Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[12tn2]

1/ How many turns are there from 4000BC to 2050AD? Does this number vary with different game speeds?
2/ Is there any thread about what promotions are available to a particular unit?

 

[dalamb]

Why can't I use the earth map in a Custom Game, then?

You have to use "custom scenario" and select "Earth 18" or one of the other Earth-something scenarios. They each have a specific set of starting civilizations you can choose from.

For custom games, "Terra" is supposed to produce earth-like maps but they won't be the exact Earth map. Maybe it would be nice to have an "Earth" map script that uses the Earth map and just shuffles around which civs are involved, but I haven't heard of one.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Is it just me, or does the modern "Great General" in BtS look like he's shooting himself in the groin?

Also, how did my attack submarine sink when attacking a transport? There were no other units along with the transport...

Also what happens if you select both "raging barbs" and "no barbs"?

 

[Breunor]

Is it just me, or does the modern "Great General" in BtS look like he's shooting himself in the groin?

Also, how did my attack submarine sink when attacking a transport? There were no other units along with the transport...

Also what happens if you select both "raging barbs" and "no barbs"?

I'm not answering the first one!

For the second one, transports do have defense, they aren't helpless like workers are. So if you attack them, you still have to defeat them; in your case, I suspect you just lost the battle.

For the third, uh, why do you want to know? Not sure, I suspect it depends on the order that the code looks at the choices?

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[ori]

no barbs wins over raging barbs

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks both.

 

[jmas]

So far, to my surprise, I haven't found a guide to how exactly the Kremlin works, and it isn't mentioned in VoU's "The Whip" article. The Civilopedia says "-33% Hurry Production Cost" and for US that seems easy enough to understand, 2 per hammer needed (assuming there is at least 1 invested) instead of 3 , right? But what about Slavery? Do you get +50% (thereby getting 45 instead of 30 on Normal speed) for every pop whipped--making more overflow available to you in many situations? Or is it only that when you go to do what would previously have been a 3-pop to 5-pop whip, that it costs you 1 pop less (I don't do many 6+ pop whips so wouldn't expect to save 2 pop on a whip often)--but not giving you any more overflow than before you had the Kremlin? Or something different than either of these? Please help. THank you.

 

[jmas]

This thread appears to have come to a halt. Was something not clear about my question, or is it just that no one has an answer? It's okay if it's the latter; I don't want to hold up the thread as others may have questions too.

 

[DouLou]

Couple of questions about city growth here.

1. What are the consequences of Starvation? I know how/why it occurs but what happens once your food deficit empties your food bar? I would guess you lose population but I was wondering at what rate this happens. E.g. One pop per turn of no food.
2. What are the reasons for stagnating growth? As far as I can tell if you have more unhealthy citizens than healthy then your only punishment is -2 food for every extra unhealthy citizen. Not a problem as long as your working enough food to avoid starvation. And as for happiness, well growing past your happy cap provides you with an extra citizen who isn’t working a tile, useless for now but it’s essentially a citizen in storage for when you get more happiness. Surely it is more efficient to keep growing past your happy cap and having this citizen ready to work as soon as you get more happiness, as opposed to stagnating, waiting for more happiness, then growing.

 

[Camikaze]

Couple of questions about city growth here.

1. What are the consequences of Starvation? I know how/why it occurs but what happens once your food deficit empties your food bar? I would guess you lose population but I was wondering at what rate this happens. E.g. One pop per turn of no food.

Once your food bar empties, you'll lose one population a turn until you can support your population. The problem is that it can become a bit of a spiralling problem, i.e. you lose one population which means you have less population to work your tiles, which means you lose more population, etc.

2. What are the reasons for stagnating growth? As far as I can tell if you have more unhealthy citizens than healthy then your only punishment is -2 food for every extra unhealthy citizen. Not a problem as long as your working enough food to avoid starvation.

Pretty much, although it limits your growth.

And as for happiness, well growing past your happy cap provides you with an extra citizen who isn’t working a tile, useless for now but it’s essentially a citizen in storage for when you get more happiness. Surely it is more efficient to keep growing past your happy cap and having this citizen ready to work as soon as you get more happiness, as opposed to stagnating, waiting for more happiness, then growing.

My answer to this isn't as thorough as others would be likely to give you, because I can't quite remember why it is that much of an issue to go over the happy cap, seeing as you put it that way. But I do know that it is an issue. 1 additional population will mean more than one additional unhappiness, or something.

 

[DouLou]

Once your food bar empties, you'll lose one population a turn until you can support your population. The problem is that it can become a bit of a spiralling problem, i.e. you lose one population which means you have less population to work your tiles, which means you lose more population, etc.

Ok that's what I thought, thanks for the answer.

My answer to this isn't as thorough as others would be likely to give you, because I can't quite remember why it is that much of an issue to go over the happy cap, seeing as you put it that way. But I do know that it is an issue. 1 additional population will mean more than one additional unhappiness, or something.

