Help with the learning process

Buttercup said:
That's somewhat annoying. Yes, in Civ III you had to reduce the population to 1 and then make either a Settler or a Worker and, because they require population to produce, it would ask you if you wanted to disband the city in order to finish production.

Actually, as I recall, when trying to build a settler or worker in a pop 2 or 1 city respectively, the build simply would not finish until the city grew.

Disbanding a city was done through the right-click menu and IIRC could be done at any pop level.
 
You can't. The only possibility is to lose it again and re-take it and raze it at that point.

I think if you have culture left in the city it won't let you raze it when you retake it.
 
Actually, as I recall, when trying to build a settler or worker in a pop 2 or 1 city respectively, the build simply would not finish until the city grew.

Disbanding a city was done through the right-click menu and IIRC could be done at any pop level.

It was how I described it. There is also an 'Abandon City' option in the right-click menu.

I've been quite surprised by the lack of right-clicking generally in civ 4, I find myself naturally right-clicking all the time, being mainly a PC gamer.
 
BUttercup said:
I've been quite surprised by the lack of right-clicking generally in civ 4, I find myself naturally right-clicking all the time, being mainly a PC gamer.

Agreed. The absence of right-click menu in Civ IV was quite a jarring change, as I recall.
 
Ah, interesting. It seemed like it would work, but maybe it doesn't.

nope. it doesn't work. once upon a time, sacked by barb and retook it later. just no option, directly went to what you want to build menu.
 
You can get rid of unwanted cities, if you meet pre-requisites:

1) The civilization you conquered it from is /not/ completely dead yet, AND there is still some of its culture left in the city, AND you are at peace (I think? Not sure on this part) with them. You can "liberate" it back to them this way. Also earns you a nifty "+1 to +3 You have liberated our cities" diplo bonus. (Done through domestic advisor F1 menu, bottom right, the fist icon)

2) If you're on archipelago, and you have 2 (or more) cities on the island, liberate them as a colony (if there's only 1 and its a but sizable, i.e. 3-4 plots long/width tundra island, you could always try to settle another city right next to it to do it). Also done through domestic advisor.
 
That's interesting information Thorz, I have no idea what you're talking about (Civ 4 Colonisation?) but I'm sure it might help someone out there. Even if you are talking about Civ 4 Complete I'm still not getting if your technique allows razing or simply passing control of a city back to an AI. And even then, in my scenario it was the last city of a completely defeated civ, so that's that for my scenario (in my case I reloaded to a save from about 8 turns previously. I don't like reloading, at all, but in cases like this I do allow myself).
 
That's interesting information Thorz, I have no idea what you're talking about (Civ 4 Colonisation?) but I'm sure it might help someone out there. Even if you are talking about Civ 4 Complete I'm still not getting if your technique allows razing or simply passing control of a city back to an AI. And even then, in my scenario it was the last city of a completely defeated civ, so that's that for my scenario (in my case I reloaded to a save from about 8 turns previously. I don't like reloading, at all, but in cases like this I do allow myself).

In civ4 you CANNOT unsettle cities, nor can you raze cities you control. What you can do is free cities as a colony, granting them freedom. 2 or more cities on a separate landmass can be turned into a colony, which becomes a separate AI Civ and becomes your vassal. The computer will randomly assign a Civ and leader to control your colony. Typically this is done to deal with the high maintenance of distant cities. Less maintenance is spent on vassals than on your cities on other landmasses'. Go to the advisor screen F1 I believe, at the bottom right side of the screen you'll see a fist shaped icon. Click it to assign 1 or more cities to liberate.
 
I see. This is a whole new mechanic I'm totally unaware of and is an entirely new feature of the civ franchise.

So, awesome, I will want to play with this at some point. :)

1) Is the newly assigned AI civ always and permanently 100% loyal?
2) Is this new civ completely and totally combined within your economy?
3) Can the player completely control production and military units from these Vassals?
4) Can the player take back control from the Vassals?
5) Can the player conquer Vassals?

(You get the idea of what I'm asking... lol)
 
When you liberate cities to become a colony, they become a completely different civ. Immediately become your loyal vassal, and the relationship will function as it would if a rival Civ became your vassal. You can give limited instructions to the vassal. What to research, what cities to attack," provided that you are in a state of war." you cannot control their city production. The vassalized civ will operate its own nation. With any civ that is your vassal, you can demand some of their resources. You cannot go to war with them.
 
Ok... ?

So, if you were going for a Domination or Conquest Victory, do they count as your lands or as AI lands?

What's the primary (and secondary) use(s) for them?
 
The colony feature is part of Bts. If you are playing Bts, check the civilopedia, under the " beyond the sword concepts". Read the entry colonies. It provides a brief description. To vassal another civ, or colonize your cities into a vassal requires the Civ tech feudalism . Another civ can become a " vassal state" to your own civ nation. You do not pay maintenance for their cities, just an increase to the maintenance for your own cities. You become their master, when you go to war with another civ, so do they. When you make peace, so do they. A vassal cannot declare war on their own. In addition to the beyond the sword concepts, read "game concepts" found in the civilopedia. Read about vassal states. If you have questions, or clarification, the forum community will be happy to help.
 
Ok... ?

So, if you were going for a Domination or Conquest Victory, do they count as your lands or as AI lands?

What's the primary (and secondary) use(s) for them?

Yes, a vassals territory does help boost your % of land control. To achieve conquest, either destroy every other Civ, or make them your vassal. When in a war, you can give limited instructions to a vassal as to which city to attack, though there is no guarantee how much effort your vassal will put into the battle. If your vassal capture's a city it is theirs, not yours. If diplomacy is an available victory condition, the vassal votes for you.
 
