Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[a4phantom]

Getting to SDs and attack subs seems like it creates 2 classes of units with overlapping roles... invisible units with 30 strength that can only be countered by the same unit type.

Destroyers and I think airships can detect subs, along with other subs. Only SD's can detect SD's.

Earlier subs had destroyers and other subs to worry about, now it seems subs only worry about other subs, and SDs about other SDs...

Subs will always have to worry about standard Destroyers. As of 3.17 they are now a dead end unit that never upgrades or goes obsolete.

Does the SD still intercept aircraft? can you build the old destroyer after teching to the new? does this leave the carrier with fighters as the only source of naval air defense?

In 3.17 I believe SD's were stripped of their ability to shootdown planes and Destroyers were therefore allowed to be built until the end of the game, they no longer upgrade to SD's. SD's are a weird unit, but great for scouting or (I imagine) blockading. They don't seem to really have much to do with Destroyers anymore actually.

A 2 movement artillery would be nice, so it wouldn't slow down the stack to bring along, but I wouldn't go out of my way to tech to them

Mobile artillery are pretty sweet. Once the enemy develops AA defenses, you want to use your precious air force more carefully and having arty around to bombard defenses to 0% without any risk of retaliation is very useful again. Obviously, as you indicated, there's a trade off in that you're delaying other techs.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I could swear my Barrage promotions for modern armor were working and it was saying I caused collateral damage. I'll load a save and test when I get home.

I was of course talking about BTS with the latest patch (and unofficial patch). Since you're not using BTS with the latest patch, you still have modern armor with barrage promotions. This promotion was considered a bit too much for the already powerful modern armor unit as it forced the artillery and the mobile artillery into a niche role. Now you need artillery or planes for collateral damage instead of tanks. I see that a4phantom already dealt with the other questions.

 

[a4phantom]

I see that a4phantom already dealt with the other questions.

I got a shout out!

 

[sp1cychick3n]

Hello people. Very new to the game. Had a question whose answer I can't find anywhere.

When you are building improvements near your city (like for food or production), do you need to connect it with a road to the city to get the thing (food or production)? I know you do for resources but what about the basic stuff?

And I'm confused about the cities sharing stuff. Do they automatically share if the culture of the cities is combined? Or do you have to build roads? I know (again) that you have to build roads for resources (gold, etc.) but what about food and production.

Hopefully I can get some straight answers that I couldn't in the manual. Thank-you.

 

[Komunyst_Indian]

Hey... how can edit my avatar to a custom avatar

 

[JujuLautre]

Hello people. Very new to the game. Had a question whose answer I can't find anywhere.

When you are building improvements near your city (like for food or production), do you need to connect it with a road to the city to get the thing (food or production)? I know you do for resources but what about the basic stuff?

And I'm confused about the cities sharing stuff. Do they automatically share if the culture of the cities is combined? Or do you have to build roads? I know (again) that you have to build roads for resources (gold, etc.) but what about food and production.

Hopefully I can get some straight answers that I couldn't in the manual. Thank-you.

You talking here about working tiles to get food, commerce and hammers. You can work any tile, regardless of the presence of an improvement. It's just that having an improvement will increase the yeld of the tile. You don't need a road or anything (good luck building roads on the sea ). Finally, a tile can be worked only by one city at a time. If two cities Big Fat Cross overlap, each overlapping tile will be workable by only one city at a time (if you go into a city screen and the tile is grey, click one tile on it so that you are able to work it. This will have the effect of disabling it for the other city though).

Oh, and welcome to CFC

Hey... how can edit my avatar to a custom avatar

I believe you need at least 30 posts and 30 days; I could be mistaken.

 

[sp1cychick3n]

You talking here about working tiles to get food, commerce and hammers. You can work any tile, regardless of the presence of an improvement. It's just that having an improvement will increase the yeld of the tile. You don't need a road or anything (good luck building roads on the sea ). Finally, a tile can be worked only by one city at a time. If two cities Big Fat Cross overlap, each overlapping tile will be workable by only one city at a time (if you go into a city screen and the tile is grey, click one tile on it so that you are able to work it. This will have the effect of disabling it for the other city though).

