Little questions & answers thread

Thanks, so then it's possible to end up in a situation where nobody can win a culture victory because the artefacts are too spread around? I've got that right?
There are several sources of artefacts:
1. Diggable, one per continent, per previous era
2. Artefacts from overbuilding (you have some chance to get them)
3. Artefacts from natural wonders, which anyone could dig once per wonder (after discovering Natural History mastery)
4. Artefacts from random events
5. Artefacts from doing research after discovering Hegemony (one per continent)
6. Artefacts from future civics
etc.

Overall it's possible for the game to finish without anyone gaining enough artefacts, but normally it's reachable if you focused. I had a game where I actually completed cultural legacy path with artefact gotten from future civic (although this game ended with score victory soon after).
 
There are several sources of artefacts:
1. Diggable, one per continent, per previous era
2. Artefacts from overbuilding (you have some chance to get them)
3. Artefacts from natural wonders, which anyone could dig once per wonder (after discovering Natural History mastery)
4. Artefacts from random events
5. Artefacts from doing research after discovering Hegemony (one per continent)
6. Artefacts from future civics
etc.

Overall it's possible for the game to finish without anyone gaining enough artefacts, but normally it's reachable if you focused. I had a game where I actually completed cultural legacy path with artefact gotten from future civic (although this game ended with score victory soon after).

Thanks, this is super helpful. I play on Deity so all the default ones and ones from hegemony were almost instantly gone. But then nobody had enough to win after they were divided, I wasn't sure if it was worth trying to keep playing at that point but sounds like I can still try to pull off a win.
 
Thanks, this is super helpful. I play on Deity so all the default ones and ones from hegemony were almost instantly gone. But then nobody had enough to win after they were divided, I wasn't sure if it was worth trying to keep playing at that point but sounds like I can still try to pull off a win.
On Deity it's the hardest victory, yes. Not sure if it's doable, but on Immortal it is.
 
On Deity it's the hardest victory, yes. Not sure if it's doable, but on Immortal it is.
It’s doable but it depends on how much overbuilding you have left and how far you are from future civics.

Chances are when you’re hitting future civics then your rivals are close to approaching science victory.
 
Yeah, normally I just win on Deity with science but was curious to try culture. Seems it's a bit of a dead end or at least not as reliable.
 
Yeah, normally I just win on Deity with science but was curious to try culture. Seems it's a bit of a dead end or at least not as reliable.
You can’t count on it if you’re relying on future civics and the game is competitive. The AI is pretty good at getting the science victory, which is easier for the player too.
 
IMHO, the transitions are still a hot mess. I've read all sorts of takes on what determines how many units make it (leaving aside that the unit placements are idiotic, why not have the player place them ???).
So it boils down to how many commanders you have - since the last update there is a helpful warning you need more commanders, but the math never adds up. And do commanders provide "time transport" for 4 units each? How about if they have the promotion giving 6 slots?
Just now, I had 28 Galleons in ExpAge, with 8 fleet commanders. The fleet coms all made it through, but only 23 ships...???
Some have said the units need to be packed for transition, but others contradicted them, and I have seen no difference.

A modicum of clarity would go a long way.
 
Everyone who is saying culture victory is the hardest on deity, I don't get it. It's the easiest and fastest for me every game.

Start of modern, research the tech then build an archaeologist in your top three production cities. Should only take two or three turns if I remember correctly. Use resources to boost production in your best cities instead of putting them in the worst cities. This is generally a trap.

When they come out, if there is a dig site already available on your home continent, send one to it. If not send one to research it and the other to the center of the continent. Send the remaining one or two to other dig or research sites. From there send them in opposite directions to dig sites. You should be able to claim at least half these artifacts on a standard size map.

You can research the mastery to give them plus one movement. If you see another archaeologist at a site, move on.

Research Hegemony, or if it's already been researched all civs have the ability to make the artifacts visible. Four per continent. Same strategy.

At some point get the technology or civic that lets them get artifacts from natural wonders. Every civ can get all of these so no rush, get them last. So that's another 4+.

The entire time this is going on, be overbuilding your obsolete buildings. Start by placing enough museums to house the artifacts, then in whatever order you prefer. You will get artifacts this way randomly. Sometimes you have to spend culture to do it. Do that every time. If somehow you still don't have enough, get the tech, civics, or build the wonder that gives them away.

Once you have them slotted, build world's fair in your highest production city. I always change it to something else one turn before it's done so I can get the other legacy paths finished. The next closest civ usually has less than 10 artifacts at this point.
 
