Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[kcd_swede]

Are Great Generals counted as Great People? (In other words, does Philosophical affect them, etc.)

No. Great General's are gotten through combat experience points, not Great People Points. It is the GPP's that are multiplied by PHI trait. GG's production rate is increased by the Imperialistic trait (+100%).

However, a settled GG will also produce +3 beakers under Representation civic, just like a regular GPerson would.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The drill promotion is during each era of the game only available to a subsection of the units. Because Civilization combat is balanced around a variant of rock-paper-scissors, this means that these drill units have a counter unit that can defeat them fairly easily. Thus a stack of drill units within your attack stack of doom (SOD) cannot protect the SOD against the collateral damage of siege units as the other units in the stack are still getting just as weakened by collateral damage as usual and cannot protect the drill promoted units against their counter unit.

During the modern era, the drill promotion is available to a lot of different units and then this could help against collateral damage from siege units but not against collateral damage from bombers which is getting more important at that point.

When you walk into the lands of a competent opponent which has an equal number and quality of troops among which a sizeable siege component, then your stack should be doomed. Your opponent should be able to attack your stack with siege units and take advantage of the weakened state of your units. The advantage of quicker movement in your own lands is huge. The attacker does have the advantage that he can choose where and when to invade, thereby maybe avoiding a large part of the army of the defender.

Note that the AI isn't terribly competent and all kinds of tactics that wouldn't work against a competent opponent who really understands the combat mechanics might still work against the AI.

Not that I disagree with the gist of your post and I know this is from a few pages ago, but I think you are in error on one point. The reduced collateral damage granted by the later drill promotions does in fact work against bombers. I am not sure of the exact mechanics but the drill units do appear to take less damage than non-drill units. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

 

[lfc4ever]

Hello all, very new to the game and thoroughly enjoying it.
Quick question, people seem to be talking about Darius and other leaders i dont seem to have. I have the beyond the sword and warlord patches, but are there newer versions of these that i need to get? Where do i put the downloaded files? I had a look at the download section, and there were too many to choose from. So which ones are the official ones that i probably dont have yet?

 

[Camikaze]

Welcome to CFC.

The Beyond the Sword (BtS) and Warlords expansions have the extra leaders such as Darius, but seeing as you say you have them, you should also have Darius as a leader, so long as you are actually playing with the BtS disk (pre-3.19 patch) in, and with the BtS installation, instead of either Warlords or Vanilla.

If you do want to download extra leaders, yes, there are many to choose from, but there are no 'official' ones other than what is in the game. Perhaps try Ekmek's Leaderhead Gallery as a starting point for your searches for more leaders.

 

[yanner39]

Hi All,

I posted this originally in the mod and scenario thread but got no response so I thought I'd give it a shot here.

I tried out "Crossroads of the World" the other night and I there was a few strange things going on:

1. On the top left side of the screen where you usually see how much gold per turn your Civ is generating, the number is -$1,156,658, yet my treasury keeps increasing every turn.

2. I can't access the Financial Advisor (F2 I think).

3. Every turn, I set my research at say 80%. The number of turns to research a tech reduces but when I change turns, the tech slider is reset to 0% automatically, number of turns goes up.

Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[Yibbledorf]

Hi, new player here, though I have picked up a few tips from following various games. I'm currently in a game as Julius Caesar and there were a few questions I was wondering:
1) Are there any buildings that are must haves, regardless of city specialization?
2) When at war should I lower my science slider?
3) When is it a good time to declare war against an unfriendly neighbour? Should I try and get them on my side?

Thanks.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Hi All,

I posted this originally in the mod and scenario thread but got no response so I thought I'd give it a shot here.

I tried out "Crossroads of the World" the other night and I there was a few strange things going on:

1. On the top left side of the screen where you usually see how much gold per turn your Civ is generating, the number is -$1,156,658, yet my treasury keeps increasing every turn.

2. I can't access the Financial Advisor (F2 I think).

3. Every turn, I set my research at say 80%. The number of turns to research a tech reduces but when I change turns, the tech slider is reset to 0% automatically, number of turns goes up.

Any comments would be appreciated.

It sounds like your issue could be that you have a lack of gold to fund your research, if you have such a massive deficit. Civ4 will automatically reduce your research slider in between turns if you cannot afford to keep researching at your present level. So that might explain the constant 80%->0% thing you're experiencing.

