A few questions I have always wondered about......

[Yardi]

Fancy sharing your Civ knowledge? I have a few questions that I have always wondered about (well since around the time I started playing Civ)

1. When are new land tiles you control counted in your stats for domination victories. Is it diff depending on whether you founded, captured or they come from a 50% stake from a new vassal?

2. How do you get very high scores? I understand the 50/20/20/10 split but cant quite see how some people manage to get high 7 fig scores on time. Is this by knocking yr opponents pop down so low that you have around 99% of world pop? or are there other ways.....

3. Can your (capitulation) vassals trade technologies you have given them?

4. What are the turn brakedowns for each speed. I have found a list on a page about cultural victories but the details appear to be wrong. Do they change depending on which civ 4 you are playing?

5. Is there any logic for how and when and where forest grow back?

6. What do first strikes do exactly, I never bother with them as cant understand the benefit.

7. What is the most effective way of handling large stack in late end games?

8. Is there anyway of knowing what you will get from the GP trade-route? I have never made one as I have never seen the point, they normally go into a GA if I get any GMs at all.

9. Why do no UU replace infantry?

10. Drafting surely madness (I understand the GT play)? By that stage of the game it would only be for an emergency, if you want war there are better and less destructive ways of getting troops and it will destroy non-military economies............

I am sure there are some more that have slipped my mind......... and I may add later............

Thanks in advance

 

[Yardi]

11. How do I change the details on the left so that it says I'm a prince player and I only joined the forum a few days back.

Have changed the level in my profile but it makes no diff. Is the level to do with how active you are on the site?

 

[Farm Boy]

I'll give this a whirl. I do not know all the answers.

1. I believe controlled tiles are checked for domination victory at the beginning of every turn. Vassal tiles are counted at 50% value, self controlled at 100% value. I do not believe there are any further distinctions.

2. unsure, I don't pay score much mind.

3. Yes, they can.

4. unsure.

5. I believe it is a percent chance each turn depending on number of bordering forest or jungle tiles. Any non-road tile improvement will prevent forest regrowth. I am not sure if the percent chance is normalized by game speed, or if it becomes more likely to happen on slower speeds, like the discovery of minerals in a worked mine. A search will likely yield the math in another post.

6. First strikes give your unit risk-free combat rounds with a chance in injure the enemy. The combat odds per round are unchanged, but if the first striking unit loses a round, it does not take damage. There should be a recent thread "First strikes seem useless" either here or over in Strategy in Tips that has a more in-depth analysis.

7. Like a zombie, double-tap.

8. You can move the merchant to the rival city, usually a capital, and hover over the trade route button, it will tell you the yield before you click. It is usually thousands of gold. It is worth looking into.

9. It's pretty late game. Plus, UUs, are theoretically elite soldiers. Infantry is generally a term for "massed" soldiers instead of highly trained.

10. Sometimes you have happiness to burn. Sometimes happiness is worth a lot less than 15 riflemen almost immediately. Bear in mind the barracks +2 happiness from nationhood almost offsets the anger of one draft.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Farm Boy covered most of it. I'll add my $.02

2. Better way to increase score is to get your population up. Knocking down the enemy doesn't help your score, but getting your land/population up. Biggest item in score is how early you win. Conquest/dom will give more land/population.

3. That's a danger of giving techs to vassals. I often turn off tech brokering to avoid this and other problems of trading techs.

6. First Strikes usually aren't as good as straight Combat. Drill Line is poor until Drill IV. However, Drill IV is great so Oromos and Churchill's gunpowder/archers will usually go on the drill line. Drill is also good if you have a significant tech edge - it will often keep you from taking any damage.

9. That'd be a very poor UU. That's too late in the game.

10. Drafting can be great. If you can draft an army of, say, Redcoats, you can often take over a bunch of cities. It's at it's best if you have a military edge and want to use it NOW. Cannons with drafted rifles can be used to get land. Land is Power.

 

[Jerrymander]

4. What are the turn brakedowns for each speed. I have found a list on a page about cultural victories but the details appear to be wrong. Do they change depending on which civ 4 you are playing?

Yes. BtS changed Marathon's turn count. See OTAKU's post here:http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-250115.html

That's the speed in Civ4/Warlords. in BtS, Marathon was made a little bit longer.

