Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[ori]

ok i accidentally put a post in twice and I am trying to get rid of this one because i messed up the quoting on the previous one.

how do i just get rid of this message once it has been sent?
i have tried edit and that lets me change the message but it is still here. Cancel just cancels the editing. looking for the delete message option and dont see it.

only moderators and the almighty Thunderfall can delete posts

 

[BrantleyL1]

"Normally" do you cycle through a lot of workers etc. every turn? My "newb" method is to automate workers because I don't trust myself to work on everything I should work on yet until I have more knowledge about what to do.

I cycle through everything else each turn except my workers. Just want to here some thoughts on this approach.

I agree with Lord Parkin on this. Learn a couple of basics & then do it yourself. "Every turn" is slighly misleading. If they are building something, let them finish and when done, you have the opportunity to move them and have them do something else.

Normally, I manage my workers until there is nothing more to improve in my territory. Then I set them to "build trade network". They'll build lots of roads, or railroads - when that comes in. When I go to war, I move them to a safe city, far from the battle front. When the war is over, I'll move them all to the newly captured cities and build what *I* want - rather than what the AI has built. With a bunch of workers, you can really improve things quick in your new territory.

Besides, cutting it down first lets you move a second worker onto the tile to help without spending an extra movement point.

Does having two workers on a tile shorten the build time??

For example, if building x took 10 turns and I assign TWO workers to the same square - both building X, will it take 5 turns??

Possibly technologies to get from goody huts:

Don't forget hostile barbarians... One time, I had a warrior out looking for stuff. He ran across a goody hut and out popped 3 axemen, who proceded to KILL him.

only moderators and the almighty Thunderfall can delete posts

But you can edit it down to "sorry dup post"....

 

[Roland Johansen]

Does having two workers on a tile shorten the build time??

For example, if building x took 10 turns and I assign TWO workers to the same square - both building X, will it take 5 turns??

Yes, it does.

If 3 workers are working on an improvement that takes 5 turns, then 2 will be busy for 2 turns and 1 will be busy for 1 turn.

Note that it is often inefficient to move multiple workers on a non-roaded forested or hill tile to create an improvement there. You will use a worker turn for each worker moving towards that tile.

By the way, it's seen as bad form to post multiple short posts in rapid succession. Usually forum goers prefer a poster to post everything he/she wants to say in one post.

 

[Sim_One]

Lord Parkin and Roland - Thanks for the help. That explains the barbarian behavior.

Speaking of BTS, is it true if I buy BTS I basically wasted my money on Warlords? I understand BTS has all the features in Warlords except for the scenarios, which have not really impressed me (the Alexander and George Washington scenarios both have a very cheap production feel to them, not what I expected from professionals).

 

[Roland Johansen]

Lord Parkin and Roland - Thanks for the help. That explains the barbarian behavior.

Speaking of BTS, is it true if I buy BTS I basically wasted my money on Warlords? I understand BTS has all the features in Warlords except for the scenarios, which have not really impressed me (the Alexander and George Washington scenarios both have a very cheap production feel to them, not what I expected from professionals).

It is true that the expansion pack BTS contains everything that is in Warlords except for the scenarios. But it is debatable if you wasted your money. Warlords was available a lot earlier and thus you did have (or could have had) a year of enjoyment for your money.

Within 3 years, you can probably get civ4 + all of the expansion packs for 10 euro's. But I still don't think I've wasted my money by buying them directly when they arrived on the market.

 

[ecd1973]

Thanks for everyone's help so far! Another question which probably has a simple answer...

When I get negative relationship points because I "helped our worst enemy!" is there an easy way to see who is angry at whom? I know there is a screen where I can see all the civs that I have had contact with, and their attitudes towards me, but how do I know that CivB hates CivC for example? Thanks in advance.

ECD

 

[Mknn]

How do I know that CivB hates CivC

On the F4/Foreign Relations screen, click on any leader. You will see what everyone else thinks of them. You can access this screen when you are asked to make a trade, btw--that took me a while to figure out, that A could ask me for a trade, I could hit F4, see that my stratigic ally hated A, hit Exit, then refuse the trade.

 

[Mknn]

Is there any way to control the default geographic focus and zoom level when it becomes your turn?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Is there any way to control the default geographic focus and zoom level when it becomes your turn?

Not as far as I know, sorry.

