Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[ShowMeTheMoney]

Just a few quick questions:

1.> Are messages always late in appearing at the left hand side of the screen? For example an enemy Civ pillages my cottage, but the message and the sound clip will only play during my turn. Is that the way it's supposed to be? Because sometimes it can be very confusing.

2.> Sometimes a city starts building something automatically. How do I stop this? i.e I'm building a worker, then when it's done, I get a message saying something like "Worker has been completed, work has now began on a worker.."

Thanks in advance,

 

[Lord_Zath]

Answer to the question regarding not liking Leonard Nimoy's narration (shame on you!). Look around the Civ4 folder. I think there's an "assets" folder, and from there a "sound" folder. Delete the mp3's that contain narration (or just move them to some other temp folder). This should make the game skip'em.

 

[neriana]

How do you turn off the numpad display for moving units? It's ugly and I've been playing Civ since 1, I know where the keyboard will take me. I'm sure this is somewhere easy to find and I'm just not seeing it.

Also, is there a way to see which tiles can be worked by a particular city, and not just the cultural borders? I.e, the "fat cross"? It makes it hard to found new cities when you can't see where they might overlap.

 

[sam0t]

How do you turn off the numpad display for moving units? It's ugly and I've been playing Civ since 1, I know where the keyboard will take me. I'm sure this is somewhere easy to find and I'm just not seeing it.

Also, is there a way to see which tiles can be worked by a particular city, and not just the cultural borders? I.e, the "fat cross"? It makes it hard to found new cities when you can't see where they might overlap.

1. You can turn off the numberpad help from options.

2. There is a button above the minimap which enables tiles in the map.

 

[neriana]

1. You can turn off the numberpad help from options.

2. There is a button above the minimap which enables tiles in the map.

Thanks . I don't know why I didn't see that numpad thing, I guess I was temporarily blind.

That button enables tiles, but it doesn't enable a line or anything around the "fat cross" to show which tiles a city can work. I can count them out, but I'm hoping for a better way.

 

[thedaian]

That button enables tiles, but it doesn't enable a line or anything around the "fat cross" to show which tiles a city can work. I can count them out, but I'm hoping for a better way.

Double click on a city name to see which tiles it can work. Other than that, I've yet to find a way to find which tiles a city can work on the main map.

 

[thamis]

Hey Thamis, since you're here - will you make an Ancient Med mod for civ 4 as well? It was by far my favorite mod for civ 3

Yea, but give it some time. Also, as modding in CIV4 is far more complicated than in CIV3, I might need some help here. I've completed the map though, will upload it soon.

Is there an option to build previously built unit?

I think it's in the options menu. CRTL+O.

1.> Are messages always late in appearing at the left hand side of the screen? For example an enemy Civ pillages my cottage, but the message and the sound clip will only play during my turn. Is that the way it's supposed to be? Because sometimes it can be very confusing.

Are you referring to MP? That always happened in MP, but never in SP.

2.> Sometimes a city starts building something automatically. How do I stop this? i.e I'm building a worker, then when it's done, I get a message saying something like "Worker has been completed, work has now began on a worker.."

Turn of the automatically building of the same unit in the options I guess.

 

[AlphaUnit001]

My question is, where are the best places to put cottages, and what exactly do they do? Do they always have to go within a city radius or do they provide any benefit if they're not? Thanks!

 

[gmaharriet]

Also, is there a way to see which tiles can be worked by a particular city, and not just the cultural borders? I.e, the "fat cross"? It makes it hard to found new cities when you can't see where they might overlap.

If you mean when you actually go to place your settler...activate your settler, use "go to" and move your cursor to where you think you'd like to place your new city. You'll see an outline in your civ's color and you can move it around to see what be the best location, and then just click on the square you want.

 

[Socka]

when will a city become a holy city?

 

[Blazer6]

When you discover a new religion and give it a turn to convert.

 

[corwin90]

My question is, where are the best places to put cottages, and what exactly do they do? Do they always have to go within a city radius or do they provide any benefit if they're not? Thanks!

Cottages must be placed within the "fat cross" of your city, and the square with a Cottage must be "worked" by one of your citizens. At first, a Cottage only generates one gold. But over time, a cottage can grow in size and generate extra trade.

The best place to put a cottage seems to be a square that isn't that good for anything else.

From reading the forums, it sounds like the AI builds TONS of cottages per city to get the extra commerce so that it can spend more on research. But this comes at the expense of production.

 

[Pragmatic]

when will a city become a holy city?

