Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

No, you have to spread the Corp in your empire. AI needs this to evaluate the trade-value for the resources. With few cities having the Corp, Resources cost less than with large numbers of cities having the corp. That's also why GPT for Resource trades get cancelled after a while.

I didn't build the Apostolic Palace, but since I have more followers I have become the resident. That's good. I have also conquered a holy city, and would like to switch to Free Religion to reap the benefits of two religions (the AP faith, and my own).

If I switch, does that mean I no longer participate in AP elections?

You still participate in the elections, but you don't get the double vote that "full members" (i.e. those who have the AP religion as their state religion.)

More correctly (and according to Civilopedia): If you don't run the Apostolic Palace religion as state religion (so another state religion or Free Religion), you will only be eligible for resident or Diplomatic Victory if you own the city with the AP. Otherwise, not.

I'm not sure where the holy city comes into it, as you'll get the income from a shrine regardless of religion. The "benefits of two religions" are pretty small - you get a bit more happiness and a bit more culture, but that's about it. Free Religion is good if for diplomatic reasons you don't want to choose a religion, but if that's not the case, choosing a religion + a religious civic (Pacifism/Theocracy/Organized Religion) is usually better, plus of course you get to be AP resident.

Are there any "For Dummies" guides around? I look around and it seems like all the guides are geared for high-level play, while I get my butt kicked on Warlord.

Try Sisiutil's guide for beginners.

georgjorge said:

More correctly (and according to Civilopedia): If you don't run the Apostolic Palace religion as state religion (so another state religion or Free Religion), you will only be eligible for resident or Diplomatic Victory if you own the city with the AP. Otherwise, not.

I'm not sure where the holy city comes into it, as you'll get the income from a shrine regardless of religion. The "benefits of two religions" are pretty small - you get a bit more happiness and a bit more culture, but that's about it. Free Religion is good if for diplomatic reasons you don't want to choose a religion, but if that's not the case, choosing a religion + a religious civic (Pacifism/Theocracy/Organized Religion) is usually better, plus of course you get to be AP resident.

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It was less about my new holy city, and more about spreading a non-state religion. Building extra temples and cathedrals helps with happiness and culture. Switching to Free Religion allows all the other religions to flourish. I think that I will switch from Theocracy to Org Religion, to keep involved with AP elections until the AP expires.

2 questions about corporations:

1. I tried sending an exec from Sid's Sushi to an ally's city, but the button for planting a branch there was greyed out. Why would I *not* be able to spread a corporation to a city?

2. The corporation advisor screen shows which corps have been founded, and by whom. In my current game, I am the only one who has founded one. But in the section below, it shows only my cities, for spreading or not. Is there a way to see which AI cities have a branch of corps that I have founded?

1. If the AI is using Mercantilism then corporations cannot be spread to any of the AI's cities.

2. No easy way. You can look at each city and see if there is a symbol for your corporation there, next to the ones for the city's religion(s). If you have enough espionage points against the AI, you can look at the city's city screen. Unfortunately, there is no list of them.

State Property will also preclude spreading of corporations.

I just installed civIV after many years and noticed that the BetterAI mod has apparently become inactive with the last update from 2008. Did anybody continue doing this kinda mod?

Although it is more than just BetterAI, K-Kod has further improvements in the AI, along with many other changes.

Hi all! I'm a beginner player with a few dozen hours in the game. I just started building a naval fleet and a few questions hit me. First of all, why are frigates from friendly nations attacking me?? I'm "Friendly" with Babylon, and yet I get Babylonian frigates sinking my privateers all the time. Secondly, I had a stack with frigates and privateers in the same tile, and somehow it was one of my privateers that responded first to the attack. Shouldn't it have been the stronger unit I had available? Lastly, and this is the weirdest one, I could not attack back. The Babylonian frigate that sunk my privateer was right there in the next tile, but when I tried to send one of my own frigates against it... it just stacked itself into the tile?? How do I fight back?? Thank you all for reading. Please help me figure this mess out

Edit: I think I answered my own questions... from what I gather, privateers count as "nationless" so they don't count as your units even if you control them, and other nations don't recognize them either...

Welcome to CFC, Raynaldo!

