CBPE
Warlord
3. Select your attacker, select the GO-TO mode, hover the mouse to the enemy unit
Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions
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Darth Fred
Prince
Roland Johansen
Deity
I rarely defy but as far as I know it's very straightforward:
AP: you get 5 unhappiness for 20 turns in the cities that have the religion of the AP,
UN: you get 5 unhappiness for 20 turns in every city.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
I've found that every time I REX I end up crashing my economy so hard that from 1 - AD to 1000 AD is a long recovery and I just lost way too much time there. Is this normal. (I hit strike alot too.)
Roland Johansen
Deity
There's a delicate balance between expanding your cities and expanding your economy. Many players look at the percentage of commerce they need to spend on upkeep to break even and start slowing down their expansion when this percentage is getting very high and thus the percentage of commerce spend on science is getting low. When the percentage spend on commerce to break even is nearing 100%, you're getting dangerously close to stalling your economy and getting strikes. You should always avoid that.
I find that the percentage of your economy spend on upkeep vs science is a fairly bad way to look at expansion. The reason it has become popular is that the percentage is on the main screen right from the first version of the game. But it's not this percentage that determines how fast your research progresses and it's not this percentage that will show you whether adding another city will get you into strikes. The figure which is the most interesting is the amount of research points which go into research (available in the financial advisor or F2 and next to the science percentage in the main screen in later versions of Civ4 like BTS). At the very start of the game after constructing your first city, that's around 10. Once you grow your capital a bit, add a few cities and start getting some trade routes and some cottages or scientists, the percentage of commerce invested into science will drop, but the value of research will likely rise a bit. When you expand very fast after the first few cities without expanding your economy, the value will quickly drop again. You typically don't want this value to become very low even during expansion as a research of 10 per turn will not give you new technologies at a decent rate. And if your research is 10 per turn, then adding another city or losing 2 good commerce tiles or a few foreign trade routes can get you dangerously close to a stalling economy.
The commerce graph in BTS is also a good one to look at. In this version of civ4, it shows your net income, so commerce income * building bonuses - costs and it should not go near 0. You can look at the graph while you're expanding and see how your expansion effects the increase and decrease of the graph. If you REX and thus slow the rate of expansion of your economy in favour of the rate of expansion of your territory, then the graph should start increasing very rapidly after you stop expanding. At this point, your graph should start overtaking those empires that didn't REX.
Note that the AI has less costs at the higher difficulty levels so they can expand easier without hurting their economy and they can sustain a good net science rate without growing as large as a Rexing human player. However, the AI is fairly dumb compared to a decent human player.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
Thank you. Should you grab certain techs before you start actually REXing?
Roland Johansen
Deity
I don't follow a fixed research pattern. I just try to get the technologies that I need to develop the area during the expansion of the first few cities. It's not a good idea to expand so fast that even after founding several cities, you still have no way (cottages/scientists) to expand your economy. You also need to build the worker force to improve those new cities fast so that they can start supporting the economy as fast as possible. You typically don't want cities to use unimproved tiles; that's horribly inefficient.
It's a good idea to scout in such a way that you see a path towards your neighbours borders so that you can get foreign trade routes once you get open borders. Trade routes are a significant part of your economy and foreign trade routes are far more lucrative.
I usually only start using cities to build settlers after they have grown close to their health/happiness caps as sizeable cities are good for your economy and can build faster. However, I play on huge maps and smaller maps can force you to create a settler earlier in order to claim a prime position.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
What are some speceific ways to "expand", your economy? This is really interesting, thank you. 
Roland Johansen
Deity
What are some speceific ways to "expand", your economy? This is really interesting, thank you.
The most popular ones (and probably the most efficient ones) are the cottage based economy and the specialist based economy. Most players combine both methods.
