Greetings. Im a civ old-timer... lets say I was heavily into the original Civ back in high school.

My last experience was Civ2 back in college, and now I must admit many advanced aspects of Civ 4 confound me.

For instance, the AI offers a resource trade of clams for crabs.
What is the point? They are identical resources--what is either party gaining? -- (Answered!)

Thanks much, and to keep you occupied, here are five sub-questions!
~neckface


Sub-questions:

1. Does gifting a unit increase the AI's attitude towards you? How many would it take? -- (Answered!)

2. Very specifically, what are the exact effects of a nuke and tactical nuke. -- (Answered!)

3. Is there a bug in BTS that disables vision of AI cities with your state religion when you have built the shrine? -- (Answered!)

4. Will the AI EVER allow you to demand or barter one of it's cities? -- (Answered!)

5. How do air units damage other units? They seem to do such miniscule % damage when attacking. -- (Answered!)

Greetings.
- :)

For instance, the AI offers a resource trade of clams for crabs.
What is the point? They are identical resources--what is either party gaining?

Basically, Resources confer bonuses based on whether you have access to them, not based on how many of them you have - assuming you don't already have access to Clams, receiving Clams in a trade will give you +1 Health in all Cities; provided you have more than one source of Crabs, sending Crabs in a trade will not remove any of the bonuses you gain for having access to Crabs (+1 Health in all Cities). Thus, if you have at least 2 sources of Clams and 0 sources of Crabs, trading Clams for Crabs will result in a total increase of +1 Health in all your Cities.

Greetings. Im a civ old-timer... lets say I was heavily into the original Civ back in high school.

My last experience was Civ2 back in college, and now I must admit many advanced aspects of Civ 4 confound me.

For instance, the AI offers a resource trade of clams for crabs.
What is the point? They are identical resources--what is either party gaining?

Thanks much, and to keep you occupied, here are five sub-questions!
~neckface


Sub-questions:

1. Does gifting a unit increase the AI's attitude towards you? How many would it take?

2. Very specifically, what are the exact effects of a nuke and tactical nuke.

3. Is there a bug in BTS that disables vision of AI cities with your state religion when you have built the shrine?

4. Will the AI EVER allow you to demand or barter one of it's cities?

5. How do air units damage other units? They seem to do such miniscule % damage when attacking.

Crab and clams each provide +1 health to your cities. If you have 2 crab and trade 1 for a clam you will get +2 Health instead of +1.

1. Probably but not much. Best use for gifting units IMO is to support somebody in a war when you don't actually want to go to war

2. Don't know, never used them

3. Not that I've noticed but I use Bruic's Unofficial Patch

4. Not that I've seen

5. Use more of them. Bombers can also do collateral damage to other units in the same stack besides the defender

Greetings. Im a civ old-timer... lets say I was heavily into the original Civ back in high school.

My last experience was Civ2 back in college, and now I must admit many advanced aspects of Civ 4 confound me.

For instance, the AI offers a resource trade of clams for crabs.
What is the point? They are identical resources--what is either party gaining?

Thanks much, and to keep you occupied, here are five sub-questions!
~neckface


Sub-questions:

1. Does gifting a unit increase the AI's attitude towards you? How many would it take?

2. Very specifically, what are the exact effects of a nuke and tactical nuke.

3. Is there a bug in BTS that disables vision of AI cities with your state religion when you have built the shrine?

4. Will the AI EVER allow you to demand or barter one of it's cities?

5. How do air units damage other units? They seem to do such miniscule % damage when attacking.

They both give 1+ health in your cities. If your pollution expands health then you will loose one food per pollution over health. So you gain something out of it, and remember, trading creates friendship so its always a good idea to trade recourses.

1. Yes, but its not worth it if your using it to become friendly with him. I did it once and became friendly by giving away twenty/thirty advanced and promoted units to my brothers enemy once just to keep him struggling, when he found out about it he became quite pissed.

