Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[s.bernbaum]

The +90 from building a cottage on a forested grassland is the result of removing the forest. This is referred to as "chopping" by many here at civfanatics. It is a one-time bonus. Usually the number is not quite so high, so I suspect you have -increasing modifiers such as buildings such as forges or factories, civics such as organized religion, or leader traits such as Creative, where leaders have double production speed of theatres (at least in vanilla).

Correct unless playing Marathon with Mathematics already researched. In that case all chops in the BFC are +90 hammers.

 

[Jake Blues]

Ok, now I get it. I read about how a lot of people chop forests, but is it worth it to give up the health benefits just for a one time bonus?

 

[Jake Blues]

Now that I understand the +, I want to be able to use them effectively.

If my workers finish chopping a forest when I have 2 turns left on a settler, are the extra wasted or are they applied to my next build? What is the best strategy for timing the chops? Do you guys use chopping to pound out workers and settlers or do you wait until it's war time and chop out military units?

 

[God-Emperor]

A forest is worth half a health point.

Being a little unhealthy is not a serious problem for a city. The only real effect (other than in some mods) is to have each population point over the number you can have before hitting the health limit consume 3 food instead of 2. This is a minor problem. Example: If you can have 9 population with health = unhealth and are at that population of 9, then the effect of losing 1 health point due to chopping 2 or 3 forests is that the city consumes 1 extra food. Usually the only thing losing 1 food does is slow your growth a little, unless your food production was equal to your consumption in which case you need to produce at least 1 more food or slowly starve down to 1 population point less. The immediate gain (at marathon speed, post Mathematics tech) is 180 or 270 extra production right now for those 2 or 3 forests. With that much production you might get a wonder you would not have gotten, or you could build enough defenses to save the city from being captured in the not too distant future, or build some extra attackers to take a city with, or other things.

If you have an odd number of forests in the city's BFC, chopping 1 will have no effect at all since half a health point does exactly nothing for you (it is rounded down when adding the effects of the forests).

I chop less than most people seem to (instead of going purely for short term benefits, I prefer to get enough short term benefits to insure that I get to the point where the long term benefits of things can have an effect which, in the long run, has a greater total benefit if you survive to see the "long run"), but even I do generally chop at least half the forests in my city BFCs. In particular, it is good to clear many that are right next to the city since you do not want an invader to get the defensive bonus while sitting next to your city. That is purely for reasons other than the immediate production benefit, so you'd frequently want to do it even if you got no production from doing so - the production bonus is just a very nice side effect.

 

[Jake Blues]

Ok, good info.

This is the best, most helpful gaming forum I've ever seen. And I've been playing games since Pong on a 13" black and white tv...

 

[Lord Parkin]

But what is the +90?

It's the one-time bonus hammers you get from chopping down the forests. Think of it as all the lumber going into raw building materials for whatever you're producing. (Doesn't quite make sense with some units, but hey, it's a game.)

Another question. I have a city with 21 population and all the food they could possibly eat, but they are due to overpopulation. Is this when I hit the avoid growth button? I've never used it before.

The avoid growth button is something that's only ever occasionally useful, and only temporarily. For instance, you may want to prevent a city from growing into unhappiness and starving itself, until you get your next happiness building. Regardless, it is not a button that should be turned on and left on - and it's all too easy to forget about it and come back dozens of turns later to a city much smaller than it should have been. Use it sporadically, if at all.

Generally if you have unhappy/unhealthy/starving cities, the best solution is to whip away population using Slavery. This effectively converts the excess citizens which are contributing little to nothing extra into hammers which can be used to finish items faster. For instance, you could whip a Forge in a city at its happiness limit to gain additional happiness (as well as a hammer bonus), and then grow back to an even larger size.

 

[Jake Blues]

Ok, confused again.

I was chopping a jungle two tiles away from a city. The city had 8 turns to go to finish a forge, and it took me 4 turns to chop the jungle. When they were finished chopping, it still took me 4 turns to finish the forge. Where did the hammers go? What am I missing here?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Ok, confused again.

I was chopping a jungle two tiles away from a city. The city had 8 turns to go to finish a forge, and it took me 4 turns to chop the jungle. When they were finished chopping, it still took me 4 turns to finish the forge. Where did the hammers go? What am I missing here?

Only forests get you extra hammers when chopped down. Jungles give you no bonus hammers.

Perhaps this is slightly unrealistic, but it serves to distinguish the tiles in the game. Planting a city in the middle of a large forest is very good. Planting a city in the middle of a large jungle is usually not a good idea, at least early on. Jungle is always bad in Civ4, and you'll almost always want to cut it down rather than leaving it around - with the possible exception of the National Park city (though this is usually better placed amidst tundra forests). The one good thing about jungle is that it yields grassland when cut down - and as some quite nice resources tend to appear in jungle, once it's cut down you'll have some rather nice tile yields to look forward to.

Think of settling a city near jungle like an investment. Initially it's bad, but once you've invested the Worker turns it turns out pretty well. It's better to avoid jungle right at the start of the game, where there is better land available which you can get immediate use from without many invested Worker turns. (Plus of course, you can't cut jungle until Iron Working.)

