This game is overwhelming, please help!

[theskald]

I used to play Civ I all the time, and found it wildly addictive. The highest I ever got was Prince so I wasn't great at it, but when buying the one game in a great while I can afford, I thought Civ IV and its expansions would last me months. I think I bit off more than I can chew. It's so different, and there's so much more to think about, which makes it that much more frustrating when there are little things I'm just not clear on, details that I'm sure are somewhere on this (incredibly helpful) site, but have been lost to me. Forgive my adorable level of ignorance, and any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

First of all, Is there any benefit gained by building improvements where no city can work them and no resources exist? If not, why do my workers build them there if I put them on autopilot?

Second, and this one would really help me, is there a better way to direct my troops when they are in stacks? For example, if my opponent loves mounted units and I have pikemen in the stack specifically to defend against them, how can I ensure that my pikemen will defend and not, in the case I am thinking of, my trebuchet? This may be lousy strategy, but what I was doing in this case was trying to advance my siege weapons with pikemen for insurance while a couple of other stacks either held off an enemy stack or acted as sentries against reinforcements and prepared to take the city when I was ready. If I can't do that, why stack different units at all? Wouldn't it be better to have a stack of the same so I can be sure my units will attack like I want them to? It really kills a strategy when they act like complete idiots.

I'm also unclear on how to establish international and overseas trade routes between specific cities, is building a harbor and customs house enough to increase commerce, and does trading even help the city at all or just my empire as a whole?

Finally, and I thank you for reading this far, can trade increase my food supply in a given city, and how? I ask because the random map generator threw a pretty arid world at me and decided the Dutch and the Germans deserved all the resources and arable land more than me, so I wanted to use some of the extra food I had from my more... Foody areas to assist my other cities (which I needed for the few resources I could find, all in the desert).

I'm finally at a point in the game in which power becomes an issue, so I'm still getting used to that, hopefully it won't confuse me any further.

And a huge thank you in advance!

 

[madscientist]

Welcome to the forums!

The game is very complex and takes a good long while to master things. Do not feel bad, play a few games, use the titorial, andfollow one of walkthough games on these forums. The ALC's ar eveyr good for this.

1) Improvements. Only build them for tiles within a cities BFC. Outside of that only improve resources. Also do not automate workers, the game plays much poorer that way.
2) The computer automaticlly decides which unit is your best defender in a stack. SO if you have a stack of 1 spear, 1 axe, 1 sword the computer will defend against a chariot with the spear, and a swordsman with the axe.
3) Trade routes: Cities must be connected via a road or a coastal sea route (requires sailing). Intercontinental trade routes require one of the civilizations to know astronomy. You also need open borders. The Mercantilism civic negates foreign trade routes. The computer pretty much determines trade routes, just worry about diplomacy, roads, open borders, and buildings (harbors, custome houses).
4) Trading food reseoruces such as rice or cows get's you heath but not directly food. Food comes from working the citizan tiles in teh city page. If you randomized everything, perhaps you got an arid map. Use temperate until you know the game.

Last these forums are great for advice, both in articles and threads.

 

[nbcman]

@ theskald

I recommend reading in the Strategy guides section of this forum Sisiutil's Beginners Guide. I found myself reading and re-reading parts of it as I was playing some of my earlier games. The link is below:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

and welcome to CFC

 

[TheDS]

Welcome to the game and welcome to the forums. I'll see if I can be of assistance, but if I'm not, there's a LOT of threads around here to read, and you can feel free to ask questions. Someone less lazy than me may post a bunch of links to the most important threads for newbies.

Building improvements on resources that you can't directly work IS of value to you: combined with a road leading back to your empire, it gives you access to this resource. If it's a resource you didn't already have, then now you have it, and your empire benefits. If it's a resource you did already have, you may be able to trade it to other Civs for fun or profit... that is, you may get a resource you don't have in trade, or could sell it for gold. Some of these actions require techs and willingness for the civ in question to want to trade. Giving resources as gifts can help, but only after a long time, and not by much. (Unless you're pretty sure it will stave off an invasion.) Asking for less than everything they can give you will NOT earn you diplomatic points, so always get the most you can for a resource trade, and check every now and then to see if you can cancel the deal and get more (that is, if the civ shows it's got money to trade).

