I preordered CivIV and haven't played a full game yet.

[D4everman]

Hello

I have a simple, but kind of silly question. I preordered Civ4 when I first heard about it, having been a fan of the game since civII. I installed it and it was a bit laggy on my pc, but playable. However I didn't play the game. You see I usually get hooked into games, especially civ games ath the exclusion of anything else I might play or do on my PC. At the time I was playing City of Heroes with a friend a lot and I knew it would take time and effort to get the hang of the new civ. But I'm thinking of giving Civ IV its due this week and I just wanted to know how most people have found it so far. I'll have to check but have there been any patches I should download?

I guess i'm just curious on what the general feel of the game is to most people. Sorry if this seems like a silly question.

[Tokyo Sexwale]

Erm, you're joking right? There's a thread at the top of the page called "Your review of Civ4". And hundreds of other posts. Read!

If you have a decent conx you can update to the latest patch within the game under Advanced --> Check for Updates.

[MikeH]

It's great + install patch 1.52 before you start.

[D4everman]

Yes, I did that when I read that it was supposedly for machines with minimum requirements. I suppose I should have checked for reviews before posting my question. I'm not sure about how the newer features work....I tried to start a game during my lunch break to get a feel for it. I'm not surewhat to build first or what religion does or even how the farming works right now. Is there an online strategy guide? (I'll look in the forums but no harm in asking)

[Solver]

Uhmm no the patch isn't for machines with minimum requirements. It does, though, make some great performance improvements - I can now play Large maps without any lag and also run some other applications in the background. Also, the 1.52 patch has a few balance tweaks and small new features.

1.52 also has a special mode for machines with very low specifications, but you most probably don't want it.

[alva]

I'm not surewhat to build first or what religion does or even how the farming works right now.

Noone is with their first few game, so don't worry, you'll catch up.

Go for an easy level, try some stuff out and keep the manual nearby.
Reading completely before playing even one game, well, there's going too much in it which won't make much sense, until you've seen it in action.

Have fun.

[Rook]

I'm the same way, I find it hard to play more than one game at a time. D&D online is coming and I still haven't had my fill of Civ4 so I am holding off on getting it.

[D4everman]

I'll have to give it a go, but I'm unsure of the starting strategy. In Civ III I used to try and expand like crazy. It was important to me to grab as much terrain as I could so I could secure resources. Is that as important in this version of the game?

I've heard that large civilizations aren't a sure thing in this game.

[alva]

In Civ III I used to try and expand like crazy

Agan, as everyone has, you will try to...once!
Doesn't work in Civ4 as you'll end up bankrupt.

[LordShiva]

alva

# One for my daddy-o
One for my daddy-o
There's whisky in the jar-o #

[D4everman]

really? In Civ 3 I used to have at least 10 to 12 cities by 500 AD at least. (depending on the map) I avoided early wars and focused on defense and research. Used to make sure I had a good military to keep the wolves off of my back and for protection. The AI would always violate my territory so I made sure my army was ready, especially in border cities so if they attacked I could hold them off. I used to concentrate on research because I wanted my units to be the most advanced possible.

Civ IV seems different in this. I understand that AI civs need permission to cross your border unless they're going to war. (stop me if I'm wrong in this). That seems great to me, as I don't like to enter any conflicts until later in the game. I like to have infrastructure set up, being more of a builder than a warmonger) but I did have a rule about war. If an AI attacked me I would either destroy them (as a "lesson" to others) or most likely (due to war weariness) keep the fight up as long as possible inflicting as much damage on them as possible. Usually the ones that got that treatment were far too diminished to be a real threat afterwards.

I don't know what to expect really in CivIV. I'm sure some AI's are more agressive than others. In CivIII I knew that the persians would almost ALWAYS attack me sooner or later no matter what....in Civ IV I'm not sure. (Ha....in Civ II I hated the Carthaginians so much it was legend)

[alva]

As a rule of thumb, having ~6 cities is the target to have at 0AD in Civ4.

[MikeH]

Yes that's all true.

Montezuma will always attack you... no matter how friendly he seems at some point he's coming to attack...

[Adagio]

As what has been said, you should defently install the patch (and I believe there's another patch to be released soon, hopefully it'll be as good as the first patch, if not better)

If you're not sure about how all the things work, try out the tutorial, this might help you. I haven't tried it myself, but I guess it's worth a try


Also overexpanding is one way to make sure you'll lose very quickly

[Tokyo Sexwale]

D4, I recommend you check out this thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147474

I went through it when I'd only played like 2 Civ4 games and it helped me loads.

The other piece of advice (different to earlier Civs) I can give you is to get most (yes, most) of your military outside of your cities in the early game. Station them on forested hills (+75% bonus) just inside and outside your borders to hold off barbarians and animals and gain promotions.

Civ4 is not perfect, but it's 100 times better than Civ III. Welcome and Enjoy!