Top 10 Tips to Get Started in Civ

[TORARADICAL]

1. Outtech
2. Outreligion
3. Outwonder
4. Outculture
If you have those you win everytime against the AI

Barbs are free experience max oot your units with them if you can, then you'll be stronger when you have to fight the AI nations.

 

[Bob1475]

Don't underestimate the AI!

Don't get into a war unless you have planned and pre-placed units to drive to your targets. Maintain some mobile reserve because the AI may counter-attack - particularly after Galleons are available.

Early on focus on resources. If you don't have bronze or iron you will have to stay peaceful until gunpowder.

 

[MarkM]

Top Ten Tips to Remember

1. Aim for technologies which allow you to hook up the resources around you. No use researching fishing if you are not near any fish!

Good point, but one critical thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet (apologies if it has) is, when making decisions about research, weigh shorter and longer term interests. In other words, don't always just look at the list of techs you can immediately research (the ones that appear in the popup window after you complete a tech) but go into the tech tree and also see what role each of these choices serve as gateways to later discoveries.

For example, it may be that there is no need for fishing, but it will open sailing up, and you may want to get trade established on coastal tiles to boost commerce & keep subsequent research from being bogged down by expenses. Not the best example, but there are many many case of techs that may not may not be directly critical, but are the keys to discoveries that are. A good example is Mysticism, unless you want Stonehenge or Monuments it does nothing -- and you probably care little about those if you are a creative leader, for example -- but you really, really want the techs coming right after it, ASAP if you aim to found early (and dominant) religions, build the most important early wonders such as Pyramids and Oracle, improve city happiness or defenses. and/or hook up resources such as stone or marble. So maybe you research mysticism even if something else is more immediately beneficial -- say, fishing, if you do have fish that you want to hook up.

It's that complexity of decisions, the need to weigh short and long term goals in decisions, that makes Civ the incredibly deep game that is. The "right answer" of what to do next is entirely predicated on how you phrase your question!

 

[mrfurious]

If you played earlier versions of Civilization:

Many old strategies won't work well in Civ4. Forget what you know and keep an open mind.

 

[CaptainMidnight]

Aside from the differculty settings, the size, type, game speed and number of civs affects what type of game.

1. The smaller the map and the larger the number of civs the harder it is to expand and, generally, the game will be more warlike and differcult. On the otherhand a larger map with fewer civs is easier.

2. Play on Marathon speed. You'll be a bit bored for the first couple of hours waiting for workers and farms to be built but the extra time will make the game come alive from the classical era onwards.

3. Furthermore, the slower the game speed, the more time you have to move troops into war before they become obselete. It is really annoying moving a massive nepoleonic army across seas and tundra just to find a previously renaissance era capital producing WW2 infantry. This doesn't happen so much on Marathon.

4. Similarly, with smaller maps it takes less time to move your troops to fight the enemy. A massive tranche of land between you and another enemy can really scuttle your game leading to a boring expansion without any pillageing or razing cities.

5. Remember to put sea level on Low so you don't get rediculous ly large seas making early sea invasions tiresome. You might enjoy a 20 turn wait to get your galleons across, i don't know.

Experimenting is part of the fun of civ, I'm sure everyone has their favourite settings. But to put the above in some sort of context these are my favourite settings barring differculty setting which is going to be revamped in the next expansion pack:

Map: Custom Continents on Random number.
Game Speed: Marathon
Climate: Temperate
World Size: Standard
Sea level: Low
No. of civs: 14-16.

 

[kazapp]

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

If you build a man a fire, he stays warm for a night.
If you light a man on fire, he stays warm for the rest of his life.

 

[kazapp]

2. Play on Marathon speed. You'll be a bit bored for the first couple of hours waiting for workers and farms to be built but the extra time will make the game come alive from the classical era onwards.

