Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[pixiejmcc]

"Down times", when you have no buildings to contruct in a city and it's not advantageous for it to be constructing military units are a good time to build missionaries.

Like anything, it's situational. Say you are in organised religion and you are about to plant a new city. Building a missionary, ready to convert a newly planted city has at least three benefits.

1. It will mean your city expands to cover it's fat cross.
2. It will add 25% to chops and slaves for those crucial early buildings (especially granary, early game).
3. You can build a missionary in any city right now, when you change your religious civic later, the city will require a monastery.

Whilst on the subject of monasteries, to what extent do people prioritise these. If ur not in OR they can be pretty essential. But in terms of their scientific gain they seem comparable to observatories in terms of a hammers to % increase in science ratio. Building an observatory early game (of course u cannot) would be quite expensive in terms of hammers.

 

[a4phantom]

Like anything, it's situational. Say you are in organised religion and you are about to plant a new city. Building a missionary, ready to convert a newly planted city has at least three benefits.

I didn't mean that it was the only good time.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Whilst on the subject of monasteries, to what extent do people prioritise these. If ur not in OR they can be pretty essential. But in terms of their scientific gain they seem comparable to observatories in terms of a hammers to % increase in science ratio. Building an observatory early game (of course u cannot) would be quite expensive in terms of hammers.

I tend to almost not build monasteries. The reason is that I have to choose between the various things that improve my economy and monasteries always seem to come last. As you say, their rate of science production/hammer cost is very low at that point in the game and worse still, they work only temporarily. When they become obsolete, their science bonus dissapears. Organized religion is actually my favourite religious civic and normally I will use it for an entire game. So I don't need the monasteries to build missionaries.

I would build a monastary in a city that has a very high science production and has already build a granary, (lighthouse), library, (harbor) and courthouse. Maybe even after the marketplace and grocery depending on my science rate. Just because these buildings are usually more important for the development of my cities.
I might also build them in a border city that is involved in a cultural war.

But if you're not a fan of the organized religion civic, then they become more important. Also, if you emphasize production land development around your cities more than I do, then you might naturally have more production to spend on monasteries before they become obsolete.

 

[pixiejmcc]

I didn't mean that it was the only good time.

Heh I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just adding to what you wrote. may be the quote was inappropriate.

 

[Lord Parkin]

"Down times", when you have no buildings to contruct in a city and it's not advantageous for it to be constructing military units are a good time to build missionaries.

Hmm, well we all have our own strategies I guess. Personally I view all buildings as "optional", and will usually only build just a couple in most cities, as they are needed (Barracks is the key one, plus Granary, Forge, Lighthouse if coastal, and perhaps a Library if it has a decent research rate). After that I'll start churning out units. IMHO you can never have too many units, just ones which are not being put to use properly.

The simple fact is that most of the time you don't need every building in every city - far from it. Of course, in your more powerful/larger cities you will want to capitalise on their power by building more buildings. But you want to be careful not to get too carried away with building spamming. Likewise, wonder spamming is something you've got to be careful not to get into the trap of.

Mind you, I mainly play multiplayer now, so my strategies are a result of that. In single player games, you can generally afford to be a lot more casual about troops, and just go for a peaceful cultural, diplomatic, or space race win (three victory types which will almost never happen in a multiplayer game).

 

[Samson]

Whilst on the subject of monasteries, to what extent do people prioritise these. If ur not in OR they can be pretty essential. But in terms of their scientific gain they seem comparable to observatories in terms of a hammers to % increase in science ratio. Building an observatory early game (of course u cannot) would be quite expensive in terms of hammers.

My general rule is to build at least 1 of each religion in a production city just before I get to sci. method, so I can keep spreading it while in free religion.

 

[a4phantom]

pixiejmcc,
Sorry, I didn't mean that as touchy as it came out!

Lord Parkin,
I meant no worthwhile building left to build in that city.

Regarding RJ's statement but open to all,
Is there a good discussion on when to use which religious civic? I don't tend to use Organized Religion at all due to the high upkeep, but it seems to be the most popular. I try to use Pacifism a lot, thinking that the 0 upkeep should make up enough for the higher military upkeep, but I'll admit I don't understand the math of any of this. I used to switch to Free Religion as soon as possible, but now I get University of Sangore so I'm reluctant to give up a state religion. Sometimes I do a Theocracy stint during a major military production period, but now with Military Instructors it's more advantageous to dedicate two cities to continuously building military units than to switch to Theo or Vassalage for one big burst (unless at war of course).

