Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[pixiejmcc]

You should already have macemen with lots of City Raider promos, and them upgrade them to riflemen (riflemen cannot be given the City Raider promo, nor can cavalry nor I think grenadiers).

Are you saying that when you upgrade a melee unit with city raider promos to a gunpowder unit, the city raider promos remain even though gunpowder units are not able to be promoted to city raider?

 

[lost_civantares]

Yep, it's quite nice when you're using grenadiers to attack.

 

[a4phantom]

Are you saying that when you upgrade a melee unit with city raider promos to a gunpowder unit, the city raider promos remain even though gunpowder units are not able to be promoted to city raider?

Yes. This allows siege gunpowder units (highly necessary for conducting wars between the discovery of gunpowder and the arrival of tanks hundreds of years later), Gunships (upgraded mounties) with Medic, and (if you're into that sort of thing) gunpowder units with first strike (crossbowmen with Drill1-4). I win every game that lasts that long in the rifle age with City Raiding Riflemen, and although I felt guilty I've been assured that this does not qualify as a dirty 'exploit'.

PS: The two best civs for this are probably the Japanese and the English. The Japanese because Samurai have 2 first strike and therefore are likely to survive long enough to get three promotions, Combat Raider 1,2 and 3, before upgrading to rifles (or grenaders if you want to wait). The english because, obviously, they have a murderously strong rifle unit, the Red Coat.

 

[a4phantom]

In the game I've just finished, I didn't play a custom game. I just went into single player. I had it set on Settler, so does this mean the other civilizations were playing on Noble?

Yes, the AI is naturally at Noble, and RJ says that the game works best if you leave them there and adjust your own difficulty instead.

 

[a4phantom]

==1. If you are to cross into an enemy civ's water, i presume you must go directly on to a coastal tile of their's. Is this correct?==

So it would seem.

==2. I am really weak on modern era units. Could someone tell me whether SAM infantry are able to intercept aircraft that are pillaging your improvements. Also when they intercept are they able to kill the unit or just inflict damage?==

Yes. They may damage or may kill it. If they damage it they also, as I recall, prevent it from doing any damage that turn, which is in itself very useful because airforces are expensive and while at war you need yours doing as much damage as possible every turn. (I would very much like for someone more expert than I to answer this in detail.)

==Oh, and 3. Could someone direct me to a thread which gives details on exactly what certain units will upgrade to and the cost of that upgrade?==

I'm certain there's a chart, probably not with the costs laid out.

==4. Considering that chops count as base hammers and are adjusted by modifiers, to what extent do u think it worthwhile to save chops for projects with positive modifiers (e.g. walls with stone), considering that all other base hammers are increased as well and if u chop they will not be producing as a high a yield for as long.==

Depends entirely on the circumstances. But you knew I'd say that.

 

[pixiejmcc]

Depends entirely on the circumstances. But you knew I'd say that.

LOL

Thank you Phantom.

 

[Roland Johansen]

2. I am really weak on modern era units. Could someone tell me whether SAM infantry are able to intercept aircraft that are pillaging your improvements. Also when they intercept are they able to kill the unit or just inflict damage?

4. Considering that chops count as base hammers and are adjusted by modifiers, to what extent do u think it worthwhile to save chops for projects with positive modifiers (e.g. walls with stone), considering that all other base hammers are increased as well and if u chop they will not be producing as a high a yield for as long.

I will add a bit to a4phantom's excellent answer.

2) The Sam Infantry has an interception range of 1 (it's in the civilopedia). All other ground units have a interception range of 0 (only the tile they're on). All fighters have an interception range equal to their bombing mission range. They are the best to protect your tiles.
I did some tests in civ 1.52 and concluded that it is very very difficult to shoot down airplanes. They mostly get wounded and will heal to bomb you another day. That makes airplanes overpowered and a large airforce used at the weakly defended spots (few fighters) of an enemy empire will do horrendous damage if you follow it up directly with a ground attack. (I actually think that air interception is bugged and didn't read anything that it was improved in 1.61.) You will lose very few bombers and almost no land units if you weaken the enemy sufficiently before a land attack. Make sure that you can do the weakening by your airforce in one turn. More turns of bombing also mean more turns of interception by your enemy.
Don't bomb if you do not plan to capture the city. You can lose bombers and they will heal the damage to the units.
With spies at strategic locations and knowledge of the interception range a enemy fighters and jet fighters, it is easy to find the weakest link in the enemy air defence. If they have a religion of which you have the holy city. then you'll know the position of their entire airforce.

4) (this is my personal take at this) I seldom save chops.
Civ 4 works a bit as real life. If you do a smart investment now, then it will pay you back in the future. It is better to do that investment now than in 10 years.

The investment is the chop and the invested item could for instance be a marketplace, the 10 turns are the time you win by using a (few) chop(s). The marketplace gold yield will allow you to raise your science rate so that you can research faster. The marketplace happiness bonus will allow you to increase the size of the city so that you can produce faster and research faster. All of this will lead you to get technologies and crucial buildings and units sooner. And that will allow you to start to build the wonder sooner.

I might save the chops for a wonder if I can see me chopping for the wonder within 20 turns or something like that. Or I might save the chops if I really don't have any good thing to invest the production in. But that last reason is a very very seldom occurence. You can almost always use extra production.

