Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[DaviddesJ]

That said, does anyone know of a way to calculate an entire stack's odds of beating a city's defenses?

Yes, I could do it, but the easiest way by far is to just run 1000 trials and see how often you win.

In order to do the computation (or simulation), you need to know how the computer decides which unit to attack with at each opportunity, and which unit to defend with. Often, you can probably do better by choosing for yourself the order to attack in, rather than taking the default stack order. But knowing which defender the computer will choose at each opportunity is not so easy---I don't know if anyone has published this complete information.

 

[Dawg]

Hello everyone. I looked thru this whole thread and searched for "without CD" and could not find an answer to my question which is:
Is there a way to install the files to the computer such that you do not have to pull the CD out every time you want to play?
Thanks
Dawg

 

[Grachi]

No I think you have to play with the CD due to piracy issues now adays to ensure that everyone is playing with a copy that purchase and own the rights to.

 

[fung3]

Dawg, you could create a virtual drive within your hard drive and mount an image of the game CD there.

 

[a4phantom]

Dawg, you could create a virtual drive within your hard drive and mount an image of the game CD there.

Is that legal, and if so how do you do it?

 

[LeSphinx]

Quote:
Originally Posted by fung3
Dawg, you could create a virtual drive within your hard drive and mount an image of the game CD there.


Is that legal, and if so how do you do it?


If you got the original CD/DVD of civ4, it's legal except if you make availavable the mounted disk for the net...
If you do not have original CD/DVD of CIV4, it's totaly illegal!!!!!!!

 

[Sturggen]

I have several qestions/issues which I hope will not make me out to be a complete idiot. I am paying in a LAN, a very basic level gaame to get the feel of this thing.
#1: What does No State Religion do?, i.e. selecting NSR under Theocracy?
#2Is there some sort of limiting factor on City Dense. I have a city at 105% and two at 85% while my opponent can't get over 60%. Darned if we can figure out the difference
#3Do wonders actually go obsolete. I have the Parthenon, my opponent discovered Chemistry several turns ago and I am still getting the 50% Great Person Birth rate increase in all my cities.
Any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Frostyboy]

Thanks for the answers LeSphinx and DaviddesJ

Hurrying has improved, but still that bug? worries me

 

[_alphaBeta_]

I have several qestions/issues which I hope will not make me out to be a complete idiot. I am paying in a LAN, a very basic level gaame to get the feel of this thing.
#1: What does No State Religion do?, i.e. selecting NSR under Theocracy?
#2Is there some sort of limiting factor on City Dense. I have a city at 105% and two at 85% while my opponent can't get over 60%. Darned if we can figure out the difference
#3Do wonders actually go obsolete. I have the Parthenon, my opponent discovered Chemistry several turns ago and I am still getting the 50% Great Person Birth rate increase in all my cities.
Any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

3. Obsolescence issues are hard to grasp in this game. My understanding (and I haven't been playing long) is this. First off, YOU have to research a technology for it to become obsolete. If you built Stonehenge, it will not become obsolete until YOU research calendar. If someone else researches calender, it doesn't affect you at all. If you avoided calendar for the whole game, Stonehenge would never go obsolete. As per the manual, when a wonder goes obsolete, you keep only the culture bonus. You can also no longer build the building.

 

[plopeye]

Quote:
Originally Posted by fung3
Dawg, you could create a virtual drive within your hard drive and mount an image of the game CD there.


Is that legal, and if so how do you do it?


If you got the original CD/DVD of civ4, it's legal except if you make availavable the mounted disk for the net...
If you do not have original CD/DVD of CIV4, it's totaly illegal!!!!!!!

Except that Civ4 is protected by the new version of SecuROM (4.60) so if you take a virtual drive and mount the image, you also need to step into the borderline piracy world and get an emulation hider that backs up and temporarily removes registry keys so that the launcher won't think you are using a disc emulator. While it's technically legal as long as you own the game, it might be more trouble than you are willing to undertake.



OK Now time for my question(s):
1. I see a lot of chat about build "switching" especially in the early game. Such as switching from warrior to settler/worker build. I've tried a few different things with the build queue and I don't see what I am missing here. Does this switch just migrate the used shields/hammers on the first unit towards completion of the one you switch to? If this is a yes, then how do I do this? Every time I try what I think makes sense, it goes back to 0 shields credit.

