Turn me into a Civ IV jedi.
December 22, 2010 6:15 AM   Subscribe

Turn me into a Civ IV jedi.

[Tl;DR]
I've grown up being bad at video games, and 4X is just under RTS in the rankings of personal suckage. I played Colonization a bit as a kid (it was pirated and before I got the Internet, so no manual or forums to help) although I never beat it. I also got pretty good at Civilization Revolutions for the DS, but I figure that's pretty watered down.

Anyway, I picked up Civ IV complete (w/ Warlords, Beyond the Sword and the Colonization standalone remake.) I've been playing the basic game and getting, well, not awful. Still Haven't won, and still playing small worlds on Chieftain (or whatever the lowest difficulty level is,) but I'm getting my head around it.
[/Tl;DR]

I feel like there are things I Need To Know about this game. The kind of things a buddy showing you how to play tells you to keep in mind from the get-go, but the manual never mentions. Like I said, I know where the forums are and I read them, but what is it that I absolutely must know about this game that isn't obvious but necessary to have fun.

NB: I am not a person who finds sheer difficulty fun. (At least not in long-play games like Civ. I love VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy.) I know I would have a lot more fun with this game if I was concentrating on expanding and managing and wasn't banging my head against the wall due to some feature or another that I had to think around, so that's the kind of stuff I'd like to know.
posted by griphus to Computers & Internet (34 answers total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
You should spend some time in the CivFanatics Forums, especially the Strategy & Tips and Strategy Articles sections...
posted by Perplexity at 6:23 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Yeah, I'm alt-tabbing into that forum every few minutes. Any must-read threads in there?
posted by griphus at 6:25 AM on December 22, 2010


I remember this longish PDF guide as being pretty helpful:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632
posted by Perplexity at 6:27 AM on December 22, 2010


Here's what I think is *necessary to know* to have fun, as per your request. I've tried to concentrate on what someone teaching you the game would say, and no more...

1) Understand how cities grow, and the tile allocation system. You get one usable square per citizen of the town (plus the city location), and each citizen eats two food per turn. So if your city location produces two food, and your worked location produces two food, you are stockpiling two food a turn towards growth. This is good, if consumption = production, the city isn't growing. Make sure this isn't happening.

2) Cities - these are good. You want these. They should be somewhere between 4 and 6 tiles away from your other cities - too near and they'll be competing for the same resources, too far and corruption becomes a problem.

3) Workers should be set on auto.

4) Tax rate - this is *really important*. You should set science as high as you can without making a net loss. Do not stockpile money. If you stockpile money by accident, raise the science budget until you have spent it.
posted by piato at 6:31 AM on December 22, 2010


Man, there is a lot of stuff to talk about here. For the sake of my productivity this afternoon, I'm going to limit myself to just a couple of tips.

Congrats on getting Civ IV, first of all. It's the best game in the Civilization series, and quite probably the best strategy game around period.

The early part of a Civ IV game is all about expansion and exploration.

When you're expanding, you're most worried about food production. It's the little wheat bales you can see in your city screen. More of that means your city grows faster. When you want to make new cities, you build settlers, who (unlike buildings and military units) are produced with food, too. So food is pretty important.

When you found your first city, it helps to ensure that it's near a bonus food resource like wheat, cows, or corn. The very first thing I build in my first city is a worker who immediately improves the food production of the surrounding tiles. This gets me on the way to building a settler, and thus, my second city.

Meanwhile, I've got my first military unit exploring the world. This is useful because uncovering tribal huts will generate gold and new units at the lower difficulty levels. This also lets me scout for my second city location.

So in a nutshell - [b]don't stop thinking about expansion early on[/b]. Maintain at least one worker per city and keep them occupied. Covet food resources to fuel your early expansion.

Once you've got a few cities laid down, start into building your military, because if one of your AI neighbours senses that his military is significantly larger then yours, he'll take advantage of that.

Does this help? Have fun, griphus!
posted by CRM114 at 6:31 AM on December 22, 2010


The great thing about Civ is that there's no "right" way to play it. I'm reading piato's post above mine and disagreeing with almost all of it. :)
posted by CRM114 at 6:32 AM on December 22, 2010


The Civ Fanatics forums are a great resource, but they're more useful when you're trying to get from can-beat-warlord to a higher level. My wife (who isn't a gamer at all) was able to beat warlord pretty consistently with the tips above, and relatively little else - you shouldn't need to optimise build orders or anything like that until you hit Prince.

