Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[darski]

I am in the middle of a game and I placed a settler on a square in my turn. On the next turn - my settler could move -> not the IBT, a barb village sprung up. Obviously I had direct line of sight of that tile. What rules were in place to allow that thing to spring up at that time? I've never seen this before. It was the barb uprising season - would that affect the rng thingy.

[Tone]

Presumably the settler was unescorted? IIRC barbs cannot spawn within LOS of any military unit (or within sight of your borders).

[darski]

Originally Posted by Tone

Presumably the settler was unescorted? IIRC barbs cannot spawn within LOS of any military unit (or within sight of your borders).

Ah that explains it. Thank you. Settler was unescorted.

[timerover51]

And if there is one thing that I have discovered that Barbarians love, it is cities with no defenders. Seems to act like a magnet for the AI.

[Abegweit]

True of the AI in general. You can play fun tricks with this, dragging it back and forth like a puppet on a string.

[darski]

Originally Posted by Abegweit

True of the AI in general. You can play fun tricks with this, dragging it back and forth like a puppet on a string.

ah yes... the notorious "Bikini Babe" gambit.

[Abegweit]

Not really. That's different. Bikini Babes are abou attracting defenders out of a city with a weak unit, typically a worker.

I was referring to the tactic of emptying a city of all defenders, which attracts AI attackers like flies. When they get close to their target, pour the defenders back in and empty out a city on the other side of your empire. They'll all head off to their new target. Rinse and repeat.

Another tactic is to line up the route to the city with units who will wear the attackers down and pick them off. Sir Pleb's famous Funnel of Doom is an extreme example of this.

[teacher_mark]

I have seen some remedies for corruption and tried building courthouses and the Forbidden Palace, but I am still not clear about how to know how to identify which cities have a lot of corruption and how much they have. ?

[Samson]

Originally Posted by teacher_mark

I have seen some remedies for corruption and tried building courthouses and the Forbidden Palace, but I am still not clear about how to know how to identify which cities have a lot of corruption and how much they have. ?

Each city has a percentage corruption. Its base commerce and production is multiplied by this, and this number of hammers / coins are shown in red on the city screen, and do not get added to productivity. So before factories / library's / markets the percentage corruption is the percentage of these outputs that appear as red. You can move around the workers in the city to determine with more accuracy the corruption of individual cities.

[CommandoBob]

Originally Posted by teacher_mark

I have seen some remedies for corruption and tried building courthouses and the Forbidden Palace, but I am still not clear about how to know how to identify which cities have a lot of corruption and how much they have. ?

Sometimes courthouses are not the answer.

Envision a doughnut that is centered around your capital city.

In the doughnut hole, where courruption is low, courthouses really won't help a lot. To be effective, a courthouse needs to reduce corruption by 2 gold per turn, since each courthouse has an upkeep of 1 gold per turn. If it reduces corruption by one gold it hasn't gained you anything.

Outside the doughnut, corruption is too high for courthouses to make a difference. Don't build them there. Instead, irrigate everything, plant a lot of cities, let them grow to their natural max size (6 or 12, depending on the availablity of fresh water) and then hire as many geeks/taxmen as you can. The tax revenue and science that is generated by specialist citizens is not affected by corruption in any shape, form or fashion. It goes straight to researching the next tech or into the treasury; 3 beakers per turn per scientist and 2 gold per turn per taxman.

Inside the doughnut is where courthouses are worthwhile. Exactly how big this area is will vary. My own rule of thumb is that courthouses are good investments when the corruption is between 30% to 60% (early game) and perhaps as low as 20% in the Industrial Age or later, depending on how many shields the city is producing.

What the Forbidden Palace does is make the doughnut hole and the doughnut larger.

[Theov]

Originally Posted by CommandoBob

Sometimes courthouses are not the answer.

Envision a doughnut that is centered around your capital city.

In the doughnut hole, where courruption is low, courthouses really won't help a lot. To be effective, a courthouse needs to reduce corruption by 2 gold per turn, since each courthouse has an upkeep of 1 gold per turn. If it reduces corruption by one gold it hasn't gained you anything.

Outside the doughnut, corruption is too high for courthouses to make a difference. Don't build them there. Instead, irrigate everything, plant a lot of cities, let them grow to their natural max size (6 or 12, depending on the availablity of fresh water) and then hire as many geeks/taxmen as you can. The tax revenue and science that is generated by specialist citizens is not affected by corruption in any shape, form or fashion. It goes straight to researching the next tech or into the treasury; 3 beakers per turn per scientist and 2 gold per turn per taxman.

