Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[a4phantom]

Originally Posted by MaiaKtt

I want to play the rise of rome mod (warlords) but I can´t because BTS is installed. How can i play this mod without having to uninstall the game?

Thank you. And sorry for my awful english.

Your English is fine. Do you have Warlords installed and the Warlords cd in the drive? If the icon's not on your desktop, start Warlords from the Start-All Programs menu, and then load the scenario. You can't access it from inside BTS.

[MaiaKtt]

I have it installed and the warlords cd is in the drive. It doesn´t work...a window opens saying that there is "no cd". I have tried to copy the mod from warlords to BTS but this also didn´t work.

What can I do next?

[Gainy III]

Originally Posted by MaiaKtt

I have it installed and the warlords cd is in the drive. It doesn´t work...a window opens saying that there is "no cd". I have tried to copy the mod from warlords to BTS but this also didn´t work.

What can I do next?

Maybe "no cd" means you are clicking the BTS .exe instead of the Warlords .exe

Use the Warlords cd and click the warlords .exe

[GooglyBoogly]

I am in a game that I want to win a conquest victory.
However I am finding that it is taking a long time annhiliating everyone.

I was wondering, do capitulated vassals have to be destroyed as well in order to get a conquest victory? I would considerably speed up my game if i could do so.

[a4phantom]

Originally Posted by GooglyBoogly

I am in a game that I want to win a conquest victory.
However I am finding that it is taking a long time annhiliating everyone.

I was wondering, do capitulated vassals have to be destroyed as well in order to get a conquest victory? I would considerably speed up my game if i could do so.

Nope, Vassals count as destroyed for the purposes of being the last Civ standing. Also, they count 50% towards your land mass / population score for the Domination victory. It makes you wonder how anyone managed to play the game through to a military victory pre-Warlords.

[MaiaKtt]

I have tried to start the game in this way, but the window is no more the icon of the game. It changed for that little white and blue window. This happened with the 3 versions...vanilla warlords and BTS.

None of they have the original icon anymore. And only BTS works. Vanilla and warlords don´t.

I think this happened just after I installed the latest patch for BTS.

[a4phantom]

Originally Posted by MaiaKtt

I have tried to start the game in this way, but the window is no more the icon of the game. It changed for that little white and blue window. This happened with the 3 versions...vanilla warlords and BTS.

None of they have the original icon anymore. And only BTS works. Vanilla and warlords don´t.

I think this happened just after I installed the latest patch for BTS.

Then I would uninstall and reinstall the game.

[Celtic Warrior]

Currently my custom folder is in the My documents folder. I want to move it to another folder. Is that possible without messing up the game?

[a4phantom]

Is there an up-to-date description of the mechanics of air combat?

[MrCynical]

@a4phantom: Try this article.

[The Lemon]

Hi there!

Im new to civ 4, but a HUGE civ 3 person. I noticed something. When would you want to build a cottage compared to an irrigation. I can't tell the difference.

[JujuLautre]

farms gives more food, cottages give more commerce, both are fundamentally different. You usually need the former to make your cities grow, and the latter to make them productive, I can't really see any other way to present it

[Sisiutil]

Originally Posted by The Lemon

Hi there!

Im new to civ 4, but a HUGE civ 3 person. I noticed something. When would you want to build a cottage compared to an irrigation. I can't tell the difference.

A farm will increase the food production of a tile by +1; a cottage will increase its commerce production by +1.

The food production of the farm will not increase until Biology boosts it by 1, and not ever again after that.

The cottage, however, provided you have a citizen working that tile steadily, will gradually increase its commerce production from +1 (cottage), to +2 (hamlet), +3 (village), and then +4 (town). In turn, these values will be increased by researching the Printing Press technology (+1 commerce from villages and towns) and by running the Free Speech civic (+2 commerce from towns). Commerce allows you to keep the science slider raised nice and high, and what doesn't go to science gets converted to gold, which lets you buy all sorts of nifty things.

Oh, and a leader with the Financial trait gets a +1 commerce boost on these cottage tiles as soon as they yield 2 commerce.

So cottages are better, right? No, not always. You'll inevitably need some farms to help the city grow, and to ensure your citizens can either work low-food but high-production tiles like mined hills, or to convert citizens into specialists.

Ideally it's best to have your cities specialize--some should try to have as many cottages as possible and become commerce engines, while others will have many, many farms and run specialists to produce great people, which still others will have a mix of farms, mines, watermills, and workshops in order to become production powerhouses.

I myself prefer to have a city with a lot of river tiles specialize as cottage-heavy commerce cities. My reasons are, first, a riverside tile already produces 1 commerce, so it will boost a cottage throughout the game. Second, riverside grasslands produce 2 food, sufficient to feed the citizen working that tile, while flood plains with a cottage produce 3 food, which feeds the citizen and fuels growth. (Riverside plains tiles usually get farms.) And again, for a Financial leader, a cottage beside a river instantly goes from +1 commerce to +3.

[Copywriter]

I have a question on combat. I was just reading something from this:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/stra..._explained.php

Gone are the Civ3 days of completely red-lining a unit. Each unit that can do collateral damage has a limit on the amount of damage it can do. These are given in the Units XML file. For catapults, it is 50; cannons 60; artillery 70. Tanks/panzers and modern armor are capped at 60; Cho-Ko-Nu at 60, and (stealth) bombers at 50. That means a catapult can not damage a unit at or below 50 hps. Similarly, an artillery cannot damage any unit at or below 30 hps. Those are hard caps.

Does this mean that I can simply edit an XML file somewhere and set these all to 0 (for allowing complete destruction)? I was just thinking that it would be more realistic.

@Sisiutil

Thanks for your input on specializing. I've started doing this, but have been trying to figure out when and where to do commerce and special people (production city is fairly obvious). I was thinking that a city by water with lots of 2 food tiles would be great for commerce.

In my recent warlord-level vanilla game, Asoka has nearly every freaking tile full of villages and towns. Until your post I didn't know how in the heck he was getting +6, +7 and +8 commerce. I remember that as soon as I attacked he went to free speech (and proceeded to upgrade the SH%! out of his troops). He still lost though.

[JujuLautre]

Originally Posted by Copywriter

Does this mean that I can simply edit an XML file somewhere and set these all to 0 (for allowing complete destruction)? I was just thinking that it would be more realistic.

No problem, do as you like. Just don't forget that when we're talking strategy here, we're dealing with the original values of the game

[Copywriter]

Oh, got another question.

When something goes obsolete (like calendar obsoleting the Obelisk), do you cease getting the benefits?

[Crowqueen]

Originally Posted by Copywriter

Oh, got another question.

When something goes obsolete (like calendar obsoleting the Obelisk), do you cease getting the benefits?

Short answer - yes.

Long answer - it depends on whether the Obelisk/Monument is a result of having built it originally or being made available by Stonehenge's "free Monument in every city". In the former case you still get some cultural benefit accruing if it was built a certain length of time ago. If it was just a freebie, it vanishes when SH is made obsolete (Calendar in vanilla, Astronomy in BtS).

[JujuLautre]

You don't lose culture neither great people points. But you lose everything else.

[a4phantom]

Originally Posted by JujuLautre

You don't lose culture neither great people points. But you lose everything else.

If you are Ethiopia, does the Stele's +25% culture bonus go obsolete with Astro?

[JujuLautre]

everything except the native culture and the GPP. So the steele's bonus goes away.