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Originally Posted by space
^^^ it's not THAT hard. just make sure you develop religion quickly. it makes it easier to take over new territories if you convert them first, and if you "discover" more religions, the opponent has less to use against you.
after that, I worked on long-range bombers and nukes. it's been a few years since I've played...but basically it goes like this:
TAOISM > CHRISTIANITY > THE VELVET UNDERGROUND > BOMB 'EM BACK TO THE STONEAGE
PS: I'm a fan of the Aztecs.
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pursuing religion can eat a bag of dicks. it's totally unnecessary for the way i play. i get missionaries from other countries and just play along. want me to be a buddhist? sure-- i don't give a shit. when you have a certain national religion you're always getting into wars from some other sucka asking you to convert to their religion (spain does that a lot, that isabella bitch). sure, monasteries give you research + culture, but they expire, and there are more important things to pursue in the late game. the other thing is that free religion gives your civ a research advantage in the later stages-- becoming dependent on a single religion is crippling, whereas absorbing your neighbor's religion while you build libraries ensures you'll get along with them in the early game and leave them in the technological dust.
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Originally Posted by pbradley
Turns out I fucking suck at Civ IV and my dream last night was filled with the tech tree.
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there's a learning curve, which is the most enjoyable part. once you know everything things wear out a bit. anyway, i like to seek the most advanced tech available & then trade the filler techs with less developed civs. obviously you'll want to discover the alphabet right away, and then create libraries & observatories to advance your research, so you can take off ahead of the competition early. thus specialization pays off-- if you try to discover every tech by yourself you're just cultivating mediocrity. of course you don't wanna trade all your techs right away-- e.g., you don't wanna give gunpowder to your archenemy, or space flight to an industrial power that could build the spaceship before you.
another good thing is to have an early wonder that generates great engineers: a single great engineer can finish up an early wonder in a turn-- so you get more wonders & cockblock the competition. the pyramids are awesome for this: they increase the chances for engineers and they open up all forms of government without having to wait 1000 years to discover the constitution, allowing you to focus on other techs.
make sure you have resources: early you'll want stone (faster wonders), marble, horses, copper (for bronze weapons)-- later without oil you're a sitting duck with vaseline on your rectum. same with aluminum.
early in the game try to grab as much land as you can safely get in order to ensure future resource availability-- new resources are discovered as you get new techs (e.g., physics--uranium). culture is the best way to do this, it provides a nice cushion around your borders. i like to play louis xiv for this reason-- you get culture + industry bonuses without the need for religion or quick-expiring obelisks (but i do build obelisks to pile it on early). overtaking neighboring civs with culture is a great way to conquer. then again, having a cathedral gives you 50% extra culture that does not expire. so make sure you do have religion, but you don't need to discover it first (i like to discover philosophy early to open the tech tree, not for the taoism).
and try to specialize your cities: one for the money, one for the science, one for industry, one for cranking out elite military units, etc-- buildings and wonders have multiplier effects so piling on all science wonders in 1 coastal (high trade) city will help you discover techs every other turn.
a grain of salt: due to personal preferences i tend to be pro-research, pro-liberal anti-fundamentalist so i don't do well with militaristic authoritarian strategies & the like. to me, those can give you temporary might, but in the end your research and production suffer and you end up discovering sailing while everyone is doing genetic engineering. one tank blows the fuck out of 10 angry spearmen. then again other people might prefer different strategies.
cultivate aliances good relations with techs having similar values as yours (religion can be used for this too, but religious civs tend to be retards)-- i usually will get along with ghandi's india, england, mali, etc, but can't ever make friends with spain or the aztecs (warmongering cunts). i like free speech, universal suffrage, free market, etc-- so those civs who are into that will make friends, trade techs, support me in elections, etc. don't waste time trying to kiss everybody's ass-- hostile civs will never be your friend and need to be dominated, destroyed, or simply left behind as they threaten your battleships with trirremes.
if you pursue the democratic path then the pentagon is another wonder you'll wanna have to get good military units in the late game. that's when you want to have military power-- to keep all suckas at bay while you build your spaceship ahead of everyone else.
oh, one last thing: unlike say civ II , you can't expand your borders forever-- the farther you are from your capital the more things fall apart, even under democracy-- you wanna get big but not some huge unwieldy mess.
fuckit, i've gone on too long, just read here:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy