Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[vajrabud]

what exactly is 'collateral damage' and how does it differ to city attack? trying to decide what to upgrade my catapults to. city attack lowers a city's defences right? then what does collateral damage do?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

what exactly is 'collateral damage' and how does it differ to city attack? trying to decide what to upgrade my catapults to. city attack lowers a city's defences right? then what does collateral damage do?

Collateral damage hurts other units that are on the same tile as the one you are attacking as well.
The City Raider promotion increases your unit's strength when attacking cities (actually it's more complicated due to the way combat mechanics work but no need to get into that now), it has nothing to do with bombarding away defenses, though for siege weapons it or the Barrage promotion is necessary to unlock the Accuracy promotion which does increase the rate at which city defenses get lowered.

You see, you not only should use catapults (and cannons and artillery etc.) to remove a city's defenses, but also to directly attack the units defending it to cause collateral damage and thereby weaken a great number of the defenders before your other units (e.g. Swordsmen, Macemen, Riflemen etc.) march in to finish the job.

 

[civfanchambers]

Collateral damage hurts other units that are on the same tile as the one you are attacking as well.
The City Raider promotion increases your unit's strength when attacking cities (actually it's more complicated due to the way combat mechanics work but no need to get into that now), it has nothing to do with bombarding away defenses, though for siege it or the Barrage promotion is necessary to unlock the Accuracy promotion which does increase the rate at which city defenses get lowered.

You see, you not only should use catapults (and cannons and artillery etc.) to remove a city's defenses, but also to directly attack the units defending it to cause collateral damage and thereby weaken a great number of the defenders before your other units (e.g. Swordsmen, Macemen, Riflemen etc.) march in to finish the job.

To add to what Imp.Knoedel provided it should be noted that siege units are expendable. Build more than you need, and thru the war continue to build them. Use siege units to bombard a cities defense, then suicide them to attack the city to collateral damage units within. New players tend to find it odd that you must throw units away like that but it's part of the play mechanics in civ4.

 

[Lennier]

One other note about siege: In vanilla Civ IV, siege units can kill the top defender. In Warlords and BTS, they can only damage the top unit and will withdraw once doing the maximum damage to that top defender.

 

[vajrabud]

ok cool. I had in mind to use my catapults like suicide bombers (saw someone mention it on here) so i will go ahead and bombard the city's defence and then suicide them to cause collateral damage to the units inside.
I'm installing BTS right now so looking forward to starting a new game on that soon.

 

[ksenagos]

Hello people...

My question is about game diificulty settings in premade maps.
When i start a new scenario through the custom scenario option i can choose the diificulty...right?

The problem:I started a custom scenario with a premade map and i choose emperor difficulty.But when i checked the AI civs they only had warriors (istead of archers) guarding their cities and rhey did not have the hunting and archery techs for free as it normally happens in emperor difficulty.

The question:even if the techs and the extra archers do not appear do the ai civs get the bonus to tech rpand production rates....

 

[Samson]

Hello people...

My question is about game diificulty settings in premade maps.
When i start a new scenario through the custom scenario option i can choose the diificulty...right?

The problem:I started a custom scenario with a premade map and i choose emperor difficulty.But when i checked the AI civs they only had warriors (istead of archers) guarding their cities and rhey did not have the hunting and archery techs for free as it normally happens in emperor difficulty.

The question:even if the techs and the extra archers do not appear do the ai civs get the bonus to tech rpand production rates....

Yes. In a scenario the starting position (what units and techs each player has) is fixed, so the only difference diificulty makes is tech and production rates (and a few others, such as goody huts, happiness and relations). This make thes difference between levels much less in scenario's that normal games.

Oh, and welcome to CFC

 

[dalamb]

You can edit the scenario's worldbuilder files to add techs to the AI for various difficulty levels. Check out the first few messages of the Nobles' Club bullpen, for example (link in signature).

 

[ksenagos]

You can edit the scenario's worldbuilder files to add techs to the AI for various difficulty levels. Check out the first few messages of the Nobles' Club bullpen, for example (link in signature).

@samson thanks real fast reply
@dalamp i know i already mentinoned this "solution" however i am more interested to know that tech rates etc bonuses apply to the ai even if mapwise nothing seems different btw thnx for the links

 

[vajrabud]

OK, so I know that people here have probably discovered all the tactics out there for this game. I just came across one diplomatic tactic by accident which i thought i'd share. it may not be that great, but i think it should give the player at least +1 in a diplomatic relationship early game.

So i researched monotheism first and discovered judaism. for some reason though i didn't 'convert' to judaism. Then i built a jewish missionary and sent it to a neighbouring civ to spread jewish faith. Then, after a few turns or so, my neighbour came to me and requested that i 'convert' to judaism. So of course i did, i was meaning to all along anyway.

This now gives me an extra diplomatic point with that neighbour - ' you accepted our faith'. So that was pretty cool i thought.

 

[vajrabud]

Is there an advantage to founding two separate religions?

