1BC Civ Forums / Civilization IV Discussion / CivIV and CivIV:Warlords Discussion / Tips & Tricks

Help me! Is there any way to postpone mandatory retirement?

miichellecook — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 01:38:32 GMT

Really want to make all the technological advances. but i cant do it in 2050 years. :(

The dawn of man

Scopeless — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:05:04 GMT

I dunno if anyone else does this, but I have a pretty set strategy when starting a game. As Gandhi, I do the following...

1. After founding my capital, I research Polytheism and build an extra warrior.

2. After Polytheism, the warrior is usually finished, too. I start building stonehenge and research hunting. Getting Stonehenge early helps get a great prophet quicker and hinduism's holy city.

3. Once hunting is done, I pause stonehenge and build a scout. He is mostly to try to get as many bonuses as possible (free settlers and workers are great!) I then focus my research on all of the worker-related technologies, like agriculture, pottery, or bronze working.

4. After stonehenge is completed, I build a settler and then a worker. I use the extra warrior I made earlier for the new city.

5. At some point, I research priesthood. I then construct the oracle while finishing bronze working. Once both are done, I use the free tech to grab Metal Casting. Getting a forge early in the game REALLY jumps you ahead. I usually use the forge to get the great library made faster than even people with marble. The oracle also helps generate a great prophet if you do not have one already.

6. The whole middle of my game is all about getting Liberalism as fast as possible. I get all technologies leading up to Astronomy, and then I get Liberalism to get Astronomy for free...giving me superiority in building colonies before most can do this.

That's the way I start things off. How does everyone else start the game? What leader are you playing? I feel like I'm stuck in Gandhi syndrome. He's awesome because of Mysticism + Industriousness + Fast Workers. If only he has hunting at the beginning instead of the wheel, he would rule.

Keep or Raze

Law Cummer — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:33:37 GMT

In fact, I'm only asking this because I never raze cities. Does anyone? Can anyone recommend a good reason to generally take this approach rather than to install your own governor in the city?

Golden Ages

richking — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:56:15 GMT

I tend to take them immediately as my theory is that, like interest in the bank, early gains accumulate to greater things over time.

Do other players take the same approach? I'm interested to know any good reasons to hold off on the triggering of a golden age.

Also, do you think it's better to store up your great people to have multiple golden ages? I have done that up to the 4th golden age but I'm concerned the advantage is not as great as the reward gained from using the great people individually.

What are people's opinions on this?

The Barbarian Scourge

HistoryDude — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:54:08 GMT

Okay, is it just me or do Barbarians play an over-the-top role in cIV? They come early and often and with the same technology as you! I am NOT playing raging Barbs, either. Generally, I have standard maps with 7-9 AI opponents. The Barbs are beyond annoying. I find that you cannot develop peacefully because you are basically locked in a permanent war. There is a point in the game when they start coming and keep coming fast and are on the same technological pace as yourself (which I think is a joke). If you don’t have a substantial military in place very early on and at key strategic locations around your territorial borders to answer quickly any threats, the Barbs waltz in and destroy improvements until you can get a unit strong enough to deal with them. And there are a ton of them. I’d hate to see what [i]raging Barbarians[i] are like! :crazy: Anyway, while you’re working on building this defense, it sets you back in building Culture and developing your Cities.

I hate to play without the stinking Barbarians, but I think they are too many and the constant warfare early on is frustrating in every game. Sometimes it’s nice to play a different type of game, but the Barbs make it difficult for me to do that.

Would appreciate thoughts and ideas about how you handle this part of the game. Thanks! :)

Culture Bomb: Resistance is Futile

Locus Coeruleus — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 20:30:24 GMT

In my most recent game, I was set to capture the Azteca capital on a neighbouring continent. It was a rather large city, size 16, and I happened to have a Great Artist recently become available. I had already taken two neighbouring Azteca cities, so I had troops on the ground, and the sea lanes were cleared, so I figured, what the heck, I positioned a transport with the great artist and some defensive regiments on it next to the capital so that they could enter the city right after it fell.

