Little questions & answers thread

[Tuvok694]

Just curious: Is it considered to be a bug, that after the age transition into modern age some fleet commanders spawn in useless little inland lakes, and I can't do anything with them?

 

[MutilationWave]

I would consider that a bug. It's definitely unintentional. There's a huge inland lake in my current distant lands map, like it spans nearly north to south pole and almost the entire width of the continent. Fractal map. I couldn't get moving in exploration due to dealing with the city connections bug for the first 30 turns. So I got two islands and one mainland settlement.

Blessing in disguise I suppose because even with that large of a lake I would have been pissed if some of my 8 full naval commanders spawned there.

I think the best bet is to never build quay, wharf, or shipyard on a lake. That won't fix the random spawns but it should limit lake spawns.

Can you try loading your last autosave from explo and see if you get different spawns? I've never tried that.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would consider that a bug. It's definitely unintentional. There's a huge inland lake in my current distant lands map, like it spans nearly north to south pole and almost the entire width of the continent. Fractal map. I couldn't get moving in exploration due to dealing with the city connections bug for the first 30 turns. So I got two islands and one mainland settlement.

Blessing in disguise I suppose because even with that large of a lake I would have been pissed if some of my 8 full naval commanders spawned there.

I think the best bet is to never build quay, wharf, or shipyard on a lake. That won't fix the random spawns but it should limit lake spawns.

Can you try loading your last autosave from explo and see if you get different spawns? I've never tried that.

Since the last updates/patches I have seen more inland lakes/seas, even on Continents maps. While I applaud the greater diversity in maps (and would love to see more) they did not, apparently, consider what their 'random placement' of units carrying over from the previous Age would mean: bad enough that the Exploration Age starts with armies of all archers or all swordsmen/cavalry instead of the combined arms forces we had at the end of Antiquity, but the spawning of our only Cog on an inland sea with no access to the Outside World - and in a game that provides no way to get that access - is just short of game-breaking.

And the Cosmic Irony is that in my first post-patch game, with a big inland sea on the homeland Continent, I had a large fleet of Quadriremes stationed there at the end of Antiquity since 3 other Civs shared that sea with me. Despite that, my Exploration Cog spawned at one of my seaside cities on the outer coast of the continent, right next to the nearest islands of Distant Lands.
Pure blind Luck, as it turns out.

Since then, I have learned, as posted, to not place any Quays or other portish structures on any inland sea before the transition to Exploration. This is poor advice for the Exploration-Modern Age transition, though, because any coastal settlements/cities on inland seas lose a lot from not being able to build Wharfs, Quays, or Shipyards until Modern Age.

On the other hand, given the length of time (centuries) submerged in the Crisis/Transition period, I don't see giving us gamers complete control over where everything spawns: the crisis transition, to me at least, implies a relatively long period of not-playable turns during which Unknown Things a re happening to your armies and fleets (and settlements). The human gamer should, at best, only have partial control over how that comes out and where things end up, or the crisis transition threatens to turn into another Human Advantage Period over the hapless AI.

\We do need a specific solution to the Trapped Ship transition, though, even if it's just the option to move one Cog one time at the beginning of the Exploration Age.

 

[MutilationWave]

Your criticism is fair. I just don't build lake settlements, but I haven't had a situation yet where I needed to.

Did you end up reloading to see if it changed spawns? I'll probably play later and I have my old explo-modern save to test with if you don't get around to it.

 

[Taefin]

I find the cheat panel mod helpful for softening the blow if bugs. You could give yourself enough gold to build the cog on an ocean or replace a fleet commander (admittedly without promotions). I give myself a wildcard policy if I encounter the codex bug and it prevents me from getting science legacies I otherwise would have. Not a perfect fix, but these bugs make me lose interest in my current game otherwise.

 

[E2driver]

Does anyone know how the American Prospector Unit works? Is there some limited distance from my cities he can grab resources or can I literally send him anywhere in the world? Does that grabbed resource then become my territory, that no one can grab without declaring war? Does he work on water resources?

Did some testing on last game and a few others have confirmed my findings in this thread. Prospectors only work on land resources within 5 tiles of a settlement and they must be unclaimed. They can be within 3 tiles of another civ or independent settlement and will only harm relations if you do not already have borders touching. They fully act like a unit of population working the tile, so you get the yields as well as the resources. I do not know if they affect the settlement growth rate like a normal population expansion or if they act more like a Great Wall improvement. Would love if someone knows because I really don’t want to load an old game to retest. Also, occasionally it would “gap” and not give me all the territory between my borders leaving an island of claimed resource. Not sure if another civ can surround and take or not.

