Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Ignorant Teacher]

Switch the appropriate value in CivilizationIV.ini (My Games/blabla area) , namely "NoIntroMovie = 0" to = 1

Thanks, it worked. Sorry for the delay.

 

[yarp72]

I don't think this is accurate. Barb spears/axes appear before the barbarians have any cities.

Barbarian military units appear when there are N x 2 cities on the continent, where N is the number of civs on the continent--so around the time when everyone has settled their second city. IIRC, which barb units appear is based on what techs and resources the civs on the map have: if any of them have Hunting and a source of copper, barb Spearmen may appear; if any of the existing techs have Bronze Working and a source of copper, Barb Axemen start showing up.

In other words, the barbs are generated in direct opposition to what the civs on the map are capable of in military terms.

i don't think you a right. they appear before they appear to have cities because you have not uncovered every tile of the map. so barb units can be generated that way too. barbs do not get axes unless they have metal. it says in the manual that barbs do research techs and they can appear on any tile clouded in black or on tiles not visible ATM. but the barbarians do need metal to make axes. what you say about the 2 cities can not be right because in a one city chalenge game, barb units do appear.

 

[jUmpSt0p]

It's one of the less well developed mechanism in this game. Global warming starts once a single nuclear explosion has occurred (anywhere in the world and causes include tactical nukes, ICBM's and nuclear plant meltdowns). The speed of deterioration of the world is determined by the amount of nuclear explosions but whether one or many explosions have occurred, the end state of such a world will be that all terrain deteriorates into deserts.

The only thing you can do is mod it out of the game for your next game. That modding however is pretty simple.

wow.. that's not good news at all. I've got about 120-130 turns left and there's been a lot of nuking already. not by me, and mostly on the other continent, but I guess that doesn't really matter.

frack!! I was going to try for a cultural win. (gonna be close, but I think I might be able to pull it off).. of course, that depends on at least another 100 turns of play with a healthy Civ.

if Global Warming starts kickin in heavy, I'm screwed.

so.. is that something that a lot of people mod out of the game? I can understand Global Warming is a serious enough threat to deter most human players from nukes, but the AI doesn't seem to get it.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Could someone give me good tips for Diplo?

 

[WorldRevolution]

Hi,i'm new to Civilization 4 and it's rather addicting,but i got some questions:

Is it possible to make unit/building much quicker (Apart from getting more hammers) so i can build a huge army much earlier on.

How do i make my own Civilization?

 

[jUmpSt0p]

Hi,i'm new to Civilization 4 and it's rather addicting,but i got some questions:

Is it possible to make unit/building much quicker (Apart from getting more hammers) so i can build a huge army much earlier on.

as far as rushing production there are a few ways. early on, the only option is to research Bronze Working and adopt the civic slavery.

with slavery, you can sacrifice some population in your city to rush production. each citizen substitutes for a certain number of shields depending on what modifiers you have in place. the downside is that you get some 'sad faces' in your city each time you do this. so, you have to balance it somewhat.

this will probably be your main option for most of the game. in the mid-late to late game, you can adopt Universal Suffrage. that allows you to pay Gold to rush produciton.

the other way is to chop down forests. can't remember of the top of my head which Tech allows this. but chopping down forests adds shields (30 I think) to the nearest city. it's a great way to rush early Wonders.

How do i make my own Civilization?

do you mean custom build a Leader/Civ with the qualities you want?
not sure about this. I'm a newb myself.
I suppose there's probably a way to mod it somehow.

personally, there's so many leaders to choose from already.. I bet I could play this game like crazy for a year and still only get to try half of them.

 

[Sisiutil]

the other way is to chop down forests. can't remember of the top of my head which Tech allows this.

It's Bronze Working as well. I've written an overall guide to ultra-early military called the "Early Rush"--link in my sig.

As for creating custom civs/leaders, have a look in the Creation and Customization forum. You may find a custom one there that already matches what you had in mind.

 

[Baldyr]

Is it possible to make unit/building much quicker (Apart from getting more hammers) so i can build a huge army much earlier on.

One way of getting an army fast is to build a huge load of cheap units like Warrior and Archer before you get any Techs and Resources than obsoletes these. Next, you save up an equally huge load of . Once you get the Techs and Resources you need to go to war, you simply upgrade your obsolete units to what is the latest military technology (like Maceman and Crossbowman). You'll still need those expensive Catapult (and/or Trebucet) units to take down city defenses, though...

It should be noted that upgrading units is very expensive. Also, if you build too many early on your economy will stall because of the upkeep. This makes it even harder to save up the money for upgrade - and turning into instead of will leave you behind your rivals in the Tech race. So, when you do upgrade your units are already obsolete.

