Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[RobS]

Yeah, so there are already fishing boats on that tile. Not sure why the visual effect isn't there, but the food yield as well as just mousing over the tile confirm that it is improved.

Has anyone else seen this in their game, or is this unique to me?

 

[Swordnboard]

Looking again, it appears that the little sailboat full of buoys and things on the tile is a marker for the improvement. If you were to work the tile, the buoys would come out of the boat and show the full "fishnet" appearance of the improvement. I was able to reproduce and observe that in other places in your game as well as in my own. Anyways, many players play with food/production/commerce icons turned on, since that is also a reliable indicator of the state of a tile. Even if you don't want to do that, the icons will show up when examining a city.

 

[RobS]

Looking again, it appears that the little sailboat full of buoys and things on the tile is a marker for the improvement. If you were to work the tile, the buoys would come out of the boat and show the full "fishnet" appearance of the improvement. I was able to reproduce and observe that in other places in your game as well as in my own.

OK, I see that now. Thanks for clearing that up.

Anyways, many players play with food/production/commerce icons turned on...

And exactly which option is that in the Options menu? I don't see anything related to food/production/commerce icons. Or is it someplace else?

 

[Swordnboard]

On the lower right of your screen, above the minimap, there is a button with a slice of bread, hammer, and coin. Pressing that will toggle the icons on and off, as will using the command CTRL + Y for "show yields". Also of note is the button with a question mark on it, which will turn on "resource bubbles" making resources more visible. CTRL + R is also a toggle for resource bubbles.

 

[RobS]

On the lower right of your screen, above the minimap, there is a button with a slice of bread, hammer, and coin. Pressing that will toggle the icons on and off, as will using the command CTRL + Y for "show yields". Also of note is the button with a question mark on it, which will turn on "resource bubbles" making resources more visible. CTRL + R is also a toggle for resource bubbles.

OK, thanks for all the info, you've been very helpful.

 

[ArchGhost]

Was putzing around on Deity trying to build up my micro and confidence to try it for real when Genghis crushed my dreams.

Quick question(s): when you beg from an AI and he still targets you, waiting out the treaty, is there any way to prevent DoW?
Begging again usually isn't feasible unless caught RIGHT in the middle of a massive build up, and if he is dead set on targeting YOU, no bribing him away -- as soon as he takes the treaty he will continue to plot and be unavailable. In this particular case everybody else was already in war too, so the obvious "bribe somebody on him" is not an option

It was a normal plot BTW. not for refusal of demand (which I know is almost impossible to stop)

A follow up would be: how I can tell an AI still targets ME specifically?
i could not be sure Genghis was going to attack me because
-he had no land border
-he did land border others
-his worst enemy was a land target in another religion
-he accepted my beg. As far as i knew, if an AI wants to hit YOU they either refuse this or give up the plot after accepting.
-he arrived at my border some 5 turns before the treaty was up and meandered in my territory for 4 turns before DoWing and teleporting to Brennus' border with me. I thought he was going through to hit Joao or Louis on the other side of me.

If I at least knew he was gonna hit me I would have whipped to survive (actually had metal for once early enough to do so) since I had iron and his stack was like 95% swords with no siege. As it was I didn't even know WHERE he was except on the same Continent (Pangaea or Terra, everybody was here). And since he started to plot earlier than anybody else (turn 85 or earlier) then accepted my bribe when the entire world except him dogpiled Tokugawa, I assumed he wasn't targeting me but one of the other AIs he didn't like, somebody at war, etc.

If he took the beg but continues to plot without a DoW, I understand that to mean he hasn't picked a target yet (is just randomly mongering), or isn't able to cross my border in time if I was targeted. But he did show up...it's confusing. If he was just randomly mongering i thought he had a time limit to pick a target or give up plans.

t105 is not a super early DoW by any means but i'm trying to understand why the only thing my treaty did is slow him down by like 3 turns and I couldn't figure out who he was gonna hit. Only his BFF Brennus was immune.

Am i just supposed to physically keep tabs on his unit movements? There wasn't much I could do except expend more effort scouting everybody or panic build units because *gasp* one of the warmongers is targeting...someone. Once mass war broke out on t87 I was kinda unconcerned when i realized i could swap hindu to Please him and beg, so I went back to cottaging.

Please help me make some sense of it.

 

[sampsa]

Quick question(s): when you beg from an AI and he still targets you, waiting out the treaty, is there any way to prevent DoW?

he arrived at my border some 5 turns before the treaty was up and meandered in my territory for 4 turns before DoWing and teleporting to Brennus' border with me. I thought he was going through to hit Joao or Louis on the other side of me.

If he took the beg but continues to plot without a DoW, I understand that to mean he hasn't picked a target yet (is just randomly mongering)

I've had the same happen, AI was Gilgamesh, not that it likely matters. I don't think there is a way, except bribe someone on him like you mention. I think them troops walking randomly on your territory is a sign that you are the target.

I think WHEOOHRN always means that they've picked a target.

