some thoughts

[John Corbin]

I have been playing CIV IV for a while now... I have had a lot of trouble with understanding the micro-managemnet taht is required.

so I have some questions

I play HUGE MAP, low sea level, warlord, continents. I ALWAYS play as the French ( Napoleon )

It took me a while to understand that 2 many cities, too fast is bad because city maint costs eat up my treasury. Is there a way to offset maint costs before I discover the techs or build wonders that could do it for me ?

also....

A Scenario:

I have a settler and he is in position beside a hill with lots of gold on it. Is there a differance between:

A - Building beside the hill and then building a mine on the gold

or

B - Building the city on top of the gold itself.

 

[StarWorms]

As far as I know, yes. Whereever you play your city it seems to give 1 1 1. If you place the settler nearby you would get that plus the gold you would get from the mine. In short: Don't place cities on resources.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Building the city on top of the gold itself.

Ouch. Don't place cities on resources if you can help it. The only benefit is that you have access to the resource without having to improve the tile (IF you have the tech for the improvement, of course). You don't get all the additional commerce from a gold mine that you could get by working the mine, only the +1 happiness. A gold mine gives you plenty of commerce for tech and gold, more than almost any early source. Working gold mine=big early commerce boost.

 

[methane]

It took me a while to understand that 2 many cities, too fast is bad because city maint costs eat up my treasury. Is there a way to offset maint costs before I discover the techs or build wonders that could do it for me ?

First, try not to found too many cities that will drive your costs too high. I've seen others recommend stopping once you have to keep your research percentage at around 60%, then starting again once your economy develops.

Some things that help:
-Getting a holy city (either founding the religion yourself or conquering another civs holy city). Get a great prophet to create the shrine in the city and spread the religion through missionaries for gold
-Researching pottery and building lots of cottages. Start working them early; they'll increase in size the longer you work them, so they'll increase your commerce as your costs increase, allowing you to continue expanding.
-Researching Code of Laws and building courthouses in all cities with maintenance cost issues.

I have a settler and he is in position beside a hill with lots of gold on it. Is there a differance between:

A - Building beside the hill and then building a mine on the gold

or

B - Building the city on top of the gold itself.

As others have said, you're city center will only get 2 food 1 production and 1 commerce (there are a few instance where you'll get 2 production). So, in general, you don't want to build the city on top of the gold, because all the extra commerce will be lost. If the land is desolate and you won't be able to allocate a citizen to work the gold, you'd consider founding the city on top of the gold, as that would allow you get the +1 happiness benefits immediately (but you'd never receive the commerce benefits).

 

[Sisiutil]

It took me a while to understand that 2 many cities, too fast is bad because city maint costs eat up my treasury. Is there a way to offset maint costs before I discover the techs or build wonders that could do it for me ?

Under all civics excect State Property, distance from the palace has an impact on city maintenance. Based on this, ideally your first few cities should be as close to the capital as possible. The best configuration would be to locate them at the various points of the compass around the capital, using it as a hub.

Obviously the geography doesn't always cooperate. But it means that if you do something like found a far-flung city at a chokepoint, you're going to pay a price for it.

In addition, found cities to grab tiles such that the city can start paying for itself (i.e. covering or even exceeding its maintenance costs) quickly. A city with a lake or river tiles in its fat cross can provide a little extra commerce by working those tiles. A city with a commerce resource (gold, silver, gems) is even better.

Make sure you improve tiles that provide commerce, as minimal as it may be. For example, if you're going to mine a hill anyway, mine one on a river for the +1 commerce.

Even prior to Monarchy and Calendar, resources requiring those techs for full exploitation usually provide extra commerce as well. Just because you can't build a winery or plantation doesn't mean you can't work the tile. In my epic-speed games I'll sometimes farm those tiles to get some use out of them, since the tech that unlocks them is further off.

 

[MrCynical]

Placing cities on resources is generally undesirable, as they then cannot be improved, and so give substantially less output from the tile. On the plus side you get access to the resource immediately, and it's very hard to pillage the connection, but except possibly for copper and iron in the early stages I find this inadequate compensation. Of course you may end up with terrain where you're better off founding on a resource, despite this loss, due to the relative postions of other resources.

As far as I know, yes. Whereever you play your city it seems to give 1 1 1. If you place the settler nearby you would get that plus the gold you would get from the mine. In short: Don't place cities on resources.

A city tile generates a minimum of 2 food 1 production 1 commerce, regardless of terrain. If the tile you founded on produced more than the minimum in one category, then they produce that amount instead. For example, a plains/hill tile gives 2 production by default, so if you found a city on it you'll get 2F 2P 1C. This is the only basic terrain type where you get anything more than 2F 1P 1C. Some resources will also boost this. For example if the tile has stone (+1P) then as long as the tile generated at least one production to start with, you'll get an extra hammer in the city square. Forests and floodplain are removed from the tile when the city is founded, and so do not count for city tile production.