It fell, I sent in the transport, unloaded the Great Artist and did the Culture Bomb. So what. Who cares. Well, the city itself, which, after capture, had a resistance factor of 9 turns, immediately became pacified. That is to say all resistance immediately disappeared. There would be no rioting, nor waiting 9 turns to begin production. Assimilation, induced by the culture bomb, was immediate, resistance was indeed futile.

This phenomenon may have been reported before on this site, but I did not see it, it was new to me, so I thought I'd share it with those who may be unfamiliar with it.

Cheers.

Hey! Those things make culture!

Leo — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:21:00 GMT

Thank you tones for pointing this out.

Temples, Monasteries, Libraries, Universities, Castles and Military Academies [b]all produce culture[/b] but do not show up in the city build queue as doing so.

I just found this out, thought I'd share unless anyone else was in the dark on that. *shakes head*

supporting civil riots

Spitfire 303 — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:07:44 GMT

A small tip. I have just found last night that when your spy succeed to create riots in the city even for one turn the whole city defence bonus is gone (as long as riots last - normally one turn). The good thing about it is that if don't have some kind of artillery you can still take this bonus out or if you have few units you can use them to attack the city right from the beginning and weaken defenders.

I know I haven't been playing since long time so sorry if it is obvious for all of you guys :D:D:D

Spit

hill+plains please...

Zigeuner — Mon, 14 May 2007 22:29:40 GMT

Sure enough, the starter settler distribution gods do a nice enough job finding starting locations, but (when at all feasible) I've gotten into the habit of moving my first settler onto the nearest hill+plains tile because of the extra hammer the city will then produce.[/end of sentence] This does wonders for early production, and is well worth the lost turn, if you ask me. Trying out some different locations, I noticed that on food resources the city tile will produce an extra food, and on tiles with two or more gold, two or more gold... The extra hammer rules supreme though.

Uses of Great Persons for tech / construction

Law Cummer — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:00:55 GMT

Hi there,

I'm wondering if anyone's been able to nail down the maximum value of a great person for the use of adding to the learning of a knowledge, or the building of a wonder (in the case of an engineer.)

I know in the later game these are not instant items, and there's an idea of how many test tubes or hammers. I'd like to use that information earlier in the game to be able to best judge the use of Great Prophets, Great Scientists and the like. For example, while it might seem beneficial to use a Great Prophet to instantly give Theology in the mid game, over the long term it might be more beneficial to add him to the population and get the wealth bonus, etc.

Any insight or guidance, but especially numbers, would be greatly appreciated.

Law

Hitting on All Cylinders

HistoryDude — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:01:53 GMT

How is it that the AI can expand aggressively, build military, develop their Cities (inlcuding Wonders) and develop technologically all at the same rates, it seems, on only Noble difficulty level? I don't see how they can expand faster than me and still have the money to spend on research to stay ahead of me in Science, too, and in number of Military units, and so on...?

When I get Alphabet, I trade techs where I can to try and keep pace with the AI. If I expand like I need to, the maintenance costs are keeping my Science rate way down. I've even tried selling old techs to the one or two AI who are behind, and still am bleeding so much red that I can't run a Science defecit for long. And if I [u]don't[/u] expand, then I can race out with Technology, but then fall behind in production, culture, and/or military units...not to mention watch most of the AI gobble up all the land and resources around me. Same with if I concentrate on Military, then Science falls behind.

In other words, it seems that the AI is firing on all cylinders, when I can only fire on a couple...??? What gives?! :crazy:

First Strike Promotion

DumbDaddy — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:05:30 GMT

Sorry -- realized I posted this to the wrong topic folder -- moving to "I Need Help"

Can someone explain this pomo to me?

Thanks!

Settler and Worker Production

mongoose201 — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 18:51:25 GMT

Most of you are probably aware, but for some of the new players, this can be very helpful.

In CivIV, your food production is added to your "hammers" to build settlers and workers. While building these units, it sometimes helps to check your city screen as there may be changes you can make to your citizen distribution to build those units sooner.

