Helpfull Hints

[Aabraxan]

Glad to help. You'll also find that the game plays faster at Warlord and (especially at Regent), because the AI is able to build stuff and research faster. At Chieftain, you should set the pace for tech and the AI will almost never have anything to trade for. At Regent, you can begin letting the AI do some of the work in research and do some reasonable tech trading. That speeds up the tech pace for the whole world.

[Kloreep]

Yeah, new difficulties are a whole new world.

If you're used to Chieftan I'd recommend only jumping it up to Warlord for your next game. The penalty is so severe at Chieftan (AI's costs are times 2) that even Warlord (where the AI's costs are times 1.2) may be a bit of a shock as far as the AI's capabilities go.

Once you see how that goes you'll have a better idea of whether you want to try Regent right away.

[Civ_4]

What's your opinion on building improvements in a city?

Please Post anyone.

[Kloreep]

Depends on the improvement. But more generally, for me it depends on two factors. One is how effective the improvement will be for my city and thus my empire. The other is whether something else (like a military unit) is more important - in wartime you often need to devote full production to military, however painful it may be to forgo that university in a high-commerce city.

For most of the "augmenting" buildings - markets/banks/stock exchanges, libraries/universities/research labs, and factories/power plants - effectiveness mostly depends on city size. The more tiles you work, the more raw production of shields or commerce the city brings in for the +% buildings to work on. So these improvements may not actually be worth anything if your cities are still small; if a city only pulls in 6 commerce, and only 50% (3) of that goes to taxes, then a marketplace will only give you +50% of 3 - or 1 (the game rounds down). It costs 1 gold in maintenance, so it's merely paying for itself, while you have sunk 100 shields into it that could have gone somewhere else. Only once you have more commerce in that single city do you actually get more bonus commerce from the market than it costs to maintain it.

Happiness buildings are a bit different, but you should also consider the Luxury slider as an alternative to making expensive investments. Each happiness building costs about as many gold to maintain as it gives you content faces (and content faces=the amount of extra population they let you support). They do have the added benefit of culture, but they have the added cost of lots of shields. So, if you were able to fine-tune the luxury slider so that you were only spending the exact amount of gold you needed to on luxuries, you would never need happiness buildings. Indeed, the luxury slider is often preferable to happiness buildings in the early game (unless you need the culture from that temple).
Of course, this falls apart for a number of reasons. First, the luxury slider does become ineffecient, because you can only adjust the percentage in 10s, and you can only adjust it empire-wide - but your cities will have differing amounts of commerce from which 10% will go to happiness. Second, there isn't a building that gives you bonus luxury spending like there is for taxes or research; that means that an empire paying for happiness buildings & also building markets and banks alongside them will have more commerce at the end of the day than an empire that saves the shields needed for a temple & cath but has to use the luxury slider because of it.

Basically, the bigger the city, the more useful most of the improvements are. Small cities can actually lose you the production shields without gaining you any commerce if you build your markets & libraries too early. This isn't too bad a situation, as ideally you should be building lots of settlers & workers in the early game, along with the military units to protect them; that doesn't leave much left for improvements anyway.

The important exception to the bigger city=better improvements rule is the Granary. You can set up good settler/worker "pumps" if you have a city that is pulling in extra food build a Granary (ideally +5 food per turn, so that it grows every 2 turns thanks to the Granary). Thing is, if the city reaches size 7, it'll need twice the food to grow and won't be a good "pump" anymore. So the granary is often more useful in your small, "town" size cities (pop 1-6) than in larger ones. Because of this it's useful from quite early in the game - Barracks and Granaries, and possibly a temple or library for culture, are the only improvements I consider building in the early game. Only once I'm ready to start taking cities to size 7 and above do I worry about adding in all the rest.

[Civ_4]

[SIZE=1]

Because of this it's useful from quite early in the game - Barracks and Granaries, and possibly a temple or library for culture, are the only improvements I consider building in the early game.

I agree with you on the this last statement because I usely build everythings in all of my cities. Then after a while I get a minus two or so gold and up.

But I think I will follow your early game build up, with the exception of a wall and a library. The reason a library is because once you get to the later ages they start to produce double the culture. The execption is that I can't remember but it was something to the effect of more culture if you build the library first and not the temple.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Aabraxan
Getting towns on the ground is of critical importance in the early game.

QFT. Though, I prefer to have one or two building wonders. If another civ is on same island, even a couple of wapon factories.

The exchange rate for shields to gold in the AA is 8 shields to 1 gold, if I remember correctly. (It's dependent on a technology and I can't remember which one, but it's not an AA tech, I don't think). A town producing 8 shields can make a settler in 4 turns and it won't take very long for the new town to make up for any gold foregone during the 4 turns of building the settler.

