Quote from: Imp;319542*snaps fingers*

You know what the problem might be.

If you're coming to Civ IV from Civ II, and you're getting your ass kicked at low difficulty levels... you might not be building cottages. You might just be building farms.

Don't do that. Build cottages. Build lots of cottages. More cottages than farms. Cottages = economy = very important!

Good point. Cottages do what roads did in Civ II.

Also, when you build a cottage its contribution to your economy (which is money AND research) will be quite small, but they grow on their own, eventually becoming towns, which are a BIG boon to your economy.

The reverse is also worth keeping in mind. When you invade someone's territory, pillage their towns!

Not only will you cripple their economy even if you don't take whatever city you attacked, but you will also reap a good chunk of change in the process.

And they can't just rebuild that city your cavalry razed into the dirt.

They have to build a lowly cottage and let it grow over time all over again.

Razing a town can set an opponnent back 100's of years of growth.

Hmm, that might be a contributing factor. I tend to build more farms, workshops and lumbermills, than cottages.

Definitely! Like, whenever you have a city surrounded with grasslands or plains or jungles/forests that you chop down, give that city 2 or 3 farms or food sources (corn/rice/pigs/sugar, etc.) and put cottages everywhere else.

Once you get the hang of it you're going to want to specialize your cities, dedicating some to production, some to research, maybe one or two to money-making, because a city with a bunch of towns and a library/university/observatory does a lot more research than five cities that kind of half-ass it, and same for a production city with mines or watermills or workshops... you can have just one or two of those handle your empire's whole defense for most of the game.

Also, pillaging towns is a good strategy if you're in a scrap with an equal or superior enemy, but when I'm conquering I like to leave those shiny towns completely intact, so they can work for me once I have all those cities.

I'm slowly getting the hang of it. A couple more goes on Noble to hone my skills and then onto Prince!

The thing i've learnt that has improved my chances greatly is to trust the computer. If it recommends building something, then 9 out of 10 times, it's the right thing to build. Fully automate workers so that you can concentrate on more important matters.

My favourite little tactic at the moment is to send Great Artists to my frontier cities to give their culture a huge boost. It's great for creating buffers against your neighbours and can sometimes result in neighbouring cities succumbing to your culture later on in the game.

"Culture Bombs" are fun, yeah, especially when you convert captured enemy cities (instantly turning a lot of their citizens into your loyal subjects). They can also help secure critical resources you might need later on.

If you're pushing borders with another civ, settling the Great Artist is the better play because the cities' culture output per turn is what determines how the tiles will eventually flip. Meaning, if you do a culture bomb, a bunch of tiles will flip your way, and then slowwwwly flip back after a while.

Culture bombs are handy for securing wilderness though.

I am surprised that automating workers has gotten you that far as it is generally Considered Harmful and if you don't hit a wall doing that on Prince you definitely will on Monarch. Eventually micromanagement becomes really important, esp. in the early game. (I don't play Monarch!)

Have you learned to whip things yet?

Got a high score of 8500 odd today (pitifull, i know) as the Malinese. Won the space race in 1983. I'm as good as Bolivar!

This thread got me back into Civ 4 ... you bastards!

I love playing this game entirely too much. I haven't got into the hardcore micromanage of the workers yet, auto does me fine so far but I am only now about to break out of Noble difficulty, so time will tell.

I never could enjoy playing much past noble. I *like* being able to found a religion, and that's pretty much impossible two notches past noble. I *like* being able to build a wonder or three, and the ability to do so drops off so sharply past Noble that it's annoying.

At noble, you have several ways to win, and can choose city sites, and have options for your civilization, but as the skill level increases, it turns into a "build axemen immediately and stomp your neighbor as quickly as possible" game, without much else.

Anyone else try the "Beyond the Sword" scenarios? Like the sci-fi games and whatnot? They're pretty good stuff for random homebrew games.

The Final Frontier mod is interesting and beautiful but it crushes my computer as soon as most of the map is revealed.