Is it ever worth moving your first Settler?

Question

Every time I've played Civ 4 my first Settler starts on what looks like a pretty good square for a city, and I build it turn 1. Has anyone ever found it to be a worthwhile strategy to scout around a bit to see if there is a better location? If so how often is there one nearby?

Asked by DJClayworth

Answer

So the map usually places you in a decent spot (ie. near good resources), but you can actually disable this option.

If you disable spawning near resources then the answer becomes very obvious. However, even in the case where you do spawn near good resources I always move my scout/warrior first to see if there are better resources I might want. I usually prefer growth based resources over military ones (ie horses) or commerce based ones.

In FFH2 (a mod for Civ4) you frequently start in "bad" locations, and I almost always move to a better location. Normally, I don't want my first city near Mana, as it doesn't help a ton to get up and running (when I have the option of other resources, obviously Mana is better than nothing), but I don't want someone else to steal it.

Another thing to consider is the size of your map. On smaller maps, moving your Settler is punished by running into other Civilizations. On larger maps, you usually have tons of room to look around and expand.

My take home might be: usually, just found your city where you start, but always make sure to move your Warrior/Scout first, just in case.

Answered by tzenes

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Does bloom ever destroy resources or improvements?

Question

Bloom is a spell in Fall From Heaven 2 that creates a New Forest. This doesn't immediately remove resources or improvements.

Are conflicting resources or improvements removed if and when the new forest grows into a Forest or Ancient Forest?

Asked by C. Ross

Answer

After a couple hours of testing I can confirm BadP's comment. Neither a new forest growing into forest, nor a forest growing into ancient forest, will destroy any bonuses or improvements. (and it hurt my fps)

To test this I modified a map to have every (legal) resource and terrain combo within range of my cities. I then used workers to improve everything and had high priests of leaves cast bloom. After that I saved the game and let it run for a couple hundred turns until every square had become ancient forest. At this point there were no missing bonuses or improvements. I then loaded the saved game and ran it for a couple hundred turns again, but this time I switched to a different religion from the Fellowship because only Fellowship civs can create certain improvements on top of forests. This had no effect on the results. Again, nothing was destroyed.

TL;DR No.

Answered by Fambida

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What are the main changes made to the game going from Civilization IV to V? [closed]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
What changes have been made from Civilization 4 to 5?

What are the main differences between the two latest versions of the Sid's Meier Cilivization series?

Is this only an improvement of the graphical interface (more 3D and highly detailed views) or is this more than that?

Asked by Pierre

Answer

There are many differences between Civilization 4 and 5. Besides the obvious graphic changes Some of the most significant game play changes are:

• 1 Military Unit per location, instead of infinite stacks
• Global happiness instead of local happiness
• Embarking troops instead of troop transport units.

An extensive list can be found on the civfanatics forum.

Upcoming expansions might add or remove some of the differences. For example an announced expansion will add religion to Civilization 5, something which was already present in Civilization 4 but absent in the Civilization 5 base game.

Answered by Xenox

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How do I take over a city with culture?

Question

I have just started playing Civilization IV. I have been trying to take over cities with cultural influence, but most of the time what happens is my city is taken away instead.

How can I affect my neighbor's cities with culture instead of theirs affecting mine?

Asked by santiagozky

Answer

Cultural borders are determined by culture producing buildings in your city. For instance, the Obelisk adds +1 culture per turn. At certain milestones the city borders will expand to enclose a larger area.

If your city is on a border between you and a neighboring Civ, you'll have to have a higher cultural rating in order to maintain control of the tiles that both cities' borders would normally contain. You can hover over a tile to see what percentage control you have over a particular tile.

The more culture your city is producing, the more likely it is that you will push their borders back. Build culture-producing buildings in border cities to maintain control of your tiles. Culture producing buildings have a small purple "note" icon and usually a number denoting how much culture they produce per turn.

Certain World and National wonders also produce culture, and after researching Drama, you can put some of your Civ's economic output towards culture across all cities. Additionally, Great Artists can produce a Great Work in a city, which adds an immediate culture bonus. This effect is sometimes referred to as a "culture bomb" because it tends to push the borders of the city outward rapidly.

You may also be interested in this article on Cultural Victory, which contains a pretty good list of ways to make your Civ produce more culture.

Answered by agent86

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How many military units per city/population is recommended in Civilization IV?

Question

I'm looking for guidance in Civilization IV on how best to build a military that allows for the optimum mix of defensive capabilities with offensive ability (when needed) without having to sacrifice technological gains and city improvements.

