Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

Almost to 10,000 posts!!!!!!! :band:
Seems fitting that the 10,000th post was from Lord Parkin and was a helpful comment explaining something.
Are there any mods that play up religious conflicts? I think you should have :mad: in every city with religionX if religionX's holy city isn't reachable due to closed borders. This would encourage either complex diplomacy or, ideally, crusades.
You might get a better answer on the Mods forums, especially about how easy such a mod would be to create if it didn't already exist. I'd find your suggestion to be a good reason not to adopt a "foreign" religion -- or to conquer its holy city ASAP!
 
I need some quick help. Nothing ground breaking, but I was wondering how I view the artistic aerial view of my city. This was one of my favorite features of Civ 3.

Thanks in advance.
 
Seems fitting that the 10,000th post was from Lord Parkin and was a helpful comment explaining something.
Really? I just checked out of mild curiousity, and it seems I was #9999... one off. ;)

I need some quick help. Nothing ground breaking, but I was wondering how I view the artistic aerial view of my city. This was one of my favorite features of Civ 3.

Thanks in advance.
There's no separate "artistic aerial view" for cities in Civ4. However, you can zoom very, very close into the map and get a (sort of) similar effect. Of course, it's not quite the same thing... but it's still quite neat. :)
 
POP Rush/Whip
Part of the reason why it's so overpowered is because of a bad calculation that they haven't even bothered to fix in patch 1.61.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159109

CHOP Rush
Before the 1.61 patch, chopping a forest gave you 30 hammers towards whatever you were building in the nearest city (on Normal speed). The hammers would be added to the unit or building as soon as the forest was chopped.

After the patch, forests give only 20 hammers, and even less if they are outside your borders or a city's BFC, but after Mathematics they give an extra 50%. Also, you have to end your turn before the hammers are added to the unit or building.


Are these 2 somehow related?
What was whipping like before the change, and what is the state of whipping after the change?
 
POP Rush/Whip

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159109

CHOP Rush

Are these 2 somehow related?
What was whipping like before the change, and what is the state of whipping after the change?

They're not related as far as I know. According to the linked article, there was a bug in the slavery mechanics that allowed you to get 30 free hammers (which I wasn't aware of until now). I'm sure this has been fixed since then or we'd still be hearing about it (the linked thread is over 2 years old). The chop-rush change, on the other hand, was a tweak to the core mechanics rather than a bug fix.

What whipping does (and was originally intended to do) is sacrifices the minimum amount of pop needed to match the total hammer cost of the current build, taking into account relevant hammer multipliers, and gives 30 base hammers (normal speed) for each unit of pop whipped. Each time you use the whip, the city gets one :mad: that lasts for for 10 turns - again, this is for normal speed, less for quick, more for epic/marathon.


Congrats on nailing post #10000 by the way - though as Padma suggested, this is subject to change...
 
So I guess his reported ratio of 4-5 Hammer per food isnt accurate anymore. What circumstances would lead to optimal whipping?
Like, 3+ Food excess, 1 turn before next growth(city size), X hammers remaining(unit currently being built/trained), queued unit/building etc?
 
Now I really need help. I am trying to attack the Zulu empire to the south of me. I am not at war with them yet, and for some reason it won't let me move my units into his territory to attack his city, and my Trebuchets have no bombard option. What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks.
 
You need to declare war first(or be declared upon)

Your trebs dont have the bombard option (even if it's right next to the city) because you arent at war yet
You can't move inside his cultural territory unless you're already at war with him (or you and him are at peace, and have open borders)

Even if you were friendly, and have an open border agreement, once you declare war on him, your units inside his cultural borders would automatically be expelled outside his cultural borders


To declare war on him without using your units, you can hold the ALT button, and left click on his name in the scoreboard(lower right portion of the screen, 4/5 o clock)
 
Ok, that's what I figured. I guess I am still used to Civ 3. Anyway, now I have another question. How do I declare war on him? I tried contacting him but he is annoyed at me and won't talk to me.
 
i think this will be a silly question....i been trying different strategy, using different empire, still cant really build as fast as the AI...i will always start building a settler whenever my 1st city came up....as for researching the technology,i will always go for economy and growth 1st....den when i scout the other AI empire they seem to have a new found city,i was wondering how y so fast,what they do:confused:?any suggestions on to build fast and choosing the right technology?
 
Ok, that's what I figured. I guess I am still used to Civ 3. Anyway, now I have another question. How do I declare war on him? I tried contacting him but he is annoyed at me and won't talk to me.

