Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[smartus]

At the high levels, there are several things that make it difficult to stay at the same tech level as the AI. Of course the research bonusses of the AI and other bonusses that help their development will make it hard. But there is also a hidden penalty. It is very difficult to trade techs with the AI after a certain number of technology trades have taken place.

Good to know. It may be the problem.

During peace talks, you can always ask for technologies. But the late game technologies are so expensive that they are very difficult to get in peace talks.

Figured it out

Another way to stay in the tech race is to slow down your enemies. There are some leaders that are usually ahead in the tech race and are likely to trade their technologies (Mansu Masu for instance) and if you can get them in a war with another nation, then that will slow down their tech rate and thus the tech rate of all your enemies considerably.

I've tried to, but I am always playing some kind of a gay game, everybody likes each other... I was apparently losing, so I attacked my neighbours. After signing peace, they became Pleased/Friendly again

Of course, there are always ways to improve the way you build your own empire, but if you're playing at emperor level, then you're probably doing a good job with your own empire. I guess that remarks about the value of cottages for research or the value of a super science city are not needed.

Not sure about my skills, I am very impatient and I am probably producing useless buildings...
(Q) Should I produce wealth/research only in minor cities? (looks like AI players produce less buildings than me...)

Of course you can adapt the map settings to make conquest easier (small maps, 1 land mass, epic or marathon speed settings). That can help you conquer your enemies before they become too advanced, but that's not something I would do. I like multiple land masses on huge maps and I like more difficulties with conquests.

I don't want to do it either That's why I am asking here... I always play with default settings and random leader (but some leaders are really crappy...).

Anyway thanks for you answer!

 

[smartus]

The AI in Civ4 is much more difficult as in Civ3.
I believe Sirian (who was involved with developing the AI etc.) said an Emperor level AI in CIV4 was like a Deity or harder AI in Civ3

Now I feel much better! Thanks

 

[Roland Johansen]

Should I produce wealth/research only in minor cities? (looks like AI players produce less buildings than me...)

I never build either wealth or research. I either build buildings that improve the efficiency of my cities or I build units to conquer the world. I don't get in a situation where I don't want more units to conquer the world. If I have too much units, then I'm not using them enough to kill my enemies...

Note that a lot of buildings get randomly destroyed when you conquer a city, so you can only know what buildings are in an enemy city by checking it out with a spy before you conquer it. The AI maybe doesn't build every building, but they often build most of them in their good cities.

The conversion rate of production to wealth/research is not that good. It's far more efficient to replace the production improvements (lumbermills, mines and workshops) by cottages.

It might be difficult to find out the exact ratio of production tile improvements to cottages in your cities. It depends a bit on how much warmongering you want to do (at the start of the game). But usually cottages are better than production improvements (especially after you start using the universal suffrage and free speech civics; rush buying is hugely overpowered.) I know a guy who swears that he uses cottages on 90% of his land tiles and he's a good player. I myself use some production improvements to get a reasonable level of production, but I also use cottages the most.

(I must say that after universal suffrage and rush buying, there's no reason to build a production improvement over a cottage. Rush buying is that much overpowered.)

Some other things:
-You need a super science city with all the research buildings, Oxford University and a super gold city with your best Shrine and Wall street.
-You need a heavy production city to build units with the appropriate small wonders that boost this (experience bonus and unit production bonus). This city should use most of its time building units.
-It's also a good idea to build a Heavy production city for wonders with the appropriate small wonders that help this. And a good Great Person city that has the small wonder that boosts this (this should be a city with huge amounts of food production for many specialists). World Wonders are not very important for winning the game, but if you can get one fairly easy, then it might be worth it.

The rest of your cities should have some production improvements and many cottages (and enough food to grow thus large that they can use all of their useful tiles).

As you're playing at emperor, you're probably already employing these ideas more or less.

About diplomacy:
If you can't get others to take out/slow down opponents like Mansu Masu, then you should consider doing it yourself. However, with the right diplomacy you can often make empires hate eachother. Especially if you can spread you religion to a war monger leader and let him attack the science rush leader which employs a different religion. That is certainly worth a technology gift in exchange for the war.

 

[a4phantom]

Of course you can adapt the map settings to make conquest easier (small maps, 1 land mass, epic or marathon speed settings). That can help you conquer your enemies before they become too advanced, but that's not something I would do. I like multiple land masses on huge maps and I like more difficulties with conquests.

Right, it's very cheap and shouldn't be considered beating the game. To prove this I beat Monarch easily by playing a tiny world with one land mass as the Incas, and simply smothered my enemies in Quechuas. I have a great deal of trouble at Prince, so . . .

Question: If you're lucky enough to start out with fishing and adjacent seafood, and also corn or wheat or cows nearby, should you build a workboat first instead of a worker? I do, figuring that my city can grow to size 2 while producing a tile improvement that increases food and thus speeds up creation of the worker, and commerce. However, I realize that that a workboat only improves one tile and then is gone, whereas a worker will do one after another. Assuming the "it depends on circumstances", is there a tendency towards worker or workboat first?

 

[Esox]

At Game Over does it let you know how long in real time you played a specific game for?

Yes, and there is a way to find out in-game but I forget how. I also think the 'official' time is on the low side in my games, but maybe it just seems to take forever...

