[PB75] Newbfragar and Rusty's Beginner's Guide to Civ4

[pindicator]

Loving this thread. Keep the lessons coming, naufrager!

[naufragar]

Loving this thread. Keep the lessons coming, naufrager!

Thanks, Pind!

What's the newbie-friendly explanation for working a lake and a riverside grass farm over deer and cow?

Uh, there isn't one. Don't every do this. And definitely don't let Rusten catch you. Work your highest foodhammer tiles, especially in the early game. 


Look, man, I, uh, need the money?  And settler overflow loses the Imp bonus anyway?  Yeah... don't do it.

[Rusten]

Wait, what? You actually worked those tiles? It wasn't just for a picture?

[Krill]

Looking at the tech progress between T43 and T44, yes he did.

He might even have worked a bare river grassland on T42...

[naufragar]

We settled our copper city and it was a net drag of -2 gold per turn to our economy.  Maintenance costs start to sting:



But because we founded a new city, it's a good time to talk about...

Lesson Nine: Cloak and Dagger

"Cloak and Dagger" is the name given to examining tiny in-game clues to divine information about your opponents. (When was the first use of the term? I imagine a Sullla report or an early PB.)

We can lump basic espionage under this topic. To start manipulating Civ4's espionage system, click the spy-looking button in the top right.



You'll be presented with the above screen. For the early game, each player receives 4 espionage points (EP). You can "weight" you spending towards various players here. I've weighted GT at 1 and Superdeath at 0, so 100% of my EPs are going into GT. The more EPs you spend on a player, the more info your spies can gather. But on the flip side, the more EPs a player has spent on you, the more difficult it is for your spies to find information.

In multiplayer games, it's good etiquette for both players to put 43 points into each other. This is the magic number at which both players can see each others information (discussed below). Putting all your EP into one player while ignoring others could hide your info and make you an object of suspicion. Of course, if you're already hostile, be as aggressive with your spying as you'd like. I have more than 43 points into SD because I hadn't met GT until recently. Once I get GT's info, I'll split my EP evenly.

Untethered to espionage points is the "Global Demographics" screen, accessible by the button to the left of the spy-guy button:


These are global rankings that are always visible, and we can run through them quickly enough.

• GNP is your economy ranking. We are quite poor. This stat is primarily an indicator of research power.
  
• Mfg. or manufactured goods is your total production. We're doing ok here.
  
• Crop Yield is your total food points. We're also doing ok here. It's because of my perfect tile micro.
  
• Soldiers is more complicated. Each technology and unit in Civ4 has a hidden "soldier points" value. The game adds these up. If you have a bunch of spearmen and your opponent has a bunch of tanks, the game will warn you that you are weak.
  
• Land Area is the total number of land tiles in your empire multiplied by 1000.
  
• Population, Approval Rate, and Life Expectancy are joke stats. Ignore them.
  
• Exports-Imports is also a joke stat. Don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise.
  

So there are total of 5 relevant stats. We are in the lead in Food and Production. As much as I'd like to take credit, the truth is we are one of the very few "early game" leaders. Imperialistic is boosting our growth. Other players' combos have yet to activate. I'd bet #2 in these categories is Greenline and his Imperialistic leader. On the other hand, we've had to found 2 cities whose only "food" "resource" is plains cow. We're still trying to dig ourselves out of that hole, while other players got 6food pigs and floodplains.

Land area is as you'd expect for an Imperialistic leader founding new cities. The GNP stat is inevitable as your cities currently cost more than they produce. We'll eventually turn the corner. We'd never crash our economy with over-expansion. No, sir. 

I'm actually unhappy to be #2 in soldiers right now. I'm unlikely to be attacked any time soon, and there are no barbarians on this map, so the investment into these warriors is a bit wasted. Units cost gold in supply and maintenance. Don't use 40 when 10 will do!

