I haven’t posted any blogs about Civ 4 specifically since my Monarch series in 2018.
I’ve been playing Civ 4 fairly regularly since 2011; I had it with me in Finland and finally sat down and figured it out and glad I did.
There are 9 difficulties in Civ 4, from Settler to Deity. I started with Warlord or Noble in 2011 and promoted myself to Prince at some stage around 2012-2014. I think I was a Prince from maybe 2015-2017 and then became a Monarch around 2018. I stuck with Monarch until maybe 2020 and then became an Emperor. There are only two levels above this, Immortal and Deity, and I think I am almost ready to elevate myself to Immortal soon.
The mark of promotion is playing as a sub-optimal leader and civilization and leading them to victory. This would be someone with no economic traits like Tokugawa and as for the civilization? Maybe the Americans because their bonuses go online so late in the game. But maybe I’ll just promote myself because I feel ready after almost 3 years of being at Emperor level.
My strategy
I play the same way at the start almost every time at the moment. I usually build a Worker, a Warrior and then the Great Wall. I usually try and get Stonehenge as well to pop my borders out. Then the current thing is to spam settlers from my capital and alternate that with buildings. I don't chop the forests around my capital only, though I may try to move away from this. I make my Capital the Great Person Farm and build the National Epic here (100% more Great People Points) and much later, the National Park (+1 free specialist in the city for every Forest Preserve). So I usually save the forests, usually 10-15 of them, build Lumber Mills on them when I get Replaceable Parts and then change to Forest Preserves. Bureaucracy and the general excellence of Capital sites means it stays competitive without any Cottages. I mine or farm or fish any resources that are within the city limits but forests are left alone. Great People are spawned here only while almost every building is built and Wonders are built if possible.
Other than that, I lean on having like 80% of my cities being either Wealth cities (if on coast or have religious shrines) or Research (if inland, on rivers) cities. Both have largely the same buildings, but the Wealth cities will certainly have Markets, Grocers and Banks while the Research cities definitely have Libraries, Universities and Observatories. Usually with Slavery I just get both types to have all of these buildings. Wall Street will be built in my main shrine city and Oxford University in a good scientific city.
The remaining number of cities are Production cities. Production cities depending on map size and type I usually break into 1-4 cities, separated by the 4 Production-Military National Wonders (Moai Statues, Heroic Epic, West Point, Ironworks). They do not build wealth or science buildings usually (well, maybe a couple of money buildings) but they do get the generic stuff like Courthouses and Granaries but crucially they just build Barracks and/or Stables and then alt-click Axemen or whatever to produce an infinite number of troops.
By the time I have a couple of wealth-research cities and 1 military town online the barbarians have had their way with the continent I’m on and I can set about conquering other players or taking barbarian towns. The goal is usually to dominate whatever landmass I’m on ASAP and then if there are other landmasses to get Astronomy and dominate them too. All the while every city is building their respective buildings but make sure to shift click and Archer and a Settler in every town so they all pull their weight and keep expanding that way.
