I'm also a Civ2 veteran and all I pretty much can say is that CivIV is another game altogether. Take the time to read the manual, read some newbie guides (there are some on this side) and, most importantly, don't assume you know anything yet.
I've been there myself many, many times with the different editions of Civilization. Like the wise man above said, do something else for awhile and you're bound to start thinking about new ways to play the game, stuff you'd like to try out and strategies you haven't tried yet. You're probably in a bit of a rut for a moment. It also helps to try new approaches completely, since many players simply tend to go through the same motions in every game. The game can be played in almost unlimited different ways - some more effective than others, granted.
I really dunno, but could it be that they are already someone else's vassal?
You don't say which techs you have. However, that may be your problem. Your foreign adviser (or minister) will only show you techs that other Civs have that you can discover or trade for. It won't show you more advanced ones that they have that you cannot trade for. For example: If you do not have Physics, then you will not know if anyone else has discovered Artillery, since you have to have Physics to research Artillery. If you have Physics, then the adviser will show you who has Artillery. If this does not solve your mystery, give us a few more details to work with.
Trade is something that benefits both parties and essentially what makes the world go round. You could refuse to trade something, like Technology, but you wouldn't just be hurting your rivals but also yourself. I'd say trade everything and enything, as long as you think that you get a reasonable price for it. Because, if you do more trade than your rivals you benefit more than them. So trade with everyone, except maybe your worst rivals or someone who could use what you trade to them against you.
Yeah, you've managed to navigate some very bad jargon there. I try not to use the term "slider" myself because I realized they changed them for this version, and it could be very confusing to newcomers.
I can relate, as I'm in it first and foremost to build my empire. Unfortunately its the other stuff, the Grand Strategy, that will win you your games. But you need to learn the basics of managing you empire in order to focus on that other, more important game.
A good start might be just to browse this thread - you can start here and work backwards if you like. Important information and good advice has been posted here on a daily basis. And keep asking those "stupid" questions, as this would be the thread for them.
You're on the right track as city management is the single most important thing to master in this game, and its also the first stumbling stone for any new player. I just wrote this in a thread on city specialization:
(About city specialization, specialists and the City Screen)
The white circles on the tiles are what is being worked on at the moment. The city will only get the yields (in terms of,
and
) from those tiles and not from any other tiles. The number of tiles worked is the same as your city size. So each populations point corresponds to one "Citizen".
By clicking on the marked tiles (still inside the City Screen) you remove that Citizen from working the land. It has now become a specialist and can be found in the right side panel as a plain "Citizen" specialist. This isn't a very good specialist (with only a +1
But if you do have the option of assigning other more useful specialists - like Scientists or Merchants - you can make that Citizen into a proper specialist by clicking on the "+" symbol associated with the type of specialist you wanna employ.
You could remove all citizens from working the fields and make them into specialist (even plain Citizen ones if you lack other options) if you wanted. This would, however, starve your city down to size 1 and this way you'd end up with only one specialist in the end. So don't even consider this as any kind of option!
One thing you also have to understand is food production
So, its actually the surplus
from getting Theology and before the next turn all the is collected from your cities. So the game adds 15 from your first city, then 20 from your second city, and then another 20 ... Bam! That third city just got you over the threshold for Theology and all the rest of the collected from this turn will be saved up for your next research project. This is why the birthplace of Christianity would be the third city. output will be more likely to be the birthplace, and a city with no output whatsoever never can found a religion. I might, however, be dead wrong on this.You could view the situation like this: Any coastal city could be a good location as the birthplace of a religion. Because the shrine associated with that religion will generate
the city has instantly become specialized for the generation of and a prime candidate for the Wall Street national wonder later on. Just work those water tiles and build all the modifier buildings - and then rise your percentage to cash in further. that can be converted into additional . If you already have a specialized research city and it founds a religion, it could also make a mess out of your priorities. Small cities without any resources to speak of would, of course, be even worse. But then again, why would you found a city on such a poor location to begin with?I had a triple religion capital once in one of my first games on noble. In short it was my only city for a while, had a spiritual leader (started with mysticism), then I can't remember if I got all 3 ancient religions first, or if I got 2 of them then rushed a third one by beelining and bulbing a prophet.
When you get attacked, the game automatically picks the best defender to counter the unit that is attacking you... So you don't have to think about it at all.
My personal theory has always been, although backed up from a little experimentation but no actual hacking into the code, that religions actually are founded in the city that "discovers" the required Technology. In thinking like this:
Let's say you're 50
It seems like a simple and intuitive way of "randomizing" the actual birthplace. This would mean that cities with a high
Sarassin said:
