A Few Random Questions

[David McMurdo]

Hey Everyone,

There are a few questions I've had about this game for some time now. I thought I might as well ask them.

1: I understand that if my city follows a different Civ's religion, I can get the benefits (like building Cathedrals, for example). Does this mean that when I spread my religion to other Civs that they're getting my +2 and +2 bonuses too? If so, does this not mean that sometimes it might be wise to keep your religion to yourself?

2: I notice that when I research the technology necessary for my units to embark into shallow water, my existing units sometimes can't do it. So I often end up disbanding my existing scout and building a new one who is actually able to embark. Is this a bug or intentional?

3: Does it make any difference if I'm rude to the AI Civs or if I forgive them for things like spying? Or is this all for flavour?

4: I notice people on this forum talking about "tall" Civs. What does this mean?

5: I've heard people say that it's best to specialise cities, but I find great difficulty doing this. To my mind, every city needs a granary, aqueducts, and walls, so my cities end up being all the same anyway. Am I wrong?

6: If you're not going for a culture victory, is there any point in paying attention to Tourism? As I understand it, Tourism is only necessary if you're trying to become influential over another Civ.

7: What purpose does denouncing a Civ serve?

Thanks! By the way, I don't understand most of the acronyms used on this forum.

 

[leadtothehead]

1) You will notice your religious beliefs are divided into follower and founder bonuses, Cathedrals for example are a follower belief so any city following that religion receives that.

2) The first embarking ability is in your territory only so this is likely what you are experiencing,

3) Not too sure about that.

4) Tall means a few larger population cities, wide means many smaller population cities.

5) For the most part yes a lot of the base building are the same however not every city needs a factory, opera house ect. it depends on the situation.

6) There is always the potential to cause other Civs unhappiness from your tourism if they have another ideology, also with the patch even familiar cultural standing gives you benefits in trade, spying and reducing resistance following capture of cities.

7) Lessening your warmongering hit for going to war, if the denounce before going to war it helps keep the rest of the Civs from hating you.

Hope this quick reply helps!

 

[Furret]

1: I understand that if my city follows a different Civ's religion, I can get the benefits (like building Cathedrals, for example). Does this mean that when I spread my religion to other Civs that they're getting my +2 and +2 bonuses too? If so, does this not mean that sometimes it might be wise to keep your religion to yourself?

Technically yes, but it also depends on your founder bonuses. If you have tithe (+1 gold per 4 citizens) it may be more beneficial to get the gold per turn for yourself than it would be for that other civ to have the potential for your follower bonuses.

2: I notice that when I research the technology necessary for my units to embark into shallow water, my existing units sometimes can't do it. So I often end up disbanding my existing scout and building a new one who is actually able to embark. Is this a bug or intentional?

The unit must enter your territory before gaining the bonus. When you research optics, all units in your territory will gain the bonus, as well as all future units. You have to move your scout into your territory first if it was created before you researched optics

3: Does it make any difference if I'm rude to the AI Civs or if I forgive them for things like spying? Or is this all for flavour?

Half and half. Forgiving for spying does affect diplomacy, but I don't think responding 'Very well' or 'You'll pay for this in time' has an effect.

4: I notice people on this forum talking about "tall" Civs. What does this mean?

A "tall" civ would be one with only a few cities (3-5) with large populations in each (20+). A "wide" civ would be one with more cities (5+) with smaller populations in each (~10).

5: I've heard people say that it's best to specialise cities, but I find great difficulty doing this. To my mind, every city needs a granary, aqueducts, and walls, so my cities end up being all the same anyway. Am I wrong?

I would probably not be the best person to answer this, but a tall civ will probably not have much specialization (every city will be pretty powerful at everything) but a wide civ may need to pay more attention. If your cities have smaller production and population, you won't be able to work every single tile. This means you might want to focus on something c5production: production = ignore gold/ culture buildings, etc.). A lot of the time it's not worth the maintenance costs of an aqueduct or opera house if you're not going to grow very large or pump out too much culture.

6: If you're not going for a culture victory, is there any point in paying attention to Tourism? As I understand it, Tourism is only necessary if you're trying to become influential over another Civ.

Ideologies and resistance timers. Depending on how influential a civ is over you, they will gain more ideological pressure. If you are one of two civs that picked Order, while many of the civs with high tourism have picked Autocracy, they will create more pressure for Autocracy and your civ will become unhappy. The unhappiness will be more severe depending on how much more pressure they have.

Also, you gain for trade routes depending on your influence as well as a decrease in resistance turns when capturing a city.

7: What purpose does denouncing a Civ serve?

It can potentially make other civs who have also denounced the same leader like you more. For example: Morocco comes to you with the message: "My relationship with Shaka has broken down, could you denounce them as a show of support." Denouncing Shaka will make Morocco like you more (pretty straightforward). Slightly less obvious is when you see your ally denounce an enemy, you can denounce them as well and the ally will likely tell you "Glad to see someone else shares my distrust with leader."

Secondly, I believe this reduces warmonger penalties when capturing a denounced civ's cities (although I'm not sure about this)

Thanks! By the way, I don't understand most of the acronyms used on this forum.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=442106

Hope that helps!

 

[Browd]

The unit must enter your territory before gaining the bonus. When you research optics, all units in your territory will gain the bonus, as well as all future units. You have to move your scout into your territory first if it was created before you researched optics

Actually, all that is required is that the scout (or other unit wandering around outside your territory) enter "friendly" territory to get the embarkation promotion -- a CS friend suffices, as does a civ with which you have Open Borders (but, since Civil Service comes so much later than Optics, the CS friend is more likely to be useful).

 

[Barghaest]

I would probably not be the best person to answer this, but a tall civ will probably not have much specialization (every city will be pretty powerful at everything) but a wide civ may need to pay more attention. If your cities have smaller production and population, you won't be able to work every single tile. This means you might want to focus on something c5production: production = ignore gold/ culture buildings, etc.). A lot of the time it's not worth the maintenance costs of an aqueduct or opera house if you're not going to grow very large or pump out too much culture.

For the most part, this is correct; however, you NEVER ignore Gold buildings since they almost always have 0 maintenance cost and are basically a must for building a strong economy for wide civs.

I tend to go Huge (Tall AND Wide - often 16-20 cities with populations of 30+ each by late game) and still specialize a great deal. I'll only put barracks chains in my top 3-4 production cities and use them to generate most of my non-disposable units (also usually the cities where I put Heroic Epic/Alhambra), for example. My main form of specialization is GP/Wonders. I tend to concentrate Wonders that do the same GP bonus (like Stonehenge/Petra for Engineer) and only have specialists in that city that compliment the wonders constructed there (meaning my highest production cities are usually specialized for generating Great Engineers). If I want a particular National Wonder, I will put all buildings of that type in every city until the NW is built then sell back the unneeded ones to save building maintenance (most Barracks get removed after Heroic Epic is built).