Civilization 4

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So, Civ 4 is currently on Steam for £6.25. This includes Beyond the Sword, Warlords, and Colonization. My question is, is the game worth grabbing? Given that it's so cheap, i'm tempted to buy it on general principle. I've been thinking a new city builder type game would be good, maybe this could be it.

 

YES. It's so good your personal life will suffer.

 

Not really a city builder but it's definitely worth it. I agree with Death Rabbit, you can forget about your social life once you get started playing Civ IV.

 

I've got nothing to lose

 

So I started playing Civ 4, but I seem to spend all my time doing nothing. I had 3 cities, And workers connecting them all up with roads. I spent 1500 years waiting for research to finish and buildings to complete. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Not really, what difficulty are you playing at? If this is your first Civ game ever you really should start on the easiest as there are lots of things to learn. It can easily be perceived that the game is only about waiting and to some extent it is. You give your orders and you wait for things to finish. You basically want your cities to grow so they can build and research things faster and you want some military units. Three cities is a good start, develop those and well, do you have any idea how the terrain works? It is of vital importance just where you place your cities so they have enough food mainly but also production and commerce.

 

What is your speed? Marathon takes a very long time to get anything done but it evens out because you get more turns than on regular speed (years will pass by even faster on quicker game speed). The best way to start the game is to train a worker and then connect your resources.
Another tip would be to never neglect your military and try and prioritize your buildings and cities according to the victory type you have in mind.

 

I'm a total novice at the game, I know essentially nothing. I usually build cities on the coast out of habit, though I don't really understand how.. Err.. Anything works. Maybe I should play the tutorial

 

That could help, generally you need quite a few hours to get a grasp on how the game works. The Civilopedia is also very helpful as it explains all game concepts. I started playing the first Civ back in 93 and for the first 100 hours or so I had really no clue as to what I was doing but I was enjoying it. So just build your cities, research your stuff and have fun exploring one of the best games ever made. If you play on chieftan you should be able to whop the AI even with very little idea as to what is going on.

 

Go for Settler difficulty for your first game and take your time. Playing the tutorial and going through the Civilopedia (like Joacqin said) can really help to get started.

 

I did the tutorial, and learned a bit about city placement and so on. I'm going to have another go at the game soon, are there any leaders who are particularly good to start off as if you're a newbie?

 

The real easy way to get started is IMO to take Julius Caesar and aim for Iron Working so you can train Praetorians and rush for a military victory.

I'd suggest having a look at the synergy of traits, leaders and special buildings and units.

If you want to experiment and learn about civics, leaders with the Spiritual trait can be useful (no anarchy when switching between religions or civics).

The Financial trait is considered to be the most powerful and Huayna Capac is said to be one of the most overpowered leader given the Financial + Industrious traits and the strength of Quechua Warriors for early rushes.

 

I agree, Financial is the best trait, but in the easier difficulties gold isn't (or shouldn't be) an issue and you need to understand how economy works to get the big benefits. Creative and Industrious leaders were my favourites when I started to play Civ4, but I really didn't know much of the game then - free area and fast wonders seemed so sweet .

 

I'd say financial + anything is a decent starting combination. So you can have your financial, along with something else that sounds interesting to you.

 

Civilization IV is an awesome game. There are a few of us here that play it and can help you out.

When you're just starting out, it probably doesn't really matter which leader you choose. Their individual pros and cons only really come into play once you learn how to tailor your game to their traits.

The first thing I would recommend getting your head around is how cities work, in particular how the tiles in the Big Fat Cross are worked by your citizens and what that means for your economy in terms of food, production, and commerce. That's the heart of the game. Once you understand that, then we can move on to worker actions, research paths, buildings, wonders, great people, combat, trade, diplomacy, and victories.

 

I complete agree - Up to Warlord difficulty, just about any strategy or leader choice will work. You don't really need to start to refine a basic strategy until you go past Noble.

 

I'm finding it all quite confusing, but here's what i've worked out:

The "fat cross" is the area a city can draw resources from. Tiles will have Food, Production, Commerce, or a combination on them. Food makes the city grow faster. Production makes stuff build faster. Commerce appears to make research faster.

You can use Workers to improve the tiles.

 

Right on! Commerce is both gold and research depending on how you set your science rate. Check your top left corner.

 

Ohhh! The percentage is how much of the gold is put into research, and how much is kept as gold! I geddit now

Is it important to have gold, really? Because while i've been playing I haven't actually found any use for it - The only gold I seem to get is from tribal villages.

 

Yes, it is important when you want to upgrade troops or rush certain activities. There is a different form of gold which is a resource that you can mine to make your citizens happy (like with ivory and wine.)