Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Spoonwood]

This does come at the risk of ruining your trading reputation. A declaration of war is simpler and safer as it usually only involves trades with one nation.

The risk comes from exporting luxuries, or resources to the AIs, and maybe something else.

If you have nothing exported to the AIs nor any deals that you need to honor, then there is no risk.

A declaration of war from you may be simpler, but it is not necessarily safer for your reputation. If you have a military alliance with an AI and declare war, that can ruin your reputation (at least that's what I remember).

A declaration of war from the AIs may be more complicated, but it can be safer *sometimes*. If one renegotiates the peace treaty with an AI, has luxuries or resources coming from the AI in that renegotiated deal, has no luxuries or resources going to the AI, and then cuts one's trade network, then the AIs declaring war does not break one's trade reputation in any case. But it does make the AI leader into a liar, since s/he failed to deliver on their promise of supplying your people the luxury or resource.

Both Takhisis and justanick have a point in the above.

 

[Stew Pid]

If you're making a scenario or modpack do you have to have a wonder that has the properties of the Manhattan Project in order to build any units with the nuclear weapon flag at all?

If you set the draft limit for a government to "10" does that mean you can draft 10 civilians from one city, or your whole empire that turn?

Also, if your draft limit is not reached that turn, will your citizens still riot in that city if you drafted from it?

If all units had population cost and you drafted a unit with a normal pop cost of 1 will it take 2 population from that city instead?

 

[tjs282]

If you're making a scenario or modpack do you have to have a wonder that has the properties of the Manhattan Project in order to build any units with the nuclear weapon flag at all?

To hand-build Nukes, yes.

Also, if you give the "Allows Nukes" flag to a Small Wonder instead of a Great Wonder, then building it enables only the owner-Civ to build nukes, instead of the entire world.

Even if you don't have any such Wonder, you can still have Nukes autoproduced (but you would not be able to upgrade them to a more advanced version).

If you set the draft limit for a government to "10" does that mean you can draft 10 civilians from one city, or your whole empire that turn?

The draft-limit is applied "per city, per turn"

And you can only draft in settlements of "Size 2" or "Size 3", i.e. Population = 7+, in the base-game.

Also, if your draft limit is not reached that turn, will your citizens still riot in that city if you drafted from it?

Riots are related to net Unhappiness, i.e. "More Unhappy citizens than Happy citizens"

Drafting makes one citizen unhappy per each citizen drafted. It will therefore only cause a riot in that city if the resulting total unhappiness tips that city's citizens over that threshold.

If all units had population cost and you drafted a unit with a normal pop cost of 1 will it take 2 population from that city instead?

Not AFAIK, presumably because drafting doesn't involve filling the shield-box.

Conversely, if a pop-costing unit is whipped into existence, then the pop-cost will be added to the whip-cost -- and the unit will only be built that turn if the town had sufficient pop-points to complete the unit. If not, then the shield-box will stall at full until the town has regrown sufficiently to cover the pop-cost.

 

[justanick]

If all units had population cost and you drafted a unit with a normal pop cost of 1 will it take 2 population from that city instead?

No. In fact you can make changes so that you can draft units that are able to join cities and thereby increase city size. That would be a bit absurd, though.

 

[tjs282]

If drafting a unit from a city removes a pop-point from that city, why would making that unit able to rejoin a(nother) town be any more absurd than, say, building Workers in one town, just to add them to another?

 

[justanick]

Well, joining a settler gives 2 population points. So you could create a draftable unit with 12 population points. Make it join the same city and population is magically grown by 11.

 

[Takhisis]

Only if it doesn't surpass population limits.

 

[Stew Pid]

The improvement or BLDG limit for a scenario/modpack is 256 entries right???

 

[Civinator]

The improvement or BLDG limit for a scenario/modpack is 256 entries right???

Yes, it is.

 

[RobS]

Leader/Armies Question:
When a Leader forms an Army in a city without a barracks, the Army is labeled as being "Regular". If the city has a barracks, it is labeled as being "Veteran". Do these labels actually have any effects on game play regardless of the proficiencies of the units that end up being loaded into the Army?

 

[justanick]

When a Leader forms an Army in a city without a barracks, the Army is labeled as being "Regular". If the city has a barracks, it is labeled as being "Veteran".

Is that so? If a city builds an army, then it can be a veteran, depending on barracks or no barracks. But if a leader creates an army, then it is only a regular army, is it not?

Do these labels actually have any effects on game play regardless of the proficiencies of the units that end up being loaded into the Army?

If the army has the opportunity to withdraw from battle the chance for doing so might be a bit higher. 58% instead of 50%. But i am not sure if really the experience level of army matters or the experience level of the unit fighting in the army. The earlier seems more likely, but have fun trying to prove that. An army is unlikely to have the opportunity to withdraw in the first place as that requires having only one hitpoint left.

 

[Spoonwood]

When a Leader forms an Army in a city without a barracks, the Army is labeled as being "Regular".

I didn't see any text that said 'regular' or 'veteran'. However, the army that I made with barracks had it's circle higher above the tile than the one I made without barracks. This seems similar to how artillery type units have experience levels (and I've read that an elite Korean Hwach'a can produce military great leaders).

I do know that units in armies sometimes promote. I had thought previous that the unit promotes. But, it seems like I might only get one or two promotions out of an army, and I don't recall fully promoting an army to 15/15 status or 20/20 status, unless I already had an elite in the army to start. Perhaps, a veteran army will only allow for one promotion, while a regular allows for two promotions?

A save where 'preserve random seed' not checked may have use here for testing purposes.