By the way, don't overrate wonders. They're not that good. Sometimes they might not even be worth the investment even if you could build them. Let the AI waste their production on them and you might gain the wonder benefits by conquering the wonder.

 

[Matty R]

Can time continue past 2050? I've started a custom game with the only available victory being conquest. Will time go to 2051 and beyond, and will my score continue to change?

 

[Raisin Bran]

Can time continue past 2050? I've started a custom game with the only available victory being conquest. Will time go to 2051 and beyond, and will my score continue to change?

If you did not choose the time victory condition the game will go beyond 2050 until you reach the conquest victory condition

and yes the score will change.

The game stops at 2050 only if you have time victory condition checked

 

[Matty R]

If you did not choose the time victory condition the game will go beyond 2050 until you reach the conquest victory condition

and yes the score will change.

The game stops at 2050 only if you have time victory condition checked

Brilliant. Thanks.

 

[fergus]

What is the biggest map you can have like 200 x 110 as an example

 

[Lord Parkin]

As big as your computer can handle. There is no "limit" as such, but most people find that anything much larger than, say, 150x100 (ie 15000 tiles) gets far too laggy (or even crashes) later on in the game.

Even with a top-of-the-line system, I doubt you could play a bearable game with much above 40000 tiles (ie, 200x200).

So basically, there are no "limits", but your computer system is what limits the playability of various size maps.

 

[Zello]

Hey all

question about rushing, overflow and semi-micromanaging (mini-managing?)

I'm trying out pop-rushing, and have a quick question - how do you use overflow to build two things at once? I mean, a lot of strategies talk about building settlers/workers by using overflow from chopping/popping other units or buildings. This much I understand:
- production queue: granary, settler
- Granary needs 25 more hammers
- whip one person, get 30 hammers
- overflow of 5 hammers
- want to build library next

my understanding is that the 5 hammers get applied to the next unit/building in the queue. So for the 5 hammers to go to the settler, do I need to actually spend one turn 'building' the settler, then switch to the library, or are the hammers given straight to the settler on completion of the granary, and I can go add library to the front of the queue without spending that one turn on the settler?

 

[pixiejmcc]

Do I need to actually spend one turn 'building' the settler?

Yes you do. Otherwise you could theoretically build a full worker or settler, without it disrupting your growth.

 

[Matty R]

As big as your computer can handle. There is no "limit" as such, but most people find that anything much larger than, say, 150x100 (ie 15000 tiles) gets far too laggy (or even crashes) later on in the game.

Even with a top-of-the-line system, I doubt you could play a bearable game with much above 40000 tiles (ie, 200x200).

So basically, there are no "limits", but your computer system is what limits the playability of various size maps.

So what are the sizes (in tiles) of each map size? I take it Huge is 200x200?

 

[cabert]

Hey all

question about rushing, overflow and semi-micromanaging (mini-managing?)

I'm trying out pop-rushing, and have a quick question - how do you use overflow to build two things at once? I mean, a lot of strategies talk about building settlers/workers by using overflow from chopping/popping other units or buildings. This much I understand:
- production queue: granary, settler
- Granary needs 25 more hammers
- whip one person, get 30 hammers
- overflow of 5 hammers
- want to build library next

my understanding is that the 5 hammers get applied to the next unit/building in the queue. So for the 5 hammers to go to the settler, do I need to actually spend one turn 'building' the settler, then switch to the library, or are the hammers given straight to the settler on completion of the granary, and I can go add library to the front of the queue without spending that one turn on the settler?

if you want overflow to go on a specific item, you have to finish a turn building it.
You can also whip settlers/workers

 

[Lord Parkin]

So what are the sizes (in tiles) of each map size? I take it Huge is 200x200?

Nooo.... Huge is more like 108x82 (or something in that region, I'm not sure of the exact dimensions).

 

[Matty R]

Nooo.... Huge is more like 108x82 (or something in that region, I'm not sure of the exact dimensions).

Oh good. I'm not bothered then. Carry on.

 

[a4phantom]

RJ: What about waiting for mathematics to chop? Not counting tiles you want cleared for irrigation, mining or villages of course.

 

[Roland Johansen]

RJ: What about waiting for mathematics to chop? Not counting tiles you want cleared for irrigation, mining or villages of course.

That depends very much on how long mathematics is away and for what purpose the hammers can be used (but I guess you would have expected the 'it depends' answer).

Lets say that you expect to get mathematics in 10 turns. A marketplace (the example building used in my previous post) is probably not a building that you can build at that time. Maybe a settler or a worker or a temple is a more logical building at that time. So you have to compare the gains of getting these things earlier compared to getting extra hammers.

Lets say that you can get the temple 10 turns sooner by chopping one forest. You lose 10 hammers because you chop now compared to chopping in 10 turns (20 hammers compared to 30 with mathematics). You gain 1 happiness which can be used to let the city grow larger. So you gain 1 extra citizen for 10 turns. Probably 1 extra citizen for 10 turns is worth more than 10 hammers because 1 citizen typically produces more than 1 hammer per turn so in this case I would chop.

Note that this is just an example. I only gave this example to show that you that you can really compare the different choices. I won't encourage you to calculate the pluses and minuses of each situation every time. But a quick rough calculation now and then can give you a feeling for what is better and when you get in a similar situation in another game then you know intuitively what is better.

Typically waiting to chop for a long time is not worth it.