Oh, and welcome to CFC

I get the first part. I'm still confused about the city sharing stuff.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I get the first part. I'm still confused about the city sharing stuff.

When you open a city screen, you'll see a number of white circles. Those are the tiles that are being worked by that city. The citizens in the city (in number equal to the size of the city) are either working the land or functioning as specialists.

Only tiles that are within BOTH your cultural area and the Big Fat Cross (a 5*5 area without the corners) can be worked by citizens. Tiles that aren't worked by a citizen don't contribute any hammers, food or commerce.

When a tile is within the big fat cross of two cities, then you can switch it from being used between the two cities. In one city it will be clear and usable, in the other it will be grey and unusable. If you click the tile in the city where the tile is grey, then it will become clear in that city and grey in the other.

If you click on any clear tile within the Big Fat Cross (BFC) of your city (and within your cultural area), then a citizen will be placed there to work that tile. You'll see a white circle appearing on that tile. Of course, there are only a limited number of citizens in a city (equal to the city size), so it will have to come from somewhere else and another tile is now not being worked anymore or a specialist has been disabled. Clicking on a worked tile or clicking on the minus next to a specialist, will remove the citizen from the worked tile or disable the specialist. You'll have a generic citizen to either work the land or become a specialist. This allows you to switch between the tiles being used by the city. You can focus on high food tiles to grow the city or high hammer tiles to increase the productivity of the city or high commerce tiles to improve the economy of your empire.

 

[PieMan1000]

New player here with a quick question: If a new player buys the Gold Edition (comes with original CIV4 plus Warlords), is there any reason to play the original CIV4, or should one go straight to playing Warlords (or for that matter, should one buy BTS and just play that)? What is the benefit, if any, for playing an "outdated" version when one has a newer expansion pack also?

 

[ori]

welcome to cfc
I personally never went back to Civ4 after starting with BtS - but that really depends on your tastes. BtS (and warlords to a lesser extent) introduces some quite significant rules changes so that it might sometimes be quite nice to go back to one of the earlier versions
However if you contemplate buying Gold edition and BtS I have one advice:

don't

Gold edition has shown to cause tremendous headaches for a lot of people who wanted to install BtS onto it. Chances are you are much better of just buying Civ4 and BtS or if you want Warlords buy Complete edition

 

[a4phantom]

New player here with a quick question: If a new player buys the Gold Edition (comes with original CIV4 plus Warlords), is there any reason to play the original CIV4, or should one go straight to playing Warlords (or for that matter, should one buy BTS and just play that)? What is the benefit, if any, for playing an "outdated" version when one has a newer expansion pack also?

The Warlords component of Gold is obsoleted by BtS. So just buy Civ4 "Vanilla" (the standard game) and BtS and just play BtS.

Off the top of anyone's head do you know if Civ4 (BtS) will run well on an otherwise quality system with a X3100 graphics card?

 

[CCRunner]

Hey... how can edit my avatar to a custom avatar

You need thirty posts (which you have) and to be a member for at least 30 days (which you haven't).

 

[sp1cychick3n]

When you open a city screen, you'll see a number of white circles. Those are the tiles that are being worked by that city. The citizens in the city (in number equal to the size of the city) are either working the land or functioning as specialists.

Only tiles that are within BOTH your cultural area and the Big Fat Cross (a 5*5 area without the corners) can be worked by citizens. Tiles that aren't worked by a citizen don't contribute any hammers, food or commerce.

When a tile is within the big fat cross of two cities, then you can switch it from being used between the two cities. In one city it will be clear and usable, in the other it will be grey and unusable. If you click the tile in the city where the tile is grey, then it will become clear in that city and grey in the other.