 

[ArchGhost]

I think them troops walking randomly on your territory is a sign that you are the target.

yeah, I mean it certainly was out of place and made me nervous. i've had more blantant stuff happen in the past (Monty breaking 2 standing peace treaties to DoW me, ouch!)

I think WHEOOHRN always means that they've picked a target.

Could be wrong as I don't check WHEOOHRN and just rely on BUG's red fist, but the way i understood it from reading about war plans a while back is that AIs can and sometimes do plot war without picking specific targets, potentially to the point they give up war because they don't find a valid one (power thresholds change, can't cross a border in some arbitrary time limit, etc.

It's pretty nebulous and I'll have to go back over some of the old threads to know for sure. Either way calling this simply bad luck is not out of line, he had a lot of other potential targets and it was pretty much a dice roll given how aggressive GK is.

 

[Michkov]

I switched to a new computer recently and reinstalled Civ4. The game works fine, the only thing that isn't working as before is that I cant load saves directly from the desktop. I can doubleclick them and the game will launch but I always end up in the main menu. On the old machine it would load straight to the game. Since I play mostly PBEMs these days it's getting a bit annoying as you can imagine.

I had this issue once before but cant figure out how to fix this. Help please.

 

[lymond]

I switched to a new computer recently and reinstalled Civ4. The game works fine, the only thing that isn't working as before is that I cant load saves directly from the desktop. I can doubleclick them and the game will launch but I always end up in the main menu. On the old machine it would load straight to the game. Since I play mostly PBEMs these days it's getting a bit annoying as you can imagine.

I had this issue once before but cant figure out how to fix this. Help please.

It's been that way since around Win 7 for me. It really annoyed me a first, and I tried several things to see if I could make saves load up directly with no success. By now, I just don't think about it. I'm used now to booting up the game directly.

 

[ArchGhost]

Heh, Lain's got a new game in progress on YT (Isabella) and he pretty much answered my issue at the end of part 2.


Essentially, he was saying that if one begs pretty early on, the plotting AI may give up plotting entirely immediately, or hit somebody else.

If you wait until you see troops en route to your border, it's too late -- you're still the target, and they will wait out the peace treaty. Best you can get is 10 turns to prepare once you see it on the way. So I suppose if you are way out of position to fight the AI yet, earlier begs are safer.

Lends some weight to the thought that AIs can plot without a target selected, and it makes sense, since if they aren't targeting anybody specifically an early beg removes you from the list of targets long enough for somebody else to be picked.

 

[Michkov]

It's been that way since around Win 7 for me. It really annoyed me a first, and I tried several things to see if I could make saves load up directly with no success. By now, I just don't think about it. I'm used now to booting up the game directly.

Alright, figured out how to get it working. This post below describes how to modify the registry entries to allow at least BTS to autoload save files.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-ancient-mediterranean-info.178241/page-6#post-8625315

 

[any2ldo]

Why is it bad to build a city one tile away from the coast?

 

[sampsa]

Why is it bad to build a city one tile away from the coast?

Well it is not, really.

However, putting a city to the coast allows some decent buildings (lighthouse, harbor), and allows naval units to be built in the city. Coastal tiles in general are bad, especially without a lighthouse, so you will have some useless tiles if you settle one tile from coast. These days strong players have understood that since whipping is so powerful, cities don't need +10 strong tiles. 4 decent tiles gets you far.

 

[Fish Man]

Well it is not, really.

However, putting a city to the coast allows some decent buildings (lighthouse, harbor), and allows naval units to be built in the city. Coastal tiles in general are bad, especially without a lighthouse, so you will have some useless tiles if you settle one tile from coast. These days strong players have understood that since whipping is so powerful, cities don't need +10 strong tiles. 4 decent tiles gets you far.

I’d even go as far as to say any ONE strong tile is worth a city, especially on deity when you can’t be picky. A single corn or fish means you can whip a lot of units at the very least.

 

[sampsa]

I’d even go as far as to say any ONE strong tile is worth a city, especially on deity when you can’t be picky. A single corn or fish means you can whip a lot of units at the very least.

Indeed. Although having a seafood means you also have some 22-tiles you can grow on until you reach size 4 to 2-pop whip. Having only one tile to work would be slightly problematic, but I guess we meant the same thing (you say one strong, I say 4 decent, obviously meaning one of those is a strong -resource).

 

[MemoryLeak]

I managed to get all the worlds civs into a defensive pact with one another using the Apolistic Palace.
As long as I don't declare war, are the AI civs not able to declare any either?

 

[Robo-Star]

I managed to get all the worlds civs into a defensive pact with one another using the Apolistic Palace.
As long as I don't declare war, are the AI civs not able to declare any either?

They can.

 

[MemoryLeak]

They can.

Thanks. I never stopped building units but I cruised to a culture victory after that and there wasn't another war the entire game even tho everyone hated each other.

 

[6K Man]

Only the true psychopaths will declare war on one opponent, knowing that the rest of the world will instantly dogpile them.