What am I doing wrong?

[Logs28]

Recently purchased Civ 4 and have put about 20 hours into the game, on noble difficulty. I have been a long time civ 3 and 2 player, and finally moved on to 4.

So far, every single game I have started I end up on the bottom of the score board with little hope of recovering. I get destroyed in conflict, outpaced in science, and generally shat upon. I have never felt like such a noob in my life, and Im looking for any advice that might help me.

I have gotten decent starts, where I get a few early wonders and a religion, and managed money well. And I usually am on top by the time I build at least 3 cities. At that point, my score starts to stagnate horribly, and no matter what I do to increase my influence, my enemies rocket ahead.

I have heard that this forum is fantastic, see if you can help this hopless scrub succeed.

 

[Quibblesome]

Drop the wonders. Drop the religion. Focus on settlers and workers until you're at 8 cities or so. Then work on your economy before expanding more.

Then look at your score. You'll probably be top.

 

[spaced]

Post some screenshots and/or attach a save file so people have something to work with. It's hard to know what you're doing wrong without seeing how you play.

 

[lymond]

^^^this....we can give more directed advice and understand your flaws

Don't worry about score for much of the game, especially early...it is meaningless. All that will come later, and for certain victory types score is never a consideration...like culture

First, read this and check his sig too for more good stuff:

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

And spend some time here:

War Academy

You can find the above under the CIV IV menu at the top of the page.

Voice of Unreason has a lot of good threads for beginners on Noble. Find one of his posts and check his signature.

Trust me...your game will improve dramatically just by taking these steps. Next step would be to post a game and have folks shadow with you in small turnsets...best way to learn and move up

 

[Logs28]

Yea i just checked out that guide. Had some sucess playing as the dutch in a sort of peacemaker/diplomat (set up with1 alliance and 1 vassal to take a shot at the space race). I think i first will try to be mor patient with the game, as i believe that is my biggest prob. Sometimes i lack the patience to move dozens of units around. If i get a chance i will post some screens of some other games, but it might be awhile cuz im heading on vacation for a couple o days.

Thanks for the friendly advice

 

[damerell]

Don't start on Noble?

I mean, sure, if you've played other Civs, you'll find Settler to be laughably easy. But there's no shame in playing on Chieftain or Warlord until you find those to be laughably easy, as well.

Also, personally, I suggest playing on Small maps, perhaps adding in a 5th AI. I find the Standard map size to be too large; once an empire grows, the identity of some cities blurs together. On a Small map, each city is easily memorable, and even in modern war the stacks of units do not become unmeasurably large.

 

[Kesshi]

I played a lot of Civ I and Civ II before coming to Civ IV. I started with 1 game of Settler, 1 game of Chieftain, and 1 game of Warlord before stopping at Noble and playing there for a while.

Settler was laughably easy, but that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything. Virtually everything was new to me, but I got an idea of how things happened and what different resources did, etc.

I just learned one aspect of the game at a time. When I wanted to learn something, I played around with the aspects in game, and then read a guide or two, then played around with it more. That worked for me, perhaps it will work for you.

TL;DR - Don't be afraid to turn down the settings for your first few games, even if you are familiar with Civ. And read some guides. Good luck!

 

[lymond]

. I think i first will try to be mor patient with the game, as i believe that is my biggest prob. Sometimes i lack the patience to move dozens of units around. Thanks for the friendly advice

Your welcome. Everyone is eager to help around here. We've all been where you are.

It may also help to get familiar with some of the short cut options in the game. Honestly, some things I did not know about until a year or two playing the game before finding CFC.

First, you may not yet realize that you can group units into stacks and move just move the stack around. Furthermore, you can set rally points for unit building cities so that units meet at one point..then later group them. You do this by SHIFT+Click the city bar and right click a spot on the map.

You can also set up auto-build queues in your city which is great of units, especially in unit pump cities like HE city. Alt click a unit to set it up to auto-build (you will see an asterisk now next to the unit). City will now build the unit indefinitely and send it to your rally point. You can alternate between auto-builds of different types of units as well. After setting up the first auto-build (say a Macemen), you can go SHIFT+ALT+click a catapult. This places that auto-build under the Macemen (or replace CTL with SHIFT to place it above). City will no rotate building Mace and Cats indefinitely.

(Note that CTRL and SHIFT without ALT can just add any one time build (unit or building) above or below the current build items. You can even add a building below the auto-build items and it will build it in the rotation then go back to the unit rotation) Play with all this next time...it helps a lot.

As for damerell's suggestion of small maps, I don't really agree. It's a matter of personal preference for anyone really, but I prefer standard maps. I think it is the way the game is meant to be played.

I would continue reading guides and read Sisiutils Beginner guide more than once so that concepts sink in. Kesshi's suggestion to learn one thing at a time is spot on. In fact, I highly recommend practicing the firs 50 or 100 turns of a game over a few times, adding new pieces to the puzzle and check the results each time you progress. Use the same start save (it will be in the autosaves folder r just save the 4000BC file) You can always finish the game if you want at some point, but start by practice that early game over several times. No need to worry about victories and such, but rather just expanding your empire, improving your economy and research rates.

 

[damerell]

As for damerell's suggestion of small maps, I don't really agree. It's a matter of personal preference for anyone really, but I prefer standard maps. I think it is the way the game is meant to be played.

