Installing Civ4 on my laptop was the worst idea evar

[The Fake Shemp]

I installed it a few hours ago and booted it up just to see if it would work.  I wanted to just start a game and make sure it loaded properly, as Vista installs can be rather wonky.  ... Next thing I know, it's three hours later and my Japanese empire is about to take down the Incans!  Mwuhahaha!

Goddamn you, Sid Meier.

[crimsondynamics]

I installed it a few hours ago and booted it up just to see if it would work.  I wanted to just start a game and make sure it loaded properly, as Vista installs can be rather wonky.  ... Next thing I know, it's three hours later and my Japanese empire is about to take down the Incans!  Mwuhahaha!

Goddamn you, Sid Meier.

"Goodbye, life. It was nice knowing you."

Just remember to get some sunshine at least once a week. 

I just got my first cultural victory yesterday! 

[Brehvolution]

I'm curious about different strategies you guys use. I'm kind of in a rut and am doing the same thing when starting out. I want to try something fresh if possible. Here is my routine.
I go for hinduism, the oracle, then either HB riding or monarchy. I can lead for most of the game points wise, but many times I'm overtaken by 2 or 3 civs by the end if I' doing space race. I've never scored above Dan Quayle.
So what am I doing wrong?

[Fragamemnon]

I'm curious about different strategies you guys use. I'm kind of in a rut and am doing the same thing when starting out. I want to try something fresh if possible. Here is my routine.
I go for hinduism, the oracle, then either HB riding or monarchy. I can lead for most of the game points wise, but many times I'm overtaken by 2 or 3 civs by the end if I' doing space race. I've never scored above Dan Quayle.
So what am I doing wrong?

First fifty to seventy-five turns are totally dependent on the map geography, available resources, and proximity to neighbors. Learn to adapt your opening gambits to better suit those factors. If you have a neighbor nearby, either crush him fast with an axe rush (if he's not defensive) or get construction and fuck him up with catapults and swordsmen. No neighbors? Plan out cities and go hardcore infrastructure. Huge amounts of food available? Plan a specialist economy. The early game is more about adapting to what the map generator has given you, while the later part of the game is all about exploiting the weakensses of your enemies properly for maximum gain.

Almost all late-game problems on lower-level difficulties are due to weak economies. Ensure that you have a good number of cities compared to other civilizations, and start working on developing cottages EARLY so that when you get to the later part of the game they will deliever massive amounts of income and science for you.

Also, only build wonders and city improvements IF they make sense, not just because you can.

[Beezy]

I installed it a few hours ago and booted it up just to see if it would work.  I wanted to just start a game and make sure it loaded properly, as Vista installs can be rather wonky.  ... Next thing I know, it's three hours later and my Japanese empire is about to take down the Incans!  Mwuhahaha!

Goddamn you, Sid Meier.

Same thing happened to me the first day I installed it, except I ended up playing for 5 hours.

[Beezy]

Frag, why is it that the German's border keeps pushing mine back and taking some of my territory?  They have just about all the farms and cottages for one of my cities and now the people there are starving. Is there anything that I can do besides going to war with them? I was doing so great before this. I made Julius Caeser my bitch.

[The Fake Shemp]

My strategy is peaceful takeover.  I push out culture and my borders expand to the point where I devour nearby cities.  Yay, me.

[Mupepe]

Frag, why is it that the German's border keeps pushing mine back and taking some of my territory?  They have just about all the farms and cottages for one of my cities and now the people there are starving. Is there anything that I can do besides going to war with them? I was doing so great before this. I made Julius Caeser my bitch.

My strategy is peaceful takeover.  I push out culture and my borders expand to the point where I devour nearby cities.  Yay, me.

It's either this, so build your wonders and whatnot or go to war and take what you need then negotiate a treaty with your moneys.

[Beezy]

Frag, why is it that the German's border keeps pushing mine back and taking some of my territory?  They have just about all the farms and cottages for one of my cities and now the people there are starving. Is there anything that I can do besides going to war with them? I was doing so great before this. I made Julius Caeser my bitch.

My strategy is peaceful takeover.  I push out culture and my borders expand to the point where I devour nearby cities.  Yay, me.

It's either this, so build your wonders and whatnot or go to war and take what you need then negotiate a treaty with your moneys.

I'm the furthest ahead in technology. I choose war!

Also, only build wonders and city improvements IF they make sense, not just because you can.

i know that makes sense, but goddamn if I can ever resist having every single wonder in my empire.

Lol same here. I build whatever the game recommends. When it stops recommending what to build, I just build everything else.

[The Fake Shemp]

I think there's a good chance I could win my first game of Civ against the CPU this time.  This match really was just a geographical advantage, as I was able to create a line of cities from north to south, basically blocking off the western part of my continent.  By denying open borders, I expanded westward.

[The Fake Shemp]

I think wonders are something that all civilizations should share and enjoy!  I don't like war.

[Beezy]

I'll go to war with another civilization just because they beat me to a wonder. 

You're an asshole.

