How do you know stuff?

[RemoWilliams]

I've been playing for a while now, and I see lots of people give the following bits of advice:

1.) Take over cultural wonder cities, like shrine cities and the pyramid city

2.) Raze cities unless they have a wonder you need, or a special you need.

3.) Choose the same civics as the civ you want to befriend

For 1, it seems like more often than not, the pyramids get built before I've gotten the open borders tech (writing or alpha? I forget), so it's always "Pyramids got built in a distant land", so I have no clue which city to take over. That is, assuming it's even close enough not to crash my economy.

For 2, is there any way to determine what wonders a city has other than just watching the messages that flash on the screen at the beginning of the turn for about 5 seconds (assuming it's not "distant land")? Is there any way to go back and see a message log? Sometimes I miss stuff.

Same question for #3 - if I miss the message, is there any way to know what civics the other civs have chosen?

I often don't know who I want to befriend, if anybody, until well into the game. Does this mean I either have to remember every civic as the civs adopt them, or take notes? Are there mods to help with this stuff?

I think it's kinda lame that I can't look at a city before I decide to raze/keep it, but I assume everyone else is in the same boat.

Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

 

[jerVL/kg]

For 2, is there any way to determine what wonders a city has other than just watching the messages that flash on the screen at the beginning of the turn for about 5 seconds (assuming it's not "distant land")? Is there any way to go back and see a message log? Sometimes I miss stuff.

Click on the Demographics button (graph icon in far upper right corner, or hit F10) and check "Top 5 Cities/Wonders"; it will show you which country owns each wonder (even if you haven't met that civ yet!) as well as which Wonders are in each of the top 5 cities. If it's not in one of those cities...well, then you have to zoom in and visually examine each city for the Wonder, which can be difficult (although the Pyramids tend to stand out.)

Or, send a spy to that city, they can open the city window just like your own cities, and see everything that's been built there.

Or (my favorite) attack the civ, and keep taking cities until you find the one with the Wonder you want.

Same question for #3 - if I miss the message, is there any way to know what civics the other civs have chosen?

Open the dialogue window for each AI civ, in the upper right hand corner will be an icon for each civic they are running, if you don't know what each icon means, hovering the mouse over them will tell you.

 

[The Tyrant]

Is there any way to go back and see a message log? Sometimes I miss stuff.

Try CTRL-TAB. That should open up the event log. You might have to scroll through a lot of messages, though.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Remo,

The three bits of advice I can give you is:

Before you get spies, never attack a city until you take a <i>close</i> look at it. Every single building it has is visible, so with a little practice, you can identify if it has a valuable building, like an Academy or a Wonder. Though the AI is an idiot when it comes to building Academies using Great Scientists.

After you get them, use them to scout out your enemies cities. Since you can look at their city screen, you can easily identify the buildings inside them.

In either case, at least put up a sign (alt-S) to remind yourself that this city shouldn't be razed. My late games tend to be littered with them, since I use them to plan my war strategy in advance.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I would support a mod that allowed you to mouse over enemy cities and see a list of buildings in it. I really don't understand why this isn't already part of Civ4.

And by support I mean like, paypal.

And by paypal I'm refering to a token payment on the order of $2.

 

[BadHorsie]

How do you open an enemy city's screen to see what buildings they have, using a spy?

 

[DarkFyre99]

If you have a spy in that city, you can double click the city, and it'll take you to the City Screen... just like one of your own cities. You will not only see which buildings have been built, but the enemy's tax rates, their cultural makeup (including chance of revolt... useful to know if you're engaged in a culture war), how many hammers, food, beakers, gold, and culture the city is producing, and everything else about the city.

 

[Pantastic]

I do think there should be a "warning: this city has wonders X, Y, Z" box when you chose to raze a city. For some things like pyramids it's very easy to see the wonder, but some of the others get buried away behind all of the other building and units hanging around. I don't raze good-sized cities very often (just early war cities or iceholders) so it doesn't affect me very often.

 

[JerichoHill]

Just look at the city close up, its very plainly there

 

[Solo4114]

Hey here's a question. What buildings do you get to keep if you take over a city? I'm assuming holy shrines and wonders, but does anything else survive? Each city I've taken over has either been ridiculously underdeveloped or I managed to blow up every major structure.

 

[Sisiutil]

Hey here's a question. What buildings do you get to keep if you take over a city? I'm assuming holy shrines and wonders, but does anything else survive? Each city I've taken over has either been ridiculously underdeveloped or I managed to blow up every major structure.

World Wonders and holy shrines do indeed survive everything but razing. National Wonders never survive. As for everything else, it's kind of random, it seems to me--some sort of % the game applies to destroy buildings, probably based upon city size, etc. I have noticed that the more developed a city is, the better chance several of its buildings will survive. It's always a pleasant surprise to capture a coastal city and find its lighthouse intact...

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah, I suppose that's part of it. The cities I've tended to attack have all been below, like, size 8 or so. They're usually completely empty.

 

[BadHorsie]

I think I read that a city loses more buildings depending how much you bombard it previously, so if you bomb it loads, there'll be nothing left.

I suppose capturing national wonders would be stupid, as you'd have two of the same and stuff.

 

[Solo4114]

Well, I can see a value for it. I mean, let's say you've got the National Epic of Greece (the Odyssey) and the National Epic of India (the Ramayana). The Indians take over the Greeks, but they don't kill the population -- they just assimilate them into the empire, but keep the existing cultural bonuses. In that sense, the national wonder thing would make sense to keep.

On the other hand, it could lead to some issues with balance, but whatever. It is what it is and this one isn't a major issue to me.

I'll have to look into the bombardment thing destroying buildings. If that's the case, it raises several new issues for me on city seiges.

 

[Nestorius]

You can see every single building in every single city discovered at anytime in the game. It can be in the fog of war, and you can still see what current buildings they have.

In the Civipedia there are pictures of exactly what that building will look like on the main map. You can also look at your own cities to get an idea of the basic buildings. I find this very useful.

Bombardment does not destroy buildings, by the way.

 

[Solo4114]

Hmm. guess it's random chance and/or city size then. >shrug<

 

[Andorim]

World Wonders and holy shrines do indeed survive everything but razing. National Wonders never survive. As for everything else, it's kind of random, it seems to me--some sort of % the game applies to destroy buildings, probably based upon city size, etc. I have noticed that the more developed a city is, the better chance several of its buildings will survive. It's always a pleasant surprise to capture a coastal city and find its lighthouse intact...

Not just wonders and shrines -- everything that survived the capture should be shown. The victor should be allowed to have a look at the captured city before deciding whether to keep or raze.

 

[Fetch]

I would support a mod that allowed you to mouse over enemy cities and see a list of buildings in it. I really don't understand why this isn't already part of Civ4.

And by support I mean like, paypal.

And by paypal I'm refering to a token payment on the order of $2.

... and by $2 I mean pesos.

 

[VirtualM]

1) "Some wonder got built in a distant land" will only show if you haven't yet made contact with that civ. Once you have made contact with a civ, you can see all the Wonders in the demographics tab (It's one of the buttons on the top right corner).

3) Many people don't know this, but you can find a civ's civics by opening the diplomacy screen. It's represented by 5 small icons on the top right corner.

 

[jerVL/kg]

Though the AI is an idiot when it comes to building Academies using Great Scientists.

Why is building Academies with Great Scientists being an idiot? What else would you do with them?