Oh, and feel free to memail me! I love Civ IV beyond nearly anything.
posted by piato at 6:34 AM on December 22, 2010


Haha, and CRM is totally on the money - you'll find your own style! It's really an amazing, beautiful game.
posted by piato at 6:36 AM on December 22, 2010


My personal revelation (im no master, never really get past prince level) came when I played as vikings and stuck to the coasts. Having a cash bonus from every sea tile meant piles of money, which can go a long way to getting around issues that might crop up (need a unit fast, need to finish a building, need to focus economy on special project for a few turns). Its certainly not a panacea, but choosing a culture with a money bonus and focusing on exploiting it might give you a leg up on learning/enjoying other aspects of the game without worrying about your economy grinding to a halt all the time.
posted by Sharakov at 6:44 AM on December 22, 2010


I don't know if this is helpful to you, but I play Civ IV like I play SimCity. That is, I simply don't care about "winning" any sort of victory. I like to build my civilization with a pretend realism, allowing the events of the game and the shape of the world to determine my intermediate and long-term goals. Sometimes my only goal is to screw Suleiman. I enjoy waiting and seeing what sort of mess my allies make for themselves, then swooping in to "clarify" the situation.

If you haven't tried it out yet, load the "Rhye's and Fall of Civilization" mod included with the pack you bought. It's a real Earth map, with cultures emerging at their historical calendar date, even rising right out of existing civs. There's an added layer of complexity, too, with the application of "stability" factors for each civilization.

I recently had a lot of fun playing Rome from its beginning about 600 BC, with a goal of becoming the Indispensable Nation of the modern era and bulwark against the Islamification of Europe. It was a blast, especially trying to balance stability enough to keep Jerusalem and Constantinople from declaring independence or trying to join the Ottomans during the 1600's. I finally did "win" by launching a Roman starship to Alpha Centauri in 2012 AD.
posted by General Tonic at 6:44 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


yes. Civ IV is awesome.

As the posters above have said, understanding how production works is huge. Have your workers focus on tiles that will add food and productivity to your cities. (farms on river deltas, mines on hills, etc)

The next key is understanding the combat system. CivFanatics is a huge help here. Two short points: 1. overwhelming force is a good thing. 2. When taking cities, bombardment is very helpful for weakening their defenses.

The most important thing I learned from CivFanatics, though, which helped me go from "ehh" to pretty good: set goals. Start with an overarching goal (I plan to win via conquest, or by spaceship). Then have mid-range goals ("I want to build The Great Library, which requires Literature, so I'm going to race for that in research", or "I want to take that island next door, so Ill need ships and troops in 25 turns" or "I want to make sure I have iron when it becomes visible, so I'll explore now.") Do everything in service of those goals - don't just do things haphazardly. Also, know your civilization's strengths, and take advantage of them. What buildings can they build cheaply? When do they get their unique unit? Some civs are easier than others to play with.
posted by chbrooks at 6:52 AM on December 22, 2010


Log time Civ player, and my key to success is expand early on. It is much easier to build Settlers and expand with minimal resource needed versus a war to expand where you need exponentially more resources. Granted, the war is more fun and you'll eventually need it to expand as the game progresses, but it is also much easier to win a war with 10+ cities building units versus 2. My typical setup is 1) Build city
2) Build cheap defensive unit in that city to protect against barbarians. That will usually get me up to city size 2-3.
3) Build Worker for that city. Contrary to the other advice, I never set them on auto except late in the game when micro managing 20 workers looses its appeal. I set them to manual because I am a large-city fanatic. I want my population of 30!!! the thing is, automated workers tend to build mines>irrigation- I prefer irrigation and the city size and money that comes with it. By the same token, I always try to build a few cities near hills or other terrain with production to build mines. I use these cities to build production Wonders and wonders in general. Plus, when I get in wars, its convenient to have cities that can pump out a unit in <5> 4) After building worker, I miiiiight build a library, but otherwise it goes straight to another Settler. I do this because if I don't build a worker/settler ASAP, there's always that next best building to build and I just never get around to it. Either way, if you make every city build a Settler at predefined moment, you'll force yourself to expand.
5) Build research buildings. Research wins, not just for a science victory, but units and improvements that give you advantage over your foe.
6) Plan ahead on what science you want. I don't think Civ IV had over-powered wonders, but Civ II had a few ridiculously overpowered Wonders that I'd always research first to get that wonder built.
7) Going to war? ROCK ON!!! The big thing is STACKS OF DOOM. Simply put, build more units than you think you'll ever need. Attack with overwhelming numbers and pwn their cities. Later in the game, particularly with flight, bombardment rules the day. It can eliminate the need for STACKS OF DOOM as you get STEALTH BOMBARDMENT OF DOOM.
posted by jmd82 at 7:18 AM on December 22, 2010


