Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[KLV]

Awesome,

sorry for the multi-posting. Thx a lot for the quick answer, I'll confirm if it works later on today. I think I'll bring a camera to take a picture of their face when they realize I win...

Cheers

KLV

 

[Carl5872]

I am having 2 problems and im not sure if theyre related:

1. I will play a game for a short time between 5 and 15 min. Then all of a sudden the screen goes black, and the sound freezes. The computer is still on, but ctrl+alt+del doesnt work, nor does the windows button. I have to hold the power button to turn it off. I have a computer that is supposed to be able to handle civ bts, (Toshiba Qosmio Nvidia Geforce 9700m graphics card with tons of ram) not sure why this is happening, Ive also installed the latest drivers from nvidia, as well as the most recent civ patch. Any ideas on how to fix the game I am addicted to? I feel like a junkie in rehab and I need my fix of civ. Someone please help before I grind up the disk, draw it in a line and snort it.

2. Each time it starts it says "you have selected an unusable voice capture device voice capture disabled". I found a thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=339048) that says the solution is below:

open civilizationIV.ini and set

; Enable voice over IP capture and playback
EnableVoice = 1

to

; Enable voice over IP capture and playback
EnableVoice = 0


I know absolutely nothing about computers, so I dont know how to open civilizationIV.ini nor to set it to 0. Can someone please walk a computer idiot through this?

Also does anyone know if my problems are related?

Thanks

 

[Dusk]

No idea about the first one, does it happen in other games aswell? No clue whether they're related aswell, but I can help you with number 2.

In my computer with BTS and Windows 7 my CivilizationIV.ini file is at C:\Users\xxx\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword
When you find it, right-click it and select edit. Find the correct line and change the 1 to 0. Save the file and it's done.

 

[Carl5872]

No idea about the first one, does it happen in other games aswell? No clue whether they're related aswell, but I can help you with number 2.

In my computer with BTS and Windows 7 my CivilizationIV.ini file is at C:\Users\xxx\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword
When you find it, right-click it and select edit. Find the correct line and change the 1 to 0. Save the file and it's done.

Thanks for the help. Ill try it tonight/

It has happened to other games too, so Im not sure whats wrong.

 

[22bebo]

Hello all!

I play BtS with the latest patch.

I will launch my spaceship shortly, I have a huge head start, but my oponents have equal techs and military strength. It will leave from my capital and take about 30 turns to get to AC. So if one of the other two humans take it, I lose the spaceship, and probably the game. Some of you will say "then don't lose Cuzco!". Well I'm pretty sure the other two humans will be able to take it if they cooperate, they're much much better than AIs, but of course I'll give defense a shot. However, I need a plan B.
I thought I could start building a palace at the heart of my continent and stop it one turn from completion. Then launch and fake defend my capital. When they have wasted all their nukes (we all have the anti-missile shield, and they wont vote for the UN nuclear ban) and armies and are finally about to take Cuzco, I finish building the palace, far from there. This will change my capital, but not the place from where the spaceship was launched...

So, did anyone ever try this? Can you change your capital and save your spaceship? Will they have to pack back their injured troups and head for my new capital? or is Cuzco linked to this spaceship, no matter if it remains the capital or not?

Unfortunately, I cant test it with solo games before we continue the game...

Thx all

KLV

I don't know, but I have one question. What happens if they read your posts and know your plan?

 

[Dusk]

Thanks for the help. Ill try it tonight/

It has happened to other games too, so Im not sure whats wrong.

Sounds like it's not Civ related then at least. Since I'm not a computer-wiz I'm afraid I can't help you.

 

[Carl5872]

Thanks anyways.

Has anyone else had that problem with the black screen freezing?

 

[Silu]

Thanks anyways.

Has anyone else had that problem with the black screen freezing?

Sounds like textbook overheating to me, that is surprisingly common when playing Civ. Ensure the air flow around your computer and airdust/vacuum it (especially the fans).

 

[DrakenKin]

Thanks for the help. Ill try it tonight/

It has happened to other games too, so Im not sure whats wrong.

This is usually because of a problem with your video card. Either it has a defect or it is overheating.

I am more of an ATI guy, so not sure about your card... but check with your NVIDIA control panel and see if the temperature is high (more than 60 is too high, more than 80 is a fire hazard).

 

[Dusk]

Yes, your guess about which units are "gunpowder based" is correct - Musket->, Cannon-> and Cuirassier->. You forgot Horse Archers and Chariots from the inclusion list but I don't think many would confuse those as "gunpowder-based"

If you read the linked thread you know that castles do affect later siege weapons and bombardment even though they are technically "obsolete". They won't face the 100% from Castle if attacking, but it affects the bombardment speed (unless the city is also 100% from culture, i.e. Legendary).

Is this a bug or a feature? The Civopedia clearly states that all but the defensive bonus becomes obsolete. I assumed that this means the "damage to defense from bombardment" aswell.

--snip-- (more than 60 is too high, more than 80 is a fire hazard).

Fahrenheit? Celcius? ...Kelvin?

----------------------

While I'm here, I dug up another question which I can't find an answer to from the search feature: How do Airships spot submarines? I can't rememer a game where I've seen an AI submarine recently, but nevermind that. Do Airships spot Submarines all the time or only when performing a recon mission? Up until now I've just kept them sleeping in my coastal cities unless I'm expecting a naval visit and even then I haven't spotted one as far as I can remember.

 

[DrakenKin]

haha, good question.

Celcius.

 

[22bebo]

I have the BAT mod set to always be on, but if I load another mod from the Program files, will it still be on? Or do I need to copy it into that file too?

