Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[rabidveggie]

What the hell I just lost a match online around the 1900's AD from a culture victory. I was blowing away the competition in score and my spaceship when suddenly it was over. He had no army, it was on quick. I just never thought for a second that Cultural could go off that quickly.

 

[Ignacius]

Hi!!
I played as roman in custom game without time victory checked, but still told me that my game finished in the year 2050.
I was playing with space race victory condition!!
What can i do?
PS: Sorry about my english!!

 

[Monado]

so, I can also manage with just 3 cities for a standard sized map?
1st city, hindu*, confucianism, tao - hindu cathedral (w/ all 3 temples)
2nd city, hindu, confucianism*, tao - confucian cathedral (w/ all 3 temples)
3rd city, hindu, confucianism, tao* - tao cathedral (w/ all 3 temples)


by compressing 3 religious buildings(+culture) into just 3 cities, as opposed to spreading them over 9 cities, don't you get big culture much faster and earlier?

isnt this much quicker?
aside from postponing other stuff to be built, like army, wonders, etc

It is easier when you have more cities than just three. In your examples your built three temples for each religion, and thus were able to build 1 cathedral in each city.

If you had 9 cities you could have built 9 of each temples and thus 3 of each cathedrals. Each of your culture cities would have three cathedrals for +75% culture instead of just 1 cathedral at +25% culture.

 

[ori]

,mostly

Each of your culture cities would have three cathedrals for +75% culture instead of just 1 cathedral at +25% culture.

It is +50% per cathedral, so +150% per 3 cathedrals...

 

[rebakan]

What is a HotSeat Game and how does it functon?

 

[rebakan]

My game CIV4 and Warlords is a Japanese version set to English Language, 2K only translated the minimum necessary to make the game works, so I don't have any manual (only in Japanese).Is there a place I can get a copy just of the manual to download?Thanks
rebakan

PS: I went to 2K url (the game maker) but they didn't have the manual either.

 

[rabidveggie]

Hot seat means that you and your friends can take turns playing on one computer. As for your second question I don't know.

 

[solitear]

im interested in downloading mods i just wanted to know how "safe it was to use a mod. im sure its pretty safe but i just want to know if theres any precaution i should take...
i own all the civ games(1-4) i just bought the "chronicles of civilization) been playing a long time but never used a mod before

 

[Samson]

General question re: trading. I currently have Civ 3 and my gf started playing it a few weeks ago because she used to like Civ 2 and she was disappointed to see that the caravans and transport trucks method of city-to-city trading of Civ 2 was replaced with the generic civ-to-civ trading of Civ 3.

The question is, as she debates whether to jump into 4, what is trading like in Civ 4? Have they brought back the city-to-city trading or is it the same as Civ 3.. or can you now do both? Or is it completely (or even slightly) different? Thanks in advance.

It looks like your question got lost, that does not normally happen. Trading is quite like civ 3, where you negotiate trades of reasorces on a civ wide basis. They have fixed some of the "features" of civ 3 and I think it now works quite well.

You do have city to city trade routes, but they are establised automatically not with user controled caravans.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What the hell I just lost a match online around the 1900's AD from a culture victory. I was blowing away the competition in score and my spaceship when suddenly it was over. He had no army, it was on quick. I just never thought for a second that Cultural could go off that quickly.

Yes, you need to be careful that no-one tries to sneak away with a cultural victory in multiplayer games. Luckily, there is an easy way to keep an eye on it - just check out the F8 Victories screen every now and then, and you'll see the person with the three highest cultured cities in the world, and will be able to judge whether or not they're a threat for cultural victory.

Hi!!
I played as roman in custom game without time victory checked, but still told me that my game finished in the year 2050.
I was playing with space race victory condition!!
What can i do?
PS: Sorry about my english!!

Hmm, I'm not too certain here sorry. You're sure that you checked off time victory? In any event, whatever the game tells you at 2050 AD, it should still be possible to click the "One More Turn" option once all the end-game screens have flashed up, and you can continue playing as long as you like.

Hot seat means that you and your friends can take turns playing on one computer.

More specifically, you and your friends can all play different civs in the same game on just one computer. Alternatively, if you want to have a bit of fun you can use hotseat to play multiple civs yourself in the same game. I've done this once or twice myself, it can be quite fun when you're playing two civs on the same team simultaneously.

im interested in downloading mods i just wanted to know how "safe it was to use a mod. im sure its pretty safe but i just want to know if theres any precaution i should take...
i own all the civ games(1-4) i just bought the "chronicles of civilization) been playing a long time but never used a mod before

Mods you download at CivFanatics are pretty much guaranteed to be completely safe, since there is no-one inserting any malicious code or anything into the mods; and even if there were (which would be weird), then all of the hundreds of people who've tried out the mod before you would have noticed. In short, there should be really no risks associated with the mods themselves.

 

[Tukker]

Just switched over from civ 3 to civ 4 and had a few questions:

1. if im right there is no need to get in such a fast expansion race as there was in civ 3? you won't need as many cities?

2. in civ 3 there was sort of a formula to place cities like 3-4 tiles away from each other because the cities would almost never develop to it's full potential before the game was over. is there the same something for civ 4?

3. what line do you need to edit so the game continues after 2050? A.D.

