Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Ataxerxes]

I'm fairly inexperienced on Civ4, I typically play on Warlord and usually go for Space Race victories with one or two civs conquered, I've won on Noble but I'm trying to refine my skills by sticking with Warlord.

That being said... can someone please comment on the best economic system to use? Most of the time, I find myself using Mercantilism for the free specialist and keep it for quite a while. After that, what are the main benefits of going to Free Market or State Property? If my economy is already thriving, am I better served sticking with a free specialist rather than going to State Property? And does anyone ever use Environmentalism? I haven't found a use for it yet.

Really, the best economic system may change from one game to another. If you have a lot of land far away or on other continents State Property may be a good choice. It reduces the maintenance charges of cities and is very good for large, far flung empires. It'd work especially well on Archipelago. I usually use Free Market or State Property instead of Mercantalism, especially after Astronomy. The income from trade routes in each city and the lower maintenance may make either one a better choice.

Another big benefit from State Property is Watermills and Workshops. These become very powerful improvements in the later game under State Property. You can get some awesome hammer cities from State Property.

Another concern is Corps. You can't use them under State Property but if you use a lot of corps Free Market is usually the best Civic.

Environmentalism is more of a niche civic. I always run it if I have an OCC to get the extra gold from Forest Preserves and Windmills. If you have a lot of Windmills and/or Health problems it can be a good civic. For most games, however, you can trade or capture the resources you need and Free Market will usually be better.

I run Environmentalism a lot because I like OCC's. Finishes a game in about 2 hours.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I thought that was heroic epic? Well it looks like I've got a level 4 axeman, and I can build heroic epic but not national epic...

Whoops. You are correct. Wrong "epic" on my part. I mix those two up a lot. I sure wish they had more distinctive names!

 

[seele13]

This is the just second game of Civ 4 that I've seriously played and the first I've ever played to a conclusion, so please don't laugh. It was Warlord level, small archipelago land mass, tropical climate, standard map, normal speed. I got a "Time Victory" and ended up w. 3598 points, 2886 or so normalized.

Game rated this effort at "Dan Quayle". I think the grading curve is a bit too tough. I led the AI civ's in score, size, and every graph throughout most of this game to the end, even though it's only Warlord level. Shouldn't there be some recognition that this is better than simply playing one turn, plot down one city, and retiring with 35 or so points? That's also a DQ rating.

So the game does not consider the Time Victory as one and you have to get one of the "real" victories in order to get out of the rating basement?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

[Psyringe]

can someone please comment on the best economic system to use?

Ataxerxes already answered this, let me add one minor detail: When you play a spiritual civ, or have built Cristo Redentor, you can switch civics without anarchy. You can use this to "test" economic systems. The worst thing that can happen is that you're stuck in a suboptimal system for a couple of turns (so it's probably a good idea to have some gold reserves before doing it, just in case). It's a good way of getting a better feeling for the different civics available.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm fairly inexperienced on Civ4, I typically play on Warlord and usually go for Space Race victories with one or two civs conquered, I've won on Noble but I'm trying to refine my skills by sticking with Warlord.

That being said... can someone please comment on the best economic system to use? Most of the time, I find myself using Mercantilism for the free specialist and keep it for quite a while. After that, what are the main benefits of going to Free Market or State Property? If my economy is already thriving, am I better served sticking with a free specialist rather than going to State Property? And does anyone ever use Environmentalism? I haven't found a use for it yet.

Environmentalism is useful if you suffer a lot of late-game unhealthiness. It can also be useful for making commerce in your National Park city from all those forest preserves that you made to get lots of free specialists there.

State Property is excellent for a space race. After you have most of your research, you spam workshops which are self-sufficient in food with this civic, and give you lots of hammers to build your space parts quickly.

Mercantilism is useful if its a hostile world and you don't have good trade routes. Otherwise, you will usually get more commerce out of the extra trade routes from Free Market (plus the fact that they will be foreign overseas trade routes with higher commerce value).

Basically, its a matter of matching your civic to the game situation, and terrain as improved accordingly. There are lots of ways to do things, and which one you choose will affect what other choices are best... so the game has depth.

 

[Danelius90]

This is the just second game of Civ 4 that I've seriously played and the first I've ever played to a conclusion, so please don't laugh. It was Warlord level, small archipelago land mass, tropical climate, standard map, normal speed. I got a "Time Victory" and ended up w. 3598 points, 2886 or so normalized.

Game rated this effort at "Dan Quayle". I think the grading curve is a bit too tough. I led the AI civ's in score, size, and every graph throughout most of this game to the end, even though it's only Warlord level. Shouldn't there be some recognition that this is better than simply playing one turn, plot down one city, and retiring with 35 or so points? That's also a DQ rating.

So the game does not consider the Time Victory as one and you have to get one of the "real" victories in order to get out of the rating basement?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

many players don't consider this aspect vastly important. if you win, you are showing good qualities in gameplay. so you are improving! it probably takes many more than 2 tries to start making the best out of a game.

time victory will give you a low score at the end. map size, difficulty, speed and other factors also affect it. generally, the earlier you win the better the normalized score, which is why time victory scores low (you would be able to get a better score if you had a huge empire though). With conquest/domination victories you can get a score of 80000 or more.
it took me a while to not get quayle rating, and I still score low sometimes. you will get a better one eventually though.

 

[nfw]

Anyone ever seen a colony break away from its master? Is it possible?

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

I have a doubt regarding sea resources - if a sea resource is outside the city's fat cross but within cultural boundaries is it worth to work on it (send the work boat to do it's job)?