I really suggest you go and make a post in the forum/thread for this mod, though. (You should be able to find it with a quick search; I haven't ever heard of it myself.) The people who made the mod will be able to answer your questions better than the people here, who just answer questions about the regular Civ4 game. Every mod is different after all, and we don't all know how every mod works. So go talk to the experts.

 

[kcd_swede]

It sounds like your issue could be that you have a lack of gold to fund your research, if you have such a massive deficit. Civ4 will automatically reduce your research slider in between turns if you cannot afford to keep researching at your present level. So that might explain the constant 80%->0% thing you're experiencing.

I really suggest you go and make a post in the forum/thread for this mod, though. (You should be able to find it with a quick search; I haven't ever heard of it myself.) The people who made the mod will be able to answer your questions better than the people here, who just answer questions about the regular Civ4 game. Every mod is different after all, and we don't all know how every mod works. So go talk to the experts.

I believe he is referring to a scenario/mod that comes with the original BtS disk. I think it is the one that has a "commercial victory" condition (maybe as the only victory condition). I tried it only once and found it very annoying. I have no idea how to help him though.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Hi, new player here, though I have picked up a few tips from following various games. I'm currently in a game as Julius Caesar and there were a few questions I was wondering:
1) Are there any buildings that are must haves, regardless of city specialization?
2) When at war should I lower my science slider?
3) When is it a good time to declare war against an unfriendly neighbour? Should I try and get them on my side?

Thanks.

Hi Yibbledorf!

1) Technically no building is a "must have" in Civ4. However, some are certainly very widely useful. Personally, I'll tend to build Granaries in almost every city as soon as practical, and Lighthouses in coastal cities as soon as I can as well. I also tend to build Forges in most cities soon after I get Metal Casting - they're a great investment, as with the +25% hammers they pay for themselves after a few dozen turns. The other buildings that I'll tend to build across my empire are Courthouses (especially once Corporations come around - Courthouses are a necessity then), and Factories/Power Plants later on in the game (for the same reason as Forges).

2) There's no need to lower it automatically, but feel free to do so if you have a purpose in mind for the extra gold. For instance, if you want to gather gold for troop upgrades, you might want to lower your science slider for a few turns (although really you should try to do this BEFORE the war). Alternatively, if you're capturing a large number of cities and you will go bankrupt in a few turns at your present research rate, it's often a good idea to lower your science slider for a while to give yourself some breathing room. On the whole though, I usually won't change my slider at all during wartime, unless extreme circumstances arise.

3) This is really an impossible question to answer, since so much depends on the context of the situation. In general though, there's no point in wasting your time trying to please an AI who hates you. You're better off trying to appease the ones who already like you somewhat. As for deciding when to declare war, that decision should depend on how you feel about the state of your military compared to the state of your rival's. Ideally you should do a bit of scouting/spying before the start of a war if you're not sure what your rival's military is like. If you're confident that your invasion stack is decent enough to take out at least a few of your rival's cities, then by all means go ahead and declare war if you so desire.

 

[kcd_swede]

Hi, new player here, though I have picked up a few tips from following various games. I'm currently in a game as Julius Caesar and there were a few questions I was wondering:
1) Are there any buildings that are must haves, regardless of city specialization?
2) When at war should I lower my science slider?
3) When is it a good time to declare war against an unfriendly neighbour? Should I try and get them on my side?

Thanks.

1) No.
2) If you have a big army, you will probably want to lower your science slider several turns before you declare war... maintenance goes up when you declare, and you don't want your units to go on strike by having your treasury go negative. But if you got the cash, you can do what ever you want with the slider. Capturing cities is a good way to fill the treasury.
3) If they are unfriendly it might not be worth effort to try to get them on your side. You should declare when you have enough army to win. (Your job gets easier if you can either get him to war with someone else first, or get someone else to join your crusade.)

 

[yanner39]

It sounds like your issue could be that you have a lack of gold to fund your research, if you have such a massive deficit. Civ4 will automatically reduce your research slider in between turns if you cannot afford to keep researching at your present level. So that might explain the constant 80%->0% thing you're experiencing.

I really suggest you go and make a post in the forum/thread for this mod, though. (You should be able to find it with a quick search; I haven't ever heard of it myself.) The people who made the mod will be able to answer your questions better than the people here, who just answer questions about the regular Civ4 game. Every mod is different after all, and we don't all know how every mod works. So go talk to the experts.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I tried to post in the thread for this Mod and no answers. The weird part is that the game or scenario starts of with cities already created (advance start I guess but I don't have the option to pick and chosse what I want) and the deficit is already there.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hi All,

I posted this originally in the mod and scenario thread but got no response so I thought I'd give it a shot here.

