Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Roland Johansen]

Also, FP takes up one of a city's two National Wonders slots, and the Palace does not, right?

Indeed.


(need to use a minimum of 10 symbols for a post)

 

[a4phantom]

Indeed.


(need to use a minimum of 10 symbols for a post)

Is there a discussion or any community wisdom on placing/combining National Wonders? Or is it assumed to just be common sense (Westpoint with Heroic Epic, Hermitage in your third best culture city if you're going for Culture Victory, etc.)?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Is there a discussion or any community wisdom on placing/combining National Wonders? Or is it assumed to just be common sense (Westpoint with Heroic Epic, Hermitage in your third best culture city if you're going for Culture Victory, etc.)?

Oh, there's surely been some discussion on this issue. I'd use the search button a bit if you want to read some. But I don't know if any articles were written on this issue.

Most of the combinations seem straightforward to me. Of course, you could argue about adding the Iron works to the Heroic Epic or West Point to the Heroic Epic, but for me that's fairly straightforward: West Point. I want a bonus to producing units in a city that can build better than normal units, not in just any city. But of course, when there are options, there will be differing opinions.

 

[a4phantom]

Of course, you could argue about adding the Iron works to the Heroic Epic or West Point to the Heroic Epic,

I most certainly could not! Why would I want to have *two* cities wasting massive potential every time they build non-military units. Iron Works / Red Cross seems like a good idea for a secondary military city.

 

[Likes_Civing]

Can one now NOT see if an enemy transport is loaded with units or not? In CIV4 you can see what is on each ship. Did that change? I have looked all over the forums, searching, and at the Warlord readme, but I don't see this.

I can have 3 transports coming at me, but if 2 are loaded and one isn't, my DD might attack an empty transport?

I just want a link where I can read where this is documented.

thanks in advance

 

[Sisiutil]

Can one now NOT see if an enemy transport is loaded with units or not? In CIV4 you can see what is on each ship. Did that change? I have looked all over the forums, searching, and at the Warlord readme, but I don't see this.

I can have 3 transports coming at me, but if 2 are loaded and one isn't, my DD might attack an empty transport?

I just want a link where I can read where this is documented.

thanks in advance

I think this was changed in Warlords: you can't tell what's on a ship anymore. It could be empty, it could contain missionaries, it could be an invasion. You won't know until the ship lands whatever it's carrying.

Anyone have any tips or a thread discussing the ideal placement for the forbidden palace?

I try to make it a rule to build it as soon as it's available. If I wait to put it in the ideal spot, it doesn't get built until shortly before Communism makes State Property available, and that civic makes the FP ineffectual.

First off, consider if you need to move your capital. Once the capital's location is determined, choose a city that is far away from the capital but still surrounded by other cities whose maintenance will be lowered by its proximity. Ideally, your empire should look kind of like a dumbbell, with your capital and FP city forming "hubs" surrounded by other cities at either end.

Another consideration is, as has been stated, the fact that you can only build one other national wonder in that city. Ideally the FP city should therefore be a general, average city rather than a highly-specialized one, as the latter tend to benefit most from specific national wonder combinations (such as Heroic Epic and Moai Statues or National Epic and National Park, etc.).

 

[Crowqueen]

The last couple of games I've prioritised Currency first because there's an instant 1gold/city boost due to the extra trade routes.



Hello form Arborfield

Not so far off. I'm in Swallowfield !!!!

 

[Roland Johansen]

I most certainly could not! Why would I want to have *two* cities wasting massive potential every time they build non-military units. Iron Works / Red Cross seems like a good idea for a secondary military city.

I agree. I use those national wonders the same and I try to add several great instructors to both cities. I also prefer to make at least one of them coastal so that I can build expert ships.

Can one now NOT see if an enemy transport is loaded with units or not? In CIV4 you can see what is on each ship. Did that change? I have looked all over the forums, searching, and at the Warlord readme, but I don't see this.

I can have 3 transports coming at me, but if 2 are loaded and one isn't, my DD might attack an empty transport?

I just want a link where I can read where this is documented.

thanks in advance

In addition to what Sisiutil already explained: empty transports even sacrifice themselves as defenders before loaded transports can be attacked. This way, empty galleons can for instance escort loaded galleons before frigates are available.

You can't see what is loaded on the ships and I can vaguely recall something being changed in one of the patches regarding visibility of the transported units. But I could very well be mistaken in that regard.