You can hold ALT and then left click their name on the scoreboard

Talk to them "Let's discuss something else" "Your head would look good on a pole (WAR)"

Move your military units inside his cultural borders (NO OPEN BORDER AGREEMENT)


I don't understand why he won't talk to you, when you're not in war with him
Civs could be annoyed at you, but will still talk as long as you're not currently in war, OR the 10 turn peace agreement hasnt passed yet
 
So I guess his reported ratio of 4-5 Hammer per food isnt accurate anymore. What circumstances would lead to optimal whipping?
Like, 3+ Food excess, 1 turn before next growth(city size), X hammers remaining(unit currently being built/trained), queued unit/building etc?

One of the better ways to use whipping is in a city with a granary (whip the granary first in a city when it isn't present in the city) with a food production enough to regrow to the happiness cap in one whipping cycle. The length of a whipping cycle is defined by the time it takes for the unhappiness from whipping to disappear. This is 10 turns at normal speed and 15 at epic speed.

You want the city to regrow to the happiness cap in exactly one whipping cycle, because this way you won't have unproductive unhappy citizens. You want the city to be close to the happiness cap because a bigger city is more productive than a smaller one. You will typically whip multiple citizens at once (mostly 2) because that will in practise facilitate the regrowth to happiness cap in one whipping cycle without unhappiness during regrowth.

i think this will be a silly question....i been trying different strategy, using different empire, still cant really build as fast as the AI...i will always start building a settler whenever my 1st city came up....as for researching the technology,i will always go for economy and growth 1st....den when i scout the other AI empire they seem to have a new found city,i was wondering how y so fast,what they do:confused:?any suggestions on to build fast and choosing the right technology?

Your basic idea that there exists a best way to expand and research that is universally applicable to every starting position is very wrong. In civilisation, unlike most other (real time) strategy games, there is no clear best way to do things. So whenever someone advices you that a certain path is THE best, he will typically be wrong.

That being said, starting with a settler is usually clearly not the fastest way to expand. It may be the fastest way to get your second city, but it won't be the fastest way to expand in the long run. The problem is that a size 1 city without improvements is typically very inproductive. The best way to get it more productive is by creating a worker or a workboat and improving the terrain around the city while growing a little. To be able to grow, you need to build something else than a worker or a settler and to grow fast, you need to use improved food resources.
Building a worker while you won't have work for him when he's finished obviously is also a bad idea. So you need to coordinate your research effort while building the worker so that the worker has the technology to improve those food resources when he's finished.
Then when your city has grown a bit and is using a few food resources, it is time to start building your settler. You'll notice that instead of 25 turns, it will take 10 turns to build this settler and the next settlers and workers will also be finished a lot quicker.

Note that on the higher difficulty levels (emperor +), the AI will always be quicker than you at the start of the game. At noble, there is an even playing field and you should be able to get a rate of expansion comparable to the AI. At emperor+, that's quite hard to achieve and requires skill and not a bad starting position.
 
Thanks Roland :)



i think this will be a silly question....i been trying different strategy, using different empire, still cant really build as fast as the AI...i will always start building a settler whenever my 1st city came up....as for researching the technology,i will always go for economy and growth 1st....den when i scout the other AI empire they seem to have a new found city,i was wondering how y so fast,what they do:confused:?any suggestions on to build fast and choosing the right technology?

Training a settler ASAP doesnt lead to good results

Usual practice is to make warriors or scouts first to look around your surroundings
By looking around you:
1) Find tribal huts
2) Find good spots to settle new cities
3) Find military resources(horses, iron, copper)
3) Find other civs, this allows you to make future plans .. who to ally, who to attack, who to avoid, etc

Making scouts or warriors also lets your capital GROW. If you make a settler or worker while it's still a size 1(can only "work" the center, and an extra tile)
Means that you're only making use of 1 extra tile, instead of 2-3(if you trained scouts/warriors instead)

Another reason why you dont want to start a settler ASAP, is because sending the settler to settle in unexplored(or fog of war) areas means there's a chance that barbarians would steal it

Another reason why you want to start training a warrior(but not a scout) is if you find another civ, you can use these warriors to declare war, and steal workers
That way, you dont have to stop Food Growth(while you train a worker)


Of course, other players would do other things, such as train settler first, train worker first, or a monument first... But these are carefully planned decisions that they think offsets starting with warriors
 
Thanks Roland :)

You're welcome.