I disagree for two reasons. First of all, I think Civ 4 does a surprisingly good job of keeping the mechanics working on small or large maps - and at different gamespeeds. Epic speed's not the default, but I'm sure no-one would suggest that is not how the game is meant to be played.

Secondly, the OP mentions they lack the patience to move "dozens of units around". This suggests to me that their personal preference might be the same as mine.

 

[lymond]

Well, really I can't argue much between small and standard anyway. It's really when you get to large and huge that you can run into issue with both gameplay and performance. Larger maps can lead to runaway AI if you are not experienced, and even when you are. So I close out that point.

However, I don't think saving a few tiles one direction or another alleviates the issue of "moving dozens of units around", which is why I suggested some things that might help out.

 

[damerell]

However, I don't think saving a few tiles one direction or another alleviates the issue of "moving dozens of units around", which is why I suggested some things that might help out.

That is precisely what it alleviates. Small is significantly different from Standard; fewer tiles, fewer cities, fewer units.

 

[Ghpstage]

That is precisely what it alleviates. Small is significantly different from Standard; fewer tiles, fewer cities, fewer units.

Fewer units yes, but odds are you will still get into the 'dozens' of units range very quickly. Knowing some micro tricks like that you can move an entire stack at once is the only way to get rid of that repitition short of always Quencha rushing on duel maps....

 

[Logs28]

Thanks for all the advice guys, this must be the friendliest forum i have used.

 

[Gumbolt]

Your playing noble. You should have at least 3 cities by 2000bc. Around 5 cities by 1000bc. 6-8 cities by 1ad.

About 1.5 worker for each city. Although this may not happen till you have 3-4+ cities.

First build is normally always a worker. Settler about size 3.

First tech normally a food based tech like Agriculture or AH.

2nd city should always have a food resource in inner ring.

Don't be afraid to share the capitals food with a 2nd/3rd city.

Don't under estimate pottery early on for cottages and granaries!

Whipping is your friend.

 

[coanda]

Gumbolt's post has some truly great guidelines for new players. However, I'm gonna go ahead and commentate it with a few thoughts of my own...

Your playing noble. You should have at least 3 cities by 2000bc. Around 5 cities by 1000bc. 6-8 cities by 1ad. When you're just starting to play, 3 by 1500 and 5 by 1 AD is acceptable (but not great); more important than the numbers is that you try to be steadily expanding, and start planning when your next war will be if you find all the land taken already.

About 1.5 worker for each city. Although this may not happen till you have 3-4+ cities. More workers if you have lots of jungle to deal with. Generally if you find your cities working unimproved tiles, you need to get more workers.

First build is normally always a worker. Settler about size 3.The priorities are usually two workers, two warriors, and a settler; what order you get all those in will vary. Generally you build the settler and second worker at either size-3 or size-4, depending on how quickly your city can grow (if you're growing quickly, size-4 is easy to get and likely worthwhile; if you've got weak food, you don't want to wait that long). In 90% of games I play those 5 units are my opening builds in my capital.

First tech normally a food based tech like Agriculture or AH.

2nd city should always have a food resource in inner ring. Unless you're a Creative leader or are going to be stealing a food tile from the capital; even then, food in inner ring is a good benefit if you can manage it.

Don't be afraid to share the capitals food with a 2nd/3rd city.

Don't under estimate pottery early on for cottages and granaries!

Whipping is your friend.

 

[Handel]

Logs28: Civ IV, unlike the previous Civ games, is designed to prevent the human player from city spamming, as at the same time the AI still can spam unlimited cities. The key to the quick expansion of the AI is the "cottage" spamming - building cottages on the city tiles AND working them. After a while every cottage gives as much gold as a gold/gems mine. Imagine what a powerhouse a city is with (ie) 5-10 gold mines. So the easiest way to counter this is to find a balance between your own cottage spamming, units building and expansion.

 

[JustBen]

Logs28: Civ IV, unlike the previous Civ games, is designed to prevent the human player from city spamming, as at the same time the AI still can spam unlimited cities. The key to the quick expansion of the AI is the "cottage" spamming - building cottages on the city tiles AND working them. After a while every cottage gives as much gold as a gold/gems mine. Imagine what a powerhouse a city is with (ie) 5-10 gold mines. So the easiest way to counter this is to find a balance between your own cottage spamming, units building and expansion.

I'll second this. I was a steady deity Civ3 player but the transition to Civ4 was very tough for me, keeping me around monarch for a half year or more. Un-learning the old stuff was tougher than learning the new. The changes to corruption feel very weird at first, but make the economy a much richer game than past Civ titles.

Also, for its simplicity and awesomeness I'll quote another very recent post with thanks.

Your playing noble. You should have at least 3 cities by 2000bc. Around 5 cities by 1000bc. 6-8 cities by 1ad.

About 1.5 worker for each city. Although this may not happen till you have 3-4+ cities.

First build is normally always a worker. Settler about size 3.

First tech normally a food based tech like Agriculture or AH.

2nd city should always have a food resource in inner ring.

Don't be afraid to share the capitals food with a 2nd/3rd city.

Don't under estimate pottery early on for cottages and granaries!

Whipping is your friend.