Yep, you pretty much got it figured out. Your Privateers essentially show up as Barbarian units to all the AIs. Check out 6K Man's awesome guide, it'll tell you everything you need to know about how to use them.

Thanks, Maker! Hmm... but if they stand in the same tile as civ units, isn't that a dead giveaway? Barbarian units wouldn't be able to do that...

Raynaldo said:

Thanks, Maker! Hmm... but if they stand in the same tile as civ units, isn't that a dead giveaway? Barbarian units wouldn't be able to do that...

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Yeah against a human, but the AI is a bit thick...

Raynaldo said:

Hi all! I'm a beginner player with a few dozen hours in the game. I just started building a naval fleet and a few questions hit me. First of all, why are frigates from friendly nations attacking me?? I'm "Friendly" with Babylon, and yet I get Babylonian frigates sinking my privateers all the time. Secondly, I had a stack with frigates and privateers in the same tile, and somehow it was one of my privateers that responded first to the attack. Shouldn't it have been the stronger unit I had available? Lastly, and this is the weirdest one, I could not attack back. The Babylonian frigate that sunk my privateer was right there in the next tile, but when I tried to send one of my own frigates against it... it just stacked itself into the tile?? How do I fight back?? Thank you all for reading. Please help me figure this mess out

Edit: I think I answered my own questions... from what I gather, privateers count as "nationless" so they don't count as your units even if you control them, and other nations don't recognize them either...

Click to expand...

Raynaldo said:

Thanks, Maker! Hmm... but if they stand in the same tile as civ units, isn't that a dead giveaway? Barbarian units wouldn't be able to do that...

Click to expand...

If you can get Chemistry before anyone else, you can have quite a bit of fun with a small stack of privateers raiding everyone else's seafood, blockading ports, and destroying their navies all during peacetime. But once any AI (including your vassals) get Chemistry, your privateers are dead. (Yes, your vassals will use their frigates to hunt down and destroy your privateers as well.) If you got the circumnavigation bonus, you might be able to have your privateers run back to port and wait until Combustion for upgrading to destroyers. While sitting in port, they might get some opportunities to kill passing caravels or galleons to get a couple of more XP, but that's all.

I know that there is a bug that prevents the barbs from spawning or building privateers (and it would be perfectly appropriate for them to have them), and I've never seen the AI build them.

It would have been nice if Firaxis had made the Privateers a bit more historically accurate by giving you the option to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal for your privateers or have them operate as pirates. In the latter case, they'd operate as they do now, but you'd get a diplo hit if the other civs saw you not going after the pirates and letting them move into your ports and the same square as your naval units. In the former case, they could attack any unit from civs you are at war with as well as neutral civ's that have OBs with a civ you are war with (while the ships are outside their own cultural boarders).

I've had some fun at Noble having several stacks of privateers blockade some particular enemy's ports. If you are far enough ahead to be able to lib steel, a drydock-promoted stack of 3 combat II and combat 1 / medic 1 can last quite a while -- a couple get damaged attacking lesser ships, you move them into international waters protected by the 3rd and healing faster because of the medic.

Once in a while you get a Blitz destroyer or two out of it. That can be a lot of fun if Shaka sends a fleet of galleons against you. Several plain destroyers are good enough, but wiping out a whole invasion fleet with a single ship can be amusing.
I doubt this will work for long on higher levels of difficulty, though; you aren't usually that far ahead.

Lennier said:

I know that there is a bug that prevents the barbs from spawning or building privateers (and it would be perfectly appropriate for them to have them), and I've never seen the AI build them.

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Oh the AI do build them (on Deity) but not in stacks, only one after another, and not many of them. So they're not really dangerous though annoying in those games where you have a lot of land and army but are behind in tech and don't get to Chemistry or Astronomy fast enough.

I've seen the AI build Privateers on Noble, so I'm pretty sure it's not difficulty specific. They never build them in significant numbers though, so you only ever see individual roamers as opposed to stacks of AI Privateers.

In multiplayer games between human players, Privateers are typically even more rare - mainly because they're not particularly powerful for their age, and it's usually fairly obvious to a human who the Privateers are coming from. Humans are more inclined to get aggravated and declare war in those situations, whereas the AI will never be aware of who's raiding its coastline.