Oh right, at the top of the thread I stated I was playing a regular game without expansions. If you hadn't described what Bts is I wouldn't even know what it meant.

So... does this whole colony thing exist in a basic normal game of Civ 4 from Civ 4 Complete, no expansions installed?
 
Sorry I overlooked you stating no expansions. No vassal states, and colonies do not exist in vanilla civ4.
 
Even though this thread hasn't first-page-died yet, it's been so long since I've posted that this feels like a necro - if does to you too, sorry about that, but I can now move towards the conclusion of this thread, having tried all the basic Warlord Victory Conditions:

I never did try to finish that Conquest game, I just CBA. Conquest is my least used VC because it's basically a domination game where you just stop dominating once you reach a certain percentage. It's always quicker just to grab the Domination. And the reason I go the dom then stop route is because if you leave even one square inch of the board empty, every single civ left on the map will suddenly march 400 settlers into it anyway. In previous iterations you could block the movements of friendly AIs by standing in their way - no such fun in Civ4, you can't even block people by dumping a city on a choke-point. Unless you refuse Open Borders. But then they can just sail around you anyway. But anyway, I don't really like having my basic diplomacy dictated by completely unrelated strategic mechanics, if that makes sense to anyone.

I next tried for a Diplomatic Victory. Same settings, new map roll. Everything was going fine and dandy and Leading up to the building of the United Nations I was doing pretty well on the diplomatic front. Heck, I even had Catherine of Russia on Friendly, and she's supposed to be a tough nut to crack according to other threads. Anyway, the first vote took place and I was voted controller of the UN. I then asked for it to initiate votes for the Diplomatic Victory. One of the AIs who voted for me in the first election decided to abstain in the important vote, leaving me just short of the votes needed. I was totally confused. I went back to about 20 turns previously and tried everything I could imagine to get the abstainer or the other no vote to vote for me, and I did this several times. But there was nothing I could do. No matter what I tried, I was always 'just short' (15 points I believe). So I quit in annoyance, self-reminded of why I don't normally bother with UN Victories unless it just happens by unintentional luck (which did happen to me a lot in Civ 3).

So my (possibly final) question for the n00b phase is:

As I stated, Catherine of Russia was Friendly with me. She was the most +1'ed of all my diplomatic relations. With her I had 12 points of positive and zero points of negative. And yet... she was the only one to vote for the other guy in the elections. From my pre-research, the other guy was also quite late in gaining her support, going from Cautious to Friendly in about 75 turns whereas I had been Friendly with Catherine throughout the game.

How do you 'very quickly' gain bumper points with an AI in the last 20 turns for the Diplomatic Victory - baring in mind both trading and history are already at +4 in most cases - without war being a factor?

Is there a 'Bribe for the Elections' option like there was in Civ 3?
 
You can bribe Catherine (she's the only leader) to dow a leader she's friendly with if you're friendly with her.
 
- Snip Snip -

So my (possibly final) question for the n00b phase is:

As I stated, Catherine of Russia was Friendly with me. She was the most +1'ed of all my diplomatic relations. With her I had 12 points of positive and zero points of negative. And yet... she was the only one to vote for the other guy in the elections. From my pre-research, the other guy was also quite late in gaining her support, going from Cautious to Friendly in about 75 turns whereas I had been Friendly with Catherine throughout the game.

How do you 'very quickly' gain bumper points with an AI in the last 20 turns for the Diplomatic Victory - baring in mind both trading and history are already at +4 in most cases - without war being a factor?

Is there a 'Bribe for the Elections' option like there was in Civ 3?

No you cannot bribe for elections directly. Diplomatic victories are harder to achieve the higher the difficultly your game is set at due to the default negative attitude modifiers applied to all the AI towards the human.

Some suggestions to help increase the AI's attitude towards you:

I would suggest (and this is fairly feasible on the lower-mid difficulty ranges, still doable on higher difficulties, just pray no1 built Shwedegon Paya early and switched to Theocracy, or you may need to do some espionage work) creating a monopoly of religion (if you convert Isabella to your faith, she will do half the work for you :mischief:).

You would do well to pick a group (approximately 35-65% of the AI players) to do business with. Make sure everyone is friendly with each other (easiest way is through religion). This avoids the "-4 you have traded with our worst enemies blah blah blah who gives a damn fck".

I find that the AIs tend to derp heavily trying to back-fill through the classical/ancient tech trees, so dumping lots of techs on them (requires you to be significantly far ahead though... something not really feasible or advisable to do on higher levels) for the +1-2 "You have shared your tech discoveries with us"

Consider dumping some of your non-essential/surplus resources to the AI to get their "appreciate years of supplying resources" (it's like 50-100 turns of 1 resource to get the first +1, so dumping multiple will speed the process up a bit)>


Also, the AIs will only vote for you during a diplomatic victory if:

a) They cannot vote for themselves
b) They like you (their iAttitudeVal must be +7 [forgot where I saw this, but it's somewhere around this value] or above.... and then all hidden modifiers, so +9-11 ingame is usually a safe threshold to aim for) enough.
c) They like the other candidate less than you.
d) If they like both you and the candidate the same, they will abstain
e) If both candidates are not liked enough, they will abstain

Please note that the length of time the AI likes you vs. liking another leader is irrelevant for the most part (it matters indirectly since you need it to rack up +1 open borders and whatnots). Only the final attitude counts.

Also note that AIs will vote "yes" for your other resolutions at a much lower attitude threshold (basically, if they voted yes for your single currency, don't expect them to vote for you on a diplo victory).
 
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