For example, in a recent game, I had a very high growth city. When I first selected the settler unit to build, the following was my city screen:

The distribution of citizens above is a decent mix of food and production in the early stages of city growth. It allows for decent growth with enough production to pump out some units.

But, when building settlers and workers, food becomes more important. "hammers" are still used in settler/worker production, but sometimes you can make enough of a gain in food that you can cut production time by relocating citizens.

See below (from the same turn) the difference it makes relocating two citizens to a higher food tile:

This is a full 2 turn advantage from the previous setting. This could be the difference between beating your opponents to a prime city location or being left out in the cold (or on the tundra;)).

When you are through building the settlers/workers, you would either leave the settings the same for massive growth, or switch back to a more mixed setting as in the first picture.

This kind of change isn't always possible, but should be taken advantage of when the opportunity presents itself.

Ironworks

DumbDaddy — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:14:00 GMT

Silly me, just a quick clarification -- Ironworks gives the production bonus of +50%/+50% if your CIV has Iron/Coal, not if that CITY has Iron/Coal, yes?

Is it possible to use gold to produce units faster?

g0d0rz — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:39:10 GMT

I have a question, I am new to Civilisation and I was wondering if I can sacrifice gold to build units/buildings faster or instantly?

(not the bar how much % you spend on research and or music)

Thank you very much :)

Builder's Queue Tip

Shaman Jarede — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:01:29 GMT

I have never seen this mentioned so I thought I would in case I am not the last guy to figure it out.:)

You can use combinations of keys in the build queue. for example, suppose you want to construct a barracks followed by continuous axemen.

First select barracks as you normally would, and then hold down the Shift and Alt keys while selecting axemen.

Evading trading agreement without saying no

ono-neko — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 14:41:28 GMT

Well, this is actually what I've done since Civ3. Sometimes, AI approaches you with a trade proposal that is:

a) You don't like it and there's no middle ground.
b) You don't want what s/he offers.
c) You don't want to give away what s/he wants.

At times, the ony way is to say "No". However, saying "No" may affect your relationship with the AI (I think). So, what do you do?

So far, here's what I've done. I ask for re-negotiation, clear the negotiation table, and either ask for World Map and see what he wants for that or offer a World Map and see what he gives in return. Either way, I evade his first proposal and make an entirely different proposal without the AI hating me.

Anyone done anything similar?

Great promotions use.

Zone — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:08:17 GMT

There are a mind boggling number of promotions available - you'll never get all the ones you want, but I've found a particular favourite combination to use - especially on watery maps where many cities are on the coast. When cavalry become available, build loads, and use the 'vassalage' and 'theocracy' civics. Hopefully you'll also have the small wonders West Point and Heroic epic in the same city and the pentagon can go anywhere. You'll be raking in 14 to 16 exp points for new units depending if you're 'aggressive' or not.

Use the first two promotions on the basic star thing - Combat I and II. Then pick 'Amphibious'. With any luck you can get Combat III before upgrading (when the units experience returns to 10). When you have flight and rocketry, upgrade all your cavalry to Gunships. Gunships can't naturally get Amphibious promotions, so no one will see it coming. My recommendation after Combat III is Blitz. You can then load a stack of Gunships with a ground unit or two) onto a few transports and attack from the sea. If you have bombers by now and can reach the city, that's great for taking down the defenses. If not, send out loads of artillary with plenty of defensive units. If playing against the AI, it will be loath to attack your defensive units, and a human player will probably hope you're going to dash them all against their own defensive units (although don't rely on that - I certainly won't be waiting if you try it on me ;) ). Once you've killed all the defenders with your gunships, you can walk your one ground unit into the city, then flood it with the gunships. Simple, and SO effective...

Anyone else got any cunning use of promotions to get useful additions to units that can't generally get them?

