Top 10 Tips to Get Started in Civ

[Sisiutil]

Civilization is a complex game and that is the source of its appeal; no two games are ever the same. Therefore, the exact same approach that works for you in one game will probably not work (or at least not work as well) in another. Be flexible, make different choices... and have fun.

 

[whb]

Usually, your capital will be your biggest science earner for most of the game (science is a proportion of commerce, and the capital always gets 8 extra commerce, and gets a 50% bonus under Bureaucracy); so make sure you build libraries, universities and observatories there as soon as you can, and build plenty of cottages to make the most of that 50% bonus.

Even if you are playing "peacefully", check your number of soldiers in the demographics screen. If you are a long way behind in last place, you're likely to be invaded. If someone else is a long way behind, they'll probably be the target instead!

Research Alphabet early; if you're the only person the AI can trade technology with then you can trade your way into the lead very easily.

Expand towards your neighbours -- they'll be expanding towards you, and I'm sure you'd rather the border was closer to their capital than yours.

The AI likes conquering barbarian cities and so should you: they are cities you didn't have to build a settler to get! (But you only keep them if they're size 2 or bigger)

Grassland is valuable because you can build cottages on it that will still give 2 food -- later in the game, these cottages will earn more commerce than resources like silk or dye.

 

[Soultwister]

Heres my tip

Early in the game, use natural barricades and cultural barricades to keep land for yourself so you can expand at your own leisure without worrying of others taking it.

(Example, if where you begin is only accessable through a small passage, about up to 6 spaces long, with rivers or mountain on either side, use a city to block it off and don't give people open boarders )

 

[GoodGame]

a. If you have an advantage, or opportunity due to terrain, resources, traits, or UUs, then exploit them.

b. Figure out how you'll probably win by 250 BC, not 1500 AD.

c. Everything takes longer than you think it will, so prioritize your possible options and focus on no more than the two most important ones. Side pursuits are neat, but they usually aren't the lynchpins of your win.

d. Pay attention to your budget. Being a little in debt with a modest-sized treasury is ok. Don't break the bank unless it's life and death (e.g. don't research at -20 gc with only 50 gc in the treasury, unless it's like for gunpowder to save your longbow/elephant army from total destruction).

e. Corollary to d.: exploit what you have in the moment because just racing the tech tree for 'magic' techs isn't always the best use of your civ. Reasonable growth (army/cities) can be more useful than always scrambling for niftier technologies.

f. give peace a chance, but always be ready for a war.

g. he who expands the least usually expands last, or ends up with Madagascar.

 

[GoodGame]

You hate his gold for culture schtik?

I can offer two sage pieces of advice:


2. If you encounter Mansa Musa early on, wipe him out (trust me on this one).

 

[Kodii]

Never give up. Play to the bitter bloody end. It's the best way to learn.

 

[Thalaba]

Tip 1. Just starting out in Civ 4? Go to www.civfanatics.com for advice, gloating, and sympathy. This will be your new family for the next few months or years.

Tip 2. Don't try to build every wonder. They're fun to build, so it can be tempting, but try to only build wonders that enhance either your particular Civ characteristics, the city in which you build it, or your overall strategy. In otherwords, have a reason to build a wonder.

Tip 3. Especially for players of older CIV games, don't forget to build Cottages - they'll save your economy and your game.

Tip 4. Consider trading techs on a regular basis. You don't have to give away your best techs, but remember that the AI's will be trading with each other behind your back even if you don't want to trade. By not trading you will likely be left behind in techs.

Tip 5. When just starting out with Civ 4, look for good starting locations. If your starting location is bad, don't be afraid to restart. A bad starting location can result in a bad game, which may turn you off. So pick a good starting location until you get better at the game and then you can accept harder challenges. A good starting location should include a river, at least one food resource that you can farm (or a sea resource), some hills, some forest, and hopefully also a coast. Avoid excessive desert, tundra, mountains, or jungle.

Tip 6. Make the most of your terrain when you settle a city, and specialize each city. Some cities will have loads of production which makes them good for producing military quickly, others will have commerce or food oportunities. Tailor the production in each city to take advantage of terrain.

Tip 7. Go ahead and fight that land war in Asia - just make sure you can win it.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hmm, I'll give it a try. I have answered many questions on this forum, so I should have some tips. Always nice to get a free game.

1) After settling your capital, develop the technologies necessary to improve the special resources around you capital and build the workers necessary to build the improvements.

2) Try to improve every tile that is being used by the citizens in your cities. An improved tile is at least twice as productive as un unimproved tile.

3) Manage your workers yourself. You won't learn the game by automating them and after a little while you're a lot better than the Artificial Intelligence (AI) at managing them.

4) Once you have settled, explore the region surrounding your capital with the early military units or scouts to find good spots for settling new cities and to find interesting resources for your civilization. The goody huts in the land can also help you in the beginning allthough they can also have negative results.

5) Most units need some special resources to be build. Copper (visible with bronze working), horses (visible with animal husbandry) and iron (visible with iron working) are the early resources that you will need to find and connect to your cities to build stronger units.