Inside the doughnut is where courthouses are worthwhile. Exactly how big this area is will vary. My own rule of thumb is that courthouses are good investments when the corruption is between 30% to 60% (early game) and perhaps as low as 20% in the Industrial Age or later, depending on how many shields the city is producing.

What the Forbidden Palace does is make the doughnut hole and the doughnut larger.

I thought the Forbidden Palace places another less juicy donut on the map.

[Abegweit]

It does both but generally the second donut is pretty useless. The main effect is an CB said.

[vmxa]

Civ3, PTW it is a decent corruption reducer, but in C3C the FP has very limited impact on corruption. A problem as I see it with courts is that where they are of some use, it just takes too long to build.

Those shields are often better spend elsewhere as the impact of a couple net gold or beakers can be gotten with specialist and immediate return.

[Takhisis]

Originally Posted by CommandoBob

Sometimes courthouses are not the answer.

Envision a doughnut that is centered around your capital city.

In the doughnut hole, where courruption is low, courthouses really won't help a lot. To be effective, a courthouse needs to reduce corruption by 2 gold per turn, since each courthouse has an upkeep of 1 gold per turn. If it reduces corruption by one gold it hasn't gained you anything.

Outside the doughnut, corruption is too high for courthouses to make a difference. Don't build them there. Instead, irrigate everything, plant a lot of cities, let them grow to their natural max size (6 or 12, depending on the availablity of fresh water) and then hire as many geeks/taxmen as you can. The tax revenue and science that is generated by specialist citizens is not affected by corruption in any shape, form or fashion. It goes straight to researching the next tech or into the treasury; 3 beakers per turn per scientist and 2 gold per turn per taxman.

Inside the doughnut is where courthouses are worthwhile. Exactly how big this area is will vary. My own rule of thumb is that courthouses are good investments when the corruption is between 30% to 60% (early game) and perhaps as low as 20% in the Industrial Age or later, depending on how many shields the city is producing.

What the Forbidden Palace does is make the doughnut hole and the doughnut larger.

You can also use a lot of engineers to get your stuff built quickly. Irrigate everything, then merge the workers into the population, use them on the irrigated territory.

[EMan]

Courthouses (and Police Stations) are useful if you are trying to get a high-score Histographic Victory because they do reduce corruption, which in turn allows you to increase your happy faces, using the Luxury slider......Especially useful in island cities. (Viz. You score more base points by having happy citizens [2] versus specialist citizens [1].)

In my experience the Forbidden Palace should have laborers on the full 20 tiles because of the lack of corruption. The surrounding cities benefit (almost) nothing from having an FP neighbor.

[teacher_mark]

Thanks for the advice!
mmm- doughnuts...

[raspberry]

Why do resources disappear? Am having my first look at the editor; I can see it says Iron has an 800 disappearance probability. What does that mean?

[Cyc]

Resources disappear to simulate a resource being used up by man. Everytime a resource disappears, it shows up on the map in a different location. This way the number of any resource stays constant.

The 800 means that every turn, it has an 800 to 1 chance of disappearing. The editor gives you an opportunity to decrease that, or increase that.

[Vaney168]

Originally Posted by Cyc

Resources disappear to simulate a resource being used up by man. Everytime a resource disappears, it shows up on the map in a different location. This way the number of any resource stays constant.

The 800 means that every turn, it has an 800 to 1 chance of disappearing. The editor gives you an opportunity to decrease that, or increase that.

I didn’t know that, I thought it was effected by the civilizations dependence and the amount of that resource it has, because when I play and I only have one source of coal, it always seems like it runs out compared to a game when I have multiple sources of coal not one disappears.

[Cyc]

That's just the game screwing you over. When it rains, it pours. When it doesn't, you pray for rain.

Have you noticed how few luxuries appear on the map when you play solo? But if you conquer your neighbors, they have plenty of luxs? The better game you play, the more the game tightens the screws. That's why I've increase the chances of luxury resources appearing in my .biqs. It makes a game a lot more pleasant to play. Of course I only play on Huge Pangaeas with 8 tribes, so the next neighbor is usually quite a distance away. This allows for developing a greater civilization.