Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Norton II]

By the way, I just realized this, but if you sign an alliance, you have to stay at war for 20 turns. That explains why my rep gets trashed sometimes. And why nations go to war with me with no warning.

Yup. Even if you end the alliance by conquering the civ you're allied against, you're rep's trashed.

1. I hear some talk about exiling a civ (to an island usually) what is the purpose of that? Is it bad for your rep to have destroyed the last city of a civ?

Unless you still have an alliance in place, it does nothing to your rep. Exiling a civ to an island or other unproductive area is usually done for histographic victories. If conquest victory is enabled, you need to keep soembody around, but you don't want them ever to become a threat again, so you set up a nice little prison for them, then take the rest of their land.

2. I have read conflicting info on culture flipping probabilities. I captured the Inca capitol (Pyramids and Sun Tzu) by marching two armies (3cavalry and 2guerrilla+infantry) and simply taking it. Now I am afraid to lose it, but I almost have flight, and I'm thinking of airlifting more units there (and to a few other cities I'm worried about. I heard that with a big enough garrison you can ensure no culture flip, but I also heard the opposite... So?

You can prevent a flip with enough units, but if the flip chances are significant, you need a ridiculous number of units to stop a flip. Adding any land units with attack and defense values lowers the chances, though. If you download CivAssist II and go to the Cities tab, you'll find out the flip chances for every city as well as the number of units needed to prevent a flip.

3. Strategic question: On the other side of the world, Netherlands had about 1/3 of the second continent group, there are four civs on the group, should I get them allied against the dutch or should I pick them off in ascending order of power. Dutch have a tech lead over everyone but me, so I was thinking they might be able to take cities to their South, while I took their Northern cities, and make them refrain from attacking by placing lots of defense there.

Unless you think you can take out the Dutch in 20 turns, bring the other guys in to keep Willie's attention divided and to keep them from coming in with the Dutch against you. Just remember not to conquer them in less than 20 turns if you do bring in allies.

4. How do your spies become veterans?

IIRC switching to communism makes your spies into veterans--they become elite if you switch to fascism. I don't know if there's another way.

5. I am researching Flight now, 7 turns (just starting), should I wait for it before I go Communist?

That depends on whether you absolutely need flight in 7 turns. If not, go ahead and revolt.

6. Is Communism really that bad for Commerce, Is it good for it if you have a lot of spread out cities?

It can be bad for commerce since you lose the commerce bonus from rep/demo, but if you do have a lot of cities widely spaced, communism might actually bring in more commerce once you develop those cities.

 

[gmaharriet]

More questions:

1. I hear some talk about exiling a civ (to an island usually) what is the purpose of that? Is it bad for your rep to have destroyed the last city of a civ?

I'll answer what I can. Exiling has two purposes. 1) If you are in a 20-turn MA, you take a rep hit if you destroy the victim before the alliance is up. Exile leaves them for your ally to go after. 2) You may not have the ships or whatever to conveniently reach the island, and it's easier to just make peace and find another victim. Their cultural influence is much less at that distance, so the cities you've captured from them are at low flip-risk.

2. I have read conflicting info on culture flipping probabilities. I captured the Inca capitol (Pyramids and Sun Tzu) by marching two armies (3cavalry and 2guerrilla+infantry) and simply taking it. Now I am afraid to lose it, but I almost have flight, and I'm thinking of airlifting more units there (and to a few other cities I'm worried about. I heard that with a big enough garrison you can ensure no culture flip, but I also heard the opposite... So?

AI's who have Great Wonders already have a great deal of culture built up...hence the risk of flipping. It can take a very large number of your troops to reduce that risk...sometimes 40, 50 or more units...and you don't want to tie them up that way when they could be out conquering. Better to place a few good units outside the wonder city and retake it quickly if/when it flips. The MapStat or CA2 utilities can tell you how many units you'd need to reduce risk.

The rest of your questions either have too many variables or I don't have the answer. I think the Intelligence Agency gives you veteran spies, but I don't generally research that direction.

X-post with Norton II

 

[MAS]

Starving/bombing a city down to size 1, and keeping it that way does wonders to the amount of units you need to prevent a flip.

Keeping a scientific civ around with a single crappy city can help you gain tech by gifting it to a new age, then trading for their free tech.

