Little questions & answers thread

I don't think it's reasonable to disable spying without deep system rebalance. Spying plays important role in both influence economics (by providing additional targets to spend and decreasing influence income) and in conflict management (by adding negative relations on revealed espionage).

Also, spying doesn't hurt you the same way it did in Civ5 and Civ6, actually it's a good source of influence. So, while it's annoying to see, it's not bad actually.
The problem with Spy Actions is that the penalties and costs remain the same in all Ages, even though the availability of Influence does not. I find that on average my per turn Influence doubles with every Age, so that a per turn average of 25 - 40 in Antiquity becomes 100 - 150 by Modern. Since the cost of an Espionage Action remains static, that means it actually becomes considerably cheaper by Modern Age. In general, by then I'm getting hit with a Steal X action every 2 - 3 turns on average, which no matter what Counterspy action I take gets annoying very fast.

Easy Solution would be to either have each successive Steal X action increase in cost, or have each Espionage Action increase with each Age to keep in line with the general increase in other 'currencies' like Influence in each Age.
 
The problem with Spy Actions is that the penalties and costs remain the same in all Ages, even though the availability of Influence does not. I find that on average my per turn Influence doubles with every Age, so that a per turn average of 25 - 40 in Antiquity becomes 100 - 150 by Modern. Since the cost of an Espionage Action remains static, that means it actually becomes considerably cheaper by Modern Age. In general, by then I'm getting hit with a Steal X action every 2 - 3 turns on average, which no matter what Counterspy action I take gets annoying very fast.

Easy Solution would be to either have each successive Steal X action increase in cost, or have each Espionage Action increase with each Age to keep in line with the general increase in other 'currencies' like Influence in each Age.
I'm not sure if it's a problem. Spy actions are designed to intensify in later ages and modern is specifically designed to fuel world wars. And, as I said, unlike previous civ games, those actions don't really hurt you. So, I believe that's intentional.
 
Do injured units heal themselves whilst being carried by commanders? or even when Commanders heal? Or do I have to unload them and have them heal separately.
 
I'm not sure if it's a problem. Spy actions are designed to intensify in later ages and modern is specifically designed to fuel world wars. And, as I said, unlike previous civ games, those actions don't really hurt you. So, I believe that's intentional.
I understand the Intention, I just don't think it is entirely balanced between the cost of the actions and their results.

By the Modern Age (I kept track yesterday in my last game) one AI Civ 'stole' no less than 4 Techs - an entire Tier of technological progress - for the price of less than 12 turns of Influence, which also allowed them to research entirely different Techs at the same time. Admittedly, I suspect some of their research was wasted on techs they acquired through espionage, because you cannot choose what to 'steal', but that's still a substantial boost to a Civ that was trailing me in Science by about 200 points/turn. Given, as posted, that the cost per espionage action is trivial by the Modern Age compared to the average per-turn Influence received, I think it needs some balancing - not a complete revamp by any means.

Later today I hope to start a new game in which I will try focusing entirely on Influence and Espionage instead of my usual Science/Culture for advancing, and see what Impact the espionage actions have on 'normal' progress. Will report back on what I find in a few days . . .
 
Do injured units heal themselves whilst being carried by commanders? or even when Commanders heal? Or do I have to unload them and have them heal separately.
Even while 'stacked' with a Commander a unit can be healed, but you have to indicate the healing action for each individual unit, not just the Commander. Also, while healing no unit can move or do anything else, as far as I know: that 'special action' is probably being saved for somebody's Unique Unit . . .
 
I don't know if my eyes fail me, but is there an easy way to tell the difference between passives and civics slots when you mouse over a civic in the civic tree? I can never really tell which is a passive, and which I have to slot in. Or maybe I'm blind.
 
I understand the Intention, I just don't think it is entirely balanced between the cost of the actions and their results.