Long-time Civ veteran and modder here—from the original DOS Civ 1. I (somewhat) recently acquired the last expansion for IV myself, and have not yet dared to proceed beyond the second-lowest difficulty level, but I win consistently at that level.

Some miscellaneous tips:
- Try a larger map setting. The smaller maps pit you against the enemies sooner, which makes it tricky to build up a good defense. (Of course, you also get more to worry about...but FWIW I never play on small maps, and the "hardcore" Civvers seem to always play on small maps.)

- Combat tip I only just learned: with your active unit, right-click on the unit you plan to attack before you attack it. This shows you the odds of your combat succeeding or failing. I've seen people say (on the aforementioned Civ Fanatics forum) that they do not attack unless the odds are 95% or higher. I know I have been more reckless than this, but I've probably paid for it too.

- Privateers Privateers Privateers!! Build a lot of them and always keep them stacked. Other civs can't tell that they're yours, so you can sink others' ships without declaring war. Do this a lot and you'll spawn some Great Generals over time. You can also blockade enemy port cities and gather 2-10 gold *per turn*, from *each* city.

- As in other civs, the trick to early expansion is knowing the right balance. In Civ IV I find it's easy to quickly run out of money if you expand too fast—but nonetheless I still tend to expand pretty fast. You NEED cities.

- I also like big cities, which means I irrigate like crazy, and so I value rivers highly early on. People will talk up other terrain improvements (like workshops and watermills) but I go with lots of irrigation early on, plus one or two production-type improvements like mines. Bigger cities are more flexible. (This creates problems of its own, of course, but they are problems I would rather deal with than the reverse—small cities under threat from enemies and incapable of defending themselves.)

Everyone has their own style of play with Civ. I like what General Tonic had to say; that's how I keep it fun, too. But I will say this: micromanaging helps a LOT with Civ, so I hope you like to micromanage.
posted by AugieAugustus at 7:24 AM on December 22, 2010


Awww man, i love civ

I always like bigger worlds instead of small worlds, more time to chill out and enjoy the scenery

just about the whole game will be defined by where you start, and how you balance building settlers and millitary early on, on the easy levels you can get away with building a metric ton of settlers

Dont freak out if you are last in a rankings that pops up, they dont really mean much early on, just keep expanding

You really can't ignore many aspects of the game once you get past, i dunno, 6 or 7 cities, city growth (you HAVE to have good food tiles, especially early on, so your dudes dont starve), culture, defense, if things really suck maybe you are just missing a basic thing in one of these areas

Once you get going, dont be afraid to automate cities, you can set priorities ( i dont remember the specifics for each, but a typical governor starts pumping out military units, sometimes this is not what you want)

Also, for management, I like to name my cities in semi-organized ways with a humorous name and a cardinal direction, so if something pops up saying Boogerswamp South is pissed at the emporer, I can quickly tell where it is generally
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 7:44 AM on December 22, 2010


Thought of a couple additional points:

- Regarding your chosen civ leader: hover your mouse over the flag in the middle of your lower HUD bar to remind yourself of your traits. I do this a lot to help me remember what my civ's strengths are, and play to them.

- Never leave a city undefended for more than, like, a single turn. Never ever ever. This may sound like noob advice, but there may be occasions where you're tempted. Don't give in!

- AI diplomacy in Civ IV is vastly improved over other games. You can actually calm down an Annoyed or Furious opponent with gifts of technology, and at the lower levels, you'll usually have a technological edge, so use it. Just be careful you don't give Knights to Genghis before you're ready to face them!