 

[merceg100]

I'm new on the forum and I was just wondering how pathetic is my level of experience on CIV 4 Beyond the Sword? I was playing on Noble level and won for the first time space race victory on that level. I won it far more easily on CIV 4 and a bit harder on CIV4 Warlords, but Beyond the Sword reaalllyyy kept me going all until yesterday, I tried hundreds of times... So just wondering on what level do you play and what kind of victory you try to achieve?

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm new on the forum and I was just wondering how pathetic is my level of experience on CIV 4 Beyond the Sword? I was playing on Noble level and won for the first time space race victory on that level. I won it far more easily on CIV 4 and a bit harder on CIV4 Warlords, but Beyond the Sword reaalllyyy kept me going all until yesterday, I tried hundreds of times... So just wondering on what level do you play and what kind of victory you try to achieve?

Emperor and it depends.

BtS is supposed to be more challenging--if you're finding that's true, then good. If you're looking to improve, check the strategy forum and the war academy for tips.

 

[Mknn]

How can I tell if a city is being blockaded?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm new on the forum and I was just wondering how pathetic is my level of experience on CIV 4 Beyond the Sword? I was playing on Noble level and won for the first time space race victory on that level. I won it far more easily on CIV 4 and a bit harder on CIV4 Warlords, but Beyond the Sword reaalllyyy kept me going all until yesterday, I tried hundreds of times... So just wondering on what level do you play and what kind of victory you try to achieve?

Check out this thread: Difficulty level -what's respectable.

My answer from that thread:

It's a game which you are most likely playing in single player mode, so the first thing to do is make sure you're having fun.

If you like to compare your results with others to see how you're doing, then remember that there are lots of settings that can change the difficulty of a game other than the difficulty setting. Quality of starting position, game speed, map size, civilization, map type, whether player reloads or not, etc. So don't be discouraged when you see someone writing that say monarch level is easy. It has to do with lots of other settings.

Also note that the average experience level of the players on civfanatics centre is probably (way) above average. All the sharing of strategies and the sharing of insight in game mechanics will improve the gameplay of everyone reading some threads here. You're also less likely to find occasional players here. Most people who are a member will play this game a lot. So when you compare your level with the average player here, you're not comparing your level with the average player.

Have fun with the game.

Oh, and welcome to civfanatics!

 

[ggganz]

If it's yours you can open the city and see if there are any trade routes in the list. If not, it's probably blockaded, or you've researched and improved poorly. If so, it CAN'T be blockaded.

 

[6K Man]

Does having two workers on a tile shorten the build time??

For example, if building x took 10 turns and I assign TWO workers to the same square - both building X, will it take 5 turns??

Yes. Divide the build time for one worker by the number of workers on the tile. If it doesn't divide evenly, one or more of the workers will be "finished" a turn before the other or others. In the later game, to reduce micromanaging, it can make a lot of sense to group workers in pairs or threes to finish improvements faster.

 

[merceg100]

txanx @Roland Johansen & @Sisiutil
I allways play normal speed, continents, medium size (all game default), Dutch Civ - now Croat since downloaded it from forum, and I reload only when I'm military below certain point of units and onother AI Civ declares war on me!

 

[JTMacc99]

Okay, a little background first: I played at least 200 or 300 games of Civ II. Probably a lot more, but let's just say it's around that number for now. Then, I played Civ III a little, but ended up not playing it much at all after a while.

Now I've got Civ IV cranked up and have probably played about a dozen game so far. I'm slowly moving up the difficulty level and am at Prince right now. I'm also messing with the map choices a little, and have found that I prefer continents or even the islands much more than the pangea.

Here's the deal. Given my roots with Civ II, I'm having a hard time breaking my desire to have every city build every improvement. I've got my arms around the fact that I don't need to build a few things until the population is either ticked-off or living in filth, but other than that, I find myself building all of the science buildings, all of the commerce buildings and a lot of the others in ever city.

The net result seems to be that I'm always running the game right to the very end of time, where I'm either trying to eek out a diplomatic or space race victory. (Always normal speed on a standard map for me.) The other result seems to be that I have very rarely been able to put together a quality stack of doom for conquest any time after riflemen show up.

So, can anyone point me to some of the discussions here that will explain to me how I can set up my cities where every city doesn't need every improvement in order for me to be successful in vanilla Civ IV?

Thanks!

