BTS: General hints and tips for beginners

[d!NO]

Hi, I've been playing Civ for a long time and thought I'd share some tips and tricks for getting into the game easier. Civ 4 has a steep learning curve, and at least for myself, the game was very confusing at first.
So here are some things I think new players might find useful to know about:


1. Difficulty levels

The way difficulty levels work in Civ is partly just a crude numerical handicap. That means, raw bonuses to production, gold, etc. On lower levels, Human is strongly favored, and on higher levels vice versa. On higher levels, "skill" more or less consists of counter-acting a huge AI handicap by being, well, human-smart.
That's why I think any new player (as soon as you grasp controls and such) should begin on at least Noble difficulty. At levels below that, numbers so strongly favor the Human, that you can more or less roll your face on your keyboard and still win. You might notice getting all world wonders you attempt to build, or founding many religions despite not even trying, as indicators for this.
If you're interested in learning how to play, and feedback for good/bad decisions, Noble is the first reasonable difficulty level. Once you learn the basics, you'll quickly progress up to Monarch (where AI handicap becomes more notable.)



2. Map settings

Apart from above mentioned, map settings is the other way to adjust difficulty, and also what type of game you prefer to play. Do you like warfare, or a longer-term science-game? The default number of players per map size generally provide spaceous maps, and a calm early-game where you may expand in peace. If you're like me and enjoy tension from round 1, cram more players into a given map size. This is also the best way to adjust the length of a game apart from game speed, since on a crowded map players are forced to compete earlier on - on a larger map it also takes longer to fulfill win conditions.

Regarding other options, Vassal States are notorious for being poorly implemented, so turning them off might also improve your experience. No Espionage might be another good option to consider, as the Espionage element initially provides very little benefit to a new player.

Here's also an overview on what layout to expect when generating various map types.[www.flickr.com]



3. The first few turns

A good start is everything, and can be tricky. It largely depends on specifics like position, civ and strategy, but there are some pointers.

Your first unit should nearly always be a Worker, or sometimes Work boat. There are very few exceptions to this, as it's crucial to start growing fast. Once you have your unit, improve the best workable food tile you can find. Wheat before Gold, Deer before Ivory, a farm before a mine, and so on.
Although I dislike the idea of build orders, the closest thing to a widely accepted Civ 4 "opener" is Worker first, grow the city to level 3, then your first Settler. Meanwhile, make sure to scout the vicinity for your next city. Do NOT use your starting unit (Warrior/Scout) to run in a straight line away from your city. For obvious reasons.

Tech-wise is again variable but while building your Worker, there's inevitably time to research whatever is needed to work your nearby food source. Make sure you don't train a Worker, only to find it standing around unable to do anything once it's done.
Bronze Working is something you always want to research early (often times the very first), no matter what your strategy is, because of what it unlocks: Slavery, chopping down trees, and Copper. Being able to chop ensures your Workers always have something relevant to do.
This is also true for The Wheel. When workable tiles are improved, don't build mines/cottages/farms for a level 15 city -- build roads instead, in preparation for future attacks or city settling. Every round matters.



4. Key units and techs

Throughout the game there are checkpoints that are good to be aware of. Some examples of this include Longbowmen. The first sight of this unit is a good indication that your early-game military units like Axemen or Swordsmen, are starting to become obsolete. Attacking an opponent who has researched Longbowmen (Vassalage tech) is significantly harder than one who hasn't and may require double the siege.
Above I mentioned Bronze Working. If an opponent has this tech, and perhaps even Copper available, be wary of them using Slavery to "whip out" (rush production) archers while you attack, or have Spearmen that may counter your cavalry for example. You can check your opponents' civics by hovering the icons above their portrait when you speak with them, and Slavery obviously means they've revealed Copper.

Construction is yet another example (siege, war elephants). When your opponent has catapults, simply stacking archers for defense will not suffice any longer. And whoever has Ivory and Construction likely have very strong war elephants.
All in all being to able to judge where and when your opponent is in relation to you tech- and unit-wise, is very important. An goal should be to consistently aim for these key techs that may give you a competetive advantage.



5. Gold and military

The two heaviest factors to success, as all else depends on them. You will not progress without gold, all of it is worthless if you can't protect it.