 

[Lord Parkin]

The high upkeep shouldn't put you off. Organised Religion is an awesome civic, and definitely worth the few extra gold per turn it costs. +25% for buildings is great, and is especially useful near the start of a game when everything is usually so comparitively expensive to produce. It's great for that little bit extra when you're rushing for a particular wonder, too. But most of all, the ability to build missionaries of any type at will, without having to worry about building clunky monasteries, is huge. Organised Religion is definitely worth considering in the early game.

As for the others... Theocracy is generally good in wartime (as you would expect). The disallowing of the spreading of non-state religions tends to be a little more annoying than useful, at least IMHO. Pacifism is OK for a peaceful builders game, but other than that it's fairly useless... or at least, not as useful as the other religious civics. And Free Religion is really entirely dependent on the map... on smaller games you'll find it advantageous to keep up a religion to keep certain civs on your side. On larger games (close to or more than 18 civs), Free Religion is practically a necessity since there'll be so much diversity of religion around the world... and thus by having a religion you're annoying far more civs than you're keeping happy.

Those are my opinions, anyway.

 

[Hakim]

Is there any way I can save which civs I picked (both me and AI) in the custom game screen and make them preselected next time I start a custom game?

Edit: another question: if I have 1 resources at the trade screen and trade it away, does that mean I loose access to it myself?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Regarding RJ's statement but open to all,
Is there a good discussion on when to use which religious civic? I don't tend to use Organized Religion at all due to the high upkeep, but it seems to be the most popular. I try to use Pacifism a lot, thinking that the 0 upkeep should make up enough for the higher military upkeep, but I'll admit I don't understand the math of any of this. I used to switch to Free Religion as soon as possible, but now I get University of Sangore so I'm reluctant to give up a state religion. Sometimes I do a Theocracy stint during a major military production period, but now with Military Instructors it's more advantageous to dedicate two cities to continuously building military units than to switch to Theo or Vassalage for one big burst (unless at war of course).

I largely agree with Lord Parkin here except for the necessity of Free Religion on big maps. If others pick free religion, they will not be irritated by your religion. But I fully agree that a high cost of a certain civic is not really a big issue. You must realize that there are three types of costs, city upkeep, civic upkeep and unit upkeep (and maybe also trading costs when you pay for a resource). Now in one of these three cost types, I'm going to make a small change (only one of 5 civics is changed). That's really not that huge.

To show it, I'll give a mathematical example (hey, I'm a mathematician if you hadn't guessed already). I'll try to keep the situation as realistic as possible. The formulas that I apply come from some strategy articles which can be found in the War Academy (game mechanics). So if you wish, you can check the numbers

Calculation: (you can skip this part if you wish) Take a size 10 city with 12 base production, noble difficulty level, no organized trait.
The costs of the Paganism civic for this city are about 0.8*(0.08*10 + 0.4)=0.96
The costs of Organized Religion civic for this city are about 0.8*(0.16*10+ 0.6)=1.76
The Organized Religion gives this city 3 extra production (0.25*12). So you pay 0.8 gold for 3 extra production. Good deal, I think (production is harder to get). 0.8 gold extra costs for a city of size 10 isn't that much.

The civic costs of the pacificm civic are 0. Lets assume that the city pays the maintenance for 3 units. (I know that it is a civ wide thing, but otherwise I can't compare.) A size 10 city has a free unit upkeep related to the pacificm civic of 1.2 unit. The 1.8 unit left costs you only 0.9 gold at noble level. That's about as high as the costs of the paganism civic. If you have less military units in your empire, then the cost difference could be more noticable.

To summarize: Compared to the paganism civic, the organized religion civic costs 0.8 gold extra for a size 10 city and gives 3 extra production to that city. The pacificm civic gives the extra great person points for no extra costs at all.

I personally think that 0.8 gold is almost nothing for a size 10 city. 3 extra production on top of 12 production is significant. The extra great person points can be significant. Note that double the amount of great person points doesn't mean double the amount of great persons as each great person costs more great person points. In reality, if you have no other bonuses in your cities (you go from 100% to 200%), then it means about 1.4 times as many great persons. The most significant gain is that you get the first great persons earlier which can help a lot.
The organized religion production bonus also counts when you pop-rush or when you cut forests and that is also significant and wasn't included in the above comparison. For me, a lot of the early game production comes from these sources which only improves the advantages of Organized Religion compared to Paganism.
The organized religion civic becomes weaker near the end of the game as 25% extra production means less if you already have 100% extra production from forges, factories and power plants. But also the cost factor of the Organized Religion civic becomes even less of an issue near the end of the game with a fully developed economy.

