Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Qactus]

Thank you! How many of the island will usually be connected by sea, as opposed to ocean, tiles?

That depends on the settings. There are archipelago maps where almost all islands are connected w/o ocean in between. That's what I meant when I said it is sometimes possible to circumnavigate (and unlock the extra movement) with galleys.
Here are some sample archipelago maps for (left to right) snaky continents, islands and tiny islands:

(This is from https://civ-wiki.de/wiki/Kartensammlung_(Civ4). It's a very useful overview to get an idea what mapscripts will look like and what their landmass settings will do, it's in German though)

 

[R82]

A proper guide would have a section on traits as well. Let's just point out that IND obviously helps with the Great Lighthouse and cheap forges make whipping units easier later on. AGG is even less useful, because fighting (land) barbs won't be an issue on a water map. CRE is hugely helpful in order to get second ring food resources online quickly. On a land map it is much easier to adapt your city placement to get food in the first ring, on water maps this is often not possible.

So, ideally I'd do an unrestricted leaders game with Louis XIV, or maybe Huayna Capac, of the Vikings?

 

[Tecumseh1]

This is what the AI does so it's automatically suspect.

In this specific instance it's probably best to spend a turn reducing Chicago's defense to 0. But there are lots of situations where you simply can't wait to bombard each city to 0. That can take many turns pre-gunpowder if the city has a wall.

I'm curious how other players conduct their cannon wars. Generally I try to send some cannon for pre-bombarding while the main stack is healing. I'll bombard the city closer to 0% but won't skip a turn of the main stack's movement to wait for more bombardment.

Bombarding to 0% might save some cannons, but all sorts of bad things can happen when you fight a war too slowly.

I will rarely spend a whole turn bombarding defenses. It's usually less efficient and too slow. Esp with cannons (or trebs even if they don't have too many longbows). I will bombard with a few, the promote a couple to collateral damage and suicide. Then use city attack promoted siege to further soften. And can take city in 1 turn if you bring enough units. Of course that isn't always a luxury. But I'd rather suicide a few siege and take targets more quickly. I usually don't split my stack or try to bombard 1 city ahead. It's too tedious to keep things tight and usually bad things happen to me when I don't use concentration of force.

 

[NickGabben]

When a capital city is captured, the palace is auto-moved to another city. What I'm wondering is whether there's a bonus for capturing the capital. Sometimes it's the very last city you take, way down on a peninsula and then there are games where the capital keeps getting moved along the logical invasion path so you capture it like five times. Does the AI react differently to losing the capital or is it just another city loss?

 

[AcaMetis]

As far as I know capturing the capital only matters insofar as capturing an AI's actual first city (which will ixnay them going for a Cultural victory) or destroying that civ's spaceship travelling to Alpha Centauri. I'm not aware of any given city that happens to have a Palace being worth more war success than any other given city.

 

[Lennier]

I don't think capturing an AI's actual first city will by rule prevent them from getting a cultural victory--it just makes it practically impossible as that's probably their highest culture city. And it's capturing the capital that destroys the spaceship, NN the first city (but that's usually the capital.)

 

[mohamed II]

I don't think capturing an AI's actual first city will by rule prevent them from getting a cultural victory--it just makes it practically impossible as that's probably their highest culture city. And it's capturing the capital that destroys the spaceship, NN the first city (but that's usually the capital.)

i am surprised that there is still some one playing this game . i have a question. is bts better than the original version .because iam playing the vanilla from a long time so is it nessesary to play bts and is it has a deffierent mechanics

 

[AcaMetis]

Strictly necessary, no, but BTS and Warlords do each add on to the vanilla game (more leaders, added mechanics, etc.) so I would recommend both.

 

[mohamed II]

Strictly necessary, no, but BTS and Warlords do each add on to the vanilla game (more leaders, added mechanics, etc.) so I would recommend both.

bts changed mechanics or just added

 

[mohamed II]

what makes me worried about bts is that it has gabs like for example crusser rush

 

[lymond]

what makes me worried about bts is that it has gabs like for example crusser rush

BTS is the definitive version of Civ IV and what makes it one of the best games of all time, and def best civ game.

It added content like more leaders, traits, wonders etc as well as tweaked a lot of mechanics that did not work that well in earlier versions. I would not say it necessarily added mechanics except maybe the Apostolic Palace which is essentially another type of diplomatic victory.

 

[mohamed II]

BTS is the definitive version of Civ IV and what makes it one of the best games of all time, and def best civ game.