Some background: I'm having difficulty balancing domestic output and city improvements with military strength and aggressiveness whenever I play at the Noble difficulty level or above. My preferred style of play is to not emphasize military strength, but instead to work on science and trade and city improvements. On the military front I build primarily defensive units with defensive city improvements (such as archers and walls in the early game). The problem I run into with this strategy is that usually by 0 AD or so there will be at least one civilization on the map that's got it out for me, despite my attempts at placating all of my neighbors. They'll send in a swarm of units, destroy my improvements, and take out a few cities. My only defense (sadly) is to buy/negotiate a peace treaty.

I've tried playing the opposite way - building a very strong military - but in doing so I usually have to sacrifice building workers/settlers at the rate I enjoy, which slows my expansion. I usually last a lot longer but by the mid game my civilization is behind most others when it comes to technology, city sizes, the breadth of my empire, culture, and so on. Also, this approach just isn't as much fun for me.

TIA

Asked by Scott Mitchell

Answer

From my experience, 3 military is good enough for average defense, it allows you to hold out till you can reinforce.

But for your style of play, perhaps 5-10 would be better, you don't want to many as it causes slow down in tech etc..., but then you don't want to get crushed. You should have more on the outer cities and reinforce from your inner ones, I try to always have 3 minimum in all cities, but doesn't always work, then any bigger cities up it to 4-5.

If you notice your enemies normally attack you with massive stacks, the only way to counter those are with a large stack yourself. Have 1 large stack that walks between cities and does the attacking, then leave 3 units in all your cities for normal defense, remember if you suddenly get attacked at a choke point (hopefully you have one) you can always reinforce from your other cities, knocking them down to 1-2 stuff like that.

Answered by Viper_Sb

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Why are there duplicate game entries in my Steam library?

Question

I purchased Sid Meier's Civilization IV: The Complete Edition, a package that includes four items. Three of the included items are displayed twice in my games library, with the message [game] is not available on your current platform.

Why do these duplicate entries exist, and can I hide or remove them?

Answer

Seeing as that game is a SteamPlay game, the duplicates are Mac versions of the game.

The easiest way to hide any game is to categorise your games and only show those you want to see, or just hide those that are not installed. You can do so by clicking All Games and clicking the category you want to see.

Alternatively, at least in library mode, if you give them a certain category they will be put in a different section which you can hide by clicking.

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What exactly do the Market and other buildings increase?

Question

The effect of Market is given as "+25% coin". Does that mean before or after the division of commerce into science, gold and culture?

In other words, if I have a city bringing in 20 commerce, and the 'sliders' are set at 80% science and 20% gold, does adding a market affect only the gold (adding one gold) or the gold and the science (adding 4 science and one gold)?

Likewise for Bank and the similar buildings.

Answer

These buildings only effect the gold output, and not the science output. The science percentage-increasing counterparts are buildings such as the Library and University.

In your example, this would translate to +1 gold (and 0 additional science or culture) for building the Market.

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How do city walls get repaired?

Question

Let's say I lay siege to an enemy city and bombard it, reducing the defences to 20%. Then for some reason I go off to do something else. If I later come back to that city, will its defences still be 20%? Will they ever go back to their full amount? If it's my city, is there anything I can do to get that defence back up?

Answer

Yes, city defenses heal over time. If you bombard a city and lower its defense, and then leave it alone for a while, the damage will be repaired as turns pass.

Base city defense is a factor of the city's culture. (see "How do I increase my city's defense" in this Civ4 FAQ) If you increase the base city defense with things like City Walls, then the maximum amount of city defense increases. If you bombard the city enough, the defensive bonus from city buildings/wonders will be lost, but the building/wonder will not be destroyed. Eventually, the city will heal its defenses back to the maximum.

The defensive bonus for the city is calculated as follows:

• For each culture level the city has, gain 20% up to a max of 100%
• If walls/castle are present, and the normal maximum defense is less than the amount this improvement specifies, replace it with the defensive bonus for the improvement, so long as a pre-gunpowder unit is selected.
• If Chichen Itza is in effect, add 25% to the city defense percentage

I tested this by rushing gunpowder and building walls in a city that normally would have 40% city defense (ie, culture level 2), then gifting the city to an enemy player and declaring war. I could toggle between highlighting my longbowmen and my musketmen, and the defensive bonus would be 50% when the longbowmen were selected, and 40% when the musketmen were selected.

I believe the applied defensive bonus for units in a city is the combination of the current city defense rating, plus the defensive rating from the tile, plus any modifiers that the unit has (ie, a defensive unit with the City Garrison ability). Even if you take the city defenses out of the equation, you'll still have to contend with those other bonuses.

