World Builder in Multiplayer games?

[FirstDownMage]

Hi. This is my first thread for CIV IV. Totally addicting game. Could be my personality I was totally addicted to Diablo II, playing 6 hours a day for 4 years until... I started playing CIV IV.

Recently I discovered the World Builder option, and I love it. What I cannot seem to figure out is this.... How do you use World Builder for Multiplayer games? I've been playing a few LAN games, and I would really like to be able to setup a LAN game with my best friend, where we could add a few resource bonus close to the city. On a somewhat related issue, is there a way to turn off the mini-map in world builder? My preferred use for the World Builder is to add a Fish, Crab, and Clam next to my starting position, and have the mini-map covered up (city an envelope right now)


Anyhow... big question:

How do I use the World Builder to do things in, or before, a Multi-player LAN game? Thanks.

 

[Wejer]

The world builder is disabled in multiplayer to prevent cheating.

Terahamer below me is correct, though.

 

[TeraHammer]

You could prepare a custom map and play that one

 

[SSW_820]

I tried several times to create a 'custom map' to use in multiplayer games. (ie - have all the types of terrain except ICE). Would also like to make a multiplayer map with islands that are not too small nor too big (about big enough to fit2-3 cities on; 3 cramped cities or 2 large cities). Also would like to be able to ensure that all off-shore oil is available (we've had some random maps that placed some of the off-shore oil resource outside of the reach of large city cultures or next ICE where you could nto build on, making the resource useless). We've actually had lots of inaccessbile clams and fish. Biggest desire is to make a map (multiplayer) that does not use 'useless terrain tiles, such as ICE, yet stil has tropics, deserts, etc. How do I do that. Any customized maps I've tried to create with World Builder, cannot be found when I try to load the multiplayer game. I'd like to be able to create a map with nothing but resources and terrain (no civilizations or civilization starting points). This way, when you start a mulitplayer game, civilization starting points could be totally random and the number of civilizations would be deterimine by the number selected in the game play menu. The same would go for barbarians (whether or not you chose to have them in the game). Does it take a special program to do this and if so, where can it be found. The 'random maps' generated by game are 'boring' to say the least It might be interesting to create a multiplayer map, where everyone starts on the same large land area with plenty on smaller land areas and islands also located on the map. Yuo would either need to mominate the larger land mass, or expand off of it tobuild your civilization somewhre else. Nothng (except, may be a few barbarians) would be on any of the other islands/smaller land areas. In addition, most of the valuable resources would be on the other land masses, not the starting land mass (IE no oil, no aluminuim, no uranium; may only have resources like silk, gold. silver, cows, wheat, and maybe iron). It seems it would be fun to create a multiplayer map, rather than be stuck with the 'random generated maps'.

Also, how do you turn off 'nuclear meltdowns' (I've had 5 in one game within a 5 turn period and my son (in the same game) also had one. We are SICK of this event. 'Global Warming' is another event we've grown very tired of. Neither of these events would be quite so bad if you didn't lose nearly everything in the city (nuclear meltdown) and the workers cannot do anything to relieve the stress of or reduce the occurances of global warming. Both these very tiring events seem to only happen to our cities and land areas and not the AI. Basically, they only seem to affect 'human' players. We disabled the 'random events' at the beginning of the game. All that did was to eliminate things like flooding and "good radom events'.

 

[TeraHammer]

Any customized maps I've tried to create with World Builder, cannot be found when I try to load the multiplayer game.

You can play a customized map by selecting "new scenario", not "load a game". After you have saved your worldbuilder map it should be in the scenario list.

Also, how do you turn off 'nuclear meltdowns'?

Wow, thats a whole lot, I dont usually suffer from them alot. How many cities did you have? Only way to turn them off is not build nuclear plants, I guess. Or you can go mod some game files, but dont ask me about that.

 

[SSW_820]

I've treid the "new scenario" method. Yes, the map is there, but we cannot play against any AI players. It appears that all the players must be human. we only have 3 computers (three human players) on our network (LAN), so it is a great value to also have AI players. I can use the exact same map under "new scenario" under 'hotseat' asnd it allows us to slect AI player numbers and human players, but we prefer to play multiplayer via the LAN connection.

Meltdown - Have about 50 cities. About 2/3 of them have nuclear power plants. The meltdowns are one thing, but they never happen to the AI players. Also, we noticed that the global warming seems to not affect the AI players, either. Only our cities get listed. When we played with 'random events' allowed, cities in all civilizations were affected by both good and bad random events. In the present game, with "no radom events" selected, only the human players get hit with anything and it is ALWAYS bad. I can deal with the meltdowns (though 4-5 is way to high) but they destroy everthing. This turns the game into a 'crap shoot' instead of a strategy game. The global warming deal is also a bit over done. The land becomes almost not useable, losing half toall of it's food creating abilities.