Hmm yeah I'm not sure if it would work out the way I put it or not, hopefully someone else can enlighten me!

 

[Renata]

Going over the happy cap can be an issue in certain situations. Say you have an early-game pop 5 city making +1 food per turn working your preferred tiles, specialists, whatever. You let it grow to size 6, unhappy; now you're making -1 food per turn. If you also have no granary, your choice is between returning to size 5 immediately, only with an empty food bin instead of a full one; or rearranging tiles to something less optimal just to fill that one useless stomach. If you do have a granary, you don't have to make that choice immediately, but you get to sit there watching the granary slowly empty -- also not generally a good thing.

There's also the fact that population costs money (more of an issue at higher levels): if it's there, it needs to be doing something useful. Unhappy citizens that won't soon either become happy or get whipped into something are just a drain on the finances.

--------------------
Separately, so it's not missed: Can anyone pass me a link to a summary of religious victory conditions? (How the voting works, in other words.)

 

[Renata]

To clarify the question, it's not about getting people to vote for me, but rather how the votes are allocated. How many votes does each civ get, for what.

 

[dalamb]

... or is it just that no one has an answer?

It can sometimes take a few days for someone with the right expertise to happen along to answer your question. It's advanced enough that it might belong as a separate thread in the Strategy forum; I suspect more experts read that forum than this thread.

I half-remember an article about hammer overflow that might have a bit of useful information, so you might try reading it first.

 

[Kord]

hello fanatics,i've only played maybe 6 diff scenarios and a couple custom games,so i know how the basics work but there are still some questions left unanswered.

One that really bothers me is.. If i gain a vassal state and later down the road that state goes to war with someone...can that state choose to surrender by becoming a vassal of it's enemy..therefore betraying me and leaving me in the trenches all alone?

Another question that i hope is possible but i haven't seen yet(maybe i should move on to a more difficult..erm..difficulty) is other AI civs Wiping each other out. i've seen from the course of 4000bc., to 2000 ish ad., china and japan AI's chronically invading and attacking each other but never causing enough damage and eventually work a peace treaty.

Sure.. I absolutly love decimating unexpecting nations.. but i would feel a little more comfortable if i knew i wasn't the only ace card on the map.

 

[carmen510]

I've recently been looking over the Civ4 Strategy Guides section, but to my surprise, I have not seen any guides dealing, specifically or otherwise, with how to best place improvements on different terrains. I've only seen guides stating the benefits of improvements, but not optimal placements.

Did I overlook any guides or are there really no guides dealing with improvement placements?

 

[Bill Bisco]

How do I enable AI Autoplay? I did a search and could not find the exact post.

 

[DouLou]

Going over the happy cap can be an issue in certain situations. Say you have an early-game pop 5 city making +1 food per turn working your preferred tiles, specialists, whatever. You let it grow to size 6, unhappy; now you're making -1 food per turn. If you also have no granary, your choice is between returning to size 5 immediately, only with an empty food bin instead of a full one; or rearranging tiles to something less optimal just to fill that one useless stomach. If you do have a granary, you don't have to make that choice immediately, but you get to sit there watching the granary slowly empty -- also not generally a good thing.

There's also the fact that population costs money (more of an issue at higher levels): if it's there, it needs to be doing something useful. Unhappy citizens that won't soon either become happy or get whipped into something are just a drain on the finances.

--------------------
Separately, so it's not missed: Can anyone pass me a link to a summary of religious victory conditions? (How the voting works, in other words.)

Hmm yes I see now, I was thinking of an ideal scenario where your food surplus is great and it wouldn't effect the tiles you are working, but now I see that their are drawbacks I wasn't considering. Cheers for the help.

 

[jmas]

It can sometimes take a few days for someone with the right expertise to happen along to answer your question. It's advanced enough that it might belong as a separate thread in the Strategy forum; I suspect more experts read that forum than this thread.

I half-remember an article about hammer overflow that might have a bit of useful information, so you might try reading it first.

Thank you for responding. You make a good point about the strategy and tips forum possibly being a better venue for the question.

I thought of that thread about hammer overflow, and looked at it before posting my question, however there is no information in there about the Kremlin.

I'll test production-rushing in my game since now it's effectively a won game anyway; then if I still have questions I can post again, maybe in Strategy and Tips.

Of course if anyone has answers to my questions above about the Kremlin, please feel free to post.

 

[Roland Johansen]

So far, to my surprise, I haven't found a guide to how exactly the Kremlin works, and it isn't mentioned in VoU's "The Whip" article. The Civilopedia says "-33% Hurry Production Cost" and for US that seems easy enough to understand, 2 per hammer needed (assuming there is at least 1 invested) instead of 3 , right? But what about Slavery? Do you get +50% (thereby getting 45 instead of 30 on Normal speed) for every pop whipped--making more overflow available to you in many situations? Or is it only that when you go to do what would previously have been a 3-pop to 5-pop whip, that it costs you 1 pop less (I don't do many 6+ pop whips so wouldn't expect to save 2 pop on a whip often)--but not giving you any more overflow than before you had the Kremlin? Or something different than either of these? Please help. THank you.