The methods to aquire gold vary, but the two most common ways are the so-called Cottage Economy (gold by working cottages in your cities), or GP economy (gold by working Great people in your cities). The first option is what beginners will strive for.
The concept is building cottages on any open tile (obviously not where other improvements are superior), and working them whenever possible. Cottages grow and provide more gold the more turns you work them, and provide +1 extra gold next to rivers and thus will scale automatically.
Ideally, construct cottages on Grass (green tiles), since the +2 food means cottages will allow continued city growth. Otherwise you will need a bonus food (>3 food) resource to compensate for it. This goes for all tiles -- 0 food is a net growth loss, 1 food is stagnation, and >2 food means net growth gain.
Once a city matures, if it's working enough cottages it will pay for itself, and thus your expansion and eventual victory. A lucrative city will pay for other types (e.g. production cities) and your units and science. This is the idea behind a cottage economy. Not having any method at all to earn gold, will always lead to defeat, as you will either not afford enough defense or lag behind in science.

As for military, seldom do you have the luxury to just ignore this either.
By pressing F9 you can access the scoreboard graphs, and Power rating of every civ (provided you have enough Espionage points on them). The Power rating indicates the army size, and is a deciding factor in whether AI will attack or not. Never fall too far behind on this, and keep close eye on how it develops. Even small civs can muster up large armies and invade from nowhere, and different leaders have affinities for different amounts of units.
In order to confidently not get attacked (there are always exceptions though), be able to negotiate for peace and make demands, oftentimes you'll need a certain ratio in army size to your opponent's.

Balance these two things: army size, and gold, and you'll find yourself in a more controlled game where you won't get rushed as often, progress at a steady pace, and plan ahead.



6. Collateral damage and terrain

Two things that may baffle new players are sudden huge stack of dooms invading, or losing one's own entire stack from surprise attack from the fog of war.

Catapults and some cavalry units have Collateral damage. This means that when they attack a unit, they will indirectly damage other (but not kill) units in the same stack so that when foot soldiers attack, they face damaged opponents. Siege is the only counter to large stacks, and necessary for both defense and offense. For cavalry units this collateral damage applies to siege units in the stack only, and it's thus a great method to prevent incoming city invaders.

The general idea to attacking a fortified city, is first bombarding, then sacrificing a few siege, to nullify the otherwise unfavorable city defense bonuses. My rule of thumb is around 30-50% siege, as that gives a confident margin to trade off whenever needed.

Terrain is another important factor. Forest for example give +50% defense, and hills another +25%, and so can mean a huge difference for attacking and defending. Hover above tiles to see what bonuses apply and try to keep your forces marching through favorable terrain to avoid being peeled off -- and take into consideration when enemy cities are settled on hills for example. Crossing rivers provide penalties to attackers too, so direct attacks on enemy cities accordingly.



7. Addons and interface

Apart from numerous excellent game mods, there are addons that will improve Beyond the Sword interface, AI and such:

BUG Mod[civ4bug.sourceforge.net] is an interface improvement mod that makes information more accessible - such as the power rating (ratio between you and your rival's army sizes), how long and what type of Great Person you'll get next, and similar. To me there's no downside to this mod and it doesn't alter the game itself at all.

K-Mod[forums.civfanatics.com] is a mod that tweaks and alters gameplay mechanics the way a patch would, and improves the AI. Full list of changes are in the link, but the main draw here is the vastly improved AI when it comes to warring. Unlike BUG this will affect the game, but not to the extent of a mod - so there are no new units, different techs or similar, only tweaks. I've been promoting this mod in many posts because I think it's nothing but an improvement.
BUG Mod comes bundled with K-Mod so you don't need to separately download the two.

There are other non-game-altering mods that work upon the AI, such as BAT and Better AI if you wish to search for it, but the above two are what I use personally. Either way I highly recommend a mod to improve the original AI and fix some of the common bugs.




Some other handy things to know:

- By pressing F12 you can aquire the Civilopedia in-game if you want to know something about a leader, unit, resource, or similar.
- By zooming out the map entirely, there are new toggle options on the lower right side of the interface. You may toggle military units instead of resources for example, something that's very handy as the game goes on.
- When using Slavery, never whip out a unit without building it at least one turn, as that comes with an additional population penalty, to prevent whipping every turn.
- Use your first Great General to promote a Medic unit. That will greatly increase healing rate for your army's units.


Long list but feel free to ask questions, I'll check on the thread regularly. Hope it was to any help!

[CHE]

Originally posted by d!NO:

Hi, I've been playing Civ for a long time and thought I'd share some tips and tricks for getting into the game easier. Civ 4 has a steep learning curve, and at least for myself, the game was very confusing at first.
So here are some things I think new players might find useful to know about:


1. Difficulty levels

The way difficulty levels work in Civ is partly just a crude numerical handicap. That means, raw bonuses to production, gold, etc. On lower levels, Human is strongly favored, and on higher levels vice versa. On higher levels, "skill" more or less consists of counter-acting a huge AI handicap by being, well, human-smart.
That's why I think any new player (as soon as you grasp controls and such) should begin on at least Noble difficulty. At levels below that, numbers so strongly favor the Human, that you can more or less roll your face on your keyboard and still win. You might notice getting all world wonders you attempt to build, or founding many religions despite not even trying, as indicators for this.
If you're interested in learning how to play, and feedback for good/bad decisions, Noble is the first reasonable difficulty level. Once you learn the basics, you'll quickly progress up to Monarch (where AI handicap becomes more notable.)



