Civilization IV/Gameplay: Difference between revisions

Cities always produce three resources. These are usually named ''food'', ''shields'', and ''trade''. In SMAC, these are called ''nutrients'', ''minerals'', and ''energy'', respectively. In ''Civilization III'', "trade" was renamed "commerce". In ''Civilization II: Test of Time'', the names depend on the current game being played. Regardless of their names, they always serve the same functions. For consistency, we will refer to them as food, shields, and trade.

Your cities are populated by citizens. They will work the surrounding terrain and produce goods. Each citizen may work one tile; the city tile is always worked automatically. For instance, a city with 6 citizens can work up to seven tiles: the center tile plus one tile per citizen. In most ''Civ'' games, citizens are restricted to the tiles they can work to a ''city radius''.  Citizens can also be specialists and not work tiles; this will be discussed later.

* Food - No civilization can survive without food. Surplus food will accumulate until the food box is full. When it is, another citizen will be added to the city and the food box will empty. The food box grows with the size of the city, usually at a constant rate. Each citizen requires two food per turn to survive. A citizen will never take more or less than this. If the city is not producing enough food to meet demand, this food will be taken from the food box. If the food box is empty and a citizen still must eat, a citizen starves and the population count will be reduced by one. In some Civ games, Settlers units need support in the form of food from their home city in addition to the shields they need for support. In these cases, if the food box empties and more food is needed, the most distant such unit will be disbanded. If more food is still needed after that, ''then'' a citizen will die. The population count will never be reduced by more than one per turn due to starvation.

 

: In many ''Civ'' games, improvements and wonders may also affect how food is used to create new citizens.  For example, many ''Civ'' games have the Granary improvement that half-empties the food box, and a wonder that gives Granaries to every friendly city.  In ''Civilization III'', possession of the Longevity wonder will make your cities create two citizens instead of one when the food box fills.  In other cases, a new citizen may not be created when the food box is full because of the city reaching a population limit.

** Capitalization (in some games, Wealth) - Shields are converted to gold for the player's treasury, usually with a heavy penalty (e.g., four shields is converted to one trade unit).

:Shields are added to the shield box (except in Capitalization). When the shield box is full, production is complete and the unit or improvement is immediately available. In most Civ games, but not ''Civilization III'', shields are also used to support units beyond those that are deemed "free". If more shields are needed by units than are being collected in the city, then in ''Civilization'' a unit is disbanded, but in other versions the needed shields are removed from the shield box. If the box empties but more shields are still needed, one unit will randomly be disbanded. In most games, shields in the shield box can be destroyed through espionage.