I believe Spies can influence this as well, although it's been a while and I can't recall what was in the base game versus what was added in the expansions.

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How important is your score in Civilization IV?

Question

During a game in Civilization IV, you can see a score for each civilization (on the bottom right, above the mini world map). Is it important to be the top scoring civilization at all times? Or how much can your difference with the top scoring civilization be before you're unlikely to catch up or win the game?

I have started quite some games already, but played only a few of them through completely and those were at lower difficulty levels, as fully completing a game can take quite some time and I'm still learning; so I don't have a feel yet for how well the score reveals whether you're on the road to victory or not. So far I still tend to lose my top position at some point, typically when I get into a war. I can keep my own score during the war, but some other civilization quietly starts to overtake me. I'm not sure how much I should be worried about that.

Do expert players make decisions based on their score? Like getting out of a war before you fall behind too much score-wise?

Answer

Score can be a good barometer of how well you're playing, but it's only a factor in winning if you run the clock completely out and nobody wins another way.

It's sometimes easy to "back door" win via one of the other victory conditions even if you're behind in score, but being the clear score leader makes every victory easier. Higher score generally means you're more technologically advanced and larger in terms of population and number of cities. All of these are important factors to every victory type.

Extended war with no real significant movement of borders is a bad way to win no matter how you're playing. Every unit lost is shields that are being thrown away. If you're going to devote time and resources to a war, make sure you've got an achievable goal, and that you're not neglecting your technological and economic progress.

Technological advances and a strong economy are as important, if not more important, than the size of your army. If you can't keep your technology current and your finances significantly in the black, don't go to war or try to end wars you're in quickly.

If you're new to the series, I'd suggest learning to focus your cities on a particular type of output. For instance, for food/population you'll want to focus on building near rivers and plains. Your first city will likely be in an area like this.

Your second and third cities should be focused either on generating money/science (plains/grassland, primarily) or production (hills and forest). Only build buildings and terrain improvements that focus on the city's specialization. The "production" city should focus on building military improvements and military units. Improve terrain with mines and lumber mills. The economic/technology cities should focus on boosting trade income with Cottages.

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Civilization 4: Choosing between food and production for the game beginning and later

Question

I'm still new in Civilization 4 and had a lot of questions about playing the game. I'm finding the game to be insanely complicated so please keep that in mind while giving your answer. If you use too much game jargon I won't understand. Thanks for your help in advance.

Question: I can't decide which one to focus on in the beginning - food or production? My choices don't seem to have any clear impact on the game. I have read in tutorials that food is consumed each turn but even if I sit idle and do nothing no one complains that there is no food. It seems there is always enough food. So what should I focus on in the beginning of the game and why?

Answer

Food determines how fast your city grows, at the top of the city screen is a bar that shows how much food is stored. When that bar is full the city grows one population point and the bar is emptied again.

Each population point of your city eats some food, that is subtracted from the total food earned and only the excess food goes towards growing your city.

Each population point means you can work one tile more of the city, that is a considerable bonus. As long as your city is happy, additional population is very helpful. You should try to keep your population below the limit where they are getting unhappy.

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How well does Civilization 4 handle automation of workers?

Question

I always automate Civ4 workers but wonder if it would be better if I micromanaged them. How well does Civ4 take decisions for you, when they are automated?

Answer

It doesn't do anything blatantly stupid, and develops your lands so they'll look a lot like the AI's lands.

What it won't do automatically is city specialisation. It's a powerful strategy to have commerce cities that build no troops just lots of markets and banks, science cities that build lots of libraries and science buildings, and military cities that just build barracks and then crank out unit after unit after unit. The first two kind of cities need their lands developed to make commerce, some food, some hammers. The military city needs no commerce, at least as long as you don't need to turn commerce into culture, but benefits from hammers and enough food to use them all. Then there are the Great People farms that have lots of food and use it to run many specialists.

The advantage is that you save resources by only constructing buildings that make a large contribution to your economy. A handful of markets in the right cities can do more for your economy than building markets everywhere that all earn mediocre amounts of gold.

Each kind of city has a different development needs. Some of that comes from careful selection of city sites, but some of it from the micromanagement of your workers.

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What changes have been made from Civilization 4 to 5?

Question

I've read the surprisingly light Wikipedia article on Civ 5 and it seems to be lacking coherent comparison of features between it and its predecessor. I'm also reluctant to bring down the 4Gb demo on a whim...