In BtS, you can now hook up resources with forts, but it always takes less time to build the proper thing on the resource. EXCEPTION: The Oil Well takes the same amount of time to build as a fort, but you can discover Oil before you can Well it, so to get immediate benefit from Combustion technology, build a fort on a Oil patch, and no need to build the Well. (Forts don't provide financial benefit, so build the Well if it's within city limits.)

Additionally, you may decide in the future to put a city within reach of the developed resource. Congrats, you already developed it, now your new city can useit right away.

That being said, once you've use auto-workers to get some idea of how to use workers, it's best to turn them off and manage your workers yourself. Even today, auto-workers are right only 80% of the time, and with a little practice, you will RARELY miss opportunities that they spot.

As to your second question, no, you can't really direct the battle like that. The best defender is automatically chosen. If cavalry is attacking a stack and the pikes aren't defending, it's because they've been weakened enough that they're no longer the best defender. Alternately, there are a few units that are capable of bypassing some units; off the top of my head, the Ballista Elephant always attacks cavalry first.

Trade routes are established automatically and with little input from the player. Near as I can tell, they automatically pick the best route for each city, and there seems to sometimes be a limit that a given FOREIGN city can only be chosen once in your empire. YOUR cities can be chosen any number of times by your own cities, but usually this means a loss of value. You can improve trade routes by having certain trading technologies. I think Sailing and Astronomy are the most important ones, as they allow trading along the coast and over ocean, iirc. Having a map with lots of ocean and lots of other civs separated by these oceans, and then getting Astronomy first, can be a MASSIVE boost to your trade; you're the only one who can trade with everyone. Other'n that, though, getting techs or civics or buildings which increase your number of trade routes is about all you can do to affect trade.

The Harbor and Customs House, though, improve the value of coastal trade routes. It appears that having these in a city encourages it to have better trade routes, thereby improving their value. Having high populations also improves trade route values, so build Harbors and Customs Houses in high-pop cities for best effect.

As to food, no, you can't trade to improve food, but there are a couple things you CAN do: You can settle Great Merchants. Each gives a food. However, the gold bonus will be wasted if you don't build all gold-boosting buildings (3 of them for most civs, a couple have a fourth as UBs). They are BEST used in the city you build Wall Street. You can also build a Supermarket once you get Refrigeration - it's good for a food. Lastly, you can bring one of the two food-based corporations into a city. Most of the time, Sid's Sushi is the most powerful, but on maps with little in the way of ocean resources, Cereal Mills will win out.

The best thing you can do for better food is DON'T build cities in the desert! Grabbing Flood Plains is one thing, but if you can't work half your tiles, your city won't get very big. Look for Food resources and build near there. If you can take cities from your opponents, then get to work on it; if you don't feel the game is winnable, you may still be able to learn something from it, so don't automatically quit just because of that. (OTOH, if scrabbling for survival holds no fun for you, it's YOUR game, feel free to restart, or even use World Builder to improve your lot.)

 

[TheDS]

One more thing: Regular improvements (not the kind that get you resources) may still be useful even if you can't work the tile and don't plan to build a city near them. Sometimes it's the only way to bring irrigation into useful places. Also, roads are useful for connecting your empire together, or to other empires, and there can be large tracts of useless land to span.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I used to play Civ I all the time, and found it wildly addictive. The highest I ever got was Prince so I wasn't great at it, but when buying the one game in a great while I can afford, I thought Civ IV and its expansions would last me months. I think I bit off more than I can chew. It's so different, and there's so much more to think about, which makes it that much more frustrating when there are little things I'm just not clear on, details that I'm sure are somewhere on this (incredibly helpful) site, but have been lost to me. Forgive my adorable level of ignorance, and any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

First of all, Is there any benefit gained by building improvements where no city can work them and no resources exist? If not, why do my workers build them there if I put them on autopilot?