This thread appears to have come to a halt. Was something not clear about my question, or is it just that no one has an answer? It's okay if it's the latter; I don't want to hold up the thread as others may have questions too.

I guess activity in some threads can fluctuate a bit during the summer holiday season. I for instance was away a few days.

Each citizen is worth 50% more hammers than normal (normal speed 45 in stead of 30). These base hammers are then multiplied with the production modifiers in the city as usual. The minimum number of citizens needed to acquire the hammers to finish the construction are then sacrificed. If you need an example, just ask.

Couple of questions about city growth here.

1. What are the consequences of Starvation? I know how/why it occurs but what happens once your food deficit empties your food bar? I would guess you lose population but I was wondering at what rate this happens. E.g. One pop per turn of no food.
2. What are the reasons for stagnating growth? As far as I can tell if you have more unhealthy citizens than healthy then your only punishment is -2 food for every extra unhealthy citizen. Not a problem as long as your working enough food to avoid starvation. And as for happiness, well growing past your happy cap provides you with an extra citizen who isn’t working a tile, useless for now but it’s essentially a citizen in storage for when you get more happiness. Surely it is more efficient to keep growing past your happy cap and having this citizen ready to work as soon as you get more happiness, as opposed to stagnating, waiting for more happiness, then growing.

1. Usually when a city shrinks, you will stop using low food tiles which will help the net food situation in the city which stabilises things. But if you had a big negative food, then this might not be enough and you'll suffer several successive turns of starvation due to food shortages and you'll lose several citizens. Since it costs a lot of food to get them back, you usually want to avoid this if possible.
2. There are several things which you can do in a high food city which are better than having unhappy citizens:
a) Use the sacrifice population option of slavery to change the unhappy citizens into hammers
b) Use lower food tiles which offer more hammers and commerce or great person points (specialists). You're not building a city for food, you want hammers, commerce and great person points. Food and population is just a means to an end. It's very important but not the end goal.

Higher population has some consequences of its own like higher cost (city maintenance, civic), lower cost (less unit maintenance), more commerce income (trade routes) and more votes (diplomacy: UN and AP). All of these effects are extremely minor compared to the value of hammers, commerce and great person points and will usually not make a real difference.

Separately, so it's not missed: Can anyone pass me a link to a summary of religious victory conditions? (How the voting works, in other words.)

This one is quite good: The Apostolic Palace Guide. The War Academy is usually the first place to look for game mechanics.

One that really bothers me is.. If i gain a vassal state and later down the road that state goes to war with someone...can that state choose to surrender by becoming a vassal of it's enemy..therefore betraying me and leaving me in the trenches all alone?

A vassal obtained by capitulation can only become free by growing too large for you (more than 50% land and population compared to you) or when it's losing a lot of land while under your protection (losing half of its territory).

Another question that i hope is possible but i haven't seen yet(maybe i should move on to a more difficult..erm..difficulty) is other AI civs Wiping each other out. i've seen from the course of 4000bc., to 2000 ish ad., china and japan AI's chronically invading and attacking each other but never causing enough damage and eventually work a peace treaty.

Sure.. I absolutly love decimating unexpecting nations.. but i would feel a little more comfortable if i knew i wasn't the only ace card on the map.

Understandable.

You will see more successful AI wars on higher difficulty levels (AI can build larger armies quicker) and when using the aggressive AI option during game setup. The mod BetterAI also improves the abilities of the AI, especially when at war.

I've recently been looking over the Civ4 Strategy Guides section, but to my surprise, I have not seen any guides dealing, specifically or otherwise, with how to best place improvements on different terrains. I've only seen guides stating the benefits of improvements, but not optimal placements.

Did I overlook any guides or are there really no guides dealing with improvement placements?

Such a guide should not be written as personally I would think it's worthless. You will get some people giving you rules of thumb but these are typically not the experienced players who defeat the game at high levels.

The improvements are influenced by the needs of the city, not the underlying tile. If a city has a low average food output in its surrounding lands, then you should build a few farms and windmills to increase this. If the surrounding lands hold enough food, then farms and windmills aren't needed to grow and use all the surrounding tiles and improvements like mines, workshops and cottages can be used more.

The above is true for a generic city. City specialisation might influence the city in another direction. I guess that the city specialisation articles in the War Academy will hold some information about how city specialisation influences the tile improvements. However, even if you know how to specialise a city, this will not give you absolute rules about tile improvement.

Tile improvement is actually one of the most deep tactical elements of civilisation 4. It's interwoven with every other strategic decision that you take. Good players are a lot better at this than the AI and it's one of the hardest things to learn the AI because it does have to think in absolute rules.

How do I enable AI Autoplay? I did a search and could not find the exact post.

AIautoplay mod.