Tips for beginners?

[Exterrestrial]

I've played CIV 5 & 6 a lot, and now I want to try out 4. I hear it's different than 5&6, so!
Do you have any tips for me, or things that are important to know?

 

[lymond]

Hey Hey..welcome to a real strategy game. Here are a few meta considerations:

1) Throw everything out you know about 5 & 6. IV is a unique and far more complex game
2) Strategy & Tips forum is where you need to be (requested move), but can be found here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ4-strategy-tips.155/
Lotsa good folks will help you out
3) My impression is that you are completely new to IV, but not sure. Regardless, I recommend you play BTS. It is the definitive version of the game. 5 & 6 are DLC based where expansions/dlc just add directly to the base game. IV is the old expansion format, where the new expansion adds a lot but you play it "standalone".
4) Install BUG/BULL mods for UI enhancements (SP mode/Custom Assets - no need to load the mod this way). Blue Marble also nice for improved graphics. All can be found here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-bug-and-bat-here.274636/
---this option great for forum games since folks can load your save with or without mods
5) BAT is another mod you can find there which is a standalone mod that combines BUG/BULL/graphics.
6) BUFFY is the HOF mod used for HOF games and GAmes of the Month..you can find it here - right at the top:
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php
7) For really in depth advice, I recommend that you post a shadow game over in S&T with standard settings. Recommend Pangaea map with no huts and events, Noble Difficulty. Folks will give you turn by turn advice - or short turnsets - to help you get acclimated to the very important early game. Fastest way to learn outside watching videos, although IV videos are somewhat limited.

Lastly, a few very basic and general gameplay tips:

1) FOOD is king...food = production
2) Slavery is the most powerful mechanic in the game - it will take time to learn how to use it optimally
3) Most important unit in the game is the worker - it is most often your first build in the game
4) Most important building in the game is the Granary - pretty much every other building is situational.

 

[Gavagay]

I recommend this video series by Sulla. The absolute best introduction to civ4 for beginners I know about.

 

[Exterrestrial]

Thanks a lot to both of you!
Yes, I never played it before. I just played the tutorial and started a game for a few rounds testing, and so far, at least, it seems like I'm not completely lost.
I played the normal Civ 4 version but I have BTS too, so thanks for clearing that up.
I gotta read into the Mods, it's a lot to take in all at once. What are "HOF" games?

And I'll check out the video series as well, thanks for the recommendation.

 

[Amao]

What are "HOF" games?

Hall Of Fame games. Basically, it's for players competing for best possible results w/o cheating.
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/

 

[Wrathful]

A few pieces of advice:

• You may be doing this already, but you should play the game without tribal villages and random events. Tribal villages (often called "huts" on this forum) add a great deal of randomness and luck to the game. Sure, it's fun to get free gold, technologies, and units, but it will impede the process of learning the game. Plus, on higher difficulties the AI starts with extra scouts and archers, ensuring that they grab the majority of the tribal villages. Random events are even worse because they occur completely randomly (as the name implies) and their effects are even more extreme, ranging from free unit promotions and golden ages to spawning an army of barbarian units on your borders. My advice is to turn them off until you are much more comfortable with the game.
• Ignore all the "tips" the game gives you. Better yet, turn them off in the game's options. They just aren't very good and encourage poor play.
• The scoreboard is not an accurate representation for how well the human is doing in the game. Don't worry about your score. As a point of reference, on deity games most human players will spend the majority of the game at the bottom of the scoreboard, even when they have a strong position.
  
• Shadow games are a great way to learn the game. What you should do is generate a start in-game and then make a thread on these forums. Post a picture of the starting location in the thread, say what leader you are playing with, and attach the game file. You might also include the game's settings in the thread. I suggest playing with these settings for now:
  • Pangaea
  • Standard World size
  • 6 AI civilizations
  • Medium sea level
  • Temperate climate
  • No Tribal Villages
  • No Random Events

• The difficulty is not terribly important, as your strategies will remain similar regardless. Noble is a good choice for a shadow game. But anything below that is perfectly fine.
• If you're not sure which leader to play as, Washington is a good choice. He is a very balanced leader and is great for learning the game.
  
