CIV IV for dummies

[Harry Potter52]

Libraries are also good for expanding border, but they do take a lot of time to build.

 

[Weekend Hussler]

How does aother empire build a city next to me, a turn after me, and have his borders expand before me, and also have 20% defence?

AI settlers being ready to build as soon as you destroy a city is frustrating.
Is there anyway to change this?

Later on in the game when great artists are born in my cities, I find that when I click on discover a new technology, nothing seems to happen.

When you ask another empire to become an allie in a war, I've never seen them participate or help me out when I'm in conflict.

 

[JujuLautre]

How does aother empire build a city next to me, a turn after me, and have his borders expand before me, and also have 20% defence?

There could be tons of reasons (creative, religion, building, building culture...); but for sure he generates culture in some way or another

AI settlers being ready to build as soon as you destroy a city is frustrating.
Is there anyway to change this?

Have a settler ready yourself

Later on in the game when great artists are born in my cities, I find that when I click on discover a new technology, nothing seems to happen.

As it should. When you use a GP to bulb a technology, it adds a certain amount of beakers to it. If that is sufficient to discover it, you get it immediately. Otherwise, you have to finish the tech by yourself, but will have gained turns.

When you ask another empire to become an allie in a war, I've never seen them participate or help me out when I'm in conflict.

Too vague, there could be tons of reasons.

 

[Weekend Hussler]

When I click the bulb it doesnt add any turns to the current techonology being researched and it doesnt discover a new one either.

Ok, when you go to war with someone, and I've asked another civ. to go to war with them too by offering gold or technologies, they never bomb or kill anyone. What's the point if they arent going to help you out at all?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

If the bulbable tech isn't what you are currently researching and you can't bulb the tech in 1 go, it would seem that way. Are you bulbing divine right or something?

Depends on the civ you are allies with, the aggressive civs are normally OK. You can influence what city they attack by going "let's talk about about something else... why don't you attack..." but bear in mind if the civ is weak or far away from the target they probably won't be much help.

 

[JujuLautre]

Bulbing a tech does not add beakers to "the currently researched technology", but to a specific tech. You should know which one it is by hovering over the bulb button. After that, you can check into your scientific advisor, by hovering over the tech (it should show the number of beakers yet invested in that tech)

As for war, as I said, there could be tons of reasons: weak partner, partner not set for war, battles that you will not see... Although you can help them by telling them where to attack (contact the leader, then "speak of something else", and an option "we would like to to attack ..." will appear)

-- edit: owned

 

[Weekend Hussler]

thanks for that.

 

[Willem]

and have his borders expand before me, and also have 20% defence?

You get defence bonuses for having culture in a city, the higher the culture the better your defence. Any city that has popped their boundaries once automatically gets a 20% defence bonus because of their culture. That's one reason why you need to use siege weapons in a war, they will reduce that cultural defence and make it easier for your regular troops to attack.

 

[Weekend Hussler]

When constructing a world wonder and another civ beats you to it, why dont your turns get added on to the next thing u want to build, and instead gets turned into gold or hammers. Why can't you use the turns on something else?

What is the yellow haze that you see coming out of the cities later in the game?

 

[JujuLautre]

1/ because it would be too exploitative

2/ No idea; perhaps pollution? But it is not very yellow. Do you have a screenshot ?

 

[Harry Potter52]

It is unhealthiness, you'll see a symbol in the city bar

 

[iPanter]

So, I got fed up playing the same thing,

I have only the normal civ IV

and then I found the Thomas_War extension, great I thought,
I even found a forum for it , but , it did not work for me
it turned out it needed something called BTS, and

so, I know now that BTS means Beyond the Sword, but, nothing said about that at the download side, so,

after a lot of investigating, I used the FAQ here, and that I must say is quite useful,
even if I was able to download TotalRealism for Warlords

(of course it did not work) and that I must say was my mistake, it really said it was for warlords,

anyway ..

I then downloaded Totalrealism for vanilla (thank you the one telling that vanilla is the normal thing,
how shall anybody know that without people saying,)
(and why call it vanilla?? why not say normal civ IV, why make it dfficult for folks ??)

so, I downloaded both things, there is a patch- file (2.3.1 or something) and the normal setupfile,
and it says it needs the 1.61 patch yes, but I have the newest steam civ, and version is 1.74, so ..

but it did not work, so I dowloaded patch 1.74, because that must be better that 1.61, and I am trying to
place it at different locations, but all it says is that I do not have civ IV wherever I place it

so ..

it is difficult, nobody is telling where to place the things, .. and

I really liked the FAQsection,but why can it not be a good description of everything with the download ,
before there used to be a txt-file to go with the files for troubleshooting

and why all these abbreviations, I still have no idea what this concept HOF is which is written so much about and,
as I was telling before, BTS was a mystery a long time ..

Yours sincerely

Innocent Panter

 

[JujuLautre]

answered here; no need to duplicate your post you know

 

[Willem]

(and why call it vanilla?? why not say normal civ IV, why make it dfficult for folks ??)

Because it's a standard expression that at least 90% of people who play games and visit forums understand, and not just with Civ 4 either. It's used by all games and has been for quite awhile now. Asking that question is kind of like going into an Italian restaurant and asking what spaghetti was.

but it did not work, so I dowloaded patch 1.74, because that must be better that 1.61, and I am trying to place it at different locations, but all it says is that I do not have civ IV wherever I place it

Did you download the Steam patch or the regular one? If you're using a downloaded version, you can't use the regular patch. You need to get it from where you got the game from.

 

[Weekend Hussler]

It is unhealthiness, you'll see a symbol in the city bar

So what can I do with the city to get rid of this?

Research medicine?

 

[Weekend Hussler]

What can I do with this city?

The city is Pop 1 and has been stuck like that for a while so it's taking forever to build anything.

 

[RIcs]

@Weekend Hussler

untick (or -ve) that causal citizen on the right hand side of the screen.
he should able to work on the tile for population growth.

 

[Admiral Armada]

Well, off the top of my head you could re-assign your citizen to work one of those farms to grow your city, and you dont need an aqueduct yet either.

 

[Weekend Hussler]

and you dont need an aqueduct yet either.

 

[Weekend Hussler]

If I click (-) on that citizen it takes twice as long to build anything.