But, like any strategy it's doable. I would use it if I had terrible production in my cities early on, for example. Or if I only had a few cities, none of which would be dedicated to military production. Or if I had poor which makes whipping with Slavery less effective. Early on I wouldn't sacrifice my Research, though, so I'd just have to get the money later. Probably by creating a few Great Merchant units and do Trade missions, generating 1000s of instantly. This would, however, come at the cost of not getting my early Great Scientist units. (There are strategies for catching up in Research though.)

Some tips: You can delay the earliest (cheapest) units from becoming obsolete indefinitely by not hooking up Iron and Copper and such to your Trade Network. This way you can build Settlers first, found your cities, get the Techs you need, and then build your cheap units. (More cities mean more units that doesn't cost any upkeep.) Also, by running civics like Vassalage and/or Theocracy (with the obvious Barracks) you get experienced units for 15 and 25 respectively. This makes it so much more worth the cost to upgrade them later on, as you don't just get an instant up-to-date army, but also a crack elite force to boot! Also, there really isn't any point in giving units promotions before you know what you'll be doing with them. (A Warrior could be used offensively as a Swordman or defensively as a Spearman. And an Archer might as well become an offensive Crossbowman than an defensive Longbowman. They would all have different promotions depending on role.)

This strategy can also be used for peaceful empire building, as you don't need waste your resources on expensive (in terms) units. Since you're building a stable economy from scratch, and already have a strategy for a steady income, you can delay hooking up your Strategic Resources and upgrading your army indefinitely. Only once you get invaded, you use your economic power to buy (upgrade, really) your "potential" military units.

 

[jUmpSt0p]

hey Sisiutil I just read your Basic Guide and wow, that was sooo helfpul. thanks! it really explained a lot I didn't quite get yet.

I finally gave up on my game and started over.. I'm actually quite happy with how I did on 'Prince'. ((I always prefer difficult videogames, and I played Civ3)) I'm at 1970, in 3rd score wise (out of 10), and I remained competitive and stable throughout the game. I might actually be able to win the game I'm in, but global warming is coming on and it's not a great chance...

for a while I've been hankering to start over, but I knew I had to stay around to the late game so I could understand things.. before I started over. anyway, thanks again for the awesome guide. I'm confident I will really rock this next game. gonna try 'Prince' again cuz I'm hardcore like that.

I was wondering a couple of things.
-what type of city does your capital city ususally end up as?
-is there anything basic/essential I should know before starting a new game w/ BAT mod installed?

(can't wait to read your leader guide tomorrow!)

 

[Baldyr]

-what type of city does your capital city ususally end up as?

For me personally, my capital is almost always my Research city. It could, however, just as easily become the commercial city. It just takes another National Wonder and different Specialists and settled .

 

[Sisiutil]

I was wondering a couple of things.
-what type of city does your capital city ususally end up as?
-is there anything basic/essential I should know before starting a new game w/ BAT mod installed?

(can't wait to read your leader guide tomorrow!)

Glad you liked the guide, thanks.

My capital is usually a commercial city--lots of cottages. I prefer it to be a city with several riverside tiles to boost the cottages; I'll sometimes move the capital in time for Bureaucracy to a city with terrain like that if the start doesn't have what I'm after. I build all the commerce and research multipliers there, and often it's where Oxford goes.

As for anything else you should know--lots! But I tried to put it all in my different guides.

 

[Baldyr]

Could someone give me good tips for Diplo?

Its hard to give general advice, so you probably should read some guide on this subject.

Other than that, don't forget to Open Borders with a at least a few rivals to get trade routes. You can often gift the AI 5 or 50 some to get an attitude boost, then get the agreement at your first encounter. All trading (Resources, Techs, et cetera) also gives a attitude boots. Also gifting - and giving into stupid demands (if you can afford them). And having Open Borders.

When you trade Techs, try to spread it around so that they AIs can't trade the same Tech among themselves. Even if you sell a Tech for 100 it adds up to a 1000 if you can get that much (or little) from 10 AIs. So, say you trade it in for another Tech, or sell it for 1000 , you get another 1000 as a bonus.

Sell any excess Resources at practically any prices. If you sell 10 Resources for an average of 3 per turn, it adds up to an 30 per turn income. Look how much money (per turn) your rivals have available on a regular basis, look what they will import, and cancel old deals if you think you can get better ones. With active micromanagement you can turn those extra Resources into a handsome income! Health resources are the least valuable - strategic resources the most (and happy in between).

Try to keep track of who hates whom, and who likes whom. Decide early on who your friends are and who you wanna avoid (the Black Sheep, so to speak). Other ways your dealings with the wrong crowd will give you negative modifiers. Also, try to avoid double crossing friends of your main trade partners and strategic allies. I can easily end up as a complete mess where nobody likes you because you're not loyal to anyone. (You're the Black Sheep.)