One other little thing we've noticed. Our AI players seem to have advanced pretty good (this is good), though they don't always have the bet conventional armies. Yet, when ever they go to war amongst themselves (or us), all they do is nuke each other. I do believe this contributes to 'global warming'in the game. The AI players (one of them) must have gained the 'United Nations' wonder, as it is no longer available to anyone. Since they have it, no one can push for a 'eliminate all nuclear weapons' vote. Many of the AI cites have nothing but 1-2 or two units, 5-6 guided missles and the rest all nuclear weapons as defense. Nearly every civilization has SDI, so ICBM's are almost useless, but the 'pesky ' tactical nukes raise havoc. In the 'real world' nukes are actually deterents not front line weapons (as in this game and most countries do not not even have them in the real world). The AI's don't just use the nukes as last resort defenses, but as front line attacks on each other. If the AI's would build actual armies, they would not need to nuke each other all the time.

 

[TeraHammer]

Hmm I dont know about it now anymore.

33 cities with a nuclear plant is quite a lot. Assume there is a chance of 1% of a nuclear meltdown, the chance of a meltdown in one turn in a random city is about 30%.

 

[SSW_820]

We did find one solution. Save the game before exiting our turn to the AI. by doing this, we can simply quit and reload back to the last turn (wihtout having to redo all our moves again) whenever we get a melt down. Since the game is set up to re-randomize events on re-load, the meltdown is 'magically' eliminated. There has been only 3 serious nuclear accidents in world history (Three Mile Island, Chenobyl, and the SR-1 testy site in Idaho). Only Chenobyl had a melt down of the level the game simulates. There our a lot more nuclear power plants operating around the world than we have in our game. Other than Chenobyl, none of the accidents wiped out complete cities of almost everything, as in the game. Wipe my power plant out in the game and slow my production and maybe some minor colateral damage, but not the damage extent the game throw out. In each town, I lost the harbor, dry dock, grainery, airport, banks, market, factory, coal plant, hydro plant (if there was one), hospital and forge, not to mention a stealth destroyer parked near the city be 2/3 damaged and all workers anywhere around the city being eliminated, and circling jet fighters eliminated.

Now we just use the 'save and reload method'. As I stated before, these horrific events only seem to happen the the 'human players', never to the AI, yet the AI sure seem to get every Great Spy, Great Artist, Great Scientist, etc. We have every item that can be built (improvement wise) in just about every town, yet seldom get any of these 'so-called' great people.

The game is fun though, so we keep playing. I just hope they continue to make more mods after this last one (Beyond the Sword). They also need to improve carriers. One modern carrier could almost take out an entire city, by itself. In the game, all you get is fighters, and weak ones at that.

They have done something with the game with regards to map creating. I used to be able to create multiplayer maps all the time that included both random human palyers and random AU. That was a much older Civilization game (Civ III, I think)

We've alsp found that the game seems to be playing very slowly now. My desk top and lap top have the same processor, andthe same amount of memory. The desk top has a better graphics cars with twice the memory ofthe lap top, yet the lap top plays quicker. I may have something hidden in my desk top (virus or spyware) though none of ny virus/spyware detection and cleaning software is able to find any of them.

The game has player slow on the desk top computer via the LAN since the beginning. It loads slower on the desk top than the lap top, also.

 

[TeraHammer]

I lost (...) hydro plant (if there was one),

(...)
yet the AI sure seem to get every Great Spy, Great Artist, Great Scientist, etc. We have every item that can be built (improvement wise) in just about every town, yet seldom get any of these 'so-called' great people.

A nuclear plant is useless if your city has a hydro plant, or coal plant.

About the great people, if you run more specialists you get more great people. Have fun finding out the exact mechanics.

 

[SSW_820]

That is good infromation. I did not realize that. I guess I will delete all the nuke plants in those cities where I have hydro plants. That could help. On the 'flip side', I guess I can also delete coal plants in those cities that have hydro plants or nuke plants. That could help slow up the 'global warming' some (maybe).

Now the 'hoover dam' wonder (or whatever it is called) makes more sense., though the AI players (one of them) already has it.

Would this also apply to forges? Once a city has a power source and/or factory, can forges be deleted from that/those towns?

Thanks

 

[TeraHammer]

Its unfortunaly not possible to delete buildings.

A forge gives extra +25% production
A factory gives extra 25% production too, and even 50% with power. A city has power if there is a coal/nuclear/hydro plant in.

 

[TeraHammer]

Unfortunaly, it is not possible to delete buildings.

A forge gives a 25% extra production, so why would you want to delete it?

 

[Griff999]

Could you please explain it how did you do?Because i tried but it is not worked. I could use the customed map with ai but not with players.