2. They destroy buildings and units, or at least damage them. Someone else can go into depth here.

3. Thats how it is in the new game, otherwise spying would be useless.

4. Not sure, but I think so. I think it might happen if they have taken one city that was originally yours.

5. Not sure what you mean here.

3. Thats how it is in the new game, otherwise spying would be useless.

ooooooh i get it now!

thanks for the speedy replies. more questions to come!

Neckface: 2. Very specifically, what are the exact effects of a nuke and tactical nuke.

cFccFc: 2. They destroy buildings and units, or at least damage them. Someone else can go into depth here.

I'll be happy to answer!

Nukes basically do collateral damage to the target area, and the surrounding few tiles. If you hit a city with them, they lose significant portions of their populations. After a nuclear attack, ground around it turns into desert and other tiles more slowly turn desolate. ONLY USE NUKES WHEN YOU ABSOLUTLY HAVE TO!!! Is probably the best idea... :D

So, the nuke will not kill units, but will collateral damage them while causing the other effects?

I think that's right, but then again I have always preferred not to use nukes, so its been a little while.

me too. im finding myself bizarrely moralistic in my recent games.

i've been wracked with feelings of guilt after surprise attacking my old allies to secure my manifest destiny.
those Sumerians never hurt anyone... :(

edit: double post (apologies)

The AI will allow you to ask for one of their cities if they're either on -very very very- good terms with them, or if you are winning a war against them.

Air units damage other units by using the bombard function. They do a small amount of damage because their purpose is to soften up the enemy, like siege units.

Re: trading

You can also get + to diplomacy for trading with someone. It takes a while. Anyway, even if a trade is otherwise a total wash, it might be good from this perspective.

Also, note that some buildings give bonuses that aren't a total 1-for-1. e.g., compare Theatre (Dye, I think) vs Market (Ivory and such). They both give Happy.

Wodan

1)Unless it was changed in BtS, I don't think gifting units to the AI has any diplomatic effect - it definitely didn't in Vanilla and Warlords. I don't use this very often, so it's conceivable it has been changed and I haven't noticed.

2)Nukes do massive collateral damage (I think there is a chance of actually destroying each unit?) to the tile it hits and the immediately adjacent tiles. If it hits a city you lose half the population (bomb shelter reduces this) and has a chance of destroying each building (not wonders). It also creates fallout on the affected tiles, which greatly reduces their output and requires Ecology and a lot of worker time to clear up.

ICBMs and tactical nukes do exactly the same amount of damage. The difference is that ICBMs can be fired to any point on the map, whereas the tactical nuke has a much shorter range, but can be carried by subs and missle cruisers. The tactical nuke however is much cheaper, and the SDI defence is less effective at stopping it than an ICBM.

Nukes will obviously also infuriate the civ you attack, and anyone on remotely good terms with them. Less obviously they will trigger or accelerate global warming.

3)This feature wa deliberately removed in BtS. You now need to accumulate espionage points against a civ to get line of sight to their cities (it requires fewer for a city with your state religion though).

4)Only as part of a peace deal normally. Just possible you might get this option if it is a city that has a great deal of your culture (i.e. the AI could use the liberate option to give you the city).

5)Air units reduce the hit points of the attacked ground unit, but cannot destroy it (or damage it below a certain number of hit points). This does however greatly soften the units up for attack by ground or sea units. The only units that can directly be destroyed by them are other air units - fighters on intercept mode will attempt to destroy them.

I was just given a city from another leader. Both me and him had quonqered another civ totally, so it was crushed. There was 5 cities that were something like this :
x-----x
---x---
------x
x

Of course he got the one in the middle while I got the rest. So I used a great artist and made a great work in the closest city so that the city was totally inside my cultural borders, which was enough for it being "liberated" to me.

4)Only as part of a peace deal normally. Just possible you might get this option if it is a city that has a great deal of your culture (i.e. the AI could use the liberate option to give you the city).


I've had this happen to me - Sitting Bull just offered me one of his cities out of the blue, because it was getting a lot of cultural pressure from me. So it definitely can happen.