Civ 4 Thread!

[Saxif]

I was playing today and a new Civ spawned!!  Hyporborem, a bunch of bloody outsiders, seems as the armageddon counter gets higher, demons and devils start founding cities until all hell breaks loose, literally!!  Decided I don't like having Demons as neighbours, so gonna try and get rid of them, problem is I am already in a war with another Civ cos they ninja'd the Dragon I was killing and stole the hoard, killed am and got it back though ;p

Sax.

[xann]

i think i like this mod, but finding it hard to get into a game... feel like i need to read thru the whole Civopedia cos of how different it is

[Lasiien]

With all mods including FFH i always start playing them then long for an 'ordinary' civ game as i don't understand wtf is going on I know i should give them more time really, that FFh mod has had heaps of praise but have tried to get into it multiple times and always just go back to vanilla.

[Saxif]

Things to know when playing FFH2

1).  When you research a tech that gives a new unit, for most civs you need to build a specific building to allow you to build that unit, you can't just pump it out in all cities.
2).  Religions give you access to powerful new units, found or convert to one, for example, I always try and found Octopus Overlords as it is based on Cthulu and I get Zealots and then Cultists.  Zealots can spread the religion, or they can do a mini culture burst of 20 culture to pop your first border.  Zealot allows a Temple of the Overlords to be insta built in a city.  The zealot though is a strength 5 unit with double medic promotion to start with so also very handy.
3).  Teching is much slower.
4).  All races have Hero's these gain 1 xp a turn till 100 xp, and tend to become nails, some Hero's are also Immortal.  I play Calacim as they are a Vampire civ, so all my hero's tend to rock, also you can sacrifice population in a Blood Feast which grants vampires xp, fucking cool or what?
5).  There are alot of barbarians, built plenty of units.
6).  All buildings such as Goblin Forts, Ruins, Towers can be delved and grant various rewards, or sometimes badness.
7).  Because the tech tree has seperate branches the best thing to do is decide on what you want and go for it, for example, you cannot have both a powerful melee and mage civ, you really need to go for one or the other.
.  As the armegeddon counter goes up the relations between Good and Evil civs get more strain and wars break out more, as it hits big numbers really bad things happen.  The counter is built into the end turn button.  Doing things like razing cities and founding the Ashen Viel make the counter go up.
9).  Read the Civ FFH2 sub forums for more info!!

Sax.

[Lasiien]

sounds like you're right into it I'll try and give it another go when i get time

[Saxif]

Not so much into it, just played enough times to work out some of the basics.  I think I still prefer BTS to FFH2 tbh, I just get a kick out of beating the AI (in the fastest time I can), working towards Monarch atm, might do 1 more Prince game, or just jump up after I finish up my current game.  Trying to knock up all the various types of win atm to round off my playstlye before I go up.

Sax.

[Lasiien]

Nice one sax, i still get my arsed kicked on prince as the AI tends to tech too fast whilst amassing a ton of units as usual. I think i am probably guilty still of trying to build too many wonders, not quite as bad as eko trying to build everything but i do often get sidetracked by building wonders that didn't really give me that much benefit in the long run. I don't think i've totally grasped how to specialise cities either, I get the principles and try to setup a city to be a GPP or a Military city etc, but they often don't turn out like i intended. Any tips other than the usual stuff on the forum ? I think my big problem is i can't be arsed to plan it in a silly amount of detail (i.e. thinking about every square and adding up how much of each type you get and what you want to do with it)/

I will try FFH2, downloaded it already and managed to pick up the manual somewhere which kinda explains some of the concepts. I don't think i've played it before, the one i played was FFH Age of Ice and i totally failed to get to grips with it. Maybe this will be the same but I'll give it a go.

Time is the problem for me atm, just stupid at work right now... qq

[Saxif]

Great person farms work best with Caste System as you can then run lots of scientists which pop Great Scientists and you can use them to bulb techs which gives you an edge in the early game but is pretty useless in the late game when the cost of techs is so much higher.

Find a piece of land with good food and lots of hills and only build farms and mines, thats your production city, any Wonder you absolutely must have goes there.  Often in your Production City it is good to build Heroic Epic once you get a lvl 4 unit (100% faster military production), and when ever your not building anything special just pump out units, one after another after another.  Destroy old units after a war or upgrade those with good promotions, as the more untis you have the more it costs you.  Something to look out for is City Raider promotions, Macemen are the last unit that can have this promotion, if your going for a Domination or Diplomacy win, it is a good idea to get an early war in to upgrade a bunch of units with City Raider for use when you have Rifles or something similar.

Another way to get a bit of a tech bonus is pick on the weakest Civ early before they get Vassalised, then you can either make them your Vassal or force them to give you techs for a Peace Treaty.

