Noob thread

[duke o' york]

I've just ordered Civ IV and both the expansion packs and it should be delivered on Monday.

So what do I need to know? My preferred style is to build up through better, bigger cities and tech rather than to create a huge army from the off and wear down my opponents. So without seeing the game, can you put together some kind of noob's guide to help me win my first game and quickly get up to speed so I can compete with rah and the other MP veterans?

Please!

[Theben]

You need to cancel your order and buy CivIV Complete, which has BtS in it.

[duke o' york]

That's the one I got. Why, how many packs have there been?

[Ming]

Just Warlords and BTS. While Warlords was a step up from Vanilla, BTS is light years ahead of anything prior.

And even in SP, if you play the aggressive AI option (and you have to since the AI is lame with out it), you will need to keep a decent standing army, or somebody will walk in with a stack of death and take your well built empire over

[Theben]

That's the one I got. Why, how many packs have there been?

Okay. Then read the various strategy threads 'cuz there's like, a million of 'em.

In all seriousness, if you've played civIII you have the basic idea. Just run thru the tutorial and then play a full game, tweak with the game options, and when you have specific questions come back and ask.

[wodan11]

Make sure you get the patches. And, you can't download the main patch using the in-game download feature. Download it from here on Apolyton. In addition to that you probably want what's called the "Unofficial Patch".

[Robert]

When you open the city screen, look at the bottom-right of the screen, there are the specialists! They are important! Use them!

[rah]

And always assume that while you're building infrastructure, your neighbors, the aztecs, japanese, zulus, native americans, and a host of other pyschos are building troops. They are coming for you, and it's just a matter of time, so be ready.

Best advice, start at nobel or lower.

[Unimatrix11]

True that, rah, i just switched back to noble cause i would constantly ignore this advice against better knowledge. Again and again and again and... It can become a very frustrating experience when you build up one empire after the other, maybe 3 or 4 in one prolonged session, upto the point of, say about bureaucracy, only to have the game go from optimistic enthusiam to utter despair (´dödödödö-döhdöh´) from one moment to the other, quit and bite your butt (or do any other for of physical self-punishment) for the next 5 minutes. And then start over again and do it all again... (if this happens to me, and the situation is beyond hope, i do not reload, but concede, that i have taken risks, that i should have considered better before and thus deserve to loose)

So in short: I double your advice, wholeheartely!

[Robert]

Build walls and castles, that'll keep a lot of civs from invading you!

[rah]

But sometimes it's nice to have monty next to you. You know he'll expand and as soon as land becomes tight and he gets iron working, here come the jag warriors. Fortunately he doesn't wait till he has overwelming force or cats. A few axemen can usually hold off the initial attacks and gives you time to whip the additional troops you need. Then take the promoted troops and go in and kick his ass.
This is quite different than when Hannible decides it's time for you to die and send the 20-50 unit SOD of combined arms.

When monty is near, I just consider that he's marking out territory for my use later. And since he rarely builds infrastructure, he's best taken out early so you'll have extra time to make that those cities productive.
Which is why MP is so much better because of the predictability in SP. Even with random personalities, you can tell by looking at the diplomacy modifiers combined with attitude to tell who the pyschos are.

[Willem]

So what do I need to know?

If you've played previous Civ games, which you have by the sound of it, then you'll want to rethink your opening strategies. ICS is dead, if you try to spam cities early on like you used to be able to do you're going to bankrupt yourself. Each city costs you gold now and that price goes up with the number of cities and how far they are from your capital. So you'll need to build up your empire a little more slowly than in past versions.

And don't neglect your military. If you're weak your neighbours will attack you. There's a graph that shows you how your Power compares to others. Check it regularly and keep your Power in the top third at least, if not the most powerful.

Oh yes. As mentioned, if Monty is your neighbour prepare for war at some point. Same thing goes with Shaka. Isabella is a zealot and will hate you if your religion is different than hers. She may even go to war because of it. Mansa's generally a good guy but he loves trading techs. Be careful what deals you make with him because all the other civs will soon have whatever techs you trade with him. He'll usually be a major contender in any tech race.

[Blaupanzer]

DOY, welcome to the Civ IV side of the forums. Check out the next to last of the "sticky" threads above. Several guides are located there to help with self-orientation.

Initially, don't expand too quickly because of the costs incurred. Use your spy points to gain insight into your neighbors. Build enough troops to be at least on the midpoint of the power graph. The demographics table gives you information on your standings and a sense of where the people you have not yet met are in relation to you.

In the middle period, decide on the victory you will seek and go for techs on that pattern. (I turn off tech brokering at the start so everyone can only trade the techs they themselves developed. The AI places a very high value on military techs making the rewards of trading one very good, but making them very hard to trade for.) Keep building and modernizing soldiers -- if you look weak to the AI, they will kill you, even gang up to do it. The chief source of difficulty in diplomacy is religions. Sometimes it is better to adopt a religion you did not found than be the only heathen on the block.

You will have to fight at some point. Try to control where and when. For both attack and defense lots of seige weapons are required. These units do not kill, but they do reduce multiple units in a single attack thru collateral damage. They also die a lot doing this, so keep some in the pipeline all the time. (Note that although tanks have the collateral damage promotion available, they cannot use it, so don't select it.)

[Unimatrix11]

Unless you play with ´no tech brockering´ turned on in the advanced game settings, of course.

[wodan11]

That's about the only way I play anymore.