Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners

[Sisiutil]

On "playing the map", I gathered as much, although the reasoning behind the article on how to calculate city specialisation in the War Academy baffles me, to be honest.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here... Maybe you can point to a specific subsection in the Beginners' Guide that you're talking about?

 

[MUFC]

From a newby, BiG Thank You !

Excellent tutorial and well articulated.
I'll have a lotta fun learning the basics !

 

[Mister V]

Ah, no, sorry, I was talking about the War Academy article, it's not in the guide. But I figured it out mostly (still, not that good at number-crunching and counting up the production).
Now I have to figure out what to do next... I gotta weaken the bastard because he has a pretty enormous advantage, but I've got gunpowder (musketmen), while he doesn't. Still, it'll take me another couple dozen turns to get the trebuchets (as far as I understand, at least four per city? argh...), and by then he might have them, too.
Meh, I should really try spamming settlers and just placing cities randomly next time, because honestly being cautious with economy and placement has only handicapped me.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Mister V:

Couple of quick answers before somebody better comes along.

5 cities by that point in the game isn't good. You have to deal with Asoka - probably should have expanded more quickly and dealt with him earlier. Having half the cities of the AI on your land mass is very dangerous. Good thing it's Asoka - if that was Shaka, it'd be lights out.

Since it is Asoka, he doesn't build that many units relative to other AI's. You have to take some or all of his land. How far are you from Rifling and Steel? Riflemen are killers when they become available (much more so then musketmen). Steel gives you cannons, which is a big leap from Trebs. My guess would be that Steel is still a ways away, but Rifling is close. If you have riflemen and he doesn't, you probably won't need 4 trebs per city.

Minor point, if you run Bureaucracy (very good for small empires) it's usually better to have another city be the GP farm so you get the 50% bonus to gold and production.

 

[Mister V]

Thanks. Well, see, expansion proper is the only place where I'm definitely losing to the AI. I guess I just have to put cities closer without minding the resources much, even though I was definitely at a disadvantage territory-wise in this case.

Yes, Rifling is very close, I was going for that actually, thanks. I don't know if it's worth waiting for the Cossacks... they're good, but I think I have to get both Rifling and Military Tradition (for which I think I need a couple more techs) for them.

 

[Sisiutil]

Cossacks are over-rated since they got nerfed. Rifles will suffice.

 

[setonfire]

Thanks a lot!

 

[luukdeman111]

the quality of this guide is just incredible!!

i love it! thnx a lot!

i found it in the war academy but that is an older version with "only" 27 pages. is there someone who can change that? because this one is just far more complete.....


thnx again!

 

[Boulugre]

From a total Noob, thank you very much for this guide!!

 

[ArnoldSiemsen]

Under 2.1 in the guide is the statement: "Warrior: Many players prefer to build a Warrior . . ." I have read and reread this paragraph. Please explain so I can understand: " . . . timing the build by changing the tile worked by the capital's first citizen so that the unit is finished on the same turn that the city grows to size 2." Please also explain the last sentence. Appreciate the help. Thanks

 

[Ataxerxes]

Under 2.1 in the guide is the statement: "Warrior: Many players prefer to build a Warrior . . ." I have read and reread this paragraph. Please explain so I can understand: " . . . timing the build by changing the tile worked by the capital's first citizen so that the unit is finished on the same turn that the city grows to size 2." Please also explain the last sentence. Appreciate the help. Thanks

When you go into the city screen you can alter the tiles the city works by clicking on the tile you want the city to work. For instance, if the city will grow in 3 turns but it will take 9 turns to complete the Warrior you could switch the tile the city is working from a grasslands corn to a Plains Forest to slow the growth while increasing the hammers. I sometimes do this if I'm doing a workboat first start - esp Rome on Earth18

Most players would recommend against Warrior first. The workers' improving the tile is so valuable that about 90% of starts will be worker first. If I have seafood in the BFC I'd probably do workboat first to get the improvement and faster worker and then I would micromanage the city plots. Otherwise I just go worker first and the city will figure out how to get him out fastest.

