Couple questions i havent been able to find an answer to

[AusSpyder]

I've had Civ4 for a while, and recently got the 2 expansions. Over the time I've owned civ4 I think my skill has improved just enough to be able to win very easily on easiest difficulty setting, but still suffer humiliating defeats on the second lowest setting.


Cooperations: All I've really discovered about these is that they cost me a lot of money. Typically I try and spread them to every city I can, but I've read on here I don't want to do that. Prob is, I have no idea what cities I should avoid settling to

City specialisation: I've read not to build every building for every city, and that some cities should be military cities (this I already did) and as such don't need science buildings etc. Thing is, wouldn't a university still give some benefit to a military headquarters?
How do I know what city would be good for a military HQ?
Ive read to only put banks and markets etc in places with lots of cottages, is this correct?
In "specialised" cities what do I do when im finished building nothing but the required buildings? I've always been under the impression that selecting the cash/culture/research option is a waste of hammers

I don't understand specialists at all. Or the caps. I've read on half a dozen pages on these forums that you should assign specialists when you hit the happy caps. Whats the happy cap? What specialist in what city? What are extra specialists (caste system)
I've never manually or intentionally messed with this, I just sometimes find out that my cities have some specialists that I didn't assign


How do I know what terrain upgrades to build on what area? Typically I build what the worker recommends, but I realise this isn't always the wisest choice, but I'm unable to recognise when its not.

When building a capital, whats a good suggested build order?
typically I go granary>barracks>archer>worker>pyramids

Combat upgrades. Are they any good? I always pick them over other upgrades because it just seams like it would be the best, but my units never feel stronger against un promoted units. They certainly don't get more life

Finally, the catapult suicide before a town attack strategy. I don't understand this at all. Why am I suiciding them? How does this help me? They tend to always go against the first unit and die quickly doing very little damage that I can see. Am I supposed to bring a dozen or so over 2-3?

Sorry about the length of this post, it's just that my ignorance at this game are very much hampering my enjoyment. every game is either an easy culture win, a boring take over the whole world full of mace men with modern armor, or up the difficulty and lose early

[AusSpyder]

Also, what terrain am I looking for when sending out a settler?

Half the time the comp suggests I dump him in the jungle or somewhere even I can see is stupid. I usually ignore it and dump it on some resource or next to a couple resources, but often this is in a really stupid place and the city grows poor. like tundra...:S

[Baldyr]

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but the only (brief) one that answers them all is this: read the Manual. (It did wonders for me back when I started playing v1. I've read them all since then and that's the very first thing I do when I buy a new edition of or expansion for the game.)

Also, the game is designed to be scalable in detail. You actually don't need to use every feature or know what every setting and option does to be able to play the game. (Just use automation for City Management, Worker Allocation, Unit Promotions and the such.) It's only on the higher difficulty levels you're required to pay attention to all the details in order to thrive. You have been using you intuition to this point and you've actually managed to win, great! You do however have a lot to learn and the best way is not to ask here but to do your homework! Then if something's still confusing, ask away...

[Lord Avalon]

Greetings, AusSpyder, and welcome. I'm hardly an expert, but I'll try and answer what I can.

Do you have enough workers? I've seen people talk about 2/city. I don't know that I reach that, but you need more than 1/city.

I often start with a worker in my capital. If you've researched Bronze Working (BW) then you can chop trees to aid production, say of a settler, or another worker, and they can both chop trees for a settler.

I didn't see any settlers in your build order. I think you want to get a few out before starting on buildings, much less wonders.

In a production city you're looking for food and mines - so farms/pastures to support the mining (or horse) population. River and coastal sites are good for commerce - cottages in floodplains and grasslands (of course, commerce-type resources will be of aid).

For city sites you're looking for food, in terms of growth, whether specials, or some floodplains to farm (and to a lesser extent grasslands to farm). You can settle on jungle, no problem, but if there's a lot of surrounding jungle, you might want to wait till after you have Iron Working. (And extra workers help with clearing jungle.) Leave the marginal sites till later, or if it gives access to a resource you really need and can't get elsewhere.

Are you using catapults to bombard defenses first? After you've done that, if there are a lot of defenders, yes, you use catapults to do collateral damage and weaken them, so expect to use them up. I don't know about having a dozen, but you'll want to keep producing them.

Combat upgrades are good in that they provide a small boost against anything, but you want to have some specialization. City Raider is obviously a favorite. I like to have some Shock-promoted Axemen, because they're even better against marauding melee units. Flanking is good for your horse units (and Flanking II provides immunity to first strikes). If you're using a Warrior to scout early, promote him along the Woodsman line: II gives you extra mobility, and if he survives, you can bring him back, attach a Great General and make a supermedic (Wd III, Combat I then Medic promos).