• The key for these shadow games is to play slowly! The early game is the most important phase, and making poor choices can drastically affect the game's outcome. It's no use if you post a starting save, get some advice, then play 100 turns and ask for more advice. In general, you should stop playing and ask for more advice whenever you finish researching a technology or finish training a unit in a city.
• Here's a couple examples of shadow games that ended in victory:
  • https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/shadow-game-for-an-old-dude.636725/
  • https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/emperor-game-completed.623263/
• If you get bored while waiting for advice, you can always play a separate map while you wait.
• As a final note, your goal should be to master the following gameplay elements. These form the foundation of everything else in the game:
  • Worker management - how you control workers and what improvements you build.
    
  • City placement - where you choose to build your cities.
    
  • City management- what units you train or buildings you construct in your cities, and the tiles you choose to work.
    
  • Slavery - use of the Slavery Civic, unlocked by the Bronze Working technology, to instantly finish production by sacrificing population.
    
  • Research - how you go about acquiring new technologies.
• There are other essential gameplay elements as well (namely, diplomacy, warfare, great people, wonders, and so on), but it's important to learn the aforementioned aspects first, because the higher-level elements of the game build off the lower-level elements. For example, your success in warfare is largely determined by how quickly you research military technologies and produce units. Likewise, you won't be able to use great people effectively if your cities aren't set up to produce them en masse. And, your diplomacy will be more effective if you have more technologies and gold to bargain with.
  
• Always be thinking about these elements when you play, especially in the early game. Every single choice of technology or worker action is important. That's why it's essential to play slowly in the early game.

 

[ArchGhost]

lots of super detailed posts in here already and I don't have a whole lot of time to pick out what's been talked about already, but I'll offer some sorta meta-advice.

I'll tell you, a major turning point in my play early on, when I started to actually go from the novelty of just completing turns to wanting to win instead, was breaking my apprehension towards war. To succeed in this game a healthy attitude towards fighting with your opponents should be embraced, even if it seems scary at first or you feel compelled to build up shinies instead. Taking land, getting conquest gold, curtailing your opponents' growth and stifling their positions of contention are all great incentives to not shirk away from conflict in this game.

Spoiler story time -_- :

I started on Noble and following the way this game likes to push you, I built a lot of stuff, stayed peaceful, dabbled in religions, etc. I would usually only build units when I had nothing else to do, beyond countering some barbs. Several times AIs would get uppity and attack me, I would usually beat them back, if it came late enough (don't mind letting anyone know I forfeited my very first 2 games when caught with my pants down), then resume sitting there with whatever land I had and slowly cranking toward space or culture.

Once the novelty wore off, it got boring, and I quit for a while.

When I came back, inspired by some fellas on YT, I wanted to learn to win without being passive.

I have habits from other TBS games where I watch the AI meticulously (I am fascinated by watching AIs "play" a game). So I did. I noticed the guys who would rustle jimmies early enough could really become run away. They didn't wait to get into a strong position; they got to a breakpoint of war tech, rushed together a ball of units, and smashed whoever was close before they could get into a resistant position (including me, playing the old way!). If they did that successfully, that guy they hit was usually out of the game, and they were even stronger. If it didn't work out, they usually stuck around to try again, perhaps a bit tech delayed, but not discouraged, and tough enough to resist an opportunistic backstabber, at least for a while, with all their military left over.

I applied this thinking to one of my first games back from hiatus and it was crazy how well it worked. Rush up to axes, slam together a big group, and smash my grumpy neighbor tokugawa, take his land and his cities, and get stronger. Move on to the next guy, get stopped, so tech swords + catapults. Succeed this time. Now I'm too big to stop, the only question is can anybody outrun me in the arms race? The question is posited as the Inca backstab me soon after while prepping for the next target, but since I'm yknow, prepping for war, I already have this big army sitting there....and smash him instead, take his land, move on, and so on and so forth. Won that game over 500 years ealier than any space race I'd done to that point, and way more decisively.

War is crazy good in the payoff. The concept applies just as well as you move up in difficulty, though your play and understanding naturally has to be a little more tight and refined. Even in RTS games where the entire goal is to eliminate the opponent in militaristic fashion the whole game, I've never felt so rewarded for actually doing it.

 

[krikav]

Nice story @ArchGhost!

 

[Exterrestrial]

Oof, so, I took a bit of a break :'D But once I sorted out my stuff, I'll be back for CIV4.
Thank you for the useful information, it means a lot to me.