 

[Sisiutil]

To jump into the national wonders discussion, these are some of my current favourite combinations:

• Heroic Epic/Moai Statues: I like putting the HE in a coastal city so that naval unit builds benefit from the production boost, but that means I have several low-hammer water tiles. MS provides a solution there. The only downside is that the coastal tiles' 2 commerce each (3 with Financial or the Colossus) make me inclined to build non-military commerce/research multipliers there. I'll settle 2 GGs there to give this city the equivalent of West Point promotion capability.
• West Point/Red Cross: This is my favourite combination for the second military city. Rather than putting a GG here as a military instructor, I'll use one for a Military Academy to accelerate unit production.
• National Epic/Oxford University: My favourite type of Great Person is the Great Scientist, and Oxford lets me run several scientists after I change from Caste System to Emancipation--and it multiplies all the lovely research points they produce.

As for the Ironworks, I don't like combining it with any of the military national wonders (Heroic Epic, West Point, Red Cross) unlike many other players. This is because my Ironworks city is often a late-game wonder factory for me, so a lot of the time it will not be building units, meaning the military national wonder is being wasted. Even if I'm warmongering to a domination or conquest win, wonders like the Pentagon, Cristo Redentor, and Eiffel Tower are extremely helpful. However, when the Ironworks is not busy with wonders, I do like it to produce military units, so I'll often settle one Military Instructor in the city for a couple of extra XPs.

 

[Roland Johansen]

To jump into the national wonders discussion, these are some of my current favourite combinations:

• Heroic Epic/Moai Statues: I like putting the HE in a coastal city so that naval unit builds benefit from the production boost, but that means I have several low-hammer water tiles. MS provides a solution there. The only downside is that the coastal tiles' 2 commerce each (3 with Financial or the Colossus) make me inclined to build non-military commerce/research multipliers there. I'll settle 2 GGs there to give this city the equivalent of West Point promotion capability.
• West Point/Red Cross: This is my favourite combination for the second military city. Rather than putting a GG here as a military instructor, I'll use one for a Military Academy to accelerate unit production.
• National Epic/Oxford University: My favourite type of Great Person is the Great Scientist, and Oxford lets me run several scientists after I change from Caste System to Emancipation--and it multiplies all the lovely research points they produce.

As for the Ironworks, I don't like combining it with any of the military national wonders (Heroic Epic, West Point, Red Cross) unlike many other players. This is because my Ironworks city is often a late-game wonder factory for me, so a lot of the time it will not be building units, meaning the military national wonder is being wasted. Even if I'm warmongering to a domination or conquest win, wonders like the Pentagon, Cristo Redentor, and Eiffel Tower are extremely helpful. However, when the Ironworks is not busy with wonders, I do like it to produce military units, so I'll often settle one Military Instructor in the city for a couple of extra XPs.

I knew that people had quite different thoughts on the national wonders, but we disagree a lot here. I wouldn't often build any of those 3 combo's that you mentioned. I do understand your objection to combining the Iron Works with Red Cross. It's a negative of that combo.

 

[6K Man]

Originally Posted by 6K Man

BtS question: I gather that for domination purposes (population, land area), vassals are included in their master's numbers.

Are vassal contributions also included in other measures on the powergraphs and the demographics screen? For example, military size (since the master can call on the vassal to fight)? What about GNP, land area, production, and population on the demographics screen?

The vassal's land and population only counts as half of what it is for the master's domination purposes. (This is because otherwise it would be far too easy to gain enough land/population for a domination victory.)

I believe the demographics for vassal and master are still calculated separately (as usual). Someone else will need to confirm that though (I don't use Vassal States very often).

Thanks, I had forgotten about vassals counting for half in the score screen for domination purposes.

Does anyone know if the vassal's input also shows up in the demographic screen?

 

[Atticus]

Thisn has been probably answered a hondred times before, and sorry for this, but the answer is so hard to find: Do I have to uninstall Bruic's patch for BTS before I install the newest official patch?

 

[Sisiutil]

Thisn has been probably answered a hondred times before, and sorry for this, but the answer is so hard to find: Do I have to uninstall Bruic's patch for BTS before I install the newest official patch?

No. I didn't and everything worked fine.

 

[Lord Parkin]

No. I didn't and everything worked fine.

I didn't uninstall it either, and 3.17 works fine for me. I assume that 3.17 replaces the CvGameCoreDLL.dll file which the unofficial patch for 3.13 changed, so hence there are no problems.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

I'm having a hard time seeing the point of going through the trouble of founding and spreading a corporation when all a rival civilization has to do is switch to State Property to neutralize the effects. In a recent game, I founded Sid's Sushi and actually managed to spread it to every city on the map that was not my own. The income was enormous, until Ragnar my main rival and best 'friend' switched to State Property. Every few turns, I actually had to spend espionage points on this doofus to switch him back to Free Market to keep my money coming in AND to Organized Religion so he would stay at 'Friendly' and I wouldn't be crushed by his gargantuan military. Well, eventually he grew a set to go with that brain, and declared war anyway. He only managed to take the cities I had captured from the capitulated Portuguese, and me with my superior human brain mustered a large enough force to take his core cities and get a peace treaty before his 3rd (or maybe 4th) SoD took them back. After that, I didn't bother switching his dumb ass back the civics I wanted as my space ship would be at its destination before the treaty expired. And that is the end of my pointless story of what a pain in the arse it is to maintain working corporations without some power-hungry communist dictator screwing everything up. What was the point of appeasing that moron for the entire game? I guess I got to live long enough to launch my space ship, at least. Would've been more fun if my plan to destroy his military through corporate exploitation had been successful, but apparently all that heavy city upkeep doesn't make a dent in an AI which gets free stuff anyway. I could've squashed him and went for my first BTS domination win rather than having to settle for another lame Space Race victory.

