Some noob questions

[AnyKeyz]

Good day,

First of all, I would like to mention that I am a french canadian and that I am playing with a french version. I will try to make use the accurate english keywords or at least, explain in details. Also, sorry for some sentences structure, I am not perfectly bilingual

I have been playing Civilization 4 Warlords for a while now. Best game ever. I am playing a couple games a night. Why a couple a games ? Hmm because I am not that good of a player. I used to seriously own at Civ3 and like a tutorial explained on this forum, it was fairly easy to get the ironworking first, build a bunch of swordmen and conquer the world.

First of all, it seems that the more I play, the more difficult it gets. I have been playing online one time (poor experience, with all the people leaving once they trail behind) and it seems to have permanently affected my ini file. Barbs are agressives, so are the other Civs. I launched a game online that I have created, thinking that it may reset my ini settings. BTW, I am using the 4th difficulty settings, the one before Noble, called Regent in french.

Enough with this ini problem. I would like to get advices to improve my game. I went throughtout many tutorials on this forum, but I still s*ck.

1. Technologies path : I never invest in religions. I don't really understand the concept. It generates some extra cash with some marvels and improve relations with other civs. I always get the first 12 primary techs starting with agriculture and roads. Because, without one of the primary techs, I'm screwed.

I don't go for Alphabet right away. I am targeting the tech that will allow me to build my unique unit/city improvement. Most of the time, I am fairly ahead of the other sim, until feodalism, when I start trailing back.

2. Expanding my Civ : I read on this board that creating a second city must be done very quickly. But I do so, I fall at -1 at 100% science. I have to prey to find several villages that will provde me with some gold, to support this net loss. Lowering my science to 90% or 80% will get me way behind the other civs.

3. Wars : Oh man, I used to be a peace alike civilization in Civ3. Not anymore ! I finally integrated to join catapults and 'trébuchets' (french word for these huge wood towers) to my armies and diversify my units. I am doing well in the wars I am declaring, lowering the cities defense before attacking them. But sometimes, the war lasted so long that I am hugly trailing other civs after a war. One of my latest strategy is to never destroy one of my weak units. I just drop my science investment to 0% and use my extra cash to upgrade these units to the most upgraded unit available. But doing so, I am falling way behind other civs on tech development.

How about these civs declaring war on me. They are happy with me and suddenly, they declare me war. I pay them tributes but it won't help. If they need one of my ressources, they will attack me, that's it. Also, I am surprised how fast the CPU can build recent units. They just discover Feodalism that their cities are filled with long bowmen (free translation of archer long). I am also always finishing last in the army size rank at the end of a game. I just can't figure out how to build a strong army. I love to fill my cities with city improvements and even in the games where I think I am building a strong army, I am finishing dead last in army size.

4. And the others : My favorite civ is Spanish, with their conquistadors, althought I barely get the iron and horses in the same game. I also love to choose leaders with 'travailleur' (build marvels twice faster). I am playing on a regular size, normal time, shuffle, fractal or inland sea map.

Some questions and I leave you all alone

A. I tend to trade my ressources for cash per turn instead of accepting a ressource in return. It is the right way to do ressources trading ?

B. I always start to labor some fields around my first cities. once they are all joined by roads, I put all my workers to automated works. It is a mistake.

C. We cannot trade techs for gold per turn (like in Civ 3). Or can we ?

I have so many more questions, but if I can get some hints here and there regarding my issues, I will be really pleased. Because I am totally addicted to this game. But I only won two times (space race on level before Noble) and it has been one month (or 60 games) since I succeeded.

Many thanks for future advices

Cheers

 

[Irish82]

First off, welcome. As you can see I have only posted here a few times, but this website has amazing resources for learning how to play this game. I thought Civ4 was fun before I came to this site, but with the strategies I've found here it is truly incredible. I first suggest hunting down Sisutil's Guide for beginners. Also, check out the many sample games here on the forum where they actually show the screenshots and take you step by step what they are doing. Basically you should go to the War Academy on the left side of the screen, some great stuff there.