 

[Jake Blues]

Only forests get you extra hammers when chopped down. Jungles give you no bonus hammers.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Regarding jungles: although forest tiles give ½ health point each, jungle tiles give negative (-1 or -½, not sure which) health points each.

 

[Pangaea]

Figured I'd try to spread some religions to increase happiness without the natural spread, but I can't build missionaries as the option is greyed out and it says I need a monastery. But I don't see a monastery of any kind in the building list for any of the cities. What's up with that?

 

[UnforcedError]

Figured I'd try to spread some religions to increase happiness without the natural spread, but I can't build missionaries as the option is greyed out and it says I need a monastery. But I don't see a monastery of any kind in the building list for any of the cities. What's up with that?

You will need the tech 'Meditation' to build monasteries, or you have to be in Organized Religion (civic) to build missionaries without them.

Edit: maybe you have obsoleted monasteries already (Scientific Method)? In that case OR is the only way to go.

 

[Pangaea]

You will need the tech 'Meditation' to build monasteries, or you have to be in Organized Religion (civic) to build missionaries without them.

Edit: maybe you have obsoleted monasteries already (Scientific Method)? In that case OR is the only way to go.

Ah, isn't that typical. The only tech I don't have from the first page or so, and none of the other tossers want to trade it, oddly enough. Will change to Organized religion and see if that works. Thanks.

 

[Pangaea]

It worked

One more question. What happens when you are producing units that cost less than the city is producing a turn? Will the overflow keep adding up or am I effectively losing ?

 

[64cartridge]

Hiya! I recently got back into civ, originally abandoning it due to computer problems. I'm Playing IV, and have vanilla, warlords, and BTS.
I have allot fo questions, but in particularly, I would like too know
A: How to edit maps (ect: edit premade maps, edit maps without starting a game). I'm particularly interested in this becuase it always nerfs me when I see Newfoundland as a tundra in the games earth map, then jsut look out my window and see the inacuracy, I know that theres probably a billion more places that were done a bit less then percise like that, but I can tell that one is off.

B: Even moreso, I woudl love if somebody could explain too me how to add flavour units, particularly ones for induvidual civilisations.

- Thanks, sorry if posting about civ iv is outdated by now.

- And sorry if this is posted on the wrong thread.

 

[UnforcedError]

It worked

One more question. What happens when you are producing units that cost less than the city is producing a turn? Will the overflow keep adding up or am I effectively losing ?

The overflow will keep adding up or be converted into gold, so it will never be completely lost (check out this article about the mechanisms (the last section about the Protective trait does not work with the latest patch, though)).

Hiya! I recently got back into civ, originally abandoning it due to computer problems. I'm Playing IV, and have vanilla, warlords, and BTS.
I have allot fo questions, but in particularly, I would like too know
A: How to edit maps (ect: edit premade maps, edit maps without starting a game). I'm particularly interested in this becuase it always nerfs me when I see Newfoundland as a tundra in the games earth map, then jsut look out my window and see the inacuracy, I know that theres probably a billion more places that were done a bit less then percise like that, but I can tell that one is off.

B: Even moreso, I woudl love if somebody could explain too me how to add flavour units, particularly ones for induvidual civilisations.

- Thanks, sorry if posting about civ iv is outdated by now.

- And sorry if this is posted on the wrong thread.

Welcome to the forums No, you're in the right thread. And Civ 4 is not outdated, I'd personally prefer it to Civ 5 any day.
The easiest way to edit maps is using the worldbuilder before starting to play the game. If you want to create flavor units for your games too, you'll have to mod the game. Check out the Creation and Customization threads about them.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

...sorry if posting about civ iv is outdated by now.

Never!

Civ 4 is not outdated, I'd personally prefer it to Civ 5 any day.

I was gonna say that in fifty years, you'll probably still be seeing me and a few other diehards talking about how crappy Civ17 is. "Gimme BTS any day!"

Shoot, people still talk strategies on the Civ1 and Civ2 forums. Those came out, like, last millenium.

 

[Pangaea]

The overflow will keep adding up or be converted into gold, so it will never be completely lost (check out this article about the mechanisms (the last section about the Protective trait does not work with the latest patch, though)).

Thanks, good to know it wasn't totally lost.

 

[Lord Parkin]

The overflow will keep adding up or be converted into gold, so it will never be completely lost (check out this article about the mechanisms (the last section about the Protective trait does not work with the latest patch, though)).

Actually, I believe overflow hammers no longer convert into gold for units and buildings. It used to be like you describe, but was (mistakenly, in my opinion) changed in a more recent patch. Thus, if you have more than the maximum number of overflow hammers, they may go to waste.

Maximum overflow hammers = whichever is greater out of [cost of item being built] or [hammers per turn produced in city, including multipliers].

Thus if you're producing a Granary on normal speed (60 hammers), then you could have up to 60 hammers of overflow (120/60) - or more if your city naturally produces more hammers per turn than 60.

At least, that's my understanding of it.

 

[Pangaea]

Nuts! So if you are producing axes and such in a Heroic Epic city you may lose lots of hammers then?

In my case there was also a Golden Age when I asked about this, which made it 'worse'.

Think some of it must have been converted to gold though, because I was running with a slight gold negative research and after a while I noticed the gold had increased about 100 or so. Would be nice if you could produce more than one unit a turn in such circumstancse though.