It's 4 to 1 until Economics where it becomes 2 to 1. That said, it's as you say, a new settler is way better than Wealth.

You said you end up building too much and have a minus or two of gold. Too much of what? My hunch would be that you're building too many buildings. Try spending the AA focusing solely on expansion. Do not build any wonders whatsoever. (If you want an AA wonder, you'll have to go take it). Build a few barracks, but only in cities that will be your military production centers. Then build nothing but settlers, workers and military units. Expand as fast as you can until you run out of room. Then go conquer an enemy and expand some more.

AA = Ancient Times ?

Why not build AA wonders ? I agree that some of them is barely worth it, but Pyramids gives free granaries wich I consider a major advantage; Mausoleum shuts up three unhappy; Lighthouse speeds up ships ; Colossus gives money - etc. etc. Though, one should be careful not to trigger an unwanted GA - doing that before Univerities is available isn't fun.

Besides that, conquered wonders isn't that much fun - they might give some tourist incomes, but you don't get their effect.

[Kloreep]

Ancient wonders are useful, it's just a question of whether they're worth sinking the shields into them. Ultimately it's pretty situational. And as you say, you definitely don't want to trigger an early GA; while I wouldn't always wait around for Universities to trigger it, a GA under a Despotic government is certainly a waste.

The Pyramids are definitely amazing if you can get them - granary in every city = pop EXPLOSION - it's just that they're so expensive that the investment can kill you. Particularly if you're beaten in the race and you get hundreds of shields wasted.

Originally posted by BlackCat
Besides that, conquered wonders isn't that much fun - they might give some tourist incomes, but you don't get their effect.

This isn't true, you DO get their effect. The only thing you don't get is culture; you still get all empire-wide effects (or city effects in the case of wonders like Colossus). They even count toward a wonder GA the next time you build a wonder - if for example you're Mil & Sci and capture Mil & Sci wonders, and then build a wonder for yourself (even one with neither trait) you'll get your GA.

[Aabraxan]

Thanks for the correction on the exchange rate, BlackCat. Apparently, it's not as bad as I thought.

AA = Ancient Age

It's not that Ancient wonders aren't useful. They are. Kloreep pegged it. You don't get culture from captured wonders, but you do get the other effects. The Pyramids are a great example. They are awesome in their power, but they cost 400 shields to build and come with masonry, a first-tier AA tech. That's a huge investment in time and shields at the point in the game where the Pyramids become available. Assuming that your empire is 10 cities and you try to build the Pyramids in your capitol at, say 10 shields per turn (to make the math easy), you've just taken your best military producer (which represents >10% of your empire's entire productive capacity) off-line for 40 turns. In those 40 turns, and for 400 shields, you could have produced 20 archers (or better yet, 10 Swords and 5 archers). If you're a builder at heart, or going for a culture win, the trade-off might be worth it. But not for a conquest win. Frankly, I love it when an AI on my continent builds the Pyramids. They might as well hang a sign on their front door that says "Storm Gate Here."

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Aabraxan
Thanks for the correction on the exchange rate, BlackCat. Apparently, it's not as bad as I thought.

It is that bad In C3 it is 8 to 1 becoming 4 to 1 with Econ.

My numbers are from C3C, sorry for the confusion.

AA = Ancient Age

Yeah, I guessed that, except that in F6 it's called Ancient Times

[Aabraxan]

Yeah, my numbers were from C3C also. Mine were just wrong . . .

You're right about Ancient Age or Ancient Times. I guess I've just developed a habit of calling it the AA. But, as you noted, you figured it out.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Kloreep
This isn't true, you DO get their effect. The only thing you don't get is culture; you still get all empire-wide effects (or city effects in the case of wonders like Colossus). They even count toward a wonder GA the next time you build a wonder - if for example you're Mil & Sci and capture Mil & Sci wonders, and then build a wonder for yourself (even one with neither trait) you'll get your GA.

Could it be a C3C "feature" ? I could have sworn that I once captured Statue of Zeus but didn't get any Cavalerys.

[Aabraxan]

When did you capture the Statue? Could it have been obsolete? In my current solo game, I just captured the Great Wall and instantly got walls everywhere.

[BlackCat]

It's a year or two since it happend, so I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was way before.

[vmxa1]

Some wonders become obsolete and no longer give the benefit. SoZ is one that I think expires with Metallury. So no one get AC's after that point.

Sun Tzu never expires, so any time you get it, you get free rax's on that contient.

Most players refer to it as AA.

[Civ_4]

Many things I've read say that building wealth is not a good Idea. Myself I think in some cases it my been a good thing to build wealth to win, but most often maybe not. I don't know.

What do you think about building wealth