Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

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.

 

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

AIautoplay mod.

 

I think I get it. Thank you.

 

Question: Is the mutual military struggle diplo bonus permanent?

 

No, it fades with time (varies with each leader how long it lasts).

 

Does the tech screen in the Foreign Advisor lag a few turns behind?

 

No it doesn't. If you have seen some things that you couldn't explain, then maybe they're related to the fact that you think that you can see every technology that your opponents have. This is not the case. You can only see the technologies that they have and that you can research. So if you don't have the prerequisites for a technology, then you can't know if your opponents have that technology (unless you can see that they don't even have the prerequisites).

If you have seen the AI gain lots of technologies in a short span of time, then this is usually related to technology trading.

 

Ah that explains it. Merci

 

On the BUG mod, when you can tell what the AI is researching, there is a number in parenthesis after the little mini graphic of the technology. I always assumed it was number of turns to completion, but the number never goes down by just one every turn, it always seems to fluctuate. Can someone tell me why?
I put this question here because I don't think this is a BUG question, rather it requires an understanding of how the computer researches the technologies and adjusts their own sliders.

Thanks!

 

The AI can adjust its sliders when it for instance wants some extra gold for upgrades. Sometimes the AI has a reserve of gold due to trading or a failed world wonder race. In this case the AI will use this money for deficit research (research at a higher than sustainable rate) until the gold is gone. For the human and AI alike, there actually isn't a prefect research rate where gold remains perfectly constant. So when a civilisation wants to research as quickly as possible, then it needs to vary its research rate a little. And of course, the AI will finish additional research and gold producing buildings now and then which will result in a higher research rate.

So there are actually many causes for a non-constant research rate.

 

Question: Is there a penalty with universal suffrage rush buy on the first turn as there is with slavery?

 

Yes, costs are 50% higher than normal, so 4.5 per hammer instead of 3 per hammer.

 

Anyone know weither there is a tool that would let me check where placing palace and its sort a likes, would max my own profit out?

 

what is aspyr's email?

 

Total noob question. I don't "get" religion. I've read FAQs, and the Civilopedia, but I'm just not getting it. My civilization has the holy cities for three different religions. Should I promote all three, or should I try to have as many adherents to my state religion as possible? (This is with the organized religion civic, at the moment.) I can't even discern who (within my civilization) is what religion. Like, one of my cities appears to be both Buddhist and Confucianist (both icons are lit up). But I'm not seeing anything where it says X number of citizens are Buddhist. My state religion is Buddhism. Do I lose anything by having both Buddhism and Confucianism in that city? Can the city become strictly Buddhist again?

 

The Religion Advisor shows what benefits you'll receive for each religion, if it's chosen as your state religion (and this is where you can do it, also). Different wonders and civics give you various bonuses, and it's show who gets what city by city.

Then there's getting that foreign gold for your holy city. There's no advantage of one religion over another, except as circumstances dictate. Is the majority of the AI hindu? Christian? My last game, I had the holy city for Judism, but was sharing my continent with the 2nd most powerful AI in the game, who was christian. Given I was busy elsewhere (wiping out the weaker civs), I stayed Christian to placate the guy.

So, politics, circumstances (foreign trends), and bonuses should influence which one you choose as your state religion. That's assuming, of course, you don't go to a Free Religion civic .

 

My own nooby questions:

1. Workers do have maintenance costs?

2. Is there a way to see how one civilization feels towards another by just looking at the flow chart thing (not asking them) ?

3. City Specialization: what's the best specialization for a coastal city? Isn't there a tech or a wonder that will give those sea tiles hammers?

4. What exactly do the blue circles for workers indicate? I always took it to mean, "this is the tile the nearest city wants improvements in", but when I checked the city screen, more often than not no one's working that tile at all.

5. Conquering the Holy City: where's the special shrine? Do I have to rebuild it? Is it possible to wipe out a religion?

 

1. Yes.

2. Not sure what it's called, but there is an advisor (foreign advisor?) that shows if civs are at war, have peace, have met, have open borders, are vassals (Warlords and BTS), or have defense pact/permanent alliance. This can give you a clue as to who cares about who.

3. Usually coastal cities will be commerce oriented. The Moai Statues National Wonder will give all sea tiles IN THAT CITY ONLY hammers. (National meaning it can be built by each nation, but only in one city each. However, no more that 2 national wonders can be built in each city.)

4. They are unreliable recommendations by the computer. When your worker is in them, some of the icons will blink blue. These are the computer's reccomendations of what you should build, for instance on a rice tile the farm icon will blink.

5. The shrine can only be destroyed if you destroy the holy city, and since shrines can only be built in the holy city, they cannot be rebuilt. So as long as you leave the holy city with a shrine in it intact, it is yours.
Shrines give +1 commerce commerce for every city that practices that religion.
The only way to wipe out a religion is to burn all the cities that practice that religion.

 

Hello All,
I've noticed that in games in which I reach late stages without having any oil resources that suddenly I can build naval units which require oil, but not tanks or fighters. Can anyone tell me why, please? When this happens, I am sure I haven't traded to receive oil.

Thanks,
Mike