Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[danthechan]

Spoiler :

It sounds to me that danthechan is not playing BtS.

Espionage points espionage were not introduced until BtS, and until BtS the spaceship only has to be launched to win.

So for him, there is no need to account for extra time after the spaceship has been built. Nor is there an espionage slider.

you nailed it. i was coming to that realization on my own. i bought a warlords edition at an extreme bargain price thru ebay. i was quite dissapointed when the game just ended when i built the last part. what other additions did they add?

 

[Samson]

what other additions did they add?

Off the top of my head, the big one was corporations, that give cities "stuff" (food, hammers, culture) at the expence of money in the late industrial / modern era. There were more scenarios (but none as good as the ones you will find here) and some tweaks to the tech tree.

[EDIT] and off wikipeadia:

- Corporations: A new gameplay feature, similar to the ‘religion’ feature, allows players to create corporations and spread them throughout the world. Each corporation provides benefits in exchange for certain resources.
- Espionage: Now available much earlier in the game, this expanded feature offers players many new ways to spy on opponents, stir citizen unrest and defend their government’s secrets.
- Random Events: New random events such as natural disasters, pleas for help, or demands from their citizens will challenge players to overcome obstacles in order for their civilizations to prosper. Random events can also be beneficial, such as scientific breakthroughs or incidents that improve relations with a neighbor.
- Advanced Starts: When starting the game in any era, this new option allows the player to purchase components for an already-developed nation.
- Expanded Space Victory: Obtaining a space victory is now more difficult and requires more strategy and decision-making than before.
- Expanded Diplomatic Victory: It is now possible to achieve diplomatic victories much earlier in the game, and to defy resolutions.
- New Game Options: Beyond the Sword offers various new game options, like new world-types and the option to play any leader-civilization combination.

New content includes:

- Ten new civilizations and leaders (Babylonia, Byzantine Empire, Ethiopian Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Khmer Empire, the Mayans, Native Americans, Netherlands, Portugal and Sumer)
- 6 new leaders for existing civilizations (Abe Lincoln, de Gaulle, Boudica, Darius I, Suleiman the Magnificent and Pericles).
- 25 new units, 18 buildings and new technologies added primarily to the late game.[10]
- 11 new scenarios.[5]
- Six new Wonders of the World.
- New diplomatic resolutions through the United Nations.

General changes:

- Improvements in AI (Artificial Intelligence) for harder games across all difficulty levels. The AI player will attempt more ways to win than before. It is also better at warfare (particularly naval operations) and economic management.[14]
- Early-game units now have different regional art styles and motifs.
- Colonies can split off from their motherland to form new civilizations if maintenance costs get too high[15]
- The foreign advisory screen has been overhauled.[14]
- Beyond the Sword includes some material from the previous Warlords expansion pack, specifically the core game features, but not the Warlords scenarios.[14]

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Or look here at the BtS Info Center

 

[Berzerker]

ty Montana

 

[Tigranes]

Does anyone know if there is any hot-key command to cancel all the orders you gave your units during the previous turns? Sometimes situation can change very drastically and if you gave unit an order to get somewhere in 10 turns it can be very tricky to find that unit and hit the cancel orders button before it actually moved.

 

[danthechan]

Off the top of my head, the big one was corporations, that give cities "stuff" (food, hammers, culture) at the expence of money in the late industrial / modern era. There were more scenarios (but none as good as the ones you will find here) and some tweaks to the tech tree.

[EDIT] and off wikipeadia:

- Corporations: A new gameplay feature, similar to the ‘religion’ feature, allows players to create corporations and spread them throughout the world. Each corporation provides benefits in exchange for certain resources.
- Espionage: Now available much earlier in the game, this expanded feature offers players many new ways to spy on opponents, stir citizen unrest and defend their government’s secrets.
- Random Events: New random events such as natural disasters, pleas for help, or demands from their citizens will challenge players to overcome obstacles in order for their civilizations to prosper. Random events can also be beneficial, such as scientific breakthroughs or incidents that improve relations with a neighbor.
- Advanced Starts: When starting the game in any era, this new option allows the player to purchase components for an already-developed nation.
- Expanded Space Victory: Obtaining a space victory is now more difficult and requires more strategy and decision-making than before.
- Expanded Diplomatic Victory: It is now possible to achieve diplomatic victories much earlier in the game, and to defy resolutions.
- New Game Options: Beyond the Sword offers various new game options, like new world-types and the option to play any leader-civilization combination.

New content includes:

- Ten new civilizations and leaders (Babylonia, Byzantine Empire, Ethiopian Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Khmer Empire, the Mayans, Native Americans, Netherlands, Portugal and Sumer)
- 6 new leaders for existing civilizations (Abe Lincoln, de Gaulle, Boudica, Darius I, Suleiman the Magnificent and Pericles).
- 25 new units, 18 buildings and new technologies added primarily to the late game.[10]
- 11 new scenarios.[5]
- Six new Wonders of the World.
- New diplomatic resolutions through the United Nations.