2. Map settings

Apart from above mentioned, map settings is the other way to adjust difficulty, and also what type of game you prefer to play. Do you like warfare, or a longer-term science-game? The default number of players per map size generally provide spaceous maps, and a calm early-game where you may expand in peace. If you're like me and enjoy tension from round 1, cram more players into a given map size. This is also the best way to adjust the length of a game apart from game speed, since on a crowded map players are forced to compete earlier on - on a larger map it also takes longer to fulfill win conditions.

Regarding other options, Vassal States are notorious for being poorly implemented, so turning them off might also improve your experience. No Espionage might be another good option to consider, as the Espionage element initially provides very little benefit to a new player.

Here's also an overview on what layout to expect when generating various map types.[www.flickr.com]



3. The first few turns

A good start is everything, and can be tricky. It largely depends on specifics like position, civ and strategy, but there are some pointers.

Your first unit should nearly always be a Worker, or sometimes Work boat. There are very few exceptions to this, as it's crucial to start growing fast. Once you have your unit, improve the best workable food tile you can find. Wheat before Gold, Deer before Ivory, a farm before a mine, and so on.
Although I dislike the idea of build orders, the closest thing to a widely accepted Civ 4 "opener" is Worker first, grow the city to level 3, then your first Settler. Meanwhile, make sure to scout the vicinity for your next city. Do NOT use your starting unit (Warrior/Scout) to run in a straight line away from your city. For obvious reasons.

Tech-wise is again variable but while building your Worker, there's inevitably time to research whatever is needed to work your nearby food source. Make sure you don't train a Worker, only to find it standing around unable to do anything once it's done.
Bronze Working is something you always want to research early (often times the very first), no matter what your strategy is, because of what it unlocks: Slavery, chopping down trees, and Copper. Being able to chop ensures your Workers always have something relevant to do.
This is also true for The Wheel. When workable tiles are improved, don't build mines/cottages/farms for a level 15 city -- build roads instead, in preparation for future attacks or city settling. Every round matters.



4. Key units and techs

Throughout the game there are checkpoints that are good to be aware of. Some examples of this include Longbowmen. The first sight of this unit is a good indication that your early-game military units like Axemen or Swordsmen, are starting to become obsolete. Attacking an opponent who has researched Longbowmen (Vassalage tech) is significantly harder than one who hasn't and may require double the siege.
Above I mentioned Bronze Working. If an opponent has this tech, and perhaps even Copper available, be wary of them using Slavery to "whip out" (rush production) archers while you attack, or have Spearmen that may counter your cavalry for example. You can check your opponents' civics by hovering the icons above their portrait when you speak with them, and Slavery obviously means they've revealed Copper.

Construction is yet another example (siege, war elephants). When your opponent has catapults, simply stacking archers for defense will not suffice any longer. And whoever has Ivory and Construction likely have very strong war elephants.
All in all being to able to judge where and when your opponent is in relation to you tech- and unit-wise, is very important. An goal should be to consistently aim for these key techs that may give you a competetive advantage.



5. Gold and military

The two heaviest factors to success, as all else depends on them. You will not progress without gold, all of it is worthless if you can't protect it.

The methods to aquire gold vary, but the two most common ways are the so-called Cottage Economy (gold by working cottages in your cities), or GP economy (gold by working Great people in your cities). The first option is what beginners will strive for.
The concept is building cottages on any open tile (obviously not where other improvements are superior), and working them whenever possible. Cottages grow and provide more gold the more turns you work them, and provide +1 extra gold next to rivers and thus will scale automatically.
Ideally, construct cottages on Grass (green tiles), since the +2 food means cottages will allow continued city growth. Otherwise you will need a bonus food (>3 food) resource to compensate for it. This goes for all tiles -- 0 food is a net growth loss, 1 food is stagnation, and >2 food means net growth gain.
Once a city matures, if it's working enough cottages it will pay for itself, and thus your expansion and eventual victory. A lucrative city will pay for other types (e.g. production cities) and your units and science. This is the idea behind a cottage economy. Not having any method at all to earn gold, will always lead to defeat, as you will either not afford enough defense or lag behind in science.

