Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

ChicagoCubs · Apr 11, 2006

aznjizz said:
1. Is it better to build my city on tiles that has
A) "1 food + 2 hammer" or
B) "2 food + 1 hammer"
...like, in what situation would i choose A) or B) ??

Excluding the situations below, when you build you city, it replaces the base terrain (1F 2H or 2F 1H) with the city default. Sorry I forgot what the default is, but I think it is 2F 1H.

aznjizz said:
2. Is it wise to build a city on a mine tile?

Building a city on a hill gives your defenders an added defensive bonus. It is unwise to build on a potential mine site if you don't have other production tiles available (i.e. other hills to compensate for losing this one). Also, there is a situation that if you build on a hill, you get a bonus hammer. I think it is if you build on a "hills/plains" tile. So this city would produce 2F 2H.

aznjizz said:
3. If i build my city on a tile that has a special resource like Horses for example, do i lose the option to build a Pasture on it later on? Does my city serve as a free Pasture on that tile?

Short answer: Yes, your city serves as a pasture and you will get horses.
Long Answer: Yes, an you get the benefits from that resource without having the necessary tech to create the improvement (like Animal Husbandry for Pasture). This comes into play for items like stone or marble. You can have stone/marble as a resource before you get Masonry for the Quarry improvement.

ChicagoCubs · Apr 11, 2006

TDK said:
Anybody know what the tech preferences for great leader "discover technology" option are? Is it a fixed "tech tree" or is the tech discovered calculated when the great person is born?
Can anybody point me to a thread concerning this.

Thanks,

Anders

Here is what I noticed...

Great Prophets will discover the next religion tech.
Great Scientist will discover the next education/research tech.

I have never looked at the other great people and after all the religions are gone, I just turn them into super specialists.

ChicagoCubs · Apr 11, 2006

smjjames said:
well, here is a kind of newb question.

in Civ3, we could take a look at the city itself and the buildings in it. does Civ4 have this same feature? I liked that feature in Civ3

and I know I could have done a search, but I'm not sure what to search for and I didn't want to read through 100+ pages of this thread.

You can zoom in on the city (mouse scoll and page up/down on keyboard). Sorry but I don't know how to rotate the view.

Snerk · Apr 11, 2006

aznjizz said:
Hi everybody, I just got a couple newb questions.

1. Is it better to build my city on tiles that has
A) "1 food + 2 hammer" or
B) "2 food + 1 hammer"
...like, in what situation would i choose A) or B) ??

2. Is it wise to build a city on a mine tile?

3. If i build my city on a tile that has a special resource like Horses for example, do i lose the option to build a Pasture on it later on? Does my city serve as a free Pasture on that tile?

Thanks.

Im no veteran but i can try to answer..

1, It all depens on the souroundings of the city, just the one tile you choose to build on doesnt matter so much. But in general you want enough food to work your tiles with hammers and comerse. Each tile needs 2 food to work on, but you can get the food from someplace else in the fat cross.
A if you got plenty of food on another tile, and B if you need the food to work that tile.

2, A city on a hill tile gains defence from the tile and you automaticly get the resourse on the tile, if any. But you dont get the bonus of building a mine, i think.

3, Then you cant build a pasture but you gain horse reasourse.

lost_civantares · Apr 11, 2006

ChicagoCubs said:
Sorry but I don't know how to rotate the view.

With out changing the ini you can move 45 degrees east and 45 degrees east using control-left arrow and control-right arrow.

For Camera Flying:

If you don't mind editing the ini go to My Documents/My Games/Civilization 4/
and look for the file named "CivilizationIV" (in XP it should say configuration settings below it).

In it look for (use control-F if you want to find it faster):

; Allow Camera Flying
AllowFlying = 0

Set the 0 to 1, save and your able to use camera flying (control-alt-f in 1.52, I think it's control-f in previous versions).