Spotting subs without destroyers

Zone — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 21:43:46 GMT

The following pic clearly shows an enemy sub. I did take another screenshot of zoomed in to show the lack of other units on the tile in question, but something went wrong and I couldn't be bothered to correct it. I have no units anywhere near as you can plainly see. I sent a plane out over the ocean to scout and then zoomed back, and what should I see but a submarine next to a small fleet. There are no other units on the same tile as the submarine. Anyone else spotted this bug?

[img]http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2120/spottedsubcopytc7.jpg[/img]

Yep, I'd say that's a bug!

Zigeuner — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:14:24 GMT

I just started up a new game, because my Chinese game is more suitable for the evenings, with those crossbowmen grinding everything to pieces, one civ at a time. I wanted to try something quick and quickening so I opted for a Duel on the tiniest of maps. Chose the Incan guy, to see what that Warrior can do. I was exploring the map, killing beasts, when I ran into Alex. Instead of making peace, I thought it would be fun to start out on the wrong foot and see what'd happen.

First I killed all of his Scouts, 3 or 4 of them, as they didn't have any sense of self-preservation, taunting my proud little Warriors like that. Next I advanced on his capital, which was still his only city, and I settled three of my guys on a forested hill right next to Athens. Sure enough, the guy starts building Archers and Archers only, trying to get rid of my Warriors (which have +100% against archery units). At times he tries to send out a pair of... Archers, probably to advance on my capital, but my Warriors cut them down easily (and more easily every time they gain a star). In the meantime I'm building up my cities, researching at a good pace, and expanding without challenge. Please tell me this isn't anyone's favorite startegy... :D

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I attached the .sav.

blitzkreig and artilery-type unit

ono-neko — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:37:02 GMT

I just read the thread at http://www.1bcciv.com/Topic2221727-9-1.aspx and I find that the debate about blitzkreig and artilery units are interesting. However, since I won't be complaining my "hate" toward Civ4, I thought I create a thread in Tips & Tricks instead of replying to that thread. Plus, the debate was done few months ago.

Anyway, I found that a lot of people think it's hard to do blitzkreig offensive, and everyone seems to sacrifice a lot of artilery-type units. I have to disagree, because, aside from whether it's realistic or not, I've done a lot of quick conquering strategy and only sacrifice my artilery when I am cornered, or lack massive power to overcome a city (usually the last city of the civ I am warring with).

I little background of my Civ playing style. I am a warmonger. I always try to finish my civ game with "Conquest", if that's not possible then "Domination", then Culture and so on. I hate "time", "diplomacy", and "space race". For me they don't represent the true ending :) Thus, I always have massive military across the world doing their worst in wrecking havoc the world map.

My favorite Civ before Warlord x-pack is Chinese with the leader Qin Shi Huang. It gives Financial and Industrious traits. Financial gives me a lot of money, to finance my war, in the long run as long as I always have a lot of cottages, and Industrious give me an edge in building wonders, and quickly build forge to push my city output rate. Being Chinese, I got Chu-ko-nu, the best archery unit in the game, IMHO. It's good against melee and does collateral damage.

Research wise, I always try to get to catapult and chu-ko-nu as fast as possible. Sometimes I'll get the one that let me build war elephant too, if I have ivory resource. The reason is those are the only 3 offensive units I build during the medieval era.

Usually my "army" consists of 2-3 elephants, 5-7 chu-ko-nu, 4-5 catapults. If I am in a good game, I have 2-3 of these armies standing on my border. In a less good game, I probably only have 1-2, but they are good enough. Behind my armies, I have standing longbowmens to be ready to be put into soon-to-be-my-cities for defense.

So, how do I blitzkreig? I usually choose the weakest civ as my "stepping stone" to train my chu-ko-nus. By doing little war, most of my chu-ko-nu will get plenty of experience, thus will get a lot of promotion. Usually, I add "vs archer" since the defender will most likely be longbowmen. Extras goes to stars to gain 10% strength. Once training is done, my "army" is usually good enough to fight any kind of oppositions. Chu-ko-nu against both melee and archers, elephants against mounted units, catapults for weaken city's defense.

