Share your Civ Fanaticism

[Isikien]

Post save!

In fact if I were you play a game and if you feel like you're going wrong then save it, go into this thread, advanced reply, manage attachments, look for that save (usually in your my games folder under Civ) and post it. Believe me, you will get millions of us tripping over each other to give advice.

 

[setonfire]

Thank you Cheese. <Chess Fanatics Forum? > I had come across a post here on CFC by a guy who wanted to teach Civ to his friend. While reading replies I got the impression that Civ would be somehow more intelligible to a person familiar with chess. I was just clarifying, no intention to offend

Sisiutil it was exciting to hear your take on the game. You seem to really like it. You have pushed me to explore the game further right when I was about to give up trying. I played a game yesterday and tried to conquer my opponents cities. Using my knowledge of Rise of Nations did me no good. My units attacked one by one not en masse. It was confusing in the beginning. Apart from that my AI opponent's riflemen were eliminating my choppers and tanks easily. I could not understand what was happening. Then I figured that I had to first lower the city's defenses

Challs, fellow newbie! Noble? Great. So what targets did you set for yourself when you were picking up the game. I try to maximise my culture to expand borders. Everything I do I do it for gaining culture. However, it really takes a long time to see results. I will check out the tutorials.

Isikien, thank you for your reply. I will post saves soon with the hope of being guided by the best Until then I will try to understand the game better so that I can actually
comprehend what you fine people will suggest.

Dear CFC members, you have been fantastic. You have been helpful beyond my expectations.

Thank you all

 

[huh?]

I try to maximise my culture to expand borders. Everything I do I do it for gaining culture. However, it really takes a long time to see results. I will check out the tutorials.

If you are in open space (i.e. another Civs borders are not crowding you in), your borders will expand in set increments.

The first "border pop" is at 10 culture (this will give you the "big fat cross" or BFC for your city to work). The second is at 50 culture. Unless you are playing a leader with the Creative trait, you will need to build structures to expand your borders. An easy one to build early on is the Monument which give +1 culture. Once completed, it will take 10 turns for your border to expand. Yes, it can take a while, but once you learn what to build and in which order, you will see more results.

Perhaps your next goal is to start looking into city specialization. Read some of the guides. I would personally just focus on one specialization at a time. For example, start with a specialized production city (or two) that will handle all of the units for your kingdom. Once you get a handle on that, start looking into other specialized city types.

 

[Sisiutil]

Sisiutil it was exciting to hear your take on the game. You seem to really like it. You have pushed me to explore the game further right when I was about to give up trying. I played a game yesterday and tried to conquer my opponents cities. Using my knowledge of Rise of Nations did me no good. My units attacked one by one not en masse. It was confusing in the beginning. Apart from that my AI opponent's riflemen were eliminating my choppers and tanks easily. I could not understand what was happening. Then I figured that I had to first lower the city's defenses

You can still attack one unit at a time, in fact that's what I prefer to do. Sometimes it's to earn a unit XPs toward a promotion, sometimes it's to sacrifice a low-promoted unit instead of losing a highly-promoted one, sometimes it's to choose what I think will be the best attacker (drill promotions, in particular, are not reflected in the game's battle odds, IIRC).

In addition, besides lowering the city's defenses with siege weapons, also use those same siege weapons to attack the city first and cause collateral damage, thus weakening the defenders. You'll lose some siege weapons, but your other units will win easier battles. Longbowmen fortified on hills are still formidable, even against latter-era units; the only way to dislodge them is to sacrifice a few catapults first.

I try to maximise my culture to expand borders. Everything I do I do it for gaining culture. However, it really takes a long time to see results. I will check out the tutorials.

Expanding your borders is a bit of an odd goal to have in and of itself. Granted, the first border pop is very important, but after that, they're less useful, since tiles nabbed by the 2nd border expansion and beyond cannot be worked by the citizens.

Focusing too much on culture may be diverting you from other, more beneficial choices. For example, rather than trying to expand the culture of a production city by building temples, you'd probably be better off building military units there and letting the borders expand when they will. If a crucial bit of land is outside your borders, plunk down a city next to it rather than waiting for borders to expand.

 

[cardgame]

To expand your borders better, I'd recommend Settlers

After the first border pop for the BFC, of course. Don't neglect that.

 

[Quothz]

You might find it useful to read through a couple-few succession games here in the forum. (Here.) A succession game is when a number of players take turns controlling a civ in a game and discuss their plans and strategies on the forum. I find SGs more interesting, usually, than single-person walkthroughs, because of the various viewpoints and styles of play of different participants.

Many SG players use lots of abbreviations and take some knowledge for granted, but some are quite good writers and you should often be able t'tell what's going on. SGs often, but not always, include self-imposed restrictions on the team, which can be anything from "we must burn every holy city except our own" to "we aren't allowed to build any improvements, even roads".

There are worse ones to start with than this one, Cuban Isolationists, in which Sulla and Sirian play a game as Spain... on a lake. Civ 4 was new (so no mechanics from Warlords or Beyond the Sword are involved), so the two were pretty explanatory about what they were doing and why. They did play it a little coy at times, because they were both involved a bit in its development. Both are very good players and entertaining writers, tho', and the game is fun to follow along.

There's quite a few other good ones out there, probably about as many worth reading as not; if you click the "rating" at the top of the forum thread list, it will sort out those that were well-rated by forumgoers. Almost all of the four- and five-star SGs are totally worth a look.