Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

I would look it up but I don't know exactly what to search for and there is no way I could look it up in the 179 pages of this entire thread so... My question is: is there a way to play a single player game and only be able to go to a certain era? I mean that if you want to start on ancient can you stop the era advancement at classical? Because I want to play a domination game that you can only use swordsman, maceman archer etc. not advance on up to rifleman and grenadiers or eventually tanks and such. So is there a way to do that or not?

 

Actually, you can!

1. Go into the world builder and make a tiny change, then exit the WB.
2. Go into the world builder and change it back, then exit the WB.
3. Exit to main menu.
4. Go to Play a scenario and select "WorldBuilder Quick Save" (or something like that).
5. Select the civ you want ot play as.

 

Does anyone know of an article or forumpost where the basics of a spaceship victory are explained ? So just, what to research and built, with maybe a few simple hints ?

I have never attempted a spaceship victory, even though I've been playing since Civ2.

 

Well, it is very easy to explain. Reasearch Satellites and get head start on Apollo Program, then computers so you can build labrotory. Then, just use the civilopedia to find out what other techs you need to research to get all the parts you need. One of the parts requires you to buuld it 5 times, and one needs 3 times.

 

Heh heh, ya it was fun.

I have another really quick question. Zooraster was just born in my main city. I'm not really clear on I what I should be doing with him. I've already built 2 wonders in my main city, 1 one of them was Kashi Vishwanath built by a previous great person.

So what should I do with this guy? I know I can have him join my city or instantly research a tech. But whenever I have them instantly research a tech it's always some lame easy one that I never bothered to research and it seems like a waste.

Any advice on this?

Another question I had was...one of my cities is getting alot of cultural pressure from a neighboring city to the point where my city is little whiffs of smoke that is the color of the other city's cultural influence coming off it. What can I do to combat this?

 

Hello, All.
How come I try to settle a city and out of the clear blue sky another empire has claim to the land? They have no cities anywhere near.
For instance, Greek has a fat "L" shaped area and there is not a Grecian around. And Japan has one lone red square out in the middle of nowhere.
The nearest Greek or Japanese cities are so far away they are not even on the map.
This happens to me all the time. In an earlier game, I found some land that was totally undiscovered, except Spain had claim to about three or four tiles. No Spanish cities even on the same continent!

I put a screen shot out on my website if you want to see it.
http://www.allenlhoward.com/images/Culure.JPG

Single player, Civ IV version 1.61 patch applied. I have discovered this at all three difficulty levels that I've played

 

And another quick one...

Can I have 2 or more workers working on the same job and will that decrease production time?

 

Yess, the more workers that are working a tile the faster the improvement will be completed.

 

Save up a Great Engineer to build Space Elevator and build laboratories in all your big production cities. Make sure your strongest producers are working on the big components and then spread the little ones (the ones you have to make many of) out among your medium production cities.


Born_InTheUSA: There is Greek city there, probably just East of the wheatfield, it's just hidden in the fog of war because it was built since you last saw those tiles.

S Baldrick: If you're not using him for a Shrine or to research a tech (and religious techs are not at all useless, although the early ones are cheap), stick him as a superpriest in the city you expect ot build wallstreet in. And I don't think you can prevent revolts except by building up your own culture in that city, but stationing many units there should prevent the city from actually flipping. I'm fighting Victoria to the south and Stalin is to her west and my south. The cities I take from her want to join him, including one I used a Great Artist to culturebomb!

My question: can anyone suggest a reason all religions besides Buddism are always founded on my continent? I never found any except occasionally Confucism by accident, but it always works out that way.

 

what's better when facing axemen? Swordsman, Crossbowmen, or Axemen

 

Crossbowmen, but axemen do the job and tend to come 100 or more turns earlier. Swordsmen are the worst and are killed easily by axemen.

[EDIT] Or if you have warlords, chariots are designed for that job.

 

Few questions from the latest noob:

Is it a good idea to draft for a major war or should that be saved for a last resort?

Some AI just has to build a city right next to my main city when I'm about to found more. I've tried to build a city in a bottleneck to keep them out, but this is driving me nuts. Any ideas?

I tend to rely on calvary alot. But then they get obselete and I have a ton of calvary with no use whatsoever. Should I just not fight wars in that time period and wait for guns?