6) Bronze working is a very valuable technology after the very early game. It allows you to chop down forests for extra production in your cities and so that you can build other terrain improvements on that spot, it shows you where the copper deposits are located on the map so that you can build axemen and spearmen and it allows the valuable slavery civic.

7) The slavery civic allows a new form of production where you can sacrifice population for production. With granaries to regrow the population quickly, this form of production can be very powerful, especially in cities which don't have a high production but do have a high food output to regrow the lost population.

8) Barbarians and barbarian cities spawn randomly in the fog of war. Place a few units on defensive positions around your cities like forests and hills to push back the fog of war. This way, you'll get less barbarians and an early warning force for approarching barbarians.

9) As your civilization expands, your upkeep increases. Try to develop your economy while expanding by building the cottage terrain improvement and by building markets and courthouses in your cities. If your upkeep reaches 70-80% of your total commerce production, you should consider temporarily stopping the expansion as you don't want to go bankrupt.

10) Big cities are more productive and have better economies but they are also more unhealty and less content. Try to combat this unhealthiness and unhappiness by connecting food and luxury resources to your cities by connecting them with the required terrain improvement and roads or by trading for them with other civilizations.

11) If you attack cities, you'll need a significant attack force that is at least two to three times as big as the number of defenders. If the city has a (significant) defensive bonus, you'll also want to have catapults to bombard the defensive bonus away and use the collateral damage these units can inflict when they attack directly.

12) Don't let defending units heal inbetween your attacks; attack with a large enough number of units to completely defeat the defenders in one attack.

13) Get multiple defenders in cities that could be attacked by barbarians or other civilizations. Cities that aren't near the borders can make do with a single unit to reduce unit upkeep.

14) The computer opponents like to attack a civilization which looks weak. If you build very few military units and are near aggressive leaders (like Montezuma), then don't be surprised if they suddenly attack you without provocation.

15) If you don't understand a certain detail of this game, then become a member of Civilization Fanatics Center and ask your question there. There is even a special section for newbie questions and they will treat your questions nicely there even if they are very basic.

 

[6-Star General]

The most counter-intuitive trick in the game:
When an AI calls you up to demand money, techs, or other, seriously consider giving them what they want - think of their demand as asking, "Would you like to buy a permenant +1 to our relationship for 400 gold?"

 

[WonderPup]

Blah--rewriting my whole response after rereading the original post. I was thinking more global advice, but the article specifically requests game opening ideas. Here are a few early game ideas.

1) Play the right difficulty. Before you even start the game, realize that you'll have a lot more fun if you're playing a difficulty that will allow you to play the style you enjoy playing.

2) If you usually play peacefully, try an early war. I'm a converted peacemonger--sometimes you've just got to wage war early on if the opportunity is right.

3) Bronze is life. You need either Bronze or Iron in order to survive. But by the time you've discovered Iron, a lot of the real estate has been claimed. Bronze is visible much earlier and you need to grab metal while you can. It is worth going out of your way to found a city near bronze, even if it is further from your main territory than you'd prefer.

4) Praetorians rock. If you want to wage war, be a Roman. Praetorians are powerful units that can last you well into the mid-game. It not only means that your units will stay useful as technology advances, but you'll keep using the same units in war--which means LOTS of promotions, which are retained later when upgrading units.

5) Don't go out of your way to found religions or build wonders. Go ahead and found a religion if it is on your path, but don't do it just to do it--that holy city can always be conquered later. Same goes for wonders--would you rather build those pyramids, or have 8-10 axemen ready to go conquer the opponent city that builds the pyramids for you?

6) Take little bites out of many opponents in war rather than devouring one in its entirety. While you've been waging that war to conquer every bit of Zulu territory, all the other civs have been building away. Now you're faced with one less civ, but all the others have gotten more powerful. It is better to take 2 cities from 3 opponents than 6 cities from 1 opponent because you'll be stifling many opponents in the process.

7) Make friends. It helps to cultivate a couple friends, even if you are a warmonger. You still need trading partners, and you don't need to conquer every civ on the planet to win a military victory.

8) Don't be afraid to raze cities. Too many cities early on will kill you in the long run. Your economy will shut down, which means no money and no research. 4 to 6 cities is enough until you get Code of Laws. So, fight your opponents, take their cities from them, but don't keep them--take the money and run.

 

[illram]

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!

2. If you have forests near you, consider researching bronze working and chopping them down. This will increase your early production and speed up your initial expansion.

3. Protect all of your cities and keep an eye on your power graph! The less powerful you are, the more likely your enemies will declare war on you.

4. Play to the strengths of your civilization! If you are Rome for example, find some Iron and start pumping out Praetorians.

5. Scouts will get more favorable results from popping huts than other units.

6. Connect all of your cities with roads. Cities which share the same river will also be able to share resources with one another without roads.

