Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Ansive]

I just started playing. I was trying to attack a city and when I moved on to the city my unit just moved over it and did not attack. I am on good terms with the other civ and have open borders. How do I attack?

You have to declare war (hover the mouse over the civilization in the lower corner and read how to declare war, you can also declare war by talking to the leader). All your units will be expelled from his borders and you will have to advance tile by tile.

 

[kcd_swede]

I just started playing. I was trying to attack a city and when I moved on to the city my unit just moved over it and did not attack. I am on good terms with the other civ and have open borders. How do I attack?

Hold down the alt- key while clicking on the name of the civilization you wish to declare war on. All your units in their terriroty will be teleported outside their cultural borders when you do this (and theirs will be teleported outside your culture borders). So its usually best to position your troops outside their color borders when you want to declare war. ROP-rape belongs in CivIII, not Civ4.

Note, if you do not have open borders agreement, just entering their borders with anything military unit will cause war (you will get a warning pop-up).

 

[Derakon]

If you produce a lot of Great scientists, is it better to settle them in one learning centre or try for a number of academies in your larger cities (say over 10 population)?

You're forgetting the other two uses for Great People: bulbing techs and starting golden ages. Every tech you bulb will save you often significant amounts of time spent researching -- you get on the order of 1400 beakers from a bulb (I suspect the exact amount depends on your population), which takes ages to pay back from settled scientists. Someone did the math a bit ago and came back with 44 turns at normal speed -- personally, I'd rather have the tech earlier than wait that long. And golden ages, of course, are wonderful for ramping up production, switching civics, getting extra cash, and so on.

Generally speaking, I'd say build academies in any strong science cities, but after that you should use your Great Scientists for bulbing or golden ages. Settle scientists only once you've run out of things to research (i.e. in the end game) and you don't have any corporations you want to make, since settled Great Scientists give 1 hammer.

 

[Frost_]

Could someone please outline exactly what the granary does? I've been trying to follow the more in-depth posts on the granary and whipping but I can't fully grasp the math because I'm not sure how the granary works in-game. The descriptions have been a little vauge. Thanks!

 

[Carl5872]

Anyone have any idea why Xian is not providing irrigation to the farm to the southwest? Note that the worker immediately south cannot build a farm either. I have another city in this very game that provides irrigation from a river to a farm.

Only difference I can come up with is that Xian resides on a hill. I removed the hill via worldbuilder and advanced a turn, but the issue remained. Perhaps popping into worldbuilder is not enough to have the game recalculate the situation.

How did you get those meters under your research meter?

 

[Derakon]

Could someone please outline exactly what the granary does? I've been trying to follow the more in-depth posts on the granary and whipping but I can't fully grasp the math because I'm not sure how the granary works in-game. The descriptions have been a little vauge. Thanks!

Your city must store up a certain amount of food before its population can increase to the next level. You can see this as the top of the two meters on each city. Normally, when you fill the meter, it resets to 0 and the city gains a population point. If you have a granary installed, then it instead resets to half-full. This functionally means that cities gain population twice as quickly as they normally would.

 

[Frost_]

oh ok thanks. Is the amount of food needed to hit the next pop level stagnant or is it exponential?

 

[Derakon]

I don't know the exact function used, but you do need more stored food to go from 2 to 3 than you need to go from 1 to 2.

 

[Ansive]

1 - 22
2 - 24
3 - 26
4 - 28
5 - 30
6 - 32
7 - 34
...
on normal speed

The granary starts gathering food once it is built. (you do not get the whole 50% for your next population if you finish the granary a turn before growing)

 

[Frost_]

Ok I see, thank you!

Another question, I've always only been playing on normal but what exactly are the consequences/effects/differences of playing on different speeds? I read somewhere that if you like the earlier eras to play on lower speeds. Could someone elaborate on that a little more? Thanks

 

[Davinci07]

What is AND?