 

[Krikkit1]

Since the last updates/patches I have seen more inland lakes/seas, even on Continents maps. While I applaud the greater diversity in maps (and would love to see more) they did not, apparently, consider what their 'random placement' of units carrying over from the previous Age would mean: bad enough that the Exploration Age starts with armies of all archers or all swordsmen/cavalry instead of the combined arms forces we had at the end of Antiquity, but the spawning of our only Cog on an inland sea with no access to the Outside World - and in a game that provides no way to get that access - is just short of game-breaking.

And the Cosmic Irony is that in my first post-patch game, with a big inland sea on the homeland Continent, I had a large fleet of Quadriremes stationed there at the end of Antiquity since 3 other Civs shared that sea with me. Despite that, my Exploration Cog spawned at one of my seaside cities on the outer coast of the continent, right next to the nearest islands of Distant Lands.
Pure blind Luck, as it turns out.

Since then, I have learned, as posted, to not place any Quays or other portish structures on any inland sea before the transition to Exploration. This is poor advice for the Exploration-Modern Age transition, though, because any coastal settlements/cities on inland seas lose a lot from not being able to build Wharfs, Quays, or Shipyards until Modern Age.

On the other hand, given the length of time (centuries) submerged in the Crisis/Transition period, I don't see giving us gamers complete control over where everything spawns: the crisis transition, to me at least, implies a relatively long period of not-playable turns during which Unknown Things a re happening to your armies and fleets (and settlements). The human gamer should, at best, only have partial control over how that comes out and where things end up, or the crisis transition threatens to turn into another Human Advantage Period over the hapless AI.

\We do need a specific solution to the Trapped Ship transition, though, even if it's just the option to move one Cog one time at the beginning of the Exploration Age.

The best way to deal with all of that new map diversity would be to
1. Let Players decide where Naval units are produced/and moved to on age transition
AND
2.Let Fleet Commanders transport themselves and their ships to another urban water tile over a time of ~10?20? turns

 

[NoahSteele]

Which is indeed true.

A quick wikipedia search suggests that Frederick I suffered from scoliosis, which apparently earned him the nickname 'Schiefer Fritz'.
In this case, "schief" would be a great label.
If only Firaxis had chosen the right king!

@FXS_Sar could you please consider renaming this persona?
After you have fixed the UI and reworked the maps, of course. Priorities!

Haha, yep Schiefer Fritz would’ve been a way more fitting and actually clever name if that’s the route they were going for. “Schief” nails both the historical reference and adds a bit of character.

 

[Yzman]

How are challenges STILL broken for some leaders? I am playing a game as Truc as none of my quests have triggered so far. I also noticed that whenever you reload the game it breaks the challenges link so antinquity quest challenge is now just a string of numbers. I don't believe this is related, but it maybe.

I am just annoyed that I keep playing as these leaders and doing quests that then don't unlock. Which means I will need to do them again sometime in the future once they are fixed.

 

[Disgustipated]

Has anyone ever managed to change mementos upon age transition? LOL Okay I did mange it one game for one transition. It's so easy to miss. What are some good mementos for exploration and modern ages?

 

[Siptah]

How are challenges STILL broken for some leaders? I am playing a game as Truc as none of my quests have triggered so far. I also noticed that whenever you reload the game it breaks the challenges link so antinquity quest challenge is now just a string of numbers. I don't believe this is related, but it maybe.

I am just annoyed that I keep playing as these leaders and doing quests that then don't unlock. Which means I will need to do them again sometime in the future once they are fixed.

Are you going for 57/57? Because I had no trouble to reach level 10 even when not every challenge was counted with 2-3 games of the same leader.
It's a bit strange how you need (almost) all challenges for level 50 of the founder's path, but for leaders, roughly half of them is enough for max level.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

Has anyone ever managed to change mementos upon age transition? LOL Okay I did mange it one game for one transition. It's so easy to miss. What are some good mementos for exploration and modern ages?

+1 ship movement (from Lafayette's XP rewards) can be huge. It doesn't help you cross open ocean any quicker pre-shipbuilding but it can really help scouting out treasure resources on the little island chains before and just general exploration after.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Just want to check my understanding of factories is correct. ive finally bought my first and was immediately disappointed. so Im ahead of everyone I think, and there's a big war going on, and with no factories, it upsets me to see the amount of resources unallocated.