 

[r16]

any army produced in a city without barracks is trained , as ı remember . Will test some saves if required . Similar with autoproduced armies .

put a veteran unit , redline some enemy units , make it an elite , fill the rest with elites you already have . It's a waste to miss those extra health bars . But if you can manage to reduce the elites redlined to one bar so that it will be veteran or veterans in the army with more health , you can make them elites . It's a tedious thing with lots of save and reloads .


am pretty sure ı have had retreating armies myself . Happens regularly to enemy armies when ı don't have fast units to do the attack .

 

[justanick]

I do know that units in armies sometimes promote. I had thought previous that the unit promotes. But, it seems like I might only get one or two promotions out of an army, and I don't recall fully promoting an army to 15/15 status or 20/20 status, unless I already had an elite in the army to start. Perhaps, a veteran army will only allow for one promotion, while a regular allows for two promotions?

As far as i can tell there is no such limit. The units within an army have their experience level and whenever they destroy an enemy unit they have the chance to promote. Maybe not to create an MGL, but to elite they can promote. An army of four veteran cavalry can be come an army of four elite cavalry, at least in principle. The difficulty lies in getting the least promoted unit to destroy an enemy, because the most promoted ones are most likely to do it. So getting the army from 16 hitpoints to 17 or even 18 is somewhat easy, while getting it to 20 is really challenging the odds.

 

[r16]

so , much better to have it as 20 in the beginning .

 

[Lanzelot]

An army of four veteran cavalry can be come an army of four elite cavalry, at least in principle. The difficulty lies in getting the least promoted unit to destroy an enemy, because the most promoted ones are most likely to do it. So getting the army from 16 hitpoints to 17 or even 18 is somewhat easy, while getting it to 20 is really challenging the odds.

Exactly. I have seen it happening, but it takes lots and lots of fighting. You can increase the chances for the "last" promotion somewhat, by attacking "easy prey" while the Army is like 5/14 or 4/14, because then it is guaranteed, that the two elites are at the moment only 1/5, so the last remaining vet unit is guaranteed to do the fighting.

Filling the Army with elite units in the first hand, is of course faster, but there is always a trade-off: if I keep my elites outside of Armies, they get a chance of spawning even more MGLs/Armies! And that is probably worth more than having that +1 hit-point on the health-bar of the already existing Army. But of course I always join an elite* unit into an Army, because elite* units can no longer spawn MGLs, so here the extra hit-point is well used in the Army!

 

[Bartleby]

I always like to collect four elite* units together and make an "elite all-stars" army.

 

[RobS]

Thanks for the responses, but you all misunderstood.
I am not referring to units inside an Army, but to the labeling of an Army by the game when it is first created, when it is still empty.

So, to repeat, when a leader creates an Army inside a city that does not have a barracks, the Army is labeled as being "Regular". That label never changes, regardless of the proficiencies of the units subsequently loaded into the Army. To further illustrate my point, here are three pictures of three Armies (all from the same game, but that is irrelevant).

This first picture is a picture of an Army of 3 elite Samurais that was originally created from a leader inside a city that did not have a barracks:

Notice that underneath my customized name of the Army, it says "Regular". The units inside the Army are actually all elite, but this does not change the original labeling of the Army as "Regular", since it was created using a leader inside a city that did not have a barracks.

This second screenshot shows an Army of 4 elite Cavalry.

Notice that underneath my customized name of the Army, it says "Veteran". Unlike the Samurai Army above, this Army was originally created by a leader inside a city that did have a barracks. As with the Samurai Army above, this original "Veteran" label does not change, regardless of the proficiency of units subsequently loaded into the Army.

Finally, here is a picture of an empty Army created at the Military Academy.

Notice that this Army has no label at all underneath my customized name, nor will the game add a label if I load units into the Army.

Again, I am not referring to the units inside an Army, as their proficiencies (Conscript, Regular,Veteran, Elite) do not make a difference in the way the game originally labels an Army (or doesn't label it in the case of the Military Academy).
And before anyone says that perhaps the number of units inside an Army determine its labeling by the game, that is also not the case. Neither the number nor the proficiencies of units inside an Army will affect its original label, only whether or not the originating city had a barracks. The label will say "Regular" if the Army was created from a leader inside a city without a barracks, "Veteran" if the city had a barracks, or no label at all if created at the Military Academy.

I suspect that these labels have no effect at all on gameplay and that they are merely an inconsequential artifact/oversight by Firaxis, but I was just wondering whether anyone can shed any more light on this.

 

[Spoonwood]

The label will say "Regular" if the Army was created from a leader inside a city without a barracks, "Veteran" if the city had a barracks, or no label at all if created at the Military Academy.

I thought I had spotted this sort of difference in my testing though without any difference in labels from armies from a city with a military academy:

However, the army that I made with barracks had it's circle higher above the tile than the one I made without barracks. This seems similar to how artillery type units have experience levels (and I've read that an elite Korean Hwach'a can produce military great leaders).

I think I was noticing the difference with empty armies. Ball, or circle, height doesn't help discern the difference with armies in units in them though.

I suspect that these labels have no effect at all on gameplay and that they are merely an inconsequential artifact/oversight by Firaxis, but I was just wondering whether anyone can shed any more light on this.

This is a good question.

If we had some save with preserve random seed not checked, and someone would fight battles against the same unit with the same health on the same terrain over and over again with both armies, and take careful results of battles, and we get large enough of a sample size, we might get enough statistical data to figure things out here. But, we might need hundreds of battles here.

 

[Samson]

If we had some save with preserve random seed not checked, and someone would fight battles against the same unit with the same health on the same terrain over and over again with both armies, and take careful results of battles, and we get large enough of a sample size, we might get enough statistical data to figure things out here. But, we might need hundreds of battles here.

One could get a deterministic rather than statistical answer with preserve random seed checked, and an instance found where one army retreats and another does not. That may require a large number of tests though.