A couple of n00b questions...

chrome_gnome

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 24, 2002
Messages
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Location
Atlanta, GA
I'm new to the Sid family of games so coming from a warcraft, starcraft and age of empires background leaves me with a few questions that a I'm little fuzzy about.

(1) I understand that luxuries must be connected by a road to be "connected" to your population in order to receive the benefits. The luxury makes one citizen happy in every city connected to the luxury via roads. If you have several luxuries like 3 gem squares for instance connected to your entire realm via roads then you should have 3 citizens in every city benefiting right? If this is so how do you end up having "extra" luxuries to trade around with other powers? Also when you trade extra luxuries are you actually trading the entire square's production of that luxury or just what your not using, in other words does the amount the AI gets from you vary?

(2)Do fortresses actually work? I thought in the manual it said it made units have an area of control that allowed them to attack into the 8 surrounding squares with the bonuses of the fortress. I have several of them I built around the perimeter of my kingdom along my road spaced 2 squares apart so that theorhetically no enemy could walk past them without getting attacked by my troops garrisoned there. Thus far I have not seen them attack once any of the troops who have gone past. Is there some other criteria before they will auto defend? I assume you have to be at war to prevent a nasty international incedent with the troops that stray into your turf from time to time. Basically I'm looking for a further explanantion on how fortresses work and if other people use them. I know some people would rather have a city occupy the space but I wanted somthing that if I lost it on combat along the frontier would not be a boon for the enemy. My nearest cities are garrisoned about 4 spaces behind the fortresses.

(3) Does the AI "cheat" at higher difficulty levels or simply play more aggressively and with little or no wasted efforts? I know alot of other real time games have to have the AI cheat at the highest levels to provide a challenge. Are we all still playing by the same rules on Diety or not?

(4) Kind of an abstract question but how long are some of the longest games you've played before in actual real time hours?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to help me get educated around here! I am beginning to think that most RTS games are turning into twitch reflex games more than good strategy games and if I want to stroke my twitch reflexs I'll play the Quake 3 Mod Urban Terror. Civ 3 so far seems to be really peaking my interest and reminds me of the 'ol days of Axis and Allies games in college.
 
Originally posted by chrome_gnome
I'm new to the Sid family of games so coming from a warcraft, starcraft and age of empires background leaves me with a few questions that a I'm little fuzzy about.

(1) I understand that luxuries must be connected by a road to be "connected" to your population in order to receive the benefits. The luxury makes one citizen happy in every city connected to the luxury via roads. If you have several luxuries like 3 gem squares for instance connected to your entire realm via roads then you should have 3 citizens in every city benefiting right? If this is so how do you end up having "extra" luxuries to trade around with other powers? Also when you trade extra luxuries are you actually trading the entire square's production of that luxury or just what your not using, in other words does the amount the AI gets from you vary?


you can only get the benifits of a luxury once ie so having 3 gems connected to your trade network will have the smae effects as having 1 gem connected to your trade network. Note that marketplaces can increase the number of happy people generated with a luxury. WHen you trade a luxury you can still work on the tile it was on, the effects of the luxury have gone to the AI though.

(2)Do fortresses actually work? I thought in the manual it said it made units have an area of control that allowed them to attack into the 8 surrounding squares with the bonuses of the fortress. I have several of them I built around the perimeter of my kingdom along my road spaced 2 squares apart so that theorhetically no enemy could walk past them without getting attacked by my troops garrisoned there. Thus far I have not seen them attack once any of the troops who have gone past. Is there some other criteria before they will auto defend? I assume you have to be at war to prevent a nasty international incedent with the troops that stray into your turf from time to time. Basically I'm looking for a further explanantion on how fortresses work and if other people use them. I know some people would rather have a city occupy the space but I wanted somthing that if I lost it on combat along the frontier would not be a boon for the enemy. My nearest cities are garrisoned about 4 spaces behind the fortresses.

pass. I don't really use fortresses so I don't know, sorry.

(3) Does the AI "cheat" at higher difficulty levels or simply play more aggressively and with little or no wasted efforts? I know alot of other real time games have to have the AI cheat at the highest levels to provide a challenge. Are we all still playing by the same rules on Diety or not?

The AI cheats on monarch, emperor and deity. On regent it is equal and on chieftan and warlord the comptuer cheats for you.

(4) Kind of an abstract question but how long are some of the longest games you've played before in actual real time hours?

very, but my computer is slow ;)

hope that all helps :)
 
1. Say you control 3 tiles of gems. One of those tiles would be used to make 1 citizen in every city happy. You have 2 left over that you can traded to the AI nations. When you trade with the AI, you are trading away 1 tile of gems. The marketplace increases the effects of luxuries, the exact details are in the civlopedia.

2. I've never built a fortress in all of my games, can't help you here. :)

3. At lower difficulties, the AI cheats for the player, making the game easier. At regent difficulty, everything is exactly equal, you and the AI build at the same rate. Above regent, the AI cheats against the player. On monarch i believe the AI builds 10% faster, emperor 20%, and deity 40%.

4. Game time depends on the size of the map and number of opponents. I mostly play huge maps/16 civs, so games can go on for a week or more, though this is playing for only 2 hours at a time.

I'm a starcraft veteran, and the entire community was just beginning to bore me. Starcraft is mostly macro, keeping your minerals as close to 0 as possible, while the more talented players could do this and micro as well, (goon/zealot dancing, cloning peons/scourge, carrier dancing). Aside from that, the Civ community is a LOT more mature, and the people are generally nicer. Ever try to get a "good" game in x-17, pure badmanner. :D
 
hi i come from starcraft, age of empire, red alert , and of course civ 2. to your question here what i think.
1.- you need only 1 kind of luxuries to had happy poeple, extra luxuries could be trade if you hav connection with other empire. to had a second happy poeple you need a different luxuries. so if you have 2 gem luxuries and 1 silk you got 2 happy poeple and you can trade 1 gem.
2.- some units will shoot randomly on ennemy when garison in a forteress, horsemen, artillery, thanks but im not sure.
3.-yes ai cheat higer than regent level, its production is increase i think
4.- i spent lot of hour more than 25 for sure.
 
