Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[henrebotha]

If a farm/cottage/mine is not in a white ring of any city, is it useless?

By white ring I assume you mean the Big Fat Cross (BFC), the area of tiles a city can work. Cottages that cannot be worked by a city are utterly useless as they're only function is to increase gained from working a tile same with farms increasing . This applies to all tiles if they do not bring a resource (if its a mine on copper then its very useful!).

To an extenet this also includes tiles within the cities workable area!
If your happy cap ) cap)allows 4 population, and you've built 4 cottages 2 farms 3 mines and a fishing boat then you can only work up to 4 of those tiles till your cap is increased.
Due to this its best to improve only tiles your city will be working either immediately, OR in the very near future OR if your workers really have nothing better to do.

All of the above, EXCEPT that if it is a mine or farm that is on a resource (like Iron or Corn), then it is not useless because you still get access to that resource (including any health or happiness bonuses, and production enablers/doublers).

 

[Jet082]

If a farm/cottage/mine is not in a white ring of any city, is it useless?

Farms can also spread irrigation from a river to some tile near your city.

 

[IAM]

If a farm/cottage/mine is not in a white ring of any city, is it useless?

Along this line of thought (assuming workers have nothing better to do) if you make none resource improvements outside the fat cross but inside cultural borders does this provide AI pillagers with non-important tiles to raze and if so will they do that instead of pillaging valuable resources. Awkwardly put but essentially does the AI recognize the difference between cultural borders and the fat cross for none resource pillaging?

 

[{Iago}]

Greetings.

Am I right in thinking there is no point in setting the espionage slider at 10% (or greater) at the start of the game, because you can only increase your espionage points in your capital city? Surely it's better to crank it up after you have a few courthouses?

 

[dalamb]

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure espionage points do you no good until you've met a few AI to "spend" them on.

 

[Ghpstage]

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure espionage points do you no good until you've met a few AI to "spend" them on.

This is true.

Greetings.

Am I right in thinking there is no point in setting the espionage slider at 10% (or greater) at the start of the game, because you can only increase your espionage points in your capital city? Surely it's better to crank it up after you have a few courthouses?

Your slider has nothing to do with the you already make in your city. It converts into
i.e. If your city is working enough cottages/gold/coast tiles to gain 10 in total setting the slider at 10% will give you 1 extra per turn (10% of 10)
You do NOT need a courthouse or any such building to make in a city!

 

[Roland Johansen]

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure espionage points do you no good until you've met a few AI to "spend" them on.

This is true.

Not exactly. You can't use the espionage points on anyone, so they can't be used for missions. But on the other hand, the chance that a mission is successful and the cost of a mission is dependent upon the total amount of espionage points generated during the whole game by the two conflicting civilisations. This total doesn't take into account whether these espionage points were ever invested in a civilisation or used against a civilisation. It's just a total of all the espionage points that your civilisation ever generated.

BTW, I have never set the espionage slider at 10% early in the game. I can't see a use for them at that point as I don't have spies then.

 

[Ghpstage]

Not exactly. You can't use the espionage points on anyone, so they can't be used for missions. But on the other hand, the chance that a mission is successful and the cost of a mission is dependent upon the total amount of espionage points generated during the whole game by the two conflicting civilisations. This total doesn't take into account whether these espionage points were ever invested in a civilisation or used against a civilisation. It's just a total of all the espionage points that your civilisation ever generated.

BTW, I have never set the espionage slider at 10% early in the game. I can't see a use for them at that point as I don't have spies then.

A bit too much info IMO as the original question suggested not knowing how the slider works yet.
Not entirely convinced the EP you would make while isolated would provide any noticeable benefit in such a situation either. But I could easily be wrong on this bit

 

[Lord Parkin]

Really, when playing against the AI, I hardly ever use the espionage slider until the very end of the game. I find it's only in multiplayer that it can be useful to spend any commerce on espionage in the early-mid game, and even then that's very situational. It's usually better to spend that commerce researching new military technologies rather than getting one or two extra spy missions (or research/city visibility) from a bit of extra espionage.

 

[6K Man]

It's usually better to spend that commerce researching new military technologies rather than getting one or two extra spy missions (or research/city visibility) from a bit of extra espionage.

I agree.

There ARE strategies that involve early use of espionage points (usually via the settled GSpy from Great Wall) that can nab you a bunch of techs in lieu of research. But I haven't managed to pull those off successfully. I don't find the AI uses espionage well, either - so really, you are often better off to keep your slider at 0% and pick up a research advantage instead.

 

[salty mud]

How can I uninstall the Blue Marble mod for Civ IV? I don't really like the changes it makes and it also makes my game run slower.

 

[Mixon]

hello!

why can`t I build west point when I do have unit with 6XP??

 

[6K Man]

hello!

why can`t I build west point when I do have unit with 6XP??

It's not 6 XP, it's level 6. 26 XP, unless Charismatic.

 

[Sidder]

Lil question about vassals, if your aiming for conquest victory do they add %'s to terrain / popu?

 

[henrebotha]

You mean domination, not conquest, and I do believe they add something like half their pop and land to yours.

 

[Sidder]

Ah okay, I was playing earth scenario, and was aiming for domination but maybe I vasseld a couple of civs to much cause I stayed stuck around 3x% something terrain owned around 70% of world pop was like cmon, by end I had vassald every nation and won by conquest? Thats why I confused em probly

Anyhooows .. I got another question about AP, do you have to do something to get the diplo vote win vote going or something? I rarely got votes and if their were any they werent of any use or not really intresting anyways or it be random pick like any of the votes that come up

 

[Ghpstage]

Ah okay, I was playing earth scenario, and was aiming for domination but maybe I vasseld a couple of civs to much cause I stayed stuck around 3x% something terrain owned around 70% of world pop was like cmon, by end I had vassald every nation and won by conquest? Thats why I confused em probly

Anyhooows .. I got another question about AP, do you have to do something to get the diplo vote win vote going or something? I rarely got votes and if their were any they werent of any use or not really intresting anyways or it be random pick like any of the votes that come up

To allow the diplo win vote every civ must have at least 1 city with the AP religion in it.

 

[Yxklyx]

Do Spies eventually have a movement of 2? If so when? Great Generals move 1 early on. Don't they move 2 later? If so when?

 

[nbcman]

@Yxklyx

Spies only have movement 1. Great People (including Great Generals) have movement 2. There are no changes in movement rates for these units due to tech advances. But they can move more tiles due to road/rail/airlift movement.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Except annoyingly spies don't use railroads (or even roads) when in enemy territory. It might be the same with friendly civs with whom you don't have open borders but I haven't checked.