Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Lord Parkin]

When the end-of-turn button is still green, that means I still have units left to give actions to. How do I know which units those are? Is there a way to cycle?

The "W" key works for cycling through active units.

Oh, and I keep getting notices about religions coming to my land. Is it expressly good or bad to adopt them? Will religion flip my cities?

Religion has little to no influence in flipping cities. Unless someone is culturally pressuring the city tile of a city of yours, nothing will flip it - including religion. If you mouse over your city tile and it says more than "50% [Your] Territory", then you have no risk of it flipping to anyone else. (Typically it'll be 100% your territory for all cities near the start of the game.)

The effect of religion is mostly limited to giving small bonuses to a city: the ability to build temples, monasteries and cathedrals, and also giving some bonus culture and happiness as well as enabling certain civic effects if you adopt that particular religion. The other effect is in making other leaders happy/angry depending on whether you share their religion or not. Generally you're best off picking a religion for one of two reasons: (a) a neighboring civ you want to keep happy has adopted the religion, or (b) it's the largest-spread religion in your lands. If you're tossing up between the two, you're better off to adopt a religion to keep someone happy and then work on making it the largest-spread religion in your lands.

There's a bit more detail to it, but those are the basics. Hope that helps.

 

[Trapper439]

Hi all.

BTS question:

I read people talking about bulbing Liberalism all the time, but I never seem to get that option. ie Once I've bulbed Philosophy and Education the next GS only gives the option of bulbing Scientific Method.

Do I need to refrain from researching a particular tech(s) in order to have Lib be available as a bulbing option? I seem to recall reading something about that when I first came to this forum, but I was playing vanilla then so I didn't take much notice.

 

[Sisiutil]

Hi all.

BTS question:

I read people talking about bulbing Liberalism all the time, but I never seem to get that option. ie Once I've bulbed Philosophy and Education the next GS only gives the option of bulbing Scientific Method.

Do I need to refrain from researching a particular tech(s) in order to have Lib be available as a bulbing option? I seem to recall reading something about that when I first came to this forum, but I was playing vanilla then so I didn't take much notice.

In BtS, you must refrain from researching machinery in order to have a Great Scientist lightbulb part of Liberalism. Since machinery is a pretty important tech, this usually isn't recommended.

Great Scientists will lightbulb other techs on the path to Liberalism (Philosophy, Paper, Education) without requiring you to exercise much restraint at all in your research path. Make sure you have a good GP farm that you get up and running early and you should be able to make it to Liberalism first (build the Great Library in the GP farm if you want to be sure).

 

[Trapper439]

Ah, OK. Thanks for that, Sisiutil.

Yeah, forgoing Machinery doesn't sound like an attractive prospect at all. I guess I'll just have to work harder at leveraging Caste System and Pacifism in order to improve my Lib dates.

 

[s.bernbaum]

That's the right description but for the wrong controls.

Ctrl + click - Add item to start of queue
Shift + click - Add item to end of queue
Alt + click - Build item indefinitely (units only)

Correct. I knew something didn't look right but it wouldn't click in my head. That's what I get for posting after midnight!

 

[Sisiutil]

Ah, OK. Thanks for that, Sisiutil.

Yeah, forgoing Machinery doesn't sound like an attractive prospect at all. I guess I'll just have to work harder at leveraging Caste System and Pacifism in order to improve my Lib dates.

I've rarely used either of those civics in my games and I usually am first to Liberalism.

Like I said, try founding or capturing a good GP farm and build the Great Library and the National Epic there while running scientist specialists. A source of marble certainly helps. Use your first GS to bulb Philosophy, the next one to bulb Paper, and the one after that to bulb just over 1/2 of Education. Don't trade any of those techs away until you at least have the next one on the path (i.e. don't trade Philosophy until you have Paper or Paper until you have Ed.). That should do the trick.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Are the medic bonuses cumulative?

 

[ZeroM]

Are the medic bonuses cumulative?

I don't think so.

 

[Abegweit]

They are cumulative within a single unit but not between them. If one unit has woody III and another unit has Medic I, you get the best of the two. If the same unit has the promotions, you get the sum of the two.

 

[Turquoiside]

I don't have mouse with a working wheel right now, and this is a bit of a problem when I play on a laptop. Is there a hotkey for zooming in and out? I know I can just reload when the game or an accident (and it's always accidental because I can't work this laptop's wheel when I want to) moves it, but I'd like to be able to fix it without reloading.

 

[r_rolo1]

Page up/down

 

[reljanovic]

playing a game with tech brokering off, so you cant trade a tech you havent researched yourself.

My question is, am i able to steal a tech(via espionage) that says "cant be trade"?
I'm guessing they havent researched it themselves.

 

[r_rolo1]

Yup, you can steal techs that you can't trade in tech brokering off.

 

[nikgame]

Could someone please help me with these..

1. What exactly does "1 happiness per 10% culture" mean ?

2. Sometimes bombers and fighters seem to be unable to strike tiles /units...the tiles are greyed out. When does this happen ?

3. Does fighting cost any movement points for a unit ?

4. What exactly is first strike and what does the drill promotion(+1 first strike chance) do?

 

[nikgame]

Also why is it that at times some of the espionage missions are not executable ?..like at times for eg: the "steal technology" doesnt show up while the spy is in another civ's city.

 

[s.bernbaum]

@nikgame:

1) This means that for every 10% of culture being generated, your city will get 1 extra happiness point. So: 10 culture = 1 happiness, 20 culture = 2 happiness, etc. You get the happiness in addition to the culture not instead of it.

2) When there is no improvement to destroy the tile will be greyed out for that option. Air units can only damage ground units to 50% of healthy strength, so when all the ground units on a tile are at 50% health or less, the tile will be greyed out for that option. Also, any tile that is out of range will be greyed out if your plane tries to attack it.

3) Fighting costs one movement point.

4) First strike is when the unit is immune to taking damage for one round of combat. You will only see this if you have the combat log active, since all combats are fought round after round until one unit is destroyed or retreats, once you attack or are attacked. +1 First Strike Chance means the computer "rolls the dice" to see if the unit gets a First Strike or not. +1 First Strike means the unit definitely gets the free round. +2 means two free rounds, etc.

Also why is it that at times some of the espionage missions are not executable ?..like at times for eg: the "steal technology" doesnt show up while the spy is in another civ's city.

You have to have enough espionage points (EP) to carry out the mission, in that city. You can see how many EP you have in each foreign city by looking at the Espionage Screen (the last icon in the upper right corner of your main screen). It will also tell you if that is enough EP for whatever mission. It varies from city to city. So, pick a cheap one!

 

[Turquoiside]

Following the trend of espionage-related question: Is it impossible to revolt a civ out of their favortie civic? I'm trying for a Diplomatic Victory at the moment, and after I spent a Great Spy on the points to revolt Izzy into Free Religion, the option never appeared.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can only spy revolt another civ to a civic you are running yourself. Maybe that was it ?

 

[Turquoiside]

You can only spy revolt another civ to a civic you are running yourself. Maybe that was it ?

I had been using the civic for at least 6 turns. After seeing this I went to the patch logs to see if this has been fixed (I'm playing an unpatched game) and I see this:

What about the diplo bug where you can't bribe a civ runing their favourite civic to change any of their other civics?

I guess it's just a bug and/or "little known feature". I guess there's always next game >_<

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

If you have put beakers towards a tech , does it reduce the cost of stealing it via a spy mission ?