 

[Abegweit]

1. if im right there is no need to get in such a fast expansion race as there was in civ 3? you won't need as many cities?

In general, you shouldn't build more than about 4 cities until CoL (for courts) and Currency (for trade routes and markets). Exceptions may be made when you have especially good commerce. Capturing is good so long as the plunder will keep your economy going to these objectives.

2. in civ 3 there was sort of a formula to place cities like 3-4 tiles away from each other because the cities would almost never develop to it's full potential before the game was over. is there the same something for civ 4?

While cities don't often reach their full potential in civ4 either, that formula should be thrown out the window. The distance between cities should ideally be 4-5 tiles but, depending on the land. more or less might be appropriate.

In civ4, there are far more garbage tiles than civ3. Mountains are totally useless, desert is almost as bad and ocean is marginal. Since cities cost upkeep money, you want good ones. Resources are even more important in Civ4 than Civ3. Except for cities placed to get strategic bonuses, a city needs food - at least one bonus and preferably two. Ideally, it should have other good tiles as well. Hills for hammers (=production). Flood plains and grasslands for cottages (= commerce) or farms (= Great People).

 

[Sisiutil]

Just switched over from civ 3 to civ 4 and had a few questions:

1. if im right there is no need to get in such a fast expansion race as there was in civ 3? you won't need as many cities?

2. in civ 3 there was sort of a formula to place cities like 3-4 tiles away from each other because the cities would almost never develop to it's full potential before the game was over. is there the same something for civ 4?

3. what line do you need to edit so the game continues after 2050? A.D.

I didn't play Civ III but I've seen enough posts from Civ III veterans to speak to the differences between the two games.

1. It's not that you don't "need" cities, it's that the game's city maintenance system is set up so that you won't be able to afford them right away. After founding around 4-6 cities, you'll need to consolidate your position, especially your economy, before you can expand again. You'll likely be hemmed in by the AI at that point, so be prepared to expand via the sword.
2. City maintenance is worse the further a city is from the capital; on the other hand, to develop a city to its full potential, it needs to have no tiles in its fat cross that overlap with other cities. However, overlapping fat crosses can be a good thing sometimes. The best rule of thumb in my experience is to found cities relatively close to your capital with minimal overlap, with each site chosen in order to claim as many vital resources as possible and with at least one tile providing a surplus food resource.
3. Not sure about editing the XML in that regard, but after 2050, you can simply keep playing; it's just that no score will be kept after that point. You should understand, however, that Civ IV's scoring system is weighted heavily towards early finishes; the sooner you win, the higher your score. So waiting until 2050 and pumping up the other score modifiers (techs, wonders, population) won't actually help you in that regard.

 

[Samson]

In general, you shouldn't build more than about 4 cities until CoL (for courts) and Currency (for trade routes and markets).

I have to say this is a matter of opinion. If a city has at least 1 good food tile (4 or more) and some flat grassland it can fairly quickly pay for itself with cottages. On the higher levels I find the happiness techs (esp. monarcy / heredatry rule) more important in keeping my economy going than the techs mentioned.

You do however need to be carfull founding cities early in the game.

 

[Tukker]

thanks for the quik answers all, I'm going to be playing my first "real" game this evening and just came up with another question.

in civ 3 when you had a rop or a gpt deal and either the civ got destroyed or you broke their rop by declaring war on them with having units close to their cities, your reputation would be ruined and you couldn't get any gpt deals anymore.

will your reputation be ruined here aswell if you backstab people or when they get destroyed?

Thanks!

 

[Abegweit]

thanks for the quik answers all, I'm going to be playing my first "real" game this evening and just came up with another question.

in civ 3 when you had a rop or a gpt deal and either the civ got destroyed or you broke their rop by declaring war on them with having units close to their cities, your reputation would be ruined and you couldn't get any gpt deals anymore.

will your reputation be ruined here aswell if you backstab people or when they get destroyed?

Thanks!

In the civ4 diplo system, it is impossible to back-stab. For example, if you declare war while you have a ROP (called Open borders in this game), your units in his territory are booted. Similarly you cannot break a peace treaty.

 

[solitear]

if i download a scenario for a mod where do i put it?

one of them said something about a worldbuilders save file but i cant find it..
thnks 4 the help
nm. just figured it out. great site..thanks guys

 

[ggganz]

The game will not end at 2050 if you go to Custom Game instead of Play Now and uncheck time victory.

 

[MusX]

does One-city challange option affect AI?? if no, why and is there any mod to make AI play one-city challange?

 

[Roland Johansen]

does One-city challange option affect AI?? if no, why and is there any mod to make AI play one-city challange?

The one-city challenge option is designed so that the human can only build one city and the AI can build multiple cities. In previous versions of the game (civ1, civ2, civ3), the one-city challenge was a challenge that was designed by the fans of the game who wished to restrict their options and create a harder game. However, in these versions of the game the player had to limit themselves. They had to choose to not build additional cities as the one-city challenge wasn't an option in the game. Since the one-city challenge was fairly popular, Firaxis added the option to the game. Now players don't have to restrict themselves anymore once they choose the option.

I don't know if a mod exists which limits every player (AI and human) to one city. Just do a few searches through the mod section of the forum.