3. Furthermore, the slower the game speed, the more time you have to move troops into war before they become obselete. It is really annoying moving a massive nepoleonic army across seas and tundra just to find a previously renaissance era capital producing WW2 infantry. This doesn't happen so much on Marathon.

Amen to that - I have edited the research cost of the Marathon speed (increasing it by 50-75%) just because of this. It really makes for a much more immersive game

In real life before industrialization, once war starts, there's no time for invention: strategic time in Civ should really stop once a war breaks out, changing to tactical time. After all, an army can raze an entire nation with a dozen cities and a hundred defending units to the ground during a single of Civ's game turns!

 

[Simon_c]

As someone who's only been playing for a few months, I'd say something like

* Specialise your cities. Most cities should be producition or commerce. You should not have many that are both.

* Learn how to chop forrests, and when to leave a few.

* learn how to use slavery

* Learn how to trade techs with the AIs.

* keep upgrading your units, and disband the old ones. Only upgrade the ones with experiance points.

* Don't leve cities without any defenders for long.

* learn the diffent traints of the leaders.

* study the tech tree. Know what you can aford to ignore and what you need to learn now. All techs can be useful, have a plan about wich ones you need.

 

[LlamaCat]

I'm amazed at how many people on this thread didn't actually follow the instructions and answer the original question. But of course it set off great discussion points....

 

[Brave Jay]

1) Explore early and often. Knowing your terrain will help you find choke points to place cities, as well as letting you know where valuable resources are at.

2)Do not build a worker until you have discovered some worker techs to give them something to do. Prioritize research to enable you to improve the immediate terrain of your capital asap.

3)discover bronze working, Ironworking and animal husbandry fairly soon to reveal where these vital strategic resources are during the early expansion phase of the game.

4)Always escort your Settlers with military units because they are defenseless

5)Chopping trees can be beneficial, but remember that they also provide hammers and health so you must weigh the benefits vs. the costs for chopping.

6)If you found a religion, try to spread it to other civs quickly using open borders agreements. A good idea is to send a missionary to the capital first because the civ is more likely to spread and keep the religion that is in their best cities.

7)Use the terrain to your advantage when waging war. try to avoid leaving any troops in the flat lands, but rather use forests and hills as much as possible to better protect your army. Never attack across a river unless you have amphibious assault promotion.

8)try to find a civ to be allies with. cultivate the relationship by sharing religion, keeping open borders, using the civs favorite civic, trading resources and trading techs, and always help them if they ask you to in a war. Make sure it is not a civ that is overlapping borders with you.

9)Study the city screen until you better understand how the city radius tiles that your cities work effect your gold, science, and production. leave the city manager on auto until you feel comfortable making changes yourself.

10)Last but not least, don't neglect building military units or an oportunistic civ will realize your weakness and crush you. When attacking a city, make sure to use plenty of bombard units (catapults, trebs, and cannons) and combined arms. (keep a pikeman or two along with any possible counters for units your enemy has) make sure one unit has the medic promotion. I always use a ratio of 1.5-2 times the number of units that my enemy has in his city before attacking (not counting my siege units which are usually 4-6 in number)

 

[carmen510]

Don't suck at playing games.

 

[JackRules]

Before you even open the box, get a goods night's sleep, send your spouse/significant other on a trip out of town, clear your calendar for the duration of the aforementioned trip, station some snacks and drinks within arms length, and prepare to be entertained for the foreseeable future.

 

[kolpo]

1) It's better to over expand then to under expand, but the middle way is the best way of all!

2) Build a cottage on all grassland, unless a farm is absolutely needed for grown.

3) If you want a friend, then convert him to your religion at all cost!

4) Don't attack unless you are absolutely sure you can defend your empire

5) Building courthouses can mean the difference between being backward and being the most advanced nation!

6) A war in which no cities change sides is lost by all sides involved!

7) Use siege units to destroy the enemy defences BEFORE you attack!

8) It's better to build research then a building that serves no purpose.

9) There is no better friend, then Spain of the same religion!

