Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Roland Johansen]

Is there a way to spectate Civ 4 games? My favorite thing to do in this game is watch the AI interact, and I would love to just be an omniscient being watching over them all, and interfering with the World Builder from time to time...

You can use Game.AIPlay which will let the AI play for a selected number of turns.

It's explained in this post.

 

[jmas]

Two questions:

1.Will animals ever disappear on their own? My culture was blocking a bear on to a peninsula. For while he hung out at my border, then he moved away. Will he still be lurking on the peninsula when I send a settler up there in a couple dozen turns?

2. How many tiles away from an AI's border do you need to mass your troops so the AI won't recognize the threat? Does it matter if the troops are in a city, or not?

Thanks all.

 

[r_rolo1]

1. Animals "obsolete" after a while and after that they are eliminated 1 per turn. So it might be possible that the bear will be gone, but the inverse may be true too

2. AI does not recognize neutral troops as a menace. For what matters , you can stockpile the units in the border....

 

[Lemon Merchant]

1.Will animals ever disappear on their own? My culture was blocking a bear on to a peninsula. For while he hung out at my border, then he moved away. Will he still be lurking on the peninsula when I send a settler up there in a couple dozen turns?

I can answer #1!!!

If you don't build the Great Wall, Barbarians can travel through your lands to where the bear is, and then eat him. So when you send your Settler, the Barbarians are waiting to eat him.

I guess that was no help at all, huh?

The real answer is that (IIRC) animals just go away on their own, and that you should never, ever, send a settler anywhere unescorted for the reasons below:

Lemon's Third Law of Civ states thusly: The chance of any unescorted Settler successfully reaching it's destination is inversely proportional to the need for the new city, and the time it takes to build said Settler.

Corollary: If said Settler reaches the destination successfully, and the city is founded, the Vedic Aryan event will trigger on the next turn, before the warrior can be built.

 

[jmas]

Thank you to both of you for posting.

I can answer #1!!!

If you don't build the Great Wall, Barbarians can travel through your lands to where the bear is, and then eat him. So when you send your Settler, the Barbarians are waiting to eat him.

I guess that was no help at all, huh?

No, but it made me laugh.

The real answer is that (IIRC) animals just go away on their own, and that you should never, ever, send a settler anywhere unescorted for the reasons below:

Lemon's Third Law of Civ states thusly: The chance of any unescorted Settler successfully reaching it's destination is inversely proportional to the need for the new city, and the time it takes to build said Settler.

Corollary: If said Settler reaches the destination successfully, and the city is founded, the Vedic Aryan event will trigger on the next turn, before the warrior can be built.

I figured I would escort the settler up there, but it would be with a warrior, because I don't have metal right now-- the metal is on the peninsula (naturally...). And I figured that if the bear is still there, then there will need to be more than one warrior, since Bears have a strength of three. I'm not used to having to build up a stack to go up against an animal. What's next, needing a catapult?

jmas's first law of playing Civ since following TMIT's first walk-through (and reading some of his posts about the havoc events can wreak on the game): Turn random events off.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I think on the lower levels, the warrior gets it's first win free against animals, so really, it's just free xp. Now, if there are also wolves on the peninsula, you might have a problem unless the warrior is a Chuck Norris unit.

 

[bestbrian]

I can answer #1!!!

If you don't build the Great Wall, Barbarians can travel through your lands to where the bear is, and then eat him. So when you send your Settler, the Barbarians are waiting to eat him.

I guess that was no help at all, huh?

The real answer is that (IIRC) animals just go away on their own, and that you should never, ever, send a settler anywhere unescorted for the reasons below:

Lemon's Third Law of Civ states thusly: The chance of any unescorted Settler successfully reaching it's destination is inversely proportional to the need for the new city, and the time it takes to build said Settler.

Corollary: If said Settler reaches the destination successfully, and the city is founded, the Vedic Aryan event will trigger on the next turn, before the warrior can be built.

You so funny.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

You so funny.

And I'm cute, too.

 

[bestbrian]

And I'm cute, too.

...and oh so very modest.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

...and oh so very modest.