[Fragamemnon]

Frag, why is it that the German's border keeps pushing mine back and taking some of my territory?  They have just about all the farms and cottages for one of my cities and now the people there are starving. Is there anything that I can do besides going to war with them? I was doing so great before this. I made Julius Caeser my bitch.

Culture push from a nearby city. The very fastest way to correct this is to burn a Great Artist in the town getting pushed, but this usually requires a good deal of setup to reliably generate. As an alternative, you can build up some culture-generating improvements in the city and spread some religion there. It'll help.

The other alternative is to run the AI over with an army. But that isn't always the option.

i know that makes sense, but goddamn if I can ever resist having every single wonder in my empire.

Time to move to a harder difficultly if you can pull that off .

I'll go to war with another civilization just because they beat me to a wonder

If I get an industrious Civ starting near me, I'll go do other things and gobble them up in the medieval era (maceman rush before they get longbows, if possible) and steal their ancient-era wonders. Unless they get Pyramids early, then I spam swords and steal that wonder ASAP since it's so powerful (and expensive!).

[Brehvolution]

I'm curious about different strategies you guys use. I'm kind of in a rut and am doing the same thing when starting out. I want to try something fresh if possible. Here is my routine.
I go for hinduism, the oracle, then either HB riding or monarchy. I can lead for most of the game points wise, but many times I'm overtaken by 2 or 3 civs by the end if I' doing space race. I've never scored above Dan Quayle.
So what am I doing wrong?

First fifty to seventy-five turns are totally dependent on the map geography, available resources, and proximity to neighbors. Learn to adapt your opening gambits to better suit those factors. If you have a neighbor nearby, either crush him fast with an axe rush (if he's not defensive) or get construction and fuck him up with catapults and swordsmen. No neighbors? Plan out cities and go hardcore infrastructure. Huge amounts of food available? Plan a specialist economy. The early game is more about adapting to what the map generator has given you, while the later part of the game is all about exploiting the weakensses of your enemies properly for maximum gain.

Almost all late-game problems on lower-level difficulties are due to weak economies. Ensure that you have a good number of cities compared to other civilizations, and start working on developing cottages EARLY so that when you get to the later part of the game they will deliever massive amounts of income and science for you.

Also, only build wonders and city improvements IF they make sense, not just because you can.

Thank you for this. Just a quick question though. How do you plan a specialist economy? Something with advisors?

[Brehvolution]

When you do axe or mace rushes, how many do you save up before you send them? Do you send catapults too?

[Fragamemnon]

I'm curious about different strategies you guys use. I'm kind of in a rut and am doing the same thing when starting out. I want to try something fresh if possible. Here is my routine.
I go for hinduism, the oracle, then either HB riding or monarchy. I can lead for most of the game points wise, but many times I'm overtaken by 2 or 3 civs by the end if I' doing space race. I've never scored above Dan Quayle.
So what am I doing wrong?

First fifty to seventy-five turns are totally dependent on the map geography, available resources, and proximity to neighbors. Learn to adapt your opening gambits to better suit those factors. If you have a neighbor nearby, either crush him fast with an axe rush (if he's not defensive) or get construction and fuck him up with catapults and swordsmen. No neighbors? Plan out cities and go hardcore infrastructure. Huge amounts of food available? Plan a specialist economy. The early game is more about adapting to what the map generator has given you, while the later part of the game is all about exploiting the weakensses of your enemies properly for maximum gain.

Almost all late-game problems on lower-level difficulties are due to weak economies. Ensure that you have a good number of cities compared to other civilizations, and start working on developing cottages EARLY so that when you get to the later part of the game they will deliever massive amounts of income and science for you.

Also, only build wonders and city improvements IF they make sense, not just because you can.

Thank you for this. Just a quick question though. How do you plan a specialist economy? Something with advisors?

You have some cities that are dedicated to massive food production and just enough hammers to build things when they need to. With the food surplus in those cities, you start brining in specialists (notably scientists) and they produce your tech instead of getting them through commerce. As a bonus, all the specialists generate great people points and your cities start spewing out great people, which you then "lightbulb" for even more technology. You run your actual economy sliders at near 100% gold for cash so that you can fund all sorts of crazy conquest and expansion in the meantime. Generally speaking you also cottage your capital for the bonus from bureaucracy.

It's not always something that you can do, it's very dependent on having tons of food around. But if you're given flood plain and decent fishing/coastal spots, it can result in a seriously overpowered early-to-middle game that the AI has no hope of catching up with. The real trick is to know when it strarts to peter out and be able to crash back into a cottage economy when tech costs get too big and great people don't come as fast anymore.

[Fragamemnon]

When you do axe or mace rushes, how many do you save up before you send them? Do you send catapults too?

Six to eight, usually. Catapults are mandatory with mace rushes since he'll probably have walls at that point. With swords it's usually an awkward thing since you want to rush him as soon as you get iron working (which you beelined) but you need construction, which is a different tech path.

[Brehvolution]

Do you have to take over a civ capital for them to capitulate? I don't know how many times I go to war with a neighbor against another civ. I over run 4 cities yet my neighbor has none and the civ we are fighting always capitulates to my neighbor. It's so annoying.