It added content like more leaders, traits, wonders etc as well as tweaked a lot of mechanics that did not work that well in earlier versions. I would not say it necessarily added mechanics except maybe the Apostolic Palace which is essentially another type of diplomatic victory.

Is it easier than the vanilla version

 

[TheBirdMan]

Is it easier than the vanilla version

If you think so, then you could continue with the R:I mod to BtS. You can read about it here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/realism-invictus.411799/ . Last official version is 3.61 from Dec 24, 2023 (yes, X-mas.... a new release often comes in the late days of a year).

From "official" side, there should come no more new releases with major changes/additions - only with bug fixes. But from what I can see/read in above thread, there will be quite a lot of goodies in the next update.

 

[lymond]

Is it easier than the vanilla version

From what I know the difference in difficulty is marginal, but felt more at the very highest levels where vanilla and warlords are considered quite difficult at Deity level, especially warlords. BTS Deity is still super hard. I think some tweaks to the AI bonus made things a tad better in BTS, as well as certain mechanics like war weariness, golden ages, and bulbing requirements.

A coupla of noticeable differences:

1) siege no longer kills units in BTS...used to bombard and weaken stacks
2) The first golden age requires only one great person, whereas two were required before
3) BTS added corporations that are quite interesting and powerful
4) War weariness is very much a factor in BTS, but less punishing than earlier versions. I can't remember in Statue of Zeus wonder existing before BTS, but it affects war weariness for the owner
5) I think some yields were boosted like workshop hammers later on

BTS imo is just a better experience. Plus, you can use mods like BUG or BAT to improve the user interface.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I can't be the only one who occasionally spammed siege-only stacks to kill off civs in the base game lol

 

[sampsa]

BtS is simply a better game and BUG/BAT/BUFFY makes the gaming experience much better.

 

[AspiringScholar]

what makes me worried about bts is that it has gabs like for example crusser rush

Definitely go with BTS! Even if mods aren't your thing (and I agree with TheBirdMan that Realism Invictus is an absolutely incredible one, though you'll have to sink a lot of time into getting familiar with it), it is still one of the best games of all time right out of the box.

I also think Cuirassier rushes are just as potent in vanilla, but I haven't played it in nearly 20 years so I might be wrong. Obviously there are "gambits" but the difficulty levels are quite pleasantly granular and scalable to several skill levels, and the hardest difficulties are still incredibly challenging in spite of them. A beautiful thing about the game though, is that you can hard-game it on one of those, or play more casually at a medium difficulty, as you prefer.

 

[Lexicus]

Definitely go with BTS! Even if mods aren't your thing (and I agree with TheBirdMan that Realism Invictus is an absolutely incredible one, though you'll have to sink a lot of time into getting familiar with it), it is still one of the best games of all time right out of the box.

I also think Cuirassier rushes are just as potent in vanilla, but I haven't played it in nearly 20 years so I might be wrong. Obviously there are "gambits" but the difficulty levels are quite pleasantly granular and scalable to several skill levels, and the hardest difficulties are still incredibly challenging in spite of them. A beautiful thing about the game though, is that you can hard-game it on one of those, or play more casually at a medium difficulty, as you prefer.

Cuirassiers were added in BTS actually.

 

[lymond]

Definitely go with BTS! Even if mods aren't your thing (and I agree with TheBirdMan that Realism Invictus is an absolutely incredible one, though you'll have to sink a lot of time into getting familiar with it), it is still one of the best games of all time right out of the box.

I also think Cuirassier rushes are just as potent in vanilla, but I haven't played it in nearly 20 years so I might be wrong. Obviously there are "gambits" but the difficulty levels are quite pleasantly granular and scalable to several skill levels, and the hardest difficulties are still incredibly challenging in spite of them. A beautiful thing about the game though, is that you can hard-game it on one of those, or play more casually at a medium difficulty, as you prefer.

and there are certainly plenty of other ways to win. Cur rushes are just very popular among high-level players, but other stuff is effective.

Yeah, curs added with BTS. It was Cavalry that was strong in earlier versions and really a somewhat similar gambit as I think they were accessible a bit earlier than they are now in BTS.

 

[Lexicus]

and there are certainly plenty of other ways to win. Cur rushes are just very popular among high-level players, but other stuff is effective.

Yeah, curs added with BTS. It was Cavalry that was strong in earlier versions and really a somewhat similar gambit as I think they were accessible a bit earlier than they are now in BTS.

Yeah I think maybe you didn't need rifling for them pre-BTS.