Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[a4phantom]

What are the major practical SP effects of 1.61? Are wounded powerful units now stronger vs. healthy weak units?

 

[Roland Johansen]

For a diplomatic victory , do I have to get more than half the votes ?
I played a game and thought I had more than half but no victory. Diplomatic victory was set.Am I missing something?

Yes, you need more than half the number of votes. The game actually tells you how many votes are needed to win when you are asked to choose the next voting item.

Some quickies:

1. How do you easily see the odds between units?
2. How do you set up a rally point?
3. Can you "mark" spots on the map for future reference (like where you might want to build a city)?

tx guys!

1. Select your unit, hold alt and mouse over the enemy unit/stack.
2. uhm, I never use that. It's something like select city and then CTRL click another point on the map (maybe ALT click, SHIFT - ALT click, something like that, it's in the tips section of the civilopedia)
3. Easiest way is click ALT - s and then type a sign (like city). The text city will appear on the map. You can also zoom out and use the strategic overlay that has the same function. But it is easier to determine future city locations when zoomed in.

What are the major practical SP effects of 1.61? Are wounded powerful units now stronger vs. healthy weak units?

There is a list of changes in this thread..

Wounded powerful units were weak in 1.09, very strong in 1.52 and now they chose the middle road between those settings in 1.61. So you can weaken enemy strong units more by wounding them and your units will be weakened more by being wounded.

 

[ybbor]

3. Easiest way is click ALT - s and then type a sign (like city). The text city will appear on the map. You can also zoom out and use the strategic overlay that has the same function. But it is easier to determine future city locations when zoomed in.

note however, that the stratagy layer can still be seen when zoomed in

 

[.Shane.]

1. Select your unit, hold alt and mouse over the enemy unit/stack.
2. uhm, I never use that. It's something like select city and then CTRL click another point on the map (maybe ALT click, SHIFT - ALT click, something like that, it's in the tips section of the civilopedia)
3. Easiest way is click ALT - s and then type a sign (like city). The text city will appear on the map. You can also zoom out and use the strategic overlay that has the same function. But it is easier to determine future city locations when zoomed in.

Thanks for the great answers! Follow up question, what is the "strategic overlay"?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Thanks for the great answers! Follow up question, what is the "strategic overlay"?

When you zoom out into the globe view, it is the left most button above the mini map. You can draw on the map and put signs on the map (just like you can with ALT - s). The drawing on the map can make city placement even easier as you can draw future city borders.

Signs on the map are in the save game but drawings are not. So after reloading, you'll lose all the lines that you have drawn.

 

[Snerk]

Ok question:

I noticed in the finance screen that i get a X withdraw on my outcome because of a sertain, "handicap cost". What is that? And, Im playing on noble and should i get any handicap bonus then, and do the AIs get it?

Cheers!

 

[mice]

Can anyone explain what the CS-slingshot is, and CoL,

these are strats, but what do the letters mean ???

 

[MrCynical]

CS stands for Civil Service and CoL stands for Code of Laws. They refer to strategies for getting these technologies much earlier than would be expected, using either great people or the Oracle.

 

[ilr_18]

In the Citzen Registry in the Demogame, once you have posted all your info are you then a citzen?? Or is there a waiting period or something?? ( i have already joined the Demogame usergroup)

 

[mice]

Thanks MrCynical,
next question, is there a way to see what's in a city before I decide to keep it or raize it ??, apart from zooming in and having a close look at the graphics.

 

[smjjames]

theres also spies when you get them.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Ok question:

I noticed in the finance screen that i get a X withdraw on my outcome because of a sertain, "handicap cost". What is that? And, Im playing on noble and should i get any handicap bonus then, and do the AIs get it?

Cheers!

That is a reduction on your unit upkeep cost.

Unit costs are calculated at 1 per unit. There is a reduction called 'free support' which is dependent on the size of your empire (the sum of all your city sizes). The handicap cost is a further reduction of the cost after free support has been subtracted. At Noble level this reduction is 50%. At higher difficulty levels, the reduction is lower and you thus pay more for your units.

 

[Snerk]

That is a reduction on your unit upkeep cost.

Unit costs are calculated at 1 per unit. There is a reduction called 'free support' which is dependent on the size of your empire (the sum of all your city sizes). The handicap cost is a further reduction of the cost after free support has been subtracted. At Noble level this reduction is 50%. At higher difficulty levels, the reduction is lower and you thus pay more for your units.