10) When the Aztecs share a border, defend it!

 

[thordk]

10) When the Aztecs share a border, defend it! ATTACK!

fixed it

 

[rabidveggie]

Most of these have already mentioned but anyways...

1. Pick a leader that represents your strategy. i.e. Don't pick Julius when you play a peaceful strategy.

2. Don't neglect your military. I cannot stress this enough if you are weak you you will die.

3. Bring catapults with every army, you'll be amazed by the amount of casualties you'll take against even a weakly defended city with high culture.

4. There are certain windows in a game where hitting a research will give your military a huge advantage. i.e. catapults, cavalry, and tanks.

5. Some AI are unpredictable, never assume you are safe no matter what your relationship is.

6. Cottages are your friend build them.

7. Try to found one of your first few cities near bronze or iron it helps.

8. Workers are your lifeblood, protect them at all costs.

9. Most Wonders are useless don't feel you have to build them. *cough Sistine Chapel*

My final tip is...

10. Have fun its just a game.

 

[Brave Jay]

I have to disagree with the sistine chapel statement. I used to just skip over it without giving it a thought, but the last couple of games I built it and found that if you are in a culture border battle with a creative civ, all you need is a theater or library and a specialist or two and you will win decisively. I had cities on the verge of revolting to the ai push borders back into the ai's former territory fairly quickly. Added with a specialist type economy and representation, its a wonder worth taking into consideration.

 

[gamedude107]

Don't get tricked! The install disk is really the play disk and the tech tree chart is written in French

what????


there is only one disk and the tech tree chart is in english...

edit: if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, if you give a man a fisihng rod hell trade it for a fish

 

[Cyberstar]

For the newbie to have a fun beginning to the world of Civ...start with a small world (pangea) with only a few opponents - select a civ with an early unique unit, not horse based (may need archers too) - build a barracks so your units get promotions, choose "city attack promotion" for most units - build a worker to build a 'road of war' - with about 10 units set out to destroy your nearest neighbor - keep making units and keep going until you win an early conquest game and get a great score.

Then start reading the forums for more detailed game play.

 

[OctavianFlu]

Sorry if someone has touched on one or two of these tips, but here they are:

1. Positioning of your capital city. Use your scout, or your warrior to uncover some of the fog in the first turn to reveal a possible better placement for your capital, than what was original provided. Think about the Food, Production, Commerce that you can support, then settle.

2. Explore city radius for second city as first exploration priority. Knowing if there is stone, or marble around can lend hand to building wonders early in the game.

3. Move citizens around in order to either grow faster, obtain a tech sooner, or produce something earlier can help tremendously early on in the game.

4. Keep citizens working improved tiles. Once you have improved as much land as your city can support happy citizens, then start building roads to connect them, and your second/third city.

5. Know when to expand, and when to stop. Each city has a maintenance cost which will effect your coffers, which would then in return slow your tech research ability. Having 3-4 Cities before currency/Code of Laws is a good rule of thumb.

6. Knowing what each wonder does, which special resource is required to cut the cost, and how it impacts your empire is important to know if you should build the wonder or not. You are paying a huge risk spending extra time not having the special resource to build a wonder, or if the wonder does not impact your empire. For example; Playing a creative leader such as Augustus Ceaser, building stonehendge is not necessary useful when each of your cities already have +1 culture to start.

7. Watch the graphs (production/culuture/commerce/power...) to give you an idea where you stand against other leaders. Score is not the best way to judge if you should war against a country or not.

8. Construction is a must tech for early wars. Do not plan on a lengthy war without Construction which enables the ability to produce catapults, and war elephants.

9. Choose one or two allies and stick with them throughout the game. Give into demands from these allies, and continue trade with them. Having long term friends will help you in future wars, and perhaps a possible diplomatic victory.

10. Establish what type of victory you are trying to achieve right from the beginning, and continue this strategy throughout the game.

 

[Pres. Slayback]

Or Just use the World Builder