Civilisation IV Tips

jp_bl_68 said:
One more question, oh knowledgeable one, how do you use cruise missiles? I built about half a dozen of them but couldn't move them anywhere.
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They don't move around the map like ground units. They 'fly' (;/) to other cities in the exact same fashion as moving an aircraft.

If you build it in one city, you can only make it 'fly' to another city or fort.

Ie when you get your newly built missile, click on it and if you want to move it once you have selected it left click on the city where you would like it to go.

If you want to load it onto a ship (the only real reason to build them), you need to bring the ship into your city before you can load the missles onto it - ie you just can't make the missile 'fly' out to sea and drop it on the ship, the ship needs to come in to get its weapons.

Or, you can build a fort next to the sea, send all your missiles to it and then bring in a boat and load them all up.

:)
 
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jp_bl_68 said:
OK, but can I use it to attack another city? How would I do that?
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Only if the target city is within 'range' of your missile, be it sat in your fort or a city or a ship.

(the 'attack range' is the greyish box that appears over map squares when you select it)

You then have two options, hit the defences or hit the units.

You are better using seige weapons to bring down inland defences.

I only ever use cruise missiles on boats to inflict damage on foreign fleets, or to help in softening up territory or cities I am about in invade on other continents.

Seige weapons and aircraft have more flexability than cruise missiles, they also last more than one shot!

Invest in carriers and fighters instead.

The damage done by cruise missiles (relatively low) compaired to the production cost is also a bit of a downer (imo).
 
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jp_bl_68 said:
Cruise missiles are rubbish! :p

I think I'll stick to non-disposable units from now on.
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Yup.

When you can start building Missile Cruisers for your fleet, then start building the missiles. The two compliment each other at sea.

Other than that, I don't bother before then. You can stick them on a basic submarine, but I tend to ignore them until I can replace my Battleships with Missle Cruisers.

They are almost pointless for attacking ground troops.

My normal battlegoups are based around three carriers, and as many Missile Cruisers stuffed to the gunnels with cruise missiles.. as long as you find the enemy before he finds you its easy to ground the ships down before you send your boats into action (almost guaranteeing the survival of your fleet, if you have sufficient numbers).
 
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Well a few random tips to add, on religion its best to use it to pick who your friends are, so when there's a big nation next to you and they are one religion it is generally best to buddy up next to them and be the same religion.

If your the bigger nation you can generally persuade other nations to be your religion and friend if you convert most their cities, but you might have to prop them up a bit like a good ally.

If your surrounded by civ's its possible to get by ignoring the religion aspect by not declaring a religion, heading straight for aesthetics and building the Shwedagon Paya to get free religion as a civic.

Urm its quite essential to decide if your going for a religion early on as you'll find there are only a couple of natural progressions up the tech tree (as the ai has about 3 and you need to follow the one that lets you trade techs with the ai to keep an advantage, especially on higher levels). My example is you can only really go for Hinduism or Buddhism if you start with mysticism but if you want a religion that isnt these two, aiming for monotheism (or code of laws as a more realistic target) gets out an early(ish) religion via a different progression up the tree.

Later on in the game you'll get great leaders who initiate golden ages. There are 2 key aspects to this, firstly you MUST get to calender first and (preferably) hold marble to build the Mausoleum of Maussollos as this gives you 50% longer golden ages (where your production is incread by one hammer for every tile that produces one and more money ad stuff so everything is accelerated). The second aspect is that there is no anarchy in golden ages, so changing your civics is best done in them (unless your a spiritual leader but i think thats a pointless trait) and you should aim to build up the research for civics in them too. so my example is I try and experience as few turns of anarchy as possible (especially when your empire is big as it makes it even longer), there will be one for slavery at the start and one for monarchy (and maybe for organised religion if your that way inclined but i tend to ignore it). Then you can get away with a golden age for bureaucracy+pacifism (I like them) and another one for getting into a free market democracy, being universal suffrage+free speach+free market+free religion and emancipation. Then not having to change unless you need environmentalism....

