Civilization 4 Guide [BASIC]

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

GAME INFO:

The game is played using the Beyond The Sword expansion patched to version 3.17 aswell as BUG(Basic Unaltered Gameplay) MOD

Map: Shuffle (Creates either a Pangaea, Continents, Archipelago or Fractal map)
Size: Standard
Speed: Normal
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: Medium
Difficulty: Noble (At this difficulty there is no advantages/disadvantages between Ai and user civs.)

I chose a random leader so I couldn't go in with a specific game plan and I would have to adapt to the world/civ/leader I was given at random.



I got given Suryarvarman II of the Khmer Empire. One of my least favourite civs due to their Unique Unit (UU) the Ballista Elephant being so map reliant as you need Ivory to build them. Expansive and Creatives traits aren't my favourites either... maybe I should of chosen a leader for my self after all

Expansive:
+2 health per city.
Double production speed of Granary and Harbor.
25% faster production of Workers.

Creative:
+2 culture per city.
Double production speed of Library, Theater, and Colosseum

Expansive and Creative can be fairly helpful early game. Granaries allow you to run slavery more efficiently as your population grows back quicker and Libraries boost your science early on and allow you to run science specialists. +2 culture per turn in each city means you won't need to bother getting Mysticism early on for monuments to expand your borders.

Unique Building: Baray (Replaces Aqueduct)



Unique Unit: Ballista Elephant (Replaces War Elephant)



Khmer empire starts with the Mining and Hunting technologies.

The Start: Early Research and Expansion

4000 BC: Fairly decent starting position, I'll discover Agriculture first and build a worker in my Capital so I can farm the rice early for a good food source so my capital can grow quicker. I also popped a hut which was right next to my Settler at the start giving me some gold bonus. Best of all I can see a little elephant on the map nearby meaning I'll have ivory to build my Ballista Elephants later on .

3680 BC: Discovered Agriculture, still building worker in capital. I've also set my scout onto auto explore so it will go and clear the black from the map and hopefully find some more goodies in village huts.

3320 BC: Meet Wang Kon of Korea who has come from the north with a warrior. I set up an early peace agreement.



3200BC: Discovered Bronze Working. This should be a high priority tech in the early game, usually I would of got it first but the food source next to my city made me go for Agriculture. BW allows you to adopt the Slavery civic. This allows you to sacrifice population in your cities to finish production. Be careful because too much sacrificing and your people will go unhappy and chances of revolt will rise.

Apart from Slavery BW also allows you to chop forests with workers, I usually use my first worker to connect resources and then chop forests to quicken production on another worker and then a Settler. I usually only chop or sacrifice for production on important buildings such as Granary/Library/Courthouse or Great Wonders.

Last of all BW allows you to see the Copper resource on the map, Copper is useful early game to build Axeman/Spearman for early wars against other civs that started to close or any barbarians you might encounter. It is also helpful late game as it quickens production on some Spaceship components.

3000 BC:


As you can see in the minimap my scout has been doing some exploration and has found Malinese and French also nearby on the map. That leaves me fairly certain I've been given a Pangaea or Fractal map.

It is important once you have explored the area surrounding your starting position to think where you are going to place your cities. I am using BUG MOD so I can put up the dotmaps (coloured regions) for easy planning of my cities but you can do this by eye, the coloured cross region represents a cities BFC (Big Fat Cross, its workable area) and the coloured dot shows the city location.

2nd City (Green): This will be where I place my second city. It is on an excellent riverside are meaning it can be turned into a strong commerce city with cottages on riverside or a Great Person farm by building farms along the riverside and setting workers as specialists. Also in the cities BFC there is the Ivory required for my UU and Cows (Horses are also in there but I didn't discover that until I researched Animal Husbandry ), the Ivory can be connected with a road and a camp(requires hunting) on the ivory and cows/horses require a pasture/road.

3rd City (White): I actually ended up moving this city down 1 space as there is a pig resource on the tile that I didnt see when zoomed out. This city position has a good food resource with the pigs and will give easy access to copper aswell. This will be a good place for a Great Wonder building city as it should be able to get high production.

