Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[bestbrian]

You really shouldn't automate your workers; they'll do very dumb things, and by doing it yourself, you'll learn the game and improve your play faster.

Welcome to CFC.

 

[Jonny.utsa]

Vanilla Civ4. My units seem to be stuck at 10/17 exp points. Winning new battles doesn not increase the exp points for that unit. What am I missing? Thanks!

 

[henrebotha]

Vanilla Civ4. My units seem to be stuck at 10/17 exp points. Winning new battles doesn not increase the exp points for that unit. What am I missing? Thanks!

You're fighting Barbarians. Killing Animals can't take a unit over 5 XP, and killing other Barbarians can't take a unit over 10 XP. (I'm playing a Custom Continents game right now and am isolated; I have a huge army of 10 XP Praetorians. )

 

[Jonny.utsa]

You're fighting Barbarians. Killing Animals can't take a unit over 5 XP, and killing other Barbarians can't take a unit over 10 XP. (I'm playing a Custom Continents game right now and am isolated; I have a huge army of 10 XP Praetorians. )

Thanks! So barbarians are good for easy exp up to 10 points. I didnt know that. I'm off to start a war or two!

 

[tokemoke]

Thanks for the quick reply's. There's so much to learn. Any advice or the best guide for a complete noob to civ? I got the FAQ already.

 

[henrebotha]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the Civ world and have the feeling I'll really enjoy this game. However, I'm having some difficulties finding some answers to very basic questions. I'm more used to RTS where you have drones of one sort or another you can see gathering resources. How do the citizens go about getting these. I can't figure it out. Also, When a worker is told to help improve a city automatically and disappears into it, what is it doing.
I appreciate the help and hope you'll help me in the future. Complicated game.

Hi there and welcome to Civ and CivFanatics! This community is awesome, I hope you enjoy your stay.

In the games you're used to, resources are usually treated as a sort of cash - you gather some amount of it (from a gold mine, Vespene geyser, w/e), and then spend it to create units and buildings and to research technologies. Civ, however, has several different types of resources, all handled differently.

First, there are the "tile yields". These are found on almost every tile in the game, and are represented by (food), (production), and (commerce) icons. You can see these icons in the city screen (double-click one of your cities), or by pressing Ctrl+T (I think...). You "acquire" these yields on a per-turn basis. Every turn that a citizen (white circle in the city screen) is working a tile, that city (not your empire as a whole) gets the benefits of that tile. is required to grow your city (for more citizens, allowing you to work more tiles); is used to create units and buildings; and I'll explain in a minute.

Second, there are the "resources". These are fewer and further between, but you should always try to found your cities near at least two or three of them. You can press Ctrl+R to see little bubbles pointing them out. They include food resources (Corn, Deer, Pig, etc), happiness resources (Spices, Gold, Dye, etc), and strategic resources (Copper, Uranium, Marble, etc). Resources have two purposes. First, their tile yields (once your Worker builds the correct type of improvement on them) are much higher than those for normal tiles. (To give you an idea, a riverside grassland farm yields 31; a riverside grassland farm on Corn yields 61!) Second, each resource carries some kind of global bonus to your cities. For instance, once you have built a Mine on some Copper (and built roads connecting the Copper and all of your cities to each other), you will be able to build Axemen and Spearmen (vastly superior to the Warriors you can build at first) in all of your cities - not just the one closest to the resource. Similarly, happiness resources like Silver or Incense will give +1 in all of your cities; and health resources like Rice will give +1 in all of your cities.

Finally, open up the city screen and look at the top left corner. You should see some of the following icons: , , , and/or - next to + and - buttons. These are your sliders. All the commerce your cities generate is fed through these sliders to determine what you do with that commerce. is used to research new technologies; (culture) expands your borders (and the culture slider also makes your people happier); is some arcane feature I know nothing about because I don't have the expansion packs ; and (wealth) turns your commerce into cold, hard cash for you to spend. However, isn't as obviously useful as you may think. For most of the game, it's basically used as trading material with other civs, and to have a buffer so that you can push up your research until you're running at a deficit. If you build the Pyramids or research Democracy, though, you gain access to a civic called Universal Suffrage that lets you use to rush the production of units or buildings, completing them several turns ahead of schedule.

I hope this helps - one of the toughest things for an RTS player to learn in Civ is how the frigging resources work. Believe me, I know.

EDIT: Go here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/introductory_courses

 

[Padma]

The best guide to Civ is the forum.

All your questions can and will be answered, often to a greater depth than you even expected!

 

[tokemoke]

Hi there and welcome to Civ and CivFanatics! This community is awesome, I hope you enjoy your stay.

In the games you're used to, resources are usually treated as a sort of cash - you gather some amount of it (from a gold mine, Vespene geyser, w/e), and then spend it to create units and buildings and to research technologies. Civ, however, has several different types of resources, all handled differently.

First, there are the "tile yields". These are found on almost every tile in the game, and are represented by (food), (production), and (commerce) icons. You can see these icons in the city screen (double-click one of your cities), or by pressing Ctrl+T (I think...). You "acquire" these yields on a per-turn basis. Every turn that a citizen (white circle in the city screen) is working a tile, that city (not your empire as a whole) gets the benefits of that tile. is required to grow your city (for more citizens, allowing you to work more tiles); is used to create units and buildings; and I'll explain in a minute.

