New to Civ4, where to start

[SteelCrusader]

Hey all,

I've posted a few times here on the Civ2 boards. I loved every minute of the countless hours, days, weeks (solid weeks that is) that I played it, but I rarely played higher than Prince and almost never won past Warlord. I was massively disappointed with Civ3, and decided to go back and *really* dig into Civ2.

After finally beating Civ2 on Diety (once ), I've graduated to civ4, but I find myself feeling lost. All of my finely tuned strategies in Civ2 don't seem to quite apply in the same way they used to. Too much has changed. I would go through the same process that I did with Civ2, namely seeking out the most comprehensive guides I could find, but I have had little luck so far. All I can find is people essentially reproducing the Civilopedia in .txt format, which isn't helpful really. Where can I start just reading up on what I should be doing?

Thanks.

[Krill]

CFC strat forum is a good place, because most people around here aren't that good.

[Krill]

but if you want, post a start, and people here will likely tell you what to do. Normally I'd ignore them, but they'll hopefully be good enough to teach you the basics before you got to CFC where they'll teach you how to play properly.

[SteelCrusader]

Well, I should say that I already understand the *basics* of civ 4. I win easily and rather early on warlord, but on Noble I never seem to do better than just get to the end, usually slightly outscored and with no other victory completed.

Basically, I'm looking for a big tome of Civ4 knowledge. Preferably something I can download or print (no internet at work ) for me to pour over.

with regard to CFC, it seem their main page is down?

[Krill]

Start a game on noble (normal speed, continents or pangaea preferable), standard size and standard rules, and post the 4000 BC save here along with a screenshot of the start. Any civ will do, though personally I'd appreciate it if you didn't use a civ with an early UU...I'mn sure a few of us will play it through and comment on how we played it, aong with pics and saves from throughout the game.

[SteelCrusader]

Ok, I did as standard as I could. Continents, temperate, mid sea level, noble, standard size, standard speed, random civ (Rolled Ethiopia, so no early unique unit), Beyond the Sword (3.17, or whatever is newest).



Seems my screen has hidden my scout, who is on the hills directly to the left of my settlers. Looks like a good start, with corn, a floodplain, although I could be very wrong.I'm sort of neutral on the Civ itself.. Seems like I'm supposed to go for a land grab kind of game, with cultural and their special monument.

The problem is that I have no idea how fast to expand. In civ2 I built settlers literally as fast as I could, even before defenses, and just expanded to the breaking point. In my first game of Civ4, I tried the same and found myself with enormous support costs and behind. My future games had dramatically slower paced expansion, which might be an overcompensation but I'm not sure. What is the general rule of thumb for expansion, especially for this current game?

[Krill]

There are three threshold; as fast as you can build the settlers, as fast as you can build the wiorkers to improve them and as fast as you can build the units to defend them. The latter one you can ignore when you know you won;t be attacked, but should always be taken into account so that you are aware of when you have to build units. You shouldn't send out settlers to claim land without having the workers to improve the new cities though (except when you need to claim a site asap for strategic reasons such as blocking a civ into a corner or taking a choke point, or to claim a resource). Other wise I build cities as fast as I can have the workers to improve the cities. This normally equates to at least 2 workers before the first settler, at least 3 before the second and at least 4 before the third city, depending on the amount of chopping and slaving I can do.

In this situation, I'd build a worker first and tech agriculture, then bronze working. The worker would improve the corn, then chop out a second worker at size 2 (build a warrior to size 2). The chop out a third worker or a settler depending on how good the surrounding land was/where copper or horses are (research AH after BW).

You have 16 forests, which is 320 hammers pre-maths, so you should chop atleast 9 that you can irrigate pre civil service (I'd just chop all of them, you can chop 2 settlers and 2 workers out of that). Build a few warriors to defend the settlers as you expand, the scout should be enough to find the best city sites. After that, no idea, depends on the map.


PS. there isn;t a save.

[wodan11]

SteelCrusader, Krill is giving you the newbie advice, whereas IMO you're a cross between a newbie and a veteran.

In Civ 4 you want super speedy early early game, and then you need to consolidate. As you found, once you get 5 or 6 cities, you start having some big time maintenance costs. However, that does not say you should not accelerate your early game (1-4 cities). Krill's advice is superb for speeding yourself to 5-6 cities. That is, get BW, and chop forests. Get those half dozen cities as early as humanly possible, and then stop getting new cities.

One thing we don't know is if you're doing this already. If you are, great. If not, then please realize that chopping a couple of settlers can accelerate your game 100%. Without exaggeration. Having a couple of extra cities early means you are getting more early commerce, working more tiles, and building more infrastructure in those cities.

At that point, which is where you're having trouble, you need to stop expanding. Focus on getting key technologies: Currency and Code of Laws are the main ones.

Wodan

[Krill]

You'd be suprised at the amount of "Veterans" who don't bother with quick growth when they have the chance. Fair enough to the Immortal/Deity players, but for almost everyone else they don't expand quickly enough.

[SteelCrusader]

Hm, how do people usually post saves?

One thing that also blindsided me in my early games was Unhealthiness. Once I discovered that forests give health, and that you can lumbermill/RR them late game, I refrained from ever chopping them down. Was this a mistake?

Should I farm, or go for cottages? Theres so much to relearn.

[Krill]

Basically if you need food in the early game, farm, but you should only need the food to work either mines or to use specialists in your cities. Otherwise cottage is best. There are two extremes of the type of economy you can use, called specialist economy where the majority of the research comes from teh specialists you use in the city and from the great people that you produce intermittently which can be added into a city for more beakers (mainly this is from scientists and engineers, and you get more beakers when using the civic representation) or by using the great people themselves to research a tech (Lightbulbing). The other economy type is the cotttage strategy where almost everything is cottaged and the cities' population works the cottages all of the time. Most of the time it is better to run a hybrid of the two.

[wodan11]

I wouldn't worry about saving forests too much. Keep in mind that each unhealthiness only gives you -1 food. So, not having forests doesn't really hurt. If you find it's a problem you can always prioritize Grocers and Aqueducts.

Being aware of SE and CE is good, but it's generally best to learn the game as CE. Ignore specialists. Learn that another day. And, "hybrid" is mastered only when you've mastered the two components. So, learn CE, then SE, then hybrid. My two cents.

Wodan