 

[Lennier]

In general no. Trying to found early religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism) is suboptimal. Let the AIs found them; you can figure out which is will be the dominant religion and convert to that one when it gets to you. Let the AIs burn a GP on a shrine, then take the shrined holy city from them.

 

[dalamb]

Is there an advantage to founding two separate religions?

In general no. Trying to found early religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism) is suboptimal. Let the AIs found them; you can figure out which is will be the dominant religion and convert to that one when it gets to you. Let the AIs burn a GP on a shrine, then take the shrined holy city from them.

It does seem suboptimal to go for one of the early 3, but if you're going cultural you might want to try for some combination of Confucianism, Christiantity, and Taoism for the extra cathedrals.

 

[Samson]

Is there an advantage to founding two separate religions?

I would say definitely yes. For each religion a city has it gets to build the temple for happiness and the monastery for tech. Some fraction of your cities get to build a cathedral for more happiness if you have incense as well as the earliest multiplier on culture. And of course you can get the shrines.

How much it is worth sacrificing for it is another question. Early research, prior to all the worker techs and bronze working, is very valuable.

 

[Lennier]

It does seem suboptimal to go for one of the early 3, but if you're going cultural you might want to try for some combination of Confucianism, Christiantity, and Taoism for the extra cathedrals.

The CW is that three religions is optimal for cultural wins. Spread the three to your legendary-designate cities and enough of your other cities so that you can build cathedrals in them. Trying to get more than three religions in your legendary-designate cities produces diminishing returns as you have to spend more on missionaries rathe than or (to run your slider at 100% ).

However, Code of Laws (found Confucianism) is good to have in its own right. Opens up Caste System and courthouses. So is Philosophy (founds Taoism) as it opens up Pacifism and makes, is on the Liberalism path, and makes it less likely the AIs will research Philosophy making getting go Liberalism first easier. Christianity opens up the AP, which if you build it would let you choose the AP religion and possibly control it. Founding those religions just becomes a side-benifit.

I would say definitely yes. For each religion a city has it gets to build the temple for happiness and the monastery for tech. Some fraction of your cities get to build a cathedral for more happiness if you have incense as well as the earliest multiplier on culture.

You don't need to found a religion to get these benefits.

And of course you can get the shrines.

Requires burning a GProph. Multiple holy cities require multiple GProphs, diverting you from creating GSs. And you have to sink into missionaries. Better let your neighbor found the religion, shrine it, and then take it from them.

 

[Tristan_C]

Is there an advantage to founding two separate religions?

It's annoying as hell when the 1st religion is state. A new religion will compete with a pre-existing state religion for spread, and cause a headache when you take a civic that operates thru the state religion (all of them except Free Religion in fact). You will have to build missionaries, and they have a 9% failure rate spreading to a city that already has 1 religion.

Come to think of it it's a very lifelike mechanic. New religions that pop up under an establishment cause no end of trouble.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

@ Lennier:

With three religions being optimal for a cultural win, is it better to get the earlier religions, or the later ones? I would tend to think the earlier ones because you can start to build culture sooner rather than later, but I'm curious to know if I'm right.

I rarely found a religion, but I'm exploring new playstyles in my games and I would like to use religion more effectively. I've also only ever had one cultural victory and it was by accident (I wasn't trying for one).

 

[pepoluan]

@ Lennier:

With three religions being optimal for a cultural win, is it better to get the earlier religions, or the later ones? I would tend to think the earlier ones because you can start to build culture sooner rather than later, but I'm curious to know if I'm right.

I rarely found a religion, but I'm exploring new playstyles in my games and I would like to use religion more effectively. I've also only ever had one cultural victory and it was by accident (I wasn't trying for one).

AFAIK, only the state religion adds culture output to a city. So, it's not necessary to get the earlier religions. After all, you can't effectively leverage multiple religions until you can build temples + monasteries + cathedrals for all the religions... and that last one require a huge number of

Best civ to get Culture victory? I think that would be the Greeks; their Odeon is simply a cultural beast: +20% plus +3 on their own. Not to mention that it allows 2 free artists, so you don't have to stay in Caste if you don't want to.

And if you play as Pericles with his traits of Cre (half-price Theatre & Odeon) + Phi (half-price Univ + double-speed Great People)...

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Now, for my quick question: What benefits do one get when one enter a Permanent Alliance with an AI?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Now, for my quick question: What benefits do one get when one enter a Permanent Alliance with an AI?

You can get all their resources, similar to vassals. You can send them your old units to upgrade. You tech together and thus faster.

The downside of course is that they can practically steal all world wonders and projects from you.

 

[pepoluan]

You can get all their resources, similar to vassals. You can send them your old units to upgrade. You tech together and thus faster.

The downside of course is that they can practically steal all world wonders and projects from you.

Ah, thanks. Interesting...

I'm not sure what you meant about "send them my old units to upgrade", though.

You mean, I move my old units to their culture area, then I can upgrade my units if, for instance, they already have an upgrade I don't have? E.g.: I haven't researched all requisite techs for Cavalry, but they have, so I can send my Knights there and upgrade them to Cavalries?

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