Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[a4phantom]

Originally Posted by DaviddesJ

No. The only way to grow a city is to generate a food surplus and fill up the food box. (Except for the one-time boost from the Hanging Gardens.)

1. Does capturing the HG add one to each of your cities? Does losing the HG affect population?

2. Do Mosques and Synagogues and Cathedrals and the like help at all if you have Free Religion?

[lost_civantares]

Originally Posted by a4phantom

2. Do Mosques and Synagogues and Cathedrals and the like help at all if you have Free Religion?

They act just as if you were under a different state religion (ie Christian Cathedral whenn you're Islamic), so not all the bonuses, but still the +50% culture and +.

[oagersnap]

Originally Posted by a4phantom

1. Does capturing the HG add one to each of your cities? Does losing the HG affect population?

I think the population bonus is a one-time effect, so that won't be affected, but you will lose the health bonus from the HG.

[Loranga]

Don't know if this is the right place to ask, but do you believe there will be a "Conquests" of Civ 4 too? "Conquests" really improved Civ 3 in my mind!

[Taurendil]

Originally Posted by Loranga

Don't know if this is the right place to ask, but do you believe there will be a "Conquests" of Civ 4 too? "Conquests" really improved Civ 3 in my mind!

There's no doubt there will be one or two expansions for the game. That's how the computer game industry works nowadays: why charge 50€ for a complete game, when you can charge 100-150€ releasing it in parts?

[jpowers]

J1: No matter what I do, I cannot get the health bars to show up above my units. I try going to the strategy layer, the military advisor, clicking all my mouse buttons with <alt>, <ctrl>, <shift>, etc. Nothing!

J2: No matter what I do, I cannot put those cute little signs everyone else seems to have in their screenshots. Again, I go to strategy layer, advisors, nothing! Isn't there any documentation for this game? I got a crappy spiral-bound notebook with some screenshots in it with the game.

[Taurendil]

Originally Posted by jpowers

J1: No matter what I do, I cannot get the health bars to show up above my units. I try going to the strategy layer, the military advisor, clicking all my mouse buttons with <alt>, <ctrl>, <shift>, etc. Nothing!

J2: No matter what I do, I cannot put those cute little signs everyone else seems to have in their screenshots. Again, I go to strategy layer, advisors, nothing! Isn't there any documentation for this game? I got a crappy spiral-bound notebook with some screenshots in it with the game.

A1: You need to go to the options menu to turn on the health bars

A2: You need to zoom out until the clouds appear to be able to put signs. Please don't ask why It will then appear among the buttons next to your minimap.

[_alphaBeta_]

What's all this obsolete stuff mean?

Let's take calender. This obsoletes Stonehenge and the Obelisk. What does this mean? I can't believe this isn't in the manual.

• Can I no longer build these?
• Do their bonuses no longer take effect?
• Does the first one to research calendar obsolete everyone's Obelisk? Or is the obsolescence issues internal to each civ?

Someone asked this about monasteries earlier in this thread and never got a clear answer. There has to be a generic answer to what happens to buildings when they become obsolete.

[Taurendil]

Obsolete means:

* Indeed you can no longer build them.
* The next part is a bit trickier. Some bonuses still work, others don't. For example an obelisk will still grant 1 or 2 culture, and a monastery will still give culture and still allows you to build missionaries. The 10% research bonus is gone though. So no easy generic answer here.
* It's an internal affair. For example when you discover combustion, whales no longer give you happiness. Assuming you were first to do so, other nations still enjoy that bonus. The same goes for obsoleting buildings or wonders.

[_alphaBeta_]

Thanks! So the reason I'm having trouble is every building responds to becoming obsolete differently. Perfect.

Here's some more I posted in a previous thread:

Anyway, how exactly do trade routes work? I gather that they're automatic when there's connectivity between cities. You start out with one and can have more through civics or buildings. You can also have trade with other civs with open borders. Assuming that's all correct, my main question is - what are the ways cities can connect? The problem I'm having is I cannot determine how/why some cities are trading with one another that are NOT connected by roads. I've tried the world view map with the trade filter and all I get is a bunch of light and dark grey tiles. What do they mean? I'd like to understand how the whole system works. Can cities be connected by being close to one another? For trade over rivers to form, do both cities have to be adjacent to the river, or can roads connected to rivers connected to cities also work? One scenario has my city on a river having trade with another civ's city on the other side of the island (with no land connectivity). Is the trade route going out my river, along the coast, and into the river of the other civ's city? Is that possible?

I have some questions about culture borders and specifically what happens when your border contacts someone else's. I've read that you can surround a town with your culture borders and assimilate it that way. Does it say anywhere in-game, the likelihood of a town to switch over. Does this only happen when it's completely surrounded? How about how the borders push one another back. I see that every tile has a percentage associated with it. A tile on a border with another civ for me says "97% Persian." When it goes to 0%, does that mean the other civ takes control of the tile?

[a4phantom]

Originally Posted by Taurendil

* It's an internal affair. For example when you discover combustion, whales no longer give you happiness. Assuming you were first to do so, other nations still enjoy that bonus. The same goes for obsoleting buildings or wonders.

That's always been a dumb thing about civ. Why should the Great Wall defend me any less because I have cannons if the invader does not?

And to the guy who asked about expansions, it's a certainty. Think of all the obvious things they left out of this game, all the traditional civs (the Zulus were in this from the beginning!) absent, etc etc.

