Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Francescamice]

Hi there
Iam very new to Civ 4 as Ive just bought C1V Complete dvd disc - I live in the UK.
I have installed the game onto my 32 bit Vista laptop and it installs okay - however when I load the game to start there is alot of flashing and ive rest my SIS graphics to LOW setting and still flashes.
any recommendations on this please?
I then installed it on my husbands laptop (alot better graphics card) and the game works fine - Iam just going through the main tutorial at the moment, as there are no instruction manual with the game (is there a tutorial here?)
also and finally - when in the game - this is a silly question - how do I save my game?? complete newbie i know, but would appreciate your help guys.
Is my 32 bit vista laptop rubbish with the graphics, if cant be recitifed, iam gonna have to play my game on my husbands laptop.
any help or advice would be appreciated
many thanks
fran

 

[ParadigmShifter]

OK, I'm confused. I just established my 3rd "Legendary Status City" and I did not win? I am playing a marathon game, w/ ALL victory conditions selected and for some reason the game continues w/ no acknowledgement of my accomplishment. The 3 cities all surpass the 150,000 culture points needed, so I am confused as to why no win?

Sounds like you are playing with the latest patch and have turned espionage off (espionage buildings now produce culture instead of espionage points), so they increased the amount required for legendary culture (dunno what to though).

 

[6K Man]

also and finally - when in the game - this is a silly question - how do I save my game?? complete newbie i know, but would appreciate your help guys.
Is my 32 bit vista laptop rubbish with the graphics, if cant be recitifed, iam gonna have to play my game on my husbands laptop.
any help or advice would be appreciated
many thanks
fran

I can't really help with the laptop issue, although it does sound like it may be a graphics or memory issue. 128 MB video is the minimum, I think, and if you are running Vista, 2 MB RAM. I don't know enough about PCs to be more specific - hopefully someone like Lemon Merchant will see this Q and jump in.

Saving - in the top right corner of the screen, near the Civilopedia, there is a little box that if you click on it, brings up several options including save/load. Click on it and select Save.

 

[Hector Achilles]

Screenshot?

paradigmshifter@ Sounds like you are playing with the latest patch and have turned espionage off (espionage buildings now produce culture instead of espionage points), so they increased the amount required for legendary culture (dunno what to though).


My, bad. I just realized what the problem is. I'm playing a MOD that has the "Mastery Victory" selected. If that victory is selected when customizing a game, then all the other victories sort of become inactive until the last turn of the game. On the last turn of the game, Mastery takes into consideration ALL the other victory options, i.e. culture, religion, dominatikon, spaceship, etc...adds them all up and gives you an overall score. Highest score of ALL the civs, wins. Sort of interesting, but makes for LONG games.

 

[Francescamice]

Cheers 6K Man
Fran

 

[velvetmagras]

Hey all,
My cities keep complaining about overcrowding so I'm wondering what causes it and how do I fix it?

 

[Verarde]

Hey all,
My cities keep complaining about overcrowding so I'm wondering what causes it and how do I fix it?

Every population point is a +1 so there isn't really anything to fix this, except build things that provide happiness, or switch to HR (Hereditary Rule) for +1 per military unit stationed in your city. Or was that not your question?

 

[s.bernbaum]

Hi there
Iam very new to Civ 4 as Ive just bought C1V Complete dvd disc - I live in the UK.
I have installed the game onto my 32 bit Vista laptop and it installs okay - however when I load the game to start there is alot of flashing and ive rest my SIS graphics to LOW setting and still flashes.
any recommendations on this please?
I then installed it on my husbands laptop (alot better graphics card) and the game works fine - Iam just going through the main tutorial at the moment, as there are no instruction manual with the game (is there a tutorial here?)
also and finally - when in the game - this is a silly question - how do I save my game?? complete newbie i know, but would appreciate your help guys.
Is my 32 bit vista laptop rubbish with the graphics, if cant be recitifed, iam gonna have to play my game on my husbands laptop.
any help or advice would be appreciated
many thanks
fran

There is a manual in downloadable form, as well as a tutorial, also downloadable. The tutorial is for the basic game. Although the manual is for Beyond the Sword (BTS), it also applies to the basic game, if you ignore the extras added in BTS. If memory serves correctly, I downloaded the manual from the publisher's website. That is where the tutorial is also. Here on CFF, you can go to the War Academy, where you will find many articles, some specifically for beginners, as well as an excellent walk through of a game.

6K Man covered your other questions already.

 

[velvetmagras]

Every population point is a +1 so there isn't really anything to fix this, except build things that provide happiness, or switch to HR (Hereditary Rule) for +1 per military unit stationed in your city. Or was that not your question?

It's specifically what's causing the overcrowding +1 that I don't understand and is there anything, beyond the general +1 , that makes it go away?

 

[Trapper439]

It's specifically what's causing the overcrowding +1 that I don't understand and is there anything, beyond the general +1 , that makes it go away?

You can mouse over the happiness area of the city screen to see why they're unhappy. Your citizens may be war-weary, angry about being whipped, or demanding emancipation.

 

[henrebotha]

It's specifically what's causing the overcrowding +1 that I don't understand and is there anything, beyond the general +1 , that makes it go away?

You can't get rid of it. It's there as a balancing measure to tame your cities' growth. The only way to deal with it is to give the city additional to balance it out, or to simply prevent your city from growing that large.

The Globe Theater national wonder, available with Drama, can be built in only one of your cities to eliminate all from that one city.

 

[EsaKo]

It's specifically what's causing the overcrowding +1 that I don't understand and is there anything, beyond the general +1 , that makes it go away?

That simply means that you need to do more work to keep your larger cities happy, while smaller cities are a lot less likely to get unhappy. If the from population was easily removable, there was no point in increasing your happies .

