Simply Overwhelming...

[Rated R]

Hello,

I'm new to the forums and to the CIV games in general. As a matter of fact, I just bought it yesterday because I have heard so many good things about it. I found this place as a source for tips, etc. And I noticed that this game is so deep that even the guides are sectioned down.

What are your best tips for someone who has never played this game before? It seems almost overwhelming just to start because it's almost assured that I will fail.

Please think back to your beginnings in the CIV games and based on that, what advice would you give to a beginner like me? Should I just dive right into it or sit back and plan some kind of strategy... in particular, is there any 1 guide out there made just for a beginner like me?

All help is really appreciated.

Rated R

 

[scienide09]

Play the tutorial, start on settler difficulty, and dive right in? At least, that's what I did when I started on CivI all those years ago.

The forums are an excellent source of information, and you can usually find a helpful soul to guide you through some rough patches.

As for a good place to start looking for info, check out this thread.

Best advice: have fun, and keep trying. It's a game, so don't take it personally if you lose -- instead, start again, and learn from your mistakes.

 

[demetrious]

Read the manual. Re-read the manual.

Here is the simplest set-up I can think of.

Small map - settler - one opponent. Just focus on a military victory. When you get a tech option go out and click on IRON WORKING, then shift click CONSTRUCTION, then shift click on GUILDS (shift click adds that tech to end of the production queue). That should highlight a big string of techs that are good for military conquest victory. Then just focus on building an army and taking them over.

Mouse-over gives a lot of information and have fun.

 

[Mordraken]

There's a thread at the top of this page with beginner tips, but if you've never played any of the Civ games, and have only had the game for a bit of time, most of the suggestions will probably go way over your head (or you'll have too many rattling around in there that you won't be able to get anthing out).

Here are some things I'd suggest:

1) Do the tutorial, it will give you some basics (about 10% of the game).
2) <optional, but eventually> read the manual. That will cover about 50% of the game. There is so much to this game that isn't printed in the manual - or even in the online help. If you have a hard copy, it makes good toilet material...
3) Play games. Some suggestions there:

• Play at the level just below Noble. This level is easier, but not so easy that you won't learn from mistakes.
• I think the first option (continents?) is a good one to start with. Usually you'll have one or two AI civilizations on the same continent as you, so it won't be like you're up against 5 or 6 AI at once, and you won't be all on your own (which is also bad because you won't learn early-intereaction).
• At first, don't worry about strategy... just go higgildy-piggeldy producing units & buildings and wonders. It will give you an idea of what things do.
• Later, start to specialize your city. Don't build things you don't need until you need it (or just before you need it). For example, an Aquiduct improves the healthiness of a city - if your city is already healthy, then don't build it.

4) Learn about combat. In those games, make sure you try out combat, and especailly pay attention to the effect of the three main types of units:

• Melee
• Ranged (archers and later gunpowder - although these are two very distinct types of units, I combined them to make it easier)
• Artillery (catapaults, canons, artillery)
• Armor (like tanks)
• Air (fighters, bombers, choppers)
• Navy (ok, that's six... but the first three will be your main army for most of the game)

Remember the power of combined arms (archers for defense, artillery for assaulting cities & doing collateral damage, and melee/tanks for invading the cities).

As for technologues/research, just go and try everything out at the beginning. Later on, after about 2-3 games, you can start to think about what you want to get to, and persue those techs earlier (or "be-line" to them).

Some tips:
- Build at least 1 worker per city, but even better, build 5 workers for your first 3 cities. Having them will mean a faster start even though your cities aren't growing while they're being created
- After the first 50 turns or so, make sure your border cities have AT LEAST 2 defenders in each city (probably 2 archers).
- When attacking, try to attack with artillery if you can make it, and have 2 units for every one defender if you're on the same technological footing.
- If you have nothing to build in a city, build military units. If you have too much military, either attack someone or change the city to produce wealth (which you can use to upgrade units or increase research). If you are already at 100% research/culture and STILL have money left over, then switch it to culture if it's a border city or research if it's not.... that will be REALLY rare though .