But I would not exile a civ to some far of little island. If possible, I'd like to keep them easily accessible on a far off place but still on my continent.
Making a RoP with them, but then surrounding their city with 8 units.



@Pitelk: you'll need to ask that in the Civ4 forum, but I assume a mod will soon fix this for you...

 

[btfx]

Starving/bombing a city down to size 1, and keeping it that way does wonders to the amount of units you need to prevent a flip.

Keeping a scientific civ around with a single crappy city can help you gain tech by gifting it to a new age, then trading for their free tech.

But I would not exile a civ to some far of little island. If possible, I'd like to keep them easily accessible on a far off place but still on my continent.
Making a RoP with them, but then surrounding their city with 8 units.

Ahh! You make very very very very good points! I think I will draft the population down to 1 though. It would be sad to accidentally lose an improvement, plus it's too late to bomb.
Actually I forgot all about drafting! I need to do it more often, especially with cities I just captured, ones I know will starve soon.

The scientific civ idea is great.

New questions:

1. Is there something wrong with drafting cities that are mainly (or 100%) foreign nationals?

2. I know drafting makes th citizens of that city unhappy, but does it have any other consequences?


By the way, I don't believe there is such a thing as elite spies (or conscript). I read a War Academy article on the subject of espionage probabilities, and neither was mentioned.
Also I think the IA (Intelligence Agency, not Intelligent Artificiality ) allows you to conduct espionage (non-Embassy missions). So that's not it.

 

[Sashie VII]

Interesting situation.
3 questions:

1. Map size?
2. Number of AI's?
3. Victory Condition goal?

Standard, 7 preselected. Conquest. I can reach the AIs by coastal passage.

A bit late reply, I know, but I'm going to let the game lie for now and pick up that 5CC that I've left for a few months.

No AIs have lit yet, only Mongols have Map Making. I've a few curraghs on patrol around the passages to China (closest neighbour), and some AIs have yet to learn Alphabet.

Most probably I'd take The Great Lighthouse and hand-build The Great Library, but that's a decision for another day. I may yet change my mind.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[sercer88]

Ahh! You make very very very very good points! I think I will draft the population down to 1 though. It would be sad to accidentally lose an improvement, plus it's too late to bomb.
Actually I forgot all about drafting! I need to do it more often, especially with cities I just captured, ones I know will starve soon.

The scientific civ idea is great.

New questions:

1. Is there something wrong with drafting cities that are mainly (or 100%) foreign nationals?

2. I know drafting makes th citizens of that city unhappy, but does it have any other consequences?


By the way, I don't believe there is such a thing as elite spies (or conscript). I read a War Academy article on the subject of espionage probabilities, and neither was mentioned.
Also I think the IA (Intelligence Agency, not Intelligent Artificiality ) allows you to conduct espionage (non-Embassy missions). So that's not it.

I'll answer what I can, and that is question #2: as far as I know, it has no other effect other than an unhappy populace.

I also want to add this: you cannot draft in a town...in other words: you cannot draft a unit if the population is 6 or less (so you can't draft the pop to 1)

 

[btfx]

Err, well. On of my questions answered itself. Apparently you cannot draft a citizen of a different nationality. So in the Inca ex-capitol where there were no Mayan citizens, I couldn't draft. (Fortunately it didn't culture flip anyway).

Anyway, I still don't know how spies become Veterans, but when I switched to Communism, they all did. I still think there is a different way also.

By the way my income DID increase.
Go communism!


It took a few turns, but with four armies I managed to wipe out the Inca with few losses. I have a hefty tech lead on the rest of the world, and I will demand their cities one by one. I want to see if I can get all of them purely for peace settlements 20 turns at a time (actually about 5 turns at a time, since there are four civs), except the capitols of course. I have been itching to get my hands on those dyes...

By the way, going waaay back to the CxxC discussion. If I didn't have communism, there would have been little or nothing I could do about the rampant corruption in the continent I conquered (the continent I claimed at start was ok). Do you guys deal with it some way I don't understand? I mean without changing building stats or anything. Even with courthouses it was a big problem.

Some more questions:

1. I have never ROP raped anyone though my rep is otherwise quite filthy. None of the civs want to sign ROP with me, is this because I am the superpower or because of my bad rep?

2. Will bombing my opponent's cities into dust make it more likely that they will give me one of their beloved cities (with luxury resources) in a peace settlement?

