Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Orion Pax]

Is there a mod people know of that has new leaders with the 3 missing trait combos (CRE/CHA, IND/PHI, ORG/PRO)?

I dug around the mod section here but missed it if it was there. Didn't see detailed descriptions. Many thanks.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I've never played it myself but from what I have read in its threads, History Rewritten has all the possible combinations. It also has a lot more leaders than there are trait combinations, so there must be several leaders with some of the combos. It also has many more civilizations and a lot of game changes. If that appeals to you, it may be what you are looking for. I suggest looking at its threads if it sounds interesting to you.

 

[civac]

Realms Beyond Forum - Close to Home Mod has leaders for all combinations.

The new ones are

• LieuYe (ORG/PRO)
  
• San Martin (CHM/CRE) and
  
• Nebuchadnezzar (IND/PHI)

This mod is intended for MP play but works just fine in SP and is pretty close to vanilla BTS.

 

[mastrude]

Maybe you guys could answer a question for me: It may be the single reason why I don't play so hot. Here it is: The city screen shows that you only "work" a certain number of tiles. Is there any point in developing tiles beyond that number? I think if there are resources like iron on the tiles, you do get the resources, but what if it's food. I've been developing all resources and I may be wasting my time doing so.

It looks as though when you develop a tile your city isn't working, like with an iron mine, you would get the iron but not the hammers and foods of the tile itself.

 

[lymond]

Maybe you guys could answer a question for me: It may be the single reason why I don't play so hot. Here it is: The city screen shows that you only "work" a certain number of tiles. Is there any point in developing tiles beyond that number? I think if there are resources like iron on the tiles, you do get the resources, but what if it's food. I've been developing all resources and I may be wasting my time doing so.

It looks as though when you develop a tile your city isn't working, like with an iron mine, you would get the iron but not the hammers and foods of the tile itself.

Ha..I could write a thesis on all this. First, let me just say that Civ IV is a pretty complex game. I'm not sure what exactly your experience level is with the game, but just understanding a few basic things can help your game immensely. And yeah, I've seen folks actually play this game for many years...incorrectly. Of course, folks play a game like IV for different reasons and in different ways - such as very casually, role-playing, up to your super-pros. Regardless, the point I'm making is having just a core understanding of the mechanics can help any player regardless of style. A great place to learn the game is over in the Strategy & Tips forum here:

S&T

Lost of good folks there that like to help out players, and there are fun games to play, share and learn.

So anyway, I'll try to answer your questions as best I can and apologize if I go over concepts or mechanics that you know already.

A city has what we term a Big Fat Cross (BFC). I'm posting a random image I have stored to demonstrate:

Spoiler :

I wish a had a pic at moment that I could mark up for you, but basically the BFC is all the tiles lit up that you see, minus 2 tiles that are current stolen by another city sharing some of those tiles (that can be manipulated by the way)

Aksum is Size 6 and you see 6 citizens (white circles) working different improved tiles in this city such as pigs, sheep, gems, gold, a flood plain cottage and an improved forest spice tiles. The city is basically working the best tiles available at the moment. I have a library so I could also move 2 citizens to scienstist specialists and start producing a great scientist.

Working those various tiles provides the yields those tiles produce as seen on the map. You get whatever food, hammer or commerce those tiles produces. That information is actually displayed in the city screen UI, including any modifiers like a library in this case.

Having "access" to a "resource" like iron is separate from tile yield. For example, access to iron lets you build metal based units like Swordsman. (That access is basically empire wide at least as long as cities are connected) A city with an improved iron resource in its BFC can work that tile for the hammers it provides which is local to that city. Like a grassland iron would produce 2F4H or a plains iron would produce 1F5H. The city only receives that yield if a citizen is actually working that tile.

So hopefully that makes some sense for you.

Now, you also mention something about "improving all resources". I think you may be referring to resources that lie outside any of your cities' BFCs, such that no city can actually gain the yield from that tile since no citizen is able to work the tile. Well, extra copies of resources can be traded, so there is certainly no harm in improving a resources that cannot actually be worked. In some cases it might be a resource like a happy resource that you want access to anyway. (Note: You would still need road/river access to that resource) If by "food", you mean a food resource like wheat, rice, deer (etc)....well, they do provide health and they can be traded too.

However, just improving a random tile (no resource) outside an BFC does nothing - unless you plan to settle the area later.

I hope that helps, and apologize if I misunderstood the context of your questions.

 

[mastrude]

Ha..I could write a thesis on all this. First, let me just say that Civ IV is a pretty complex game. I'm not sure what exactly your experience level is with the game...

Thanks very much for your complete and thoughtful answer. My experience level is that I've played badly for thousands of hours. The Civ IV manual isn't terribly well-written and I found it eye-glazing. I'm re-reading it now, with lots no No-Doz.

 

[lymond]

Thanks very much for your complete and thoughtful answer. My experience level is that I've played badly for thousands of hours. The Civ IV manual isn't terribly well-written and I found it eye-glazing. I'm re-reading it now, with lots no No-Doz.

I don't think I ever once read that thing. I think of it more as a reference, and you can find most of the info on this site. As mentioned, you are better off spending some time in S&T if you really want to learn to play better. You can even create your own on-going thread to ask questions, or even play a game for advice. Even just a few key pointers can change your game immensely.

 

[mastrude]

Another question. I have a fairly hot computer, with 32 GB and an early I7 processor, yet Civ IV runs like a dog on it. Or a snail... or... but you get the idea. Is there a Python accelerator that would make it run faster? Or a Python compiler (it's interpretive, right?) How can I pick up the pace? I usually play two games at the same time, Civ IV and another game, so I can switch while each is d.r.a.g.g.i.n.g. to the next turn.

