Brand New Grandma to this type of game. Help, Please?

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by ElephantU
Barbarians come from three places: Huts, unsettled land (defined as land that is not in the city radius of any city, or does not have any improvements on it, like roads or irrigation)...

Does that mean that if you fill up your continent with roads, you will cut off the barbarian attacks (aside from the pirates, of course)? I've wondered about that. I suppose that this would simulate the gradual pacification of the land and its people by civilization.

And you could use that to your advantage -- leave a large "preserve" space in the middle of your continent with fortified garrisons ringing it at sufficient distance to allow barbarian "spawning"; then go in and clean house, get veteran units and soak the chieftain. Interesting; possibly even profitable....

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by harperbruce
Does that mean that if you fill up your continent with roads, you will cut off the barbarian attacks (aside from the pirates, of course)? I've wondered about that. I suppose that this would simulate the gradual pacification of the land and its people by civilization.

And you could use that to your advantage -- leave a large "preserve" space in the middle of your continent with fortified garrisons ringing it at sufficient distance to allow barbarian "spawning"; then go in and clean house, get veteran units and soak the chieftain. Interesting; possibly even profitable....

Yes and yes.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by harperbruce

And you could use that to your advantage -- leave a large "preserve" space in the middle of your continent with fortified garrisons ringing it at sufficient distance to allow barbarian "spawning"; then go in and clean house, get veteran units and soak the chieftain. Interesting; possibly even profitable....

Can anyone tell me if that would be worth the cost?

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by scloopy
I think I have made a hugh mistake in my game, I put all the wonders in the same city and the cost is too much.

What do you mean with "cost is too much"? Once you've built a wonder, you don't have to pay any maintenance, the only thing would be if your city becomes underdeveloped.

 

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by archer_007


Can anyone tell me if that would be worth the cost?

I think it's a case of YMMV. If you like the gold boost (or if it could come in handy at times).... If you don't like to keep the extra men, or can't afford the support/happiness costs, then it isn't worth it; but I'd keep a strong, fast unit loose to run for them anyway. Barbarians not only can give you gold boosts if you sack the leader, but they count on your final score. Plus they start pillaging your developments if you let them run loose into your heartland.

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by funxus

What do you mean with "cost is too much"? Once you've built a wonder, you don't have to pay any maintenance, the only thing would be if your city becomes underdeveloped.

Instead of the production going up it has gone down and if I only have 1 unhappy citizen I end up with a riot. I have really goofed up somewhere. As usual.

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by harperbruce


I think it's a case of YMMV.

What does YMMV stand for?

 

[ElephantU]

Bribing Barbs in your "own" continental game preserve will not make them NONE-supported; bribing ones roaming around the AI's continents does. But the goal of a homeland Barb preserve is mostly on the early and mid-game BarbLeader rewards. Many players follow the strategy of settling cities around the perimeter of a large continent first, leaving the inner areas for mid-game city building. This gives you more ocean access ports and a guaranteed private expansion area for later, at the cost of greater corruption due to more spread out cities early on.

The cost of putting a lot of wonders in one city (no maintenence cost, but it does lower the number of other things that city can build) can be lowered by building your wonders from caravans, rather than city shield production. Anytime you disband any unit in a city, you get half of its shield building cost contributed to the cities building project. But when you deliver a caravan (food or commodity) to one of your own cities which is already building a Wonder the game adds an option to "Contribute to Wonder" (or something like that). The full 50 shields of the caravan or freight will be added to the Wonder. So build caravans or freights in your other cities and deliver them to the city that is building Wonders. The really talented players here have all the caravans arrive at the city on the same turn as the tech is discovered, hence the One Turn Wonder.

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by scloopy


Instead of the production going up it has gone down and if I only have 1 unhappy citizen I end up with a riot. I have really goofed up somewhere. As usual.

Your production will not go down once you build a Wonder. Wonders require no shield support or maintenence gold. What you may be confusing is that units like settlers and military eat up one shield of production each when you switch from Despotism or Monarchy to Republic or Democracy. Also, military units away from "home" can cause cities to riot. Take a close look at the units list just above the improvements in the bottom left, and then click the Happy button and see what is showing up on each line to make the citizens unhappy.

I can post some screenshots of different kinds of support if that will help.

YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary...

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by ElephantU


Take a close look at the units list just above the improvements in the bottom left, and then click the Happy button and see what is showing up on each line to make the citizens unhappy.

I can post some screenshots of different kinds of support if that will help.

YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary...

In the city with all the wonders there is no indication by the citizens as to why they are unhappy.

How can I make screenshots? If it is software let me know where to find it.