But if you want a simple playbook that ANY civ can win at Noble:

1. Learn to use slavery. There is no better way to get a cheap army of axeman than using this civic. And with enough Axeman you don't even need catapults to take a few AI cities. Designate some cities that have some food resources to grow quickly and whip them when they do. For these cities, ignore production and commerce, just try and grow as quickly as possible so you can whip as much as happiness caps let you. You should also designate a few cities with grasslands to begin cottage spamming, which will pay off big time mid game and later. Let these grow (don't whip!) and support your science and army costs.
2. Great Library in the capital. You want this for a couple of reasons: first the AI almost never pursues it so you can build it even without Marble or being Industrious, and after you build the GL you can trade Literature for other techs you have neglected. Combine the GL with an academy, bureacracy (after you get Civil Service), and later Oxford, and your capital can be a great science city. More Great Scientists from the GL also leads to...
3. Popping techs using Great scientists, there are a ton of articles and threads on this issue, and I suggest looking at one of the walkthroughs on how to pop Paper and Education on your way to Liberalism. Basically the strategy is using the first GS to build the academy in your science city, but all the others after that to pop all the techs to Liberalism.

If you successfully use slavery, take a few cities early from a neighbor, build the GL and pop out some Great Scientists to help to reach Liberalism first, there is no way you can lose on Noble. You also should try and get a good early trading partner, hopefully NOT the tech leader. Keep in mind this strategy doesn't require that you win the race to the Oracle, Pyramids or any religion. So there is far less luck and chance, and the key is simply to think ahead and stick to the plan.

Good luck, and I can't emphasize the amazing articles in the War Academy. You will be winning consistently on Monarch in no time!

 

[mrchadt]

Welcome to the forum.
To answer your question A. It depends on whether you need a resource or not. eg. If you need a happiness resource to grow your cities then that is more useful the 10 gold per turn.
B. I have never put workers on auto early in a game, it might work but I wouldn't do it. Use you workers to get the needed resources, farm, mine, cottage and chop.
C.Yes you can trade for cash once the needed tech is researched (currency, I think) which is a good way of upgrading your troops. This is better on higher levels where the ai has more gold to trade.
The ai has the most up to date troops because it does this(upgrading troops) at a cut price.
Religions are very useful for happiness and culture. Also building a shrine can give you cash. Also if you found a religion and it is your state religion you can see into all cities with this religion.

 

[Nials]

First of all, welcome to Civfanatics!

I play on Prince and do decently (it's the middle difficulty).

First of all, you don't have to research all of the early technologies if you don't need them. Not right away, anyway.
Playing a Creative civ and not planning to build any early wonders or found religions? Then you can delay Mysticism for the time being.
Inland start? No need for neither Fishing nor Sailing.
You get the idea

Many people on this forum prefer BW as one of their first techs and for good reason, too. It unlocks the possibly best overall ancient era unit, the Axeman, it reveals copper which is needed to build Axes and also speeds up production of some wonders and it enables chopping and whipping, which can both greatly enhance production.

Alphabet is an important tech if you have any kind of neighbours. It enables you to trade techs. Proper tech trading is a key element of Civ.

You should try to found one of your first few cities (preferably the second one) near a military resource (usually Copper or Horses) to be able to repel barbs.

Why do you think dropping to less than 100% science is a bad thing? What matters is how many beakers you generate per turn, not how high your science slider is. Of course, the higher your slider is, the more beakers you generate, but it entirely depends on the amount of commerce you are generating. Expanding means you have more cities that can produce more commerce if you play your cards right.

By the sound of it, the reason other civs declare war on you is because your power rating is too low. Keep a strong army and compare your power rating to other civs to make sure you are not lagging behind and getting attacked will be much less likely. This is no different from earlier versions of Civ.