 

[Commodore Nate]

I'm having a hard time seeing the point of going through the trouble of founding and spreading a corporation when all a rival civilization has to do is switch to State Property to neutralize the effects. In a recent game, I founded Sid's Sushi and actually managed to spread it to every city on the map that was not my own. The income was enormous, until Ragnar my main rival and best 'friend' switched to State Property. Every few turns, I actually had to spend espionage points on this doofus to switch him back to Free Market to keep my money coming in AND to Organized Religion so he would stay at 'Friendly' and I wouldn't be crushed by his gargantuan military. Well, eventually he grew a set to go with that brain, and declared war anyway. He only managed to take the cities I had captured from the capitulated Portuguese, and me with my superior human brain mustered a large enough force to take his core cities and get a peace treaty before his 3rd (or maybe 4th) SoD took them back. After that, I didn't bother switching his dumb ass back the civics I wanted as my space ship would be at its destination before the treaty expired. And that is the end of my pointless story of what a pain in the arse it is to maintain working corporations without some power-hungry communist dictator screwing everything up. What was the point of appeasing that moron for the entire game? I guess I got to live long enough to launch my space ship, at least. Would've been more fun if my plan to destroy his military through corporate exploitation had been successful, but apparently all that heavy city upkeep doesn't make a dent in an AI which gets free stuff anyway. I could've squashed him and went for my first BTS domination win rather than having to settle for another lame Space Race victory.

Well first of all, why are you spreading a corporation that gives a noticeable advantage to an enemy civ?
Second of all, the main focus of corporations is not so much to make gold for you as much as it is to exchange gold for something else. Corporations, I suppose, can be likened to being similar to the science slider in that both convert gold into something else (beakers, hammers, culture, food). Nonetheless, make sure that your corp HQ is in your Wall Street city.


If you're going to use corps, definitely read this article
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/sushi.php

 

[a4phantom]

I'm having a hard time seeing the point of going through the trouble of founding and spreading a corporation when all a rival civilization has to do is switch to State Property to neutralize the effects. In a recent game, I founded Sid's Sushi and actually managed to spread it to every city on the map that was not my own. The income was enormous, until Ragnar my main rival and best 'friend' switched to State Property. Every few turns, I actually had to spend espionage points on this doofus to switch him back to Free Market to keep my money coming in [. . .] And that is the end of my pointless story of what a pain in the arse it is to maintain working corporations without some power-hungry communist dictator screwing everything up.

That's not a bad summary of American foreign policy.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

Well first of all, why are you spreading a corporation that gives a noticeable advantage to an enemy civ?
Second of all, the main focus of corporations is not so much to make gold for you as much as it is to exchange gold for something else. Corporations, I suppose, can be likened to being similar to the science slider in that both convert gold into something else (beakers, hammers, culture, food). Nonetheless, make sure that your corp HQ is in your Wall Street city.


If you're going to use corps, definitely read this article
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/sushi.php

After my strategy flopped, I went and read this article and everything makes sense now. Maybe next time I'll try Creative Constructions for the whole foreign exploitation thing and Sushi as a domestic corporation. I'm not new to CIV but very new to BTS. That was actually the first game I founded a corporation, and I think what scared me away from spreading Sushi domestically was the maintenance cost. My empire was large and I was having trouble staying at 80% research even with the Spiral Minaret and three shrines. Really, I was just experimenting and stumbling around in the dark looking for a way to try and bankrupt Ragnar to possibly make his military less threatening. Even though I had more advanced weaponry, it would not have been enough to repel such enormous stacks all at once. I just got lucky that he decided to focus mostly on my vassal.

@Phantom: Actually, in this game it was Persian foreign policy. Gotta love CIV revisionist history.

 

[Simple Simon]

A really dumb question just popped up for me, using the worldbuilder for the first time: how do I place rivers correctly? If I use the correct icon and click&drag, i get rivers all over the place Is there a way of determining on what side of the square a river goes?

 

[ori]

click once were you want to start the river - then click on each tile you want it to connect next. Its a pain and the rivers are always only on one side of the tile (I forget which) so you have to test a bit, but definitely go one tile at a time