When I attack a city, I use catapult to bombard, so I don't lose any catapults. That's all their job is, to bombard, not to attack. For attacking, I will choose among all the chu-ko-nus in the army. There are times, the first chu-ko-nu will die, especially when the precentage is low. In that case, I used the weakest chu-ko-nu as a fodder, and to lowered most of the defending units's strengths with its collateral trait. Once the city is taken, put longbowmen into the city, leave the wound behind, move on to the next city. Most of the time, I can bring the wounded back to the front line every other city. With 2-3 armies like this, I basically pick out the defender's cities almost every other turns, if not every turns.

Usually my warring time ends around post-medieval/pre-industrial age. But then, by the end of the war, a lot of my chu-ko-nus were so highly promoted, they can still do a lot against musketeers and macemen.

Now... on modern warfare, I think once you can create armors, you can basically do blitzkreig offense fairly easily because defense unit strength is lower than the offense unit in general. Using similar tactics, tons of armors, some artileries or bombers, I can fairly smoothly wipe out a civ out of the map. Because the opponent can do the same to me, I keep the quote from the ministry of defense in Civ3: "Offense is the best defense" :)

My game from medieval till modern era can be said almost like a constant warfare. Only time I stop is post-industrial, when I am waiting for Armor unit. I also always have 3-6 cities that are constantly spitting out units as fast as possible. Getting several religions and build the religion buildings helps finances my war. Also, before declare war to someone, sometimes I check if that civ has a lot of money, if he does, I sell an expensive research for all his money. That way I have tons of money, and he can't buy units to build fast defense.

With this strategy, I rarely need to sacrifice my catapults, and taking over a civ can be done fairly quick. Of course, if you are playing other than Chinese, not having Chu-ko-nu will slow you down a great deal. However, I've done similar strategy using Romans, though, in Romans's case, I bring extra catapults since Praetorian obviously don't do collateral :)

Now... in Warlord, which I only get few weeks ago, I am not sure if I can do the same again with Chinese, since they change the traits for Qin Shi Huang. Now it is only Incans that has those two traits. I am still playing around to see if I can use the similar tactics by tweaking my play habit with Chinese or other civs.

Phew, this turns out to be a long post. Hopefully no one gets bored in reading.

OMG! Look at those towns...

Zigeuner — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:07:40 GMT

I'd been irrigating like mad around my capital in the Arabian slugfest I'm playing right now, because I wanted to make full use of the many mined hills. After taking over (most of) two civvies I wanted to change government (Vassalage/Theocracy not being necessary any more), and all of a sudden I realized that Universal Suffrage and Free Speech give bonuses to Towns! I've just finished replacing all Farms with Cottages and some Mines with Wind Mills, and switched to Emancipation to encourage Cottage growth... Good grief, there is nothing that can beat those Towns! (Why isn't the AI building more of them?)

Time Victories

Curly Killer — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:42:35 GMT

Personally i hate the time victory condition, i always turn it off. Its the most annoying thing to be fighting a war against someone or just get advanced enough to start a war and then win by time. Also its annoying to have lost at the end when you know that within a few years you'd have wiped out a few civilisations and bcome the major power which you werent at the time 2050. I'd much rather kill everybody than do it so easily, its to boring. Also i get really annoyed because i'd worked for years to build up my civ and then if i win by time without having any realy fun wars its just dissapointing.

Anyway i was wondreing what everybody else thinks about this condition and if you agree with me.

civ 3

cripppledayngel — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:53:57 GMT

[center][/center]

Favourite Civic - Any Value

king_lamus — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:14:46 GMT

I've been playing around with different leaders to see what kind of game I'm best at. I noticed that the leaders have a favourite civic trait, but I haven't noticed it affecting anything. Anybody else know anything about it?

Capitulation

Apparatchik — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:42:37 GMT

Can anyone shed some light on this...

I recently succeeded in making an AI neighbor "capitulate". However, according to the rules, it seems that only the vassel can break this agreement! I simply want to move in (now that I've replenished some siege units) and destroy him, but it seems the advantage is now with him and there is now way for me to declare war! I even tried to provoke him by making demands for tribute and he simply just says no. Jeez.