Usually no, but mines have a small chance of discovering a resource where they are built, so it's good to build early even if you can't use them right away. Auto workers aren't all that good. They'll connect cities and resources fine but your better doing the rest yourself. If they're building things you can't use it might just be because there's nothing else for them to do at the time. No benefit in them just sitting around.

Second, and this one would really help me, is there a better way to direct my troops when they are in stacks? For example, if my opponent loves mounted units and I have pikemen in the stack specifically to defend against them, how can I ensure that my pikemen will defend and not, in the case I am thinking of, my trebuchet? This may be lousy strategy, but what I was doing in this case was trying to advance my siege weapons with pikemen for insurance while a couple of other stacks either held off an enemy stack or acted as sentries against reinforcements and prepared to take the city when I was ready. If I can't do that, why stack different units at all? Wouldn't it be better to have a stack of the same so I can be sure my units will attack like I want them to? It really kills a strategy when they act like complete idiots.

It always picks the best defender. Damaged units lose strength so if it picks a trebuchet over a pikeman to defend against mounted units it's because the pikeman was so weak that the treb was more likely to win.

I'm also unclear on how to establish international and overseas trade routes between specific cities, is building a harbor and customs house enough to increase commerce, and does trading even help the city at all or just my empire as a whole?

The game connects your cities with the best available trading partner automatically. Most of what commerce does just helps at the empire level, like science, money and espionage (with BTS), but culture helps the city itself.

Finally, and I thank you for reading this far, can trade increase my food supply in a given city, and how? I ask because the random map generator threw a pretty arid world at me and decided the Dutch and the Germans deserved all the resources and arable land more than me, so I wanted to use some of the extra food I had from my more... Foody areas to assist my other cities (which I needed for the few resources I could find, all in the desert).

Not really, although settling a great merchant in a city give is +1 food. With BTS you can use corporations to generate food. That really the only way to ship food in.

I'm finally at a point in the game in which power becomes an issue, so I'm still getting used to that, hopefully it won't confuse me any further.

One thing people who played older civs learn is that the A.I. will attack if your weak so you can't can't build every wonder neglect your military in the process. You'll need at least one city constantly building units unless it's building something to improve production or unit exp.

And a huge thank you in advance!

 

[Polobo]

When attacking you will want to specifically choose a unit to attack with and not select the whole stack. You will want the units stacked, however, in order to benefit from the computer choosing the best defender for the given attacker.

Trade routes will establish themselves automatically. As you build more buildings and research various technologies those routes will increase in value and number. Madscientist was partially correct but Astronomy will affect only the party that has it (trade routes are one-way).

 

[Validator]

Usually no, but mines have a small chance of discovering a resource where they are built, so it's good to build early even if you can't use them right away.

That's not the way it works. Mines only have a chance of discovering a resource when they're being worked.

 

[InFlux5]

-"Is there any benefit gained by building improvements where no city can work them and no resources exist?"

No. Without a resource, improvements will only help if being worked. With a resource, improvements help even when not being worked, by providing a health or happiness bonus, or allowing for certain units in the case of a strategic resource. (There are three different types of resources.)

Automated Workers are very dumb, and should be avoided, at least until you have all key improvements built, if not completely.

-"is there a better way to direct my troops when they are in stacks? For example, if my opponent loves mounted units and I have pikemen in the stack specifically to defend against them..."

When a unit attacks a stack of units, the computer automatically defends with whichever unit provides the best defense against the attacker. In your example, pikemen will automatically defend against the mounted units - unless those pikes are badly hurt so that another unit works better. Oftentimes you might prefer a weaker defender, as in this case the pikes are only there to keep horses away. Unfortunately, your 1.3/4 pikeman is less effective than a 4/4 trebuchet, so your treb will defend and probably be defeated. This situation will come up quite a bit, and there's nothing you can do about it, except bring more pikes. (Note that the Ballista Elephant, unique unit for the Khmer, is the exception to this mechanic.)

