Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

I appreciate the help on this one -- things seem to be moving very well and I go to see if I have any settlers standing around ready to go so I can settle another city. It dawns on me, I don't know if there's an easy way to see your "roster" of units. I usually have to try going all over cities and landscape looking for a settler not even knowing if one's there to be found!

How can I better keep track of my units? Sad, I know, but I keep thinking there should be a way to ask the question, "Do I have any settlers now?" and then to find the answer fairly quickly.

Thanks!

Mojo
 
Bluesman: AFAIK, there is no easy way to change the settings in an existing game. Sorry. As for turning off random events, using the Custom Game menu is the only way I know to do it. As for choosing the "countries"--do you mean choosing your civilization, or choosing the map? Either one is relatively simple in the Custom Game interface. You choose your leader and civ in very top civ slot at the top of the screen--you are "Team 1". As for the map, your choices are listed at the lower-middle left. The interface uses drop-down lists for each and the options are almost exactly what you see listed in the "Play Now" screens.

Mojotales: To track down your units, open the Military Advisor screen (F5), click on the type of unit you're trying to locate, and they'll appear as blinking dots on the map to the left. Double-click on one of the dots to close the advisor and zoom the map in on the area in question.
 
is there anyway to change your civilization's color on the map? when i play with Byzantium or England i would prefer a different color than white,gray.

and sometimes having a neighbour with almost the same color with you, is not good. Do i have the option to change AI civ's map color.
 
Hello, question about open borders .. does it even have any use to sign open borders with an AI If all my cities already have their max foreign routes

And If I do have the max is it prob best to just keep em closed or not? In my current game I signed with two civs open borders, and they supply me all trade routes.

Im asking this as I rather not make the AI stronger though .. atm they all got open borders with each other too .. so they prob got all max routes too obviously and early game I spose the profit isnt that big ..
 
Mojotales: To track down your units, open the Military Advisor screen (F5), click on the type of unit you're trying to locate, and they'll appear as blinking dots on the map to the left. Double-click on one of the dots to close the advisor and zoom the map in on the area in question.

First off, thanks for the strategy guide, just glanced at it and that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for at this point! Also, the help is fantastic, I never would have found that. I get a bit out of step and over amp on certain units who, well, vanish and had no clue where to look.

Thanks for all the help!!!

Mojo
 
I'm running Windows XP on my Mac just to play Civ IV, and I'm really not familiar with Windows. How do I check what version of the game I'm running? I'm wondering if I need to update to 3.19...
 
is there anyway to change your civilization's color on the map? when i play with Byzantium or England i would prefer a different color than white,gray.

and sometimes having a neighbour with almost the same color with you, is not good. Do i have the option to change AI civ's map color.

No way that I'm aware of ingame. You could change that in the XML but it wouldn't affect ongoing games.

Hello, question about open borders .. does it even have any use to sign open borders with an AI If all my cities already have their max foreign routes

And If I do have the max is it prob best to just keep em closed or not? In my current game I signed with two civs open borders, and they supply me all trade routes.

Im asking this as I rather not make the AI stronger though .. atm they all got open borders with each other too .. so they prob got all max routes too obviously and early game I spose the profit isnt that big ..

The diplomatic bonus given by Open Borders is not unsignificant, +2 after a while. You should ask if there's any reason not open the borders. If you have max routes without them, chances are they have max routes without you as well.

TrainMaster423 said:
I'd like to change the stats of a few units (Redcoat or say Cossak to their vanilla levels) but I have no idea how to do this. I've never modded anything. On any game. If someone could give me help on this, I'd be really grateful. Thanks in advance.

You'd be looking to modify Assets/XML/Units/CIV4UnitInfos.xml in the game installation directory. Be sure to copy if to CustomAssets instead of Assets, though.
 
Thanks for the insight guys. I just want to play a BtS game with the Vanilla versions of these units once, for the fun of it. I don't plan on leaving them super-charged.

The unit strength information (and all other unit information) is stored in the file ...\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml

(Each version of the game has its own CIV4UnitInfos.xml file. This is the one of Beyond the Sword.)

There are a lot of different units in the game, so you need to search for the unit that you wish to change. The value which determines the strength of the units is called iCombat.

It's better to not change the original files as reverting back to the original files becomes somewhat of a hassle. It's better to create a mod in the ...\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods folder. You'll see some examples of mod folders in that directory. Creating a basic mod is simple. You just need to add the files and folders which are different from the original game files and folders. The game will look for the other information in the original files and folders. You do need to keep the same structure of files and folders as in the original game. So for instance the modded CIV4UnitInfos.xml file needs to go in the folder:

...\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\[YourModName]\Assets\XML\Units\

You can load your mod from inside the game by choosing the option load a mod and choosing [YourModName].

is there anyway to change your civilization's color on the map? when i play with Byzantium or England i would prefer a different color than white,gray.

and sometimes having a neighbour with almost the same color with you, is not good. Do i have the option to change AI civ's map color.

You'd need to mod the colours of the various civilisations to do that. It can't be done within the game.

Hello, question about open borders .. does it even have any use to sign open borders with an AI If all my cities already have their max foreign routes

And If I do have the max is it prob best to just keep em closed or not? In my current game I signed with two civs open borders, and they supply me all trade routes.

Im asking this as I rather not make the AI stronger though .. atm they all got open borders with each other too .. so they prob got all max routes too obviously and early game I spose the profit isnt that big ..