[Fragamemnon]

Do you have to take over a civ capital for them to capitulate? I don't know how many times I go to war with a neighbor against another civ. I over run 4 cities yet my neighbor has none and the civ we are fighting always capitulates to my neighbor. It's so annoying.

Obliterating their army, having a large army yourself, and taking a certain amount of their cities so that they are doomed will result in them accepting capitulation. This specific behavior (capitulating to other civs instead of the civ that is dominating them) is fixed in  the official BTS patch 3.13.

[Candyflip]

I installed Civ 4 and BTS on recommendation from some other PC gaming thread a few days ago. I didn't realize how engaging this installment was until now. This morning I completed my first full game where I won via the space race. Previously I would just play up to about the Industrialiation period before falling apart due to bad economy or whatever. I was overwhelmed at first, there's so much you can mess around with. There's so much micromanagement involved in working each individual tile of every city that when it gets to the later portions of the game and the empire is huge, I have to quit for a breath of fresh air.

The insane amount of variety promises great replay value. I still don't have a complete grasp on some things though. I've yet to mess with espionage. Also, can someone explain assigning specialties in each city under certain civics? Like merchant, scientist, etc.

[Brehvolution]

I installed Civ 4 and BTS on recommendation from some other PC gaming thread a few days ago. I didn't realize how engaging this installment was until now. This morning I completed my first full game where I won via the space race. Previously I would just play up to about the Industrialiation period before falling apart due to bad economy or whatever. I was overwhelmed at first, there's so much you can mess around with. There's so much micromanagement involved in working each individual tile of every city that when it gets to the later portions of the game and the empire is huge, I have to quit for a breath of fresh air.

The insane amount of variety promises great replay value. I still don't have a complete grasp on some things though. I've yet to mess with espionage. Also, can someone explain assigning specialties in each city under certain civics? Like merchant, scientist, etc.

This

[Ganhyun]

must.... resist....urge....to...get.....Civ4..... again......

[crimsondynamics]

...can someone explain assigning specialties in each city under certain civics? Like merchant, scientist, etc.

Here are a few things you can try:

- Build wonders and structures that boost your commerce / research / production / culture rating
- There are a number of buttons at the bottom center-left of the screen when you are in city view mode. There you can choose to (off the top of my head here) focus on production, research, growth, commerce, and so on
- Different civics will give you the boosts you want. For instance, choosing the Caste civic allows you to create artists, merchants and scientists; it's not the
"most advanced" labor civic but if you want specialists this civic is preferrable to emancipation.
- Another example of this is the mercantilism civic, which grants you one free specialist per city.

These specializations are most effective if you are committed to a specific game plan and make a beeline to the required techs to reap the rewards from early on; most of these specializations are meaningless towards the endgame, when you should already enjoy a very distinct advantage (e.g. culturally strong, diplomatically strong, scientifically strong, militarily strong) compared to other civs.

[crimsondynamics]

must.... resist....urge....to...get.....Civ4..... again......

Just do it. Resistance is futile!

[CajoleJuice]

I've been resisting. I already have enough games to play at the moment.

[Mupepe]

thanks, guys.  installing on my work laptop as we speak.  it's going to be awesome to play at work.

when I used to work the graveyard shift, I'd install Civ III and then uninstall it every night, move my save to a folder hidden in the C:\ and then reinstall the next night.  Did that for like a year.

[crimsondynamics]

Civ 4's a permanent fixture on my hard drive and a total time sink.

I got my new Wii with Mario Kart; GTA IV with the PixelJunk Monsters expansion; Crysis and SWAT 4 expansion, all waiting to be played looked at. What do I do?

Civ 4. I'm not even sure if that shows my great taste in games, or my unwillingness to admit I have a Civ 4 ocd. 

[Candyflip]

...can someone explain assigning specialties in each city under certain civics? Like merchant, scientist, etc.

Here are a few things you can try:

- Build wonders and structures that boost your commerce / research / production / culture rating
- There are a number of buttons at the bottom center-left of the screen when you are in city view mode. There you can choose to (off the top of my head here) focus on production, research, growth, commerce, and so on
- Different civics will give you the boosts you want. For instance, choosing the Caste civic allows you to create artists, merchants and scientists; it's not the
"most advanced" labor civic but if you want specialists this civic is preferrable to emancipation.
- Another example of this is the mercantilism civic, which grants you one free specialist per city.

These specializations are most effective if you are committed to a specific game plan and make a beeline to the required techs to reap the rewards from early on; most of these specializations are meaningless towards the endgame, when you should already enjoy a very distinct advantage (e.g. culturally strong, diplomatically strong, scientifically strong, militarily strong) compared to other civs.

Hah, I came to say that I finally get it all now. This helped a ton: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

I can't believe people actually chronicle their entire games with screenshots. And that guy made a fucking strategy guide

This is fun though. Longest I've gone without playing WoW in a while.

[Ganhyun]

must.... resist....urge....to...get.....Civ4..... again......

Just do it. Resistance is futile!

I think i'm good. I've managed to not reinstall it yet. But then again I dont have the expansion packs either

So I think I'm subconsciously holding myself back until a version with all the expansions sells