A)As a rule of thumb, never trade away strategic resources such as Copper, Iron, Oil, Uranium, etc. There are of course exceptions to that rule, but in general it is usually better to keep those resources out of your opponent's hands.

When trading resources away, think about what you need. Nearing your happiness cap in several of your core cities? See if you can trade for happiness resources. Is that sickly green fog annoying you? Try to snag a few health resources.
If you have loads of happy and health resources and are way above your caps, then trading away resources for GPT is of course the best option.
In general, I try to trade away resources for other resources, preferably health ones for happy ones in return.

B)Try not to automate your workers. Focus on improving your resource tiles first and then work on the rest. The optimal way to go about building improvements is to make sure you are always slightly ahead of how many tiles are improved in comparison to how many tiles are being worked.

CYou can't trade techs for GPT like in Civ3.

 

[NedRise]

Like others I would recommend the various guides in the war academy.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/
Also the various ALC/Immortal Challenge games are possibly the best learning resource out there at the moment.

For some simple tips, these things have helped me get my game up to scratch, I beat Prince difficulty yesterday 1st time.

1. Let your first city grow to size 3/build worker/chop surrounding forests to build settler/use settler to found second city focussing on production with either Copper, Horses or Iron if it's not available in your capital. In your science city (often your capital) build a library asap and assign 2 scientists if enough food is available.

2. Never automate your workers. As soon as your 2nd city is built, start hooking up it's resources. When that's done and you haven't got calendar yet, start building cottages on grassland tiles to improve your cash and science output. Keep expanding as quickly as possible, without dropping your research below 60%. If that happens, build more cottages and wait until you recover. Don't build crap cities for the sake of building cities. Instead build enough military units to conquer someones capital

3. Monitor the worked tiles inside your city screen. Balance food and city specialisation, i.e. always let your cities grow and maximise either on hammers or gold. Only build improvements in that city that are related to either production or gold. Unhappiness in cities can be whipped away using slavery.

4. Monitor the power graph. Build enough military units to not fall behind.
When in an attacking war you shouldn't have to drop your science slider to 0 to generate the cash to upgrade your units...build more and better units in the first place. When you realise you can't win them all, take a couple of cities, sue for peace, recover. Build more military and take the rest.

5. I won my first game on Noble following a guide to cultural victory. I did not fight any wars at all. Before getting bogged down with a long war, try to stay ahead of the AI using peaceful means...

6. Play CIV until your eyes bleed

 

[AnyKeyz]

Many thanks to you all.

I have to admit that I never look at the graphics to find out how weak I am comparing to the other civs. You brought some good points that were lacking in my strategies (if we can call that a strategy)

I'll try to follow some of your advices and read the tutorials you identified.

I'll keep you in touch if my game is improving in a any ways.

Cheers

 

[AnyKeyz]

Actually I was wrong.
The level I am playing is the one before Prince, which corresponds to Régent in french. Don't know what is the equivalent in english. It's the fourth difficulty level. I think it is actually noble.
Anyway, time to kick some b*tt with the Romans.
See ya

 

[ownedbyakorat]

Some questions and I leave you all alone

A. I tend to trade my ressources for cash per turn instead of accepting a ressource in return. It is the right way to do ressources trading ?

B. I always start to labor some fields around my first cities. once they are all joined by roads, I put all my workers to automated works. It is a mistake.

C. We cannot trade techs for gold per turn (like in Civ 3). Or can we ?

A. Yes, that is a good way to make use of EXTRA resources. Don't sell your last unit of any resource, though, because then you can't use it yourself.

B. Don't automate workers early, the computer is not efficient in the choices it makes. Later on, automating workers is OK, because you've already done the most important improvements manually.

