More N00b Q's and a Short Story :-)

[Sic_Brutality]

Firstly, thanks to every one of the 'veteran' players for helping all us noobies as it is greatly appreciated.

My short story: Well, since buying this game exactly one week ago, I have lost: 27 hrs of sleep over 7 days, 8 lbs (from not eating as much), and close to one girlfriend (good thing she understands as she's a gamer too). At any rate, I am learning the game at a furious rate. My first 3 tries, I didn't do well. But, I came to this forum and it helped me do much better. Still on Chieftan level, I took Japan to a cultural victory in the Modern Age around 2011 AD. While this is not a spectacular achievement, I was quite happy getting that far. The previous 3 games, I don't think I even had the ability to build Frigates yet. So, everything is going well, but I still have a few questions.....

1) With Japan, I went to war with Korea. The war lasted many years (don't remember how long) and my cities finally went into Disorder until I signed a Peace Treaty. Q: Typically, how long can you carry out war without going into Disorder?

2) What do you normally do with the cites after you capture them? I totally overtook China early one and I was just taking every city (which appears to have caused my Cultural win) from Korea that I could.

3) For my cities, I see that you can assign workers to each specific square. How do I verify which worker is working what square? When I zoom to the city, I see the workers, the icons on the specific squares, but I don't understand exactly what's going on.

Thanks!!!!

 

[WackenOpenAir]

1) With Japan, I went to war with Korea. The war lasted many years (don't remember how long) and my cities finally went into Disorder until I signed a Peace Treaty. Q: Typically, how long can you carry out war without going into Disorder?

2) What do you normally do with the cites after you capture them? I totally overtook China early one and I was just taking every city (which appears to have caused my Cultural win) from Korea that I could.

3) For my cities, I see that you can assign workers to each specific square. How do I verify which worker is working what square? When I zoom to the city, I see the workers, the icons on the specific squares, but I don't understand exactly what's going on.

1: The more units/cities you lose, the faster it becomes a problem. Also, under demo i think it is worse than republic. (can't confirm, havent had a democracy in years)

2: Build settlers from them to fill in the gaps in the conquered area's. (stop at 65% if you dont want domination) Then, you could plant and chop forests around the towns once each tile and produce some units with that. However, i am not to lazy to micro my cities extensively until very late in the game, but i do find that way too tedious, so chances are you won't like to do that.
I usually just make specialists in the cities. The gold or science from those is not affected by corruption.
In cities that are close enough that they might become profitable, you could use the forest plant and chop to rush some courthouses/police stations and make them usefull.

3: You see your citizens with their moods in 1 row on the screen. You also see them on the terrain where they work.

You just choose the best tiles for them to work. The happiness of the guys is not directly related to the tiles they work. It is so indirectly though. You start out with a few content citizens and a bunch of unhappy ones. Several things can make them happier. luxury slider, temples/cathedrals etc and militairy police (under certain governments only) make unhappy citizens content. Luxuries (the resource luxuries, not the slider) makes content citizens happy if there are content citizens available. If those are not available, it makes unhappy citizens content.
If there are more unhappy citizens than happy ones, they start a riot. If there are no unhappy ones and at least half of the citizens is happy, they will start we love the king days.

When choosing tiles to work, you see the 3 resources the tiles can provide. Shields (bleu) are production needed to build buildings, wonders and units.
Grain (yellow) is food needed to grow your cities larger. Every citizen eats 2 food every turn. Each turn, after all citizens are fed, the remaining food goes into storage. If the storage is full, a new citizen is born.
Commerce (bright yellow) makes gold, happiness or science. You have the luxury and science sliders to decide how much is used for each of those.
Part of your production and commerce is lost to corruption and waste. This is shown by the red pictures.

Buildings like marketplaces and libraries increase the efficiency at wich the commerce is converted into science or gold. granaries split the size of the food storage by 2 (thus making the city grow double speed)

 

[TimBentley]

1) With Japan, I went to war with Korea. The war lasted many years (don't remember how long) and my cities finally went into Disorder until I signed a Peace Treaty. Q: Typically, how long can you carry out war without going into Disorder?

It depends on how the war is conducted (ie a war with few losses will take longer to create war weariness). Read the article in the war academy on war weariness for more information. Also note that war weariness only exists in republic, democracy, or (in Conquests) feudalism. Of course, if you are unlucky, that could cause earlier war weariness as well.