- I usually jack up my Culture to 10% by the time I have a well-established border with another civ, and I'll jack it up to 20% or 30% if I really want to assimilate them. I also jack up my espionage to 10% as soon as I see the espionage icon appear for my enemies. In both cases, it's about maintaining the edge. Again, this is on the two lowest difficulty levels.

- Any time you're transporting a valuable unit by sea (say, a Great Something, or a highly-promoted regular military unit, or a settler you NEED on another land ASAP), and your sea transport spies a barbarian, UNLOAD THAT CARRIED UNIT immediately. You never know when that barbarian galley will be accompanied by THREE MORE damn galleys or something. Better to strand that unit far from home and destination (and retrieve it later) than have it drown. I can't tell you how much heartache I have suffered from losing a favored unit because his ship was less awesome than he was.

On preview: I like yeahyeahwoo's advice about custom city names. For example, I often play as (you guessed it) the Romans, and if the port city nearest Rome isn't called Ostia, I rename it as such. Helps me keep track.
posted by AugieAugustus at 7:51 AM on December 22, 2010


When I play, I have a set build order for new cities. If the city is in the interior, then it goes City -> Worker -> Troop -> Granary. If it's one of my border marches, then it's City -> Troop -> Worker -> Troop -> Temple.

I usually play on larger maps and so try to build Border Marches (ie, cities located on chokepoints) whose Culture is high enough to effectively block off large swathes of land for future use. I never, ever, ever agree to let other Civs cross through my borders. This is just a recipe for disaster when they start plopping cities right down in the middle of my bread basket or whatever.

Never give away the secret to gunpowder. Always use your culture Greats on border cities to expand your Culture and possibly envelop neighbors.

Obviously, I tend to play Creative leaders, but I tend to win via conquest as there are very few times when other cultures will vote for you to get the UN win. Once you start rolling out the tanks to knock your chief foe down a peg, you usually end up losing a lot of votes and well, bloodshed is addicting.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:14 AM on December 22, 2010


Throwing in my two gold coins...

- I like to leave my early cities undefended for the first 15-20 minutes of play, preferring to send out my military units to scout the surrounding terrain. First, knowing what's around you -- resources, other civs, potentially strategic chokepoints -- early on will give you a big edge in building a solid foundation for your civilization. Second, it gets you more goodie huts. Third, if the barbarians come and wipe you out, meh. It's only been 15 minutes, just start over.

- When waging war, never attack a city until you've built up enough of an army to take it in one turn. The right-click to see combat odds technique AugieAugustus mentioned is useful here. Wearing down defenders turn by turn doesn't work -- units that survive your attack get combat promotion bonuses and just get harder to kill. Exception: Do use your catapults/cannon/artillery to wear down enemy city's defense bonuses - that does accumulate over time.
posted by penguinicity at 8:17 AM on December 22, 2010


You might wanna go with the Great Plains map (basically the US) until you start winning. That way, you'll have the map as a constant while you experiment with other factors. I also prefer the huge map.

I'm a bit like jmd82 in that I tend to win based on expansion. In the early part of the game, a fairly easy pattern is new city --> warrior --> worker --> settler --> wonder --> settler --> buildings. I tend to build the Great Wall ASAP since barbarians are such an annoyance otherwise. Also, depending on how lucky I am with goody huts, I'll build a few scouts.

I try to get religions before anybody else does (I usually miss one or two) so that I can spend a great prophet on that religion's building. You can end up making lots of money that way and can potentially stay at 100% science for a good while.

I also try to get to currency and paper before anybody else so I can get an economic boost from selling the world map to everybody over a couple of turns.
posted by kimota at 8:21 AM on December 22, 2010


I've played a lot of Civ over the years, and this is the single best piece of advice you can follow:

jmd82: "Contrary to the other advice, I never set them on auto except late in the game when micro managing 20 workers looses its appeal."

Automated workers tend to build mines less,- I personally prefer production to food early on, as long as your city is growing. Being able to knock out buildings and units quickly will really help you later on.

Some other military-related tips:

- There are a couple military techs that enable new units that are, IMO, complete game-changers if you get them before most/all the other civs: knights, cavalry, and tanks. Those 3 units are highly mobile, and can cut through stacks of enemy units that tend to be running around at the time. A squad of tanks can rip through several enemy cities at the end of the game. DO NOT TRADE THESE TECHS AWAY. Each eventually has a unit that effectively nullifies its main advantage (pikemen(?), riflemen, mech. infantry), but even then they're very useful to tearing up an enemy's attacking army.