@aznijizz- Remember also that when you build on a resource you lose much of the bonus food and producion that you would have gotten if you had just improved it as a trade off for the security and immeadite use that you would get otherwise.

aznjizz · Apr 11, 2006

aznjizz said:
Hi everybody, I just got a couple newb questions.

1. Is it better to build my city on tiles that has
A) "1 food + 2 hammer" or
B) "2 food + 1 hammer"
...like, in what situation would i choose A) or B) ??

ChicagoCubs said:
Excluding the situations below, when you build you city, it replaces the base terrain (1F 2H or 2F 1H) with the city default. Sorry I forgot what the default is, but I think it is 2F 1H.

sweetpete said:
1, It all depens on the souroundings of the city, just the one tile you choose to build on doesnt matter so much. But in general you want enough food to work your tiles with hammers and comerse. Each tile needs 2 food to work on, but you can get the food from someplace else in the fat cross.
A if you got plenty of food on another tile, and B if you need the food to work that tile.

lost_civantares said:
@aznijizz- Remember also that when you build on a resource you lose much of the bonus food and producion that you would have gotten if you had just improved it as a trade off for the security and immeadite use that you would get otherwise.

Thanks for the replies.

Its good to know the tile will default itself to 2F+1H. I guess i could take advantage of this by building a city on tiles with fewer than 2F+1H and then i could save the tiles with higher bonuses to be farmed/cottaged. That or build directly on a tile with special resources to take advantage of not having to build Pastures/Mines/etc.

camoranesi16 · Apr 11, 2006

hey.
I´ve got some question about mods that can be found on this Forum..

1)
Ive found plenty of different "new civs" that I can download from this forum.. are those safe to play or will they start messing things up with my original game?

2)
Is it safe to install graphical mods or other mods made on this forum???

3)
Will I eventually have to reinstall the game if any of the mods ruins the original game??

4)
and last... how large is the risk that the mods doesnt work properly??

Thanks in advance

Hawker04 · Apr 11, 2006

scienide09 said:
Not really sure what you're looking for, Hawker04. If you're looking at someone's savegame, presumably you're doing it for one of two reasons: to get advice, or to give advice.

In either case, you need to analyse what you see. Things to think about:
How are the cities planned out?
Did the player make a good tactical decision by blocking off a large portion of land for later expansion?
What kind of units, and how many, are defending the major cities?
Is a city with the potential for a GP farm being wasted as a mediocre production city?
Is the research rate appripriate given the gpt bing earned?
Is tech progression soaring, or lagging? Why?
These are just a few of the many possibilites.

Sometimes you can see major good points easily, such as specialized cities, and a modern military. The same can be said for major blunders, like a undersized, ancient military, with a poorly defended capital.

If you're analysing the game to learn from it, you have to look at what is presented and ask yourself why the player did what he/she did. "Why was that a good choice?"
If you're offering advice, you need to look for common errors, and suggest to the player ways to fix and improve them. "In the future, you should try to avoid..."

Does that answer your question?

Yes, you definately answered my question. I guess there's no way to go back and see each move the player made like in a recorded game for real-time strategy games, are there? I'd like to find other ways to learn from the community such as looking at other people's games, and if there's a way to see their moves turn for turn, that would be cool. But if not, I could understand why not

. Thanks for your reply!

lost_civantares · Apr 11, 2006

aznjizz said:
Its good to know the tile will default itself to 2F+1H.

It will not always be just that, IIRC, If you build on a resource that gives extra hammers, you will get one extra hammer under the city, but as said, it still isn't worth much.

lost_civantares · Apr 11, 2006

camoranesi16 said:
1)
Ive found plenty of different "new civs" that I can download from this forum.. are those safe to play or will they start messing things up with my original game?

2)
Is it safe to install graphical mods or other mods made on this forum???

As long as you put the mods in either
"C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\mods" for actual full blown mods (like Fall from Heaven or Sevomod) or

"\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets"
for graphical/rule changes and such you should be fine.

3)
Will I eventually have to reinstall the game if any of the mods ruins the original game??