 

1. Last resort.
2. If this was Civ3 I'd say use cultural pressure to flip them, but it's not so attack!
3. Cavalry are obsolete for a long time before they can be converted into gunships. How you respond to that depends on the circumstances of the game, but I wouldn't build quite so many knowing that their window of use is closing. Personally after barb hunting chariots I don't use many mounted units, they don't get City Raider and they always have a hard counter (spears-pikes-rifles). They're also expensive and their speed advantage is partially nullified by the fact that they often can't operate alone at least offensively because they'll be ripped apart by their counters. So I keep a few with my stack and more back home as rapid responders, but in general there's almost always a better unit in my view.

 

Thanks Samson.

I'm also having trouble figuring out when I should be using my specialists. I have access to several now but I never use them because it never seems like the tradeoff for one of my tiles is worth it. Am I missing something here?

 

Depends. Are you trying to produce Great People in that city? If not, you can usually get more from an improved tile. Are you running Representation? I think that's the one that gives you science per specialist. Sistine Chapel gives culture per specialist but I find that unimpressive.

 

I havn't really focused on great people. I've heard that there were some good strategy's using them though. Any tips on that?

Also how often do you guys use Slavery? Obviously emergency's, like when your city is under attack are the perfect time. But I'm wondering if I should be using it to complete things like theatre's and libraries. That's kind of what I've been doing and I feel like I may have been over-using it a tad. Of course everytime my cities start to get really big I run into problems with food and such, so I dunno.

 

Many thanks, a4panthom. More questions:

If calvary's not the best thing to go with, then what should I stock up on and then wage war? I usually don't go to war until I have a few large stacks at the border ready to storm in and murder them in a few turns. Or should I completely rethink that?

I play warlord, so I get to most of the techs before anyone else, so should I wait until I get to the end of the tree and blow everyone away with mech infantry, planes and modern armor?

 

In regards to Trade Missions. I thought I read somewhere that the thing to do is go to a city as far away from yours as possible and then do it. Is that correct?

 

I should mention that a lot of good players seem to love calvary, I just like to focus on taking cities for which they are rarely suited. What you should stock up on to wage war depends on the circumstances, but generally you should have a lot of whatever unit's best for taking cities because your city attacks die a lot. First this is axes, then swords, then maces and trebs, then grenadiers (against defending rifles, if something else is defending cavalry would be your strongest bet, or cannons with City Raider), then infantry and then tanks. Gunpowder units can't be given City Raider, but maces with City Raider can be promoted to grenadier, rifle, infantry and mech infantry which is a good thing to do.

No, if you can manage to build up an overwhelming force and then stomp the opposition (the Powell Doctrine) then by all means do it. It's a lot cheaper to waste time on excess force than to waste everything by having too little. When you play on higher levels you'll find it harder to outpace your enemy so far, although I play Prince and I started out by stomping Persia which was the premier civilization on my continent and far ahead of me by focusing on military production and sending a huge stack straight at their capital. Despite having warmonger traits Cyrus was completely unprepared and the whole empire collapsed pretty easily.

If you want to. One of the most pronounced tech advantages definitely comes from having planes before your opponent has planes or SAMs, and infantry slaughter rifles and grenadiers with a big strength difference and +25% vs gunpowder. Again once you're playing at higher levels you'll find yourself having less control over when and where you fight wars. I personally start right away because I'm a bloodthirsty tyrant.

I think the factors to look for are size, distance from your capital, and that the city is someone else's capital. Early in the game I'd suggest joining him to your best gold (not necessarily commerce) city, where you think you'll end up building Wall Street, instead of going on a Trade Mission. The gold buildup over time is probably not as good as the immediate cash, but doesn't a Super specialist merchant give +1 food too?

A sort of related note: Do people often build Oxford U and Wall Street in the same city (the best commercial center obviously)? It makes sense to me unless you've already built National Epic where you want to build Oxford. Then you could build National Epic in a production city where you have your engineer and hopefully Pyramids or Great Wall to produce Great Engineers. I haven't tried this or really tried to partner any small wonders besides West Point and Heroic Epic, but I think it would make sense, and you could convert every square of the Oxford/Wallstreet city to commerce and food production. Or is it better to split them up so one city can run merchants and the other scientists?

 

i have had some help with the basics and i think i may understand the game now, but one more question: If i have a population of 3 then 3 tiles get worked. If i build a farm and leave the 3 citizens on other tiles, will that farm not generate any more food until someone is assigned to it?

I think that building improvements also requires for you to have someone working the tile that improvement is onm or else it doesnt generate its benefits. correct?

Thanks.