Played over 40 hours and still have BASIC questions

[Kalyse]

Hello,
I have played a lot of games, but still have a lot of questions.

Why do my cities get angry for overcrowding? How can I fix this?
Do you chose your wonders based around your civilisation and positionioning or do you just go for whatever?

For instance I was playing Catherine (shes my favourite person for expansion - I dont know if thats right?) and I decided to go for Hanging Gardens to up my population. Some wonders are just terrible?

Why is it that some people never trade with me? I have set their Friendliness to 100% just to see in World Builder and they still don't trade technologies. I could have 5 that they need and they still won't trade some measly mysticism.

What do you think is the best character to start with?

 

[xfactor99]

Hello,
I have played a lot of games, but still have a lot of questions.

Why do my cities get angry for overcrowding? How can I fix this?
Do you chose your wonders based around your civilisation and positionioning or do you just go for whatever?

For instance I was playing Catherine (shes my favourite person for expansion - I dont know if thats right?) and I decided to go for Hanging Gardens to up my population. Some wonders are just terrible?

Why is it that some people never trade with me? I have set their Friendliness to 100% just to see in World Builder and they still don't trade technologies. I could have 5 that they need and they still won't trade some measly mysticism.

What do you think is the best character to start with?

Hi, welcome to the game

Overcrowding is so you can't just grow your population out of control. People will be angry if it is too congested in the city. Fix this by making the citizens more happy - acquiring happiness resources (e.g. Silk, Spices, Dye), or building certain buildings (e.g. Market).

Some wonders are more beneficial for certain leaders, while others are not. For example, "creative" leaders shouldn't build Stonehenge, as they do not need its' effects. On the other hand, the Pyramids is seen as really helpful for philosophical leaders, because it enables an early switch to Representation to leverage the philosophical trait more effectively. The Hanging Gardens is generally seen as a good wonder no matter who you play - the only wonder that is universally seen as worthless is Chichen Itza.

Some people are just jerks, I'm afraid. Certain aggressive leaders (Tokugawa, Ragnar, Montezuma, to name a few) are very stingy with tech trading, while some others that are very easy to trade with include Gandhi and Mansa Musa. And I'm not sure, but setting someone's friendliness to 100% in WB doesn't necessarily work.

The best leaders? There's no right answer to this but most people say either 1) One of the Roman leaders (because they have the mighty Praetorians) or 2) any "financial" leader

 

[Kalyse]

Hello,
Thanks for answering those questions.

It appears I have another question.
I just quickly acquired Budhaism and Judiasm. I was the first. WHat benefits do I get from this? How do I exploit these relgions?

 

[Kalyse]

I just gave Manu Musa a technology and got him to convert to hinduism, is this a benefit to me also.
Thanks

 

[Kalyse]

I was just playing in my game, and I just won in 1840 AD with a diplomatic victory. This was on noble setting.. what I dont figure is why were Manu Musa and De Gaulle (tiny map) voting Yes for me? Why didn't they Abstain?

 

[Ad Hoc]

Religions are very much a two edged sword, founding a religion and building a shrine in the holy city will rake you in money from all other cities who have that religion. it will also help your standing with other civs who adopt the same religion ( they will care for their brothers in the faith) conversely civs who are of other religions will consider you heathens and you will take a hit on your diplo standing

 

[Kalyse]

Okay, but building a shrine counts as a world wonder doesnt it? I have to get a great person THEN... use him to build it?


Should I get all 5 religions? And then would I just horde all the profits?

 

[Krick19]

There's 7 religions. And if you're playing on Noble and you're getting all the religions, you're making a beeline for them or your AI is screwed up. I'd only get like one or two.

 

[Kalyse]

Yeah, I was making a 'bee line' Its easy to get the first 3 and doesnt really screw your development much. Its just about 12 turns taken up to get poly, med and the other one.

Each Religion is the same anyway isnt it? No one religison has 'special powers'

 

[GT_OKEZ]

I usually obstain from religion until theocracy is available . Its really the only SR civ worth using IMO . I usually convert to the religion thats most popular to increase my diplomatic standing and decrease the chance of AIs helping an AI I'm intending to invade . I'll usually aim for an AI with a shrine or one that has had success building wonders .

