Brand New Grandma to this type of game. Help, Please?

[ElephantU]

You have to establish an Embassy with them by sending in a Diplomat, or building Marco Polo, before that will work.

 

[scloopy]

I just found out that making your neighbors mad is not smart. By the time I figured out what was going on it was tooooooo late. I think I may have allowed too many fighting people to be created at first and I moved too many of them away from my cities. Oh well, back to the book. One thing for sure being colorblind makes this game harder.

 

[rponton]

I'm going to backtrack a little bit here...
For placing cities, the best way to ensure little or no overlapping is to enable the gridlines. There is a button in the menu bar somewhere for this. This will outline all of the terrain squares in black. When you build a city, it's terrain will outline in white. Simply move your settlers/engineers out the minimmum required spaces and drop another city. Generally, I do not pay much(keyword much...) attention to finding the optimum city sites, I try to get as many cities as I can, and i try to claim every single square on every conntinent I am on. Remember, it's those uncontrolled terrain squares that breed barbarians. Later in the game, I will sometimes build a city on a square that has little or no additional land space (usually on a shoreline) I do this only to secure that last terrain square so I can claim an entire continent. Usually I need to subsidize that city with food and it never really grows, but at least I can claim ownership of everything. Ideally, I want every land square in the game to be outlined in white (a goal I actually acived once... and only once.)

 

[ElephantU]

The "fighting men" each require one shield support from one of your cities (usually the one it was created in, but you can change that). In the beginning government, Despotism, each citizen can support one unit "free", so a size 4 city can support four units without loss of shields, but a size 2 city can only support two. In the next better government, Monarchy, each city can support a maximum of 3 units, no matter what the size, but any more cost shield production. When you get to Republic government each unit costs one shield and the citizens are made unhappy when their military units are away from the cities. One unit is allowed away without concern (you will see a grey shield next to the unit's blue support shield in the "Units Supported" box on the left side of the city display), but more units away have red shields that turn citizens from content to unhappy.

Yes, colorblindness will be a serious handicap, but then it makes a good excuse to ask your grandson for help, right?

 

[scloopy]

I think that once more I shall start over so that I can clear up the mess I have already made.

I am forever having to get my Grandson to "look at this and tell me what color it is". Of course he gets a charge out of it. He calls it taking care of GP (Grandma Pat).

 

[rponton]

When it comes to the red/grey sheilds, I belive the red ones have this weird pattern/face thing on them, while the grey ones do not. This may help one who sees all as grey...

It sounds like you have a great relationship with your grandson. Although it seems he has a twisted sense of humor, hooking you on this game...

 

[scloopy]

I will return the favor to my Grandson. He has fell in love with some of my really old games. I think I shall keep the directions on some of them.

 

[Specialist290]

Another thing that might help with telling units apart is to right-click on the unit's square to bring up the terrain info. It will give you info on the terrain, as well as the unit that is on it, including nationality.

 

[scloopy]

Hey that will be great. My Husband is getting tired of "Hey Bob, come tell me what color this is."

 

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by scloopy
I just found out that making your neighbors mad is not smart. By the time I figured out what was going on it was tooooooo late.

A good trick here is to save the game about every 5-10 turns. That way, if you commit a gross goofup or Mongol disaster falls on you from over the plains, you can backtrack without losing too much of what you've already done.

I often do that just before I run a unit onto a goodie hut. If I get surrounded by a host of barbarians, I just reload the game from that save, and try again. (Then again, you're playing ToT; I don't know if that "feature" was corrected in there. I'm running MultiPlayer Gold, and it lets you retry the huts, as long as you have a saved game, if you don't like what you get. I know, the ethics wobble some here....)

 

[scloopy]

Hey I like that idea. And just think I just got after my grandson for doing the same thing in another game. I just won't tell him I can do it. What is that old saying, do as I say.....

 

[funxus]

I'm not really in favor of reloading the game anymore, but I used to when I was learning the game.

If you don't like the barbarians there are a few tricks (there are probably more) to avoid them or to deal with them:

• If you open huts the first turns of the game, barbarians are rare (and there are no before you settle your first city). So open many huts in the beginning. If you do run into barbarians, you also only get one, while later in game there will be a whole army of them.
  
• Settle a city close to it so that the hut is withing the city's radius. This prevents the hut from producing barbarians. If, however, your new city decides it want to work the same square as the hut is on, the hut will disappear.
  