 

[pixiejmcc]

clunky monasteries

Ideal description.

 

[pixiejmcc]

hey, I'm a mathematician if you hadn't guessed already

Is that really true? If so it explains a lot. Hehe. I think there is a whole lot to be said for using maths to understand which strategies are most effective. Unfortunately I am no tip-top mathmetician, also it bores me a little. So it's great that others put time and effort into working things out and that they share their findings here.

 

[pixiejmcc]

As ever , I have a few questions:

1. Does using universal suffrage to buy things take into account any modifiers? E.g. If I am running org rel. and want to buy a building will it cost me 25% less gold?

2. Staying with US, what is the relation of gold to hammers. Is it as simple as each hammer costs say 10 gold?

3. When you raze a city you receive a certain amount of gold. How is this amount calculated?

4. Does anyone know the likelihood of receiving certain things from tribal huts? And to be more specific, are certain techs more likely to be popped and how much gold are you likely to receive, when you do receive gold?

5. If I have say a mace (with xp) versus an axe, I won't promote the axe before attacking because a) I expect to win (I know that can be a risky assumption) and b) If I promote after attacking I heal quicker. But I was wondering if may be it is better to promote beforehand because when I have better odds I am likely to lose less health. Any opinions on this?

 

[a4phantom]

The high upkeep shouldn't put you off. Organised Religion is an awesome civic, and definitely worth the few extra gold per turn it costs. +25% for buildings is great, and is especially useful near the start of a game when everything is usually so comparitively expensive to produce. It's great for that little bit extra when you're rushing for a particular wonder, too. But most of all, the ability to build missionaries of any type at will, without having to worry about building clunky monasteries, is huge. Organised Religion is definitely worth considering in the early game.

Alright, I'll give OR some tries. Are you saying that the +25% bonus for buildings applies to wonders? If so, I've really been missing out, I love wonders. I know they're overrated from a strategic POV, but creating a glorious civ that can build them is part of the reason I play.

As for the others... Theocracy is generally good in wartime (as you would expect). The disallowing of the spreading of non-state religions tends to be a little more annoying than useful, at least IMHO. Pacifism is OK for a peaceful builders game, but other than that it's fairly useless... or at least, not as useful as the other religious civics. And Free Religion is really entirely dependent on the map... on smaller games you'll find it advantageous to keep up a religion to keep certain civs on your side. On larger games (close to or more than 18 civs), Free Religion is practically a necessity since there'll be so much diversity of religion around the world... and thus by having a religion you're annoying far more civs than you're keeping happy.

I'll remember that, in addition to RJ's point about civic upkeep.

Those are my opinions, anyway.

Your opinions and RJ's are the next thing to laws on this game.


How about an analysis of Free Religion vs. another civic + University of Sangore?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Is that really true? If so it explains a lot. Hehe. I think there is a whole lot to be said for using maths to understand which strategies are most effective. Unfortunately I am no tip-top mathmetician, also it bores me a little. So it's great that others put time and effort into working things out and that they share their findings here.

Hmm, as long as you don't think that I'm playing civilization with a calculator in my hands. I do a lot of guessing like most of us and sometimes when I am in doubt, I tend to do a small vague calculation in my head to determine what is better. Nothing as elaborate as in the previous post though. But now that I have done that, I'll remember the outcome. You don't become a good civ player by being good at mathematics. But really considering the various options you have at a certain moment while still keeping the big picture in mind is what helps a player (I think).
Also, mathematics at the university has almost nothing to do with crunching numbers but more with logics and reasoning. And that can be applied to many things among which is civ.

As ever , I have a few questions:

1. Does using universal suffrage to buy things take into account any modifiers? E.g. If I am running org rel. and want to buy a building will it cost me 25% less gold?

2. Staying with US, what is the relation of gold to hammers. Is it as simple as each hammer costs say 10 gold?

3. When you raze a city you receive a certain amount of gold. How is this amount calculated?

4. Does anyone know the likelihood of receiving certain things from tribal huts? And to be more specific, are certain techs more likely to be popped and how much gold are you likely to receive, when you do receive gold?