4th City (Yellow): This is a good city location because it can take advantage of the rice and dye resources in its BFC aswell as have high production courtesy of the plain hills.

3000BC - 1960BC (16 Turns) :

Discovered The Wheel, Animal Husbandry (Allowing me roads/pastures to connect animal resources and reveals Horses on the map).
Discovered Archery (For archers, a strong early city defense unit)
Discovered Writing (Allows open borders and Libraries for early science boost)



This shows Wang Kon offering an Open Borders agreement. I accept as it will give me a chance to send a unit to scout out his lands to see if he will be easy to attack in the future and I can get some trade going with him also. Signing OB also helps with a +1 diplomacy boost.

Whilst researching your first few technologies you should look to build workers/settler and look to improve around your first few cities by connecting resources and building a couple of farms to help the city grow quicker so you can sacrifice population sooner for the first couple of important buildings (granary/libraries).

1960BC - 1000BC:

Discovered Pottery (Allows workers to build cottages to increase commerce for cities and allows granaries to be built in cities for quicker growth)



As you can see I have placed my first 4 cities where I planned them and have workers building improvements around them and linking up the resources. Now I will look at boosting my cities commerce and science output so I can lower the science slider so I can research faster without using a deficit in my commerce.

1000BC - 100BC:

975BC: Discovered Alphabet (Allows technology trading)



By hitting F4 you can open the Foreign Advisor and go to the TECHS option to see what other civs will/won't trade and what technologies you have to trade to them. Technology trading will allow you to progress through the tech tree and skip some technologies which you might deem unneccessary for immediate research to acquire them through trade later on.



To trade technology simply contact a foreign leader and click on the technologies you want from them and ask them what they want in return for it. Technologies all have a base research worth simply highlight your mouse over the technology to see it or look it up in the Civilopedia.

[img=http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/820/civ4screenshot0011.jpg]

Here you can see Animal Husbandry has a research worth of 130 , in a trade you would look to get a deal where the techs you get in exchange for AH add up to roughly 130 or later on a combination of research value and monetary/map trade that you think is a fair trade.

Also be careful not to trade a technology that gives a rival civ a strong military unit if you plan to attack him in the near future.

Trades:

Traded The Wheel/Writing for Mysticism/Fishing/Masonry (975BC to Korea)
Traded Writing for Polytheism (950BC to France)
Traded Writing for Priesthood (825BC to Mali)
Traded Aesthetics for Sailing/Iron Working (675BC to Mali)
Traded Pottery/Priesthood for Meditation (675BC to Korea)
Traded Alphabet for Monarchy (350BC to Mali)

In the period between 1000BC and 100BC I only discovered Aesthetics, Literature and Currency myself but through trades managed to grab 9 other technologies which helped rapidly boost my technology progress.

The only other way to get a technology other than researching it yourself or trading it is to "bulb" it using a great person. A great person can come in many forms (Scientist/Merchant/Spy/Engineer/Prophet/Artist) each with their own advantages. There are several ways to spawn Great People (GP) in your cities. Specialists add to the GP points per turn, Great Wonders also help and some wonders such as Parthenon and National Epic increase the amount of GP points created per turn in your cities.

The Philosophical leader trait has a 100% increase in GP rate, aswell as the Pacifism civic (available after Philosophy has been discovered) which also increases the rate by 100% (Note: Pacifism is a religious civic and will only work in a city with the state religion)

Using Specialists and creating Great People



Here you can see in my capital on the right hand side that I have added 2 Scientist Specialists (available after building a library) to the city. These increase the science output of the city aswell as increase the GP points towards a Great Scientist. However, specialists take off numbers from the amount of citizens working tiles for food/production/commerce in your city so you have to make sure that you only use specialists in cities that can still grow with decent productivity and commerce.



Here you can see the result after several turns is a Great Scientist, he can join your city as a Super Specialist boosting the amount of research your city can contribute too, build an academy to increase research by 50% in the city, start a Golden Age which lasts 8 turns (on this game speed) which I will demonstrate later or finally he can "bulb" a technology.