Cottage spam alot.  If your going for a culture win you can have a Production city and turn it into a cottage city towards the end game so you can benefit from the culture slider, this also helps snag wonders (don't put anything into culture slider until your absolutely ready to sprint for the end).  The thing you need to produce wonders is a tech lead, often going for Pottery first and building a few farms helps lots, as you bulb techs with scientist that helps and you can trade to back fill, this means you need Library early on and that creates a conflict on interest between Mining -> Bronze Working (to chop out settlers and Great Wall/Pyramids from Masonry) and the Religous Techs (Stonehenge, a must if your not Creative).  Bulbing techs works best if your Philisophical.

A little trick I learnt recently is the AI will often pay lot for resources, if you sell 3 or 4 resources you can easily net 30 gold a turn, which can result in 10% higher research.  Don't expand to fast, as although more cities means more research, alot of your cities will be crap, if you have 10 cities and only 4 of them are any good, you'll produce less research on 40% than 6 cities with 2 crap at 70%.

Wonders are great but I think as the games gets harder building wonders becomes less important.  Some are better than others, Stonehenge, Pyramids, and Great Wall are all pretty rocking as is Oracle and Parthenon.  I have read Statue of Zeus is OP but don't think I have managed to build it, some others are also good.  If you do have a tech lead then go Democracy after Liberalism (free tech slingshot), if your first to switch to Emancipation then you force unhappiness on all AI civs, you can either use this to hamstring them or to backfill your techs as they will all want it.

TBH, there is so much to know it's almost silly.  I got beat about 8 times on the trot at Prince before winning my first game and I am not 100% still.

Shitty about work mate, hope it calms down.  I think you'll find FFh2 pretty odd to start with, the tech speed and building speed is slower and there are alot of barbs but GL

Sax.

[Lasiien]

cheers sax, some nice tips there for me to try

[Saxif]

I was thinking that it is wrong for me to swear by GPF as I rarely put them down myself.  I started another game tonight and my Capital is perfectly placed and has given me a massive boost with something like 5 Flood Plains a Gold mine and a Wheat Farm.  It would have made a amazing GPF but instead I decided to farm 1 of the FP's and put cottages on the rest for a boost to gold and research. 

It's often advamtageous for the most part to cluster your cities close together, though not necessary.  It is more important when you have limited land and need to make the most of it, don't run off to the other end of the earth for a resource either, the maintenance will go up and slow your economay down.

Sax.

[Saxif]

I have just recently started using Organised Religion early in the game.  It is a High Maintenance Civic but helps with building when you have few hammers, good for early when Maintenance is less of a problem and your putting down the foundations but less useful later on, unless you want to nail a few late stage wonders (assuming it works with wonder,s I am not sure).  I would guess that you would change to something else like Theocracy if you want to hurt someone or win by Dom, or Free Religion if your going for Space Race, or want a tech lead to Dom with later, or another civic to buddy up with some AI, though tbh I haven't gone into that much detail yet.

Sax.

[Lasiien]

Organised religion is great imo if used early, but usually you have to go with whatever religion is in your lands and that can mess up your diplomacy, I've always seen it as a bit of a gamble which sometimes pays off and sometimes lands you in the crap

[Saxif]

I have rarely used it before simply because I almost never research or use religous techs, I got into the habit of going mining -> Bronze and chopping settlers whilst going for agri, pottery, maybe fishing but generally writing and currency and then Code of Laws early.  I think I underestimated it previously

Sax.

[xann]

In a game i started recently (noble, epic, Pangea, Gandhi) i was lucky enoguh to settle next to stone, founded a religion, choped the Pyramids and was running Police State+Orgaized Religon. Both high maintinace, but i was building Chairots/axeman in 2 turns in 3 cities. Rushed a civ v. quick and in the proces of another now, will prolly take a 1 more city then offer peace, swith to Free Religon (once the shwedagon pagoda is built) and should be set.

The quick expansion is straining my econemy, but am living on the gold i've been plundering

I usualy build a barracks, but rarely run civics that give +xp to new units. seem abit pointless to me?

ps. started playing EVE, ahhhhhhhh its draging me in

[Lasiien]

Well sometimes i think it's too risky to go with organised religion because I'll naff off civs that i don't want to, so then i would take something like Theocracy and work toward free religion or build missionaries and try to convert whichever civ I want to stay friendly with. Some of the AI's can go nuts about religion, prolly the best example is Isabella who can either be your best ally or your worst enemy depending on what you go with

Theres a further trade off with religion too, if you found a religion and build a holy city and spread it enough throughout the world it can be a real cashcow. Hard to do though as you have to beat the AI to one of the good ones (i.e. not one of the later religions) so that you have a chance that some of the AI's pick your religion also.

p.s. Enjoy EVE xan