Ok interesting. I only tried once, but every time I got to a dig site with my explorers (and I had a ton of them) there was an AI already there from some other civ. Good to know there are lots of ways to get artifacts in other ways, but I missed all that in the UI or instructions. Honestly the science victory is way more obvious, and fast enough for me to get modern over with quickly until they make it better or more interesting.
 
Ok interesting. I only tried once, but every time I got to a dig site with my explorers (and I had a ton of them) there was an AI already there from some other civ. Good to know there are lots of ways to get artifacts in other ways, but I missed all that in the UI or instructions. Honestly the science victory is way more obvious, and fast enough for me to get modern over with quickly until they make it better or more interesting.

Agreed. I always end up hating modern. I had a really fun world war in the game I just finished but it became a slog of 20 minute turns to move all my units and I was up to 36/30 cities because it takes so long to raze them. Decision fatigue set it and I want to start a new game because antiquity is my favorite. Raze times should be cut in half at least I think.

So since science and econ paths are on autopilot basically, I always end up shift+enter my way to the end. Science path is always the slowest for me by far. I bring a huge military with me and always keep my cities from exploration. I guess if I beelined the techs and had the two projects and then the pad all building at the same time it would be faster.
 
What is the purpose of razing taking multiple turns? Is it just to allow the city to be saved from destruction if someone can capture it back in time? You get the impression Rome didn’t spend decades (or centuries, I don’t know how many in-game years pass each turn in antiquity) razing Carthage so it’s presumably a gameplay decision rather than a historically inspired one?
 
What is the purpose of razing taking multiple turns? Is it just to allow the city to be saved from destruction if someone can capture it back in time? You get the impression Rome didn’t spend decades (or centuries, I don’t know how many in-game years pass each turn in antiquity) razing Carthage so it’s presumably a gameplay decision rather than a historically inspired one?

Gameplay. Most players would hate it if they lost a good city and the AI could destroy it in a turn or two, before they could launch a counter-attack to win it back.

You could argue that razing shouldn't even be allowed after the ancient era. When, historically, did a city most recently get destroyed after it was captured (not counting cities that got destroyed in the process of being captured - and even those were generally re-built fairly soon thereafter)? But for gameplay reasons, razing likely needs to be kept or else players have to live with inefficiently placed AI cities.
 
Gameplay. Most players would hate it if they lost a good city and the AI could destroy it in a turn or two, before they could launch a counter-attack to win it back.

You could argue that razing shouldn't even be allowed after the ancient era. When, historically, did a city most recently get destroyed after it was captured (not counting cities that got destroyed in the process of being captured - and even those were generally re-built fairly soon thereafter)? But for gameplay reasons, razing likely needs to be kept or else players have to live with inefficiently placed AI cities.
Like most things, Razing in realty was a lot more complicated than it ever has been in the game.

First, because a city that has been in one spot for any length of time is there because it is a Good Spot For A City: where trade routes come together, where a river/lake/sea/ coast/combination provides both routes and resources to 'feed' the city, where the city provides a political center for a region/state/empire.

So, IRL where cities have been 'razed' it is almost always because a bunch of the supporting factors were also destroyed or modified or shifted:

Rome went from an estimated 1,000,000 people udner the Empire to 30,000 by end of the 6th century. Not only because it got sacked multiple times, but also because the political center moved away and all the long-distance trade routes that supported the city disappeared along with the political cointrols.

Chingis and his Mongolian armies destroyed virtually every city in central Asia in their conquest and destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire 1219-1221 CE. Every one of them was rebuilt/back to 'normal' within a few years - because the trade routes were still viable, in fact protected and expanded by the unified Mongolian Empire stretching (by the 1250s CE) from China to Baghdad. All of those cities (Samarkand in various names probably the best known) were founded as Trade Hubs and flourished as such, and were too important as such to be allowed to disappear - until, of course, the Trade shifted, largely due to sea routes being opened up starting in the 15th century by Europeans that by-passed the overland central Asian routes in use since the bronze Age.

So, 'Razing' in the game is just a short hand version of what would be a much more complex process to model exactly. Take away all the imported resources from one of your cities in the game, though, and watch it stagnate rapidly: a less-vicious way of showing the importance of long-distance trade in 'building' and maintaining cities.
 
Like most things, Razing in realty was a lot more complicated than it ever has been in the game.

First, because a city that has been in one spot for any length of time is there because it is a Good Spot For A City: where trade routes come together, where a river/lake/sea/ coast/combination provides both routes and resources to 'feed' the city, where the city provides a political center for a region/state/empire.