You need food to support specialists. For example Scientists can keep your tech rate up, even if your science slider is down. Once I get a library in my capital, I try and get one or two Scientists going. Eventually a Great Scientist will pop, and I usually have him build an Academy in the capital. If you have founded a religion, you want to get the Shrine, so a priest specialist will add Great People Points (GPP) towards a Great Priest. (Also where possible if you've kept wonders and specialists to the same type, that will help in terms of what GP arises).

Happy cap: the point at which the next population point will be unhappy. Varies by difficulty, can be boosted by resources, certain buildings and civics.

[AusSpyder]

How do I know when a good time to create specialists is?

How will I know what the happy cap is?, will this change or is the cap set in stone for the entire game? (EG, 16 for settler, 12 for next etc)

[snoopy369]

Happy cap = most people you can have before they start being unhappy. You get a few 'free' guys, then every guy after that starts out unhappy (just like previous civ games).

It varies by the difficulty level, but usually at the beginning of the game it's something like 6 on noble.

You increase the happy cap by getting happy resources, or building temples, or getting a religion, etc.

[AusSpyder]

So if i see X amount of people saying "its too crowded" do i make them specialists?

or only when I have more unhappy faces than happy?

Im terrible at anything beyond very easy, and I dont seem to have a prob stopping cities rioting at that level, I remember 3 seemed harder to keep them happy

[snoopy369]

Specialists aren't relevant to that discussion - this isn't Civ2 Specialists aren't treated any differently, so you actually have to make them happy in some manner - or slave them away (slave = rush building/unit via population, in slavery civic). Or, of course, just try not to grow past the 'happy cap' in the first place (by not focusing on food once you get there).

Once the number of happy and unhappy faces are equal, you don't get any more useful citizens (They all become red people) and you can't use them.

[couerdelion]

Re: Couple questions i havent been able to find an answer to

Originally posted by AusSpyder
City specialisation: I've read not to build every building for every city, and that some cities should be military cities (this I already did) and as such don't need science buildings etc. Thing is, wouldn't a university still give some benefit to a military headquarters?
How do I know what city would be good for a military HQ?

By Military HQ, I think you mean the city in which you will build Heroic Epic (and probably West Point).

It will typically have one decent food source (fish, grains or animal) and a couple of production resources (eg copper). After that you’d probably have a few hills and preferably you’d also have a decent river to work with – though by no means essential.

A nice to have would be a coast. This allows you to build naval forces quickly.

It’s possible that a university may be of benefit here but once you’ve got Heroic Epic up, building a university here is more “expensive” than in another city. To explain this lets take a simple example of my military city (with HE, barracks, stable and forge). Base production is 20 and I can build Cavalry (at 180h apiece) or University (300h).

Let’s now assume I have two other cities with 16 hammers (and with Barracks and Forge).

City 1 builds cavalry (5xp) in 4 turns or university in 12 turns
Cities 2 and 3 build cavalry (3xp) in 9 turns or university in 15 turns

Run this for 12 turns with option A (City 1 builds university/Cities 2 and 3 build Cavalry) and we get 1 university + 2.7 cavalry.
The alternative (City 1 builds cavalry, 2 and 3 build universities) and we get 1.6 universities + 3 cavalry (and better ones too)

That’s the sort of leverage you can get from comparative advantage. Even though the city might benefit from a university, there has to be a compelling reason to divert production from units since greater benefit can be obtained by using other cities to bring in the science/gold.

[AusSpyder]

Is there anything wrong with promoting everything that comes out of my military city with combat 1, 2 etc

I tried making woodsmen promoted units cause i was sending them to an area surrounded by Forrest, but they lost there usefulness after the one battle.

City raider was good for my swordsmen, i would promote a ton and just capture cities with them till they all died and then replace them with knights

and I always give tanks the more first strikes ability's, and archers/machine gunners the city defense upgrades.

but yeah, typically i stick with combat

[Lord Avalon]

Tanks you want to go to Combat III, then Blitz - multiple attacks per turn, baby!

[Krill]

Tanks start with blitz anyway...

[Lord Avalon]

Oops.

[snoopy369]

Tanks should be promoted with City Raider 1,2,3

Or you could try to go for commando ... that's pretty effective if you have a ton of XP to spare (you basically have to be AGG+CHA to get that, though, on very many tanks...)

[Krill]

Tanks don't benefit from AGG...right?