Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[ori]

only if you use it for multiplayer - if not: get rid of it it probably tries to call home

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have questions about trade negotiations.

Does requesting an unbalanced trade hurt your relations in any way?

What about repeated requests in general. For example, say you want to do tech+gold for tech. Is there any downside to starting at X gold, then offering X+10, then X+20, etc., until he accepts? Is there any faster way to find out how much you need to pay?

What about using the "what is the price for peace?" option. If he offers, say, 100 gold.. does this mean he will always refuse to give 101 gold instead? Would he still have refused to give 101 gold if you didn't do "what is the price for peace"?

I'm pretty sure that when you do the "what is the price for peace" option, then that is the best deal you are going to get.

As for your first two questions, I don't think so...but I've never seen an instance where the AI accepts a "better" deal than what is offered if you just select the option "what will you give me for this?" or "what do you want for this?"

It does happen that you can get a deal that is not strictly better for an AI, but better according to most humans.

For instance, when you offer peace and the AI has 500 gold and civil service, it can happen that it will offer 500 gold while you could also get civil service + 100 gold if you renegotiate. But you can't get civil service + 500 gold. Thus an AI starts by giving you al its gold and the algorithm that determines the amount that the AI will offer in peace negotiations notices that civil service is too expensive to add to all that gold. So it just offers 500 gold instead of civil service + 100 gold.

It's pretty hard for the AI to determine what the human player will consider the best deal. In the above case, it would be pretty clear, but in other cases it's a lot harder to find the best deal for the human with an algorithm.

 

[Gwynnja]

I'm carrying my great general super medic on a transport. will he heal the other ships in the same tile from inside the transport, provided they're all stationary?
EDIT: also, will units heal inside the transport if the transport moves?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm carrying my great general super medic on a transport. will he heal the other ships in the same tile from inside the transport, provided they're all stationary?

Yes.

EDIT: also, will units heal inside the transport if the transport moves?

Yes, providing that they didn't board that turn (which uses up their movement points).

 

[Rorybob]

Is the Unique Building only in Warlords/BtS?
I'm just curious cause I haven't seen one yet.

 

[ori]

Unique Buildings were introduced in Warlords - so yes the base Civ4 does not have them

 

[Rorybob]

Unique Buildings were introduced in Warlords - so yes the base Civ4 does not have them

That's a relief. Makes modding that bit easier.

 

[henrebotha]

I'd always go with building more units. Actually, I don't know if I've ever built research or wealth - culture yes, but I've never had reason for the others. You can always use more units... if you think you don't need more, you probably aren't fighting enough wars (or else you might need to think about raising the difficulty level).

Haha, I am actually considering moving up to Prince... I'm scared, though. I don't think I'm near focused enough in terms of general strategy to actually win a Prince game. I think I'll try it now.

Now that I'm better at city specialization, I find that the only cities that ever really run out of things to produce are my production cities - and because their production is so high, building research or culture actually has a notable impact.

 

[BarrageQueen]

Is there a keyboard shortcut to increasing/decreasing the research rate (the research button/slider)? I prefer to use the keyboard more than the mouse if at possible.

Also, I usually lower the research rate one turn before the tech finishes, to curb any extra research and get some gold surplus. But now I'm wondering whether research carries over like production does. And if so, whether how I manage the research rate is counterproductive in the long run due to slower tech path (less carried over research).

 

[Lord Parkin]

Is there a keyboard shortcut to increasing/decreasing the research rate (the research button/slider)? I prefer to use the keyboard more than the mouse if at possible.

Hmm, not that I'm aware of. I'd be interested if someone knows a way to do that though.

Also, I usually lower the research rate one turn before the tech finishes, to curb any extra research and get some gold surplus. But now I'm wondering whether research carries over like production does. And if so, whether how I manage the research rate is counterproductive in the long run due to slower tech path (less carried over research).

You're correct, research carries over like production does, so there's no need to change the slider during the last turn of research. No longer the old days of research micromanagement like in Civ3!

It's a bit counterproductive to micromanage the research slider in the early game (when you don't have any deficit), but it doesn't really matter whether you do or don't in the later game. It does take more time to change the slider constantly though, so you may as well not do it.