I think that's about it for my newbie tips. Really, the only way you can learn this game is by playing it, and it generally takes 2-3 games (after the tutorial) to get the hang of it. That's when you might want to look at the tips page (which covers things like chop-rushing, diplomacy, defense ideas, build orders, and so on).

And post here since this is an EXCELLENT place to get advice.

 

[Elrohir]

Don't give up when you inevitably get killed by the AI. It will happen, and more often than it should, but don't give up and just keep at it. If it happens repeatedly, and badly, then try a lower level, but quitting won't make you a better player.

Oh - and have fun with it.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Welcome to Civfanatics.

After playing the tutorial, start a low level game on a small map. Don't play at the lowest levels (below noble) too long, because these levels allow you to make stupid mistakes and still win. That's fine for a beginner, but at some point you'll want to learn from mistakes and that won't happen at those difficulty levels.

Don't automate stuff (like workers, building selection in cities). If you allow the computer to make the choices for you, then you can't learn from them. Try to make real choices, don't just pick something while you don't know what it does. Right clicking often opens the civilopedia and you can also open this manually by pressing F12. There's a lot of information in there and you should just occasionally read something when it seems useful for your game at that moment.

Good luck.

 

[lennono24]

im pretty new aswell i get hammered nearly everytime but each time im improving. here is what i suggest dont come off of noble, i have'nt you learn better that way even if your getting your butt kicked. make sure you play to your leaders strengths. and read and make sure you understand all about terrain types. finally dont let the AI manage your cities ever!!

 

[Stangler]

This game has a ton of layers to it, but it is also relatively simple in concept. I know when I first started civ 2 I just had fun scouting around. I didn't really understand the food/production/commerce idea and had no idea about expanding my empire with settlers or conquest.

Now with this game I think the best thing you can do is play a game, possibly even a scenario, where you have multiple cities. Then just try to figure stuff out.

The point here is to look at different cities to see how they are different depending on where they are built. If there is something on the screen you don't understand, look at it.

One thing that I think really helps is to have at least one city making units as often as possible. Even if you are not trying to conquer the world you are making your civ a lot more powerful and will discourage unwanted attackers, and it allows some of your cities to concentrate on other things.

Do not be afraid to mess up. Maybe play one game where you war a lot. Play another where you don’t war at all. You can also use the automation choices to see what your options are in a city. This can allow you to see the potential of your cities.

 

[Corbeau]

Also, check out the Succession Games forum. I learned a lot from reading Succession Games when I started playing. Heck, I still learn from reading them.

And run a search on "Cuban Isolationists" sometime.

 

[Jorunkun]

To all this excellent advice, I would like to add one more piece:

Don´t play to win.

This may sound odd, but I find that I learned most from trying out a sucession of small, local strategies at first without worrying about where it would lead.

Thus, first focus on building up a solid first city that utilises the ressources in its vicinity, is appropriately defended and keeps growing.

Then scout the area around you, select a second city to expand your options by getting more ressources. Connect the two with a road, see what that does to your fledgeling empire.

If you find neighboring civs, see if any of them seem to have weaker or less military units in them than you, check to see what the strongest unit your tech allows you to build is, raise an army and stir up some trouble.

Chances are, that sooner or later your empire will get bogged down or even overrun. I would suggest that you exit the game when it stops being fun and start over - but don´t get frustrated about your defeats, learn from them. You learn FAR more from your mistakes than from your successes.

Enjoy!

J.

 

[kingjoshi]

Play the previous Game of the Month(s). There have been three so far, first Noble, second Prince and last one Monarch. Don't have high expectations on how you'll do, but you will learn immensely. There are some GREAT players there and a lot of people write about their game. Just reading their ideas on strategy, tactics, game mechanics, etc will really help. Right now, I'm trying to duplicate some of their strategies and seeing what I can do.

As others said, first play the tutorial, but the fact is, the game is so deep, each time you read a thread you'll pick up something new. I remember starting Civ4 and each time I learned something and I didn't want to finish the current game but wanted to take advantage of what I learned. Read, learn, play and have fun.

 

[Captain Pugwash]

Here's my ten cents worth.

