Civ 4 Tips?

[SpiderPig]

I'm playing Civ 4 at the moment but at my own admission, i'm not very good at it :stare:

Like yesterday, I wa playing as the Japanese and was being very diplomatic untill it came to the point where I needed another city to hold my increasing population. I was surrounded though and unable to build anything past my borders. So I made a group of soldiers and then attacked a small indian settlement just north of my main city. They got slaughtered. Maybe just a fluke? I tried another, same outcome. This went on for about half an hour before I was completley whiped off the map

Is their something im doing wrong? Are their special super-mecha-death-godzilla units that im missing?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

What units did you have, what units did he have?

Also, never allow yourself to be cornered like that. Expand before you need to.

 

[SpiderPig]

edI built Samarai units and they had just ordinary soldiers.. might of been pike units though.

Edit: Also, whats the best form of early defense? Walls?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

The best early defense is a good offense. Same as all the time.

No, really it's just a matter of properly promoted archers and longbowmen.

How many Samurais did he have, and how many of what units did he have? THere's no such thing as ordinary soldiers. Longbowmen? Crossbowmen? Macemen? Pikemen? Did you bombard his defenses with catapults? Did he have walls?

Re walls, in my opinion walls are slightly less useful than they should be, because the computer always brings enough siege weapons to reduce your defenses to zero percent fairly quickly, but they can buy you time.

 

[Laivasse]

I forget what key it is, maybe alt or shift or something, but there's a key you can hold down and mouse over enemy units to see your chance of combat success (of your currently selected unit or group). If this is too low, it's just not worth attacking.

Since you're attacking them in their own city they will get a load of bonuses from walls, fortification, etc... To overcome this and give yourself a decent chance you need either superior a) numbers or b) technology (more advanced units). Read up on the units that you and the enemy are using in the Civilopedia to get an idea of what you're up against.

If you find yourself hemmed in and attack is not a viable option, you can try and overwhelm rival cities with the power of your culture. Have a city settled fairly close to theirs (but with enough space that you have access to tiles), and just build, build, build, focussing particularly on structures that produce culture. If you produce enough culture fast enough, the influence of your city will expand and eventually consume all the territory surrounding the other city, making it useless to the enemy civ and likely to join yours. This is obviously more of a long term strategy and less useful early on.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I forget what key it is, maybe alt or shift or something, but there's a key you can hold down and mouse over enemy units to see your chance of combat success (of your currently selected unit or group). If this is too low, it's just not worth attacking.

You can also just right-click and hold over enemy units, as if you were to attack them. The stats will show up and you can go through with the attack or not.

 

[SpiderPig]

I had a couple of Samarai units as well as a few catapaults and he had a few pikemen units. As you say though, he was in a city so thats probably why he destroyed me And after war was declared, he bombarded me with attack units, chariots etc.

I'm detirmined to win atleast one game before 5 is out!!

 

[Acepilotf14]

..It's really hard to win conquest unless you get a really good start. It's better to go for a space race or cultural victory.

When you attack a city, ALWAYS bombard defenses with a catapult unless you can waste a few units and they are not properly defended. Bombarding becomes a thousand times easier once you get planes and destroyers, though. Bombers are your best friend, they can weaken units before you attack and bombard defenses. If they have no SAM infantry, they're also mostly invulnerable.

Knights are great on offense.

Walls + Longbowmen is broken. Bad. 'Till Riflemen.