So, IRL where cities have been 'razed' it is almost always because a bunch of the supporting factors were also destroyed or modified or shifted:

Rome went from an estimated 1,000,000 people udner the Empire to 30,000 by end of the 6th century. Not only because it got sacked multiple times, but also because the political center moved away and all the long-distance trade routes that supported the city disappeared along with the political cointrols.

Chingis and his Mongolian armies destroyed virtually every city in central Asia in their conquest and destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire 1219-1221 CE. Every one of them was rebuilt/back to 'normal' within a few years - because the trade routes were still viable, in fact protected and expanded by the unified Mongolian Empire stretching (by the 1250s CE) from China to Baghdad. All of those cities (Samarkand in various names probably the best known) were founded as Trade Hubs and flourished as such, and were too important as such to be allowed to disappear - until, of course, the Trade shifted, largely due to sea routes being opened up starting in the 15th century by Europeans that by-passed the overland central Asian routes in use since the bronze Age.

So, 'Razing' in the game is just a short hand version of what would be a much more complex process to model exactly. Take away all the imported resources from one of your cities in the game, though, and watch it stagnate rapidly: a less-vicious way of showing the importance of long-distance trade in 'building' and maintaining cities.


good post. but Ayuthaya is probably the exception.

 
Like most things, Razing in realty was a lot more complicated than it ever has been in the game.

First, because a city that has been in one spot for any length of time is there because it is a Good Spot For A City: where trade routes come together, where a river/lake/sea/ coast/combination provides both routes and resources to 'feed' the city, where the city provides a political center for a region/state/empire.

So, IRL where cities have been 'razed' it is almost always because a bunch of the supporting factors were also destroyed or modified or shifted:

Rome went from an estimated 1,000,000 people udner the Empire to 30,000 by end of the 6th century. Not only because it got sacked multiple times, but also because the political center moved away and all the long-distance trade routes that supported the city disappeared along with the political cointrols.

Chingis and his Mongolian armies destroyed virtually every city in central Asia in their conquest and destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire 1219-1221 CE. Every one of them was rebuilt/back to 'normal' within a few years - because the trade routes were still viable, in fact protected and expanded by the unified Mongolian Empire stretching (by the 1250s CE) from China to Baghdad. All of those cities (Samarkand in various names probably the best known) were founded as Trade Hubs and flourished as such, and were too important as such to be allowed to disappear - until, of course, the Trade shifted, largely due to sea routes being opened up starting in the 15th century by Europeans that by-passed the overland central Asian routes in use since the bronze Age.

So, 'Razing' in the game is just a short hand version of what would be a much more complex process to model exactly. Take away all the imported resources from one of your cities in the game, though, and watch it stagnate rapidly: a less-vicious way of showing the importance of long-distance trade in 'building' and maintaining cities.

Yeah, I'm sure in-game 99% of us raze cities because we want to build a new one a tile or two over for a better strategic sight. I'm sure if we had an option to "move city centre" to another urban district, we'd just use that.

Probably what you should have is that any city less than some small population amount, you should be able to simply abandon. Especially between eras, there's times that I might settle a city to get some specific resource, but when you transition to the new era that resource is gone and I'm happy to abandon that settlement. And for anything else, you could pay a large amount, and shift the city centre. That's probably even historically accurate - a lot of cities have an "old city centre" that's different from the modern city centre.
 
Yeah, I'm sure in-game 99% of us raze cities because we want to build a new one a tile or two over for a better strategic sight. I'm sure if we had an option to "move city centre" to another urban district, we'd just use that.

Probably what you should have is that any city less than some small population amount, you should be able to simply abandon. Especially between eras, there's times that I might settle a city to get some specific resource, but when you transition to the new era that resource is gone and I'm happy to abandon that settlement. And for anything else, you could pay a large amount, and shift the city centre. That's probably even historically accurate - a lot of cities have an "old city centre" that's different from the modern city centre.

I love the idea of moving the city center on capture. I keep about half the cities I conquer because of the raze penalty, but when it's getting to the point where I've clearly won the war I start razing everything. In modern I don't need new cities, don't even want another thing to manage so I raze everything I take.

I know I would keep more cities if I could move the city center to any urban district. I probably would if I could only move it one tile. Sometimes that's the difference in an AI city of one resource versus four.

