Random Thought: One of the nice things about Civ4 is that you don't have to layout your cities perfectly (although dot maps are still somewhat helpful).

I tend to play huge / marathon maps, where you can be managing relationships with a dozen other civs and trying to keep track of a few dozen cities. What I've found as I move up the difficulty scale is that the game is actually more enjoyable when I pay attention to detail, then when I simply hit "next, next, next".

Now, I'm still trying to move from Warlord to Noble (huge / marathon / tectonic / 60% water / raging barbarians / no tech brokering). And I'm running the BtS Better AI module, which provides a good bit more challenge then the default. I tend to turn off the time victory as sometimes things are still hot and heavy come 2050 AD. I'm on the fence about the diplomatic (my diplomacy skills are not up to snuff yet) victory condition so I often turn that off. The culture and space race victories provide an interesting late-game dynamic where you have to commit to a path. Either by racing for the win yourself, or by attacking anyone who is building legendary cities or building spaceship components.

Alright, enough excuses.

When it comes to huge / marathon maps, it's impossible to look at every city on every turn. Instead, I tend to only go in-depth through all my cities about every 10-20 turns. In the meantime, I use other tricks to keep tabs on the overall health or special situations. So I'd boil down my strategy as follows:

Every Turn (things that tend to happen every turn)

  • Press the "W" key to cycle between units that are ready for new orders.

  • Glance at the surplus/deficit number in the upper left. Adjust the sliders to keep that number to match your current strategic goals.

  • During wartime, look for enemy units.

  • Glance at the city screen, looking for health, happiness or food problems.



My goal on every turn is to keep my finger on the pulse, but not do an in-depth review of every city.

On Demand (As prompted)

  • Pick new technologies.

  • Pick new buildings / projects / units to build.

  • Deal with events.

  • Deal with other civs that want your attention over some matter.



One trick that I have found is that you should use the "pick new thing for this city to work on" prompt as an alarm clock or reminder that you need to look at a city. To put it simply; don't fill a city's build queue with 500 turns worth of production. Your goal instead should be to set out a build queue that finishes up at around the time you need to re-examine the city.

For a city that is going to hit a health cap when it grows to the next population size in 50 turns (with 50 turns again before it grows past that point)... I will setup a build queue with about 50-75 turns worth of production. That way, shortly after the city grows to the new cap, I will get prompted to re-examine the city.

Sometimes it doesn't work out that you can do that. In which case you have to remember to look at the city again before that point, or use the Domestic Advisor to alert you of impending problems. But the majority of the time, it's possible to reduce the amount of detail that you're trying to keep track of by keeping your build queues small.

Every 3-10 Turns

  • Spend more time with the Domestic Advisor (F1) screen. Have some idea of what units / buildings will be finished in the next few turns.

  • Glance at the Foreign Advisor (F4). Keep in mind who is at war with who.

  • Glance at Victory Conditions (F8). Are we keeping up with our rivals? Has someone started to complete space race parts?

  • Open the Info Screen (F9). Check the power graph and make sure that other civilizations are not building up a "stack of death" and leaving you behind. If you're being left in the dust, you might find yourself the unexpected recipient of a Declaration of War (DoW).

  • During wartime (or when preparing), spend time getting to know the territory and enemy disposition of troops.



Glances are just that, a "glance". Ideally, you should not spend more then a few seconds checking key information on those screens. Checking these screens is generally a last check before I press the "end turn" button.

The primary goal here is to prevent nasty surprises from becoming disasters.

Every 5-20 Turns (In-Depth Review)

  • Check every city screen. I generally start with my capital city, then press the (Right Arrow) key to move to the next city until I get back to the capital. I'm looking for cities that need special buildings, or problems, or that tiles are worked properly or that the right specialists are present. This is the meat and potatos of city management and it should be reviewed on regular intervals.

  • Look at the Change Civics (F3) screen. Are we running the correct civics? Is it time for a change?

  • Look closely at the Foreign Advisor (F4) screen. Spend time reviewing the "Glance" screen so that you know who is friendly with who. Review your active trades. Look at the "Resources" tab to see if there are trades to be made. Take a peek at the other tabs to see if there are trade opportunities or upcoming threats.

  • Hit up your Military Advisor (F5). Are your units where you want them? Do you need to shift units around to meet potential threats?

  • Review the Religion Advisor (F7). Do all of your cities have the correct religions? Especially important when running Organized Religion or Theocracy civics.

  • Look at all the graphs on the Info Screen (F9). Specifically, check your "Mfg. Goods (Prod.)", "Crop Yield (Food)", and "Power" graphs. How are you stacking up against the opponents? The "Cultur" and "Espionage" graphs are also useful at times. Review the "Top 5 Cities/Wonders" and see who is out in front. The Demographics tab is also useful for checking out whether we are keeping up with the other civs.

  • Check the Espionage Screen (Ctrl-E). Make sure that you've assigned points (EPs) to the correct civs in the correct ratios. I usually work in multiples of 5s (5, 10, 15, 20) depending on how much of a threat or focus I consider the civilizations.



For peacetime, I usually work on a 10-20 turn schedule for the in-depth looks. Especially in mid-game where there's a lot of stuff perculating and I don't need to keep close eyes on things. But a lot can go wrong in 20 turns (especially with regards to the city screens), so I try to review all my cities every 10 turns.

But ever since I started going through all my cities every 10 turns or so, my gameplay has gotten a lot better. I end up more engaged and involved in the game and get a deeper enjoyment out of it.