Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Endure]

Hello!

I've been browsing these forums quite frequently the past few days, reading PDFs and checking the Strat forum as well as just generally browsing but there are still a few things I'm unsure of, which I may have missed in my studies.

(I'm currently playing BtS as The Vikings; Noble/Terra/Epic settings with time victory disabled)

The concept of a settler rush: I'm just not sure exactly how soon after founding my first city I should have more cities set up.

Also I always end up with sick & angry people in my main city. No matter how many farms I build nothing changes.

Third: No matter what I do I just can't seem to get ahead in my military production (going for a domination victory) because I think I'm spending too much time setting up cities (which kinda ties into my first problem) and trying to bee-line for berserkers which takes a long time for me. Are they generally worth it or should I stick with axe/sword units?

Lastly, I end up in war because people keep asking me to cut my ties with everyone else and I just say no until they get annoyed with me. Any tips on how to handle this situation?

I may have missed these topics in obvious places, so sorry if these questions are readily answered somewhere!

Well first off, welcome to the forums.

1) Settler rush - I generally try to have my first settler out by 2500 BC, usually with the aid of a worker chopping forests. I'm by no means any sort of expert though so others could probably help you out more here.

2) Building farms won't help you with sick people unless their built on resources like wheat, corn, etc. You need to control the size of your cities and prevent them from growing too big early on (overcrowding leads to unhealthiness and unhappiness). Best way I find to do this is with whipping the unhappy/unhealthy population away with slavery. Whipping pop is also important for early expansion, either via the war or peaceful means. Eventually you can build structures like adequets to deal with unhealthiness and temples for happiness. It's also important to remember that if you have heredity rule early on, each military unit stationed in a city provides +1 which can go a long ways to keeping your citizens happy and productive.

3) Berserkers probably come too late if you want an early war, but if you don't mind waiting awhile to start a war, you could certainly wait for them. If your looking for an early war, I'd go with the axe rush. If your whipping away your excess population, you can build up an army of axes very quickly to take out your nearest opponent. Taking their cities early on will also help you later on because you'll have more cities (in hopefully good locations) to produce units for later wars.

4) There's a really good article in the war academy called "Triangle Diplomacy". You should read through it. It explains that if you try to keep everyone happy, you'll end up with everyone hating you. You want to pick out a couple AI's early on that like each other and become friends with them and work hard at maintaining diplomatic ties with them (same religion if possible, trades, accepting their demands, etc). It's impossible to have all the AI's like you, so you want to pick a few friends that will hopefully have your back when you need them.

I'm fairly new here myself, so others may have better insight to provide, but hopefully this helps a little.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hello!

Hello back to you and welcome to civfanatics!

I've been browsing these forums quite frequently the past few days, reading PDFs and checking the Strat forum as well as just generally browsing but there are still a few things I'm unsure of, which I may have missed in my studies.

(I'm currently playing BtS as The Vikings; Noble/Terra/Epic settings with time victory disabled)

The concept of a settler rush: I'm just not sure exactly how soon after founding my first city I should have more cities set up.

It's not very wise to expand extremely quickly in civilization IV (it was a good move in civilization III). In civilization IV, cities cost upkeep and because the income is fairly limited at the start of the game, this upkeep can become too much when you expand very quickly. So you'll have to make sure that cities actually contribute to your empire. Investing lots of hammers into a city and city defenders and then just letting that city sit there won't do a lot of good for your empire. You have to make sure that each city contributes to your empire as quickly as possible as otherwise, they're just dead weight that will pull your civilisation down.

To get these cities up and running quickly, you need a sufficient number of workers. As long as there are cities working unimproved tiles and as long as forests exist that could be chopped to speed up the development of your cities, you know that you could use more workers.

At the very start of the game, your capital is completely unimproved and building a settler at that point to start expanding your empire is a very time consuming thing. A typical capital will produce 5 hammers (from food and actual production) when building a settler at the start of the game and it won't grow during this construction as the food is invested into the settler. It's better to first improve the food and hammer output of your capital by improving tiles around the capital. It takes a while before the capital will be productive and can produce its first settler. The second settler won't take as long as the capital can now produce quickly. Just make sure that these cities actually contribute to your empire as quickly as possible and don't drag you down.