As long as you put the mods in the right folders (I know that the my Documents folder didn't work right in 1.00, is that fixed in 1.52?) it should work fine and nothing in the actual game will be changed, remember that Firaxis specificly built the game to be modded, that is a reason why civ4 performs so badly.

4)
and last... how large is the risk that the mods doesnt work properly??

Just don't use alpha mods and you shouldn't have any problems, the modders test their stuff thoughly.

Snerk · Apr 11, 2006

Speaking of...

I added a civ in custom assets and it worked fine. But when i loaded a mod then the civ disapeared from the game. I thought that custom assets stuff stayed on, mod or no mod. Anybody know how i can fix this without having the manually add the civ in the mod I load?

jefforjo · Apr 11, 2006

The resources on the map are really hard to see. Is there a way to see them better? Can any of the advisors quick zoom to a resource location? For example, when I get another civ's map from map trading, can I find out quickly where their oil fields are, without having to scan the large map over myself? Is there like a locate "oil" function/button?

The same for units. I have a level 5 military unit (tank) that I have renamed (example "BigMofo"), so I can monitor his future promotions. But fighting battles on eastern front, southern front, western front, and with all the air lifts, the unit can get lost. Again, is there a way to quick zoom to "BigMoFo" without having to search all over. The military advisor doesn't list him out seperately, but as a unit type (a Tank, and I have 25 other "lesser" tanks).

Please Help! Thanks!

lost_civantares · Apr 11, 2006

sweetpete said:
Speaking of...

I added a civ in custom assets and it worked fine. But when i loaded a mod then the civ disapeared from the game. I thought that custom assets stuff stayed on, mod or no mod. Anybody know how i can fix this without having the manually add the civ in the mod I load?

When you load a mod, the game takes the assest directly from the mod file, bypassing what it normally would load, so it by passes your extra civ. Unless you make the mods into one though, you will not be able to play both at the same time (there is a utility to do that, but I don't know where that is though).

jefforjo said:
The resources on the map are really hard to see. Is there a way to see them better? Can any of the advisors quick zoom to a resource location? For example, when I get another civ's map from map trading, can I find out quickly where their oil fields are, without having to scan the large map over myself? Is there like a locate "oil" function/button?

Remember to use the "show resource tag" (circled in picture):

The same for units. I have a level 5 military unit (tank) that I have renamed (example "BigMofo"), so I can monitor his future promotions. But fighting battles on eastern front, southern front, western front, and with all the air lifts, the unit can get lost. Again, is there a way to quick zoom to "BigMoFo" without having to search all over. The military advisor doesn't list him out seperately, but as a unit type (a Tank, and I have 25 other "lesser" tanks).

Please Help! Thanks!

Sorry, but I don't think that there is a way, though there is a mod that gives each unit's stats, but I doubt that you would be able to use that to find your unit.

_alphaBeta_ · Apr 12, 2006

jefforjo said:
The same for units. I have a level 5 military unit (tank) that I have renamed (example "BigMofo"), so I can monitor his future promotions. But fighting battles on eastern front, southern front, western front, and with all the air lifts, the unit can get lost. Again, is there a way to quick zoom to "BigMoFo" without having to search all over. The military advisor doesn't list him out seperately, but as a unit type (a Tank, and I have 25 other "lesser" tanks).

Haven't renamed units, but did you try the military advisor "show individual units" checkbox? It's hard to tell from your post. The military advisor will usually show you how many tanks you have, but checking this option should show you stats for individual tanks as well. Not sure if the name shows up here or not. The XP values should and they're usually sorted that way. Finding your elite units shouldn't be that much of a problem.

van_goghs_ear · Apr 12, 2006

Love this forum, thanks for all of the help you super-civ users...

Got a quick question about building settlers.

I was playing a scenario last night where I was playing a small map, I have 4 cities. I am surrounded on three sides by other civs and to the north by the North Pole...I literally don't have anywhere to go...even inside my own borders. I could build on total ice with one fishing resource the other option is to build on tundra or desert. I keep getting the "our civ is ready to expand build a settler" pop up. Do I just have to live with this or should I fill in the "blank" space within my own border?