C. No, but you can sell techs for a lump sum of gold.

 

[Peqino]

Hello. I'm also a newbie to this great forum, and not a guru with the game either (still struggling on difficulty levels above Monarch). Anyway, here's a some quick tips:

Good day,

1. Technologies path : I never invest in religions. I don't really understand the concept. It generates some extra cash with some marvels and improve relations with other civs. I always get the first 12 primary techs starting with agriculture and roads. Because, without one of the primary techs, I'm screwed.

That's not wise. Your first techs should depend on resources you see nearby. If you have no Wheat/Rice/Corn around your capital, there's no point rushing for Agriculture. Once you've hooked up your initial resources, you can penetrate deeper into the tech tree, with some kind of strategy of course. (Bronze Working is good to get fast, it's probably the single most powerful tech in the game.)

I never bother with early religions either, but it really depends on your starting techs. If you are able to get to Buddhism or Hinduism first, then get.

2. Expanding my Civ : I read on this board that creating a second city must be done very quickly. But I do so, I fall at -1 at 100% science. I have to prey to find several villages that will provde me with some gold, to support this net loss. Lowering my science to 90% or 80% will get me way behind the other civs.

You can easily drop your research rate from 100% when you are expanding. Two things about science:

- The research rate only dictates how big a portion of your commerce is turned to research units, a.k.a beakers. If your empire is yielding 50 commerce and the research rate is 100%, it's 50 beakers. If you are yielding 100 commerce and your research rate is 70%, it's 70 beakers. The latter is better, although the research rate is lower. So try to increase your commerce instead of staring at the science rate. Cottages are good in commerce boosting.

- You can generate research also with Scientist specialist, which have got nothing to do with the research rate.

 

[Cam_H]

@ ownedbyakorat ... there are exceptions though ...

A. Sell your only Deer for Corn? Absolutely if your cities have more Granaries than Supermarkets. Or you have loads of different Health resources some of which you don't need, but running low on Happiness - trade away your only Cow if you can secure Silver.

B. Don't automate workers 'full stop'. Workers do not understand city specialisation and even if you've selected the 'don't knock over existing improvements or forests' options, they still do not always leverage your best options as new technology or civics become available (e.g. they don't grasp that the time's right to change that farm into a workshop now that we have Guilds and Chemistry).

 

[Elkad]

Micromanaging workers does get old.. Once I get to 4 cities or so, mine get semi-automated.

I turn on "don't chop" (but not "leave existing"). Half my workers go on "trade network". The other half get controlled, generally in pairs (trios on marathon) My tradenetwork ones won't build farms/cottages in silly spots, but when aluminum pops up under a windmill, or I pop Calendar so all those banana farms can get plantations, they take care of it for me.

And I still grab the automated ones to give specific orders from time to time.

You'll stop using fully automated the first time you catch 4 workers standing in your fully developed riverside cottage tile, mouseover, and discover 2 are building a farm, one is building a workshop, and one is building a watermill....

 

[AnyKeyz]

Yesterday, with all these new tips, I lost at Noble the space race by a single turn. That's a progression because I was having a lot of difficulty lately.

My main regression was that a couple of weeks ago, I started to automate workers. I played manually my workers for much of the game and I got good results. I was developping my techs very fast and I had a strong army. The only reason I lost was that I stop conquering very early in the game, leaving me with the 4th rank in territories.

There is much more I have to learn (aka city specializations), but I am in the right path.

Thank you all.

 

[mrchadt]

Something I didn't realise for a while was how good axemen/swordmen with 2 advances in city attack are. Combine this with catapults, to reduce the city defence and do some colateral damage, makes for a good pre-AD assault. Tale all of you closest opponents territory and it will do you well.

 

[AnyKeyz]

Something I didn't realise for a while was how good axemen/swordmen with 2 advances in city attack are. Combine this with catapults, to reduce the city defence and do some colateral damage, makes for a good pre-AD assault. Tale all of you closest opponents territory and it will do you well.

Another noob question : Sometimes, the target icon for my catapults are not showing. Seems like I can't lower a city's defense in all circumstances.