Correction: Delusional.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Hey, I have a question regarding Civ 4 Beyond the Sword.


Is it possible to play as multiple civilizations in a game?

From the small amount of effort I put up, it seems like the answer in no. However, I am not 100% certain, so I thought I might as well ask.


*If the answer happened to be yes, how do you go about doing this?*

Yes, it's possible. I've done it a few times myself. To do it, just use the Multiplayer -> Hotseat option. That way you can set yourself to play as many or as few civilizations as you choose, by specifying the number of "Human" and "AI" players. All of the players that you set as "Human", you control.

Have fun! I particularly recommend trying team games using this format.

Why can't I sometimes make Horse Archers/Elephants and other units that require specific resources even though I control them? I've built camps, pastures etc on them and have them 'white circled' and the required techs (animal husbandry etc).

Thanks

You probably don't have Horseback Riding and/or Construction, the required techs for those units. Either that or you haven't built roads to the resources.

 

[sourdiesel]

What is the easiest way to choose starting locations in a SP game?

For example say I start a game on a Terra map and I want Rome to start in Europe and the Incans South America, etc... What I tried to do was save the game before making any moves as a worldbuilder save, open it up in notepad, and change the following line:

StartingX=50, StartingY=19

for each civ, basically swapping their locations around. However, when I load the save (either as a scenario or as from the Load button in worldbuilder) the all the civs are still in their original starting locations. I double checked that the saved file had the new X, Y coordinates and restarted the game to make sure it wasn't used a cached copy of the save or anything.

I'm stumped, can anyone help?

 

[shulec]

Can someone give me a link or walk me through what I need to do to post a screenshot in a spoiler tab, not a thumbnail like below.

Nevermind. I figured it out on my own.

 

[Wulture]

I captured Paris, it has 3 world wonders but they arent producing any culture, is this meant to be or bug?

 

[r_rolo1]

It is like that always. Wonders only produce when owned by the civ that made them in the first place ( or , IIRC, when the city is a gift )

 

[Crebba]

Hello I just started playing. I have watched alot of pictures in the strategysection etc and found out that most ppl seems to have a diffrent looks and functions on the Civ 4 BS than I have. For example how do I see the resources (in those small bubbles) when I zoom out and how do i mark Potential citys/labels on the ground. Is that an mod? a setting? or am i just using the wrong version? (I'm curently using .17 version)

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hello I just started playing. I have watched alot of pictures in the strategysection etc and found out that most ppl seems to have a diffrent looks and functions on the Civ 4 BS than I have. For example how do I see the resources (in those small bubbles) when I zoom out and how do i mark Potential citys/labels on the ground. Is that an mod? a setting? or am i just using the wrong version? (I'm curently using .17 version)

Welcome to civfanatics!

Some of the elements that you mention are in regular civ4, other might be or might not be. It's not completely clear from your description.

For instance, the resource labels can be activated and deactivated with a button above the minimap or the shortcut key CTRL-R. City labels and other signs can be placed on the map in two distinct ways (with the exact same effect): by zooming out into world view and using the strategy layer (option above the minimap) or by staying in normal vision of the map and pressing CTRL-S. Both ways allow you to enter a text which will be placed on the selected tile.

You might also have seen even different interface enhancements added by the popular BUG Mod used by many on this forum.

 

[Crebba]

Thanks alot!

 

[PieceOfMind]

Hello I just started playing. I have watched alot of pictures in the strategysection etc and found out that most ppl seems to have a diffrent looks and functions on the Civ 4 BS than I have. For example how do I see the resources (in those small bubbles) when I zoom out and how do i mark Potential citys/labels on the ground. Is that an mod? a setting? or am i just using the wrong version? (I'm curently using .17 version)

I just wanted to add that you are in fact using an older version. Just last month a new patch was released for Beyond the Sword. It is 3.19 and you can find it here. You will need to know this because many mods have recently been updated to work for 3.19 and will no longer support 3.17 (though they may work with 3.17 if you're really lucky).

 

[Crebba]

I know im using an old version but I´m playing some multiplayergames with my friends from time to time and they are to lazy to update.