 

[BrantleyL1]

By the way, it's seen as bad form to post multiple short posts in rapid succession. Usually forum goers prefer a poster to post everything he/she wants to say in one post.

Thanks for the info & thought... I was playing catchup yesterday and replied to about 4 DIFFERENT posts posted over several days.

Personally, I don't like the posts where someone replies in one long post to several others - especially on different topics.

I'll try to avoid doing that in the future.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Okay, a little background first: I played at least 200 or 300 games of Civ II. Probably a lot more, but let's just say it's around that number for now. Then, I played Civ III a little, but ended up not playing it much at all after a while.

Now I've got Civ IV cranked up and have probably played about a dozen game so far. I'm slowly moving up the difficulty level and am at Prince right now. I'm also messing with the map choices a little, and have found that I prefer continents or even the islands much more than the pangea.

Here's the deal. Given my roots with Civ II, I'm having a hard time breaking my desire to have every city build every improvement. I've got my arms around the fact that I don't need to build a few things until the population is either ticked-off or living in filth, but other than that, I find myself building all of the science buildings, all of the commerce buildings and a lot of the others in ever city.

The net result seems to be that I'm always running the game right to the very end of time, where I'm either trying to eek out a diplomatic or space race victory. (Always normal speed on a standard map for me.) The other result seems to be that I have very rarely been able to put together a quality stack of doom for conquest any time after riflemen show up.

So, can anyone point me to some of the discussions here that will explain to me how I can set up my cities where every city doesn't need every improvement in order for me to be successful in vanilla Civ IV?

Thanks!

City specialisation can be useful to some extent. You should specialise the cities that contain national wonders so that these +100% bonuses don't go to waste. And it can be useful to specialise a few cities with high potential production to maximise this production for units. That way other cities don't have to build units and can concentrate on buildings to improve your overall economy.
In this case, I'm talking about specialisation of the tile improvements around the city. A production based city should have mines and workshops with high food tiles to balance the food shortage of these high hammer tiles. Other cities should have lots of commerce tiles with a few hammer tiles to produce the economy buildings.

But in the end, there are few buildings that aren't useful in a city. It's more a matter of priority. Do you prioritise the courthouse or the library, the barracks or the forge? You have to decide which building will be the most useful.

If you're having trouble finishing buildings inside your cities, then maybe the problem is that you have created commerce cities with barely any high hammer tiles. Such cities might get the highest raw commerce output, but without any hammer output, these cities won't build the economy improving buildings very fast and in the end they are not that efficient. In the late game, universal suffrage might give some decent hammer output to your commerce cities, but at that time the game is already largely finished.

What I do:
I specialise the terrain around my national wonder cities to take maximum advantage of the bonus of the national wonder.
I create a few high hammer cities to produce units.
The large majority of my cities have a decent hammer output and a high commerce output. These are the cities that drive my economy.

The high hammer output cities don't get the economy improving buildings soon. The commerce cities don't get the barracks soon.

I don't specialise a lot, most cities get most of the buildings and I'm playing on immortal/deity. Specialisation is overrated in my opinion.

Thanks for the info & thought... I was playing catchup yesterday and replied to about 4 DIFFERENT posts posted over several days.

Personally, I don't like the posts where someone replies in one long post to several others - especially on different topics.

I'll try to avoid doing that in the future.

I sometimes create such posts where I react to multiple posts. They can become a bit lengthy and thus intimidating. I do try to use paragraphs and quotes so that people can read the part that they think might be interesting and can ignore the rest.

In your case, the replies were mostly very short and I don't think the post would have gotten an intimidating length when you would have combined them in one post.
On the other hand, there wasn't a real problem or something. Your posts were quite readable and in the end, that is the most important.

 

[6K Man]

Specialization of cities is an important concept, but bear in mind that a case can be made for most buildings in most cities. What's really key is the order that buildings are added to a city.

For example - a Granary will benefit every city. Granaries help a city grow faster and add health.

A Forge will benefit every city, but it will benefit production-oriented cities more.

A Market/Harbour/Grocer will help with happiness/healthiness in all large cities, but the commerce bonuses and/or gold multipliers will be of the most use in a city with a Shrine or Corporate HQ, or a city with a lot of commerce in general.

There's a few buildings - Libraries, for example - that are useless in a low commerce city or a city with no surplus food to run specialists. There aren't really any buildings that are completely useless in a large, commerce-rich or specialist-rich city, but their marginal utility puts them behind other build options.