If you really need someone on your good side, send missionaries to them so that they have your state religion in their cities, and get them to convert. (You can also force them to with Espionage.) With some Leaders this will ensure their loyalty (same religion).

 

[Roland Johansen]

wow.. that's not good news at all. I've got about 120-130 turns left and there's been a lot of nuking already. not by me, and mostly on the other continent, but I guess that doesn't really matter.

frack!! I was going to try for a cultural win. (gonna be close, but I think I might be able to pull it off).. of course, that depends on at least another 100 turns of play with a healthy Civ.

if Global Warming starts kickin in heavy, I'm screwed.

so.. is that something that a lot of people mod out of the game? I can understand Global Warming is a serious enough threat to deter most human players from nukes, but the AI doesn't seem to get it.

I've seen many discussion threads about global warming and I can't remember someone defending it as being a great mechanism to simulate real world global warming. However, there are quite a lot of players who just don't want to mod their game because they want to stick with the standard rules or because they don't have enough general computer knowledge. There are also quite a lot of players who have changed the global warming mechanisms. Usually a bad experience with the mechanism during a game is more convincing than someone describing the mechanism in theory.

It's quite easy to for instance remove global warming from the game. The file GlobalDefines.xml which exists for every version of the game (vanilla, Warlords and BTS) holds many parameters that effect the game. One of them is:

	<Define>
		<DefineName>GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

Changing the 20 to 0 removes global warming from the game.

The file is located in:
...\Civilization 4\Assets\XML
...\Civilization 4\Warlords\Assets\XML
...\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML

depending on the version of the game that you wish to change. It's preferable to create a tiny mod out of it than changing the original file(s). If you do change the original files, then make a backup of the file first so that you can revert back to the original files.

 

[Leifmk]

Quick question about random quests in BtS: Wasn't there some way within the game to see which quests you have been given?

I've just reinstalled this thing after a hiatus of 1.5 - 2 years, and my manuals are in a box somewhere in the attic. (And with a toddler in the house, the playing time I get is mostly an hour here and two hours there and then maybe nothing for several days; remembering everything that was going on from one session to another is not trivial.)

 

[Leifmk]

Never mind, found the quest log. Doh.

 

[jUmpSt0p]

thanks for the info guys.

also, with that Global Warming setting at '20', I suppose reducing it to, say '5', would still keep the mechanism in the game, just giving it a smaller chance of occuring?

As for anything else you should know--lots! But I tried to put it all in my different guides.

actually I just specifically meant about the BUG mod itself. is there anything basic/essential I should know? not strategy-wise, but more in terms of installation/ease of use?

then again, I'm sure I can go to the BUG forums!

 

[PwnageSoul]

Hey, quick question: How do I make a city a holy city after I've found a religion? Also, are there pros/cons between the different religions that you can found? Thanks

 

[bestbrian]

Hey, quick question: How do I make a city a holy city after I've found a religion? Also, are there pros/cons between the different religions that you can found? Thanks

If you're the first to a religion, the game will designate one of your cities as the holy city of that religion; you don't get to choose which city it is. By moving a Great Prophet into said holy city, you can then build the shrine for that religion which brings big $$$ if you can spread it around.

And all of the religions are the same (ie: just cash cows). The religious differences come into play with diplomacy and the formation of relgious blocs.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I've seen many discussion threads about global warming and I can't remember someone defending it as being a great mechanism to simulate real world global warming. However, there are quite a lot of players who just don't want to mod their game because they want to stick with the standard rules or because they don't have enough general computer knowledge. There are also quite a lot of players who have changed the global warming mechanisms. Usually a bad experience with the mechanism during a game is more convincing than someone describing the mechanism in theory.

It's quite easy to for instance remove global warming from the game. The file GlobalDefines.xml which exists for every version of the game (vanilla, Warlords and BTS) holds many parameters that effect the game. One of them is:

	<Define>
		<DefineName>GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

Changing the 20 to 0 removes global warming from the game.

The file is located in:
...\Civilization 4\Assets\XML
...\Civilization 4\Warlords\Assets\XML
...\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML

depending on the version of the game that you wish to change. It's preferable to create a tiny mod out of it than changing the original file(s). If you do change the original files, then make a backup of the file first so that you can revert back to the original files.

Could you do this by creating an XML file containing only these lines and saving it as GlobalDefines.xml in the XML subfolder of the CustomAssets folder in your CIV documents folder or should it have a different name or be saved in one of the subfolders in the XML subfolder?

 

[PwnageSoul]

^Thanks! Also, how do I force people to convert to my religion? In the trade screen, there's nothing under convert