 

[Lord Parkin]

Why is my name Tame-Tk-TK2 in the Civ lobby?

I thought it had something to do with expansions, but even playing vanilla it shows as this.

I think it has something to do with a recently implemented fix which stopped some players impersonating other players via some exploit (i.e. stealing their names). But I don't really know.

 

[velvetmagras]

You can't get rid of it. It's there as a balancing measure to tame your cities' growth. The only way to deal with it is to give the city additional to balance it out, or to simply prevent your city from growing that large.

The Globe Theater national wonder, available with Drama, can be built in only one of your cities to eliminate all from that one city.

Ah, thanks. I was sort of wondering if I had to build cottages to house the people or something (along the lines of AOE cottages )

Thanks all.

 

[Baldyr]

Ah, thanks. I was sort of wondering if I had to build cottages to house the people or something (along the lines of AOE cottages

That made my day!

You could view the situation like this also: Urbanization is when people live in close proximity to each-other. And the more people in one single settlement, the closer they will have to be. Sooner or later they will actually start to live on top of each-other, as in apartment buildings. There's your explanation for why a large city has more because of over-crowding - or urbanization if you will.

What to do about it? The only thing you can do is to reduce the city size so that everyone has more living space. As simple as that.

But if you can afford the happiness, a few big cities are more effective (and more cost-effective) than many small cities.

 

[henrebotha]

Is it true that having few large cities is better than having many small ones?

I've been thinking about that lately - settling cities very tightly and keeping their populations relatively low. I figured this way one might (for instance) be able to take greater advantage of effects like the Statue of Liberty's free specialists (since more cities equals more free specialists). Doable? Sensible?

 

[Baldyr]

Is it true that having few large cities is better than having many small ones?

I guess that would be because the maintenance cost goes up for each city. Sure, large cities cost more in maintenance than small ones, but you still get to work the same number of tiles for less with a large city. Also, one building is sufficient for an infinitive amount of citizens in one city, but if you want the same benefit from the same amount of citizens spread out in several cities, you will need to invest in one building each per city.

On the other hand, each city allows for more units without any upkeep cost. But then again, a large empire will require more troops to garrison its cities and fortify its borders.

I've been thinking about that lately - settling cities very tightly and keeping their populations relatively low. I figured this way one might (for instance) be able to take greater advantage of effects like the Statue of Liberty's free specialists (since more cities equals more free specialists). Doable? Sensible?

I can't see why not. I haven't done the math on this and am only assuming things. You should try it out and report back with your findings! After all, this is one of the things that makes this such a great game. You can develop your own strategy.

In conclusion, I believe that the game has been fairly well balanced with regard to these kinds of trade-offs.

 

[Silu]

I've been thinking about that lately - settling cities very tightly and keeping their populations relatively low. I figured this way one might (for instance) be able to take greater advantage of effects like the Statue of Liberty's free specialists (since more cities equals more free specialists). Doable? Sensible?

Yes, it's doable and sensible under the right circumstances. SoL is just one side of it and often hard to get, but settling tight gives you more food (from more "free" city tiles), more spec slots without caste, more whip power (more efficient in small cities and more spread out unhappiness), more draft power (ditto), more yields from per-city stuff like Mercantilism, University of Sankore, Spiral Minaret, AP buildings and trade routes. Increased overlap also encourages swapping key tiles from a city to another (like food resources), based on which city needs it most. Whether all this offsets the rising city number maintenance (that affects all cities unlike the size maintenance - settling a new city raises maintenance in all previous cities) depends on the circumstances.

 

[henrebotha]

True that, but

a) I kinda suck, can't even beat Monarch yet, and

b) I don't (think I) know the game well enough to spot the advantages such a play style is yielding.

 

[Baldyr]

True that, but

a) I kinda suck, can't even beat Monarch yet, and

b) I don't (think I) know the game well enough to spot the advantages such a play style is yielding.

Bonkers!

a. I haven't even tried to beat Monarch (or any particular level for that matter) and that hasn't stopped me from experimenting.

b. You spelled out the advantage of having more but smaller cities in your post. Building cities closer together gives lower maintenance from distance. Go for Wonders with global effects, like Statue of Liberty, and cash in on the number of cities you have.

Some more ideas:

Try to focus less on buildings (as you'd need more of them) and more on units (as you can maintain more of them with more cities). Take advantage of other stuff that affects all of your cities, like certain Civics. Don't go for Representation and Bureaucracy as they only affect one or a few cities. Capitalize on civics like Vassalage (as it gives you additional upkeep-free units for each city) and Mercantilism (as it gives you a free specialist per city - but make sure to run it in tandem with Caste System if you don't wanna invest in costly buildings).

Don't bother with Wonders that give happiness bonuses, or to buy luxuries because you probably won't need them. The same with stuff that gives your cities health - chop those forests and don't worry about the jungles or floodplains.

Religion can also be helpful, as it is isn't that costly to spread to all of your cities (compared to building the same set of building in every city). You get both a happiness and a culture benefit, and if you go for certain Wonders (like the Sistine Chapel) and Civics (the religious ones, depending on what your current focus is) you get additional benefits in these cities.

Asoka might be a good choice for a leader, as the Spiritual trait it makes it easier to change Civics and the Organized trait enables you to use the more costly ones. Also the Fast Worker can get all of those tiles your cities need to work up in no time, and allows you to alter improvements with changing needs.

Speaking of which, Slavery can also be effective longer because it will stay cost-effective with smaller cities. Let those closely built cities share food resources in order to grow back faster, by alternating what tiles they work. And once a city is above its happy cap, whip it!

Now I'm doing your work for you, and thats no fun. Personally I don't think this game is about climbing the difficulty ladder, but rather about this exact kind of experimentation. It will also make you a better and more versatile player.