7. Open Border agreements allow you and your allies to trade with each other, making you both richer.

8. If you are behind in technology, research a technology your neighbors lack and trade it to them to catch up.

9. If you found an early religion such as Hinduism, use your missionary to spread that religion to your heathen neighbors. If they don't have any religion, odds are they will switch to yours.

10. Remember that Gold and Commerce are different things. Commerce gets split into gold AND research.

 

[Ex-Cop]

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

 

[yatta77]

There's not a "right strategy" in Civ IV. That's why this game is awesome! Whatever you choose to do (or don't) ask yourself: why? (or: why not?). Play, be creative, have fun, try to understand any aspect of the game (reading the pedia or asking other players). Don't set a too easy level, don't get frustrated if you're not on the lead: just be relaxed and think about your next move; don't retire when things are hard: bad situations are very teachful (and the best for memorable victories!). You'll soon put up your own winning strategies.

 

[scooter]

1. There is no single right decision, every decision has advantages and disadvantages to each path, consider what your overall goal is, and make your decision based on that.

2. Try different leaders and maps. You will get bored quickly, and there are many map script that are a ton of fun that you'd be missing out on.

3. Don't spend hours focusing on every tiny detail, this tends to suck the fun out of the game, just enjoy it and don't be afraid to make mistakes, that's how you learn!

4. Vary your strategy, just because you rushed your neighbor last time and took his land, doesn't mean it'll be effective this time. Be ready to adapt to your scenario, meaning be flexible with your strategy.

5. Read some of the strategy articles on Civfanatics

6. Never bring a sword to a gunfight!

 

[Randomjohn]

Asia is a large country that is mostly land based. That is the key to the phrase. If you are fighting a land war vs. air power (or if it was in the game tactical missles) then you are at a disadvantage. The enemy will have superior movement, and can surround you easily. Additionally, you will make slow advances due to cultural supremacy when you take ver cities. Basically it is telling you to use air power when invading larger countries.

It comes from a real life saying about the fact that a land war in Asia would be very expensive and costly. It's only half true in Civ though. It's basically saying to use air support when invading to make the assimilation of cities go faster.

Huh?

First, Asia is a continent, not a country. There are several countries on the continent.

Second, do you realize that it's a joke? It's a quote from the movie "The Princess Bride." As are the subsequent lines someone will inevitably post about Iocane (sp?) powder and fighting Sicilians.

 

[Spammurabi]

Cottages are an absolutely vital part of your economy- the more commerce you generate, the more technologically advanced you will be and the easier it will be to defeat your opponents.

Slavery is an extremely powerful civic in the early game- whipping your citizens to generate production may seem counterproductive at first, but the speed at which you can build an army of axemen to destroy an opponent is incredible, especially if you have built granaries.

 

[Spammurabi]

Build specialized cities- a city focusing on producing military units can defend your entire empire early on, allowing you to defend commerce-heavy cities that focus on economic improvements like libraries. You don't need to build every improvement in every city!

 

[Steve2000]

Very important in the early game is to explore quickly and get the lay of the land. This will allow you to decide early on where your first 3 cities will be. The first three cities (including the capital) will be your oldest and most powerful cities later in the game, probably with wonders and high production and/or commerce. Specialize each to its strengths.

 

[ChrTh]

Advice: No matter how friendly you are with Alexander the Great, he will stab you in the back at some point in the game. Plan accordingly, especially if he is right next door.

 

[ratrangerm]

Things I've learned and can pass on to new players.

1. Always play with the land, not against it. If you have farm resources (rice, wheat, corn) then you should pursue Agriculture if you don't already start with it. Gold, Gems and Silver mean Mining is a priority. Don't chase early techs that won't do you any good (if you have no coastal land in your capital, then Fishing isn't necessary).

2. Combined arms is the key to taking cities throughout most of the game. An early stack that works well will include a few Axemen, at least one Spearman and possibly a Swordsman.

3. Don't forget to bring siege weapons to strip down city defenses and cause collateral damage. You'll thank yourself late.

4. Pick your friends wisely. Seldom can you be everybody's friend.

5. Rapid expansion can break you. So as you start founding new cities, watch your science slider, which will be set at 100 percent to start the game. A good rule of thumb is to stop expanding when you have the slider dropping below 60 percent to give you a positive cash flow and you have no money in the treasury.

6. That being said, a large surplus in the treasury won't do you any good, so put it to use. Either upgrade units, or raise your science slide and use that extra cash to fund research.

7. Play a Financial civ in your first game. Financial civs can be very powerful in terms of the research they generate and the money they get as well. They will also help you understand how valuable cottages can be.

8. Most of the time, you'll be fine without researching Archery early in the game. However, if your civ's unique unit requires Archery, then it becomes an important tech, and is also important if you are lacking for military resources.

9. Avoid the temptation to go on a Wonder grab. Decide which Wonders will fit into your strategy and pursue only those. Your decision may or may not be influenced depending on whether you have Stone or Marble.

10. Never underestimate the power of specialists. Great People are extremely useful, so try to put a couple of specialists to work in each city and get those Great People to come forth.