But yeah that sort of cover how I get through some of the higher levels of difficulty
 
I tend to play Rhye's and Fall of Civilization so a lot of what I say here will be very specific advice which might not entirely apply to you:

- When you start the game, hit Ctrl+R, this will get the game to highlight nearby resources.
- At this point, restart if you don't see any food. It is vital that your first city grow well in the early game, and no food will cripple this effort.
- First thing you should build is a worker. Almost every single time. You have food and hopefully other resources to hook up to your capital city, and you need this done immediately.

For future city placement, important things to consider. Every city has an "area" that it can work. This area is two plots in any direction:
gemsfk9.jpg

This, for instance is a pretty nice starting spot. It isn't ideal, but it has a lot of resources. You want to place your cities such that you can cover a maximum amount of resources in a minimum amount of cities. Remember cities cost money and you want them to be as efficient as possible. Also try not to settle directly on top of resources - this means that you can't build farms (if its a food resource), mines (if its a metal resource) and so on, and thus you don't reap the bonuses on that particular tile :)

Coasts and rivers are also important. They increase the amount of trade routes you can get which increases the amount of cash you get rolling in. Also in the late game, building levees on river cities increases their production hugely.

If you're struggling to pick leaders and you're a beginner... pick any leader with the financial trait. For the second trait, pick whichever leader you like, experiment, learn a bit. The reason the financial trait is important is because it greatly increases the amount of money you get rolling in, which increases the amount of money you can spend on scientific advances, which means you have a military and technological lead on your opponents, and so on ;)

Important techs (imo):
Astronomy - if you're playing a map with oceans on it, you want to get to this first. No one wants to reach the New World and all of its riches last.
Liberalism - Grants a free tech to whomever reaches liberalism first.

If you intend on making a large empire (and who doesn't), then:
Railroad - You need to travel fast. You'll have a big empire and that means logistics will be a problem until you discover this.
Flight - Intercontinental empires need this for the same reasons. Also airports are a fantastic city improvement.

A more advanced player (and one who plays the regular version of civ) should be able to give you much better advice, but this is the basics for me. As far as I know, city placement is the most important thing in the game. If your cities are well placed, then you can't really go wrong :)
 
pingwing said:
(unless your a spiritual leader but i think thats a pointless trait)
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I disagree.

Spiritual and financial or aggressive is my favorite.

Spiritual trait gives you much better chance of a successful beeline for Buddhism (then you automatically dominate your continents religious powerplay), and then allows you to implement civic changes without penalty from the word go - like slavery, you don't want anarchy when you 'discover' the whip because at this point you are inevitably building a world wonder, any production delays at this stage more often than not, on high levels, mean you will lose out to someone else.

A spiritual civilization suffers no anarchy penalty from switching civics or state religions. This provides a lot of flexibility well into your civilization’s development. The freedom to switch civics depending on your current need (do you need to train a military or continue to construct wonders?) or a sudden situation without penalty can be extremely powerful.

Eg: An invasion force lands on your island, and your army is overseas.

Being able to switch to Nationhood (without 2-3 turns of delay!) to churn out conscripts in the same turn as the attack happens has saved my bacon more than once.

But, this is the great thing about civ. Due to the complexities of the game, you are very unlikely to meet two people that play the exact same way.

There are some 20 government civic options, as you know, that you research through the game. Ok I know it rarely happens, but if you were to revolt every time you have the new civic option and implement it you have lost nearly 40 turns out of the game.

The Cristo Redentor comes too late to alleviate the lost production in the early to mid game, what the CR does is allow non spiritual civs to turn to nationalism quickly in time of military stress etc. Its the only use a non spiritual AI player can really make of it. They will be running the other civics that they want by this point.

I build the CR to ensure that they do not have that option, and are still delayed with anarchy if they do implement Nationhood to counter my attack.

Oh, temples only cost half production under Spiritual as well - which is even more helpful for early game productivity.
 
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If your playing Civ4, like Killerkebab says, try Rhyes and Fall, it's better than the standard game in practically every single way.
 
