A "few" questions

Hi everybody,

Thanks for letting me know that this is the place for CIV4-players as well.
Nice! Now I can't wait to pop out some questions which puzzles me as a
newbe:-) I guess there are no straight answers to most of them, but I am
sure that you guys have some ideas/secrets anyway (ideas/secrets you wanna
share, that is;-D). Let me start with a few:

Manuals:
I have read the manual and the Bradygames Official Stratetgy Guide. For some
reason I am still confused in a lot of matters ­ even though I try
practicing my ideas when playing... Do you know other guides with tips and
tricks and valuable information?

Defense:
I am a peace-loving person;-) I try therefore mostly to be nice and kind,
minding my own business - working mostly on cultural expansion. I tend to
avoid wars (wars involving me that is ­ wars between others are
entertaining!) and I mostly do that by building up archers and other
military units in the early days and adding new units regularly. Does it
make any difference if you spread your units into the field or keep them
locked up behind citywalls?

The cultural slider:
If you turn on the slider to t.ex. 50% ­ what happens actually? Does it
expand your cultural borders more quickly, and do you manage to build t.ex
cultural related wonders quicker?

Workers:
Is it a good idea to make workers sweat as early as possible or should you
focus on technologies as long as you can?

Great people, specialists etc:
Uh, I still don't get the idea... what do they actually do for me? I guess I
still don't understand how to manage my cities and/or manage to decode the
city screen:-S

Religion:
When I don't discover my own religion in the beginning, how do I get one
(not that I need one myself but people seem to appreciate it...? I have
tried in the religion advisor without any success.

Trading:
When I exchange or offer someone a resource (t.ex. rice or oil) which is
indicated with "1 out of 1", do I loose the resource myself?

Getting rich!:
I often build up a civilization which seem to work out ok - but no more than
that! Even though I develop whatever I can both inside and outside cities,
try to make people happy, sing and dance, I often fall behind. Again, among
other things I am sure it's because I don't know how to read the financial
advisor or the city maps properly. How or where do I easily uncover the
fundamental problem(s) of a disfunctional civilization?

Multiplayer:
Until now I have mostly played in closed games with friends, but if I would
like to try an open game, what's the "dresscode" ­ do you become extremely
unpopular when letting an AI take over after some hours if you wanna back
out?

Thank for reading all this - and thanks for commenting if you have the
energy to do so:-)!

Helle

In article <C136CD86.B74A%helle@krog.biz>, Helle Krog <helle RemoveThis @krog.biz>
writes
>Hi everybody,
>
>Thanks for letting me know that this is the place for CIV4-players as well.
>Nice! Now I can't wait to pop out some questions which puzzles me as a
>newbe:-) I guess there are no straight answers to most of them, but I am
>sure that you guys have some ideas/secrets anyway (ideas/secrets you wanna
>share, that is;-D). Let me start with a few:
>
>Manuals:
>I have read the manual and the Bradygames Official Stratetgy Guide. For some
>reason I am still confused in a lot of matters ­ even though I try
>practicing my ideas when playing... Do you know other guides with tips and
>tricks and valuable information?
>
>Defense:
>I am a peace-loving person;-) I try therefore mostly to be nice and kind,
>minding my own business - working mostly on cultural expansion.

Peace can work if you have room to develop a decent-sized civilisation.
Sometimes you need to, ahem, push aside some other guys who are in the
way. Below are my thoughts, the way it works for *me*; YMMV.

> I tend to
>avoid wars (wars involving me that is ­ wars between others are
>entertaining!) and I mostly do that by building up archers and other
>military units in the early days and adding new units regularly. Does it
>make any difference if you spread your units into the field or keep them
>locked up behind citywalls?

If you want to survive peacefully, you have to have a flexible defence.
A couple of archers (upgraded to longbows asap) will benefit from their
city defence bonus. However, you need to be able to respond to
barbarians, and to raiders from other civs, so a mounted reserve in two
or three well-spaced cities would be essential; otherwise you will find
your improvements get zapped.