I tried out "Crossroads of the World" the other night and I there was a few strange things going on:

1. On the top left side of the screen where you usually see how much gold per turn your Civ is generating, the number is -$1,156,658, yet my treasury keeps increasing every turn.

2. I can't access the Financial Advisor (F2 I think).

3. Every turn, I set my research at say 80%. The number of turns to research a tech reduces but when I change turns, the tech slider is reset to 0% automatically, number of turns goes up.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Sounds very very buggy. You could not normally get such a huge deficit and the deficit would drain your gold instead of increase it. And of course the Financial Advisor should be available.

Are you using the right version of civ with the mod (vanilla, Warlords, BTS)? I actually don't think it will run with the wrong version but I'm not sure.

Have you patched your game to the latest version. Note that the ingame updating function might not work so it's better to just download the patch from this site and install it.

 

[r_rolo1]

This looks like a interface conflict with something on your CostumAssets folder.... have you installed BUG? Crossroads has a history of not doing well with BUG in custom assets...

If that is the case, go to the mod folder ( it is inside the Mods folder and has the name of the mod ), open Crossroads of the World.ini with notepad and find this line:

; Custom XML and Python from user folder are not loaded
NoCustomAssets = 0

and change the 0 into 1. That will make the mod ignore the code in customassets folder.

 

[yanner39]

This looks like a interface conflict with something on your CostumAssets folder.... have you installed BUG? Crossroads has a history of not doing well with BUG in custom assets...

If that is the case, go to the mod folder ( it is inside the Mods folder and has the name of the mod ), open Crossroads of the World.ini with notepad and find this line:

; Custom XML and Python from user folder are not loaded
NoCustomAssets = 0

and change the 0 into 1. That will make the mod ignore the code in customassets folder.

Thank you for this. Here is my problem an it's not just here. Any time I have tried to modify these types of files, whether I open them in Word 2007 or using Notepad, when I go and save, I get the following message:

Cannot create the C:\Program Files(x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Crossroads of the World\Crossroads of the World.ini file

Make sure that the path and file name are correct.


I've tried a number of times before to make changes on Leader traits, etc and I get the same problem.

I use Windows Vista, 64-bit. I am using the BUG Mod.

Any advice would be appreciated.

EDIT: I am also using the BTS 3.19 patch.

 

[r_rolo1]

Typical.... Vista requires admin privileges to edit anything inside the Programs folder and subfolders. You have to run the text editor as administrator ( right click on shortcut "execute as administrator" and then open the file from inside the program ) or edit a copy of the file in other folder and copy it to the right place.

 

[Psimon]

Whoa. Rolo, are you seriously from Portugal?

I've traveled all around the world and lived abroad, but never met anyone from Portugal.

Hi!

------
whups, OT! Okay, ummm. . . .


How do you farm for Engineers? GA's, GP's, GS's, GM's I can get, but so far no Engineers.

 

[yanner39]

Typical.... Vista requires admin privileges to edit anything inside the Programs folder and subfolders. You have to run the text editor as administrator ( right click on shortcut "execute as administrator" and then open the file from inside the program ) or edit a copy of the file in other folder and copy it to the right place.

Awesome. It worked. Thanks r-rolo1. Much appreciated.

 

[r_rolo1]

@Psimon

First the OT:

Yes, I am from Portugal and lived here all my life

Now on the topic :

GE farms are more complicated to get because you only have one slot possible for engineers until factories come to play ( from forges ) and because you can't hire engineers from Caste. The best way to get them early is to pile GE GPP wonders in the same city, like the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens and Haghia Sophia and hire a engineer from the forge slot as well. As you can imagine, this can prove complicated unless you are playing a Industrious leader and/or have the right resources. In the late game, with the factories and the Industrial parks, it is extremy easy to get GE, but then they are quite less shiny :/

 

[Bloodstone]

Alright, silly question I'm sure, and most probably answered somewhere in these 630 some pages, but I haven't the patience to try to find it, nor the search skills!

Is there any method to be able to determine the Civics of the opposing forces? I know that when they change one it will show up briefly in the in between turn notes, but I can't find anywhere else that will provide the info, or do I need to develop spies first? I have LOS for several opposition cities through religion, and a couple where I have explorers stationed, but that only provides city info. Any additional info would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Silv Something]

Spoiler :

See those little icons next to the leader's name? Those indicate which civics he is running. Mouse over them to get their names and effects.