Second, there are the "resources". These are fewer and further between, but you should always try to found your cities near at least two or three of them. You can press Ctrl+R to see little bubbles pointing them out. They include food resources (Corn, Deer, Pig, etc), happiness resources (Spices, Gold, Dye, etc), and strategic resources (Copper, Uranium, Marble, etc). Resources have two purposes. First, their tile yields (once your Worker builds the correct type of improvement on them) are much higher than those for normal tiles. (To give you an idea, a riverside grassland farm yields 31; a riverside grassland farm on Corn yields 61!) Second, each resource carries some kind of global bonus to your cities. For instance, once you have built a Mine on some Copper (and built roads connecting the Copper and all of your cities to each other), you will be able to build Axemen and Spearmen (vastly superior to the Warriors you can build at first) in all of your cities - not just the one closest to the resource. Similarly, happiness resources like Silver or Incense will give +1 in all of your cities; and health resources like Rice will give +1 in all of your cities.

Finally, open up the city screen and look at the top left corner. You should see some of the following icons: , , , and/or - next to + and - buttons. These are your sliders. All the commerce your cities generate is fed through these sliders to determine what you do with that commerce. is used to research new technologies; (culture) expands your borders (and the culture slider also makes your people happier); is some arcane feature I know nothing about because I don't have the expansion packs ; and (wealth) turns your commerce into cold, hard cash for you to spend. However, isn't as obviously useful as you may think. For most of the game, it's basically used as trading material with other civs, and to have a buffer so that you can push up your research until you're running at a deficit. If you build the Pyramids or research Democracy, though, you gain access to a civic called Universal Suffrage that lets you use to rush the production of units or buildings, completing them several turns ahead of schedule.

I hope this helps - one of the toughest things for an RTS player to learn in Civ is how the frigging resources work. Believe me, I know.

EDIT: Go here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/introductory_courses

Thank you SOOOO much. That was super helpful. You even took the time to put the little symbols everywhere so I COULDN'T get confused if I wanted.
This game should have a 4 credit course devoted to it! The material in that link could be 101.

 

[tokemoke]

The best guide to Civ is the forum.

All your questions can and will be answered, often to a greater depth than you even expected!

So true. I spent a good hour trying to find answers about an elementary aspect of the game. The manual is less then helpful in it's descriptions sometimes.

 

[tokemoke]

What do you guys think about Colonization vs Civ4? Which would you recommend starting with. Seems like Colonization drives you to one victory condition where as you can try for any 6 (?) in Civ4.

 

[henrebotha]

They're completely different games. Colonization is a remake of an old game. Play Civ.

 

[tokemoke]

They're completely different games. Colonization is a remake of an old game. Play Civ.

That's what I'm leaning towards. Checkin out Ebay now. I can't wait to get past turn 100.

 

[Camikaze]

Perhaps try asking here also.

 

[-kb-]

Hi there!

I've been playing BTS with Next War mod for a while. What a great game!

But I have a question concerning a thing which is quite annoying.

Is there a way to expand the view in city screen (where you can see which tiles are active)? I have lots of improvements in other tiles but I can't connect these tiles to the city! What's the point having large areas if you can't utilize them in any way?

Thanks for helping!

 

[Sisiutil]

Hi there!

I've been playing BTS with Next War mod for a while. What a great game!

But I have a question concerning a thing which is quite annoying.

Is there a way to expand the view in city screen (where you can see which tiles are active)? I have lots of improvements in other tiles but I can't connect these tiles to the city! What's the point having large areas if you can't utilize them in any way?

Thanks for helping!

Welcome to CFC!

It sounds like you might be a bit confused about the nature of the city's workable tiles. A city in Civ IV can only ever have the 21 tiles in its "big fat cross" being worked by its citizens. Tiles outside the BFC cannot be worked unless they are within the BFC of another city.

Obviously this makes city placement an important part of the game, so much so that players have developed method for it called "dot mapping". You can find out more about this by looking around the message board, but most players don't worry about it until they reach Noble difficulty level or higher.

For a beginner, which I assume you are, the main thing is to not place your cities too far apart, nor too close together. Don't be afraid of a little overlap, where adjacent cities share tiles, if it allows you to ensure that valuable tiles are worked. But be careful of excessive overlap, as it will prevent your cities from growing to their full potential (because not all of the tiles in the BFC can be worked) in the late game.

 

[henrebotha]

To answer your (potentially rhetorical) question, the point of having large areas is:
1) You can still hook up resources even if they're outside of your cities' workable area.
2) Your units can use roads in your territory, but rivals you are at war with can't.
3) It allows you to place a Settler there later (rivals can't settle within your borders, even if you're at war or have Open Borders agreements).

 

[-kb-]

Thanks so much!

Yeah, I've been playing for CIV IV for some time but I'm quite a beginner still... Seems like it!

I think I need to make more settlers. It doesn't take too long when the city's culture borders expand so much that I can't use the tiles...

 

[henrebotha]

It's probably a good idea to get into the habit of founding ridiculous numbers of cities. I'm at Prince, and under-expansion kills me (to the point that I am forced to go on several early conquests just to get a decent-sized empire).

 

[Arakhor]

Found only a large number of cities, not a ridiculous number. Infinite City Sprawl will murder you in Civ IV

 

[henrebotha]

Haha, yeah, Arakhor is right. Expand fast, but make sure you simultaneously develop your empire so that you can bear the cost of new, undeveloped cities.