Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

If you look in the save game folder, there is a folder called auto. That should have the initial save from year 4000BC. Just load this. Note that if you start a new game this will be deleted, and it MIGHT be deleted if you retire. So load it and re-save it if you really want to retire.

 

Ok, thanks. The last of my army managed to limp into a galleon just before they took my last city there.

The fact that the AI manages to build such massive armies so quickly is amazing to me.

 

If you have it, care to post the 4000 BC savegame here for others to download and play? Sounds intriguing.

What's the game speed, civ/leader, difficulty level, and map type you're using?

 

Thanks. I'm in about 500AD now and should get the Great Library in a turn or two. Have gotten Currency (but not Code of Law) and have now started to beeline for Guilds and Knights. The aim is to wipe out the Romans and their praetorians. I'm a little worried by their cultural defence in the cities, but not sure I want to wait to get macemen and trebuchets. Knights have higher hitpoints afterall and can move faster.

It's at Noble level. Is this a viable strategy, or it better to go for siege instead and assault with axemen and swordmen?

 

You didn't follow my recommendations so, at this point, it is perhaps better to post a thread on S&T with your game and look for comments. Let's see people like this approach in your game. Post the current state of the world, the original game and, in you can find it, something around 2000BC. Pics help too. In any case, this whole question has gotten too complex for this thread.

 

I actually was at this stage of the game when I made the first question. Sorry for the confusion. It's the late early game to mid game I feel I struggle the most with, which was why I asked about what techs and so forth to choose. The beginning of the game is easier to get right I feel, but later on when the research tree opens up more it becomes a "kid in the candystore" dilemma - sort of. Hard to choose and to know what is best in any given situation. But I suppose it's near impossible to answer this without context.

Anyway, I came over this site with combat calculations. Any idea if it is correct?

The reason I'm pussled is that I tried to put in the chances of a knight vs praetorian. With a flat city it gives the knight 75% win chance, which increases to 80% with Combat I promotion. But when I add Shock, the win chance remains at c. 80%. Maybe it doesn't calculate all the promotions correct? Surely shock on a knight vs praetorian should help the knight's chances a good lot

 

In multiplayer, if you rename units, are the other players able to see the names you give them?

 

I ended up retiring after Mao landed troops outside my new capital.

The game was Marathon/Darius/Noble/Terra.

 

Another question. Sorry for asking so many.

I had just finished training a workboat in my city. When choosing my next project, I clicked on Explorer, which was supposed to complete in 17 turns. When it showed up in the progress bar below the city name, it was 80 turns. What changed? No anarchy.

 

Sounds like the city governor (i.e. the computer) is automatically changing the tiles you're working based on what you're producing. Often it works well, but occasionally it can do things you don't want it to. To force a city to work the tiles you want it to (e.g. hammer tiles for more production), double click the city to open up the city screen. The white circles you see on the tiles are your citizens, and the little faces over to the right are your specialists. You can click tiles and use the +/- buttons next to available specialists to reassign your citizens as you see fit.

Here, you might want to shift the white circles to all be on tiles which have a lot of hammers if you want to produce the Explorer fast. Just don't forget that once you start manually changing citizens, the computer will stop automatically doing it for you - so you have to remember to change it back later, or else your city might stagnate or not work newly improved tiles. The high-level players will usually place all citizens manually, but if this level of micromanagement does not interest you, you can always turn the city governor back on by clicking the relevant icon on the bottom of the city screen (to the right of the unit/building choices - mouse over the little icons until you find the right one).

Hope that helps a little.

 

Did you move around (Or remove) any production?
F

 

The city's population assignment governor values city population growth pretty highly. There is some sort of prioritization where a build that takes some amount longer than it would take to grow if working high food plots, or something around that sort of timing, will cause it to try to grow first. After the city population increases it will tend to switch back to higher production plots, since the remaining build time is lower and the time it will take to grow again is probably longer so it no longer hits the trigger condition to switch to high food plots for growth. This may result in the actual build time being only slightly longer or the same, or occasionally lower I suppose (if the growth is quick enough and it works an extra high production plot like a mine), than the original estimate since the city is working one more plot (or specialist). If the focus button is activated it seems to be less likely to do this, but I think it still does so on occasion.

 

i can find a map that i have been assured IS in here

its the equal islands occ v2 beta map

i looked and looked

any help would be greatly appreciated

 

Yes, that was it. I moved one of those circles over a mine and it went back down to 18. I usually aim for massive empires and play on Marathon level. A game would take me a month if I micromanaged that much, so I prefer to let the computer do it.

Thank you so much.

I have another question if you're not ready to choke me out.

On the Civics screen, when I hover over Vassalage, it says +11 free units. How do I get those?

 

No worries, glad to help!

The Vassalage civic bonus is rather poorly worded. "Free units" refers to reduced military upkeep costs, not physical units that you get for free. (Though that would be exceptionally powerful if true!)

Usually you pay the order of 1 gold per 1-2 units after owning a certain threshold number of units (the threshold changes depending on your population). The bonus from Vassalage increases that number, effectively saving you a small amount of gold per turn if you have a large army. That's all... so you're not missing anything.

 

Ok, good. Thanks again. I'm playing now so there's a 99.6% chance that I'll have more questions.

 

I have a question as well, regarding coastal cities. Starting up this save again I see that the planned city spot with the crab (edit: not crap! ), lamb and rather many floodplains could become a mammoth of a great people farm if I can manage the happiness and health (I first just saw two food sources). Production will be crap, but oh well.

Map:

Spoiler :

However, my question is about its location in terms of making it a coastal city with access to foreign trade, lighthouse and whatever else is good about coastal cities. Will its location on top of the left wine make it a coastal city? In other words, if you place a city diagonally from a coastal tile, will it count as a coastal city, or does it have to be directly on the coast, for example 1W or 1S in this case?

Will it get connected to my capital via that river and delta diagonically NW, or must I road down there?

Kind of the same question about irrigated farms too after Civil Service. Will farms get irrigated if you link them diagonally, or must they be horisontally or vertically aligned to become irrigated?

 

How can you tell if your city is capable of producing a world wonder?

I've a city (The Hague from Holand) and it has much hammers, on Marathon speed it is producing Longbowman every 5 turns, which is quick. I asked for the city to make the Statue of Zeus, but after 5 turns it said it cannot continue making it

I do not know why. I'm Noble level BTW if that makes any difference. Here'a pic of said city:

Spoiler :

 

It just means another civilization built it before you could finish it. Since there can only be one world wonder of each type, you get gold for the hammers you have invested instead.

It helps a great deal for wonder building to have marble or stone, depending on the wonder (double production speed).

You city is fine, and a base of 19 hammers is pretty good, and more when you develop it further. Particularly if you can feed some workshops. With the right terrain you can get a pretty absurd amount of hammers, particularly when taking production buildings into account, such as forge.

 

EDIT: Double post.