5. If I have say a mace (with xp) versus an axe, I won't promote the axe before attacking because a) I expect to win (I know that can be a risky assumption) and b) If I promote after attacking I heal quicker. But I was wondering if may be it is better to promote beforehand because when I have better odds I am likely to lose less health. Any opinions on this?

1) Yes, production modifiers help, but organized religion doesn't make it 25% cheaper (see below).

2) Each hammer costs 3 gold (gold not commerce, so a 100% bonus on gold from commerce also helps financing rushing). These are base hammers and thus modified by any and all production modifiers in the city.
A city with organized religion (+25% on buildings), a forge (+25%) and stone working on a castle (+100% with stone) gives you (1+0.25+0.25+1)*1=2.5 hammers for each 3 gold pieces.
If you rush something without any hammers on the project, then it costs 50% more. Rushing wonders (small or great) and world projects costs more (don't know exactly how much but I could look it up if you want).
I have been involved in a lengthy discussion in the strategy and tactics forum and we came to the conclusion that cash rushing is overpowered in the sense that you can construct things faster by focussing on cottage gold and cash rushing than by focussing on normal production (without hurting the rate at which you develop technologies).

3) Uh, I've switched off city razing in the custom game options. I would guess that it was dependant on city size (seems a logical way to do it, that's all).

4) I just read a thread about it. Lets see, it is here. Look at posts 9 and 14 from The Great Apple. He's a quite knowledgable guy who also knows where to find things in the code.

Ah, I see that the two main contributers to the discussion have decided to make an article from it. You're a lucky guy . You can find it here.

5) I've never done this as generally healing is not a problem for me (enough troops and healers nearby mean that not every unit needs to be fresh and troops are healed again quickly). However, you might do it when short on troops or when the promotion you want to take is fairly meaningless for the fight at hand. Just don't reload when you lose
It might be a tactic that I should consider sometimes.

 

[pixiejmcc]

But really considering the various options you have at a certain moment while still keeping the big picture in mind is what helps a player (I think).

Agreed. Thank you once again for all your help.

 

[gfallen]

Hello. I am new to gaming in general, and to CIV IV (warlords, if it matters). I have been playing with it for a few hours, spread over a few days. There are two niggling areas in which I have been unable to clear my fog, despite reading the manual and browsing these boards:

1. Keeping track of units. Is there an easy way to keep track of units that are fortified or asleep? In cities, I just get to the city details and it's pretty easy to review. When they're out in the field, though, I find it tedious to go through my whole inventory to figure out who's there and either fortified or sleeping, and it's very easy to miss units. Any easy way to get at this? Maybe a keystroke that activates all units, no matter where located?

2. How do you use the various boats/ships? I know that's a very broad question. Is there somewhere on these boards where someone has posted a general explanation of them for newbies?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hello. I am new to gaming in general, and to CIV IV (warlords, if it matters). I have been playing with it for a few hours, spread over a few days. There are two niggling areas in which I have been unable to clear my fog, despite reading the manual and browsing these boards:

1. Keeping track of units. Is there an easy way to keep track of units that are fortified or asleep? In cities, I just get to the city details and it's pretty easy to review. When they're out in the field, though, I find it tedious to go through my whole inventory to figure out who's there and either fortified or sleeping, and it's very easy to miss units. Any easy way to get at this? Maybe a keystroke that activates all units, no matter where located?

2. How do you use the various boats/ships? I know that's a very broad question. Is there somewhere on these boards where someone has posted a general explanation of them for newbies?



Thanks in advance for your help.

First of all, welcome to civfanatics!

I must say that if you're new to gaming, then this game is a pretty tough one to start with. It's a great game, but not easy to learn if you haven't experienced any games before. If you don't understand some elements, then don't give up but just ask about it here (or somewhere else on the forum).

If you are so new to gaming, then it probably was a good move to read the manual. But have you played the tutorial of the game? That might help you even more. There is also a section of the civilopedia called Hints that might be interesting.
If you think you are ready for somewhat more in-depth information, then the War Academy is a great source of information about this game. Some experts present their opinions on various parts of this game. There are introductionary courses, empire management courses, military information courses and information about game mechanics and more. Don't read everything (far too much work), but just pick some articles that seem interesting and come back later for more information.