Be the first to discover one of the "religion" techs. Meditation (Buddhism), Polytheism (Hinduism), and Monotheism (Judaism) are all in the ancient age. If you start with Mysticism (the Arabian, Aztec, Incan, Indian, or Spanish empires), it's not too hard to end up with either BuddJew or HindJew (no slur implied, those are the gamer names for founding Buddhism or Hinduism along with Judaism).

After that, you can shoot for Code of Laws (Confucianism) or Philosophy (Taoism) in the classical age.

Finally, you can shoot for Theology (Christianity) or Divine Right (Islam) in the third age (Medieval?).

The later four religions come with a free missionary, for a chance at spreading your religion. Note that I've had about a 20% chance (guesstimate) of the missionary failing to establish the religion in a second city.

Once you've established a religion, one of your cities is selected at random to become its holy city. (In one game that I heavily cheated, I established all seven religions in my nine cities: 3 cities with two each, and 1 city with one.)

You've now got a holy city. What can you do with a holy city? The only benefit that I can see from a holy city (that is independent of having the religion in the city) is you can use a Great Prophet to build the Shrine.

The Shrine provides one gold for every city that has your religion, and provides Line of Sight (effectively, a permanent observer) in every city that has that religion--though that may only be the case if the religion is your State Religion. It also allows you to turn three people into "priest" specialists.

The benefits of religion that accrue to any city having the religion (including the Holy City) are: the ability to build temples (one temple for every religion in the city; each provides happiness and culture, as well as the ability to turn one pop point into a "priest" specialist), monasteries (one for each religion in the city; each provides a short-term ability to build missionaries, as well as a short-term boost to research--this disappears with The Scientific Method, I believe, but you'll be able to build missionaries with one of the Religious civics), and "cathedrals" (one per X temples of a religion, can put in any city that has that religion; a big boost to culture, a boost to happiness, and the ability to turn two people into "priest" specialists).

Note that the priest specialists are not cumulative across religions. If (as happened in my heavily-cheated game) you have seven religions in one city, seven temples, two cathedrals, and two shrines, you don't get the ability to turn 15 people into priests, only 1 (for having at least one temple) + 2 (for having at least one cathedral) + 3 (for having at least one shrine) = 6. And I don't recall those priests actually using up a pop point, so they could be free (but at the expense of seriously bumping up your Great Prophet production in that city).

More information than you asked for, but I hope it helped.

 

[Pragmatic]

The best place to put a cottage seems to be a square that isn't that good for anything else.

It's been suggested that cottages should be built in preference to farms, for instance, since you can quickly outstrip happiness and health with too much food. However, extra food means extra specialists, so you can focus your city on producing certain Great People.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Ok got this game 2 days ago , an addict already but 2 quick questions for you-

1st probably very dumb but anyways:-

1) in the custom game screen , is "City flipping after conquest" now set to OFF as a default. in other words do I have to put a "X" in the box beside it to make them flip after conquest -a la - CIV III?

and 2nd not so dumb:-

2) In the handbook under RELIGION it states that the F7 , Religious Advisor screen displays "the percentage of population in each city which follows each religion"---is this just plain wrong , cos it doesnt , the only number displayed is the percentage worldwide following each religion?

Replies appreciated..

DrewBledsoe

 

[corwin90]

In my current game, the Indians are at the top of the continent, and I'm at the bottom. In between, there are the Malinese. Now, I want to go to war against the Indians by passing through the Malinese territory. I'm at +14 with the Malinese, and the Malinese show 'Cautious' when I ask about the Indians. But they have an Open Border treaty with the Indians.

As a prelude to my attack on the Indians, I thought I would try to get the Malinese to terminate the Open Borders with the Indians. So, I try to click on that option in the trading screen. But the 'Stop Trading' is in RED, and the mouseover says they wouldn't do that to their good friends.

So, I give lots of stuff to the Malinese to improve our relations. Then, I go back to the trading screen. The 'Stop trading' option is still all in RED. But guess what? The 'Go to war' option is available. So, I choose that one. After all, that's even better.

But why was that even possible? If there is anything at all that I could offer the Malinese to get them to go to war with the Indians, then shouldn't it have been possible to just get them to stop trading with the Indians?

 

[thamis]

1) in the custom game screen , is "City flipping after conquest" now set to OFF as a default. in other words do I have to put a "X" in the box beside it to make them flip after conquest -a la - CIV III?

This is to prevent the city from flipping BACK to the nation you conquered it from. In CIV4 you need loads to troops in a city, or otherwise the city will flip back to the original civ. This option prevents that.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What is the hot key or mouse over to see combat odds?

 

[Halmboy]

Is it possible to play in the real world whit all nations and leaders?

 

[thamis]

Doesn't mouse over always come when you move units into an enemy unit? Bottom right of the screen? Otherwise try holding shift.