Jumping from civ2 to civ4

[freegere]

Well it has been about a decade since I visited this site, or played civ (v2) ... and browsing on this site spured the flame once more so I decided to start playing civ again ... but I remember that for civ 2 there existed a couple of great strategy guides made by great players ... do these kind of guides also excist for civ 4 ?

[snoopy369]

Yes - Vel's strategy thread, though dated as it's only Vanilla, is here somewhere; and there are several other more specific strategy threads (Dominae's thread about Golden Ages, for example).

Overall, read Vel's strat thread first (or even Sirian's walkthrough, available I think from realmsbeyondcivilization.net or whatever the web address for that site is) to get an idea of the difference between Civ2 and Civ4 (it's quite different).

[joncnunn]

Well, one advantage of jumping from Civ II to Civ IV is you won't have to unlearn the new features in Civ III that aren't in Civ IV.
(Perhaps the bigest example was that Civ III allowed mining of grassland.)

[Unimatrix11]

Werent there commercial guides, too ? I remember like 2 years ago i saw them in the shelves in the states - took a quick look at them and they seemed really basic - kinda what should have been in the manual...

[Krill]

Yeah, but it is another way to leach money from teh "casual" gamer, isn;t it...

[Willem]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Werent there commercial guides, too ? I remember like 2 years ago i saw them in the shelves in the states - took a quick look at them and they seemed really basic - kinda what should have been in the manual...

The strategy etc. articles you can find here and over at CivFanatics are just as good, if not better, than any commmercial one. And they won't cost you a dime. Plenty has been written about different aspects of the game, so just do some reading and you can learn alot.

[ybrevo]

I took the jump from Civ II to Civ IV as well - after a long break from the game. I would say, the manual that comes with the game is mostly for beginners who has never played Civ before. A bit disappointing compared to the almost 200 pages long book that came with version II, and also taught a lot about the historic aspects (I still have it and still read it ...).

The best advise I can give you is to take your time reading a lot of threads in this forum. Use "search" if you have questions on anything specific, and follow some of the members´ stories of their games. It is great fun and an easy way to learn ideas on strategy.

Anyway, freegere - good luck!

PS. Mining grassland in Civ III sounds funny. Was it strip mining? Or did they feel the mine would be closer to the underground, if they didn´t put in on a hill?

ybrevo

[Ming]

You can still mine grasslands in Civ IV, but only if their is resource that requires mining. (I love seeing Iron appear on grasslands)

I remember playing Civ III for a short while, and then whet back to Civ II. Civ IV on the other hand is a great game, and I probably will never play Civ II again.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Willem


The strategy etc. articles you can find here and over at CivFanatics are just as good, if not better, than any commmercial one. And they won't cost you a dime. Plenty has been written about different aspects of the game, so just do some reading and you can learn alot.

That's right. The vanilla strategy guide was pretty good, it was actually written by someone who's had a lot of experience and was really good at the game. The guide was good at the time because the game was new and there was only a handful of people with any real strategic knowledge of it at that point.

The guide is long since redundant and obsolete, though. Articles here and in the CFC forums provide a wider and deeper range of information. A note for CFC - under their Strategy forum, there's a separate Strategy Articles subforum. That's where most of the really detailed and in-depth guides are. It's particularly good if you want in-depth information on a specific mechanic in the game.

[Heraclitus]

Even the admins admit poly’s utter uselessness.

@freegere: A realy few very basic tips:
ICS is dead
Religion is fun but you are free to ignore it in the first few games
Population rushing (introduced in Civ3) is very important to a lot of strategies

[snoopy369]

True ICS is dead, but semi-ICS is still the best strategy most of the time

[ybrevo]

Probably a stupid question, but what is "CFC forums" and "ICS"?

All these insider abbreviations isn´t exactly making life easier for us newbies.

YBV (ybrevo)

[Colon™]

CFC = http://civfanatics.com/

ICS = Infinite City Sleaze: part strategy, part exploit of blindly settling as many cities as possible as fast as possible, without bothering to develop or defend them too much (at first). It's extremely effective, but makes for boring games. Not particularly a problem in Civ2 since the AI wouldn't do ICS, but in Civ3 it would. Hence you were forced do it as well, to avoid an uphill struggle for most of the game. In Civ4, you can afford to be more relaxed about settling new cities.

[ybrevo]

Colon - thanks for the explanations and the link.

I almost always used ICS in Civ2, and you are right, the game became boring and predictable.

ybrevo

[Heraclitus]

CFC=WTF