So I am building my little world in Civ IV and I cant figure out what to do next. My people are complaining of overcrowding but I don't have anywhere else for my settlers to go.
Should I declare war on a neighboring country and take over their portion? Is there a way to trade for more land?
What to do, what to do.
Also any other tips anyone has would be helpful, I'm somewhat of a novice. BTW this game is AMAZING and very addicting! :-)
Posted by tmservo (Member # 8552) on :
If your cities are too close to each other, then you will always result in this problem. Try to build your cities a bit farther away from each other.
Once this is done, though, and you run into the overcrowding problem, your best solution is to greatly increase the culture of the city which is having the greatest problem.
The basis of Civ IV is different from the past, in that it strongly encourages peaceful victory through multiple means over quick conquest. This is something some like, some dislike. But it's much more true to life. Civ basically takes the approach that keeping up war creates unhappy people, creates issues with production in your cities and is difficult to upkeep and 'blitzkrieg' through another Civ.
Now this isn't saying you can't win by conquering, and you shouldn't try.. in fact, winning by military conquest often is a force that must happen if your neighbor is smashed right on top of you; but if you run into that situation, things like Spys and advanced military support over them help greatly (ie, it's much to your advantage to get together mechanized infantry while they are fighting with bowmen and just run roughshod over them.)
Now, comparatively, some things -can- happen. Some balance has been added to the game to add the "never" scenarios. IE, a group of "warriors" will never take out a set of mechanized infantry. BUT, a group of say, musketeers -can-. While their odds are long, the general theory of the game is that a branch of musketeers is still 80 men, and a mechanized infantry is 4 tanks. So, after throwing enough at you, they could eventually get to the tanks through other means (resourcefulness, etc.) I know this sounds silly, but overcoming advanced odds (as long as not ridiculous) is possible.
The biggest approach to growing is: increase your culture to where you swarm around neighbor cities. Then, when you attack, your chances of success increase, and the city willingly joins you, accepting your culture. Whereas if you attack (even if you win) against a city with a stronger culture (especially if it's another faith; example, if your state religion is Judaism and they have a state religion of Bhudism) the countryside will not flip with the city, and then production in the city you take over will -suck-.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: ie, it's much to your advantage to get together mechanized infantry while they are fighting with bowmen and just run roughshod over them
Let me point out that if you're this far ahead of your rivals, you should never have to actually engage them in battle; it's worth a lot more points to actually go for the space race victory.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Second, the AI is much smarter about fighting (or not). So it's easier to have a peaceful victory.
You can make the argument -- and I will -- that if the purpose of the AI is to deny you victory, making it easier for people to achieve peaceful victories is not a sign of "smarter" AI.
I will say that the way they've shaped the new civs' personalities and abilities means that the nations which are most likely to wage constant war are also the ones which, over the long run, have powers least suited to be really competitive. I haven't tried playing above "Noble" yet, but I suspect that early-game competition from the more warlike civs gets a lot heavier when they start getting free units to compensate for their production inadequacies.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Well I play without the ability to raze cities because the AI will ALWAYS raze a city in my case and I don't want to have what happened to me in Civ3 where I lost have my country but won only because I had panzers in full production.
I've found that production is hard ad if you don't keep up with military production througout the game in intervals you'll get swarmed, it doesnt matter if you have 4-6 riflemen if the enemy has 20 pikemen to throw at you.
Build cataputs cuz they help having 2-3 will raze a cities defences quickly, I remember thought a war recently which eat up 40 turns because I could't take one of his citie fast enough pushed me back and took one of my cities and I had a hell of a time pushing him back because my supply lines were 5-6 turns.
Then remember the AI is smarter they'l do amphibios assault! IN FORCE and they took a weakly defended city.
I finally I gained about 4-5 cities from the war and my friend took another 3 on his side.
I was china fin/ind, now I'm a little behind now because of it with 1800 score comapred to my friend's 2300 score.
I'm industrializing and I'll build some 20 tanks and bitz the AI to the south of me and maybe just maybe I can use numbers to my advantage.
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