Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[dalamb]

It seems to me that later in the game, when I take over that the AI has built a lot of workshops? Why??... Seems to me that they decrease the food available....

I've built workshops on plains tiles in hammer-poor cities; if you're running Caste System the 3H can be quite helpful in the right circumstances, and there are techs that improve their hammer output. I'm not sure how clever the AI is at "the right circumstances".

 

[Roland Johansen]

It seems to me that later in the game, when I take over that the AI has built a lot of workshops? Why??

Is this be a good stratey? Seems to me that they decrease the food available. Maybe after biology and if you are OK with the city being stagnet??

Thoughts??

Thanks!

It depends on the civics that you're using. In BTS with the State Property and Caste System civics and the Guilds and Chemistry technologies a grassland workshop gives 2 and 4 , a plains workshop 1 and 5 . That's the best that you can get for normal, non resource production tiles, better than grassland and plains hill mines. On the other hand, you can also use very different civics and then the workshops are questionable in their productivity (and maybe cottages are far more productive).

So, it depends. I would never place only workshops in my empire, usually some variation in tile improvements is best.

In general, the AI tactics aren't a great example of great tactics by the way.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

hi. i have a question. i am new to the game and i have been playing chieftain or whatever the second difficulty level is. anyway i have been getting a little bored with it so i have tried on multiple occasions to go to warlord. but i cant seem to be able to play it. something always seems to go wrong and i cant continue. does anyone have any tips for me?

 

[IAM]

Can you be more specific? Are you overrun by barbarians or economy goes bad etc.

 

[ZeroM]

Excellent thread. 2 Quick ones.

1. Is there a guideline for value in Gold vs tech trades? Tech for tech is easy to just compare beakers, but when trading gold are there rules of thumb or is it just whatever it is worth to you?

2. Barbarians spawning in "clear" areas. I take effort to clear as wide a circle as possible around my cities. I notice barbatians tend to just pop up a tile or 2 away from my borders instead of coming from dark areas a lot of times. Is this supposed to happen?

I'm playing Vanilla, Noble, Marathon

 

[Sisiutil]

Excellent thread. 2 Quick ones.

1. Is there a guideline for value in Gold vs tech trades? Tech for tech is easy to just compare beakers, but when trading gold are there rules of thumb or is it just whatever it is worth to you?

2. Barbarians spawning in "clear" areas. I take effort to clear as wide a circle as possible around my cities. I notice barbatians tend to just pop up a tile or 2 away from my borders instead of coming from dark areas a lot of times. Is this supposed to happen?

I'm playing Vanilla, Noble, Marathon

1. It's really whatever you want for it. The AI will generally not hang on to a large amount of gold for too long; it's extremely rare for them to have close to an amount in gold equivalent to a contemporary tech's beaker amount. If I need a pile of cash (say to purchase a number of unit upgrades or to finance Universal Suffrage gold-rushing), I'll often have a fire sale on older techs, with some of them going for whatever amount of gold the AI has on hand. (I usually insist on a minimum of 100 gold for an early-game tech, 500 for a mid-game tech, and 1000 for a late-game tech.)
2. Yep. Barbarians appear in the "fog", which includes not just black, unrevealed tiles, but any tile not "lit" by yours or another civ's cultural borders. You can post units as "fog-busters" outside your borders to "light" these areas and prevent barbs from spawning there. However, this can be expensive (units outside your borders have additional maintenance costs), and the barbs usually still appear, just further out.

 

[Lord Parkin]

1. Is there a guideline for value in Gold vs tech trades? Tech for tech is easy to just compare beakers, but when trading gold are there rules of thumb or is it just whatever it is worth to you?

A good general rule of thumb is that gold is more valuable than beakers, because beakers have research multipliers. For instance, 300 gold is more valuable than a 300 beaker tech. The exception is if you urgently need the tech, in which case it may be worth paying the amount of beakers in gold.

If you're buying a tech from the AI, pay the minimum that they'll accept (put the tech on the table and ask "What do you want for this?"). Be warned that the AI's will frequently massively overvalue their techs, so check what you're paying for before you accept the deal.