Please could I have some clarification on the following:

• Has the speed of conquest been slowed down even further?
• Are wars any easier to end (and avoid re-igniting) diplomatically?
• Are there still culture-related borders?
• Is the AI as aggressive as the article seems to indicate, or is it possible to have stable diplomatic neighbours?
• This one's rather subjective, I'm afraid: With regards to improvements, is this an XP to Vista kind of upgrade, or Vista to 7? By which I mean are they generally look driven, or core gameplay driven improvements?

Let me know if this should be a community wiki, or needs clarification.

Answer

Some of these are opinion only, but here's my take on it:

• Has the speed of conquest been slowed down even further?

It takes longer to capture cities, if that's what you mean, but I think the hex-based, 1UPT, ranged units, and the fact that a unit doesn't necessarily die at the end of each combat (both sides can survive, for example) makes CIV V's combat strictly superior.

• Are wars any easier to end (and avoid re-igniting) diplomatically?

Kinda speculative; this is difficulty and AI leader personality dependent.

• Are there still culture-related borders?

Yes.

• Is the AI as aggressive as the article seems to indicate, or is it possible to have stable diplomatic neighbours?

Again, depends on leader + personality + difficulty level. Stable diplomatic neighbors are possible, however.

• This one's rather subjective, I'm afraid: With regards to improvements, is this an XP to Vista kind of upgrade, or Vista to 7? By which I mean are they generally look driven, or core gameplay driven improvements?

Personally, I would say Windows XP to Windows 7. Both looks and core gameplay.

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How does trading work between your own cities?

Question

I've played this game a few times with the tutorials helping me along the way. How do I get my cities to manage their resources properly? Some need a given resource and others are full with a given resource. I know there are import and export values I can set but beyond that it is not entirely clear to me what I should do.

In short, can someone elaborate how the trade system is meant to work amongst your own cities?

Answer

Are you talking about Goods and Materials?

As settlements produce goods, wagon trains can carry them to sea ports, where ships can transport them to Europe. ref

So you could also move them in wagon train in another city, to turn them into finished goods. The Guns and horses could also be moved using a standard unit.

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In Civilization IV what are the differences between the Difficulty Levels?

Question

Can anyone explain what are the differences (like attacking style, culture development, etc) of the enemies in Civilization IV between the various difficulty levels?

Answer

It's a matter of bonus and handicap. Some are for you and some for the AI.

Ref:

Chieften, Settler, Warlord... they all give bonuses to the human, or handicap the AI in one manner or another... these lower levels are easiest for the human and hard on the AI.

At Noble, both sides are at their closest parity in regards to breaks to either side... Prince through Diety all favor the AI with increasing bonuses and gameplay ease, making it harder on the human.

There is a file that detail all those.

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Where can I find a good Civilization 4 Strategy guide?

Question

I love this game but have a tough time winning past the 3rd level of difficulty... Any suggestions?

Answer

I would recommend Civ Fanatics. As a bonus, they've got information on Civ III and Civ V as well.

Here's a direct link to their strategy section: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy

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Changing game AI for Civilization 4

Question

I read that the auto-worker functionality in Civilization 4 doesn't really work very well - he keeps building farms as opposed to towns and other objects. Since I'm still pretty new to this (and don't play many strategy games except for those similar to Age of Empires, which is pretty simple and straightforward), I went about thinking of the best way to learn this game.

One thing I thought of to do is use an automated worker to do a lot of things while I try to understand what other elements I can control. Does anyone know whether or not there is an AI that I can use for the auto-worker to improve his behavior? I know that we download and install custom scripts at least in Age of Empires.

Answer

As far as I know, no mod changes with the auto worker pattern. This is mostly because you need to specialize cities, which means that one size does not fit all. You also have to co-ordinate with the terrain you settle on. Workers, and city planning are some of the hardest parts of the game.

Take a look at these guides at civfanatics.

Your basic plan for early game is to have 2 or 3 production cities, with lots of food and hammers, as well as 3-5 commerce cities, with cottages. You don't want cottages in your production cities radius, but you can have a mine in your commerce city, so that you can build things like libraries, banks, or other money or science boosting building.

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Civilization 4: Choosing resources for your main city

Question

I'm still new in Civilization 4 and had a lot of questions about playing the game. I'm finding the game to be insanely complicated so please keep that in mind while giving your answer. If you use too much game jargon I won't understand. Thanks for your help in advance.

Question: If I double-click on my starting city I come accross a map which shows some white circles. I think those circles are choosing what tiles are being used to calculate my per turn balances. But why aren't all tiles in my territory showing up? What do I do to have more options for the circles?