3. Will bombing THAT city increase the chances?

4. Will bombing their infrastructure increase the chances? I want to make this a last resort. After all, that will become MY infrastructure fairly soon.

 

[Aceman101]

1) This is probably because of your rep. The AI will usually always accept ROP deals if your rep is good (They never not accepted a Rop deal with me).

2) Hardly not. The AI will only give you one of their cities if you have affected their nation hugely. By that I mean captured/destroyed at least a few cities. But they usually only give you their cities if you have captured, say, 15+ cities.

3) What do you mean by that? Do you mean will bombing decrease flip chances? Or do you mean: "Will bombing the city itself increase the chances of the AI giving cities to me?" If that was your question, then the answer is no. Like I said you have to affect the AI greatly before it will start giving you city(s) for peace.

Just a side not here: You usually can't get more than 1 or 2 cities from the AI unless they only have about less than 5 left.

4) Since you need to bomb the city to bomb the infrastructure, this is the same as the above. Read answer 3 above ^.

 

[Norton II]

By the way, I don't believe there is such a thing as elite spies (or conscript). I read a War Academy article on the subject of espionage probabilities, and neither was mentioned.

You can only get elite spies with fascism, so if the article was written pre-Conquests, it wouldn't mention them.

 

[btfx]

2) Hardly not. The AI will only give you one of their cities if you have affected their nation hugely. By that I mean captured/destroyed at least a few cities. But they usually only give you their cities if you have captured, say, 15+ cities.

3) What do you mean by that? Do you mean will bombing decrease flip chances? Or do you mean: "Will bombing the city itself increase the chances of the AI giving cities to me?" If that was your question, then the answer is no. Like I said you have to affect the AI greatly before it will start giving you city(s) for peace.

Just a side not here: You usually can't get more than 1 or 2 cities from the AI unless they only have about less than 5 left.

4) Since you need to bomb the city to bomb the infrastructure, this is the same as the above. Read answer 3 above ^.

Just to clarify, I just received 3 cities for peace, after capturing only ~5, but one of then being the capitol.
Also, the difference between #2 and #3 is that in #2, I am bombing every city EXCEPT the one I want to receive, mostly because I'm scared to destroy the harbor (in communism I can't just rush it with my dubious amount of gold). There is still a huge effect on the enemy, their population will be divided by at least 5, some of their improvements will be destroyed and they will have almost NO military left. In #3, I am bombing the city I want to receive, this is problematic, since I will have to repopulate it if I want to build the harbor fast, that is whole new factor. However if getting the population down to ~1 will make the city half as important to the AI, that will suffice. By #4 I meant improvements, mines, irrigation, road & rr. I don't want to have to re-cultivate the land, especially without roads, but then again, if it's a big deal to the AI, maybe I will bomb all their capitol tiles, to make sure they fix it in 20 turns or less.

You can only get elite spies with fascism, so if the article was written pre-Conquests, it wouldn't mention them.

Ahh, I understand now.

 

[Norton II]

By the way, going waaay back to the CxxC discussion. If I didn't have communism, there would have been little or nothing I could do about the rampant corruption in the continent I conquered (the continent I claimed at start was ok). Do you guys deal with it some way I don't understand? I mean without changing building stats or anything. Even with courthouses it was a big problem.

Most people deal with corruption by working around it. In all areas where corruption is maxed out (or close to it), you can build cities one tile away from each other, rail and irrigate the land around them, then let them grow to size 5 or 6 and assign 2-3 citizens in each town as scientists or taxmen. With enough science farms, you might be able to run zero science and still get 4-turn techs!

Some more questions:

1. I have never ROP raped anyone though my rep is otherwise quite filthy. None of the civs want to sign ROP with me, is this because I am the superpower or because of my bad rep?

2. Will bombing my opponent's cities into dust make it more likely that they will give me one of their beloved cities (with luxury resources) in a peace settlement?

3. Will bombing THAT city increase the chances?

4. Will bombing their infrastructure increase the chances? I want to make this a last resort. After all, that will become MY infrastructure fairly soon.

1. You probably declared war on someone with your units still in their territory. That destroys your RoP reputation just as effectively as a real RoP abuse would.
2-4. I really don't know for sure, but bonbing a city down to size 1 and destroying its infrastructure would lower that city's value to the AI, thus making them more likely to hand it over in a peace treaty. Of course, you still need to hurt them pretty badly before they'll give you any cities at all.