I see. So all AIs also get this bonus. Is there any explenation to why there is such a reduction? Seems abit weird and unrealistic. Perhaps to difference the difficulty levels..

Anyway thanks roland!

 

[Roland Johansen]

I see. So all AIs also get this bonus. Is there any explenation to why there is such a reduction? Seems abit weird and unrealistic. Perhaps to difference the difficulty levels..

Anyway thanks roland!

It means that after the reduction by free unit support, every unit effectively cost 0.2 gold at settler, 0.3 gold at chieftain, 0.4 gold at warlord, 0.5 gold at noble, ..... and finally 1 gold at deity level. It's an adjustment for difficulty level.

The adjustment for the AI is the other way around. It pays more at lower difficulty levels and less at high difficulty levels. The AI actually has a higher unit maintenance than the human player at difficulty level noble. Also the civic upkeep is higher for the AI at that level. However, it pays less for upgrading units.

These differences at noble difficulty were probably chosen to be balanced but so that the AI doesn't have to think ahead. AI's are typically bad at that. The AI thus has higher upkeep costs during normal turns, but when it is suddenly attacked, it can upgrade cheaply. We humans have less upkeep costs in regular turns but have to think about the expensive unit upgrades which we have to do sometime.

 

[sknyme]

Sorry if someone has asked this before, there are simply too many posts to read through - using much valuable Civ 4 time

As in Civ 3, are roads beneficial on each and every square? I find it uglifies the map... do we just need them to connect each city??

Thanks!

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Sorry if someone has asked this before, there are simply too many posts to read through - using much valuable Civ 4 time

As in Civ 3, are roads beneficial on each and every square? I find it uglifies the map... do we just need them to connect each city??

Thanks!

Cities and resources need to be connected to each other. Roads no not generate commerce as they did previously (or so others have said, I'm new to the Civ series with Civ IV).

A resource must be connected to a city for the city to use it. For all cities to use the resource the city with the resource must be connected to other cities. In order to trade the resource, it must be connected to the capital. Rivers also act as roads as far as connecting cities and resources.

Note that the newest patch has added a bonus to mines of one hammer when a railroad is built on the tile.

Still, there's no reason to put them everywhere, other than to make moving units a breeze. They still find the most efficient route, but more roads makes it more efficient sometimes. If you have every possible route units would take roaded up, there's no point really. At some point I usually hit a lull where I have nothing better to do with my workers. Why not have them build roads instead of just standing around?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Sorry if someone has asked this before, there are simply too many posts to read through - using much valuable Civ 4 time

As in Civ 3, are roads beneficial on each and every square? I find it uglifies the map... do we just need them to connect each city??

Thanks!

A few small additions to the answer given by _alphaBeta_.

Also coastal areas act as roads for connecting cities in one large resource connecting network.

The bonus hammer given by railroads to lumbermills and mines is in every version of Civ4 (1.00, 1.09, 1.52 and 1.61).

Roads can make it easier to react to an AI invasion. Your units can use the roads and the AI units cannot. It makes unit movement easier in general. Aside from aesthetic reasons, there is no reason not to build them.

 

[bad-aries]

Question:
My capitol keeps producing military unit. I'd like to ask why the capitol behave like this and how could I stop it?

Thanks.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Question:
My capitol keeps producing military unit. I'd like to ask why the capitol behave like this and how could I stop it?

Thanks.

A city produces what you tell it to do. You must have set some kind of automation if it produces stuff automatically without asking you what to produce.

There is a governor setting that controlls what is being build in a city. It's next to the pop rush, gold rush, emphasize production, emphasize food, emphasize commerce, emphasize great people, etc. buttons. Maybe, you have activated it unknowingly? Any governor setting that is activated has a yellow border around it. Clicking it again will deactivate it.

Another option is that you have held the ALT-key while giving the city the order to build a unit. In that case, there is a star next to the unit in the building queue and the city will keep building that unit until you remove the unit from the building queue.

 

[mice]

So Cs slingshot = Civil Service slingshot. Can someone explain how to do a Cs slingshot?
Also, If I go ahead in the tech tree and click and advanced tech, does my research then move toward this tech i automatically in the most efficient way .. ?