Answer

White circles denote fields on which the population of a city are working, thus generating food/production/trade (coins) resulting from given squares. You can rearrange the population to suit your needs, so if you would prefer more food or extra trade (coins), you can deactivate worker from active (white circle) field and assign him of her to another.

Each non-capital city starts with culture 0, thus only has access to 9 adjacent tiles. After reaching first level of culture (10 points), its borders expand and it gets full access to all tiles that are max. 2 non-diagonal squares away from the city centre. Note that every city always automatically generates resources from square composing the city centre, without assigning any population there (unless riots occur in the city).

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Civilization 4: Choosing between food and production for the game beginning and later

Question

I'm still new in Civilization 4 and had a lot of questions about playing the game. I'm finding the game to be insanely complicated so please keep that in mind while giving your answer. If you use too much game jargon I won't understand. Thanks for your help in advance.

Question: I can't decide which one to focus on in the beginning - food or production? My choices don't seem to have any clear impact on the game. I have read in tutorials that food is consumed each turn but even if I sit idle and do nothing no one complains that there is no food. It seems there is always enough food. So what should I focus on in the beginning of the game and why?

Answer

Food determines how fast your city grows, at the top of the city screen is a bar that shows how much food is stored. When that bar is full the city grows one population point and the bar is emptied again.

Each population point of your city eats some food, that is subtracted from the total food earned and only the excess food goes towards growing your city.

Each population point means you can work one tile more of the city, that is a considerable bonus. As long as your city is happy, additional population is very helpful. You should try to keep your population below the limit where they are getting unhappy.

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What is the use of gold in Civilization 4?

Question

I'm still new in Civilization 4 and had a lot of questions about playing the game. I'm finding the game to be insanely complicated so please keep that in mind while giving your answer. If you use too much game jargon I won't understand. Thanks for your help in advance.

Question: Coins. I have seen that if I decrease the research I can start saving coins in my treasury. But till now I haven't used them. What is the use of these coins? When do we make use of them really? As beginner should I always keep my researched maxed out (as long as coin consumption is not negative)?

Answer

Coins are your money:

• You can trade them to other civilizations in exchange for anything: technologies, maps, resources, the other civilization going to war for you. (After researching the technology Currency)
• You can spend them to quickly finish new units and buildings. (depending on your civilization's current government)
• You can spend them to upgrade your units which have become obsolete into the newer better units. (But only inside your territory, or maybe even in cities, or in cities you have Barracks in. I can't recall which one sorry!)
• You spend them each turn to pay your units. If you're not earning enough coins each turn to pay your units, and you don't have enough in your treasury to cover the loss, your units will start disbanding. (Deleting themselves)
• You spend them each turn to pay for your cities to run. The more cities you have, and the further they are from your capital, the more they cost.
• You can effectively spend coins you've saved in your treasury on research, by setting your research high enough that you are losing coins. Just watch for your treasury running out!

I'm probably even forgetting a few. Just think of coin as money. What can you do with money? Spend it on things you have to, then spend it on anything you like if you have any left over!

If I've used any terms you're not familiar with, just ask for clarification in a comment.

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Which order do I play the Civilization IV expansion packs and the main game?

Question

I bought Civilization IV and all 3 expansion packs from the Steam Sale. I've heard numerous things about the packs - new units, civilizations, etc. I have no idea what that means since I'm new to the series. :)

I have 4 games listed on my Steam, excluding duplicates: Civ IV, Civ IV: Beyond the Sword, Civ IV: Colonization, and Civ IV: Warlords.

Can I just play Civ IV and access all the content from there? Or will I jsut be able to play the vanilla game without any of the expansions?

And I've heard that Colonization is a totally separate game..so would this need to be run separately? After a tiny bit of searching, I have found that Colonization is a standalone, separate game. However, my main question stands.

EDIT: It seems that Warlords scenarios are not included in BtS.

Answer

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the latest expansion, this is what you want to play if you're starting out. This contains the main game plus all the changes and additions from the two expansions.

You can play the vanilla game or just with the Warlords expansion, but then you'll miss out on the improvements made in Beyond the Sword. This option is more for players who prefer the old rules, as a new player I would ignore this option.

The Warlords expansion also contains some scenarios. You can't access those if you start Beyond the Sword. If you want to play the Warlords scenarios you have to launch Warlords instead.

Colonization is a completely different game, just using the Civ 4 engine, as you already said, this one you have to start separately.

Just start Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword to begin.

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