Its why I get Feudalism pretty early , I'll even use Oracle help . I do it mainly for vasslage and once Theocracy is available I'll begin strong military build up for an invasion .

A good way to get theocracy fast is by using one of your Great Prophets to lightbulb theology. Get all the standard worker and military techs meanwhile . Get Alphabet early and use it to trade for Meditation , Masonry , and/or Monotheism so by the time you produce a GrPr , you'll be able to lightbulb theology .

Having Oracle already starts you on the path to produce a GrPr .

By this time I would have just grabbed Feudalism too being able to incorperate both vasslage and theocracy giving my military an extra 4 XP . Ideally , with an aggressive leader and barracks built , you should be able to slap a couple more promotions on to your units along with the inherent combat 1 bonus .

I usually play Alex of Greece , Phi/Agg . He's good for getting that GP out faster , running the SE , and having a good military hand to boot .

 

[Underdawg]

Why has no one shown him Situsil's Beginner's guide?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

In fact, read the entire war academy even if some articles don't apply to this version anymore.

Also, check out Situsil's succession games in the Strategy and Tips section - I hear they are excellent for players trying to get more insight into the game, though I have not read through one myself.

 

[KMadCandy]

some good articles haven't made it into the war academy yet. here are 2 that might help you:

ways into happiness

ways into health

three things i can think of off the top of my head about the trading technology thing:

• they all have a set value for what they consider a "monopoly tech". they don't all have the same value, but each one has a value that's set and stays the same for them, i mean. so sometimes even if they like you, they still think "ooooooh nooooooo this is top secret, only one other person knows it, must guard it with my life!" tokugawa is always that way, he thinks "we're not ready to start sharing this technology just yet" (that's the official reason they give, printed when you hover over the tech) until only one person doesn't know the tech . mansa musa is the opposite. he doesn't care even about real monopolies. he can be the only person to ever know a tech, and he'll still trade it! i'm pretty sure you actually can over-ride that with Friendly status

• leaders won't trade techs if they only know one living civilization. so if it's just you and him, you're out of luck. sometimes it's best when you start off with two people to take the annoying one's cities but leave him with the worst one, just so that the other guy still knows somebody is around so that he doesn't think "OMG, me and Kalyse are the only people on the planet, i can't share techs at all "

• if they're building a world wonder, they won't trade the tech for that until they're done building it. the excuse they give for that one is "we have our reasons". i can't actually blame them, i'm the same way

you mentioned Mysticism. if stonehenge hasn't been built, it may be that reason. that also implies it's really early, maybe they don't know anybody else? anyway, those are the ones i can think of atm. friendly isn't always the cure /sigh. just like life, eh?

 

[Willem]

Okay, but building a shrine counts as a world wonder doesnt it?

Yes, only one for each religion can be built.

I have to get a great person THEN... use him to build it?

You need a Great Prophet. Then you move him into the city where the religion was founded and click the button for the particular shrine you need there.

Should I get all 5 religions? And then would I just horde all the profits?

It's not really a good idea to try for that many religions. First, you're going to tie up all your Great People production trying to get Great Prophets in order to build the shrines for them all. You want a variety of Great People, not just one type, especially now with Corporations in the game.

Secondly, to get the most of a religion you need to build Missionaries in order to spread the religion to as many cities as possible. A city will only spontaneously adopt a religion on it's own for the first one, so if you're not actively creating Missionaries and spreading the other ones, you get very little benefit from having founded it. Which means that you will be tying up so much of your production building Missionaries, you'll probably lag behind in things like military units.

Finally, in order to get than many religions, you're going to have to beeline like crazy to each of those techs. So there'll be large holes in your tech tree that should have been filled first.

My advice is to have no more than two religions, maybe three. Though that's starting to push it.

 

[mystyfly]

Well as I understood it, you had about 5 techs they didn't. So that rather is WFYABTA, "We fear you are becoming too advanced", that is to prevent you from researching certain techs that the AI hasn't got much of a priority and trade it for all the other, cheaper techs.