If you do need to go to war, make sure you do it at a time of your own
choosing, build up a strong attacking force (mounted archers and
swordsmen early in the game, macemen, knights/cavalry and catapults
later on) near the enemy before declaring war, and once you start it,
make sure you finish them off. Have a few defensive units on hand ready
to garrison the captured city so your offensive force can move on as
soon as they have recovered. The AI has a poor ability to attack, it
uses too few units and does not carry on ruthlessly. Try to ensure you
can capture a city in one turn, allowing a few spare units in case you
lose a few. Once you have declared war on a civ, they will probably
never be your friends, so finish them off (Machiavelli: "if you strike a
prince, you must kill him").

When picking a fight, make sure they have no allies or you may find
yourself fighting on two fronts.

If you want the best chance of winning, you need to be the largest and
most powerful civ, which almost certainly means cleaning most or all of
your nearby rivals. Big civs have more income for research and more
production for offensive or defensive use. However, if you expand *too*
fast your economy can go to pot, you need to time it right so your
number of cities keeps pace with your ability to pay for them.

Later in the game, wars will rapidly cause unrest in your citizens, so
jails, Mount Rushmore and other happiness-increasing improvements may be
required. You may even need to take a rest from the war for 10 turns
(minimum peace treaty time) but best to go back and finish them
afterwards anyway.
>
>The cultural slider:
>If you turn on the slider to t.ex. 50% ­ what happens actually? Does it
>expand your cultural borders more quickly, and do you manage to build t.ex
>cultural related wonders quicker?

t.ex?

Yes to the first - turning up the culture slider means that your cities
put resources into growing extra culture, and expands borders faster.

Don't think so to the second - extra culture has no effect on the
production of wonders, or anything else.

However, in the early part of the game you need to concentrate on
research first, and building a cash reserve (for upgrading units and
giving a reserve in case of attack) second.
>
>Workers:
>Is it a good idea to make workers sweat as early as possible or should you
>focus on technologies as long as you can?

You should aim to build your first worker as soon as you have built the
first defender for your capital. Thereafter, one worker per city would
be a good goal, maybe a bit less in practice.

If you do this, your wealth production will go up faster anyway as the
resources and improvements will build up much faster. Thus your research
ability will be optimised. You need to try to stay ahead in research if
you can - if the other civs get far ahead of you, you are in trouble.
>
>Great people, specialists etc:
>Uh, I still don't get the idea... what do they actually do for me? I guess I
>still don't understand how to manage my cities and/or manage to decode the
>city screen:-S

Leave it to happen automatically. All you need to do is to choose city
production (you can automate it, but I prefer to handle it myself). You
can put most workers on automatic (the plain cross, which makes them do
improvements anywhere in your civ) and maybe instruct one or two
yourself if you have a special need (e.g. for a road to a particular
place, or to get a particular resource).
>
>Religion:
>When I don't discover my own religion in the beginning, how do I get one
>(not that I need one myself but people seem to appreciate it...? I have
>tried in the religion advisor without any success.

You should try to found one of your own if possible - the cultural and
financial benefits are considerable, plus you get to see inside cities
with that religion in the early part of the game. The AI always seems to
go for mysticism (Buddhism) first, and almost always wins, so go for
Hinduism as a first priority.
>
>Trading:
>When I exchange or offer someone a resource (t.ex. rice or oil) which is
>indicated with "1 out of 1", do I loose the resource myself?

Yes; don't do it. Later on you should have spare resources to trade.
Especially, I would never trade oil to anyone, as it will double (or
more) their offensive capacity.
>
>Getting rich!:
>I often build up a civilization which seem to work out ok - but no more than
>that! Even though I develop whatever I can both inside and outside cities,
>try to make people happy, sing and dance, I often fall behind. Again, among
>other things I am sure it's because I don't know how to read the financial
>advisor or the city maps properly. How or where do I easily uncover the
>fundamental problem(s) of a disfunctional civilization?

If you are getting very rich, you are wasting resources. Money is only
useful for (a) upgrading units in an emergency, (b) rush-completing
improvements, and (c) buying off threats in extremis. If you have too
much money, it means you could have researched more and got better units
to defend yourself. Later in the game it may be appropriate to have a
few thousand in gold, but early on a few hundred is more reasonable.
>
>Multiplayer:
>Until now I have mostly played in closed games with friends, but if I would
>like to try an open game, what's the "dresscode" ­ do you become extremely
>unpopular when letting an AI take over after some hours if you wanna back
>out?
>
I never play multiplayer, always play solo against the AI.


All sounds quite complicated, but then that's why the game is so
enjoyable. Good gaming!

David
--
David Littlewood