I tried to "push" the borders of the German with a new city and dropped a "culture bomb" (a great artist's work), but it did not push the borders at all. Again thanks for the help.

_alphaBeta_ · Apr 12, 2006

van_goghs_ear said:
Love this forum, thanks for all of the help you super-civ users...

Got a quick question about building settlers.

I was playing a scenario last night where I was playing a small map, I have 4 cities. I am surrounded on three sides by other civs and to the north by the North Pole...I literally don't have anywhere to go...even inside my own borders. I could build on total ice with one fishing resource the other option is to build on tundra or desert. I keep getting the "our civ is ready to expand build a settler" pop up. Do I just have to live with this or should I fill in the "blank" space within my own border?

I tried to "push" the borders of the German with a new city and dropped a "culture bomb" (a great artist's work), but it did not push the borders at all. Again thanks for the help.

Culture bombs are really only effective in the early stages of the game, when cities hardly have any culture to begin with. To win a culture battle, they are better served as super specialists IMHO. Another factor for pushing back borders is the culture rate. Dropping a bomb helps the total, but does nothing for the rate. Culture assimilation of land and towns takes both rate and total into account.

An ice town with a food source has little use. If it has multiple food sources, it would be a perfect globe theatre/slavery/draft town. Otherwise, it sounds like you may need to start a war for more land. Don't be afraid to do so. The AI, especially when you're new, expands faster. Nothing wrong with helping yourself to their hard settling work.

Samson · Apr 12, 2006

van_goghs_ear said:
Love this forum, thanks for all of the help you super-civ users...

Got a quick question about building settlers.

I was playing a scenario last night where I was playing a small map, I have 4 cities. I am surrounded on three sides by other civs and to the north by the North Pole...I literally don't have anywhere to go...even inside my own borders. I could build on total ice with one fishing resource the other option is to build on tundra or desert. I keep getting the "our civ is ready to expand build a settler" pop up. Do I just have to live with this or should I fill in the "blank" space within my own border?

I would build the ice city with the fish resorce, esp. if it has a good few coast tiles it can work. I would not bother with pure tundra or desert cities, but 4 or 5 usable squares would probably make the city worth it. You need to expand by means or the sword (or the axe or the hourse).

van_goghs_ear said:
I tried to "push" the borders of the German with a new city and dropped a "culture bomb" (a great artist's work), but it did not push the borders at all. Again thanks for the help.

Culture bombs take time to work against established borders. Give it a few turns and you may see a bit more space develop. Swords work much quicker

van_goghs_ear · Apr 12, 2006

Thanks _alphaBeta_ and Samson...

Fortunately, since I have been running my research at either 90 or 100% and have a nice Iron source, I should be able to take a town from the Germans and the Romans to my South and East. From what I can tell I won't get a very large distance deduction and they look to be decent resource cities. Hopefully it is still early enough in the game that they will forgive my transgressions later...nothing that a few world maps and techs as gifts can't fix...Again thanks.

Roland Johansen · Apr 12, 2006

In a fishing city with a food resource, pop rushing (with the slavery civic) can be very usefull to get a few buildings in the city.

5cats · Apr 13, 2006

jefforjo said:
The resources on the map are really hard to see. Is there a way to see them better? Can any of the advisors quick zoom to a resource location?
The same for units. I have a level 5 military unit (tank) that I have renamed (example "BigMofo"), ...is there a way to quick zoom to "BigMoFo" without having to search all over. The military advisor doesn't list him out seperately, but as a unit type (a Tank, and I have 25 other "lesser" tanks).

Please Help! Thanks!

There's a button in the lower right corned which toggles a floating arrow pointing at all the resources. It makes it VERY easy to see them

I don't think there's any 'quickzoom' feature.

I believe you can assign a # number to an individual unit. When you press (for example) #2 the BigMoFo will be center screen. Look in the manual, as I've never actually done this

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