- Pyramids (all civics available) is a fantastic wonder. Get it at all costs.

- It's always easier to fight on defense. Even if you're declaring war, hold back unless you're sure you can take a city or two on the first round. The other civ will immediately send units into your territory if there are none in its own. It's a cheap-but-effective way to pare down an opposing army before sacking its cities.

- It's often as effective to wage war by denying resources (park a unit on the tile and/or blow up the improvement on it) as to sack cities. Seizing iron mines and oil fields, for example, prevents your opponent from replacing quality military units.

- Spies are cheap and incredibly effective, especially their "disrupt fortifications" ability. Send some into a city before you siege it to give your units a huge boost.

- Use your Great Engineers to complete wonders.

- Switch to the State Property civic as soon as you can. Assuming you have a good-sized civ late in the game, it'll cut down your maintenance significantly and give you a good production boost.

- Trade away as many resources as you can spare. The AI isn't shy about giving you a big wad of cash for them.

- Build "production boost" buildings (workshop, factory, etc.) as soon as you reasonably can.
posted by mkultra at 9:31 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


ok - a couple more things ...

As others have said, one of the great things about Civ is that there's so many ways to play it, especially at the lower levels. You can be a warmonger, lead in culture, win the tech race, or some combination of the three.

If you're having trouble at the lowest levels, I suspect a couple of things might be happening:

- too much focus on building Wonders, especially early. I pretty rarely build wonders in the early stages of the game - it just takes too long. Let your neighbor build them and then take them later :-)

- war before you're ready. This might be a consequence of the small map; once the AI is done expanding, it'll think more about conquest. Also, know who your neighbors are - if you have the Aztecs or Zulu next door, you can expect them to try to start something. If it's India or Portugal, they'll be less aggressive. If you have a close or aggressive neighbor, prioritize building units, either to defend or to take them out early.

- not developing your cities. I also tend to favor city growth early on - that large population will really help you out. So lots of farms, or a harbor if you're on the coast. Later on, when you've got lots of excess food, change them to villages to get the extra gold. I very rarely automate my workers.

- Pop huts. Especially if you're an Expansionist civ, build a scout or two. A lower difficulty levels, huts have all kinds of great things in them, but you have to get to them first.
posted by chbrooks at 9:33 AM on December 22, 2010


The important thing about Civ IV is to run over one of your neighbors as soon as you can. Ideally you'll be able to do this with a stack of six or seven axes, but that doesn't always happen. Once you've taken over one of your neighbors, your options for the rest of the game expand to pretty much anything. (You might be able to avoid this under really favorable conditions, like if you block off your neighbors at a land bottleneck, or if you're Catherine with your first city on a plains hill, or... there's a few others)

A worker should be the first or second thing you build, usually.

Early techs are important – you want to hook up the resources next to your first cities, first, and then get a fighting unit – axes or chariots – online, because the best way to deal with barbarians is to attack them. Other techs to go for include alphabet for tech trading, mathematics for catapults, currency/ code of laws to help your economy not crash from expanding. The Oracle is a good early wonder mainly because it gives you a big tech you can shop around. On Chieftain, you'll probably out-tech everyone, but as you go higher, trading techs becomes necessary to keep up.

Early religion is not considered so advantageous, though if you're one tech away from it at the beginning you can just grab one. Usually the first religion I found is Confucianism, and sometimes it's Christianity.

Cottages usually beat farms (unless you know what you're doing).

Specialize your cities towards either production (mines/watermills/workshops + farms, and buildings to increase production), commerce (cottages/libraries/universities), or, more rarely, money (cottages/holy site/markets/banks).
posted by furiousthought at 10:06 AM on December 22, 2010


Log time Civ player, and my key to success is expand early on.

This, in a nutshell. The early game is a landgrab. You may think you need that extra defensive unit or city improvement or whatever, but unless there's a visible imminent threat, more often than you might think the better choice in the early game is to crank out another settler and claim some more prime real estate. If you're doing this right, your research will lag in the beginning because you're devoting so many resources to cranking out settlers/bootstrapping new cities, so I generally will at this point make any 1 for 1 tech trade available to me (aside from probably the ones enabling the military units mkultra mentions). When you've run out of space to easily expand with settlers, and your cities start producing research for you, you'll have less ground to make up. And your extra cities will ensure you catch up.
posted by juv3nal at 10:41 AM on December 22, 2010


It's the economy, stupid!