Open borders also improve relations with your neighbours and result in more religion spreading between trading cities. In my games, at some point in the game, I can't get a situation with only foreign trade routes in all of my cities. This is due to the growth of my empire and the number of trade routes per city. In the early game, one or two empires might be enough to fill the list of foreign trade routes.

The better relations can be very useful in the rest of the game and it's unlikely that your competition will suffer from less foreign trade routes if you cut them off. Other foreign trade routes will take your place. It might be interesting to do at some point in the game, but I rarely encounter such situations. The better relations is often enough for me to want to open my borders.

Open borders also allow you to trade through someone's country to other more distant countries. You also get a small espionage cost bonus to cities with whom you're trading.
 
Bluesman: As for turning off random events, using the Custom Game menu is the only way I know to do it.

All right and your explanation of Custom Game menu stuff is fantastic. It looks as if the Admin can pick a level to play it, starting with Settler. I started putting one together but it seems in Custom Game menu the AI opponents are locked on Noble. At least when I did the first Computer Player it wouldn't open. Is it limited by game design or my lack of knowledge, lol.

Blues
 
All right and your explanation of Custom Game menu stuff is fantastic. It looks as if the Admin can pick a level to play it, starting with Settler. I started putting one together but it seems in Custom Game menu the AI opponents are locked on Noble. At least when I did the first Computer Player it wouldn't open. Is it limited by game design or my lack of knowledge, lol.

Blues

Your level determines the difficulty of the game. The AI player's levels don't need to be changed.
 
The diplomatic bonus given by Open Borders is not unsignificant, +2 after a while. You should ask if there's any reason not open the borders. If you have max routes without them, chances are they have max routes without you as well.

Open borders also improve relations with your neighbours and result in more religion spreading between trading cities. In my games, at some point in the game, I can't get a situation with only foreign trade routes in all of my cities. This is due to the growth of my empire and the number of trade routes per city. In the early game, one or two empires might be enough to fill the list of foreign trade routes.

The better relations can be very useful in the rest of the game and it's unlikely that your competition will suffer from less foreign trade routes if you cut them off. Other foreign trade routes will take your place. It might be interesting to do at some point in the game, but I rarely encounter such situations. The better relations is often enough for me to want to open my borders.

Open borders also allow you to trade through someone's country to other more distant countries. You also get a small espionage cost bonus to cities with whom you're trading.

thx for your views on this, I was pondering about the diplomatic points > share utility of opening em .. but wasnt sure what to make of it

guess its just one of those sideaffects of playing on lower level, also didnt know about the espionage missions discounts, never really botherd with em ... again lower level get away stuff :D cheers.
 
Is the AI intelligent enough to use land and air transports? I read in another thread that there was something preventing the computer from using these at all, and that it would only use sea transports. Was this fixed for Warlords and Beyond the Sword?
I'm planning a little mod, but if the computer can't or won't use transports then it's kind of pointless. Better to know in advance I guess.
 
Do you mean patch?
The latest patch for Civ 4 is v1.74, and the latest patch for BTS is v3.19; you might be able to download the v3.19 patch without BTS but it won't do you any good until you first install the Beyond the Sword expansion.

thanks
 
I can't seem to edit game files likes certain values in the Globaldefines.xml or maps like earth18 civs. I have certain mods I want to run and the authors say "well just adjust this or that in the XML file or the map file for it to work" but when I try to save I get a message that the file cannot be created and to "Make sure the file and path name are correct."

What do I need to do to change these files?
 
When I look down on a city from the aerial map, I see a white circle around the city and one or two white circles in the area. If I click on one, it disappears and I can click on another non marked tile near the city and it appears.

What's going on in that process? I suspect it's something I should do -- but not to just play tic tac toe, but as a result of doing something on the ground. What?

Bluesman
 
When I look down on a city from the aerial map, I see a white circle around the city and one or two white circles in the area. If I click on one, it disappears and I can click on another non marked tile near the city and it appears.

What's going on in that process? I suspect it's something I should do -- but not to just play tic tac toe, but as a result of doing something on the ground. What?

Bluesman

That's how you assign citizens to work different tiles. For each population your city has, that is a citizen you can work a tile with. Most land does nothing for you unless you have a citizen working it, so yes it is very important to play around with. You can get resources from land without working it, but otherwise you need to assign a citizen to that tile to get the benefit from it.
 
That's how you assign citizens to work different tiles. For each population your city has, that is a citizen you can work a tile with. Most land does nothing for you unless you have a citizen working it, so yes it is very important to play around with. You can get resources from land without working it, but otherwise you need to assign a citizen to that tile to get the benefit from it.

Warning! Noob Alert! Avert Eyes!


Is that different than a Worker assigned while studying the game/land? What I am doing now is when i have a Worker, I check out the surrounding tiles within my controlled area and when I see something -- like an square that says no mode or something like that -- I have the worker build a road out to it. Or I see a tile and read what it does and put a farm or a cottage on it.

So, is the worker I "grow" in the city and send out the same as the citizen I can work a tile with that you talk about?

Bluesman
 
Evenin' all from po' cranky Mojotales.

I'm trying to figure one point that I have heard about but don't quite get. In one walkthroughs I read:

Delhi finishes a Missionary for Bombay. It starts on a Settler that I'll whip eventually. Turn 178: I whip the Settler in Delhi. It starts on a Missionary for the city I'll build next

I think that "whip" means he's working under a Slavery thing where he can speed up from time to time. I have seen an offer when I am working on something that I could speed it up by x amount if I did such and such. I don't quite understand. Anybody able to point me in the right direction?

- mojo
 
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