Now, about your questions.

1) If you leave the ingame options like they were when you first started the game, then the game will cycle through any units that haven't moved already and aren't fortified or sleeping. Personally, I don't want to be reminded about the sleeping or fortified units in my empire every turn. I fortified them with a reason, namely because I want them to remain in that position indefinately or at least for a very long time. So I would advice you to not fortify any units that will not be remain in that position for a long time.
The only units that I fortify are permanent city defence units and units that are out in the field to see the advance of barbarians in the early game (added advantage: barbarians cannot appear in tiles that are viewed by your units).

If you want a unit to remain in a certain position for just one turn but be reminded about the unit the next turn, then use the space bar. The unit will just skip one turn and be reactivated next turn (or when you manually select the unit again this turn).

You might find some use in the Military Advisor (F5). If you select 'Show individual units', then a list of all of your units becomes available (sorted by type). The units can be selected individually which makes them blink in the minimap. If you click the minimap, then you move to the selected position on the main map. Units with a star in front of them (in the list) are fortified (or sleeping or have skipped their turn).

2) It's a bit of a vague question, so I hope this answer can help you. You can move them just like any other unit. But of course only over water tiles. The early boats (galley, trireme) can only move directly adjacent to the coast or within your cultural influence sphere. Later ships can move over the ocean to find overseas nations.
Some units are mainly designed to transport land units (galley, transport). You can move units onto them (transport the land units with the ship) by selecting a land unit in a city with a transport ship and select the load command (L). You can unload them again with the unload command (U).
You can also load units onto a ship that is outside of a city by just moving them onto the ship. The ship of course has to be adjacent to the land unit for this to work. The land unit cannot walk over water.

Good luck with this great game!

 

[a4phantom]

1. Bump: How about an analysis of Free Religion vs. another civic + University of Sangore? Obviously it's situational, but assuming diplomacy is a wash (staying Jewish helps me with the Jewish bloc but hurts my relations with the Buddist bloc) but assuming I have a fairly large empire with at least a Jewish temple in every city, what's generally the most advantageous path when you discover Liberalism and have the U of S?

2. Assuming a cottage rather than specialist economy, would it be bad to have your super research city (Oxford, Academy, Super Scientist Specialists) and your chief financial city (Wall Street, Super Merchants, maybe super Priests) be the same city, the one with the most commerce?

 

[Lord Parkin]

3) Uh, I've switched off city razing in the custom game options. I would guess that it was dependant on city size (seems a logical way to do it, that's all).

You still get the gold even if city razing is off. Based on personal experience, I also have a feeling that there are other contributions to the calculation of gold from taking cities... for instance, the length of time that the city has existed (old cities, even if pathetically tiny, still seem to generate a significant amount of gold). Possibly also the number of improvements and/or wonders in the city (although I'm not sure if the calculation is actually quite that complex). At the least, I think that time of existence is an important factor.

5) I've never done this as generally healing is not a problem for me (enough troops and healers nearby mean that not every unit needs to be fresh and troops are healed again quickly). However, you might do it when short on troops or when the promotion you want to take is fairly meaningless for the fight at hand. Just don't reload when you lose
It might be a tactic that I should consider sometimes.

This is actually a very, very good tactic for wartime, providing that the odds are significantly in your favour. For instance, I usually theorise that (for instance) for a Maceman with 99.2% odds when attacking a unit unpromoted, making the extra promotion to bring the odds up to (say) 99.5% is simply not worth it. For the 0.3% of wins you'll be gaining (that's 3 in 1000), you'll be losing a much bigger opportunity.

This is because (as you will notice by playing through a few games as a warmonger) even at very high odds such as 99+%, you can still sustain significant damage... half hit points or even worse. In this case, the ability to use the promotion after the attack, and to gain back half of those lost hit points, is a much bigger advantage - it means that on the counterattack, your opponent will have a significantly lower chance of being able to destroy the unit in question, since rather than being at (say) 4/8 strength it will be at 6/8. Personally I think this makes the tactic of not promoting your high-win-percentage units before they attack a very good strategy indeed. I'd rather have 99.2% of my units survive at 6 strength than 99.5% of my units survive at 4 strength.

Another question: Theoretically, can capital cities ever be flipped? And if so, is it possible to eliminate a civilization from the game via a cultural flip on their last city?