Also, he was down to his last city, so there is no way he will lose half his land area (which is the only way, according to the rules, that he can get out of the agreement, but again the option is with him!). Again, it seems like he has the advantage after apparently "surrendering" to me and is effectively protected from destruction because of these rules.

Am I missing something, can anyone explain the rational...

Number of military units?

kalkas — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:54:53 GMT

How many military units should I have for defense per city?

copy/paste production queue

Strangelove — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 07:50:50 GMT

Hey all,

Can someone tell me how to copy and paste the city's production queue? I am using a danish (scandinavian) keyboard and can't get the damn thing to work.

Thanks all.

Real Earth?

TomW13 — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 20:58:36 GMT

New to Civ IV. I had the original Civ, but haven't played in many years.

Is it possible to start the game with the layout of the planet as it really is? I've tried the Terra planet, but I'd rather have the real world. It seems everyone just groups together around my new Civ.

Advice for a dummy please

Trent242 — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 06:09:26 GMT

Hi guys

Joined the forum today. After reading many posts, I concluded that my Civ4 gameplay is rather ... weak. I have some questions, and if they have been asked before, please advise and I will continue my searching .

I play on Noble, and my race of choice is Indian ( leader Ghandi )

1.) Does the Slavery civic automatically sacrifice population for production ? Or do I go to a city, and click somewhere and select how much population to sacrifice ?

2.) How do I go about creating a Permanent Alliance ? I’ve only been ably to create Defensive Treaties.

3.) Archers / Longbowmen. Do I use them when attacking a city ?

4.) Why the deuce would another nation, with whom I’ve had good dealing ( their attitude towards me was Friendly ) just declare war on me, out of the blue ?

Catapults

paperhero — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:11:34 GMT

Ok now I have catapults with 2 upgrades available to them. How do I get them to bombard? I mean to attack without getting killed! If I right click on enemy they go into combat with that enemy and sometimes die. When I hit the B key to bombard nothing happens.

Hurrying production in Civ IV

agrajagg — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 16:51:24 GMT

Any on e know if there is a way to hurry a city's production in Civ IV?

E.G. I have a city on the border with another civ and there culture is overwhelming my city. I want to hurry the construction of a culture producing bldg - you could of course do this in Civ III, but I'm not sure how to do it in IV, and can't find mention of it in the book.

thnx!

Things I like about Civ IV

Leo — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:29:10 GMT

So I've not played a great deal but these are things I like so far:

Diplomacy: When you start talking to one, you can click on all the rest of their names, in the order you'd like to talk to them and after you hang up on one, the next one comes up. In Civ3 I would forget if I'd talked to someone already...I like that.

Buying Wonders: If you can rush with money, you can buy wonders...GLEE!

Great Persons: I very much like the different types and the cool things you can do with them.

Unit promotions: Nice customizing abilities...that and renaming leads me to Heavy Tank (tank), Fire Support (tank), First aid (tank), Assault Tank (tank)...neat things...not all units are the same.

Religion: The whole religion thing is cool...even if I can make a Hindu Theocracy...which should not be possible.

I'll add to the list when I think of them...

Victory Movies

Apparatchik — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:46:19 GMT

Over the past few weeks, I thought I would try to win by specific scenario (i.e. diplomacy, cultural, etc) after so many pathetic Time Victories (very unrewarding).

So, cultural victory achieved (with Mongols no less....ha). Very nice victory movie, although I wish they would show the actual wonders in your best city as opposed to the generic city they show...

Then space race...uh, not so good and in fact looks like we are seeing only a splice of what should be there (where is the cool rocket taking off into the sky?)

Diplomacy? Nothing, notta. Just a lame still of your civ surrounded by the others with the UN watermark behind. Did they developers run out of time or something? What about a ticker-tape parade or something? Jeez

I tend to play on very low difficulties (lazy and do not like to lose) so maybe the movies are different at higher levels? Anyone? Raised or lowered taxes...?

