Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Lennier]

No. There is a forum specifically for Mac issues, including how to get Civ IV running on the most current operating systems. (I don't know if you have to go through those procedures if you have Civ IV from Steam.) And the line you need to delete from the BUG mod to get it to run on a Mac.

 

[Deathcrush]

Yolo,
quick question for all of you !
If u have no horses but you want to cuirs rush and you're close to lib and have everything else AND your neighbour has 3 horses BUT she don't wont to trade them to me - what would you do ?

p.s. She is pleased with me, she want to trade everything else except the horse!

 

[Samson]

Yolo,
quick question for all of you !
If u have no horses but you want to cuirs rush and you're close to lib and have everything else AND your neighbour has 3 horses BUT she don't wont to trade them to me - what would you do ?

p.s. She is pleased with me, she want to trade everything else except the horse!

One possibility is that they are trading their 2 spare to someone else. If you arrange a trade embargo with one of the people they are trading with then they will have 1 to trade with you.

 

[AcaMetis]

It's entirely possible that your neighbour only trades strategic resources as Friendly, you can check the Civ Illustrated #1 (Know Your Enemy) topic to be sure. If so you'd need to either get her to Friendly or vassal her, since vassals are always willing (or "willing") to trade you every resource they can.

If the issue is that she's trading her horses away already than negotiating a trade embargo will cancel that deal if it was made more than ten turns ago. If a deal is in "cannot be cancelled for X turns" state it won't be cancelled by a trade embargo. In that case you'd need to use spies (or Privateers, in the case of ocean-based resources) to cut off access to whatever resource is being traded for the horses, since that'll automatically cancel the deal even if it was made recently.

 

[Deathcrush]

Thanx!
I attacked her cause i was pissed and angry , also that negotiating that trade embargo would have cost me more time and i was already running out of time.
I vassal her and have my horses, continue but i am afraid that cost me a precious time and army which i could use or uprgrade later and on the other side slow me down and just made my game a lot harder!
I win domination but it was ugly and annoying with Washington having two vassals- I had 2 too , but he killed one of them. the date was pretty late, the score was not good... and so on and so on... ugly job but I have finally accomplished my first victory with Toku which was my goal for a long time !

P.S. The neighbor was Boudica, and yeah - she will trade strategic resources at pleased. just my "luck" !

 

[dimik]

I have a question about CIV IV when it comes to start a new Custom Game.
Can you start a custom game and set it to play only in one Age Period? For example ANCIENT ERA only for the whole duration of the game. (I don't like going through all time periods). Where I can set this in the game? I would appreciate step by step instructions
Thanks in advance.

 

[AcaMetis]

Not possible just through the custom game options. You could mod the game so that every Classical era tech costs ludicrous amounts of beakers to research, but I don't think the AI would be intelligent enough to get every Ancient era tech before (uselessly) trying to get a Classical era tech, meaning they might never research Archery or something like that.

 

[dimik]

Not possible just through the custom game options. You could mod the game so that every Classical era tech costs ludicrous amounts of beakers to research, but I don't think the AI would be intelligent enough to get every Ancient era tech before (uselessly) trying to get a Classical era tech, meaning they might never research Archery or something like that.

How about the Civilization IV World Builder? is there an option to set technology for a single ERA only?

 

[Deckhand]

How about the Civilization IV World Builder? is there an option to set technology for a single ERA only?

No.

In WB you can start civs with techs, including all from any era. But no way to restrict them.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

There is a mod available that offers limited tech progression and confines you to a specific age cap. I'm sorry I don't remember the name of it, but it might be still available in the Downloads section.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Hi this my first post so please excuse my ignorance. I have CivIV Beyond the Sword for AppleMac are there downloads specifically for AppleMacs?

If you wan to play Game of the Month (GOTM) there is a MacBuffy to download instead of the the regular Buffy. Pie's Ancient Europe and History Rewritten are two mods that work on Mac.

 

[earthy]

Do AI base their unit composition off of what you have? Also as a followup question, does opening borders give AI info to decide if they should DOW?

 

[AcaMetis]

As far as I understand, no and no.

 

[earthy]

It sure feels like they'll always whip out the best counter unit when you have a stack outside their city. Like if I'm doing a HA rush, it seems like they'll always whip out a spearman if they have the tech/resource.

 

[AcaMetis]

In that situation, perhaps, but beyond that I don't think the AI plans ahead even if they're plotting war on you. I don't think they'll specifically focus on building more Knights than Maces if they notice that you've got Copper, but no Iron, for instance.

 

[ArchGhost]

Do AI base their unit composition off of what you have?

Not really, no. They will build counter units as mentioned, but ultimately what comp they run has to do more with what (if any) resources they have available, how long they've had a strategic resource or keystone military unit tech, and simply weighting being higher on certain units (AIs will tend to build things like archers or longbows more as these are defense units and they love to spam them for garrison and in response to threats).

Some examples:
-an AI with early horse but not copper will tend to have more chariots and horse archers
-AIs will whip spears/pikes if you are using only mounted, or Axes if using only Swords, etc. They will still primarily spam archers and other resourceless defense units though.
-even if an AI has Gunpowder (most common one I see) or MilSci/Rifiling, they will stay on mostly longbows until some time passes

and so on. A thing about the "keystone tech" point is that AIs at war will more readily upgrade their units, so that can lead to the "magic rifles" thing where a ton of lower defenders are suddenly being upped to their highest available tier. It happens a lot with HAs/Knights/Cuirs too.

Also as a followup question, does opening borders give AI info to decide if they should DOW?

Mechanically, no. The AI already has access to all it needs to know from the moment it meets you whether it *can* declare on you. It's just waiting on a random war check and then it will start evaluating targets for eligibility. It's even possible for an AI to plot on you immediately after meeting you even if it (thinks it) can't reach you! Another surprising thing that can happen is an AI that is already plotting when you meet them (but not at war yet) can swap targets to you upon introductions.

Opening borders can give you something of an early warning system in some cases, as AIs will occasionally move units around in your territory when plotting, especially if you have locked them into a peace treaty before they would have DoWed.

 

[6K Man]

Has anyone cracked the code on this?

It sure seems that in games where I start with Horses and no metals, I see a lot more Spearman barbarians than in games with Copper/Iron starts.

 

[ArchGhost]

Barbs tech is mostly determined by what your continent is teching, not what resources anybody has. There's a whole thread of barb spawn rules around somewhere, but the gist is they only spawn higher tech units when the majority of the players on that continent tech BW, IW, etc and are otherwise stuck at archers.


For the actual AI players, well AI units have a routine for countering your units. They definitely do build hard counter units based on what you bring.

But again, you're still gonna see like 4x archers compared to spears if you bring HAs, or like 10x the infantry compared to Anti-Tanks if you bring armor. The AI is just stupid like that and still assigns more weight to general defenders instead of hard counters, far past the point of being too little too late. It will also often suicide such units right into the stack since it knows they are "supposed" to win i.e. 1 or 2 Pikes into 30 Cuir stacks, Anti-tanks into stacks of 60 tanks, etc.

Or it can't accurately assess the threat difference that one 1 counterable unit represents or several. Probably just as likely.

 

[Financial Ombudsman]

Quick question:
Haven't played for ages and have forgotten some basics.
How do I declare war against an opponent with whom I have open borders but will not speak with me?
Myself and the opponent do not have a current peace treaty.

 

[AcaMetis]

I believe it's ALT + left click on their name in the score list, maybe CTRL. One of them opens the trade window, the other DoWs. I don't recommend you use the latter shortcut, mind. It's a bad day when you forget which is which and you use the wrong one.