 

[Derakon]

When you play on slower speeds, there are of course more turns in the game. To compensate, research, construction, city growth, culture, etc. also are more expensive / take longer. Units also cost more to build, but the multiplier on unit cost is less than the multiplier on building cost. The practical upshot of this is that units are relatively cheaper, don't go obsolete as quickly, and the time units spend traveling is not quite so significant in terms of total amount of history passed. This means that Epic and Marathon speeds are popular for warmongers, as it's possible to squeeze more wars into a single game than you could on Normal. It also nerfs India's unique unit a bit since its special ability is 1 extra movement per turn.

 

[bestbrian]

What is AND?

Used in what context?

That being asked, it may refer to A New Dawn for Rhye's and Fall Mod.

 

[Arakhor]

Rise of Mankind, not Rhye's and Fall.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

How did you get those meters under your research meter?

It's part of the BUG mod. BUG stands for BTS unaltered gameplay. As the name implies, it organized information and makes handy calculations but doesn't show you anything that you couldn't calculate yourself from the stock game.

Going back to my original question, is it normal that cities on a hill do not spread irrigation? Makes sense I guess.

 

[bestbrian]

Rise of Mankind, not Rhye's and Fall.

My bad.

 

[Darth Fred]

If you produce a lot of Great scientists, is it better to settle them in one learning centre or try for a number of academies in your larger cities (say over 10 population)?

I held off on this because I wanted to see what other players said first (I was curious myself). As always, and I suspected as much, the answer seems to be "It depends on what you're doing."

Good question.

F

 

[Sisiutil]

If you produce a lot of Great scientists, is it better to settle them in one learning centre or try for a number of academies in your larger cities (say over 10 population)?

I held off on this because I wanted to see what other players said first (I was curious myself). As always, and I suspected as much, the answer seems to be "It depends on what you're doing."

Good question.

F

Precisely. In addition to what's been mentioned above, the game situation comes into play.

For example, here's a situation that happens to me fairly often. In the late early game I may have just concluded a relatively early war and be behind in techs. I pop a Great Scientist and he'll lightbulb Compass--which I don't particularly need at that point, but no one else has it. I could settle him, build an Academy, or start a Golden Age, but at that point it will often take a long, long time to see the benefits of an Academy or settled GS, and I don't have enough civics available to justify a GA, nor a large enough empire (despite the recently conquered territory). On the other hand, while Compass is a low priority tech for me, I can use it to snag several techs I'm lacking. In that situation, bulbing is the best option. Same thing if I'm going after Liberalism (bulbing Philosophy, Paper, and part of Education).

 

[Darth Fred]

Precisely. In addition to what's been mentioned above, the game situation comes into play.

For example, here's a situation that happens to me fairly often. In the late early game I may have just concluded a relatively early war and be behind in techs. I pop a Great Scientist and he'll lightbulb Compass--which I don't particularly need at that point, but no one else has it. I could settle him, build an Academy, or start a Golden Age, but at that point it will often take a long, long time to see the benefits of an Academy or settled GS, and I don't have enough civics available to justify a GA, nor a large enough empire (despite the recently conquered territory). On the other hand, while Compass is a low priority tech for me, I can use it to snag several techs I'm lacking. In that situation, bulbing is the best option. Same thing if I'm going after Liberalism (bulbing Philosophy, Paper, and part of Education).

Personally, I think burning Great People for a golden age is kind of a waste, but that's just me. Usually, I try to have at least two in my capital. One for the acadamy one to join the city. Speaking of situational though, recently I had the two I just mentioned in place and popped a third while in the middle of a war. I simply couldn't spare a unit to escort him to another city so right there in the capital he stayed.
F

 

[s.bernbaum]

Going back to my original question, is it normal that cities on a hill do not spread irrigation? Makes sense I guess.

Yes. There was a thread on this topic in this General Discussion forum a couple of weeks ago, if you want to read more, but it all boils down to you can't irrigate a hill so you can't spread irrigation through a city on a hill.