By convention, this kind of analysis reporting is usually done on big round turns: 50, 100, 150. But the exception (as now) is when you've founded or city or hit some milestone, so lurkers think your civ is doing better than it actually is. 

Oh! One last note. I never actually told you what "info" the Espionage Points get you. They give you player graphs (in spoiler):

Obsessive players can spend way more time than is health on these graphs. Me, I'm just checking every turn to see if Superdeath gets a big power spike that might indicate a military build up. The GNP, Mfg, and Crop pages are also good to peruse. Culture and Espionage are generally useless. If you must stare intently at these graphs, I find that this Civfanatics article (not for beginners!) is a big help.

[Tarkeel]

"Cloak and Dagger" is the name given to examining tiny in-game clues to divine information about your opponents. (When was the first use of the term? I imagine a Sullla report or an early PB.)

I believe the Apolyton Demogame is where it first started:

While waiting during these boring turns, mostly_harmless began tracking some of the Demographics numbers. Started in a dull period to pass the time, mh's "Cloak and Dagger" (C&D) department would become one of the hallmarks of Realms Beyond's success in the Demogame.

In multiplayer games, it's good etiquette for both players to put 43 points into each other. This is the magic number at which both players can see each others information (discussed below). Putting all your EP into one player while ignoring others could hide your info and make you an object of suspicion. Of course, if you're already hostile, be as aggressive with your spying as you'd like. I have more than 43 points into SD because I hadn't met GT until recently. Once I get GT's info, I'll split my EP evenly.

Actually, where people stop is a good indication of how long they've been playing. The actual threshold is 42, but the old-timers stop at 43 for reasons best known to them.

Population, Approval Rate, and Life Expectancy are joke stats. Ignore them.

Approval Rate is actually a good measure of how much "excess happyness" is in your empire, and is better thought of as unexplored potential. In a perfect world you want this at 50.

[Krill]

Actually the 42/43 point depends on how much total EP your opponent or you have generated, not just versus each other, so the number can flip around with courthouses or the EP slider.

[naufragar]

Actually, where people stop is a good indication of how long they've been playing. The actual threshold is 42, but the old-timers stop at 43 for reasons best known to them.

I resent the implication!

Thanks, Krill. That's illuminating. Somebody gave me some pointers in my first MP game, and I just haven't deviated since.

I've been getting crankier and crankier with our plains cows, so I wanted to talk about Superdeath's desert.



I suspect the thinking was that since SD would have to expand into desert, he needed a juiced start with the pigs (yeah, I'm jealous) and floodplains. But this desert is surprisingly hospitable:



Imagine a city on my red dot. Without building a single farm, this city is +6 food surplus at size 4, and can be food neutral at size 9 while working two specialists and the desert silver for +27gpt plus whatever the specialists produce, let's say another +6gpt. My rice city at size 9 can produce roughly +41gpt. Did you look at my core rice city and think, "Ah. A city 1.5 cottages better than Superdeath's desert garbage?" SD's desert is barely a handicap, and he's got massive food resources to boost his expansion into it.

I'm not quite a suffer game sicko like Pind or Comm, but I admit that I'm fascinated by the idea of building a Bedouin civilization, leapfrogging from oasis to oasis. We'll see how SD handles it. Fun exercise for lurkers, how would you dotmap the desert?

[naufragar]

GT is way closer than expected, not at all symmetrical distance with Superdeath:


Where are my promised 250 tiles!?

On first glance, GT's land is way nicer than ours.


Floodplains to the south. Instead of 3food cows like us, he has 4food wheat. And he has an ancient luxury 3 tiles from his capital (and a 2food luxury at that!), while we have...none.

So, GT's land is already way nicer than ours. Remember how we said Superdeath's land made ours look like a sad joke?


Yes, that is Superdeath on 3 cities keeping pace with our Imperialistic leader on 5 cities. I'm glad GT and Superdeath have more food than us. I would hate to have an early game advantage because I picked an early game leader.

[Commodore]

When's the newbie-friendly guide to scouting?