Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Pangaea]

For an indication of the numbers, it's common to have about half the stack consisting of siege. Lets say you attack with 20 units, you have 10 catas/trebs. Keep producing more siege. They will die. Lots. The idea is to severely damage the defenders (and remove/reduce cultural defence) with siege, and then clean up with 'normal' units. The attackers will mostly survive as they attack at superior odds, while you need to replenish siege support.

By having piles and loads of siege, you can also move on quicker from one city to the next, as you 'waste' less turns healing. Ideally you have enough siege to both take away cultural defence (city raider + accuracy promotions is great for this) and attack the city with siege + attackers.

 

[sirdanilot]

For an indication of the numbers, it's common to have about half the stack consisting of siege. Lets say you attack with 20 units, you have 10 catas/trebs. Keep producing more siege. They will die. Lots. The idea is to severely damage the defenders (and remove/reduce cultural defence) with siege, and then clean up with 'normal' units. The attackers will mostly survive as they attack at superior odds, while you need to replenish siege support.

By having piles and loads of siege, you can also move on quicker from one city to the next, as you 'waste' less turns healing. Ideally you have enough siege to both take away cultural defence (city raider + accuracy promotions is great for this) and attack the city with siege + attackers.

Yeah I have been using way more artillery as of late and it's been working great for me.

I generally make stacks for each city that I plan to take in my 'blitzkrieg', then I take all the cities I want to take in the first few turns of the war, then I declare peace as soon as I can. Sometimes I have to give back one of the cities to get peace, but I already took what I wanted for myself.

 

[inthesomeday]

Can released colonies found new cities?

 

[Robo-Star]

Can released colonies found new cities?

Why wouldn't they be able to; they behave just like any other vassal?

 

[Lain]

So I had a vassal researching Rifling and when I traded for Replaceable Parts from someone else, I noticed that his "tech speed" increased (reduced time of Rifling research from 11 to 8 or so turns). Why is that? I know you get a discount for techs when other people already know it, but why is my knowledge of Replaceable Parts speeding up Rifling for other AI?

 

[inthesomeday]

Why wouldn't they be able to; they behave just like any other vassal?

I suppose I may have just had a few games where they simply weren't doing so, but it just seems so illogical to me. There'd be these vast resource laden areas where they were just not settling

 

[Robo-Star]

So I had a vassal researching Rifling and when I traded for Replaceable Parts from someone else, I noticed that his "tech speed" increased (reduced time of Rifling research from 11 to 8 or so turns). Why is that? I know you get a discount for techs when other people already know it, but why is my knowledge of Replaceable Parts speeding up Rifling for other AI?

Could it have prompted the vassal to immediately allocate more resources to beaker production?

 

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

Two randomly questions that popped up when playing yesterday:

1. I have not founded any religion. Signed open border with greeks, and i can see all his cities and the army within. How come? He hasn't even got the same religion as me.
2. Capturing a city. Is it random what buildings that get destroyed when loosing a city? I thought every building disappeared when loosing it, but when grabbing a city from Stalin yesterday i did not have to build Courthouse.

 

[lymond]

1) How much espionage points do you have on the Greeks? Check the Espionage advisor screen. Click on Greeks and check the info in the top right. There is one related to seeing cities. If you have enough EPs in him you can see his stuff.

2) Yes, buildings in captured cities are random. It is certainly possible to capture a city with a courthouse, which is always very nice.

 

[Tatran]

When your culture is (very) dominant (66% or more?) in a capture city, no buildings will be destroyed. Not even national wonders if you haven't built them.

 

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

1) How much espionage points do you have on the Greeks? Check the Espionage advisor screen. Click on Greeks and check the info in the top right. There is one related to seeing cities. If you have enough EPs in him you can see his stuff.

2) Yes, buildings in captured cities are random. It is certainly possible to capture a city with a courthouse, which is always very nice.

Ok, must be that then. Not sitting next to my computer now, but i am Bismarck and don't do anything with my espinage points so it must have happened automatic. And there are 3-4 enemies who are weaker than Greece, would have thought i saw them first.
Learning something everyday.

 

[lymond]

It's kinda random as to how AI focuses their EPs. They might focus EPs on a single leader or spread them about evenly. So the Greek dude may have no EPs on you at all, and eventually you accumulated enough to see his cities. It is based on ratios, so even with 1EP per turn going into him, if he had none in you, it would not take that long to accumulate enough to see his cities.

As a note of advice, it is common practice among experienced players to focus EPs on a single AI to see their techs. Usually pick a good techer. For instance, if I see Mansa, I'm going to focus on him immediately. Helps with tech trading.

 

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

It's kinda random as to how AI focuses their EPs. They might focus EPs on a single leader or spread them about evenly. So the Greek dude may have no EPs on you at all, and eventually you accumulated enough to see his cities. It is based on ratios, so even with 1EP per turn going into him, if he had none in you, it would not take that long to accumulate enough to see his cities.

As a note of advice, it is common practice among experienced players to focus EPs on a single AI to see their techs. Usually pick a good techer. For instance, if I see Mansa, I'm going to focus on him immediately. Helps with tech trading.

Espionage is a part of the game i never use. How would it help me with tech trading against Mansa?

 

[Pangaea]

With enough eps on a leader, you will eventually see what tech they are researching. That means you can choose another tech to research, and then trade. This works particularly well with Mansa Musa, because he will basically always trade. A few exceptions, but not many.

You can also steal techs, put cities into revolt and stuff like that, but it's not needed, and you usually need a LOT of points to pull off tricks like that.

I don't like the espionage part of the game much either, personally, and think the game would be better off without it. The AI would probably do better too, because right now they have a tendency to 'waste' too much research on espionage, by running the slider (in the top left corner).

 

[H_a_a_k_o_n]

With enough eps on a leader, you will eventually see what tech they are researching. That means you can choose another tech to research, and then trade. This works particularly well with Mansa Musa, because he will basically always trade. A few exceptions, but not many.

You can also steal techs, put cities into revolt and stuff like that, but it's not needed, and you usually need a LOT of points to pull off tricks like that.

With enough eps on a leader, you will eventually see what tech they are researching. That means you can choose another tech to research, and then trade. This works particularly well with Mansa Musa, because he will basically always trade. A few exceptions, but not many.

You can also steal techs, put cities into revolt and stuff like that, but it's not needed, and you usually need a LOT of points to pull off tricks like that.

ah, i see. I do use that, but only because i get that automatic by not doing anything. But i see your point by adressing EP against hyana capac, gandhi or mansa munsa. Thanks for tip!

 

[lymond]

As Pangaea said, but also if you have the tech he's teching already you can wait to a certain point and trade it for gold. Trading techs is not just about getting techs, but getting gold too.

I like Espionage. It adds a layer to the game and on higher levels AIs get enough bonus to offset their EP spending. There's some interesting things you can do with EPs and you can even create an "economy" based on it.

However, at minimum, you can just play the EPs passively by focusing on an AI for the information.

 

[Bamboocha]

Where do I go in the Better BAT mod to use that tool where you can already seen an "overlay" of what tiles a hypothetical new city that you can place on the map? I saw it in a Let's Play once and it was one of the reasons why I downloaded the mod in the first place.

 

[lymond]

Alt-X and Ctl-X

 

[salty mud]

If another player has animal husbandry and builds a pasture on horses, does a player who doesn't have animal husbandry see the pasture?

 

[Pangaea]

Yes. You won't see the horse icon with resource bubbles, but you'll see the pasture.