National Wonders

Scipio Africanus — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:09:15 GMT

Since you can only ever build two national wonders per city in this game (and their are 11 of them in total IIRC), deciding fairly early which one's will be built in which city can make a big difference. What are the best combos? I've got a few ideas, but I won't spout off too much in the interest of stealing ideas from others instead.

The only one that I will start off mention is the Heroic Epic -- West Point combo. With Heroic Epic, you get a 25% shield bonus on building military units. With West Point they get some gigantic XP bonus increase. Add this to the Military Academy, and Great Military Leader buildings in Warlords, and you got yourself a war factory!

Some of the other Nat Wonders are more complex. What do you guys think?

Cultural Victory

Scipio Africanus — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:00:27 GMT

I'm playing an EASY random map as the Aztecs on only the 2nd most difficult setting. It has been a sheer cake walk the entire game, and I have kept as little military and spent as little effort on conquesting as possible, instead focusing as much as possible on pumping the culture in three of my cities. I'm up to late 19th century, have artillery and infantry, and out of boredom am now starting to conquest the other piddly civs on my continent who have longbowmen and spearmen.

Even so, I am skeptical that I'm going to be able to get a cultural victory, and if I do, it looks like it is going to take a while.

Has anyone else won this way yet?

Always click the recomended?

Hilldilly — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 03:39:18 GMT

Hey there , im a noob in civ, all of em, and i was wondering if i should always click on the recommended building and untis to make???

greetz dilly.

Early advances

cicerosaurus — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 05:21:54 GMT

Does anyone else find it strange that you can't clear a forest/ jungle before you get these technologies, but you can still clear a road through forests and jungles? Seems inconsistent.

Dont trade with our worst enemy blah blah blah

jbfballrb — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:47:05 GMT

ever get annoyed because some leader asks you to quit trading with his worst enemy? when you open up with a leader, click "lets discuss something else", then "what do you think of...". you can now know what everyone thinks of everyone else.

Ideas for Civ 4 Mods

Scipio Africanus — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 17:28:32 GMT

Eventually, once I really know the game, I want to make some mods. Probably other folks want to do so also. So I thought it would be useful for everyone to have one thread where we just post ideas, whatever crazy idea you might have for making a mod. Even if the idea is so crazy you do not think you, or anyone could do it, go ahead and write it down. Maybe somebody will get an idea that can be done, or maybe some genius will figure out a way to do it. Here are my first few ideas.

I'd like to see some more units in the Rennaissance period. I was getting some ideas from here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Armee#Cavalry

I actually think it would be better (though it would involve more changing, and it might require some more Techs spaced in there in order to space out these units effective periods a bit) to rearrange the units quite a bit.

Archers (3), should (in addition to their current bonuses of +50% city and +25 hill) get a slight bonus against siege weapons (+25%?). I THINK that this will exentuate the mixed arms agenda of the game effectively.

Spearmen (4) should get +25% against mounted (=5), and +25% against melee (=5), general purpose ancient infantry.

Axemen (5) stay with +50% against melee (=7.5 vs 5 spears).

Horsemen should be a strength 5 (slightly weaker than a sword), but are otherwise fine as skirmishers who can sometimes run away.

Swordsmen should stay strength 6, but should get a bonus against melee weapons, not against cities.

Catapults (3) should come with MATHEMATICS instead of CONSTRUCTION, and should have +50% versus city, as well a+50% against melee (+50%). The city defenders of the ancient and classical era are archers (4.5 vs 5.25), spears (6 vs 4), and swords (6 vs 6).

With MACHINERY we then get Crossbowmen (4), +50% city defense (6), +25% hill defense. At strength 4 it counters catapults (6 vs 3) as well as +50% against melee (6 vs 6 for swordsmen in open, and 7 vs. 6 defending a city against melee). I had remembered crossbows being developed AFTER longbows, but in any case, that would involve even more Tech changes. Crossbows should also get a bonus against knights, say +50% (6 vs. 7 in the open, 8 vs. 7 if defending a city, 9 vs. 7 if defending a city on a hill).