2. Almost all of the games I have won have been domination victories around 1900AD. I'd really like to win by some peaceful means but I usually end up getting smoked by barbarians if I play on anything higher than Chieftain. Assuming I'd like to take a diplo victory, what is the mindset I need to undertake in the early game, midgame, lategame, etc

Thanks for this.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

1. I see a lot of chat about build "switching" especially in the early game. Such as switching from warrior to settler/worker build. I've tried a few different things with the build queue and I don't see what I am missing here. Does this switch just migrate the used shields/hammers on the first unit towards completion of the one you switch to? If this is a yes, then how do I do this? Every time I try what I think makes sense, it goes back to 0 shields credit.

Switching to another unit pushes the one currently being built down in the queue. While it's there, it has all of it's progress saved. Whatever new unit you bumped it with starts at zero. If you remove the first item from the queue, it still retains the hammers you put into it (much like researching technologies work). To answer your question - production stays with the unit - it is not transferable to another project.

 

[chefjason44]

So many questions sorry if already asked.

In Civ 3 I loved using culture to take cities with out a fight, I notice you can do this in civ 4 but not as frequent. And At times there is say your civ uprising in an opponents city and you still don't get city. What do you do to take that city that is up rising? Is there something to make it go faster as well?

 

[MrCynical]

When a city is under heavy cultural pressure, and is down to a value of less than 50% for it's own nationality there is a chance it will revolt, generally about a 5-10% chance per turn. When the city revolts it effectively shuts down for a few turns. The first time this happens there is only a small chance the city will flip to you, the second time a revolt occurs there's about a 50-50% chance of a flip. The city will almost always flip if a third revolt occurs, and I have never seen a city survive more than three revolts. When a flip occurs a popup will appear to ask whether you want to keep the city or disband it.

There's no real way to make it go faster apart from piling more cultural buildings into your nearby cities. The 'incite revolt' from Civ 3 has been removed.

 

[plopeye]

I also have a question about Cultural victory. Isn't "Legendary" status set to 75000 culture? How is it fathomable to get 3 cities to this stature? I have only gotten to 15000 a few times in my games. Are there some key techs/wonders that really enable this to happen?

 

[themoffster]

Why when I am in negotiations why are all the options red?
I know that it is things that they don't want to share, but when trying to wage war, surely I should be able to barter over this at one point?
Every time I have tried all the options are red.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I also have a question about Cultural victory. Isn't "Legendary" status set to 75000 culture? How is it fathomable to get 3 cities to this stature? I have only gotten to 15000 a few times in my games. Are there some key techs/wonders that really enable this to happen?

It's 50,000 culture at Normal speed. You won't get this high in a normal game; you have to work on it from early in the game. Build lots of wonders, all in those cities. Generate Great Artists, and use them for 4000 culture each, in your target cities. Late in the game, you can use the culture slider to generate lots of culture, at the cost of falling behind in technology.

 

[Teh_Hunter]

my capital was at a level 9 and all of a sudden it dropped to level 1 and it cant go up again can u tell why it happens and how to fix this.

 

[themoffster]

Why when you use a terra map does the game spawn all the civs on one continent and leave others with absolutely nobody on them.
I's so annoying - I was wanting an explorer type game, finding new civs late in the game and trading with them.
Is there a way to alter the spawning of settlers?

 

[Mirc]

Really stupid question: How do I run the game in Window Mode?

Another one: My computer is way below the minimum specs, but the game runs perfect if I don't try Large maps. However, in the last days, it has some problems. It suddenly tells me it can't run because "Please check if you have the right CD or floppy disk (WTH?) and retry. WTH? I have the game on DVD!
It did this a couple of times but worked the next day. Now for 5 days it stopped working. Can I still save my Civ4, or I have to reinstall Windows (and, if needed, format C)? It wouldn't be the first time I do this.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Why when you use a terra map does the game spawn all the civs on one continent and leave others with absolutely nobody on them.

Because that's the whole idea of the Terra map. The civilizations all develop on one continent (the Old World) and then, when they discover the appropriate technologies, can travel to the remaining continents (the New World). If you don't want that, then choose a different map style such as Continents (which gives a similar geography but with civilizations starting on all continents).