 

[btfx]

Another question: A bomber has a rate of fire of 3 (or maybe 2, but definitely more than 1), and lethal bombardment. If I attack a redline enemy unit standing on a road, is there a chance that the unit will be killed, and then the road destroyed? I will probably find out in a few hours.

 

[vmxa]

It will kill the unit, not cut the road. If a worker was on th road, it would cut th road.

 

[btfx]

It will kill the unit, not cut the road. If a worker was on th road, it would cut th road.

Thanks.

Ok, here's a problem. I generally play for domination/conquest. Now I am done with my own continent, and slowly but surely chopping away at the other one. The game is quite boring at this point. Generally what I do each turn is tell my developed cities to keep producing what they are producing (military), and telling my developing cities what buildings to build next. This is ok. However I am tremendously bored, since all I do is bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, unload forces, take city, rinse, and repeat... Is this just something you have to do at the end of the game (if conquest/domination), or should I increase the difficulty to make it more of a struggle. Also, should I make the map smaller?

 

[Aceman101]

I see Norton has answered your other questions.
Well are you winning by far? are you ahead in tech heaps? Do you have a much greater score than the AI's? Than this surely is a sign that you must move up. It will be a struggle in higher difficulties, but you will particularly notice a big differense from emperor to monarch. Because that is when only one or two citizens are content and the AI will be more agressive and recieve free troops.

What level are you playing on now?

If you like naval war stick to large/huge maps with lots of water. If you like land wars stick to small/medium pangea maps.

(edit) Also if you like longer games large/huge maps would be good. If you like quick intense games small/medium or even tiny. But I find tiny a bit too small. It just depends what you like best . Also on higher difficulty levels smaller maps are commonly easier. But beware, you won't find as much resources with smaller maps.

 

[btfx]

I see Norton has answered your other questions.
Well are you winning by far? are you ahead in tech heaps? Do you have a much greater score than the AI's? Than this surely is a sign that you must move up. It will be a struggle in higher difficulties, but you will particularly notice a big differense from emperor to monarch. Because that is when only one or two citizens are content and the AI will be more agressive and recieve free troops.

What level are you playing on now?

If you like naval war stick to large/huge maps with lots of water. If you like land wars stick to small/medium pangea maps.

Thanks, good tips. I am still on warlord now

 

[Aceman101]

I think it's time to move up. I didn't find regent that much of a struggle when I switched over from warlords. Just give it a go. It's not that hard. Anyway, the good news is that your not on chieftain. Because staying at chieftain won't get you very far. Anyway give it a go and you can always go back if it's too hard .

 

[btfx]

Would you think it's a good idea to enable barbarians? I generally don't have them.

 

[Aceman101]

Hmm. I usually have barbarians on. It's good if you want to train up your troops to elite, but you can't make any leaders by killing barbarians. I think you should perhaps have the barbarians on at the level after sednetery (Don't know what it's called ). But the level after sednetery will be a good choice.

With sednetery, theres not enough barbarians, and you won't get much troops trained up. Think of barbarians as a training ground for troops .

On the other hand with restless onwards, there's too much barbs, and you don't want that either .

Just keep those border cities defended and you'll be safe from barb attacks.

 

[gmaharriet]

Hmm. I usually have barbarians on. It's good if you want to train up your troops to elite, but you can't make any leaders by killing barbarians. I think you should perhaps have the barbarians on at the level after sednetery (Don't know what it's called ). But the level after sednetery will be a good choice.

It's Roaming.

With sednetery, theres not enough barbarians, and you won't get much troops trained up. Think of barbarians as a training ground for troops .

Not just troop promotions, though that's one advantage. When you break up a barb camp, you get 25gold. Sometimes you can fund your research to a large extent with barb gold.

Just be careful what units you use to go after barbs. At Chieftain and WarLord (maybe even Regent), you can usually kill barbs easily with warriors, but as you move up the levels, you have less advantage against barbs and will want to use archers or archer/spear pairs.

Barb camps will only spawn in "unlit" areas. If you have the unsettled space available, you can actually farm barb camps for their gold. Move your troops out of the area to let the shadows return. Keep an eye on your Military Advisor for when he says something like, "Irwanis have been spotted near XYZ", then send your troops back into the area to kill them and collect more gold.