I've played a ton of Civ IV and the conclusion I came to which enables the most consistant chance of victory at any level is to get the money flowing. Oftentimes money can seem to be only marginally important in the game, when it is actually vital. In the early game money is important (and can really only be gotten from tribal villages) because once you expand, you'll start losing money, so if you have a built in cushion, you can hemmorage money for longer without lowering your science rate (which is incredibly important). Later money is essential because if you have a big stockpile of cash you can upgrade troops at a moments notice. The ability to turn 3 defending archers into 3 longbowmen in one turn is an incredibly powerful defense. Money in Civ IV is important because it always gives you options. Finally, in the late game, money is essential because you can just buy completion of buildings (or troops). I find this most useful when I've taken over an enemy city and the people are mad at me, quickly building some cultural buildings converts the population to yours more quickly.

Now, money is incredibly important, so how to get it? Religion. Can you found one of the first three religions? If so, do so. If you can't, but you get a great prophet? Then found christianity ASAP, if you still can't? Then put all your military focus into taking over someone else's city who has founded a religion in that city. Once you have control of a city that founded a religion, allocate your great people points towards getting a great prophet (great prophet wonders help, and choosing priest specialists in the city window). The sooner you get a great prophet the better, as they will found the special religious building for that religion. This building will produce 1 gold per turn, per city (in the whole world) that has that religion. So if the religion is already well spread, spread it further, and if it's not, build those missionaries. If you have markets and banks (and any other money producing buildings) in that city of yours, it'll be pumping out money like crazy.

An economic advantage will buy your way out of many, many problems.

Also, I would recommend that you try a huge world, longest length setting sometime (the game does last forever that way) but it's far more enjoyable and tends to be preferred (I think) by people who love Civ.
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:29 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


I also wanted to continue with what others said, that there are many, many ways to be successful playing the game. I certainly disagree with a lot of the recommendations here but have no doubt people are successful with them. Mastering the mechanics and seeing cause and effect of early choices is important to success, but there are endless ways to win the game.
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:33 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


One more thing! Stone and marble. The only resources I will travel a long way for (even to the point of building a city in an inadvantageous location) are stone and marble. Both of these give a huge production bonus for building certain wonders, which can virtually assure you'll build them first. Getting harrassed by barbarians too much? Great Wall keeps them out of your borders (meaning they harrass your enemies), and gives you great engineer points, which can help you get to more wonders in the future. Oracle grants a free tech (which means you can choose a more advanced one that normally would be out of range at the time). I'd disagree with what someone else said about wonders, definitely don't underestimate them when used strategically (and built quickly with stone and/or marble!)
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:40 AM on December 22, 2010


Congrats on getting Civ IV, first of all. It's the best game in the Civilization series,

Does Civ V suck? Haven't gotten it yet, so just wondering.

Also, all the Civ IV games are on sale today on Steam, with the Complete edition adding up to $7.50.
posted by Runes at 11:50 AM on December 22, 2010


Reading this thread makes me want to go back to playing Civ 4... just one more turn! I would also add that each Civ has certain strengths with units and buildings and it's definitely worthwhile to rush towards the tech needed to take advantage of those units. Ideally you can be set to start attacking your nearest enemy just before or at the time that you reach that militarily superior unit. Also, I like building barracks early to get better units early.

I've never won the game any other way than with military as I tend to struggle a bit more when I get towards the endgame.

I agree with expanding quickly and striking early.
posted by indigo4963 at 11:51 AM on December 22, 2010


Early in the game, chop forests down with your workers. This adds a one-time production boost to the nearest city and with enough nearby timber you can get all your basic buildings up quickly. Once I discovered this tactic, Civ IV was a completely different game. It's like pouring Miracle-Gro on your cities.

My other piece of advice, as many others have mentioned, is to just play the game. The Civilization series is pretty damn good at not being too "gamey" or min-max. Do the things that make sense for a civilization in general, and those things that suit your civ's individual character, and you'll do well overall.
posted by Nahum Tate at 11:55 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Stop playing Chieftain -- it'll just give you bad habits. Jump to Noble.

