How do you use the workshop improvement? For some reason the AI rarely (of ever) highlights and suggests it. Where to you build workshops?
The workshop improvement is probably the single most despised improvement in the game. Still, it has its uses.
When you first develop the improvement, it gives -1
+1
. You don't have to be an experienced player to see that that's not a great improvement. The instances where I've used the improvement when it was just available can be counted on a hand. It's far more efficient at this stage of the game to increase the food production of a city (by building a farm) and use slavery pop rushing to get production.
With guilds or the caste system civic, it gives -1
+2
, which is ok. You can turn a standard grassland tile into forested plains tile. But still, you'll get more production by using a farm and poprushing.
With guilds and the BTS caste system civic or with guilds and chemistry, it gives -1
+3
. This will turn the output of a standard grassland tile into a mined grassland hill tile or the standard plains tile into a mined plains hill tile. The output is now pretty good at that stage of the game. If you have a city which can't get anything done because of its abysmal production, then this is one of the better ways to get hammers. You might need to build farms to compensate for the loss of food. I will typically use this improvement in cities which have very few or no hills.
If you use the state property civic, then the food loss of the improvement is removed and it becomes a lot more interesting. It's one of the reasons why I liked the state property civic in vanilla civ4 and in Warlords. Still, I like corporations more, so I usually will have to live with the food loss. But there are corporations which offer food, so that's not a real problem.
If you use caste system and have chemistry, then the hammer increase will be +4 which is also great. But usually at that time many civilizations will be using the emancipation civic which makes using the caste system civic less attractive.
I typically will use this improvement from the mid to late game when I have guilds + caste system or chemistry and the hammer increase is +3. I will use it in cities which have an abysmal hammer output because of very few or no hills and still have to construct some buildings to improve themselves and I will use it in dedicated production cities which might have many hills but can still improve their hammer output more by building some workshops.
And how do you offer to go to war for somebody in the trading/diplomacy screen? This seems to be missing.
Offer war?
RulerOfSaPeople: Hey, Montezuma. I have a proposition for you. What do you think about war?
Montezuma: Now, hey, that sounds interesting, let's do that!
RulerOfSaPeople: So, I guess we have a deal then.
Montezuma: Yes, we have a deal. I must say we think alike, I was just thinking about the same proposal. I'll notify my troops now, you do the same, ok?
RulerOfSaPeople: Ok. See ya!
Now, I guess, such a conversation would seem somewhat plausible with a warmongering nutjob like Montezuma, but it would be rather weird for any other leader.
You can declare war in two ways. When the other civilization is willing to talk with you, then you can enter diplomacy and instead of the usual 'We would like to make a trade proposal', you select 'Let's discuss something else'. One of the options in the next diplomacy menu is 'Your head would look good on the end of a pole'. Now maybe with Montezuma, this would lead to some interesting discussion about the aesthetics of heads on a pole, but the game just treats this as a declaration of war.
The other option is quicker: you hold the alt key and then click the name of the civilization in the list of civilizations in the lower right corner of the screen. (If the names of the civilizations aren't enabled, then enable them with the button 'Toggle Scores Display' just above the minimap.
There is a third option, but it's hardly declaring war. You select one of your troops and enter their territory without an open borders treaty or move on top of one of their units in neutral territory. You then get the option to declare war.
Edit: Did you maybe mean that you offered to another leader to go to war with a third party in return for something else? (Hey, Queen Victoria. We both don't like the French. What would it be worth to you if we were to declare war on them and destroy their lands? Just hypothetical, you know.) In that case, yes, that option is missing. The other leader might ask or demand that you go to war with a third party, but you cannot offer it. Still I had some fun with the above example.
And did they change it so you can't trade recources and techs together like you could in Civ III? Either I'm doing something wrong or it's just not possible.
Yes it was changed and it was probably changed to avoid some exploits. In civilization IV, you can trade per turn items (resources, gold per turn) for per turn items and one-time items (lump some, technology, maps, war declaration of Civ A on Civ B) for one-time items.
During peace negotiations, you can demand both or give both types of items. But during peace negotiations, only one of the civilizations can put something on the table next to the peace treaty. One civilization pays for the peace treaty, there's no real trading.