 

[Tristan_C]

5. Is there any logic for how and when and where forest grow back?

Forests grow back in the cardinal directions, N, S, E, and W, of an existing forest. The base probability is something like a 1 in 70 chance. Here's what I know.

• The chance is equal at all speeds, making forest growth a major strategy on Marathon and a complete non-entity on Quick.
• Each bordering forest tacks on its chance of growth, so that a tile completely surrounded by forest gets to roll 1 in 70 four times.
• A road on the forest tile doesn't affect its growth. A road on the clear tile bordering the forest halves the chance of growth onto that tile.
• Jungle has double growth probability.
• A Preserve doubles growth probability.
• A forest with a lumbermill will not spread. At least it still contributes to health.
• A partially completed tile improvement will prevent forests from growing on that tile.

The best way to leverage forests regrowing is on marathon; have a checkerboard pattern of forests with preserves, with roads running only through the preserved forests.

 

[Yardi]

Thanks for all the answers so far, v helpful esp Forests and first strike and drill info. Also really good point that barracks in effect give you two free drafts, never noticed.... can be useful with limited time tech edge

Just to clarify a few of my questions:

2. Is there a thread or help soemwhere on how to max score in a bit more detail?

3. Can the Vassals stilll trade techs you give them even if you make them end trade relations?

4. Regarding game turns on each speed in each expansion. Is there a doc somewhere listing this? What im looking for something which says 60 years per turn from 4000bc to ....bc and then 30 years per turn from... to ... etc etc If you get what I mean

9. I realise infantry in a standard unit, but other standard units have been replace by a civ spec uu. Take the Incan warrior at the most basic level. I had just noticed that most units rights upto tanks and marines have UU by infantry did not.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

9. I realise infantry in a standard unit, but other standard units have been replace by a civ spec uu. Take the Incan warrior at the most basic level. I had just noticed that most units rights upto tanks and marines have UU by infantry did not.

The UUs are basically "at this point in history, whoever had the best whatever in the world." The Romans had the best swordsmen at that time, the British had the best riflemen, the Germans had the best tanks, etc. The Infantry unit in the game represents WWI/WWII-era riflemen who were a step up from the Napoleonic/Civil War-era soldiers that the Rifleman unit represents. As far as I know, however, no one nation in the world during that time had vastly superior infantry compared to the other nations. The major players in the world wars- Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, and America- had more-or-less equally skilled infantry. If one of those countries had had soldiers that were head and shoulders above the rest, they may have been immortalized by having a UU named after them in a Civ game decades later. Shoot, that right there should have been a good incentive to train.

 

[G-Max]

Actually, Germany had an elite class of infantry: the Sturmtruppen (literally "Stormtroopers").

 

[mariogreymist]

The UUs are basically "at this point in history, whoever had the best whatever in the world." The Romans had the best swordsmen at that time, the British had the best riflemen, the Germans had the best tanks, etc. The Infantry unit in the game represents WWI/WWII-era riflemen who were a step up from the Napoleonic/Civil War-era soldiers that the Rifleman unit represents. As far as I know, however, no one nation in the world during that time had vastly superior infantry compared to the other nations. The major players in the world wars- Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, and America- had more-or-less equally skilled infantry. If one of those countries had had soldiers that were head and shoulders above the rest, they may have been immortalized by having a UU named after them in a Civ game decades later. Shoot, that right there should have been a good incentive to train.

I know the cossack is popular, but a Russian one whose benefit is a lower cost would be quite historically accurate. The vast number of Soviet soldiers, as much as any other factor other than Hitler's guano level insanity, destroyed Germany's chance for a successful conclusion to WW2.

Comrade Tank Fodder (UU for Russia, replaces infantry) 20 1 costs 110 +25% against GP units.

Infantry for the price of rifles.

That unit would be fun enough to make Stalin worthwhile. If I wrote mods, I'd write one to excise Stalin from "Russia" and have a "Soviet" civilization which would keep the UB and lose the cossack for the Comrade Tank Fodder. Russia would need a new UB. I'd suggest a grocer replacement - the bathhouse. Gives +1 +1 domestic (plus all normal grocer benefits).

 

[Farm Boy]

Actually, Germany had an elite class of infantry: the Sturmtruppen (literally "Stormtroopers").

