Today was my first day of playing Civilization IV. From what I had already known about the game and from what I had known about ancient civilizations, I knew a good army for defense and expansion is vital. This is why I chose the Incan Empire as my empire to begin the game. One of their features was aggressiveness, which is useful for building a strong military. However, I knew a good military wasn't the only thing needed for a successful empire. Another bonus in the picking the Incas was that they had financial advantages. I know that money is the key behind building a successful empire as well as financing a good military.

I started the game mainly focusing on building warriors and making military advances. I also concentrated on settling in as many places as I could (about 4) and creating as many cities as I could to advance my civilization even more. Another benefit of doing this I found, was that since it expanded the empire, it gave me more opportunities to improve the land that had valuable resources such as dye. Getting resources like these made my civilization a lot happier and healthier, which made them easier to work with. One of the biggest problems I've been facing is making all 4 of my cities both happy and healthy. I've been trying my hardest to keep the civilization content with religion, which is why I've been making huge steps to establishing and spreading the current religion Hinduism. The biggest problem seems to be that the population is too high in each city and the only way to counter it is to make any improvement I can find that causes happiness and healthiness. So far though, I haven't faced any consequences from having an unhappy/unhealthy civilization. But just from knowledge I've gained from the reading so far, I know letting unhealthiness get out of hand in the future can really mess things up for me.

I was only about an hour into the game when I came into contact with 3 other civilizations. Although both were peaceful, I felt that the best thing to do was build up my military and eventually try to either ally myself with one of the stronger ones, or go to war with one of the weaker. After all, I did choose the Incas for their aggressive advantage so I might as well use it.