Guides

8 Civilization 4 pages in Guides.

• Beginner's GuideNew Civilization 4 players should play the tutorial, start on Settler or Chieftain difficulty at Normal speed, build a Warrior, an explorer, a Worker and then Settlers, found cities on rivers and coasts about 4 to 5 tiles apart, and watch city maintenance on the Financial Advisor (F2).
• Cottages and SpecialistsCivilization 4 has two main ways to pay for research. Cottages grow into Hamlets, Villages and Towns that make more commerce the longer they are worked (faster with Emancipation, richer with Free Speech and Universal Suffrage); specialists give fixed output plus Great Person points (unlimited with Caste System, +3 research each with Representation).
• Culture Victory GuideA Civilization 4 culture victory needs three cities with Legendary culture, 50,000 culture points each on Normal speed. Get there with religions and their buildings, culture wonders, Artists and Great Artists' Great Works (+4,000 each), the Hermitage and Free Speech (+100% each), and the culture slider late in the game.
• Early Game StrategyCivilization 4's manual opens with a Warrior fortified in the capital, a unit to explore, a Worker once its techs are known, then Settlers with escorts to cities on rivers, coasts and resources about 4 to 5 tiles apart, expanding only as fast as city maintenance allows.
• Running Civilization 4 TodayCivilization 4 still runs on Windows 10 and 11 PCs from Steam (the Complete Edition, patched to Beyond the Sword 3.19) or GOG (DRM-free); Kotaku said in 2025 it "will run easily on any modern PC". Aspyr stopped selling its 32-bit Mac version in 2019, so it does not run on macOS Catalina or later, and Linux and Steam Deck players use Proton, which fixed a crash on world creation in 2022.
• Slavery and ChoppingIn Civilization 4 the Slavery civic (Bronze Working) lets a city sacrifice population to finish its current build, which players call whipping, and Workers can chop down forests for production, 20 hammers per forest after the 1.61 patch, less the farther the tile is from the city, and 50% more with Mathematics.
• Space Race GuideTo win Civilization 4's space race, research Rocketry, build the Apollo Program, build every spaceship part (13 in the base game, unlocked by Rocketry, Satellites, Fusion, Robotics, Fiber Optics, Ecology and Genetics) and launch to Alpha Centauri; in Beyond the Sword you may launch early with fewer parts, the ship takes time to arrive, and losing your capital dooms it.
• War GuideTo take a city in Civilization 4, march one stack with siege and attackers: bombard the city's defenses to zero, attack first with Catapults or Cannons for collateral damage on the defenders, then finish with City Raider melee or armored units. Defend with archery or gunpowder units with City Garrison, fortified on hills and behind walls.

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