Bulbing means a Great Person contributes X amount of research value towards discovering a technology. In this case it is enough to fully complete the discovery of the tech that the Great Scientist is able to bulb, Mathematics.

Miscellaneous Occurances




I came across a random event in 275BC which caused a horde of 4 barbarian axemen to pop up randomly on my borders, luckily I had enough units (chariots/axemen of my own) to counter that. It shows how important it is to always make sure you have enough of a military force to counter an attack by barbarians or a neighbouring civ which can backstab you.


Between this 1000BC to 100BC period demonstrated I made sure I built the base buildings in each city to help my civilization grow (Libraries/Granaries/Barracks) and enough of a military to defend my region. I have started some of my cities on building Great Wonders which will help my civilization. Also my usual specific attention to using workers to improve tiles surrounding cities has continued during this time.

My cities at 100BC

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

PART 2: Wonders, Golden Age, Religion and War

100BC - 200AD: Wonders to .....wonder at

Great Wonders are big unique buildings with a significant history behind them, they take longer to build compared to buildings of the same time period.

Leaders with the Industrious trait build wonders 50% faster. Some wonders build at double speed if you have access to a certain resource (e.g. Copper for The Colossus).

The following are Great Wonders I usually try and build, these wonders work well with the game strategy I usually go for, try and find ones that work best for you!:

Mostly Build:
The Great Library (Adds 2 free Science Specialists)
The Parthenon (+50% GP rate in all cities)
Broadway (+50% Culture in city built, +1 Happiness, Hit Musicals resource)
Rock N Roll (+50% Culture in city built, +1 Happiness, Hit Singles resource)
Hollywood (+50% Culture in city built, +1 Happiness, Hit Movies resource)
The United Nations (Guarantees eligibility for election)
Statue of Liberty (+1 free specialist in each city on continent)

Sometimes Build:
Stonehenge (+2 culture per city)
Pyramids (Allows all government civics)
The Great Lighthouse (+2 trade routes in Coastal cities)
The Hanging Gardens (+1 Population, +1 Health in all cities)
Apostolic Palace (Guarantees eligibility for elections)
Taj Mahal (Starts a Golden Age)
Cristo Redentor (No Anarchy between changing Civics/Religion)
The Kremlin ( -33% Hurry Production cost)
University of Sankore (+2 research from all state religion buildings)

Rarely Build:
The Oracle (Gives 1 free technology)
The Great Wall (Stops barbarians from entering borders +100% General bonus)
Shwedyagon Paya (Allows all religious civics)
Sistine Chapel (+2 culture from all state religion buildings)
Notre Dame ( +1 hapiness on all cities on continent)
Eiffel Tower (Free Broadcast Tower in all cities)

Any not mentioned I almost never, or in cases like the Chichen Itza make sure I never build.

My first 3 wonders in this game all got built pretty much one after another within a 10 turn period.



Great Library/Parthenon to boost my Great Scientist output from my capital significantly and Great Lighthouse simply because it hardly took any time and I was suprised no-one had built it yet .

They were each built in a different city.

GreatLight in Angkor Thom.
GreatLib in Yasodharapura
Parth in Hariharalaya

Crazy Khmer city names

200 AD - 525AD: Its Gold Its Gold Its Solid Gooooooooooold Baby!

Ok after the little spurt in Great Wonder production its time to crank out a few units

Start out by building a couple of axemen to compliment the chariots I rushed earlier to take care of the barbarians spawning near my borders. I usually use chariots as medic units giving them Combat I then Medic I upgrade for my stack.

325 AD: Discovered Music

I usually beeline to Music soon after Literature and bulbing Mathematics so I can take the free Great Artist for being the first to discover the tech.

I use this Great Artist to start a Golden Age in my civilization. A Golden Age is a period of turns (8 turns for normal speed) where you're cities produce double production/science/commerce and GP points.

375 AD: Use 2nd Great Scientist to bulb Compass

450 AD: Trade Compass/Literature for Monotheism/Metal Casting + 70 Gold.

Some might see this as a pretty bad trade as Compass itself is nearly worth more than Mono/MC together. However MC allows me to build forges to boost production for my coming up war effort and Monotheism allows me to run Organised Religion civic because a neighbouring civ (French) has used our Open Borders to spread their religion (Judaism) to all my cities. I shall repay them soon enough MWAHAHA.



The advantages of running Organised Religion with the state religion in all my cities.

475 AD: Discovered Construction


325 AD - 1170 AD: No More Mr. Nice Khmer

During the golden age I put most of my cities into overdrive in building an army. My army is mainly consistent of Swordsman for City Raider bonus. Catapults to break down defences and weaken defensive units for my other units to capture. Ballista Elephants for brute unmatchable strength compared to other units at this period.

It is important to get a unit to scope out the amount of defense a rival civ has in their cities, this will help you gauge how big a force you will need and what type of units you will need to counter their army.

My chosen target might suprise but I've actually decided to pick on those toad eating Frenchies. Firstly they hold the Judaism holy city which will give me a boost with other civs with the same religion (All except Mali are Jews). Secondly, Mali although being closest and with the best city locations are excellent trading partners so far, they are also fairly strong so should prove to be good partners throughout the game before I end them. The Koreans on my northern border aren't too strong but unlike the Malinese they are fairly horrible and pose no real threat, I simply leave them for a future attack, I don't like making my first attack on a civ with the Protective trait as it can usually end in disaster.

700AD: Bulbed Calendar with 3rd Great Scientist

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Admin/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Admin/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg[/IMG]

Here it shows my French counterpart at Friendly, meaning he poses no threat of backstabbing. However he is incredibly weak so unfortunately for him my knife is already making its way through his spine, I decide to try and ask for a free tech out of kindness. He declines and I feel that is good enough reason to demolish him.

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Admin/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.jpg[/IMG]

Primary stack for attacking the French. I'm going to beeline straight to their capital and Judaism holy city, Paris. From there I'll work my way out to their other cities.

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Admin/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-3.jpg[/IMG]

Three turns later and with minimal casualties, Paris have fallen. I thought for a second I was playing as the Germans because they put up a horrible fight.

980AD - 1120AD: I capture the cities of Orleans and Rheims, remembering to keep bringing in support troops, in this case I'm sending down Horse Archers.

In the meantime!

1030AD:
Hanging Gardens will help my cities grow quicker and no one else was building it so why not aye!

1040AD: 4th Great Scientist bulbs Philosophy



Being the first to discover Philosophy I also found the corresponding religion which aligns with Philosophy, Taoism. I already have Judaism in all my cities so there isn't much point spreading Taoism apart from extra culture, which I don't need playing at this level and hoping for a domination victory.

After copping a quick romping of his 3 main cities, me ol m8 Louis XIV is prepared to give me 100 Gold and Drama for 10 turns of peace. I accept as it gives me 10 turns to build even more troops to finish the job with ease. I have to be careful he doesn't get Feudalism though as Longbows are a pain to destroy but by that time I should have Maces (through Machinery and Civil Service) and Trebuchets (through Engineering).

WHITE FLAG!



Unlike in WWII in this Civ IV game the French don't have any allies willing to help protect them so they decide to dedicate themselves as my vassal state. Vassals help boost your score and your % towards a domination victory. However they add maintenance to you civilization as you pretty much own them.

In this situation I don't think it'll be worth keeping them as my personal biatches so I decline with the thought of destroying them in the near future at hand.

1110AD: Discover Civil Service

1130 AD: My new best friend Ramessess II of Egypt trades Machinery + 20 Gold for Music/Drama

1150AD: Discover Paper

I'll finish this round at 1170AD and a few screenshots of my territories and my major cities.

Also provide some scoring graphs of my progress.

