TwoCredits

Hey Scrivs, what version of Civ do you have I'm still stuck at Civilization III, and I play it occasionally, some games I start even take over 10 hours of continuous playtime!
Anyway you can attack if the other civ is nearby and not militaristic like Roman empire.

your second and third point are related to each other since cities influence each other it is smart to have a big city near small cities to prevent your small(low culture) city to join another nation.

Anyway I like the game but tend to get bored when there is no more space to explore.

O there is one thing nice to know is that having "the great library" can help you allot in the game, because it can teach your civ new technologies much faster than normal, and you can trade these with other nations for other recourses. In civ 3 though you have to stay very cautious if you are technologically advance, the other nations get really cranky when you do, and start demanding them, if you deny their request, they declare war, and within no time they attack you in groups of 3/4 countries at a time.

Oh, if you sign agreements with other nations make sure you follow them through otherwise no one else will sign an agreement with you.

I run Civ IV which from my understanding has many improvements over III. I just got done reading a great tutorial (forgot the link already) that helped open my eyes to some of the strategies for the game. You can play it in a simple manner or you can get dominate and really micro-manage things. The appeal is overwhelming for sure.

Now I want to pick this up to sate my strategic urges until Starcraft II comes out.

Well remember there is quite a bit of difference between Turn-based and RTS, although I enjoy both styles.

I like to play Civ4 on smaller maps - Tiny or Duel sized, with lots and lots of players. Cramming them all in means there is only enough room to build one or two cities at most, and culture becomes much more important. Your choices are to attack early to secure more land and resources, or gradually engulf the cultures around you and assimilate their cities.

And having so many civs so close to each other means there is always plenty of action.

Basically, if you start out with some marble or stone nearby, try and utilize them to build related wonders. It'll mean your citizens will have culture pouring out of every orifice, and the additional Great People can really make your cities more productive.

If you find you have no stone or marble though, it's likely the AI will get the wonders before you. In that case, secure some copper or iron and crush them all underneath your sword. Just don't try and attack cities without siege units.

wow, i haven't played civ4 in a while... but one of my best strategies was to develop culture through religion early. Then once I have an Open Borders treaty i would go and try to convert the surrounding AI cities. People of the same faith are usually easier to negotiate with and aren't as likely to attack. Also, you get income from other cities if one of your cities founds a religion or something like that. i really need to play that game again ; )

I've played all the Civs and for me at least, I love a long game. Civ4 changed everything with culture and for people that love long games, I loved the fact I could take over cities with a high culture rating.

What I do is save all my Great Artists until I hit the borders of another player, then I'll build a city close enough that both cities can share resources and then have the artist build a great work there boosting the culture rating.

Of course what I don't like about Civ4 is that roaming barbarians can wipe out your nation as well especially past the first 4 difficulty levels. I suppose that adds realism to the game making it really long, but I can live with that.

I'm also an expansionist which means all my cities follow a defense unit, settler and growth buildings building strat. That way I can solidify the most territory in the shortest space possible, this is why I hate the barbarians because they tend to wipe my smaller cities midgame while I'm still expanding.

The benefit to this expansion is that at midgame, your science goes up like crazy which means if you pull it off really well, you can actually get modern unit while some other nations are still using musketmen and when that happens. Start wiping other nations out for more territory.

I try to be careful when making alliances with other nations though, they tend to have you start a war early so only do so when you know you can defend. But diplomacy is hard especially when trying to satisfy everyone so what I do is have money and tech ready to trade and appease their bruised ego.

I can think of more strategies though for Civ4 but well...we'll go with that for now.

What I do is save all my Great Artists until I hit the borders of another player, then I'll build a city close enough that both cities can share resources and then have the artist build a great work there boosting the culture rating.

Culture bomb FTW.