2) What do you normally do with the cites after you capture them? I totally overtook China early one and I was just taking every city (which appears to have caused my Cultural win) from Korea that I could.

There are various strategies to use on cities, partly dependent on your goals and on your culture. You can just keep most of the cities (I do this too often). This is good if you are going for domination and have a high culture. You can raze most of the cities (often keeping ones with wonders) and replace them with your own settlers. This is good when you don't have much culture. Or you can just raze most of the cities without replacing them. This is good if you are going for conquest.

3) For my cities, I see that you can assign workers to each specific square. How do I verify which worker is working what square? When I zoom to the city, I see the workers, the icons on the specific squares, but I don't understand exactly what's going on.

When you enter the city view, the citizens are grinning at you (or maybe not), and each square (other than the city square itself) with icons on it is being worked by a citizen. It doesn't really matter which citizen is working which square.

Edit: WackenOpenAir is correct in all he says.

 

[alamo]

To reduce WW try to fight the enemy on their territory, not yours. Enemy units in your territory and any destroyed improvements cause WW.

You get a happiness boost if they declare war on you. Sometimes you can provoke them into declaring war.

Try to pre-build most of the troops you will need for war, and save elites (even obsolete units) for faster leader farming.

This is what I do with cities. I never loose one to a flip if I can do this sucesfully.

Always garrison many troops immediately after capture to quell resistance - definitely 1x but mostly 2x and sometimes even 3x.
Turn on the mood governor so no riot after quelling.
If half the population quelled then make them clowns to starve out the resistance.
After resistance is over starve the city down to 1 by making them all tax men.
Rush a temple or library to get culture quickly (especially for cities with palace or wonder).

 

[Sic_Brutality]

Cool. That's all good information. I will put it to use tonight. I think I need to up it to the next level. I started Carthage last night (at like 1 am - ) and Egypt and Rome are the only 2 civs I've met and both of them have the same number of cities and already I have my capital at 12, several at 9, and a few around 6 (no aquaducts yet). I believe if I wanted to, I could destroy them rather easily, but I would prefer more of a challenge. Any thoughts on when I should go to the next level?

I read the war acadamy articles and it helped a lot. I still am wondering tho, what strategies most people use for attacking. Like, I've been in the habit of moving a few units at a time, attacking, moving back (or taking the city). I've gone through the cycle of: activate bomber, bomb, fortify, repeat.... so many times, I begin to grow weary. I guess I am looking for those little 'tricks' you use to move around during war. How many people move tons of units to a city, attack all at once, then stop war. How many do it my way, one unit at a time? Is there a better method and what is it?

 

[Sic_Brutality]

You get a happiness boost if they declare war on you. Sometimes you can provoke them into declaring war.

OK. Here is where I show my true noobie-ness. How exactly is this accomplished? Higher levels or can it be done on easy?

Always garrison many troops immediately after capture to quell resistance - definitely 1x but mostly 2x and sometimes even 3x.
Turn on the mood governor so no riot after quelling.
If half the population quelled then make them clowns to starve out the resistance.
After resistance is over starve the city down to 1 by making them all tax men.
Rush a temple or library to get culture quickly (especially for cities with palace or wonder).

Yeah, I usually garrison a few troops in the new city (also to help heal). I feel stupid because I don't know how to change the population to clowns. LOL - I am such a rookie. I'll have to try that tonight as well, but in the meantime, if anyone wants to tell me how to change a clown into a taxman, I am all ears. (In case you haven't noticed, I haven't used the zoom to city function a lot, so I don't even know little things like this....)

 

[morchuflex]

I feel stupid because I don't know how to change the population to clowns. LOL - I am such a rookie. I'll have to try that tonight as well, but in the meantime, if anyone wants to tell me how to change a clown into a taxman, I am all ears.

This is easy.
In the city display, click on any tile currently being worked by one of your citizens. Look! This citizen is now a "clown" (better known as "entertainer", or "Elvis" in Civ1). He appears on the far right of the population.
Then, click on the entertainer: he's now a taxman. Click again: he's a scientist. And so on (in the industrial (third) era, you'll discover new types of specialists).
To make him a working citizen again, click on the tile you want him to work.
Click in the center of the city display to let the computer choose for you.
Hope this helps.

