Strategies For Beginners

[Poida12]

Yeah i've read the forums but i hoped to get some good basic advice in one convenient place. Not just for myself but for everyone who's new.

I took your advice yesterday and began playing noble. Good advice. After the first few false starts i got the hang of it and eventually managed a domination victory on a small map. I have found a little issue i was hoping you guys would adress though. Culture flipping cities tended to be difficult in Civ 3 and took time. When i invaded Isabella last night, took one of her cities i was only able to hold it for around ten turns, with two garissoned units and some culture because Catherine was just too strong culturally. This happened in almost every Spanish city i took. Is therer a solution or should i merely aviod taking on enemies next to very strong enemies?

[Poida12]

One other thing i wondered is about worker automation and selecting city sites. Since the computer gives advice in the form of little blue squares for good sites for improvement and cities, should i take that advice or is it in fact not always ideal? So far it seems to be ok to me but i am probable missing something.

Also how to you turn that off? I couldn't find where to do it.

[khearn]

Poida12,

Yeah, taking a city near a well established third-party city is very hard to pull off. If you zoom out to the global view and click on the "cultural influence" icon in the lower left (above the mini-map), you'll see areas where two civ's colors are merged together. This is where their cultures overlap. You can also see it in the normal map by hovering over a tile near a border and seeing something like "Chinese 87%", meaning that the tile has more Chinese culture, but also has 13% of some other culture(s).

If one culture is removed (by having a city conquered), the other culture is still there. The conquerer has no culture at all there, so the pre-existing culture from the third-party takes control.

About the only way to have a chance is to bring in a Great Artist (GA) and have him create his great work (aka a culture bomb). This will boost the city's culture, but it seems to take time to diffuse out of the city into the surrounding tiles. If you keep checking the culture percentages in the tiles just over the border, you'll see the other culture slowly receed, 99%, 98%, 96%, etc. When it gets down below 50%, the tile will switch to you. It takes time, and you still might not be able to keep the city from revolting before you get enough breathing room.

[Poida12]

Can barbaians take cities again in this one? I was very surprised to find one in an ideal spot for my nice new settler. Nearly got him killed. I couldn't beleive how many troops it had defending its borders. It took me a sizable force to take it. That seems redundant unless you can then interact wtih the barbarians like you would any other civ. Maybe if they bacame a new civ...that would liven things up.

[Urban Ranger]

Culture is very, very, strong in Civ 4. So if you want to achieve a military victory you must act swift and early. Letting other players to build up culture is a bad thing for you.

[teaster]

If you have to take that high culture city be sure to pound it with siege weapons first to lower the defense value and bring enough units to take it in 1 turn. If you can't do either just pillage the countryside and build your forces.

When you first start the game, don't expand so fast that you can't support your cities and maintain a high level of research. If you notice you're lowering you research below what you feel comfortable with it's best to wait until your income is on the rise before plopping down a new city.

Don't be too quick to say no when a nation demands tribute or requests a tech. If you are looking to have good relations with them this is a good opportunity to get some +'s (This one is very difficult because you have to overcome the instinct of telling them to go forth and multiply)

MOST IMPORTANT -- There is always time for 1 more turn

[teaster]

Barbarians can take cities, they will also build new cities and if they are left alone they will build tile improvements, buildings and though I've never seen it I've heard they will even build wonders

[Yosh]

Confirmed! One More Turn(TM) is ESSENTIAL!

[Quillan]

I've seen cities with wonders fall to barbarians before, but have yet to encounter a barbarian city that built one. I also never see them with temples, but that would makes sense as they have no religion. I have found harbors, lighthouses and colisseums in barbarian cities before. They like walls too.

[teaster]

One more point for the beginners about barbarians, they will not spawn in areas that are visible or sighted. Those are areas you currently have line-of-sight to, not areas you have explored in the past.

If you have a large area of un-sighted (I don't think that's a word but it'll do) tiles in your area you should be prepared for barbarians to sally forth. If you can place some units to reveal the area that's even better.

For example, I had what I thought was a fortunate starting spot once with a choke point to the east and one to the west of my starting city with plenty of good city spots in between and nothing but tundra to the south. I rush built a couple of settlers to block the choke points and built a few defenders in case my neighbours got pushy. I didn't take into account that I had left a large swath of land in the middle of my empire that was not "sighted". It started with a few warriors harrasing my workers, then groups of archers threatening my new cities and finally hordes of axemen were ravaging the heart of my empire.

I learned to respect the barbarian that day.

[khearn]

Originally posted by teaster

I learned to respect the barbarian that day.

If you want an exercise in dealing with barbs, do a custom game with a large or huge pangea map, and only one AI civ. The barbs will probably be more of a problem than the AI.

[Diadem]

Yeah, I still have to try that. A huge pangea map with 1 enemy civ and raging barbarians.

Does difficulty matter for the strength of the raging barbs?

[Poida12]

I was playing last night as Isabella vs. Inca and German forces and it was a bit of an all out frenzy. There was war in about every turn and it was so close that nobody ever really came out on top. Thus i decided to fast track towards a diplomatic victory but culd n't get the other civs to like me enough to get voted for a win. is there a time limit on when the '-8 you went to war with us' is made redundant and all that hard work i did gets me more than cautious or pleased from the ai?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Poida12
is there a time limit on when the '-8 you went to war with us' is made redundant and all that hard work i did gets me more than cautious or pleased from the ai?

That won't expire, and I don't think you can turn that one around for a UN vote. Bribes can only get you up to +4 on the 'fair trade' ledger, but other positives are available. Eg: Long term resources trading, long term regular tech trading, wartime alliances, shared religions, some shared civics, agreeing help requests and tribute demands.