[Methos]

How do you create a CivIV map from scratch? With CivIII you just used the editor.

Is there a way to enter the World Builder without having to load a random map?

[Methos]

Originally Posted by Methos

How do you create a CivIV map from scratch? With CivIII you just used the editor.

Is there a way to enter the World Builder without having to load a random map?

Found my answer located in Dale's CivIV World Builder Manual thread. Looks like you have to load a map as normal, than erase it basically.

[DaviddesJ]

Originally Posted by _alphaBeta_

Anyway, how exactly do trade routes work? I gather that they're automatic when there's connectivity between cities. You start out with one and can have more through civics or buildings. You can also have trade with other civs with open borders. Assuming that's all correct, my main question is - what are the ways cities can connect?

The routes for trade with other civs are the same as the routes for connecting your own cities and resources. Roads and rivers always generate connections. Lakes too, at least sometimes. Coast and ocean spaces generate connections if you have the appropriate technologies. You can see whether you have a trade route with another civilization by looking for the "trade" symbol next to his name on the lower right part of the map. Or by opening the foreign advisor and going to the resources screen (since you can only trade resources if you have a trade route).

Note that one or the other of you has to have explored the spaces along the trade route in order to connect. I.e., you can't trade through unexplored coast or ocean, even if the connection does theoretically exist.

Originally Posted by _alphaBeta_

For trade over rivers to form, do both cities have to be adjacent to the river, or can roads connected to rivers connected to cities also work? One scenario has my city on a river having trade with another civ's city on the other side of the island (with no land connectivity). Is the trade route going out my river, along the coast, and into the river of the other civ's city? Is that possible?

Yes, this is all possible.

Originally Posted by _alphaBeta_

I have some questions about culture borders and specifically what happens when your border contacts someone else's. I've read that you can surround a town with your culture borders and assimilate it that way. Does it say anywhere in-game, the likelihood of a town to switch over. Does this only happen when it's completely surrounded? How about how the borders push one another back. I see that every tile has a percentage associated with it. A tile on a border with another civ for me says "97% Persian." When it goes to 0%, does that mean the other civ takes control of the tile?

Non-city tiles will switch when your influence over it is greater than the other civ's influence. Usually this happens when the percentage drops below 50% (because they have 49% and you have 51%). Sometimes there are three or more civs with influence (barbarians can also have influence) and it's a bit more complicated than that.

I don't know the exact rules for city switching; I'm not sure anyone here does. They are complicated and involve various factors other than just influence.

[iSkratch]

Ok, I'll start with posting here and hope someone actually still looks at this thread.

1. I'm not trying to sound like seinfeld, but whats the deal with the 2kgames support page? I find it less than encouraging that the provider of support for the game I just bought can't even keep their site up and running more than 1/4 of the time...

2. Can someone point me in the direction of an accurate 'cheat' list? No, I'm not cheating right from the start, but its fun after playing seriously for a bit to load up a seperate game and just go off.

Specifically, I've noticed that the following cheat, listed all over the place, does not actually work in any way, shape or form.

Increase highlighted unit's strength by 0.2 = [Shift] + ]

Every time I've tried this, it does absolutely nothing... and yes, I've toggled debug mode on and everything... still nuffin...


3. Add me to the list of "*#@&% Firaxis and their sloppy ass code!!!" complainers. Downloaded 1.52 patch before I even installed, updated directly after install, still have random game crashes a few times a day and occasional blue screens. This is on the following system:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
eVGA Geforce 6800Ultra 256MB GDDR3 AGP Video Card
CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR 400 Unbuffered Dual Channel Ram

[lost_civantares]

Originally Posted by iSkratch

1. I'm not trying to sound like seinfeld, but whats the deal with the 2kgames support page? I find it less than encouraging that the provider of support for the game I just bought can't even keep their site up and running more than 1/4 of the time...

I agree with you, the little contact that I've had with game support has not been to positive, this forum is a much better place to get help, as you have figured out. You might want to looking for your problem in previous threads in the bug reports forum and posting there if that doesn't help.

Specifically, I've noticed that the following cheat, listed all over the place, does not actually work in any way, shape or form.

Increase highlighted unit's strength by 0.2 = [Shift] + ]

Every time I've tried this, it does absolutely nothing... and yes, I've toggled debug mode on and everything... still nuffin...

Personally I've never heard about that one, the only one that I've heard about is the chipotle cheat, where you change the ini file to:
; Move along
CheatCode = chipotle

Where did you see the increase strength cheat? (or am I just blind? )

[iSkratch]

Originally Posted by lost_civantares

Personally I've never heard about that one, the only one that I've heard about is the chipotle cheat, where you change the ini file to:
; Move along
CheatCode = chipotle

Where did you see the increase strength cheat? (or am I just blind? )

Among other places, its listed HERE (see bottom of the page)

[Turbo007]

I am a huge fan Civ I, II, and III. Having played 3 the least, I was excited to get 4 and play it a lot. II has always been my favorite, but I thought the culture addition to III was perfect. What a great idea. I bought 4 this week and I am dismayed, because the entire map is black even after my guys have been walking all over. I have like 10 cities and I can't see crap. Do I need to discover something or are my settting messed up or what.

[GoToParaguay]

hi, just wondered if anyone knows how to access the map editor?

[scloopy]

Turbo007:

Have you checked the bug reports forum? or down loaded the latest patch that is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=149227

There is a lot of information on the black screen problem on the site also.