Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[lymond]

Why that tile and not the closer one?

Ha..good question really. I don't know the details of the culture/tile mechanics, but I do know they get a bit more complicated or better convoluted with sea tiles. It appears that you have two Greek cities possibly culture pressing that particular tile. The Greeks must be really emphasizing culture at this stage, and have been for quite some time, to overtake that tile. Otherwise, I really don't have much to explain to you on my end.

If you want to win by culture, then you should be in full culture mode. Doing so, should shortly get you back that tile as well assuming you have culture modifiers in Bombay.

I would check the victory screen though to see where the top AIs stand in terms of achieving a victory. Like the Greeks may be very close to culture win, unless another AI has gone culture and doing better than them.

 

[rah]

Also hover the mouse over the tile to see the % of each civ's culture of the square.
Then increase your culture slider for a few turns and see if the % has improved in your favor.
If not, then you can really assume they are in full culture mode.
On tiles that I figure will be in conflict (or are important,) I'll check them every few turns to see which direction the % is moving to see if I have to change my strategy on keeping it.

 

[earthy]

I noticed if you go into your city and hit "1" you can cancel whatever you're building, and also store overflow before alphabet or currency. Is that supposed to be like that? I could see it being pretty useful if you're whipping a settler like 1-2 turns before pottery is done or something. Tried searching the forums but couldn't find anything about it.

 

[sampsa]

Oh, that's pretty neat. All built during "no-build" are lost though, but indeed that tactic is useful under some circumstances. Say very early game, your are putting your 1 into barracks or something because you have nothing useful to build. With no-build you can finish chops or store that settler whip overflow until you want to put it into something. Thanks point pointing that out!

 

[Samson]

I noticed if you go into your city and hit "1" you can cancel whatever you're building, and also store overflow before alphabet or currency. Is that supposed to be like that? I could see it being pretty useful if you're whipping a settler like 1-2 turns before pottery is done or something. Tried searching the forums but couldn't find anything about it.

Just to let you know, all the number keys store a building queue. So if you have say barracks then axeman queued up in a city, you press cntl-1 then "barracks then axeman" will be stored in slot 1, and you can make any city build barracks then axeman by pressing 1. You have not stored a queue, so pressing 1 loads an empty queue.

 

[TruePurple]

What are the hot keys for getting city placement grid with bug?

 

[earthy]

@TruePurple alt+x

 

[earthy]

does abstaining from a vote make a difference in how many votes are required for it to pass? like let's say four of us each have 50 votes and something would require 100 votes to pass. If I abstain with my 50 votes do the remaining three only need a total of 75 votes for it to pass?

 

[lymond]

I don’t think It changes the vote parameters - just decreases likelihood of a candidate (edit: or resolution) getting requisite number of votes. Could be wrong. You could test it.

 

[AcaMetis]

It doesn't, it's just a way to vote No without getting any diplo bonuses/penalties for voting for/against someone. If Abstaining did reduce the votes required than diplo victory votes would be very broken indeed.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

It doesn't, it's just a way to vote No without getting any diplo bonuses/penalties for voting for/against someone.

Just like in real life.

 

[6K Man]

Here's a combat question - or maybe it's more of a scenario, or something I just don't understand. I've seen it happen many times - here's an example.

I'm in the last stages of assaulting an AI city. I've bombarded the defenses down, suicided a bunch of Cannons/Artillery. Before the battle started, the AI had 30 defenders, I had about that many attackers (plus siege). 27 defenders are dead now.

There are 3 defenders left: A Cavalry, damaged but still at 9/15 STR, and 2 badly damaged Riflemen (down to 2.4 STR each).
I have 3 attackers left: One is a healthy Infantry, and the other 2 are Crossbows (yeah, I should have upgraded them... just ignore that part).

If I attack with a crossbow, the Cavalry will kill it. But if I attack with the Infantry, trying to take out the top defender, one of the Riflemen will defend... and then my Crossbow(s) will lose to the Cavalry.

Why, in this situation, does the top defender not defend against my Infantry? Does the AI know that no matter what defender it uses, the Infantry will kill it, and therefore it saves its best defender to fight my weaker attackers in the subsequent rounds?

If the AI's combat logic is programmed this way, why doesn't the worst defender defend all the time? In most situations like the one I described, my top attackers - the Tanks, CR3 Infantry, etc - are getting 95% odds in the early rounds of the assault. Why wouldn't the AI save its top defenders against my weaker attackers, if they don't have anything that could stand up to my top attackers?

 

[lymond]

AI always puts up its best defender against your selected attacker. It's not thinking about the next fight. Based on Cavs no defensive bonus, it still probably works out that the rifles mathematically have better odds against the Infantry, especially given whatever promos they have like possibly city garrison. Xbow vs. 9 strength Cav is poor odds but the Rifles may still be tough fights for the xbows. Regardless based on what you describe it seems obvious to me that the Cav would be selected against your Infantry.

Anyway, some factors may not be readily apparent when AIs are on defense and select their defender each round, but it is always the best defender against the attacker or what the AI perceives as best based on defensive bonuses.

 

[6K Man]

That's what I thought too - but given that Infantry is +50% against gunpowder units, and that the Riflemen in question were just regular CG1 defenders and not Winnie/Toku Drill4/CG3 monsters, the math doesn't add up.

I'll take a screenshot next time it happens.

 

[rah]

While I have no proof, I've always thought the AI did consider the next one. Like when you're facing a healthy pike and an injured musket. If your mounted attacks, the pike defends but when your gunpowder unit attacks, the injured musket defends even though the pike is the stronger of the two left.
I've seen this type of thing so many times that I refuse to believe that it's not part of the programming.

 

[6K Man]

I’m not one to believe that the AI “cheats” or that 99% battles are lost far more than 1% of the time. I’ve just seen this particular scenario happen a LOT. Usually it’s something like Cannon (immune to collateral damage, so at full strength) defending against Cuirs, instead of a redlined Rifleman doing the defending. Then when I’m down to my last few attackers – one Cuirassier and 2 Horse Archers, say – one of the redlined Riflemen will suddenly defend against the Cuirassier, so that the healthy Cannon defends against my next attack with a Horse Archer.

And frankly, it would be brilliant programming if the AI did select defenders this way. I just want to know how it works. Has anyone found anything like this in the code?

 

[krikav]

How does rushbuying with universial suffrage work...?
Kremlin reduces the cost, right...?
But does forges/factories reduce the cost too?

 

[AcaMetis]

Let me do a quick check...Forge does not, Kremlin does. Rush buy cost isn't reduced by production modifiers, only by hurry cost reduction modifiers.

 

[lymond]

I think it works similarly to slavery. Penalty on turn 0 and then cost reduced based on production invested in item. I don’t think forge/ factories impact directly, only as a byproduct of invested hammers.

 

[krikav]

Ok, so when one goes for a rushbuy approach, one can build banks/grocers/markets and ignores factories (and possibly forges) completely. Interesting!