Main Territory:


Captured French Territory:


Capital - Yasodharapura


Hariharalaya


Angkor Thom


Angkor Wat


Nagara Jayasari


As you can see I have pretty consistently throughout the game used workers to improve the tiles around the cities to improve their growth through food, their commerce (wealth and science output) and their production.

Score Graph so far


Power Graph (2nd to Mali)


Culture Graph


Next round I won't be going in depth on things I have already covered in the last 2. If any new part of the game comes up that needs explaining or an indepth analysis I will add that in. Basically I'm going to look to beeline straight to Liberalism (First to discover gets 1 free tech) then use that to get Nationalism, build the Taj Mahal (Golden Age) and use the Golden Age to build a massive military to take out Mali and then Korea.

By that time I should have a strong technology and military might advantage over my rivals and the rest should fall without too much problems. We'll have to wait and see though


Any questions feel free to post them in this thread or PM me. If you want any part of the game explained in more detail feel free to contact me.

For more tips and different strategies (especially at higher difficulty levels) go to www.civfanatics.com and check out the forums and the War Academy guides they have on there.

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

reserved.

[Intent_]

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[MoeycQ]

lolz

[stix]

good game. got it at lan not long ago. brb installing

[adR]

must say. the games interface looks terrible

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

BUMP.

edited in Part 1 completed.

Part 2 to be finished tonight.

Still actually playing the game to finish part 3

[Azza.]

Montezuma attacked you yet?

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

Montezuma attacked you yet?

haha nope! Luckily I didnt start with my borders with him, he made war on Mali and I was tempted to join him and grab some nice cities they have but they were pretty strong and I wasn't ready to attack.

You'll see what I did when I finish Part 2

[D2therJdotCOM]

Guide is looking G Bing. 2b I don't think it will really be appreciated. ;(

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

Guide is looking G Bing. 2b I don't think it will really be appreciated. ;(

yeah I only really did it for a few people who were interested.

[stix]

been playing this all afternoon. still getting the hang of it, i have this fuckhuge economy and crap all defences so i've got alliances with anyone near me so the other cunts dont attack

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

been playing this all afternoon. still getting the hang of it, i have this fuckhuge economy and crap all defences so i've got alliances with anyone near me so the other cunts dont attack

what version you playing?

[stix]

what version you playing?

BTS completely updated. might get colonization tonight as well

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

BTS completely updated. might get colonization tonight as well

what difficulty you playing on?

Mind uploading you're starting save (If you save at start of matches) or latest save?

[clm]

Fun game for a change when you are bored.

Nice guide.

Might have to find a DL again, don't think I have it backed up from a recent format..

[stix]

what difficulty you playing on?

Mind uploading you're starting save (If you save at start of matches) or latest save?

easiest so i get the hang of things again.
i only have save where im up to at the moment
also i can't find the save folder lol

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

should be something like

"C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves"

or go through the BtS folder which should be in C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 the go to the saves shortcut folder in there

[k2r]

cheers bing m8

[stix]

should be something like

"C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves"

or go through the BtS folder which should be in C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 the go to the saves shortcut folder in there

yeah doesnt work cause i saved it in d:\ and its searching d:\docs & settings or something.

AWWW MAN.CivBeyondSwordSave
enjoy

[z1bE4R]

good read thanks bingggg

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

yeah doesnt work cause i saved it in d:\ and its searching d:\docs & settings or something.

AWWW MAN.CivBeyondSwordSave
enjoy

not bad aye for a settler game I can tell you're pretty new as you are discovering Fission and disturbingly still have 1 warrior as the only unit defending one of your cities.

If you scroll over a rival civs name on the scoreboard you can see the diplomacy points you have with them and yours are bad with the Ottomans (Green dudes) and I checked it out and they actually have a monster like 30 stack of units in one of the border cities with you so be careful coz they might attack especially as you get close to winning.

Build machine guns and discover/trade Assembly Line (chinese get it in 5 turns) and also build infantry and give them City Garrison upgrade.

[ratitiz]

fuck you bing im better at civ than you

[maeCAT]

great guide bing!
its persuaded me to reinstall

ps. lold @ one of the screenshots where it says, "Ramases II has converted to Judaism!"