Sturmtruppen - Sacrifice Sturmtruppen to destroy target machine gun. Targetted machine gun cannot be regenerated this turn.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Actually, Germany had an elite class of infantry: the Sturmtruppen (literally "Stormtroopers").

True, but if I'm not mistaken, the Sturmtruppen were simply more highly trained and better-equipped than the rest of the German army. Like the Waffen SS later on, who were elite soldiers but not representative of the Wehrmacht as a whole. The Airborne divisions and the Rangers who took key positions on D-Day were elite soldiers also, but not all the Allied soldiers could be Rangers or paratroopers.

However, once again, key phrase is "if I'm not mistaken". I've always been more knowledgable on WWII than WWI, so the Sturmtruppen aren't my area of expertise...

Sturmtruppen - Sacrifice Sturmtruppen to destroy target machine gun. Targetted machine gun cannot be regenerated this turn.

That sounds about right. Or they could reduce fortification bonuses in open terrain (similar to siege weapons reducing city defenses).
"Your Infantry's fortify bonus has been reduced to 0% by a German Sturmtruppen!"

I know the cossack is popular, but a Russian one whose benefit is a lower cost would be quite historically accurate. The vast number of Soviet soldiers, as much as any other factor other than Hitler's guano level insanity, destroyed Germany's chance for a successful conclusion to WW2.

Absolutely. I read once that at the beginning of WWI, there were five Russian infantrymen for each rifle they had available. It seemed to be the Russian strategy from 1914 all the way up until 1991 to just use massively superior numbers to counter anything an enemy could throw at them. Or another possible UU for Russia is the T-34, it's my understanding that the Soviets got pretty creative with keeping busted tanks running, so maybe double the healing speed of Russian Armor unts.

(slightly less serious)- Russian UU: General Winter. While within your cultural borders, all enemy units have their movement range reduced to 0 on every other turn. (Okay, so six hours after I posted that, I started messing around with RFC for the first time ever, and discovered that General Winter is Russia's Unique Power. Don't wanna be a copycat, I guess, oops...)

 

[mechaerik]

I gave Sturmtruppen a bonus against machine gun units.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Fancy sharing your Civ knowledge? I have a few questions that I have always wondered about (well since around the time I started playing Civ)

1. When are new land tiles you control counted in your stats for domination victories. Is it diff depending on whether you founded, captured or they come from a 50% stake from a new vassal?

2. How do you get very high scores? I understand the 50/20/20/10 split but cant quite see how some people manage to get high 7 fig scores on time. Is this by knocking yr opponents pop down so low that you have around 99% of world pop? or are there other ways.....

3. Can your (capitulation) vassals trade technologies you have given them?

4. What are the turn brakedowns for each speed. I have found a list on a page about cultural victories but the details appear to be wrong. Do they change depending on which civ 4 you are playing?

5. Is there any logic for how and when and where forest grow back?

6. What do first strikes do exactly, I never bother with them as cant understand the benefit.

7. What is the most effective way of handling large stack in late end games?

8. Is there anyway of knowing what you will get from the GP trade-route? I have never made one as I have never seen the point, they normally go into a GA if I get any GMs at all.

9. Why do no UU replace infantry?

10. Drafting surely madness (I understand the GT play)? By that stage of the game it would only be for an emergency, if you want war there are better and less destructive ways of getting troops and it will destroy non-military economies............

I am sure there are some more that have slipped my mind......... and I may add later............

Thanks in advance

1: All it looks for is cultural control on the tile.
2: If you finish earlier and on a higher difficulty level, you get more points. I once got 93000 on settler by vassalizing everyone.
3: Only if No Tech Brokering is off.
4: I'm not quite sure the exact things... try looking in gamespeedinfos.xml
5: They grow back on grassland, plains, tundra or snow tiles?. Their growth rate is controlled in gamespeedinfos.xml
6: Look for a thread in this forum started by G-Max about crossbows.
7: Siege and ICBMs.
8: Great People are very important. By making them join your city, you can get great benefits. Engineers can also finish building almost any building, scientists can build Academies, merchants can get you a ton of gold, artists can give you a ton of culture, and spies can go on spy missions for more espionage or build their special building whose name I forgot. To track your progress on them, download the BUG mod or open your city window and, below your specialists, is a timeline for your next GP. Hover over it.
9: Because that's how the game was made.
10: I don't understand the question.