 

[azzaman333]

When will Warlords be released in Australia?

 

[a4phantom]

I never build either wealth or research.

Is that the general case among the superstar players? I rarely build either (as you say the conversion rate is bad, does it still improve when you discover economics?), but sometimes there are no buildings to build, no workers needed, and a new military unit about 10 turns in the future that will obsolete what I'd be building now. In a city with library, university, laboratory, academy and maybe oxford, wouldn't the bonuses make 'building' science significant?

Also does your total culture still affect diplomacy, as it did in Civ3 when you were told if another civ was awed by your culture of contemptous of it (with major effects on how they treated you?) If not, is there any real reason to care about the cultural level in your core cities (the ones that won't be engaged in setting borders) if you're not going for a cultural victory?

 

[Samson]

Is that the general case among the superstar players? I rarely build either (as you say the conversion rate is bad, does it still improve when you discover economics?), but sometimes there are no buildings to build, no workers needed, and a new military unit about 10 turns in the future that will obsolete what I'd be building now. In a city with library, university, laboratory, academy and maybe oxford, wouldn't the bonuses make 'building' science significant?

I am not a "superstar" player, but I am OK. I build reaserch quite offen, towards the end of the game when I am going for space ship win. In a city with factory, power and forge these multiplyers counteract the 50% convertion rate, so base hammers are the same as base commerce. Also it is offen the case that you really do not need anything else built in a commerce city, so the hammers may as well go towards your reaserch.

If I am going to go to war I would probably build the soon to be obsolete milatry unit, as they are a whole lot better than nothing.

 

[Gherald]

In a city with factory, power and forge these multiplyers counteract the 50% convertion rate, so base hammers are the same as base commerce.

When building research, gold, or culture directly, only base hammers matter, and are converted at the 50% rate. Forges, factories, power plants, etc. do nothing.

 

[Samson]

When building research, gold, or culture directly, only base hammers matter, and are converted at the 50% rate. Forges, factories, power plants, etc. do nothing.

At some patch versions, this is not how I remember it working. I cannot remember which, I think the last GOTM that I played (5?) was still 1.51. You got the production bonuses, then the total was reduced by 50%, then you got the reaserch bonuses (libs, unis etc.) on top of that.

I could be wrong, but I distictly remember looking at how it worked and deciding that with factory, power and forge these multiplyers counteract the 50% convertion rate.

 

[Gherald]

Well you were looking at the wrong thing, because the hammer popup is meaningless. Look at the one for beakers, gold, or culture.

 

[mazelda]

Could somebody answer a question for me
When I start a game why is it I only get 10 rounds and am usually beaten !how do I increase the number of rounds above this I've looked at the settings but cant find anywhere to adjust



Please disreguard this thought I would be smart and install a crack for no cd and this is what has caused the problem !!!!!

 

[Samson]

Well you were looking at the wrong thing, because the hammer popup is meaningless. Look at the one for beakers, gold, or culture.

^ He is right you know, I have just checked it. I cannot belive I missed this.

 

[Conqueror '91]

This is starting to get on my nerves....
I am not able to research any technologies after gunpowder/education/printing press. On the tech tree in the game, all the techs past those are in red. I checked all the settings in the game as well as the XML file for technologies and couldn't find anything strange there. The answer's probably right in front of me, but...

 

[MrCynical]

I am not able to research any technologies after gunpowder/education/printing press. On the tech tree in the game, all the techs past those are in red. I checked all the settings in the game as well as the XML file for technologies and couldn't find anything strange there. The answer's probably right in front of me, but...

Are you playing a scenario or a mod or something where the tech tree is limited to a certain age (by the sound of it Renaissance)?

 

[Matty R]

When you finish building something in a city, and the list comes up saying its been completed and asks us what to build next, I've noticed that some items in that list are in yellow text. Anyone know the significance of that yellow text?

 

[a4phantom]

Could somebody answer a question for me
When I start a game why is it I only get 10 rounds and am usually beaten !how do I increase the number of rounds above this I've looked at the settings but cant find anywhere to adjust



Please disreguard this thought I would be smart and install a crack for no cd and this is what has caused the problem !!!!!

Firaxis has gotten very good at this , I have heard so many stories about cracks on Civ4 causign problems that I wouldn't advise anyone ot do it for practical reasons even if you don't see an ethical problem.

 

[Gherald]

I suggest you make an image of the CD/DVD and mount it with something like Daemon Tools (I use the old 3.47 non-adware version) or PowerISO, etc.

This is perfectly safe (downloading NoCD cracks from warez sites is very risky), easier to maintain (NoCDs have to be re-downloaded for every patch), and ethical -- not to mention legal.

The only downside is the image for Civ4 is around 1.5 GB in size, but with today's hard drives that's not unreasonable.

 

[Conqueror '91]

Are you playing a scenario or a mod or something where the tech tree is limited to a certain age (by the sound of it Renaissance)?

No, this happens even in normal games.

 

[Esox]

When you finish building something in a city, and the list comes up saying its been completed and asks us what to build next, I've noticed that some items in that list are in yellow text. Anyone know the significance of that yellow text?

When you mouse-over a build choice the name goes yellow. That's the only time I've ever seen it.
Purpose? No idea.