Civ4(warlords); Questions of an Idiot

[EdmundYhee]

side note: if u have 3 enemies... i suggest u must atleast have a friend...
to balance up. work hand in hand with your friend to get rid of the 3 enemies... then bs your so called friend ^ ^ If MM is ingame, his always my no.1 Friend...

 

[podraza]

I think it should be said that this is my absolute favorite subject line for a thread. Everytime this thread gets bumped I get a small amount of joy seeing it again.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I'm back with another dumb**s question:

In krikkitone's article WW declines by 1 (absolute value 1 not 1%) each turn regardless of peace or war. It also declines by a further 1% for each turn of peace.

If for instance you have a city size 10 with say 4 WW faces then you will have about 80 WW points against that civ. So if you make peace for 20 turns then I would expect the amount of WW to drop by 20 for the normal per turn drop and by a further 20 for the 1% (rounded down = -1 / turn as well).

When you go to war with that civ again after the 20 turns of peace you will have still have 40 WW left and that will give you 2

Monarch, prepatch (doing that this weekend) is what i've been playing lately. anyway, does anyone else starve conquered cities down via caste and GA? Arguments pro or con?

 

[cabert]

I'm back with another dumb**s question:



Monarch, prepatch (doing that this weekend) is what i've been playing lately. anyway, does anyone else starve conquered cities down via caste and GA? Arguments pro or con?

GA? great artist? golden age? I don't see what you mean...

Anyway, I whip them.
Hard! (like start a build before revolt ends, whip it as soon as it ends, switch to another building, whip it,... until there is no more unhappiness in the city or city is size 1)

 

[UncleJJ]

Similar to cabert I whip away most of the unhappy people but I also take into account the effect of the building(s) I'm whipping as soon as it comes out of revolt. So if it's a forge, and I have gold and silver, then I'd allow 2 unhappy citizens to stay as they'll be happy next turn and might be useful.

Starving citizens is very inefficient way to manage food and citizens and why I seldom run the caste system in war

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

GA? great artist? golden age? I don't see what you mean...

Great artist

Starving citizens is very inefficient way to manage food and citizens and why I seldom run the caste system in war

It is but I usually do it in the end game phase, when I want quick border expansions. It must be a hold over from my civ3 days.

thanks for the replies

 

[cabert]

Great artist



It is but I usually do it in the end game phase, when I want quick border expansions. It must be a hold over from my civ3 days.

thanks for the replies

If you have a great artist, settle him or culture bomb.
It won't do you no good to starve the city.
If you want culture expansion, take cities, run the culture slider high and work commerce tiles.

 

[UncleJJ]

Or just build culture to expand to the fat cross... 10 hammers is not a lot to spend in the late game.

 

[cabert]

10 hammers isn't going to give you tiles after you just dropped a culture bomb

 

[heljik]

I tend to play along, forgetting to adjust the number of specialists in my cities. What do I loose?

 

[cabert]

I tend to play along, forgetting to adjust the number of specialists in my cities. What do I loose?

mmmm
how shall I say this without being rude ?
Basically you can only afford such bad city management if you're rushing to domination/conquest and don't really care about tech or gold or production.

 

[ostraume]

Are there any articles on specialist-based economies around?

 

[Welnic]

I tend to play along, forgetting to adjust the number of specialists in my cities. What do I loose?

When I go into a city and find that it has two priests specialist and it is 1500 AD I click on the little maximize food thingy. Then I put people where I want them to work. They will get rearranged when the population changes, but at least specialists will not be used until all of the workable tiles with food are gone.

 

[gdgrimm]

I tend to play along, forgetting to adjust the number of specialists in my cities. What do I loose?

You probably will be playing one difficulty level lower than if you micromanaged them.

But the games will take a LOT less "real" time to play, so you'll be playing 2-3 times as many games.

I really don't see much being lost.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Well I'm back to prince after the damn patch. Have played about 10 games

I have no scientific evidence to back this stuff up, just wondering if others feel the same. And these are applicable only to prince.

1. the AI is really really slow with the early wonders and religions
2. the CS slinger is really strange
3. one can be more of a builder; for example, in my current game, I'm playing Huana, medium seas, epic speed. khan was my only co-inhabitent. he went the way of whomp's hair very early. so I had to burn to optics. when I got there, everyone else was somewhat ahead. So I then burned to demo with a few detours. Some of those detours involve castling my cities. Now I've got cities with 4 trade routes spewing gold. IIRC, one trade route was +11. This is a very wonder light game. it is about 1800, and I haven't been invaded; on the other hand, I haven't tried to invade.
4. it seems to be easier to tech trade yourself back into the mix

just curious what everyone else thinks

 

[aelf]

3. one can be more of a builder; for example, in my current game, I'm playing Huana, medium seas, epic speed. khan was my only co-inhabitent. he went the way of whomp's hair very early. so I had to burn to optics. when I got there, everyone else was somewhat ahead. So I then burned to demo with a few detours. Some of those detours involve castling my cities. Now I've got cities with 4 trade routes spewing gold. IIRC, one trade route was +11. This is a very wonder light game. it is about 1800, and I haven't been invaded; on the other hand, I haven't tried to invade.
4. it seems to be easier to tech trade yourself back into the mix

Interesting way to look at it. Maybe it's because you're not playing on Monarch or above, for which I'd say that warmongering is almost always certainly easier. The AI's economic management is better now but its military skills have not really improved, which means, given the inherent bonuses it gets on the higher levels, the easier way to beat it is with the latter aspect.