Use the BUG mod for a better UI and more info presented.

I'll ditto Perplexity's recommendation of Sisutil's PDF.
posted by Zed at 12:00 PM on December 22, 2010


Runes: "Does Civ V suck? Haven't gotten it yet, so just wondering."

As a longtime Civ devotee, I'm a fan of Civ V. It's certainly a reflection of a "less is more" aesthetic that has put off some longtime players. I wish they had found a way to keep religion, but I prefer the new civics model. As a wargamer, I find the one-unit-per-tile and hex map a rewarding twist- you can't just march out a stack of units to crush your enemies. And I don't miss pollution or having to obsess over happiness (if your cities become unhappy, they just stop growing instead of unleashing a cascading wave of weakness).
posted by mkultra at 12:12 PM on December 22, 2010


BTW for everyone interested, there seem to be some Christmas sales going on at Steam, I just bought Civ 4 and "Beyond the Sword" and "Colonization" and "Warlords" (I guess all the expansions) for €6,49. The download servers are slow though.
posted by wolfr at 2:50 PM on December 22, 2010


Runes, Civ V does not suck. But it is nowhere near as polished as Civ IV yet - though how could it be? Give Civ V an expansion pack and a couple more big patches and it'll be as good as Civ IV.
posted by CRM114 at 8:18 PM on December 22, 2010


Love Civ IV. Haven't played Civ V, but I probably won't like it much based on the reviews from friends, etc.

Anyway, I'm not that great at the game, but I do consistently win on Warlord level at least. So take my advice for what it's worth.

On CivFanatics Forum, a user called Sisutil has created a great basic strategy doc. There are also a number of spreadsheets that users have created that are easier to reference than the Civopedia, and sometimes have more information. (One thing the guide talks about is the Code of Laws slingshot technique, which involves building the Oracle. A good tactic.)

If I can, I like to take out one civilization in the very early game. Chunk out a couple of warriors (3 or 4) and go womp on a nearby city while the civ still only has one.

I also like to save my game a lot, especially before I "experiment" by starting a war, or building a wonder or something. I am not ashamed to restart my game on an earlier turn, and it helps with the learning curve to see how your decisions affect your game.

Once you get the hang of Civ IV and think you want to Civ V, heed this advice: download the Rise of Man + A New Dawn mods available via CivFanatics. These mods are everything that hard core IV players would want V to be. If you want a completely different experience, download the Fall from Heaven mod. This leans much more toward a D&D type of game, with magic and mages and wizards and shit.

As far as expansion goes, I've been told that if you have to lower your research rate to less than 60% then you are probably not hauling in enough money. Stop expanding for awhile and concentrate on building cottages and/or buildings that help build wealth.

Also, pay attention to where you put special buildings. Use your domestic advisor. Need to crank out a wonder in a hurry? See which of your cities has the highest production rating and build it there. Need more money in a hurry? See which of your cities already has a high money output and build the Bank or whatever there. A lot of those types of buildings increase things by percentage points. So 25% of a monetary rate of 4.00 is a lot more than 25% of 2.2. See what I mean?

Micromanaging is where it's at, so start paying attention to all the tiny little bits of information that Civ IV provides. Have fun!!
posted by wwartorff at 8:33 PM on December 22, 2010 [4 favorites]


As far as expansion goes, I've been told that if you have to lower your research rate to less than 60% then you are probably not hauling in enough money. Stop expanding for awhile and concentrate on building cottages and/or buildings that help build wealth.

Ohhh nonononono. You can go all the way down to 10 or 20% if you have to – as long as you have a plan to get back up as soon as possible. Plans include using specialists to help cover your research for a while, getting a holy city, grabbing economic techs, selling techs, threatening AIs for money, begging AIs for money, having a great merchant close to ready... you definitely want to stay north of 60% science the majority of the game, but sometimes when you're expanding hard or conquering somebody you gotta let those sliders slip.

One thing the guide talks about is the Code of Laws slingshot technique, which involves building the Oracle.

There are some pretty ludicrous Oracle slingshots out there. The highest I've done are Theology and Feudalism (Feudalism isn't really that worth it), but I've read about people getting Steel and similar from it at low difficulty levels.
posted by furiousthought at 10:15 AM on December 23, 2010


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