With cottages, the idea is to quickly build and use some cottages in the newly build cities. Of course, you do need some growth in those cities too as larger cities can use more cottaged tiles and you need some production too as those cities need to build some research and gold improving buildings. Once the newly build city has some 3 cottages and some trade routes, the city already typically produces enough commerce to provide for itself. As the city grows and the used cottages grow, the city will do more than provide for itself and will start adding to your economy. As long as the city is small and has few cottages, it will be a cost to your economy so you want to get past that stage as quickly as possible. Sent workers to the new city quickly, connect it to your trade network, improve food tiles first and then create the cottages and production tiles.
Markets and libraries and such can be build as the city grows. Building a market or library in a city which barely produces any commerce isn't that useful anyway.
With specialists, its mainly the same idea, only the improvements are different. You will build extra farms to provide food for the specialists. This food will be used to whip some buildings too (slavery civic). The library is probably the most important one to whip (after a granary for increased growth and whipping efficiency). The scientists it allows can be fed with the food the farms provide. But again, you will want to connect the city to your trade network for commerce from trade and will sent workers after the settler that founded it to get it up and running fast.
Chopping forests and whipping can be used to get buildings up. Again you need the workers to chop the forests. Workers are the backbone of getting a good economy fast while you expand.
The output of the specialists can be fairly high at the start of the game, especially when you can use representation early in the game because you control the Pyramids. The largest power from specialists however is their ability to do special things like rush technologies. Compared to the cost in GPP's (Great Person Points), the first few specialist are extremely efficient. Later in the game, the conversion of GPP's into great persons becomes less efficient.
Cottages keep growing and don't need food as the tile itself often provides the food and thus after the early game, cottages become more efficient than specialists (disputed and of course dependent on whether you control the Pyramids and can use the representation civic).
Most players who know the game well use a combination of cottage cities and specialist cities to get the best of both worlds. You get the large commerce output from cottages in cities that focus on cottages and the GPP's concentrated in a few specialist cities. Because specialists are only created in cities that produce enough GPP's to reach the required number to spawn a great person, great persons are only borne in a very few cities during a game. Thus an empire with a few cities focussing on great person points can create a similar number of great persons as an empire that focusses entirely on specialist cities.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
Wow! Thank you! What about the happiness issue? It is the roadblock for growing large cities and developing good land.
Thank you! What about the happiness issue? It is the roadblock for growing large cities and developing good land.
Wow!
Get The 'Mids for early Rep, or Monarchy for Hereditary Rule.
Buildings and Resources can be built, traded for, or "acquired". 
That is correct; Alphabet its required for tech trading.
Roland Johansen
Deity
Wow!
Very true. And because costs per city (due to civic, city maintenance and defender upkeep) are mostly due to the existence of the city and less due to the size of the city, larger cities are far more efficient. It's typical for a city (at the start of the game) to have a net loss at small sizes of say up to 4 but to become more and more profitable afterwards. So a size 8 city might bring double the net profit of a size 6 city.
The most efficient way of acquiring happiness is due to happiness resources. Of course, at the start of the game, you have very little access to happiness resources. A few happiness resources can be accessed with the early camp improvement (ivory, fur) but one of them (fur) is often in inhospitable locations. Another few are accessible with the early mine improvement (gold, silver, gems). However, most happiness resources become available with the plantation (dye, incense, silk, spices and suger) and a single one with the winery and the whaling boats. It's very important to try to acquire some of these resources within the boundaries of your empire. If you see that one of your neighbours has some happiness resource that you lack, then try to become friends with them and trade it with them. You need to be quick with this and try to get the trade deal the moment that the civilisation has connected the resource or otherwise some other civilisation will make the deal. Of course, conquering the resource is also always an option, but that requires time and resources. The various buildings that double the happiness effect of some resources are very important too. Dependant on which resources you own, a forge or a market can become some of the most important buildings in your empire.
Other ways of acquiring happiness is through religion and temples and through a colosseum. These offer limited amounts of happiness but every little bit helps. Another way is through civics like representation and hereditary rule. I'm not really a fan of representation because it only helps a few cities, but if your empire is small that's not an issue. Hereditary rule allows you to create as much happiness as you want in a city by adding military units. However, each military unit also requires upkeep and has a construction cost. So it's not a very cost efficient way of acquiring happiness. Once you start adding units beyond those that you will use for military protection, the building and upkeep cost of the unit should be compared to the resources of the extra tile that you might use.