 

[gdgrimm]

1. the AI is really really slow with the early wonders and religions
2. the CS slinger is really strange
3. one can be more of a builder; for example, in my current game, I'm playing Huana, medium seas, epic speed. khan was my only co-inhabitent. he went the way of whomp's hair very early. so I had to burn to optics. when I got there, everyone else was somewhat ahead. So I then burned to demo with a few detours. Some of those detours involve castling my cities. Now I've got cities with 4 trade routes spewing gold. IIRC, one trade route was +11. This is a very wonder light game. it is about 1800, and I haven't been invaded; on the other hand, I haven't tried to invade.
4. it seems to be easier to tech trade yourself back into the mix

1. I'd disagree. I think they're just as quick (maybe a little quicker), and they seem more random as to whether they pursue Buddhism or Hinduism out of the gate. It used to be that Hinduism was pretty much guarenteed to me if I started with Mysticism (all the AI's seemed to go to Meditation first). This doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
2. What do you mean "really strange"? They modified the Great Prophet's tech pop priorities, so you can't avoid Masonry and use a GP to pop Civil Service (maybe that's what you mean).
3. I always play with Aggressive AI, but I can't say I see any change in the AI's willingness to war post patch. Then again, I work pretty hard at not being somebody's target -- it's rare that somebody ever declares war on me, unless I've been "grooming" them to do so.
4. Again, I don't see much difference here post patch. But I think the AI's have a modifier that makes them more willing to trade a tech as more players know it (meaning that if an AI has a monopoly tech, they tend NOT to trade it). With all the AI's teching better, the tech race is closer, monopoly techs don't last as long, and more trading may be taking place.

Aelf makes (and keeps making, and keeps making ) a point that the direct improvements to the AIs economy and teching abilities have made it a more formidable "builder" opponent. But there have been no direct military improvements, and the economy and tech improvements only indirectly help the AI to warmonger, so it hasn't become a better warmonger.

I haven't decided yet whether it bothers me much though. I went from playing Monarch to Prince, but haven't really change my style of play any.

Then again, I've always thought that it should be impossible to win without taking over (at least) one other Civ. They may have solved that now -- at least for higher levels.

But you shouldn't be able to win by maintaining a stance of nearly constant war, either. I don't think they've solved that yet.

 

[aelf]

But you shouldn't be able to win by maintaining a stance of nearly constant war, either. I don't think they've solved that yet.

Which is what I'm concerned about. Essentially, I think Civ shouldn't be exceedingly biased against builders.

By the way, I usually assume that different threads are read by different people, therefore my repetition of the same answer for similar issues.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I always play with Aggressive AI, but I can't say I see any change in the AI's willingness to war post patch. Then again, I work pretty hard at not being somebody's target -- it's rare that somebody ever declares war on me, unless I've been "grooming" them to do so.

I probably shouldn't have posted these comments based on my current game. My current game is prince, continents, rocky, ramdom AI, normal AI aggressiveness and barbs. It is however, my first random continents game where there are four continents in the mix. I was the first to optics so I think that helped making the tech trading catch up easier.

4. Again, I don't see much difference here post patch. But I think the AI's have a modifier that makes them more willing to trade a tech as more players know it (meaning that if an AI has a monopoly tech, they tend NOT to trade it). With all the AI's teching better, the tech race is closer, monopoly techs don't last as long, and more trading may be taking place.

which to me seems as if it is easier to tech trade along and not pointy stick.

Which is what I'm concerned about. Essentially, I think Civ shouldn't be exceedingly biased against builders.

Well, I've never been known as a builder, but I agree.

One thing I really really miss from civ3 is the ability to "Go commie" and steal techs to a victory.

Another thing I really really miss is the ability to do a "no research" variant.

Maybe i should rename this "AK babbles *****es and moans about the old days"

Thanks for the feedback

BTW, I'll try to remember to post a screenie of that city that had the +11 trade route. its spewing so much gold I can't believe it.

 

[Syndrome Zed]

OK, another idiot question which I just don't have time to playtest: Does obsolescence occur in your cities when someone else discovers the obsoleting tech? In other words, if someone else discovers the tech to obsolete castles, do I lose my trade route bonus? Or do I keep it until *I* get the tech myself somehow?

TIA all...