Tangential to razing but how hard would it really be to get AI civs to properly construct their unique quarter? That has to be trivial right? Also they will have these insane yields like 2000 science and culture in early exploration, but when you finally take their capital or other major city they have barely built anything from the current age. I don't care that the AI cheats, I wish it would cheat more if that's what it takes to make the game challenging, but how about getting them to cheat by quickly overbuilding instead of just giving them a huge amount of yields?

All that contributes to razing as well.
 
Yeah, I'm sure in-game 99% of us raze cities because we want to build a new one a tile or two over for a better strategic sight. I'm sure if we had an option to "move city centre" to another urban district, we'd just use that.

Probably what you should have is that any city less than some small population amount, you should be able to simply abandon. Especially between eras, there's times that I might settle a city to get some specific resource, but when you transition to the new era that resource is gone and I'm happy to abandon that settlement. And for anything else, you could pay a large amount, and shift the city centre. That's probably even historically accurate - a lot of cities have an "old city centre" that's different from the modern city centre.

By 'shifting city centre' does you mean just moving the palace position or literally moving the tile from which the city radius is calculated somewhere else - if the latter, that could be p exploitable to have cities with many more tiles than usual.

Tangential to razing but how hard would it really be to get AI civs to properly construct their unique quarter? That has to be trivial right? Also they will have these insane yields like 2000 science and culture in early exploration, but when you finally take their capital or other major city they have barely built anything from the current age. I don't care that the AI cheats, I wish it would cheat more if that's what it takes to make the game challenging, but how about getting them to cheat by quickly overbuilding instead of just giving them a huge amount of yields?

Agreed, it definitely needs prioritising for the AI. Overbuilding/completing tiles with only one building rather than creating new urban tiles needs prioritising for the AI too. I don't mind capturing cities from the AI because I can overbuild whatever city building layout they have in the next era (and in Modern it doesn't matter because there's less need for long-term planning), but if they've got sprawling cities then you can't overbuild everything and lose spaces for wonders. Not to mention the homogeneous super-cities the AI ends up creating aren't v visually appealing or possible to really recognise the borders between.
 
By 'shifting city centre' does you mean just moving the palace position or literally moving the tile from which the city radius is calculated somewhere else - if the latter, that could be p exploitable to have cities with many more tiles than usual.



Agreed, it definitely needs prioritising for the AI. Overbuilding/completing tiles with only one building rather than creating new urban tiles needs prioritising for the AI too. I don't mind capturing cities from the AI because I can overbuild whatever city building layout they have in the next era (and in Modern it doesn't matter because there's less need for long-term planning), but if they've got sprawling cities then you can't overbuild everything and lose spaces for wonders. Not to mention the homogeneous super-cities the AI ends up creating aren't v visually appealing or possible to really recognise the borders between.

First question obviously one that if you allowed it to happen, what would the consequences be. That's more do you want the function to create a canal city, or because moving the centre opens up more space for another city to claim a middle ring. Or are you moving to claim resources just out of range. I think it also would vary a little depending on when you allowed it - if it was a project you could run once (per era) per city? Maybe it's not a big deal to claim extra radius. If it was something you could chain more than that, then yeah, you have to be more restrictive.

My last game, I know the AI did correctly build their UQ Parthenon at least in one city I captured. So I know it is possible. But yeah, it's annoying when they're split up. Frankly, even if there are rare times when it might make sense to not worry about the UQ and actually split them, I'd rather they just force them to try as much as possible. I'd rather a badly placed UQ than a split up one.
 
By 'shifting city centre' does you mean just moving the palace position or literally moving the tile from which the city radius is calculated somewhere else - if the latter, that could be p exploitable to have cities with many more tiles than usual.



Agreed, it definitely needs prioritising for the AI. Overbuilding/completing tiles with only one building rather than creating new urban tiles needs prioritising for the AI too. I don't mind capturing cities from the AI because I can overbuild whatever city building layout they have in the next era (and in Modern it doesn't matter because there's less need for long-term planning), but if they've got sprawling cities then you can't overbuild everything and lose spaces for wonders. Not to mention the homogeneous super-cities the AI ends up creating aren't v visually appealing or possible to really recognise the borders between.
If they had a “relocate city center” then I would say all the settlement’s tiles that are outside of the settlement’s new range radius are just razed and lost.
 
Razed and lost seems a little harsh. Probably just the Urban tiles.

Probably; the people manning any rural tiles realize they are to far from the settlement to gain any benefit, basically living in the wilderness. So you get that many growth events to represent migration. Or, you get actual Migrants.

Migrants might be to good as you could move them to another settlement, but Migrants also prevent you from getting a few new specialists in captured cities in later ages.
 
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