Your Mileage May Vary - you would be suprised some of the stuff I tried to make fit YMMV.

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by ElephantU
Anytime you disband any unit in a city, you get half of its shield building cost contributed to the cities building project. But when you deliver a caravan (food or commodity) you one of your own cities which is already building a Wonder the game adds an option to "Contribute to Wonder" (or something like that). The full 50 shields of the caravan or freight will be added to the Wonder. So build caravans or freights in your other cities and deliver them to the city that is building Wonders. The really talented players here have all the caravans arrive at the city on the same turn as the tech is discovered, hence the One Turn Wonder.

I have been sending all my caravans to foreign cities and never to one of my own so I had never encountered that option. I shall back up and try it.

 

[rponton]

I fortify a stack of caravans outside my wonder city (built during the times in between techs that have wonder capabilities.) Once I get a tech, I activate them and Whammo! instant wonder. of course, I build them at the expense of military units, but I never have more than 1 (occasionally 2) units in a city, and no military in the feild (exception: NONE units.)

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by scloopy


In the city with all the wonders there is no indication by the citizens as to why they are unhappy.

There should be a single, solid shield next to units that are supported by that city. If they are military units away from "garrison", which causes unhappiness in Rep or Dem governments, they should have one or two red shields next to them that look like they have a face on it. Check this out:



In this example the Trireme at the start is "supported", the first blank shield, and the second shield under it denotes that it is out of garrison, but it is greyed to show that it is the first one out so it is not affecting happiness. The second unit supported, the Archer, has a blank support shield and a second shield that is red, showing that it is affecting happiness. This was done in Republic government; in Democracy they would both have two red shields, for the double unhappiness effect, unless you had Womens Suffrage or a Police Station to reduce that to single. I dont know how this will look to you with color issues; it could be that the second shield under the Trireme will be lighter than the second shield under the Archer. But you should also see these units that are affecting happiness in the bottom right display when you hit the button labeled "Happy".

Here is how it would look in Democracy:

How can I make screenshots? If it is software let me know where to find it.

For the above shots I used the PrintScreen key on my keyboard, which "took a picture" of my full screen to my ClipBoard, then I used the Windows Paint program to transfer that picture to a JPG file. I then used PhotoEditor, which came with MSOffice, to crop the full screen image down to the part that I wanted.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

FYI: You can actually paste the image directly into MS Photo editor. Just use print screen as described (or ALT-Printscreen to only grab the topmost window) and then open photo editor and under the Edit menu is the option to "Paste as new image." If you have MS Office, MS Photo Editor is usually in your "Start/Programs/MS Office Tools" menu

I also will sometimes use a tool called Hypersnap DX. This allows you to easily select a section of the screen display to create an image. It's shareware, and if you don't pay for it, it will leave a label in the upper left hand corner of the image.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I very much prefer Screenhunter. It's freeware, can create any format shots (.jpg, .bmp, etc) you want, goes to a preferred location on your harddrive, and opens with the touch of a key. It doesn't have any overlays (labels) and you can select the actual portion of the screen you want to capture rather than just taking the entire screen.

 

[scloopy]

For some reason when I try Prt Scr nothing happens, I have tried it +ctrl and +alt still nothing. I have a Logitech keyboard with buttons that show "WWW", "Mail" and "Search" but none of them do anything. The keyboard had no software and I bought it new. Any suggestions?

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by scloopy
For some reason when I try Prt Scr nothing happens, I have tried it +ctrl and +alt still nothing. I have a Logitech keyboard with buttons that show "WWW", "Mail" and "Search" but none of them do anything. The keyboard had no software and I bought it new. Any suggestions?

Did you use the paste command in a paint/photo program like MS Paint, or PhotoEditor immediately after pressing PrintScrn? The button itself doesn't cause an effect you can see when you press it, unlike most other buttons. I assume the other buttons need to be programmed to your preffered function (the program used for this is probably found in the Control Panel or the System Tray down to the right).

 

[ElephantU]

The PrintScreen button does nothing visible on screen; it "captures" a picture of whatever is onscreen (including the mouse pointer) to an image in your Clipboard (which is also not visible onscreen; it is really a place in memory). You then need to start an image-editing program and Paste the current image from the Clipboard into the editor. Then you can crop and save it to a file on your disk.

 

[scloopy]

AH-HA it works. I was expecting to see something happen, but when I go to any of the graphics programs, Adobe, Paint, Printmaster, or any of the others it paste in and works fine. See you can teach an old dog new tricks.

 

[ElephantU]

Now you can show us the City Screen of the city with problems...