As for military, seldom do you have the luxury to just ignore this either.
By pressing F9 you can access the scoreboard graphs, and Power rating of every civ (provided you have enough Espionage points on them). The Power rating indicates the army size, and is a deciding factor in whether AI will attack or not. Never fall too far behind on this, and keep close eye on how it develops. Even small civs can muster up large armies and invade from nowhere, and different leaders have affinities for different amounts of units.
In order to confidently not get attacked (there are always exceptions though), be able to negotiate for peace and make demands, oftentimes you'll need a certain ratio in army size to your opponent's.

Balance these two things: army size, and gold, and you'll find yourself in a more controlled game where you won't get rushed as often, progress at a steady pace, and plan ahead.



6. Collateral damage and terrain

Two things that may baffle new players are sudden huge stack of dooms invading, or losing one's own entire stack from surprise attack from the fog of war.

Catapults and some cavalry units have Collateral damage. This means that when they attack a unit, they will indirectly damage other (but not kill) units in the same stack so that when foot soldiers attack, they face damaged opponents. Siege is the only counter to large stacks, and necessary for both defense and offense. For cavalry units this collateral damage applies to siege units in the stack only, and it's thus a great method to prevent incoming city invaders.

The general idea to attacking a fortified city, is first bombarding, then sacrificing a few siege, to nullify the otherwise unfavorable city defense bonuses. My rule of thumb is around 30-50% siege, as that gives a confident margin to trade off whenever needed.

Terrain is another important factor. Forest for example give +50% defense, and hills another +25%, and so can mean a huge difference for attacking and defending. Hover above tiles to see what bonuses apply and try to keep your forces marching through favorable terrain to avoid being peeled off -- and take into consideration when enemy cities are settled on hills for example. Crossing rivers provide penalties to attackers too, so direct attacks on enemy cities accordingly.



7. Addons and interface

Apart from numerous excellent game mods, there are addons that will improve Beyond the Sword interface, AI and such:

BUG Mod[civ4bug.sourceforge.net] is an interface improvement mod that makes information more accessible - such as the power rating (ratio between you and your rival's army sizes), how long and what type of Great Person you'll get next, and similar. To me there's no downside to this mod and it doesn't alter the game itself at all.

K-Mod[forums.civfanatics.com] is a mod that tweaks and alters gameplay mechanics the way a patch would, and improves the AI. Full list of changes are in the link, but the main draw here is the vastly improved AI when it comes to warring. Unlike BUG this will affect the game, but not to the extent of a mod - so there are no new units, different techs or similar, only tweaks. I've been promoting this mod in many posts because I think it's nothing but an improvement.
BUG Mod comes bundled with K-Mod so you don't need to separately download the two.

There are other non-game-altering mods that work upon the AI, such as BAT and Better AI if you wish to search for it, but the above two are what I use personally. Either way I highly recommend a mod to improve the original AI and fix some of the common bugs.




Some other handy things to know:

- By pressing F12 you can aquire the Civilopedia in-game if you want to know something about a leader, unit, resource, or similar.
- By zooming out the map entirely, there are new toggle options on the lower right side of the interface. You may toggle military units instead of resources for example, something that's very handy as the game goes on.
- When using Slavery, never whip out a unit without building it at least one turn, as that comes with an additional population penalty, to prevent whipping every turn.
- Use your first Great General to promote a Medic unit. That will greatly increase healing rate for your army's units.


Long list but feel free to ask questions, I'll check on the thread regularly. Hope it was to any help!

Yes, some useful advice here.

[olElLI]

Sound advice. For new players, I'd recommend "Better Bat AI" rather than K-mod though. Here's a good discussion on the differences between the two:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/k-mod-vs-bat.616656/
(BAT has the UI improvements, AI, better textures etc.)

[red255]

yeah, minor issues with your post. lets piecemeal them.

1.) Below Noble you can get workers and settlers from goody huts. just felt like throwing that out there, if you get a super early settler from a goody hut it means you start with twice as many cities as the AI...Doesn't change the crux of what you wrote, but its not JUST a slider.

You get a bonus to happy and clean and reduced maint costs, and a research speed boost on the lower difficulties which slides to the the other side on the higher difficulties.

2.) Low sea levels means more land means more space, and 'larger' maps. Not sure turning off game features will make you happier. with No espionage, spy buildings now provide culture so thats an extra +100% culture per city ...which can be slightly game changing.

Espionage is one of the great levelers when an AI gets ahead of you. he attacks you and then stalls for a few turns while he controls your city. at that point you can send spies in and rob him of all his tech advantage. wouldn't really recommend turning it off.