Also I always end up with sick & angry people in my main city. No matter how many farms I build nothing changes.

You probably missed the happiness and health values next to the production and food bar at the top of the city screen. The starting health and happiness values are pretty low and are quite limiting. As a city grows, it's unhealthiness and unhappiness grow by 1 for every population point that is added. Once the unhealthiness exceeds the healthiness, the city will become sick resulting in a loss of food. Once the unhappiness exceeds the happiness, some citizens will become unhappy. Unhappy citizens still eat food but don't produce anything.

The only way to solve the issue is to increase the health value and happiness value of a city. There are many ways to do this which are nicely categorised in these two articles:
Ways into happiness by cabert and
Ways into health by cabert.

Often, the ways to increase the health and happiness of a city are limited at a certain point in the game. More options will open themselves at a later date, but at that specific point, the options are limited. Thus you want to make sure that the city just doesn't become so unhealthy and unhappy by limiting its growth. You can do that by switching from high food, low hammer or high food, low commerce to low food, high hammer and low food, high commerce tiles. Using the rush production option from slavery is another method to transform excess population into something useful: hammers.
The end goal of a city is not to become big, it's to get a high hammer and commerce output.

Note that producing lots of farms actually had an adverse effect as it made the food production of your cities even larger and thus resulting in faster growth and bigger cities with more health and happiness issues.

Third: No matter what I do I just can't seem to get ahead in my military production (going for a domination victory) because I think I'm spending too much time setting up cities (which kinda ties into my first problem) and trying to bee-line for berserkers which takes a long time for me. Are they generally worth it or should I stick with axe/sword units?

You should just use the units that you can build when going to war. It's no use postponing war to wait for that perfect unit that will come someday. Of course, it is also not useful to go to war when there's no prospect of any actual gains. Make sure that you're stronger than your opponent. Scout his lands before the war and take a look at the Power Graph (F9 screen) to guess the strength of your opposition. And very important, don't go up against well defended cities without lots of siege equipment. Use siege units to remove the defence bonus and use a few collateral damage attacks from siege units before sending in the non-siege units.

War is a costly affair in civilisation IV. You'll lose units, your diplomatic relations will suffer, you'll lose trading opportunities and trade deals will be cancelled, your enemy may pillage some of your lands and last but not least is the war weariness unhappiness which will appear in your cities making your citizens unhappy and inactive. The gains of a successful was are also considerable. You'll gain cities, the basic building blocks of your civilisation, greatly increasing the strength of your civilisation while you similarly weaken one opponent. The cost of an unsuccessful war is that your empire will stagnate because of the costs of war while your opponents empires will grow further.

If you can't produce enough units for a war, then your cities might not be productive enough. It's always a good idea to create a few cities that have a high production (lots of mines and enough food to feed the citizens that work these mines) and can produce units quickly.

Lastly, I end up in war because people keep asking me to cut my ties with everyone else and I just say no until they get annoyed with me. Any tips on how to handle this situation?

You can't be friends with 2 people who hate each other. They will continuously ask you to chose between them and when you don't, then they'll start to hate you too. The idea is to pick a limited number of civilisations who are likely to like each other (same religion) and become friends with them. If they ask you to break your ties with someone outside this limited group because they don't like that civilisation, then you should seriously consider doing that. If they ask you for a small favour, then you should also consider doing that. Even war against a civilisation outside the group of friends should be considered. You can't stay completely neutral in this game. You're often forced to choose a side.

Diplomacy is an important aspect of this game, don't neglect it. It can be one of the more interesting parts of the game if you get into it.

 

[Mknn]

In a hotseat game, I will see a message like Your Cavalry has been destroyed by a pikeman. How can I see _where_ this happened? The indicator disappears too quickly--is there a way to "replay" the battle? Or, at least, a way to have the indicator stay until dismissed?

 

[Roland Johansen]

In a hotseat game, I will see a message like Your Cavalry has been destroyed by a pikeman. How can I see _where_ this happened? The indicator disappears too quickly--is there a way to "replay" the battle? Or, at least, a way to have the indicator stay until dismissed?

If you enter the turn log in a normal single player game, then you can click the message of a battle and the map will shift towards the location of the battle. The battle log will describe the result of the battle in detail. Together that should give you some information. The same should work in a hotseat game.