General changes:

- Improvements in AI (Artificial Intelligence) for harder games across all difficulty levels. The AI player will attempt more ways to win than before. It is also better at warfare (particularly naval operations) and economic management.[14]
- Early-game units now have different regional art styles and motifs.
- Colonies can split off from their motherland to form new civilizations if maintenance costs get too high[15]
- The foreign advisory screen has been overhauled.[14]
- Beyond the Sword includes some material from the previous Warlords expansion pack, specifically the core game features, but not the Warlords scenarios.[14]

wow, there is some cool sounding stuff there. looks like its time to do some shopping.

 

[Jwitti]

and since Civ V came out you can get civ IV and all it's expansions for like twenty bucks which makes me feel slightly cheated for buying them for forty each

 

[Abegweit]

Less than that.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Does anyone know if there is any hot-key command to cancel all the orders you gave your units during the previous turns? Sometimes situation can change very drastically and if you gave unit an order to get somewhere in 10 turns it can be very tricky to find that unit and hit the cancel orders button before it actually moved.

You can cancel all orders for all units of a particular type. Click on any unit of that type, in other words select one unit of that type: for example select one worker. Next hold down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) and click the cancel orders icon. All units of that type will have their orders canceled. If you want to cancel more than one unit type's orders, repeat with the next desired one. Of course, any unit that has already moved or done whatever else it was ordered to do will have already done it but if the order would have carried over to the next turn it will be canceled and not happen.

 

[Olson]

I've come across "sandboxing" in numerous places and, for game purposes, seems to be some way a player duplicates an area of their SP or MP game map for playtesting. Do they exit their game, open world builder, and duplicate their game situation from scratch?

 

[UnforcedError]

I've come across "sandboxing" in numerous places and, for game purposes, seems to be some way a player duplicates an area of their SP or MP game map for playtesting. Do they exit their game, open world builder, and duplicate their game situation from scratch?

Yes. You note everything you can see in the real game, settling position, opponents, map type, known tiles, gold etc, load up a start that corresponds with the map type (if known) and reproduce everything.

 

[Olson]

Yes. You note everything you can see in the real game, settling position, opponents, map type, known tiles, gold etc, load up a start that corresponds with the map type (if known) and reproduce everything.

Thanks for replying. That's what I thought might be the case from the context of the posts but wasn't sure if the term wasn't a slang for a Civ. feature or some 3rd party software. Thanks again.

 

[Sian]

Yes. You note everything you can see in the real game, settling position, opponents, map type, known tiles, gold etc, load up a start that corresponds with the map type (if known) and reproduce everything.

Personally ... when i bother that is ... i take a sceenshot, and runs the game in windowed mode with split sceen

 

[UnforcedError]

Personally ... when i bother that is ... i take a sceenshot, and runs the game in windowed mode with split sceen

Sure, works with the map but not with AI attitude, demo screen data etc. Although you don't need that for a normal game.

 

[Michkov]

What are the differences between team and single player games, in regards to the mechanics.

 

[UnforcedError]

What are the differences between team and single player games, in regards to the mechanics.

As a team you research the same technology (at a team penalty, but since you tech together it will still be reasonably faster than alone). Most wonders -- except the ones that affect single cities -- will affect all team members. Your GP pool is shared too. Any team member winning (say one of the members getting a diplo victory) wins the game for the whole team. The three legendary cities for a culture win can be distributed among multiple team members as well. Team project items like space ship parts will be shared by the whole team too. Wars will be shared as well, obviously.

 

[Yamato]

I'm not a newbie to Civ IV, yet I have a newbie type question. I find often as cities get bigger they stop using tiles and instead put their people in the artist/priest/spy etc roles, and leave, sometimes multiple, tiles unused. I find that during a game I have to make sure, many times that my cities are using all their tiles; I often have to turn the citizens from specialists and put them back to work as farmers, miners etc.
Is there a setting I'm missing, and something I don't know about that can prevent cities from doing this?

 

[s.bernbaum]

There are two buttons (among the ones in the panel of small buttons to the right of the panel where you select the items for the build queue) that control the governor, in the city screen. One toggles whether or not the governor can select specialists, the other toggles whether or not the governor chooses which tiles to work. Make sure they are both off. There are also buttons there to choose to emphasize types of output (hammers, culture, etc). Make sure those are all off as well. You may already know all this but I thought it worth mentioning.

Despite having all the buttons off, when the city has lots of extra food and a large size, the governor may put population as specialists instead of working tiles. Frequently, it does this to slow down city growth to avoid hitting the happiness cap. Since it is a good idea to check the city screen whenever the city grows anyway, to be sure that the tiles worked are the ones that you want worked, it is simple to switch any specialist back to tile work at that time. If all the buttons mentioned are off, the governor should not change anything that you assign at that time but when the city grows, it may assign the new pop to something that is not what you want. Hence the reason to check whenever the city grows.

 

[Lennier]

The governor may also have calculated that a specialist contributes more than the tile being worked. Especially if you're runnib representation. The governor isn't perfect, but is one of the better AIs in the game. Although I could do without the preference for spy specialists.

There are times when it's better to run specialists than work every tile possible. Near/at happy cap is one. Trying to generate a great person would be another. A specialist may be better than working a 1 or 0 food tile.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

One toggles whether or not the governor can select specialists, the other toggles whether or not the governor chooses which tiles to work.

Erm no?