If you're selling a tech to the AI, obviously get the maximum amount they'll give to you. Be warned that when the AI doesn't have much money, they'll make really raw deals (eg Civil Service for 30 gold). Don't accept unless it's an amount you're willing to part with the tech for. Note that if you're much more advanced than the AI, it's sometimes worth selling them old techs for very little gold to boost your treasury.

Between human players in multiplayer, you'll have to work it out between yourselves, but generally most players will think a 2:3 or 3:4 ratio is roughly fair (ie, spending 200 gold to buy a 300 beaker tech, or 300 gold to buy a 400 beaker tech). Again, the rule with technological advancement applies - if one player is much more advanced than another, they will be expected to sell their old techs for much less than their worth in beakers.

2. Barbarians spawning in "clear" areas. I take effort to clear as wide a circle as possible around my cities. I notice barbatians tend to just pop up a tile or 2 away from my borders instead of coming from dark areas a lot of times. Is this supposed to happen?

Barbarians can appear in any tile which you (or another player) cannot see into. They can (and do) spawn far from your borders, but you don't notice these barbarians because you don't see them. You only see them once they travel about and finally reach your borders. I suggest starting a new game and checking WorldBuilder every 10 turns or so, to confirm this for yourself.

By the way, if you're having trouble with barbarians appearing near your borders, one of the best counters is to position several units outside your borders (especially on hills, as they get greater visibility) and keep as many tiles as possible "un-fogged". In this way you'll catch barbarians long before they get close to your borders.

 

[IAM]

The great wall stops barbarians from entering your cultural borders and once empires have expanded to within sight distance barbarians become only a minor issue. Barbarians often send single units and with a little planning they make excellent promotion vehicles for a few choice units.

 

[Ronojoy1917]

Quick question:
Trade Routes=Commerce
Commerce can be converted to Gold or Beakers.
Right?

 

[Gwynnja]

Quick question:
Trade Routes=Commerce
Commerce can be converted to Gold or Beakers.
Right?

That is correct. Commerce can also be converted into culture or espionage (with BTS.)

 

[PieceOfMind]

Quick question:
Trade Routes=Commerce
Commerce can be converted to Gold or Beakers.
Right?

This is right.

You earn commercecommerce basically from the tiles you work and trade routes.

That commerce is divided up into , , and according to the slider setting. Then those are further sent through multipliers like libraries, markets, intelligence agencies, cathedrals etc.

Because of the way this works, the Beauracacy civic bonus, which grants +50% commerce commerce in the capital is especially strong because it is 50% before modifiers. This is why many players advise getting as much commerce as possible in your capital (trade routes and towns) so you can get the most out of Beauracracy. Other methods of generating and like through specialists do not benefit from the +50% bonus to commerce, but they do go through the other and multipliers.

Sorry if I used a bit too much detail.

 

[ZeroM]

The great wall stops barbarians from entering your cultural borders and once empires have expanded to within sight distance barbarians become only a minor issue. Barbarians often send single units and with a little planning they make excellent promotion vehicles for a few choice units.

Thanks for all the answers. I'm playing Vanilla, so no Great Wall.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

Can you be more specific? Are you overrun by barbarians or economy goes bad etc.

No barbarians are never a problem (except for the occasional lost scout) it is usually my economy that sucks and my cities seem angrier and unhealthier. i know the happiness and healthiness is a normal thing i just mentioned it. slavery! its mostly my economy. can someone help?

 

[henrebotha]

No barbarians are never a problem (except for the occasional lost scout) it is usually my economy that sucks and my cities seem angrier and unhealthier. i know the happiness and healthiness is a normal thing i just mentioned it. slavery! its mostly my economy. can someone help?

Stay as far away from unhappiness as you possibly can. Unhealthiness is much less of an issue, but unhappiness can completely cripple your economy. Basically, every unhappy citizen still consumes his regular 2 food per turn, but refuses to work. So your cities grow, but to no avail. (Also, if city maintenance is based on city population (which I'm not sure it is), then the unhappy guys are also costing you money.)