You can also use the culture slider to acquire happiness, but it's one of the most inefficient ways of acquiring happiness. I typically only use it when my empire is suffering large amounts of war weariness and I have no other way of combating this unhappiness.
The war academy article Ways into happiness contains a complete list of all sources of happiness.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
@Bestbrain: Do you think it would be wise to go Monarchy before CoL/Currency?
@Roland: Wow! You deserve some respect! Every question I have asked on here was given a good, in-depth description of whatever I was asking! Someone else said, "This thread should be called, let's quize Roland Johansen about Civlization IV." It's true, thank you so much for your great answers and quick responces!
@Roland: Wow! You deserve some respect! Every question I have asked on here was given a good, in-depth description of whatever I was asking! Someone else said, "This thread should be called, let's quize Roland Johansen about Civlization IV." It's true, thank you so much for your great answers and quick responces!
@Bestbrain: Do you think it would be wise to go Monarchy before CoL/Currency?
@Roland: Wow! You deserve some respect! Every question I have asked on here was given a good, in-depth description of whatever I was asking! Someone else said, "This thread should be called, let's quize Roland Johansen about Civlization IV." It's true, thank you so much for your great answers and quick responces!
Like every other answer to every other question on these boards, that depends. However, it's been my experience that the AI loves Monarchy, so it's easily traded for.
Yes, and RoJo is a smartypants.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
Thank you.
Roland Johansen
Deity
Thanks.
Personally, I usually like monarchy more when I have access to no or very few happiness resources (trading included) and I like currency/code of laws more when I do have access to several happiness resources. If you have no way to increase the happiness of your cities with resources, then you will need the happiness of civics like hereditary rule or otherwise your cities will remain small and inefficient. If you do have access to such resources (for instance fur, gold and silver with the forge to double their happiness effect) then the additional happiness of civics is far less important.
I think that I go for hereditary rule more often as it is cheaper to research and the base happiness is quite low on the higher difficulty levels. However, most cities only get 1,2 or maybe 3 units to combat unhappiness in most cases.
Oh, I usually play without tech trading so that makes some research paths different from other players. You can't rely on trading.
Personally, I usually like monarchy more when I have access to no or very few happiness resources (trading included) and I like currency/code of laws more when I do have access to several happiness resources. If you have no way to increase the happiness of your cities with resources, then you will need the happiness of civics like hereditary rule or otherwise your cities will remain small and inefficient. If you do have access to such resources (for instance fur, gold and silver with the forge to double their happiness effect) then the additional happiness of civics is far less important.
I think that I go for hereditary rule more often as it is cheaper to research and the base happiness is quite low on the higher difficulty levels. However, most cities only get 1,2 or maybe 3 units to combat unhappiness in most cases.
Oh, I usually play without tech trading so that makes some research paths different from other players. You can't rely on trading.
Tech trading makes Currency a lot better in comparison. Selling small techs to others for cash can be an insane boost for your research, in addition to the more obvious benefits of +TRs and building Wealth. In a recent forum game I went from Currency to Medicine with a nonstop 100% science slider thanks to tech selling. This works better the higher the difficulty though as the AIs start to have more cash around.
That said, Monarchy is still a very popular choice to go first, especially without Luxuries (or other similar stuff like being CHA or the Ottomans). A lot of factors affect the decision besides luxuries; your traits, your UB, land, neighbors, their tech paths etc etc.
One way to deal with early low happy cap that wasn't mentioned is to settle more cities with more overlap early on than you usually do.
CivIVMonger
Emperor
Thanks.
Oh, I usually play without tech trading so that makes some research paths different from other players. You can't rely on trading.
Thanks about the happiness thing.
Oh yes you can with a friendly tech whore on your side!
EDIT:
The Musketman is a terrible unit!! A bland, 9 
unit with no effects. The Macemen is better! What the blank did 2K have in mind when they designed this!?Similar threads