 

[ArnoldSiemsen]

Thanks. What does finishing the warrior on the same turn that the city grows to size 2 accomplish?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Thanks. What does finishing the warrior on the same turn that the city grows to size 2 accomplish?

It lets you start building a worker right away, without unnecessarily limiting your growth. Because your city will stop growing when you start building the worker, you want to grow to size 2 first, but you want to start the worker as early as possible subject to that limitation.

 

[DrDragun]

I am curious as to why you say to avoid unnecessary buildings in a city. Do buildings have a maintenance cost? Is there a particular reason to avoid banks in a production city? Do you give this advice simply due to opportunity cost of not using those turns to build something else, or is there some wasteful maintenance cost of unnecessary buildings? If I conquer a city and make it a production city but it already has a bank should I try to destroy it somehow?

Awesome guide thanks.

 

[dalamb]

wrong thread for my post. too many tabs open!

 

[Sisiutil]

I am curious as to why you say to avoid unnecessary buildings in a city. Do buildings have a maintenance cost? Is there a particular reason to avoid banks in a production city? Do you give this advice simply due to opportunity cost of not using those turns to build something else, or is there some wasteful maintenance cost of unnecessary buildings? If I conquer a city and make it a production city but it already has a bank should I try to destroy it somehow?

Awesome guide thanks.

You're right on the money when you ask if it's about opportunity cost. No, there's no maintenance cost for buildings in Civ IV, and there's also no way to destroy an existing building (there's no need to).

It's all about specializing your cities and, based upon that, setting priorities. A production city will have extremely low commerce & research output, so it makes no sense to invest a lot of hammers and turns in building a library there. The return from that investment will be minimal. You'd be better off building units in that city instead.

If you capture a city with certain buildings intact, you should take that into consideration when selecting its specialization. If you had intended to make it into a production city, but it's got a few mature cottages and say a market and a bank, maybe you should reconsider and focus on commerce there instead--build the missing grocer, in other words, rather than a barracks.

And finally, keep in mind that for all this talk about specializing your cities, many of them will be a mix. Sometimes one of the mines I'm working in a military city's fat cross, for example, will discover gold there. Well, now it might make sense to throw a library, market, etc. into that city (provided I have other military cities to pick up the slack and I'm not at or planning to go to war). Again, it's not about "always do X" and "never do Y", but about "Do A first, followed by B, etc.". Assigning each city a primary focus helps you decide what to build there, in what order.

 

[Skallagrimson]

"60% rule"... lol

 

[Chillaxation]

Skalla, I've seen your posts in particular pushing for hardcore REXing. Do you have any quick tips for recovering your economy/tech rate after settling 7+ cities?

 

[Sisiutil]

"60% rule"... lol

"Please note that this document is not meant to be a definitive collection of Civilization IV strategies. Furthermore, in a game as complex as Civ IV, many different strategies may be effective, including some that run counter to the advice listed here."

Skalla, I've seen your posts in particular pushing for hardcore REXing. Do you have any quick tips for recovering your economy/tech rate after settling 7+ cities?

Please take this to PMs or its own thread. Thanks.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners

What I've tried to do in this file (attached) is to collect together, in one document, a summation of most of the basic strategies and tactics that I gleaned from this community. I verified the utility of each as I moved up the difficulty levels. I hope it proves useful to some. I just wanted to give something back to this community which has helped me enjoy this wonderful game far more than I could have just on my own.

Please note that the guide is not meant to incorporate all possible game strategies, but rather, just enough for a beginner to experience success in Civ IV's lower levels (Settler through Noble).

Speaking of which, this is also not meant to be a strategy guide for the higher levels. This is why it's a beginner's guide. I myself have only had my first victory on Prince at the time of posting. And from what I've seen on the board, at Monarch and above, players often vehemently disagree over strategies that work for some but not others. They also warn against relying on strategies that worked in the lower levels but are often counter-productive at Diety, Immortal, and so on. So, once you leave Noble behind, all bets are off, in my opinion.

Revised January 24th, 2009

What happened to the instructions for dot-mapping? I need that for my current game! Thanks.