Thanks again.
I played Civ4 for the first time last night and noticed a few things that puzzled me:
Somehow we failed to give you our traditional welcome. So a bit late, but:
Welcome to civfanatics!
1. The food / production seams to have changed quite a bit, I couldn't seam to grow very quickly because the settler production is different and I haven't quite worked out how to grow my city and produce settlers at the same time.
I guess by the nature of your question that you've played previous versions of civilization. In this version, a settler doesn't cost a certain amount of population points like in previous versions of civilization, but stops the growth of the city while it is being build. The benefit is that the normal food growth of the city is added to the settler production. So if you enter the city, you'll see something like 5
+ 4
in the city screen next to the production bar of the settler. The same is true for workers.
Knowledge about this game mechanic should allow you to strategise and plan the construction of settlers when your city has reached a certain size where it can fairly quickly construct settlers. Settlers are pretty expensive at the start of the game, so usually your first settlers take a while to build.
Because settlers and workers are constructed with food and hammers and are fairly expensive, it is usually a good idea to first improve some of the best tiles around your city. If you improve a grassland pig tile with a pasture, then this results in a 6 food tile. 2 are used to feed the citizen working the land and the other 4 can be used to quickly create settlers and workers.
Other methods to speed up the construction of workers and settlers include pop-rushing (using the slavery civic) and chopping forests (for a one-time hammer boost).
2. I approved a revolution suggestion and nothing seamed to happen, I certainly didn't get to choose a government type.
Governments have become a lot more interesting in civilization 4. They now consist of a sort of building blocks called civics. You can see the civics that you're using in the Civic-screen (shortcut key F3). Check out the section about civics in the civilopedia. This can be a bit overwhelming during your first game as the number of combinations of civics is pretty impressive. What choices are best is not clear, but you'll learn to make a competent choice between the various civics after a few games.
3. I received an advance that permitted the construction of many different types of temple, yet I couldn't seam to make them.
You need a religion inside your city to be able to build temples of that religion. You can found a religion by being the first to research certain technologies (it's noted in the tech-tree, shortcut key F6). Religions can spread naturally between cities (even between one of your cities and a foreign one) if one of the cities has a religion and the others have not. Religions spread faster if the cities are trading with one another.
You can actively spread religions to other cities by building missionaries. You can only build missionaries if
-The city has the religion and a monastery
OR
-The city has the religion and you're using the organized religion civic.
There is no (serious) negative to having multiple religions in a single city. It just allows you to build the religion specific buildings.
Religions are very important for relations between civilizations. Pick you state religion wisely.
4. I built a worker boat that auto improved but I don't really know how it was benefitting me.
It greatly improved the output of the tile it improved, so if you're using that tile, then the city output will have improved. Check which tiles a city is using by entering the city. You can switch the used tiles around or let the governor choose for you.
If a special resource tile is improved and connected to a city, then the city and any other city of yours connected to this city will also gain access to the benefits of this resource. Strategic resources allow the construction of certain military units or improve the speed at which certain World Wonders are constructed, luxury resources make your people happier, food resources make your people healthier.
? I want my crab 
!