 

[EarthGod]

It just is not right for the AI to hide behind the excuse (I'm not talking to you!) while he goes about his bussiness of getting ready for war. Then the gaul of it all is the invisobility trick, so you can't even fight till he or she is ready-(The Bomb) maybe. Please explain?

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Ok so I haven't been able to read up since the last time I posted, but I'll do that later. Right now I have a rather quick question I'd like to ask...

What does "We are afraid of your enemies!" mean? Could someone please translate what that means in the video game terms? It makes no sense to me because i have been at war with this one civ and have all but totally wiped him off our map. I think he only has 1 or 2 cities left, while I have half the world to myself. I have gotten backstabed by another AI Civ (we'll call this backstabber AI "civ B") but have also destroyed their units at a ratio of close to 15:1 thanks to Tanks/Infantry/Machine Guns/Bombers vs Calvary/Knights/Riflemen/Trebuchets and some smart military strategy combined with patience to drive them back to the point I am now invading their cities.

Yet, AI civ A refuses to to capitulate because they "are afraid of my enemies".

This makes absolutely as much sense to me as shooting yourself in the head. What would you rather do? Capitulate and become my vassall with me protecting you, or would you rather me just completley destroy you and kill you off forever because you're MY enemy?

If I want AI civ A as my vassall, what options do I have? Either to kill them off or just focus on civ B?

 

[Sisiutil]

It just is not right for the AI to hide behind the excuse (I'm not talking to you!) while he goes about his bussiness of getting ready for war. Then the gaul of it all is the invisobility trick, so you can't even fight till he or she is ready-(The Bomb) maybe. Please explain?

Maybe you could explain first. I'm not sure exactly what game situation you're referring to.

 

[Sisiutil]

Ok so I haven't been able to read up since the last time I posted, but I'll do that later. Right now I have a rather quick question I'd like to ask...

What does "We are afraid of your enemies!" mean? Could someone please translate what that means in the video game terms? It makes no sense to me because i have been at war with this one civ and have all but totally wiped him off our map. I think he only has 1 or 2 cities left, while I have half the world to myself. I have gotten backstabed by another AI Civ (we'll call this backstabber AI "civ B") but have also destroyed their units at a ratio of close to 15:1 thanks to Tanks/Infantry/Machine Guns/Bombers vs Calvary/Knights/Riflemen/Trebuchets and some smart military strategy combined with patience to drive them back to the point I am now invading their cities.

Yet, AI civ A refuses to to capitulate because they "are afraid of my enemies".

This makes absolutely as much sense to me as shooting yourself in the head. What would you rather do? Capitulate and become my vassall with me protecting you, or would you rather me just completley destroy you and kill you off forever because you're MY enemy?

If I want AI civ A as my vassall, what options do I have? Either to kill them off or just focus on civ B?

In many respects, the AI is programmed to be eternally optimistic. Thus, it hopes that you'll seek peace with it after you're received a bit of damage--lost some units, say, or even a city. This is when the AI seeks peace, remember? Even if the AI becomes a vassal, it's programmed to try to one day break free, become independent, and win the game.

And if an AI civ becomes your vassal, it means that when you go to war, they go to war. In this situation, the AI is "hoping" that you'll accept peace now that you've lost a few units (because that's what the AI would do), but it has checked the power rating of a large, powerful rival civ that doesn't like you and figures that you'd both be toast if you went to war with that enemy.

 

[kopfschuss]

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now. I spent today trying cultural/diplomatic games for a bit and kept going back to war. Normally I'm the diplomatic guy in these types of games but I find myself always getting side-tracked to stomp over my neighbors when I play.

I do have one more question though before I get back to playing: I see a lot of posts about quick war games, but I was wondering (since I play with time victory off): if I wanted to start a game off at ancient and war my way into the modern era, is there a particular civilization that would do better with a long, slow war?

Basically fight fight fight, then stop for awhile to tech up/expand, then fight fight fight s'more?

 

[Infantry#14]

How many tiles are there in each different size map from duel to huge? Or does the map type also a factor in this?

 

[ori]

How many tiles are there in each different size map from duel to huge? Or does the map type also a factor in this?

map type plays a role. For the maps shipping with the original release look here for the standard size values.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

How many tiles are there in each different size map from duel to huge? Or does the map type also a factor in this?