Funny that, I could never really get into it. :/

:p

I play Civgold mod, gives you about 30 more nations.

I even made my own Scotland mod years ago ;)

Suprised snowdog ain't in here yet
 
Vinni3 @H|H said:
*cough*Worldbuilder*cough* :p
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naaah.

i never use it as you don't get onto the scoreboard if you finish.

but, you can cheat with it if you want a peek at the map.

save game, enter worldbuilder, have a look, go load save game. tada! :p

i used to have to do this pre patch at game start 4000bc because resource allocation from the map generator was ******** and I got fed up spending an hour trying to find a map to play.

patches later it was fine, and i only now use it if I get my ass handed back to me on a plate and lose the rag and create 200 ICBMS. **** you. /Quit.

:D

haven't played in about a year mind you. :eek:
 
What expansion of the game are you guys playing? I just installed the 3rd one, beyond the sword and am giving it a whirl. Should I just go straight into the 4th?
 
Biohazard said:
Thats WAY to much growth before expansion for my liking! :p

What settings do you play?
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I am definitely a learner on this game really. Got it when it 1st came out won easily in the easier settings then got borred not realising there is an insane depth of gameplay at harder difficulties. Currently I am just playing non modded standard settings until i beat it at highest difficulty. Have had a few wins on monarh moving up to emperor.

My start depends on my start location. I normally whack out a worker quick and generally have barracks and 3+ military units built by the time i am happy capped. I tend then to churn out 3-4 settlers (depending how many blockers i need) then just churn out workers. Then i build up military specialise some cities and go on a rampage. This is subject to change depending on start location especially if stone is close as i like to get the access to the government civics.

Damn half way through mass effect 2. Must finish that but need a fix of civ!
 
I get terrible screen tear on this game, so much so that it makes me feel sick to look at it. Only happens when I scroll across the map and it only started when I switched to this 24" from my old 22".

Any ideas as to why this is?? Sorry for the hijack :S
 
Read civfanatics forums guides, there's a lot to it.
Generally, familiarize yourself with the game, I can't see how you would lose on the easiest difficulty level.

Play beyond the sword, colonoziation is a spin-off/remake of the old col, and bts includes everything from warlords except the scenario's/mods in it.


I love a lot of leader traits myself, aggressive, spiritual, financial, philosophical, expansionist, imperialistic are in my favorite ones.

I guess I dislike protective most, but, it has its uses. You should adapt your play to the traits of each leader, there is little point turtling with agg/spi for example ( or well, it makes more sense using the iron fist), but fin/org is a great combo for pumping out cities as fast as possible and try to play peacefully/turtle for a while. If you are philosophical/creative, don't forget to build a library asap and pump out great scientists.

On the higher difficulty levels, micromanagement is very important, essential at start, and it is often impossible to keep everyone as your friend so pick 1 or 2 good friends who are not in the way and be aggressive against the rest if possible.
At start: Try to work improved (+recources) tiles only, prioritize improving tiles, first food tiles, then other resources, then the rest. Chop forests to rush out military, wonders or settlers depending on your early playing style. Don't underestimate specialists, remember not to outgrow your cities over your happy cap, if your city is growing but you are at your cap, use the whip or use specialists, there bring in great people which can help quite a bit early on.
 
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Steam has it for the moment at around £20. not looked at other places.

civfanatics is a great place to learn strats. there used to be a guy who ran a game with screenshots and strategy discussion which was really good - can't remember the name of him though.
 
Mak3R said:
What expansion of the game are you guys playing? I just installed the 3rd one, beyond the sword and am giving it a whirl. Should I just go straight into the 4th?
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There are only two expansions for it.

Warlords and Beyond the Sword.

Warlords pads out the middle ages with units, Beyond the Sword pads out the final ages with more units.

cHk4 said:
Do you guys just play Civ IV or the complete version with the add ons?

Thanks ^^
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All add ons.

'Vanila' civ is a little bit empty now compared to having both expansion packs on it.
 
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