CONSTRUCTION then gives us a better siege systems (e.g., siege towers, sappers, etc.) which can be represented by the unit trebuchet (3) +100% city attack. This unit is a partial counter to the crossbow as city defender (6 vs. 6), but not very good for much else.

Knights come with with GUILDS (7) +50% vs. melee (10.5 vs. 5 for spears, vs 6 for swords, or 9 for pikes). This makes knights good for what they were actually used for, dominating the open battlefield, but not good for attacking cities defended by crossbowmen (7 vs. 8 at best).

Longbows comes with FEUDALISM (4) +75% city defense (7), +25% hills (5), +75% vs. knights (7 vs. 7 in the open, 8 vs. 7 on hills, 11 vs. 7 defending a city, and 12 vs 7 defending a city on a hil).

Pikes, rather than being a counter to mounted units (+100% in the game settings), should simply be a counter to swordsmen, whereas longbows should be an intermediary counter to knights, and then arquebusier a pretty much total counter to knights.

Pikes (6) +50% vs. melee, +50% vs mounted (comes with ENGINEERING) are simply improved infantry, better spears, better armor, better organization. They are equally good at attacking or defending on the open battlefield (9 vs. melee and mounted), but not great at taking cities (6 vs. 7 if a longbow or crossbow are defending the city).

Longbowmen, the medieval city defender should be countered by a late medieval arty weapon of some sort, say a Trebuchet (4) +100% city attack (8 vs. 7 for longbow defending a city, 8 vs. 6 for crossbow defending a city), which should come with CIVIL SERVICE.

Macemen (6), the equivalent of "men-at-arms" late medieval professional / mercenary soldier types, should come with BANKING. These guys should be good at attacking cities (+75% city attack = 10.5 vs. 7 for a longbow or crossbowmen defending a city), fair at fighting knights (+10% against mounted = 6.6 vs. 7), but not exceptional at defending cities . Since swordsmen are also a 6 strength unit, macemen should also get a +20% against melee to make them ONLY slightly stronger than these classical era units (7.2 vs 6 for swordsmen, but only 7.2 vs. 9 for pikemen). Alexander the Greats infantry would not have been a lot different from those which Henry IV used at Agincourt). So macemen are good at storming cities, but not particularly good at fighting pitched open-area battles (7.2 vs. pikemen at 9).

Macemen will be good for storming cities (10.5 vs. 7 for the best city defenders), but out in the open, crossbows (6 vs. 6 on flat ground and 8 vs 6 on hills) will remain a reasonable defender against such forces, and large infantry forces, pikes (9 vs. 7.2) can still mow down these hired attackers.

Instead of musketman with GUNPOWDER, lets have arquebus with GUNPOWDER. Strength of 5, but 100% against mounted, shield cost slightly less than what a pikeman costs. This gives us a unit that can finally standup to the knight (read, penetrate their armor), but is not particularly good for much else, i.e., remains vulnerable to even ancient style masses of pikes and swordsmen, longbows or crossbows.

NATIONALISM gives a slight counter to the first primitive firearms in the form of cuirassiers (11).

With REPLACEABLE PARTS lets have flintlock (6) with +75% against arrow units (9 vs. 7 for the best city defenders or arrow units), +25% vs. melee units (8 vs. 6 for pikes or swords, 8 vs 4 vs. spears), +75% vs. mounted (9 vs. 11 for cuirassiers, or 9 vs. 7 for knights). Whereas the very first firearms were only good as a counter to knights, and because they were slow and cumbersome needed defense against virtually any other unit, matchlocks are more versatile, they can actually attack and take a city, or defend a city, and defend themselves in the open battlefield, except they are underpowered relative to the cuirassiers. Whereas the arquebus was simply a counter to knights on the open battlefield, the matchlock is actually STARTING to force changes in the late medieval tradition of defending cities with longbows and crossbows.

More later ;)