't overlap, but there are times when it isn't possible to avoid. Also, if you're founding cities as "fillers" for holes in your empire, overlap is usually fine. Just make sure that your prime cities are utilizing most if not all of their tiles, while the less than optimal cities are using the remainder tiles.

4) Do you want all cities to get huge, or is there some points where you should make sure you're city doesn't grow?

In general, it's best to allow your cities to grow to their happy cap. Which leads us to your next question:

5) I read about watching the happiness cap. I don't really understand that. Because alot of my cities get angry because "it's too crowded". Is there something that you can do about that, or does that always happen.

The "happy cap" is the maximum number of citizens your city can have before the next citizen will be angry and therefore won't work. Cities with angry citizens are easily identifiable because they have smoke pouring out from them, and will be labeled with a red unhappy face. Angry citizens are a burden, and it's best not to allow your city to have them. "Growing to the happy cap" means keeping your cities' populations at maximum happiness-wise. As you get more luxury resources, your happy cap will increase and you can grow your cities ever-larger.

6) I here alot about Beyond the Sword. Should I wait to get that until I'm better at Vanilla, or would getting it now make the game experience better for me? Also do you need Warlords for BtS or can you do without out it?

There's no harm in getting Beyond the Sword if you're still learning, although it means having to learn how to use the new espionage system as you are trying to master the rest of the game. You may or may not want to do this. And you don't need Warlords.


Welcome to CFC!

 

[Thomas G.]

And here are the correct answers:
1) 6) = Depends.

1) Dependson map size, obviously. For a standard size you should probably get 6 by mid-game (around education if not sooner) to be able to build cool stuff like oxford university, wall street, globe theatre, ironworks. For a space race victory this might be all you need. Too many will crash you economy as you probably know. Depends on victory type too.

2) Depends on what they are supposed to do. Cities should generally be as big as they can be at all times. Some cities can be tiny or small and still perform a crucial task (grabbing resources, "staking out" land to prevent opponents from crowding you, staging area for an invation). A large number of small, useless cities early on, however, can lead to terrible tech rate due to high upkeep, and therefore a total loss. One city that brings in a new happy resource (like gold) could potentially ensure that every city in your empire could work, say, a cottage which might yield 1-7 gold. And that would probably be good for you, even if the city was size 1 forever.

3) Generally, yes. But many times, not too important. It takes a fair while for a city to work EVERY tile, a very great deal if time, actually. But you want to have the special resources spread out, generally. But sometimes you might overlap a food resource, so that the "new" city can quickly grow. And just mabye you need to plop a 6th city down somewhere (see above) and couldn't care less if it stayed at size 1 the whole game. So, it depends.

4) If you get more citizens than your happy cap nothing good really comes from that. Apart from the option to whip them away for hammers. Say, you have 8 citizens, happy cap is 8 so everyone is happy. If your city grows to 9 that extra one does nothing. So that is useless to have him hanging around. Now, mabye you could have worked a mined plains hill for 0 food and 4 hammers instead of that 2 food 1 hammer forest, and the city would have stayed at 8 and produced more hammers. Or mabye run a scientist specialist. That would have been better. But angriness does not affect those dilligent workers, except having to feed the rebels. But if they starve away, no real loss

5) Yeah see above. Raise happiness cap with hereditary rule + military units, luxury resources, and some buildings combined with buildings. Market + fur, forge + gold. Or use culture % to make people happy. Globe theater city = no happiness, ever, so no cap in that city.

6) Depends. You should still be able to play vanilla, right? It really is two different games. I think most people here tried vanilla for a long while, then warlords, then BtS. Newer is, well, newer. You can still have a lot of experimenting fun in vanilla. And I do not think you need Warlords.

 

[axlrose]

Ok a couple more questions.

1) Construction gives you bridge building. Does that just build bridges over rivers? Is there something special you have to do to make a bridge? Or if there is a road crossing a river and then you get the tech the bridges automatically appear?

2) When building improvements, there are no reason to connect cottages, reg. mines, workshops, farms etc with roads right? Only the resources?

3) I've read a couple of guides and some differ. Is it best to build alot of cottages? Like anywhere you would have a farm, build a cottage. And only build workshops and waterwheels only if the town is seriously deficient in hammers. Whats the best to do.

4) regarding 3. If cottages are the best to build, what is a good ratio of farms to cottages.

 

[Polobo]

1) A bridge basically removes the penalty for crossing a river and will appear for any appropriate road tile once construction is researched.

2) Correct, unless you want the movement bonus for counter-attacks against pillagers.

3) Subjective and situational, but for a beginner building and working many cottages seems to be the easiest method for generating commerce and then using the slider to generate beakers/gold; keeping in mind the 60% rule regarding city expansion (science slider should stay at or above 60% unless you have a specific goal in mind). *Mills/workshops should be used if you need to add food/production to a city and farms/mines are not applicable. Once you get more experienced you can make use of the various civics and specialists to give yourself additional options but initially the above seems to be agreed upon as a strong starting point to learning the game.

4) Farms are only helpful in that they provide extra food to either grow your city or to work tiles (or specialists) that have less than 2 food. There is an article on the site that posits 5 +/- 1 surplus food makes for ideal growth rates so normally you'd want 3 grassland farms that can be worked during growth periods then any additional farms can support plains cottages on a 1-1 basis (grassland cottages support themselves). When not growing you can reassign the base farmers to additional production tiles (mines) or as specialists.

 

[qwertz]

1)pre-construction you can build roads over rivers, but they don't work as "normal" roads and they still cost you 1. With construction this effect is canceled and all your roads over rivers are converted to bridges.

2)Yes.

3) & 4)For the beginning you should choose a city or two which are going to produce most of your military and/or wonders. Build a lot of mines, watermills and workshops there and just enough farms to feed all the working population.
Build the cottages in most of the other cities and avoid farms unless you really need some food.

 

[quill18]

3) & 4)For the beginning you should choose a city or two which are going to produce most of your military and/or wonders. Build a lot of mines, watermills and workshops there and just enough farms to feed all the working population. Build the cottages in most of the other cities and avoid farms unless you really need some food.

One thing I'd like to note is that Workshops are relatively poor in the early game and are only worth placing in cities that have virtually no hammers but have lots of excess food (2+ food resources and/or flood plains).

Later on, though, with Caste System, Guilds, Chemistry, etc... they do become powerhouses.

Watermills are always nice and only get better as the game goes on.