"It really kills a strategy when they act like complete idiots."

If you are having other issues with combat please be more specific. I only saw one real question here.

-"I'm also unclear on how to establish international and overseas trade routes between specific cities"

Trade routes are handled entirely by the computer, though you control the factors that come into play. Larger cities get more trade routes. The farther away two cities are, and the larger they are, the more commerce a trade route between them will generate. Open borders increases the number of potential cities, and foreign cities are generally farther away, so OB is a must if you are trying to maximize your trade route income. Aside from founding cities, growing large cities, and maintaining open borders, the rest is out of your hands.

-"can trade increase my food supply in a given city"

Unfortunately, no. Gone are the days of building a Caravan and moving it into a city to boost food supply. Each city in the game will be forever limited to the food available within its radius (with the exception of Great Merchant specialists and the Baray.) And cities can no longer be abandoned, so it's very important to keep this fact in mind when planning city sites. That is, don't plan a city that will work 4 mined plains-hills without enough food to support the labor. (This is not to be confused with health resources, such as Corn or Deer, which provide a health benefit to every city in the trade network, but bonus food only when being worked inside a city's radius.)

 

[Polobo]

-"I'm also unclear on how to establish international and overseas trade routes between specific cities"

Trade routes are handled entirely by the computer, though you control the factors that come into play. Larger cities get more trade routes.

The bold section is incorrect/incomplete (I assume by more you mean count). The number of trade routes is 1 + other factors. You get additional trade routes for currency and economics techs; Castles, Great Lighthouse, Airports - maybe others. Now, the value of each of those trade routes are influenced by the other factors mentioned. Additionally, if there are civilizations between you and you're intended trade parter (especially pre-astronomy) such that you cannot send a unit between you and the target cities due to open borders with these other civilizations (or barbs) then trade routes will not occur with the intended trade target.

 

[theskald]

Wow, I'm sorry for not responding earlier, I didn't expect to get so many replies so fast. You've all helped me a lot, knowing all of that would have made for fewer wasted moves and less bull-headed attacks. I just won a space race victory on my first game and was rated Ethelred the Unready! Clearly I need some practice.

I've learned a lot myself, like don't try to hold enemy cities you've captured if they are seperate from your mainland and surrounded by other empires. And don't wait to build a standing army until you need it, even if you intend to be peaceful! A lot of close calls in that game.

If you don't mind I had a couple of other questions I can't seem to find answers to.

The DS, you said a city built near a resource instantly has access to it, but do you mean withing its cultural borders or within the workable land? Does this situation mean the only reason I should build a city very near a resource is to get it as fast as possible and work it for more hammers than a normal mine? If so, I could have built my second city further from the desert-locked resources and focused on culture without worrying like an obsessive mother about the people's food!

Validator, you say mines only have a chance of discovering a resource when being worked, and I'm not sure how you mean. Do they merely need to be within the workable area, or should I be working the land when I try mining it?

InFlux5, I also have issues with my offense which Polobo already addressed, but I'll not turn down an offer for more help. I noticed that when attacking an all-cavalry stack with a couple of spearmen and a few vultures (Gilg) at full strength (if I recall correctly, the problem may be that I wasn't paying close enough attention), the computer bizzarely decided the vultures would fare nicely and was very very wrong. I also had some strange bits of bad luck wherein a few marines at full strength with a hill/forest defense bonus and a +5% fortify bonus got whupped by a group of 2 elephants and three of Aztec's special units (myself and the other civs left poor Monty in the technological dust and he was throwing a fit about it). I found it very strange, and saw that the computer's units apparently had better aim than mine, though usually I think this was just a visual glitch and mine one anyway. I'm getting too long-winded here so I'll leave it at that so thank you for the help.