 

[Sic_Brutality]

This is easy.
In the city display, click on any tile currently being worked by one of your citizens. Look! This citizen is now a "clown" (better known as "entertainer", or "Elvis" in Civ1). He appears on the far right of the population.
Then, click on the entertainer: he's now a taxman. Click again: he's a scientist. And so on (in the industrial (third) era, you'll discover new types of specialists).
To make him a working citizen again, click on the tile you want him to work.
Click in the center of the city display to let the computer choose for you.
Hope this helps.

Thank you morchuflex... that is exactly what I needed. I was clicking them at random and seeing them cycle but I didn't realize what I was doing. LOL, that explains why I had one worker and 12 scientists in my capital (I was trying to assign workers and I kept doing the wrong thing. LOL. Thanks again.

 

[ukrneal]

OK. Here is where I show my true noobie-ness. How exactly is this accomplished? Higher levels or can it be done on easy?

There are many ways to make them declare war on you. Here are a a few:
1. When you start the game, pick a more aggressive setting. They will be more inclined to do this.
2. If they enter your territorty, always make them leave or declare war. Either: they were going to attack you and they will OR they were trying to cross your territory to attack someone else. If the latter, just keep making them leave until they declare.
3. Plant cities within 3 or even 2 squares and you will really make them mad. Eventually, they will probably attack.

Finally, I'd recommend a level jump. The game is actually played differently at the higher levels, with more trading, more coming from behind, etc. The AI's are usually much more aggressive as well. I'd pick something higher than chieftan, but it means you'll probably have to unlearn some stuff and rely more on trading and such.

Glad you're having fun.

 

[Sic_Brutality]

2. If they enter your territorty, always make them leave or declare war. Either: they were going to attack you and they will OR they were trying to cross your territory to attack someone else. If the latter, just keep making them leave until they declare.

Yeah, I've noticed that even when the right of passage agreement expires, they still come into my territory. I kick em out, the come back. Finally, I said... "Screw it." and let em go.

3. Plant cities within 3 or even 2 squares and you will really make them mad. Eventually, they will probably attack.

What's the reasoning behing this? Why would that piss them off?

Finally, I'd recommend a level jump. The game is actually played differently at the higher levels, with more trading, more coming from behind, etc. The AI's are usually much more aggressive as well. I'd pick something higher than chieftan, but it means you'll probably have to unlearn some stuff and rely more on trading and such.

Glad you're having fun.

Thanks. Yeah, I noticed something (all you veterans will be like "Duh!")..... I noticed that if you play on Chieftan, with only 2 other civs, the other civs develop at phenominally low rates. When you up it to 3-4, it's much faster, and when you make it 7 (my current game), they are right there with you usually (maybe a couple civs aren't as advanced). I am finding myself trying to keep up with the AI most of the time. Anyway..... with 7 civs, I've been trading techs, luxuries, etc.... a HELLA lot more than with 2-3 civs. So that helps. Anywho.... thanks again for the info.

 

[ukrneal]

It irritates them because you will now be fighting for the same squares to supply your city. Also you'll be fighting a culture war there anyway (the chance of a culture flip takes into account the number of squares out of the 21 possible that you control). In general, the mood of the AI you do this to will go significantly down when you do this in most cases. Keep in mind that some consider this an exploit if you do it only 2 squares away. 3 is fair game. If it turns out there is a resource you are fighting over, this might lead to a war as well.

If you ever plant a city on enemy territory, they will declare war immediately.

In terms of level, I'd jump to something over regent and see how you fare. Your initial builds get much more important as you go up in level.

 

[rysingsun]

In general, the mood of the AI you do this to will go significantly down when you do this in most cases. Keep in mind that some consider this an exploit if you do it only 2 squares away. 3 is fair game. If it turns out there is a resource you are fighting over, this might lead to a war as well.

heh, i do this all the time to get resources. i do it near and far. ive never had war declared on me right after doing it even on harder levels, so im skeptical whether its really a "good strategy for making the ai declare war". i thought it was only considered an exploit if you did this to facilitate an attack on their city.

wow ... good for improving the chance of a culture flip? ill have to try it more

 

[Scuffer]

If you ever plant a city on enemy territory, they will declare war immediately.

I think if you do that, the game counts it as you declaring war on them.

 

[kb2tvl]

1) The number of turns varies. If you are in rep or demo, war weariness(ww) increases based on the intensity of fighting... No fighting, no ww. Check out the strat section.


2) On higher levels, culature flipping becomes an issue. Sometimes it is better to raz the city and place a city or two in its place.

3) If you have a govenor operating, double click on the worked tile of the map inside the city. Single click after the govenor is turned off to remove workers.