These numbers are for BtS (and maps like Terra are bigger than this, I think, but these numbers give a good estimate):

Duel - 24x40 (960 tiles)
Tiny - 32x52 (1664)
Small - 40x64 (2560)
Standard - 52x84 (4368)
Large - 64x104 (6656)
Huge - 80x128 (10240)

A huge map is almost 2.5 times as big as a standard map!

 

[Roland Johansen]

It just is not right for the AI to hide behind the excuse (I'm not talking to you!) while he goes about his bussiness of getting ready for war. Then the gaul of it all is the invisobility trick, so you can't even fight till he or she is ready-(The Bomb) maybe. Please explain?

Maybe you could explain first. I'm not sure exactly what game situation you're referring to.

My guess is that maybe EarthGod wants to know why he can't declare war on a civilisation that doesn't want to talk with him. This would thus result in a situation where his enemy can build up an army to meet EarthGod's forces while EarthGod would like to declare war now when the enemy is weak.

If this is the question that you're asking EarthGod, then you're simply mistaken. You can declare war at any time. If you Alt-click a leader name in the Score Board, then this will result in war with said civilisation even if you can't talk with them. The Score Board is in the lower right section of the main game screen. It's active by default and if you switched the Score Board off, then you can re-enable it with one of the small buttons above the mini-map.

If this isn't your problem, then please try to explain your problem a bit clearer. There are several mistakes in your english spelling and sentence structure. We can't all write perfect English, but just try a bit harder. Use a spelling checker and try to describe the context of your ingame problem.

 

[ktownjuan]

I just bought and i installed it but it keeeps saying that i have the wring cd rom or something do i have to have civ. IV before i can use civilization gold edition???

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now. I spent today trying cultural/diplomatic games for a bit and kept going back to war. Normally I'm the diplomatic guy in these types of games but I find myself always getting side-tracked to stomp over my neighbors when I play.

I do have one more question though before I get back to playing: I see a lot of posts about quick war games, but I was wondering (since I play with time victory off): if I wanted to start a game off at ancient and war my way into the modern era, is there a particular civilization that would do better with a long, slow war?

Basically fight fight fight, then stop for awhile to tech up/expand, then fight fight fight s'more?

Everyone has their favourites, but my own favourite leader/civ for playing this sort of game is Julius Caesar of the Romans. I start by researching Bronze Working -> the Wheel -> Iron Working (starting with Mining gives me a head start). My 1st Settler is timed to complete around the same time that I discover IW. I settle to claim IW, then start spamming Praetorians and set out to conquer the world.

Partially it's that I have a great interest in Roman history, but Julius is well-suited to this sort of a game. He starts with the best early UU in the game that I can use to both defend my cities and capture others. Most of my Praets will survive and accumulate XPs; they remain the mainstay of my army as I upgrade them. On that note, though, one very cool thing about Praets is that I don't really have to upgrade them to Macemen, since they have the same strength. Imperialistic lets me get my first few cities established quickly, then ensures that I get many, many Great Generals throughout the game. And Organized saves me $$$ while running some of the more expensive and attractive early-game civics (HR, Bureaucracy, Organized Religion).

I just bought and i installed it but it keeeps saying that i have the wring cd rom or something do i have to have civ. IV before i can use civilization gold edition???

Ensure that you have the correct CD for the game you're playing in your CD ROM drive. If you're playing a Beyond the Sword game, for example, make sure that BtS Disc 1 is in the CD drive. If you start "vanilla" Civ IV while the Warlords disc is in the CD drive, for example, you'll get this error message.

 

[ktownjuan]

Everyone has their favourites, but my own favourite leader/civ for playing this sort of game is Julius Caesar of the Romans. I start by researching Bronze Working -> the Wheel -> Iron Working (starting with Mining gives me a head start). My 1st Settler is timed to complete around the same time that I discover IW. I settle to claim IW, then start spamming Praetorians and set out to conquer the world.