If you click on any clear tile within the Big Fat Cross (BFC) of your city (and within your cultural area), then a citizen will be placed there to work that tile. You'll see a white circle appearing on that tile. Of course, there are only a limited number of citizens in a city (equal to the city size), so it will have to come from somewhere else and another tile is now not being worked anymore or a specialist has been disabled. Clicking on a worked tile or clicking on the minus next to a specialist, will remove the citizen from the worked tile or disable the specialist. You'll have a generic citizen to either work the land or become a specialist. This allows you to switch between the tiles being used by the city. You can focus on high food tiles to grow the city or high hammer tiles to increase the productivity of the city or high commerce tiles to improve the economy of your empire.

Just read that last night in the manual. So, if the tile can only be worked on my one city, the other cities can still share, right?

 

[a4phantom]

Just read that last night in the manual. So, if the tile can only be worked on my one city, the other cities can still share, right?

What do you mean share? Working a tile extracts commerce/food/production from it. Only one city can do that to a tile at a time. Cities don't share production or, sadly, food. They do share resources (iron, horses, gold, bananas), but you don't actually have to work a tile to extract those, just have them within your borders with a road and proper improvement (mine, pasture, plantation).

 

[sp1cychick3n]

What do you mean share? Working a tile extracts commerce/food/production from it. Only one city can do that to a tile at a time. Cities don't share production or, sadly, food. They do share resources (iron, horses, gold, bananas), but you don't actually have to work a tile to extract those, just have them within your borders with a road and proper improvement (mine, pasture, plantation).

Ahhhh, I see. Finally got it.

Now, if I'm working on a tile, do I still get benefits for the other tile (for that city)? Or do I have to work on it from the city screen to get stuff?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Ahhhh, I see. Finally got it.

Now, if I'm working on a tile, do I still get benefits for the other tile (for that city)? Or do I have to work on it from the city screen to get stuff?

A city gets its food, hammers and commerce from its citizens. These citizens work the land (white circles) or work as specialists. You only get a number of citizens equal to the size of your city. The tiles that aren't being worked won't produce anything (exception: resources).

A single tile can only contain a single citizen from a single city. You can switch the tile between cities by clicking on it when it's greyed out. Only the city where the tile is lightened can place a citizen on the tile.

 

[sp1cychick3n]

A city gets its food, hammers and commerce from its citizens. These citizens work the land (white circles) or work as specialists. You only get a number of citizens equal to the size of your city. The tiles that aren't being worked won't produce anything (exception: resources).

A single tile can only contain a single citizen from a single city. You can switch the tile between cities by clicking on it when it's greyed out. Only the city where the tile is lightened can place a citizen on the tile.

I see. Finally get it now. Thank-you so much.

 

[a4phantom]

If I take some big, developed Freedonian cities, will there always be anger in those cities if I don't wipe out the Freedonia civ completely?

 

[GooglyBoogly]

Over time the anger will go away as your culture becomes more predominant in that city (see nationality), but if the city had multiple wonders, you should pretty much resign yourself to having to live with some unhappiness (We Long to join the motherland!) until the freedonia civ is extinct

 

[Roland Johansen]

If I take some big, developed Freedonian cities, will there always be anger in those cities if I don't wipe out the Freedonia civ completely?

Over time the anger will go away as your culture becomes more predominant in that city (see nationality), but if the city had multiple wonders, you should pretty much resign yourself to having to live with some unhappiness (We Long to join the motherland!) until the freedonia civ is extinct

Yes, the 'join the motherland' unhappiness is directly proportional to the percentage foreign culture in the centre city tile and the size of the city. You will also see this type of unhappiness in cities that are close to the border and under cultural pressure from a neighbour. Foreign culture completely disappears when you wipe out a civilisation, but heavy culture production from your corporations or other sources can also help a lot. Even if you can just severely reduce the percentage foreign culture, then this will already remove a lot of the unhappiness.