About early religions: I had a small discussion with xanadux about that.
Well, say you start with Mysthicism and Agriculture and you have some flood plains and wheat around, then thats okay. But having everythin covered in forests and wasting beakers in Mono/Polytheism really stops growth; your first worker arrives 13 turns later. During this time, you work tiles where you could get twice the yield.
To profit from your holy city, you need the shrine. Not only for the money, but also for the auto-spreading of the religion. To get early GPP, you eighter need The Oracle or The Stonehenge, wich delay growth even further

So I usually forgo early religions and get Taoism wich conveniantly on the path to Liberalism.

 

[KMadCandy]

Well as I understood it, you had about 5 techs they didn't. So that rather is WFYABTA, "We fear you are becoming too advanced", that is to prevent you from researching certain techs that the AI hasn't got much of a priority and trade it for all the other, cheaper techs.

well the whole WFYABTA concept is really confusing which is why i didn't even mention it. you can be waaaaaay behind the AI and still have them tell you you're too advanced, and you can be far ahead of them and they don't consider you advanced at all. their definition of "advanced" is entirely based on how many techs that you've gotten in trades from any leaders that they know. the total amount of techs you know doesn't matter a single bit. it's to stop you from getting too many techs in trade, but it's not supposed to stop you from getting anything at all in trade.

you can be learning future tech 17, and if you've done all the research yourself all game long, somebody still would be willing to trade you archery if you haven't learned it, even if the highest tech they know is banking, seriously! because you're not "too advanced" by their definition, since you haven't done any trades (i'm pretty sure archery's not a pre-req for future tech)

then there's the opposite. i had a game in warlords where george washington was 3 parts away from finishing his spaceship and telling he feared i was becoming too advanced. the thing was, i didn't even know chemistry yet. i was at least 12 techs away from a total spaceship, i think more than that. not turns of research, whole entire techs! the joke was on him tho, i won about 5 turns later. i wasn't trying to go to alpha centauri. i won by culture.

 

[mystyfly]

well the whole WFYABTA concept is really confusing which is why i didn't even mention it. you can be waaaaaay behind the AI and still have them tell you you're too advanced, and you can be far ahead of them and they don't consider you advanced at all. their definition of "advanced" is entirely based on how many techs that you've gotten in trades from any leaders that they know. the total amount of techs you know doesn't matter a single bit. it's to stop you from getting too many techs in trade, but it's not supposed to stop you from getting anything at all in trade.

thats why i said you can't research certain techs and get all the others by trade

 

[KMadCandy]

oops sorry. since the OP specified that they "never trade with me" i thought you were answering that question, and that would not be due to WFYABTA.

 

[mystyfly]

if they're building a world wonder, they won't trade the tech for that until they're done building it. the excuse they give for that one is "we have our reasons". i can't actually blame them, i'm the same way

maybe that's the thing. everyone is building stonehenge

but seing clearer why they dont trade would really help. kalyse only says that they never trade. is it b/c every tech is red or is it just that he doesnt get trades he himself would accept

 

[Kalyse]

WFTABTA? Wonders for the... hmm nope I dont know what this stands

They are all just red. I would accept some trades

 

[KMadCandy]

WFTABTA? Wonders for the... hmm nope I dont know what this stands

They are all just red. I would accept some trades

WFYABTA = we fear you are becoming too advanced.

that, and "we are not ready to start sharing this technology just yet", and "we have our reasons", are all excuses they'll give if you hover your cursor over the technology when it's in the trade screen but shows up as red. also sometimes it's "we just don't like you enough" or "we will never trade with you, our worst enemy" but i imaging forcing them to be friendly meant those weren't the reasons .

two things helped me a TON when i got started: hovering over things i was curious about. not everything gives you more info when you try that, but quite a bit of stuff does! and F12 was (and still is) my best friend for opening the civilopedia. i forget so many things that i really should remember, since i looked them up 3 times yesterday. but, it's easier to save brain space for other things since i know i can look that up again easily enough...

signed, little miss lazy

Each Religion is the same anyway isnt it? No one religison has 'special powers'

they're all the same as far as keeping your people happy and the religious buildings you can build to ummm, celebrate? having the religion in your city -- temples, monasteries, "cathedrals" (altho those actually have various names for the religions, they're the same thing. the technologies that found the religions allow you to build different buildings or wonders, or open up different technologies, or open up different civics. that's the only difference really. oh and the later 4 religions (the ones that aren't hindu, buddhism, judaism) come with a free missionary as a bonus .