Couple basic questions

[Muze]

1. Do non resource improvements (farms, windmills, mines, cottages, etc) need to have roads connected to cities for the FPC benefits? Or do they need to just be within the cultural borders? How about any non improved tile with FPC benefits?

2. When looking at the projected odds for a battle, are these odds calculated without figuring in the bonus/detriment percentages listed there?

3. I read the very informative article about city placement. I understand the pros and cons of placing your first city directly on a resource. Let's put that aside for a minute, along with defensive bonuses. What I want to know is what type of FPC is best for city placement? More hammers, food and gold? Does it matter which type a city is placed directly on? This may be answered somewhat by an answer to question 1.

OK maybe they weren't THAT basic...

 

[Queso]

First time poster... I tend to get really specific and wordy, so be warned:

1. They need to be within your cultural borders and within your city's radius. Some people would describe the city radius as a 3 square wide cross (running diagonally across your city). I tend to picture it as a 5 by 5 square with the corner squares missing. Then, you need to have a worker working the tile (when you zoom into the city, the tiles with a white circle around them are being "worked") Roads have no bearing on this, although railroads give mines and the lumbermill (I think, not sure about what the second improvement is) add an extra hammer for those improvements.

(Note that the health/happiness benefits (not the FPC benefits) from a bonus resource need to be connected to your city either by sea or by road and have the appropriate improvement on them (mine, pasture, fishing boats, etc.)).

2. The bonuses are already figured in there. I figure they just list those bonuses there to help you see where the odds come from. For more about this, look at Arathorn's Combat Explained thread in single player tips: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615)

3. If you're talking just about the city square itself, any space (not counting special resources) that you build on will become a 2 food 1 hammer and 1 commerce except for a spot that is both a plains and on a hill. These are ideal as the hill also gives you a defensive bonus when your city is attacked. (Reference: Brokguitar's city placement thread in Single Player Tips forum http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138526).

If you're talking about overall city placement, it's debatable. There are health benefits from being on a river or fresh water lake... there's the flexibility of being able to build more buildings, naval units by being on a coast. Generally, I would let the resources dictate the city placement (keeping the city radius in mind) as they make the square much more valuable, followed by trying avoid desert and tundra, then looking at if I'm on the coast or not. One general rule that is pretty much agreed on is avoid building 1 square away from the coast unless there's a really really good reason not to.

Hope this helps--
~Queso

 

[Mike Lemmer]

1. You don't need to build roads to improved resources to get their base food/hammer/coin. You do need to build roads to them to get their trading bonuses, like Happiness or Health.

2. The combat odds factor in everything, including defenses, health and promotions.

3. Your base city usually provides 2 food, 1 hammer & 1 coin. It provides more if the square it was planted on provides more. (Example: Building it on a 2-hammer plains hill gives you a city that provides 2 food, 2 hammers & 1 coin.) A plains hill with a river bordering it on two sides is the best base tile; you get 2 hammers, you automatically trade with any cities on the same river and your enemies can't attack you across the river well.

 

[Muze]

2. Why do I lose when odds are in my favor? They usually are accurate, but sometimes they're dead wrong. You could argue that they're just odds, but if I load a save right before the battle, I lose the same way every time. It's definitely rigged.

 

[Queso]

What you can do is click on the log button in the upper left and check the combat log whenever you think a battle is "rigged". I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing that Civ 4 has carried over the "preserve random seed" option from Civ 3 where when you reload a save, it uses the same string of "random" values every time, so even if you reload, you're actually getting the exact same battle every time intentionally. The only way to change the battle is to perform some other event to get the "random" number generator to fire and get it to use that number for something else, then try your battle again.

And yes, keep in mind they are just odds... if you odds dictated everything, no one would ever win the lottery, not a single person would go to casinos because odds are you should lose every game, the Indianapolis Colts would win every game (oh wait... )...

I would highly recommend that you read the Combat Explained thread and get a good idea of what those odds really mean. You'll probably get better answers about the topic there than here if you still have questions.

 

[Gufnork]

They don't show the odds, they show the attack values. There's a huge difference. Check this thread for details:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137615

If you're not interested enough to read through a rather long and detailed post, then know that just having 0.1 more than the enemy gives you roughly 62% chance of winning. And it doesn't take First Strikes into account.

 

[petey]

2. Why do I lose when odds are in my favor? They usually are accurate, but sometimes they're dead wrong. You could argue that they're just odds, but if I load a save right before the battle, I lose the same way every time. It's definitely rigged.

It is rigged - but I don't mean that in a bad way. The odds of winning a a percentage and what the result of that percentage is determined by a randomizer that's part of the system before the battle. That means if you save and reload, the same number is going to come up each time and there'll be the same result of the battle each time.

One way around this is to do something else before the battle. For instance, if you save, fight and lose, then reload, move another unit, then have the fight again, the system is now using a different number for the randomizer and you'll get a different result. Of course, if you're going to do that, you may as well just go into the World Builder and delete the unit you're fighting against - if you're going to cheat, don't be so half-assed about it. Part of any percentage system is that you're going to have bad beats from time to time.

 

[Muze]

Well I never said I was looking for a cheat, but the odds are right there in the game and it's stupid to attack if they're not in the player's favor. Yeah that's what I'll do, I'll go into the World Builder and delete the unit...

2. The combat odds factor in everything, including defenses, health and promotions.

And it doesn't take First Strikes into account.

Now THAT's what I needed to know. I thought maybe that was the case, but I wasn't sure.