 

[duckstab]

I have a doubt regarding sea resources - if a sea resource is outside the city's fat cross but within cultural boundaries is it worth to work on it (send the work boat to do it's job)?

Early in the game, it's of negligible value unless you can manage to trade it. In my experience, that's often difficult because seafood is so common.

Later on, if you get Sid's Sushi, that means one more food in every city with the corporation, so that might make the investment of hammers in a workboat worthwhile.

 

[Psyringe]

I have a doubt regarding sea resources - if a sea resource is outside the city's fat cross but within cultural boundaries is it worth to work on it (send the work boat to do it's job)?

If you don't already have an instance of this resource, it's always worthwhile.

If you already have on or more instances of this resource, then it depends on your rivals: Are there other civs which might accept the resource as a bargaining chip? It's not worth much, but it can help obtaining difficult deals if given as an extra. You may also be able to trade it for money.

 

[Ghpstage]

I have a doubt regarding sea resources - if a sea resource is outside the city's fat cross but within cultural boundaries is it worth to work on it (send the work boat to do it's job)?

Sending a workboat might be worth it if,

• you don't already one of that resource and have issues
• you have an AI willing to trade it for something more useful
• you intend to settle a city to work that seafood soon
• you have Sid's Sushi

 

[Ataxerxes]

Sending a workboat might be worth it if,

• you don't already one of that resource and have issues
• you have an AI willing to trade it for something more useful
• you intend to settle a city to work that seafood soon
• you have Sid's Sushi

I usually can find somebody willing to give me 6 GPT for the resource. That seems like a pretty good investment of the small hammers for a workboat. Seafood is fairly common but there's always somebody who doesn't have it.

 

[Ghpstage]

I usually can find somebody willing to give me 6 GPT for the resource. That seems like a pretty good investment of the small hammers for a workboat. Seafood is fairly common but there's always somebody who doesn't have it.

Well, gold is more useful than an extra suply of a resource

 

[babylon5v]

I'm pretty much an absolute beginner to Civ 4. I want to play Dune Wars but I also want to learn the original game as well.

I was wondering what mods there are which make the vanilla game better (in this case, by vanilla I mean vanilla plus BtS), but which don't change the fundamental gameplay? I keep reading all this stuff about BUG, BUFFY, etc. I'm not sure if that is what I am looking for though.

Just to reaffirm, I am pretty much an absolute beginner, so maybe I shouldn't even be using these game improvement mods? Anyway, any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[Psyringe]

I was wondering what mods there are which make the vanilla game better (in this case, by vanilla I mean vanilla plus BtS), but which don't change the fundamental gameplay?

You could try "Better BUG AI". This mod doesn't change the gameplay, but improves the interface and the AI a lot. (If your PC can handle lots of graphics, "Better BAT AI" adds more civilization-specific graphics on top of that).

Otherwise, which kind of improvement are you looking for?

 

[babylon5v]

You could try "Better BUG AI". This mod doesn't change the gameplay, but improves the interface and the AI a lot. (If your PC can handle lots of graphics, "Better BAT AI" adds more civilization-specific graphics on top of that).

Otherwise, which kind of improvement are you looking for?

That's just it, I don't really know! I'm too newbish to know! Basically, I am looking for anything that helps improve the interface or the overall gameplay. I don't want anything drastic like a full blown mod (though I do want to learn Dune Wars eventually).

Basically, what are the *must-have* improvements to the basic gameplay that any absolute new player should have? Or should a new player just play the pure game with no minor enhancements or modifications at all?

 

[Psyringe]

Basically, what are the *must-have* improvements to the basic gameplay that any absolute new player should have?

Ah, I see. You're looking for "standard" mods that almost everybody uses, like unofficial patches and gameplay improvements.

In that case, I repeat my recommendation of "Better BUG AI". It improves two areas that can be considered lacking in Civ4 (Interface and AI), and also includes the unofficial patch (several bugfixes that haven't been addressed by Firaxis' official patches), while leaving the rest of the game as-is. Civ4 BtS is a pretty good and complex game already, so I'd suggest to first play it without any further mods to get a feeling for the "standard" gameplay, and then gradually check out the vast amount of mods that have been created.

 

[babylon5v]

Ah, I see. You're looking for "standard" mods that almost everybody uses, like unofficial patches and gameplay improvements.

In that case, I repeat my recommendation of "Better BUG AI". It improves two areas that can be considered lacking in Civ4 (Interface and AI), and also includes the unofficial patch (several bugfixes that haven't been addressed by Firaxis' official patches), while leaving the rest of the game as-is. Civ4 BtS is a pretty good and complex game already, so I'd suggest to first play it without any further mods to get a feeling for the "standard" gameplay, and then gradually check out the vast amount of mods that have been created.

Thanks, that's really helpful! And that's exactly what I was looking for in an answer!

 

[babylon5v]

I'm trying to install Better Bug AI, but it keeps saying:

Error opening file for writing

\Mods\Better BUG AI\UserSettings\Adv Unit Naming.ini

Click Abort to stop installation,
Retry to try again, or
Ignore to skip this file.


I retried it, same thing, I downloaded the same installation package from a different site, the same thing. Is this a common problem or maybe just a problem with my installation?

 

[Psyringe]

It's probably a Windows problem, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are careful with write permissions. The usual advice I've heard for such problem is "turn off UAC" (on Vista), "start the program as an admin", and (probably the best advice since it prevents many problems instead of offering workarounds) "don't install Civ to a protected folder like 'Programs'". Many people use a "Games" folder for games that require write permissions.

However, I'm just reciting second-hand information here, myself I'm on XP and haven't experienced such problems. So you may want to wait until someone with better knowledge of the issue comes along. A forum search may also yield some info.