By the Modern Age (I kept track yesterday in my last game) one AI Civ 'stole' no less than 4 Techs - an entire Tier of technological progress - for the price of less than 12 turns of Influence, which also allowed them to research entirely different Techs at the same time. Admittedly, I suspect some of their research was wasted on techs they acquired through espionage, because you cannot choose what to 'steal', but that's still a substantial boost to a Civ that was trailing me in Science by about 200 points/turn. Given, as posted, that the cost per espionage action is trivial by the Modern Age compared to the average per-turn Influence received, I think it needs some balancing - not a complete revamp by any means.

Later today I hope to start a new game in which I will try focusing entirely on Influence and Espionage instead of my usual Science/Culture for advancing, and see what Impact the espionage actions have on 'normal' progress. Will report back on what I find in a few days . . .
It would be interesting to see the results. In my experience, since you could only run 1 instance of each espionage action at a time, and you rarely steal full tech, it's not that great. You get probably 30-50% research speed increase, while the associated costs and penalties significantly hinder your other influence investments.
 
Do injured units heal themselves whilst being carried by commanders? or even when Commanders heal? Or do I have to unload them and have them heal separately.
Injured units will heal in a commander if the commander is set to heal and doesnt perform any action.
Even while 'stacked' with a Commander a unit can be healed, but you have to indicate the healing action for each individual unit, not just the Commander. Also, while healing no unit can move or do anything else, as far as I know: that 'special action' is probably being saved for somebody's Unique Unit . . .
Just tested this in my own game and you can heal stacked units with just the commander's heal action. No need to individually set each packed unit to heal.
 
Injured units will heal in a commander if the commander is set to heal and doesnt perform any action.

Just tested this in my own game and you can heal stacked units with just the commander's heal action. No need to individually set each packed unit to heal.
Good to know. As it happened, I believe the only time I had used the commander's Heal action was to heal the commander, not the units stacked with him. I siply assumed that the separate Heal indicators on the units and commanders were because the actions were also separate.

I should know better by now than to assume anything about Civ VII's mechanics . . .
 
Good to know. As it happened, I believe the only time I had used the commander's Heal action was to heal the commander, not the units stacked with him. I siply assumed that the separate Heal indicators on the units and commanders were because the actions were also separate.

I should know better by now than to assume anything about Civ VII's mechanics . . .
My sense -- not based on actual testing -- is that an injured packed unit heals slowly. The slow healing rate means that it probably won't be ready for action again in a 10-turn war. I want to say that I've seen packed ships-of-the-line heal while the commander is moving around, exploring. But I can't be sure.

I am probably mis-applying what I've seen in Civ3, where injured units on a ship heal while the ship sails to its destination. In Civ7, the unit is not actually taking any actions while packed, so it *could* heal. That assumes some sort of resupply while packed, which makes a little sense. On the other hand, Civ7 also has wonderful new features like army reinforcement (disappear and magically move to where the commander is) which is super convenient but makes less intuitive sense.
 
Even while 'stacked' with a Commander a unit can be healed, but you have to indicate the healing action for each individual unit, not just the Commander. Also, while healing no unit can move or do anything else, as far as I know: that 'special action' is probably being saved for somebody's Unique Unit . . .
Stacked units will heal automatically as long as the commander doesn't move. You don't have to explicitly select the heal action.
 
I have a quest to "Improve a quinine resource" in the Modern Age. I have several instances of quinine that appeared after the transition from Exploration, near my settlements. Quinine does appear in my list of factory resources, now. 5 copies, even.

But all of those sources of quinine were on hexes that were previously improved -- they have woodcutters on them. I don't know if quiinine has its *own* special improvement. I don't have any sources that are "just outside" of a settlement, so that I could grow the settlement to include it.

How do I fulfill the quest?
 
Yeah that quest is weird. Sometimes some quests will immediately complete when chosen b/c one has already fulfilled the requirements, but others (like the Quinine quest) wants one to improve Quinine after accepting the quest; already improved Quinine doesn't seem to count.
 
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