• If you have enough gold in your treasury, opening huts with diplomats/spies is good, because you can then bribe them (very cheap) and attack the ones you didn't bribe.
  
• If you have a two-move unit on a ship exploring, and you pass a flat (grassland, plains, desert...) coastal square containing a hut, it's easy to unload the two-mover onto the hut and then let it embark the ship again. If the hut contains gold/a tech/a city it's all great, but if it contains barbarians they won't hurt you because you can go back to the ship before it's their turn.

These are the ones I use, and I seldom risk my cities/units to be attacked by barbarians from huts anymore.

 

[scloopy]

I have only run into the hordes twice so far and the first time was a disaster, but the second time I got several of my armed groups in the area before I touched the hut and I lost nothing and got a veteran group out of it. I don't know if it was a wise move on my part or pure luck.

If I have built harbors why can't I build a ship?

 

[Cedric Greene]

Originally posted by scloopy
If I have built harbors why can't I build a ship?

You can build a harbor if there is an ocean square in the city radius but to build a ship you need the ocean square to be in the 8 squares surrounding the city square.

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by Cedric Greene

You can build a harbor if there is an ocean square in the city radius but to build a ship you need the ocean square to be in the 8 squares surrounding the city square.

I thought you could build a harbor if the city is adjacent to any water square, lake or ocean, but to be able to build ships, the city either has to be adjacent to the ocean, or be adjacent to two squares of lake.

Harbors have nothing to do with ships, their function is that the city can work 2 foods from water squares instead of 1 food. Later in the game, you can build Port Facilities which have the same effects as barracks have on land units.

 

[ElephantU]

Independent of all the above, you need Map Making technology to be able to build the first ships, which are limited that they must end their turn adjacent to a land tile or there is a chance they will sink. Seafaring, which allows you to build Harbors, does not have a ship type associated with it, but one of its pre-req is Maps. Perhaps you got Sea from another civ or a hut (but I think you have to have both pre-reqs to get it from a hut?). Navigation allows you to build the first trans-oceanic ships. If you build the Lighthouse wonder you get Vet ships until Magnetism.

A harbor does require one of the 8 inner ring tiles be water. There is some mechanism whereby the game tests the "continent#" of the water tiles adjacent to the city; one #1 or two #63s sounds right.

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by ElephantU
You have to establish an Embassy with them by sending in a Diplomat, or building Marco Polo, before that will work.

I sent a diplomat to a foreign city and evidently he is ignored because nothing happened.

 

[scloopy]

Sorry about double post....leave it to me, but I have two questions.

I have a ship, actually 2, but the game told me to put a unit to sleep and load them aboard a ship. I can not find it in the book how to get them to get on the ship. I hope you understand the question. They should print a "Civilization for Dummies" for people like me

 

[Specialist290]

Originally posted by scloopy
They should print a "Civilization for Dummies" for people like me

You've just given me an idea for a project...

Anyway, to answer your questions:

1. About the Diplomat: Did you get a pop-up screen asking you to choose which action you wanted it to perform? Did you pick the "Establish Embassy" option?

If yes, then check your Foreign Minister report (F3). Then check the civ that owned the city you established the embassy from. Out from their name, instead of "No Embassy", you should see a report of how much gold, how many units, etc. they have.

To check intelligence, you simply highlight the civ's name in the Foreign Minister's report and click "Check Intelligence." You will then be able to see the techs (technologies or advances) they have discovered and what they are researching right now. For an experienced player (and even for a relatively unexperienced one), the Intelligence panel can tell you a lot about a civ.

2. When a boat is active in a city, move a land unit into that city and put it to Sleep (S key, or click on the unit in the City Display and click the "Sleep/Board Next Ship" option). Then move the ship out of the city. The unit should be transporting the Sleeping land unit.

BTW, if the boat is a Trireme, make sure it ends its turn next to a land square. Otherwise you'll get a not-so-pleasant surprise sometimes...

 

[scloopy]

I have a foreign minister's report for the city, so I guess I just have a couple of extra diplomats running around.

My boat is a caravel (sp) what I was figuring was putting some settlers on the boat and seeing about other land. I put the settlers to "Sleep/board next ship" and the ship is in the same city as they are, but they just keep on standing there. Also can (when I figure out how) put multiple units on a ship?

You better get started on the Dummy book. It will probably be easier than answering my questions.