[stix]

not bad aye for a settler game I can tell you're pretty new as you are discovering Fission and disturbingly still have 1 warrior as the only unit defending one of your cities.

If you scroll over a rival civs name on the scoreboard you can see the diplomacy points you have with them and yours are bad with the Ottomans (Green dudes) and I checked it out and they actually have a monster like 30 stack of units in one of the border cities with you so be careful coz they might attack especially as you get close to winning.

Build machine guns and discover/trade Assembly Line (chinese get it in 5 turns) and also build infantry and give them City Garrison upgrade.

yeah i just finished with space race victory only just because he swarmed me right at the end hahah
i wasnt really paying attention, i haven't played a proper game of civ since civ1

[bquick]

mmhmmm, Looks like a really good Game. Good guide Bing

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

Updated with Part 2

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

I'll have Part 3 done in the coming days

[stix]

awesome guides gettin awesome
looks like it wouldnt be too terrible to play @ lan as long as you dont take years with your turns

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

awesome guides gettin awesome
looks like it wouldnt be too terrible to play @ lan as long as you dont take years with your turns

On multiplayer you play turns simultaneously. It can be a bit of a drag when 1 person is in war and you're in peace you have to wait for them to move all units etc, especially late game.

The whole game shouldnt take more than 5-6hrs though with one of the small sized maps and Quick game speed.

[stix]

maybe we can have a game at next ccgl

[Azza.]

Good old Louis, too busy not building units.

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

Good old Louis, too busy not building units.

Yeah I was shocked lol, I hadn't played noble for a while and I sent my stack in and was like.......ok there are about 2 archers in paris and 1 in orleans + axe. He had 2 + cat + spear in Rheims though so he was improving

[BaptismalPrawn]

I am playing with the Spanish at the moment, the timeline seemed to move a bit fast for me.

and i have a lot of obsolete troops...

do you consitantly upgrade them?

also i have $4000 in the bank do you try to balance your income/expenditure?

[Azza.]

You can slow the game down at the start of the game by selecting Epic or Marathon speed.

[fuckwitBATTLECRAB]

I am playing with the Spanish at the moment, the timeline seemed to move a bit fast for me.

and i have a lot of obsolete troops...

do you consitantly upgrade them?

also i have $4000 in the bank do you try to balance your income/expenditure?

With obsolete troops you have 2 options. Upgrade or Disband and replace with newly built troops. I usually disband ones with minor exp/upgrades and only upgrade ones with good upgrades or if I'm in a war and have the money I'll upgrade my stack units as much as possible.

If you have heaps of excess funds, whilst maintaining a top science rate (or culture rate if your pushing for cultural victory) you can adopt Universal Sufferage (requires Democracy tech) to allow you to rush production with gold. Usually I only have big sums very late game or after after conducting a trade mission with a Great Merchant.

[BaptismalPrawn]

You can slow the game down at the start of the game by selecting Epic or Marathon speed.

What speed do you guys use?

With obsolete troops you have 2 options. Upgrade or Disband and replace with newly built troops. I usually disband ones with minor exp/upgrades and only upgrade ones with good upgrades or if I'm in a war and have the money I'll upgrade my stack units as much as possible.

If you have heaps of excess funds, whilst maintaining a top science rate (or culture rate if your pushing for cultural victory) you can adopt Universal Sufferage (requires Democracy tech) to allow you to rush production with gold. Usually I only have big sums very late game or after after conducting a trade mission with a Great Merchant.

cant rep.. but keep up with the guide.

i don't really know what to build early on. if i go heavy expansion i find im to stretched for a good defense. and if i work on a smaller borders i get smothered.

[BaptismalPrawn]

also what are the benefits of BUG mod?
are they purely aesthetic?

[Azza.]

Generally, I play Monarch Difficulty, Epic Speed on Fractal Maps.

EDIT: BUG mod gives you more information that's easier to access. It doesn't give any information you couldn't get without it, but it makes the details much easier to access and understand.