Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

ChicagoCubs said:

Once the unit is moved, there is nothing you can do to undo your action. If you used the "goto" command, after the first move, you can click back on him and tell him to move back to the city, but you have to wait until next turn for him to return to the city.

You can always reload a previous save. I don't know how often the auto-save backs up the game, so you might have to repeat a turn or three.

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No Wonder I couldn't find a way to do that. For the newbie if there is command like that, it will ease the learning curve.

I tried to have the warrior fortified on the capitol, thenI produced another warrior. When that unit is finished, both of them stack together. It's confused to me that which unit should I move (1 fortified and 1 non). Is there a way to ease this? I am afraid if more same unit is being stack and it will be difficult to control them.

Thanks.

You can just use the world builder (control-w) if you need, just don't get addicted!

I have two questions about religion:

If I found a religion, so that I own the holy city, and it is my state religion, yet I don't build the "shrine" with a great prophet, can I still see all other cities with the same religion?

If I found a religion, but it is not my state religion, however I do build a shrine in the holy city, do I see all other cities with that religion?

Thanks a lot.

-Jason

JaeKayLMNOP said:

I have two questions about religion:

If I found a religion, so that I own the holy city, and it is my state religion, yet I don't build the "shrine" with a great prophet, can I still see all other cities with the same religion?

If I found a religion, but it is not my state religion, however I do build a shrine in the holy city, do I see all other cities with that religion?

Thanks a lot.

-Jason

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Controlling the holy city while running that religion as your state religion gives you the line of sight into all cities with that religion.

Building a holy shrine has nothing to do with line of sight. It grants +1 per city with that religion regardless of your state religion.

_alphaBeta_ said:

Building a holy shrine has nothing to do with line of sight. It grants +1 per city with that religion regardless of your state religion.

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+1 per city whether or not I own the city, correct?

Correct. The shrine gives +1gpt for every city on the map that has that religion, yours or not.
Hence the importance of spreading religions outside of your borders, and why it can be good to capture/keep a holy city, even when it's not your state religion.

Also remember that banks and other buildings afect how large a number that is too, something I did not realize for a while.

Civ 4 is the first that I have played in the series and I am in need of some help. I have read the boards and picked up a few tips, of course I made it through settler and chieftan but I am getting hung up in Warlord.

Here are some basics that I follow:
I try to found a religon right away.
I do not automate my workers until I have 80-90% of my spaces developed.
Most of the time I try to look at each city before building something so that I
can keep up the health and happiness.

A couple times I have made it to UN Secretary General but have not won a Diplo Victory.

Is there a specific technology train I should follow to keep up with the AIs in the beginning?

Thanks for any help.

thadeus -- welcome to the forums!

From your post, it sounds like you've been doing a lot of esearch. The fact that you're new to the game/series and are already willing to micromanage (worker actions, build queue) bodes well for your future games of Civ.

To address your question, it depends on your goals. Right now, it sounds like you're interested in diplomatic victories. This means that you need friends, and good ones at that. In other words, you need other civs to be friendly enough to vote for you. Trades and free gifts are good for this, not to mention the bonus of sharing a common religion. Since you say that you often found one, are you spreading it far and wide? The problem with getting the early religions is that they can take time to spread, since you're often too busy building your empire at the time (rather than missionaries). I assume that you're building the UN wonder, ensuring that you're on the list.
[Edit -- Oh, and don't go for the diplo victory as soon as you're the Sec. Gen. Try to push for one or two of the civic changes first, then head for the big vote.]

The less classy way to go for a diplo victory is to build a huge military, and conquer and expand like crazy. Do this until you have enough votes to vote yourself in.

Early tech development -- well, Alphabet is always a good choice, because it allows tech trading. If you beeline toward it, you can then trade for some of the techs that you've skipped. Another good ones seem to be Monarchy, as the AI loves this early civic, and will trade for it if it can.

How do you use a custom avatar? I can't find a way to not use the predefined ones.

Technocactus said:

How do you use a custom avatar? I can't find a way to not use the predefined ones.

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Please read the forum rules.

When you chop wood to boost production in a city, should you use the "chop forest" improvement, or should you build another improvement there which you plan on building anyway (ie.. cottage)? Assume that after chopping, you would build the improvement anyway.

Welcome to the forums, Hawker04.

Both yield the same amount of hammers, so there's no difference there.
So it comes down to a case of timing -- do you need the production boost right away? A straight chop yields the hammers right away. Worker improvement action only gives the hammers once the improvment itself is finished, so it takes longer to get the boost.

Later in the game, when I have a large amount of Workers, and I've had many of them automated for awhile, eventually they all just end up sleeping themselves in cities. There are no longer any jobs for them. It always seems a shame to have 20 workers just sitting around, and I always try to find something for them to do, but to no avail. My question: Is there any way I can make use out of my old Workers, or should I just disband most of them?

Some people expand their empires (at the expense of other empires) and then the workers often have work to do in the conquered area damaged by the war.

It is also useful to keep a few workers around to repair some war damage in case you might get into a war. And if railroads are about to be discovered, then you might want to keep your workers around for the building of the railroads.

If all of the above don't apply, then you should disband (most of) them. They only cost you money.

You can also try using your workers as bait: try to lure an enemy unit out of a city, or onto a tile with a poor defense bonus, leaving it open to attack from your nearby military.

I searched for this topic, but didn't find anything so:

Is there a way to do a quick restart? If I start a new map and I'm given a crap starting point, is there an easy way to restart a new game with all the options that I already chose? I remember there was a keyboard shortcut for this in civ3, but havn't found it in civ4 yet.

There's nothing worse than spending .5 hour playing the game just to find out that i'm stuck on an island all by myself with nothing but desert and tundra! and then going thru all those menu options again! Makes me feel like charlie brown, getting the ball pulled out just before I kick it!!

Well, there's the 'regenerate map' button in the menu. This generates a new map (duh) using all the options you selected from the custom menu.

One thing to note, however, is that this only works on the first turn. After that, it disappears from the menu. To get around this, just make sure you save the game on your very first turn.
This way, if you get stuck with a bad map, so that you can return to the save and hit that regenerate map button again.

good stuff! thanks!

When starting a new custom game, there is an option to check called "aggressive AI". It supposedly makes AI's favour war over diplomacy. Does that mean they'll make war on each other more often, or just me?

I would like for them to fight with themselves more often. So, if it's just me, then that's the exact opposite of what I want.