 

[lymond]

Another question. I have a fairly hot computer, with 32 GB and an early I7 processor, yet Civ IV runs like a dog on it. Or a snail... or... but you get the idea. Is there a Python accelerator that would make it run faster? Or a Python compiler (it's interpretive, right?) How can I pick up the pace? I usually play two games at the same time, Civ IV and another game, so I can switch while each is d.r.a.g.g.i.n.g. to the next turn.

Civ IV has a memory leak problem that has never been resolved. The move to 64 bit some years ago helped a tad but there is not much that really can be done. The game is going to slow down after some time playing. Even an SSD does not provide much relief other than simply loading games a bit faster.

First of all, playing alongside another game is not going to help at all..ha....unless you meant that you play on another computer.

Also, do you play with any mods?

Otherwise, assuming you do NOT play windowed-mode (I'm uncertain about this since you mention switching between games), you can always use CTL+SHIFT+ESC while in game. This will minimize the game and bring up the task manager. This seems to flush the RAM, so the game should perform normally again for a while..then repeat. Or simply save>exit>reload.

If you do use window-mode, I'd suggest not doing so.

You may have a lot of crap processes and bloatware running on your computer, so I might suggest googling ways to clean up your computer a bit....and ccleaner.

 

[krikav]

Playing standard size and speed helps too.

I can't imagine that there is any computer in the world that would enable playing huge/marathon endgame without considerable lag.

 

[mastrude]

... You may have a lot of crap processes and bloatware running on your computer, so I might suggest googling ways to clean up your computer a bit....and ccleaner.

I'm running with 32 GB, so memory isn't a problem. I'm running off a SSD drive, so disk shouldn't be. The process usually takes about 30% of my processor, and the processor isn't pegged. I just don't know why it's so pokey. Maybe flushing frequently will help. Do you really think playing in a window slows things down much?

 

[lymond]

Do you really think playing in a window slows things down much?

Yep, and the flushing method I described does not work when running the game in window-mode. I do use window mode sometimes but mainly for purposes of analyzing a game or providing feedback. The config file can be setup to start the game as full, windowed, or "ask", which prompts for either. I set it to "ask".

If your adamant on running in window mode, then you will have to restart the game periodically to get a boost.

And, yep, as krik mentioned, huge maps are gonna slow things down even quicker and the game obviously progressively bogs down as you reach later stages of a game.

Some huge mods out there like C2C and RI, will pretty much run quite slow from the start. You did not mention whether you run any mods.

Bug/Bull has a slight impact but most here don't play without those mods in some form or fashion.

Note: The big issue with IV and memory is it simply does not utilize RAM efficiently..I think no more than 2g, so while higher RAM is always good it only helps so much with IV. However, someone developed a little program that one can run on the your bts exe that provides a little bit of relief. Attached:

 

[Andrius938]

Hi guys, I wish to know if somebody knows good strategy for continents on difficulty Emperor, i am not sure if this is a good place to post here maybe someone could guide me where to find startagie conserning continents, since i manage to conquer may homeland and AI just gets to advanced. Any ideas? i was playing with Degoule of France.

 

[AcaMetis]

You'll want to look around the Strategy & Tips forum. Look through topics of people playing similar maps and see what they're doing, maybe even post a shadow game of your own. Civ IV is complex enough that there's many possible ways to improve your game, so identify what your weak(er) spots are and how to improve them.

 

[Orion Pax]

Question about the Apostolic Palace:

Any reason why Diplomatic Victory would not come up as an option?

I don’t usually use the AP, but it has often seemed flakey at delivering that option when I try it. In my most recent game I made sure each civ had the religion before I completed the palace with a GE. Only option that came up was electing the leader, again and again.

I don’t have a screenshot - sorry. Just wondering about mechanics I may have missed. Thx.

 

[AcaMetis]

There's no requirement beyond every civ on the map having the AP religion in at least one of their cities, and Diplo victories being enabled of course. If you keep getting elections that means that something is preventing the chosen candidate from being appointed, and new elections are held. I don't know those specific mechanics, but I think for the AP this can happen if there's only one candidate, since you can't get elected without an opponent.

 

[Orion Pax]

If you keep getting elections that means that something is preventing the chosen candidate from being appointed, and new elections are held. I don't know those specific mechanics, but I think for the AP this can happen if there's only one candidate, since you can't get elected without an opponent.

interesting. If every civ has one city with the religion, couldn’t they all be a candidate?

 

[drewisfat]

There's no requirement beyond every civ on the map having the AP religion in at least one of their cities, and Diplo victories being enabled of course. If you keep getting elections that means that something is preventing the chosen candidate from being appointed, and new elections are held. I don't know those specific mechanics, but I think for the AP this can happen if there's only one candidate, since you can't get elected without an opponent.

I don't believe this is correct

Two people aren't required for an election. If only the AP owner is eligible, they auto-win the election.
Diplomatic Victory also requires you to not have more than 75% of the votes yourself.
The reason it's not giving you any choices besides an election is none of the proposals has met the conditions to be viable. Having no possible resolutions is actually not uncommon when cheesing, as most of the proposals require there to be non-members or full members.

 

[Orion Pax]

Diplomatic Victory also requires you to not have more than 75% of the votes yourself.

Ah that sounds like it could explain it, thank you.

Out of curiosity, where did you find that stipulation? Seems like useful information to know.

 

[drewisfat]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-apostolic-palace-guide.319452/