Solutions to this:
1) Enter your city screens (double-click your cities) and move your citizens (the white circles) around so that your food says "stagnant". This way, your city will stop growing. Try and move them around so that you increase their production/commerce yields while reducing their food yields.
2) Use the Slavery civic to convert unhappy citizens into production. Just make sure you "whip" away at least 2 citizens at a time (because every time you whip, your city gets +1 unhappiness; so you want to reduce population by at least 2 to lower the overall unhappiness). This is basically a way of converting food into hammers, which is damn powerful.
3) Cheer your citizens up! Temples give +1 happiness each; and having a state religion gives you +1 happiness in each city that has that religion. Also, once you have researched Drama (giving you access to the culture slider), buildings like Colosseums, Theatres, and Broadcast Towers will increase happiness in all your cities the more you push the culture slider up.

 

[Lord Parkin]

(Also, if city maintenance is based on city population (which I'm not sure it is), then the unhappy guys are also costing you money.)

Yes, city maintenance is based on city population, so those unhappy citizens are costing you money.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

Stay as far away from unhappiness as you possibly can. Unhealthiness is much less of an issue, but unhappiness can completely cripple your economy. Basically, every unhappy citizen still consumes his regular 2 food per turn, but refuses to work. So your cities grow, but to no avail. (Also, if city maintenance is based on city population (which I'm not sure it is), then the unhappy guys are also costing you money.)

Solutions to this:
1) Enter your city screens (double-click your cities) and move your citizens (the white circles) around so that your food says "stagnant". This way, your city will stop growing. Try and move them around so that you increase their production/commerce yields while reducing their food yields.
2) Use the Slavery civic to convert unhappy citizens into production. Just make sure you "whip" away at least 2 citizens at a time (because every time you whip, your city gets +1 unhappiness; so you want to reduce population by at least 2 to lower the overall unhappiness). This is basically a way of converting food into hammers, which is damn powerful.
3) Cheer your citizens up! Temples give +1 happiness each; and having a state religion gives you +1 happiness in each city that has that religion. Also, once you have researched Drama (giving you access to the culture slider), buildings like Colosseums, Theatres, and Broadcast Towers will increase happiness in all your cities the more you push the culture slider up.

Thanks. i knew that stuff but you detailed it. and i never realized that unhappy citizens would cost money in maintenence. it just seems that the happiness cap is too low for my lower level expectations and i seem to let them grow too much. thank you all

 

[tencelos]

Didn't know where to post this question...

A few years ago I came to this site and found some awesome civ 3 gameplay videos (one of a guy beating the game insanely quickly with the aztecs, for example), but I can't find these anymore. Where did they go?

I checked the page http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/videos/, but didn't see any. Do people still post stuff like this?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Try searching around Youtube - I know I've seen a few "beating Civ4" videos there, and there's probably some "beating Civ3" ones around too.

 

[TheRepublic]

alright two questions:

1.) Does the AI use auto attack when attacking. for example, if the AI were a human player, do they simply take a stack and right click on an enemy city until it is taken or their force is destroyed, or do they at times use more subtle methods that a human would, like attacking first with a weak unit and then following up with a strong unit for a confirmed kill?

2.) Is collateral damage absorbed by units which receive no collateral damage? IE, if by chance a large stack say 30 units is hit by a cannon, can a unit which is immune to collateral damage in the stack "absorb" a hit of the collateral and take no damage, thus preserving another non-immune unit that could have just as easily been damaged by the collateral? Or does collateral damage simply slide off of immune units and immediately and randomly head for the next non-collateral immune unit in the stack?

 

[r_rolo1]

2) Siege units can "eat" siege ( notice that siege is only immune to siege provoked collateral damage.... siege are as prone to collateral damage as any other unit if it is caused by a non-siege unit ( planes and Chinese UU ) ) collateral damage slots as you describe.