But am I right in thinking the unallocated ones are giving you general food and happiness? I only just realized that after being annoyed the whole time.

so finally I can build factories. but I guess due to war weariness everything has slowed to a halt. and there's 33 unallocated factory resources sitting there rotting.

so finally I buy one for 3k ish. and I can only allocate one thing to It and it seems a bit underwhelming.

am I right in thinking that when using factories, you are still using the same resource slots as before, but the factory ones a) can only go into a city that has a factory and b) you can only use one type of factory resource per city?

 

[Yzman]

Are you going for 57/57? Because I had no trouble to reach level 10 even when not every challenge was counted with 2-3 games of the same leader.
It's a bit strange how you need (almost) all challenges for level 50 of the founder's path, but for leaders, roughly half of them is enough for max level.

Yes slowly going for level 10. So that is why this annoys me.

 

[tedhebert]

Just want to check my understanding of factories is correct. ive finally bought my first and was immediately disappointed. so Im ahead of everyone I think, and there's a big war going on, and with no factories, it upsets me to see the amount of resources unallocated.

But am I right in thinking the unallocated ones are giving you general food and happiness? I only just realized that after being annoyed the whole time.

so finally I can build factories. but I guess due to war weariness everything has slowed to a halt. and there's 33 unallocated factory resources sitting there rotting.

so finally I buy one for 3k ish. and I can only allocate one thing to It and it seems a bit underwhelming.

am I right in thinking that when using factories, you are still using the same resource slots as before, but the factory ones a) can only go into a city that has a factory and b) you can only use one type of factory resource per city?

yes you’re right but there is one detail more… you can fill ALL your slot with the one resource chosen for each factory

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

so finally I buy one for 3k ish. and I can only allocate one thing to It and it seems a bit underwhelming.

The price was hiked in a recent patch as part of Firaxis' attempt to slow down the race to economic victory in the modern age. Ports and rail stations got the same treatment.

 

[Krikkit1]

Just want to check my understanding of factories is correct. ive finally bought my first and was immediately disappointed. so Im ahead of everyone I think, and there's a big war going on, and with no factories, it upsets me to see the amount of resources unallocated.

But am I right in thinking the unallocated ones are giving you general food and happiness? I only just realized that after being annoyed the whole time.

so finally I can build factories. but I guess due to war weariness everything has slowed to a halt. and there's 33 unallocated factory resources sitting there rotting.

so finally I buy one for 3k ish. and I can only allocate one thing to It and it seems a bit underwhelming.

am I right in thinking that when using factories, you are still using the same resource slots as before, but the factory ones a) can only go into a city that has a factory and b) you can only use one type of factory resource per city?

You can only allocate one Type of thing to it.... once you put one factory resource in the Factory you can put as many copies as will fit of That factory resource in the settlement with the factory.

 

[Yzman]

You can only allocate one Type of thing to it.... once you put one factory resource in the Factory you can put as many copies as will fit of That factory resource in the settlement with the factory.

Yeah the factory icon just shows your what factory resource is allowed...but the actual slows can be fully filled with that resource. So if you have 5 fish, fill up the city with 5 fish.

What also is great and not documented really well is that factory resources apply to EVERY SETTLEMENT. So tons of fish or coffee are big boons to everywhere.

 

[Navelgazer]

I ran into what I assume is a bug in my latest game. Early on in Antiquity (early enough that I only had three cities), my neighbor Napoleon (Emperor) asked to improve trade relations. Cool cool cool. Then he did so again the next turn. Then the next, for about ten turns. Again, I only had three cities at this point, and there's literally no way that he had the Influence generation to have been doing this. It didn't cause me any trouble (honestly just gave me a lot of early-game money) but it was weird. Anyone else run into this?

 

[vorlon_mi]

Yeah the factory icon just shows your what factory resource is allowed...but the actual slows can be fully filled with that resource. So if you have 5 fish, fill up the city with 5 fish.

What also is great and not documented really well is that factory resources apply to EVERY SETTLEMENT. So tons of fish or coffee are big boons to everywhere.

In addition -- say, I have 6 or 7 coffee or chocolate. After building a factory -- or buying one in a decent sized town -- I can load up a city with 5 coffee and assign the other 2 to the town. It feels satisfying, though not required, to equip a small-ish city so that even the 1 copy of citrus can be assigned.

I start the Modern Age with a big pile of factory resources. I consider it a success if I can get them all assigned by turn 60 or 70.