One more thing for anyone who knows. I've noticed that some of my town tiles seem to produce some extra food over time, but I'm not sure why or if it's really the towns doing it, I could plan more effectively if I knew more, but searches for "town food" in several articles haven't clarified.

Oh, and is the only effect of power produced by various power plants to boost factory productivity? Does the effect compound with various plants or can I just build the Three Gorges Dam and move on?

Thank you again for your time and knowledge!

 

[Validator]

Validator, you say mines only have a chance of discovering a resource when being worked, and I'm not sure how you mean. Do they merely need to be within the workable area, or should I be working the land when I try mining it?

The mine tile actually has to be worked by the city for there to be a chance of discovering a resource.

One more thing for anyone who knows. I've noticed that some of my town tiles seem to produce some extra food over time, but I'm not sure why or if it's really the towns doing it, I could plan more effectively if I knew more, but searches for "town food" in several articles haven't clarified.

I don't think towns ever give additional food. Towns do give a when using the US civic. You also get extra food from watermills and workshops when using the SP civic.

Oh, and is the only effect of power produced by various power plants to boost factory productivity? Does the effect compound with various plants or can I just build the Three Gorges Dam and move on?

Only one source of power is needed. There is no advantage to having multiple sources.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

The DS, you said a city built near a resource instantly has access to it, but do you mean withing its cultural borders or within the workable land? Does this situation mean the only reason I should build a city very near a resource is to get it as fast as possible and work it for more hammers than a normal mine? If so, I could have built my second city further from the desert-locked resources and focused on culture without worrying like an obsessive mother about the people's food!

If you build a city directly on a resource you don't have to build a mine or farm or whatever to gain access to it. A lot of people in multiplayer or with raging barbarians do this with copper so they don't have to split their defenders between a city and the mine. The downside is that you don't get the bonus in hammers/food/commerce that you would have gotten by building the improvement.

InFlux5, I also have issues with my offense which Polobo already addressed, but I'll not turn down an offer for more help. I noticed that when attacking an all-cavalry stack with a couple of spearmen and a few vultures (Gilg) at full strength (if I recall correctly, the problem may be that I wasn't paying close enough attention), the computer bizzarely decided the vultures would fare nicely and was very very wrong. I also had some strange bits of bad luck wherein a few marines at full strength with a hill/forest defense bonus and a +5% fortify bonus got whupped by a group of 2 elephants and three of Aztec's special units (myself and the other civs left poor Monty in the technological dust and he was throwing a fit about it). I found it very strange, and saw that the computer's units apparently had better aim than mine, though usually I think this was just a visual glitch and mine one anyway. I'm getting too long-winded here so I'll leave it at that so thank you for the help.

When it give the percentage chance of winning it's only the CHANCE of winning. 95% may make you seem invincible but you'll eventually lose one and that's the one you'll remember. Or you'll lose ten in a row because that's just how randomness works. It will seem like the A.I. gets more lucky wins, but that's because they're more willing to sacrifice units. A human player rarely enters combat with 30% chance of victory (unless they're attacking a city) expecting to lose so you won't see a lot of lucky wins.

 

[Winston Hughes]

The mine tile actually has to be worked by the city for there to be a chance of discovering a resource.

In other words, forget about random resource spawn. If you get one, great - but there's no way to play for it other than working mines, which is only worth doing for the usual benefit (ie. the hammers), and never for the very unlikely chance of spawning something.

 

[NovaDream]

One thing I find myself doing a lot is randomly thumbing though the manual, or reading minutia online about things I pretty much already understand. With a game this complicated and varied, sometimes reinforcement is just as helpful as taking in new concepts.

 

[theskald]

One thing I find myself doing a lot is randomly thumbing though the manual, or reading minutia online about things I pretty much already understand. With a game this complicated and varied, sometimes reinforcement is just as helpful as taking in new concepts.

I'm starting to get that now, I try to click on any thread that seems remotely interesting and I'm learning about a lot of new strategies and many more things the manual and civilopedia don't mention, but should.