 

[cherrysnowdrop]

I have a question about workers- I have "automated workers leave old improvements" checked, but still automated workers are obsessed with building forts on every mine, pastor and plantation I have. Why won't they leave them alone? And after some time they stay in the cities without doing anything even though there are still tiles to improve. Why don't they continue working?

Also I'm really struggling with military and espionage.. I'm good at the tech race (well, at Noble ) and good at culture but I can't manage to have a decent military force.. usually my cities have a warrior or a swordsman. Then the AI come crushing in and I lose practically every city. How do the AI manage to balance it all?
And since I don't really find espionage that important I end up getting my mines blasted or my water supplies poisoned every round. Should I train one military unit and a spy every 5 turns or something?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Have a production city crank out units semi-constantly for your empire. Also, automated workers suck.

 

[IAM]

I have a question about workers- I have "automated workers leave old improvements" checked, but still automated workers are obsessed with building forts on every mine, pastor and plantation I have. Why won't they leave them alone? And after some time they stay in the cities without doing anything even though there are still tiles to improve. Why don't they continue working?

Also I'm really struggling with military and espionage.. I'm good at the tech race (well, at Noble ) and good at culture but I can't manage to have a decent military force.. usually my cities have a warrior or a swordsman. Then the AI come crushing in and I lose practically every city. How do the AI manage to balance it all?
And since I don't really find espionage that important I end up getting my mines blasted or my water supplies poisoned every round. Should I train one military unit and a spy every 5 turns or something?

If it seems overwhelming then I suggest taking one problem every new game to work on. For instance pick one of your first three cities and build a barracks then military units in it constantly for the whole game. Transfer your newest and best units to border cities and use weaker older units for garrison duty in cities away from other civs. Then every five cities create another military production city. These are just suggestions and are meant to be adjusted to your game play and circumstances.

 

[cherrysnowdrop]

Thanks a lot for the quick replies But another aspect of the game I don't get is specialized cities. I don't understand how to choose them, and in the end all my cities end up pretty much the same with all the same buildings

Yeah I agree, automated workers suck, but after I get 5-10 workers I grow weary of tracking them all down and giving them new assignments, so I end up automating them.

 

[RedAndWhiteArmy]

These are CIV4 savegames. Best way is to save them somewhere, on your desktop but better would be in the savegame folder... then you start the game, go into "load" and browse to the directory where you copied the save and open it.

Again you have to open them from inside the game, you can't just double click them like other files.

thanks for the help on this

 

[IAM]

Thanks a lot for the quick replies But another aspect of the game I don't get is specialized cities. I don't understand how to choose them, and in the end all my cities end up pretty much the same with all the same buildings

Yeah I agree, automated workers suck, but after I get 5-10 workers I grow weary of tracking them all down and giving them new assignments, so I end up automating them.

You could start by: 1- find one city with at least 2 good food resources and lots of land you can farm and make this a great person city by running specialist. 2- cities with several hills (at least three) can be your production cities. 3- other cities may be cottaged for commerce cities. Then some buildings like graneries may be built in all cities but libraries, markets, grocery bank would go in a commerce city. Forge, barracks, stable, factory would go in a production city. forge (to run engineer specialist) library (to run science specialist) etc. would go in your great person city.

 

[Dusk]

--snip-- While I'm here, I dug up another question which I can't find an answer to from the search feature: How do Airships spot submarines? I can't rememer a game where I've seen an AI submarine recently, but nevermind that. Do Airships spot Submarines all the time or only when performing a recon mission? Up until now I've just kept them sleeping in my coastal cities unless I'm expecting a naval visit and even then I haven't spotted one as far as I can remember.

Some screwing around with World Builder suggests that you do indeed need to perform a recon mission before an Airship and detect a Submarine.

Thanks a lot for the quick replies But another aspect of the game I don't get is specialized cities. I don't understand how to choose them, and in the end all my cities end up pretty much the same with all the same buildings

I suggest reading City Specialization: Where I do it by OTAKUjbski. As SS-18 ICBM and IAM already pointed out, make a few cities production cities and have them build your military. Improvements should be mines, watermills, lumbermills and workshops. See Comprehensive Guide to Terrain, Improvements, Resources, and City Placement by Stuporstar. Buildings should be Barracks and Forge and later Drydock, Factory etc.
Other cities you want to maximize your commerce, by building cottages or specialists. Depends on whether you want a Cottage Economy (CE) or Specialist Economy (SE). You can find guides on both in the War Academy on this site. Buildings in commerce cities should be Market, Grocer and Bank.

There's more to it than what I've written here, but the best action would be to check out the guides and try out it to see what works for you.

Yeah I agree, automated workers suck, but after I get 5-10 workers I grow weary of tracking them all down and giving them new assignments, so I end up automating them.

I think many people use the rule of thumb with having 1.5 workers per city, at least on normal speed. The trick is the speed up the process abit. Instead of pressing R for road you can press Alt+R to make a road over 2 or more tiles, such as connect cities or resources. Workers also have an action queue. Holding down Shift lets you queue actions, much like a city's production queue.
Some people claim that the only worker automation that is viable, is the "trade network" option where they simply connect cities and resources on their own.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Some screwing around with World Builder suggests that you do indeed need to perform a recon mission before an Airship and detect a Submarine.

Yeah, that's correct. Think of it as the airship being "docked" while in the city (even though the graphic doesn't show it ). The only way you're going to see if there are any subs around is to fly around and have a look (i.e. the recon mission).