Don't be too proud to start on the lowest difficulty level. Play many games on Chieftain level at first. Even the next level makes it noticeably more difficult.

At the start of the game, you are looking for good places to found cities. Maybe 5 or 6 cities grouped together. Protect your cities with military units and keep as many military units as you can afford.

Build roads to connect your cities and the resources. Most cities are located to obtain resources (copper etc) or occasionally for strategic location.

Send out units to find other tribes. They may exchange techs with you when this is allowed. In any case, you need to know where they are.

After you have some cities, decide what you want them to do. At the end of the day, this is a conquest game. You will have to build armies to go out there and capture the opponents cities. None of them are your friends although they will pretend to be.

Experiment and abandon the game if it doesn't go right. Start again and learn from what happened.

 

[scienide09]

After you have some cities, decide what you want them to do. At the end of the day, this is a conquest game. You will have to build armies to go out there and capture the opponents cities. None of them are your friends although they will pretend to be.

While I see what you're getting at, talking about the game in this way might be misleading to a new player. Yes, the player has to build up a military to protect land and resources. And yes, the AI will often stab you in the back, let alone hate you from the start. But there are so many levels to CivIV, it's not all about war.

One can have an entirely enjoyable game without ever going to war. A space race when you and three or four of the AI's are all at a similar tech pace, and those final turns really are about who can pump out the spaceship parts fast enough.
Or an OCC at higher levels, where an early war started by an aggressive neighbour can mean that you're playing catch-up for the rest of the game, and your new winning strategy becomes one of simply surviving until a rivals reaches a victory condition. (This happened to me recently, and literally every turn I was dreading that sound/message announcing that another civ had declared war against me.)
Even the challenge of a lousy start position, where you know that you'll be behind all game, can be fun if you play it right.

EDIT to fix a mistake

 

[Jarrod32]

This is all good advice. Go through the walkthrough and the tutoral, read the manual, read some of the threads in here.

Then play a game (or two or three). And yes, like you said, you will likely fail. Treat your early games as learning experiences...mainly to learn the various and many aspects of the game (civics, military, foreign relations, culture, science, managing your economy, etc).

Then come back and re-read some of the strategy threads, and go through the walkthrough again...it will make more sense after you have played a game or two.

Then go back and develop your game through playing and practice. Play a few different kinds of games...play a spiritual civ, and make it a point to change civics often...that will help you get a feel for the power of different civics. Play a game going for a cultural victory, so you get a feel for cultural border wars (which will be a part of many other games). Play a game or two and focus on founding and spreading religion...then play a couple games where you don't focus on (and even avoid) founding religion, and let it come to you. Play a game and focus on military, to get a feel for the promotion system.

Just get a feel for different playstyles...the different tech paths that you follow for different circumstances, managing your foreign relations, and so forth.

That would be my advice.

 

[Briquette]

Cooperate and maintain good relationships with at least some of the AI civs. You'll want good trading partner and possible allies.

And general non-specific tips:

Avoid the urge to reload a saved game when something goes wrong. It may be tempting, but ultimately you will find it less satisfying.

Try to maintain a good relationship with your spouse. Although you may want to play 10 hours straight, look at the long run and what's important (and realize your best chance of finishing the game is to not have your wife smash the computer).

Continue to move up the difficulty levels if you start winning consistently. If you win all the time, you're playing on too easy of a level.

 

[Tidiazuron]

It has been said before but:
1.- Do not give up. Like all good things in life, it only gets better. Start in the easiest difficulty and do not clim until you win.
2.- Enjoy the game and be patient. Do not focus on winning. Try to learn as much as possible from your own experience and try always new things.
3.- Do not play MP until you are ready to face total anihilation.

And remember, this is an turn-based strategy game so think, read, calculate... and be ready to be at work with a 25% of your brain pondering on wether taking the corn at the east or going for that gems in the south.

 

[Glinka]

I would suggest that even better than the in-game tutorial (which is frankly scary; look at what they've turned poor Sid into!) is Sulla's walkthrough. It is online, with many images, and excellent descriptions. Sulla was a betatester for the game, and he has a nice, easy way with explanations. Well worth the effort.