Is there any exceptions (other then wait a turn if the catapult juste moved during the current turn) ?

 

[Welnic]

It doesn't show up if the city defense is at 0. Other than that it should show up.

 

[AnyKeyz]

That's what I thought
Thanks

 

[Cam_H]

Micromanaging workers does get old.. Once I get to 4 cities or so, mine get semi-automated.

Well, not for me to tell you how to play your game, but from my reading and experience top-level players do not automate or "semi-automate" (?) their workers. Again, I would recommend to newer players that they avoid this option, and it's encouraging to see that AnyKeyz feels that their game improved when they took control of their Workers' actions.

 

[cabert]

hi anykeyz, greetings from France.

First some needed vocabulary :
- regent (fr) is noble (en)
- trébuchet is trebuchet (duh!)
- travailleur is industrious

Then some setting advice :
- try to play some custom games in SP to be able to change the settings

Then some game advice
- I of course agree with cam, don't automate workers. When you are more comfortable with the game, you can decide to automate partially (trade network), because you'll know what you're doing
- single player isn't (necessarily) always war. a big part of the game is trading techs/resources. Try a totally peaceful game for a change, founding as many religions as possible, rushing to music then liberalism, cottage up 3 cities and build cathedrals there for a cultural win. Why? to get a better feeling of the peaceful aspects of the game and of the diplomacy required to avoid unwanted wars.
- don't look at the science slider for the %. What matters is the total science, not the %. 4 cities running at 60% will generate more science than 1 running 100%. The problem in balancing fast expansion with fast research is that most of the early commerce comes from the palace, and new cities need to grow to pay for themselves then to add something to your empire. What I want to say is even dropping to 0% for a few turns is no big deal if you have enough workers improving the new land (gold mines! cottages!).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Great library in capital? Sometimes your great person farm ends up in your capital, but try not to. You want cottages and bureaucracy.

An easy tech path to follow:

mining --> bronze working --> mysticism --> meditation --> priesthood --> wheel/pottery OR agriculture/animal husbandary --> writing --> code of laws (from oracle) --> alphabet --> literature --> music --> monarchy (from great artist) --> mathematics (from trade) --> philosophy (from great scientist) --> civil service (from great prophet) --> paper and education (3 great scientists) --> horseback riding, masonry and monotheism (from trades) --> liberalism (take nationalism) --> theology from trades --> gunpowder --> military tradition.

The key is your scientists. People used to say great library, national epic and globe theatre for your great-person farm, but a city with that many forests and hills don't have enough food for so many great scientists either. I much prefer to use hereditary rule for hapiness. With pacifism, philosophical leader, caste system, hereditary rule and national epic, those scientists should be spawning from your ass. Barracks and theology means your drafted and whipped (you're not actually building them are you?) cavalry start with two promotions. Make them flanking 1 and 2: 15 strength are more than enough to bust longbowmen and, if you're playing on noble, even archers...

 

[AnyKeyz]

Good advices

So I just found out that to play a more peaceful game, I have to target the religions. I barely pay attention to religions, Mysticism being the last "primary" technology I will try to discover. I often found Confucionism, because I love courthouse, that reduce the expenses in each city. But once found, I never generates missionnaries. I'll try this aspect of the game, because last night, I played a fractal map game (based on a topic in this forum it was the most random type of game), but it finally was a Pangae kinda map, with me having all the ressources and all Civs declaring war on me. One improvement here, I haven't lost any cities (even conquer two) but after an hour and a half defensing myself, I got bored and abort the game.

I thought founding more than one religion can be conflicting. My bad. I always build barracks (casernes) as my second city improvement, but was not aware that Theology was also giving units promotions. Cavalry seems a bit far in the tech trees (Miilitary tradition, free translation of tradition militaire). Following your advices, Russians could be a good nation to play with, with their cossaks ?

Cheers