3.) Uh, your first line is 'how you play depends on position ...' then you say your first build should be a worker.

...no. first build should be a scout. maybe some warrior until you reach size 2. might depend on map settings. THEN you build the worker. or warriors if you are deciding to chump rush a neighbor.

the scouts purpose (I use 2) is to ....scout the local area, see if there are any goody huts for taking nearby and see if there are any AI who are too close.

if theres an AI within a certain number of tiles from my spawn ~15. I make warriors and kill him. which of course works best if you place your starting city on a plains hill. Which is a much better start than anything else you could do.

theres not much point in building a worker until you finish the tech required to actually work the terrain, and even then you cities will be pretty small not requiring you to upgrade that many tiles.

hardly a first build canidate.

4.) Not even sure what to say here ...probably would lump it with military. moving on.

5.) Will comment cottages are best in situations where you have alot of flood plains. just shoot down a city on the river and fill it up with cottages on the flood plains. Never really worked out a GP economy, Thought you spent the GP to speed research, didn't think you actually seeded them inside towns.

I generally fund my civilization with religion though. which can take a GP to build the building, or it can be taken with war. also of note are the 4 buildings, Apolstalic palace, Sistine Chapel, Spiral minneret and university of sankore, which if you put a temple and monestary in every city will keep your tech pumping until the later game techs where I would consider switching to corporation....or more obviously just winning the game.

As for millitary, if the AI is threatening you for resources its planning an attack, if its begging its not. Didn't really bother with F9 menus and running charts. they normally start threatening you way before they actually attack, which is my usual trigger for building up my armies.

6) getting too complicated here. My typical (ideal) stack is 20 macemen, 2 pikemen 2 crossbowmen 2 knights 8 trebuchet and 2 longbowmen per city. -(edit the 2 long bowmen are to hold the city, the rest of the forces are for attack, I.E. if you wanted to take 4 cities you'd need 20 maces and....8 longbowmen etc.)

its enough defense to make sure you don't get peeled off, 4 trebs will generally strip the cities defenses, and the other 4 can attack, then send in the maces.

later on you'll just blitzkrieg with tanks.

7.) ...do you get money every time someone downloads K-mod? Probably should put a disclaimer then.

[JesseL]

I agree K-mod is the best "original BTS feeling" mod. On a side note, does anyone know if you can play with mods in a multiplayer game over Steam if everyone has the same mod?

[d!NO]

Originally posted by red255:

7.) ...do you get money every time someone downloads K-mod? Probably should put a disclaimer then.

Thanks for the input.
It's freeware, as far as I know there's no money in it whatsoever. I'm only a user, but if a modder makes something I enjoy at no charge - I have no problem advertising it for free as well given the chance.
Also:

Originally posted by THOR:

I agree K-mod is the best "original BTS feeling" mod. On a side note, does anyone know if you can play with mods in a multiplayer game over Steam if everyone has the same mod?

Yes, that's possible, which is the main reason I'm promoting it.

[olElLI]

Originally posted by THOR:

I agree K-mod is the best "original BTS feeling" mod. On a side note, does anyone know if you can play with mods in a multiplayer game over Steam if everyone has the same mod?

Apparently K-mod makes diplomacy way less predictive, akin to CiV 5 in a sense. With having all AI (irrespective of personality) randomly declaring at friendly and such (if it so behooves it). Far from vanilla BTS.

Again, in my opinion, if you're new to the game, and want a good all encompassing (AI) mod; "Better Bat AI" is the way to go. Pure awesomesauce compilation. Then afterwards, if you feel like having the AI chess you in a civilization game; feel free to install K-mod.

https://youtu.be/IJcuQQ1eWWI?t=19m22s
(Steam not taking timed links; 19m22s)

[d!NO]

Originally posted by olel:

Apparently K-mod makes diplomacy way less predictive, akin to CiV 5 in a sense. With having all AI (irrespective of personality) randomly declaring at friendly and such (if it so behooves it). Far from vanilla BTS.

Yes, that's certainly noticeable.
The AI is ruthless, backstabbing and opportunistic, but that's what I love personally. In vanilla, civs are either entirely war-oriented (Aggressive AI), or passive zombies standing idly by while you win the game. Leaders like Hatty or Mansa Musa either become Friendly just because you open borders and gift them some Fur, and after that never declare war on you, no matter how what they stand to gain from it - or from turn 1 intend to war no matter what.

I'd say warfare is just better incorporated in K-Mod. It's not an "either-or" situation like mentioned above, but rather something you must adapt and consider no matter what scenario. That always seemed more realistic and immersive to me.