Partially it's that I have a great interest in Roman history, but Julius is well-suited to this sort of a game. He starts with the best early UU in the game that I can use to both defend my cities and capture others. Most of my Praets will survive and accumulate XPs; they remain the mainstay of my army as I upgrade them. On that note, though, one very cool thing about Praets is that I don't really have to upgrade them to Macemen, since they have the same strength. Imperialistic lets me get my first few cities established quickly, then ensures that I get many, many Great Generals throughout the game. And Organized saves me $$$ while running some of the more expensive and attractive early-game civics (HR, Bureaucracy, Organized Religion).

Ensure that you have the correct CD for the game you're playing in your CD ROM drive. If you're playing a Beyond the Sword game, for example, make sure that BtS Disc 1 is in the CD drive. If you start "vanilla" Civ IV while the Warlords disc is in the CD drive, for example, you'll get this error message.

Thanks a lot

 

[6K Man]

I was wondering if there's also some sort of guide to tech-tree "builds", that analyses in more detail why and how to get to certain techs how fast, depending on the situation.

tried search but didn't find anything. maybe one of you can point me to something like a "complete idiot's guide to the tech tree or how I stopped worrying and love the bomb"

This won't really help you tech faster, but it is an idiots guide to the tech tree that I created for my own use. It helps me decide what to tech towards or trade for (the annoying thing about tech trades offered by the AI is that you can't open the tech tree during the negotiation )

Civ4 key techs.

First to it gets Free stuff:
Music (free GA)
Liberalism (free technology)
Economics (free GM)
Physics (free GS)
Communism (free GSpy)
Fascism (free GG)
Fusion (free GE)

Religions founded:
Meditation
Polytheism
Monotheism
Code of Laws
Philosophy
Theology
Divine Right

Corporations Foundable: Corporation PLUS

Railroad + Engineer = Mining Inc (hammer bonus, consumes Gold/Silver/Coal/Iron/Copper)
Medicine + Merchant = Sid's Sushi (food and culture bonus, consumes Fish/Crab/Clam/Rice)
Combustion + Engineer = Creative Constructions (hammer and commerce bonus, consumes Iron/Copper/Aluminum/Marble/Stone)
Refrigeration + Merchant = Cereal Mills (food bonus, consumes Wheat/Corn/Rice)
Rocketry + Scientist = Aluminium Co (creates aluminium and science bonus, consumes coal)
Mass Media + Artist = Civilized Jewelers (cash and culture bonus, consumes Gold/Silver/Gems)
Plastics + Scientist = Standard Ethanol (creates oil and science bonus, consumes Corn/Rice/Sugar)


Obsoleting techs:
Economics - Castle
Rifling - Walls, Chichen Itza
Corporation - Great Lighthouse
Astronomy - Monument, Stonehenge, Colossus
Steam Power - Hagia Sophia
Scientific Method - Great Library, Parthenon, Temple of Artemis, Monastery
Combustion - Whale
Industrialization - Ivory
Plastics - Fur
Computers - Angkor Wat, Spiral Minaret, University of Sankore
Mass Media - Apostolic Palace
Advanced Flight - Stable
Fibre Optics - Kremlin

Other:
Mathematics - +50% chopping yield
Currency - +1 trade routes
Civil Service - farms spread irrigation
Guilds - +1 hammer workshop
Printing Press - +1 commerce villages/towns
Replaceable Parts - +1 hammer windmill/watermill
Corporation - obsoletes Great Lighthouse but +1 trade routes/city
Chemistry - +1 hammer workshop
Biology - +1 food farms
Electricity - +1 commerce windmill, +2 commerce watermill
Satellites - reveals map
Genetics - +3 health in all cities
Future Tech - +1health/+1happy in all cities
____________________________________________

Obviously, I've left out some stuff (like the enabling techs for Oracle, or Representation, etc.) but I find this helps me plan my tech path, wonder/unit builds, and so on.

 

[mikeyg1]

Can anyone tell me how to install a new unit or mod, so I can play it in my game, after I download it from this site. Thanks

 

[JujuLautre]

Can anyone tell me how to install a new unit or mod, so I can play it in my game, after I download it from this site. Thanks

It depends of the unit/mod; you should try to ask to the person who made it, if there is no installations instructions (which is strange)

 

[Mknn]

If you enter the turn log in a normal single player game, then you can click the message of a battle and the map will shift towards the location of the battle.

Sweet! This worked, great. Thanks! Never had thought of clicking on the chat log ...