Of course, other players would do other things, such as train settler first, train worker first, or a monument first... But these are carefully planned decisions that they think offsets starting with warriors

Worker first is pretty popular. Some people will even tell you to always pick this choice. I myself will probably do something like worker first (65%), workboat first (25%) and something else (10%).
But I play on huge maps at immortal+ level so stealing workers is usually not a realistic option. The chance that the worker can easily be stolen when you reach your opponent is pretty small as it takes a long time to reach your opponent and he has free bonus troops. The chance that the worker survives the road back (even when protected by the warrior) is also pretty small as the road back is long and perilous. And when that low percentage actually occurs, it has taken such a long time that the extra worker is less of an advantage than on smaller maps.
This also shows that map size and maybe difficulty level also have an impact on your opening strategy.
 
At immortal, how many resources do you usually see in your first 8 inner tiles? outer 12 tiles?

I thought that "worker first" was only viable from settler to prince or monarch, since there are plenty of resources in your BFC and there will be a higher chance that your 2 initial technologies can be used to work tiles already

I play prince/monarch



Oh yeah, Fraxander, don't worry too much if the AI seems to have way more units than you, or already have 2-3 cities compared to your 1

any suggestions on to build fast and choosing the right technology?
Bronze Working
With Bronze Working, you enable the slavery civic, and forest chopping
Both of which contribute to "build fast"

Then Pottery, which would enable the construction of Granaries, which are helpful in using slavery

Then wheel, and other technologies that will let you build improvements on resources in your BFC

Again, this is just a common path that most people take
There will be circumstances that would cause you to deviate from this path
 
At immortal, how many resources do you usually see in your first 8 inner tiles? outer 12 tiles?

I thought that "worker first" was only viable from settler to prince or monarch, since there are plenty of resources in your BFC and there will be a higher chance that your 2 initial technologies can be used to work tiles already

I play prince/monarch

How many resources? I don't know, it varies. Sometimes I build the worker while researching bronze working and use the worker for chopping, sometimes I build the worker while researching farming, hunting or animal husbandry to improve related food resources, sometimes I build a workboat to improve sea based food resources. After improving these resources, the worker will typically build farms, mines, cottages (when available), roads and other improvements when they become available.

Example effect of building a pasture on a grassland cow resource for your starting production: Your size 1 city is typically using a 2 food 1 hammer tile as centre tile and another 2 food 1 hammer tile as first tile (sometimes a 3 food tile). This gives you 4 (hammers + food) to invest in workers or settlers. When you improve the cow with a pasture, you'll get a 4 food, 2 hammers tile which improves your growth rate to 4 food per turn or allows you to invest 7 (hammers + food) into workers or settlers. The increased growth can allow you to grow quickly into a bigger more productive city and these other tiles can also be improved. The increased output is phenomenal 4->7 by just one tile improvement.
The effect of growing a size without the availability of a worker to improve these tiles is negligible. It usually means +1 hammer or +1 food, so a growth of 4->5.
Using unimproved tiles is very inefficient, improved tiles are usually easily 2 times as effective. Improved food resources are often 3-4 times as effective. (These values are based on the net-output of a tile: the output minus the 2 food needed to sustain the citizen working the tile.)


Bronze Working
With Bronze Working, you enable the slavery civic, and forest chopping
Both of which contribute to "build fast"

Then Pottery, which would enable the construction of Granaries, which are helpful in using slavery

Then wheel, and other technologies that will let you build improvements on resources in your BFC

Again, this is just a common path that most people take
There will be circumstances that would cause you to deviate from this path

I agree with the value of bronze working, but (since I often go worker first) I also value the technologies that help improve the land around the city highly. These include farming, animal husbandry and hunting. Usually I will invent pottery so that I can build cottages which will help me get enough commerce to sustain my expansion. But the granary is of course very useful too.
 
I don't understand why he won't talk to you, when you're not in war with him
Civs could be annoyed at you, but will still talk as long as you're not currently in war, OR the 10 turn peace agreement hasnt passed yet

AIs will refuse to talk to you if you have stopped trading with them, too.
 
Thanks for all the insights, Roland :)
Ill try some immortal huge games








Unrelated question:
Is there any way to find all the workers that I have "automated" because of "Build trade network"? (shortcut, of course ... not just manually checking each worker :p)

I just realized that workers under "automated trade network" will change improvements as the game suggests (They freakin changed 3 Towns into camps and plantations :mad:)

**I don't play big and lengthy games, so I never noticed till now hahaha
 
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