 

[GooglyBoogly]

The gold surplus can be useful to keep aside some funds to pay for random events. If you are running a really tight game, it will prpbably be worthwhile to run a max/min science slider to keep some gold in your treasury most of the time

 

[Mknn]

Here's one that is bugging me. Under what circumstances do Templs give a hammer bonus? Right now, I am building a temple that will give me 1 , 1 culture, and 2 hammers. Yet, at other times, temples only give the happiness and culture.

 

[InigoMontoya]

Something's got me stumped - Nationhood Civic allows 5 draftees per city per turn. I go into a size 20 city with Globe Theater so that the doesn't affect them. I draft a Rifleman, but when I try to draft another, the thing is darkened, like it is without Nationhood or a big enough city.

 

[Mknn]

You can only draft once per city per turn.

 

[Mesodius]

Is there any way to set the game so that it saves every turn automatically instead of every 3 turns? In the late game (when turns can take 10 minutes or more) on multiplayer if the games crashes or something I hate losing all that time (up to 3 turns).

If there is a way, how? Thanks.

 

[CCRunner]

Here's one that is bugging me. Under what circumstances do Temples give a hammer bonus? Right now, I am building a temple that will give me 1 , 1 culture, and 2 hammers. Yet, at other times, temples only give the happiness and culture.

The temples of the religion that the Apostolic Palace was built under get the extra two hammers. No AP -> No bonus Hammers.

Example: Isabella is christian then builds the AP. All christian buildings get extra hammers. Izzy then switches to Buddhism. Only christian buildings still get two hammers.

 

[Gwynnja]

Does anyone know the barb parameters, specifically when they settle down and slow down their looting?

 

[Dresden]

Is there any way to set the game so that it saves every turn automatically instead of every 3 turns? In the late game (when turns can take 10 minutes or more) on multiplayer if the games crashes or something I hate losing all that time (up to 3 turns).

If there is a way, how? Thanks.

It's a setting in your Civilization IV.ini file which will be under the "My Games" directory. You can change both the maximum number of saves to keep ("MaxAutoSaves") and how often the saves are made ("AutoSaveInterval".)

 

[PieceOfMind]

Is there any way to set the game so that it saves every turn automatically instead of every 3 turns? In the late game (when turns can take 10 minutes or more) on multiplayer if the games crashes or something I hate losing all that time (up to 3 turns).

If there is a way, how? Thanks.

It's a setting in your Civilization IV.ini file which will be under the "My Games" directory. You can change both the maximum number of saves to keep ("MaxAutoSaves") and how often the saves are made ("AutoSaveInterval".)

I reccommend setting AutoSaveInterval to 1 and MaxAutoSaves to at least the number of turns in the game. Unless you are very limited in hard drive space, this is a good idea if you play any mods where bugs are sometimes found. The autosaves are automatically deleted whenever you begin a new game anyway.

Also, for those of you who are sometimes prepared to reload, you can go back to the turn that reports when you built the pyramids and change the government like you meant to do.

 

[BarrageQueen]

Hmm, not that I'm aware of. I'd be interested if someone knows a way to do that though.


You're correct, research carries over like production does, so there's no need to change the slider during the last turn of research. No longer the old days of research micromanagement like in Civ3!

It's a bit counterproductive to micromanage the research slider in the early game (when you don't have any deficit), but it doesn't really matter whether you do or don't in the later game. It does take more time to change the slider constantly though, so you may as well not do it.

Yeah, I figure there's probably no keyboard shortcut since most of the buttons that do have one seem to indicate so when the mouse hovers over.

As for the early game, I've tried not micromanaging the research rate now and it seems to be fine.

Thanks for the response.

The gold surplus can be useful to keep aside some funds to pay for random events. If you are running a really tight game, it will prpbably be worthwhile to run a max/min science slider to keep some gold in your treasury most of the time

Another Kiwi reply!

I agree that the gold reserve should be maintained at a minimum level. I've had a game where building up too large an army necessitated me deleting off some units as the upkeep went into overdrive after capturing cities.

Thanks for the response.