To clarify that cheating question -

On the two lowest levels the human player gets bonuses to his production while the AI gets penalties to his production.

On Regent, no modifiers are applied.

On Monarch, Emperor and Deity the AI gets productions, free units every time he builds a city, can support more units and has shorter government transition times.
 
Here's more help (I hope):

1) Read what No.Dice says about this one. You get one happy per city for each type of luxury in your trade network. If you have more than one of the same type, you can trade it to another civ for cash, tech, maps, peace treaties, whatever. In addition to being hooked up by a road, it has to be within your civ's borders, or you have to have a worker build a colony on it. Generally, you're better off founding a city nearby to get it inside your borders. Colonies don't last and anybody who plops a city down will automatically make your colony disappear. In general, colonies aren't worth building.

2) Fortresses work. They provide added defense if you are attacked. They don't give an attacking bonus, though. They allegedly provide ZOC, which means that if an enemy moves past you get one single shot at them. I'm pretty sure this only applies to fast units, though, as I've never seen it happen to any unit that moves into or out of a square next to the fortress, only when they do both in the same turn. And you can't kill anything unless it's down to its last hit point, since you only get the one shot. If you want to block off an avenue of attack, put a solid block of them, don't intersperse them in every other square. Better yet, buld your defense along mountains and/or hills, and only use fortresses when you're blocking a choke-point in open terrain, or later in the game when you have workers to spare. Your assumption about having to be at war is right. Your troops won't shoot at anyone you have a peace treaty with.

3) This one depends on your definition of "cheating". At higher difficulty levels, the AI gets bonuses. For example, they get bunus units at the start and can build additional units and city improvements faster (with a lower shield cost). They can also learn faster (lower "beaker" cost per tech). The AI plays by the same rules as far as movement, combat results, effects of culture, etc. In a lot of ways it's similar to the way many RTS games work. The AI definitely has an advantage, but it plays by a predetermined and predictable set of rules. Some people call this cheating, others insist that it isn't. I don't think you were looking for a debate on whether or not it's considered cheating, but were looking more for a description of how it works, which I hope I helped with at least at a high level. You can find more details in the editor program.

4) Games can be somewhat short, or can extend for very long times. The main difference is in the size of the map and the number of rival civilizations. A 4-civ game on a tiny map will be over in a couple of hours. A 16-civ game on a huge map will likely take 60-80 hours of playing time to fully complete (unless you lose early on). Many of us are hopeful that a future patch or expansion will allow for full scenario support so you can play a set scenario and don't have to build a civ from scratch each time. That way you can play shorter games that can still have some of the grandeur or encompass the later tech stages of the larger games without the huge time investment.
 
Ahh some great answers thanks guys. I assume that strategic resources work in a similar manner then to luxuries? So if I connect to a horse tile that lets my empire build units requiring horses but unless I connect to another horse tile I won't have any "excess" to trade away?

As for the "cheating" you guys hit on what I was mainly after which was how much gets altered in the AI's favor. A lingering question is as the level goes up do the tempers of the AI players in diplomacy get shorter and shorter? Or will they react in a similar manner all the way up?

Thanks again :)
 
They will react the same way, but since they build faster then you and get bigger then you, they tend to declare war on you, because you doNt, have a good armie, or your culture sucks compare to them.


If you have 2 horse with road connecting to your empire, you should be able to trade one, but i think ( not sure) depending on the size of your empire sometimes only your third horse will be tradeable but i am not sure

Can someone confirm or deny?:)
 
Originally posted by chrome_gnome

(2)Do fortresses actually work? I thought in the manual it said it made units have an area of control that allowed them to attack into the 8 surrounding squares with the bonuses of the fortress. I have several of them I built around the perimeter of my kingdom along my road spaced 2 squares apart so that theorhetically no enemy could walk past them without getting attacked by my troops garrisoned there. Thus far I have not seen them attack once any of the troops who have gone past. Is there some other criteria before they will auto defend? I assume you have to be at war to prevent a nasty international incedent with the troops that stray into your turf from time to time. Basically I'm looking for a further explanantion on how fortresses work and if other people use them. I know some people would rather have a city occupy the space but I wanted somthing that if I lost it on combat along the frontier would not be a boon for the enemy. My nearest cities are garrisoned about 4 spaces behind the fortresses.

Yes they do work, but not very well. Chances are an enemy can waltz right past one without ever getting fired on. It happens so rarely, I'm always surprised when it actually happens. This is one area of the game that I really think should be improved on. The whole ZoC thing as it is now is really feeble IMO.
 
Originally posted by Salvor
If you want to block off an avenue of attack, put a solid block of them, don't intersperse them in every other square. Better yet, buld your defense along mountains and/or hills, and only use fortresses when you're blocking a choke-point in open terrain, or later in the game when you have workers to spare. Your assumption about having to be at war is right. Your troops won't shoot at anyone you have a peace treaty with.

I disagree. If you put your Fortresses two squares apart, the AI will try to go through the gap in the middle, it will very rarely attack the Fort itself. So if you have some Bombard units in each fort, especially Artillery, you can turn that unit to mush before it ever gets close to your cities. Also, if you build Fortresses two squares from a city, you can send out reinforcements and have them Fortify right away, adding a 25% defence bonus on the next attack. Provide of course you have a road to it.
 
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