Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[mrjacksplat]

1) You can check your Civ4 version from the main menu - I think by clicking first on "Advanced" and then on "About this version", but I may get the labels wrong. Anyway it should be pretty easy to find once you know where to look.

2) If you use Warlords, then you need an old (and still Warlords-compatible) version of the BUG mod. The later versions of this mod require Beyond the Sword.

3) The version you downloaded is for BtS, you cannot use it for Warlords. All Warlord versions of Civ4 have a version number beginning with 2.

4) This complicates things, since the folder where you need to install the mod may be hidden. But I have no experience with Vista, hopefully someone else can help you here.

5) See (4). On Windows XP, the folder is in My Documents\My Games\Warlords. I don't know what you mean by "command line", but in Vista, you probably can't install the mod in the "Program Files" folder - the mod wants to write some data to its folder and it isn't allowed to do that in Vista's "Program Files" folder.

Usually the installer finds the correct location by itself (assuming that Civ4 was installed correctly and has entered its path into the registry). I don't know why it doesn't in your case, using Civ Complete and Vista both may be related to the problem. I suggest asking in the BUG forum.

Thanks! I went to the bug forum and they have a walk through on installation..It works!!!

 

[s.bernbaum]

What ways are there to destroy enemy's tile improvements?
Spies and ground units can destroy them, but what about bombers or missiles?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer: no air unit has a 100% chance of destroying the improvement. That said, missiles almost always destroy the improvement, although sometimes it may take a second missile. Bombers don't always destroy it but they have a good chance. It may take two or three bomb runs to do the job. Even fighters can destroy the improvement but it usually takes several tries.

Missiles cannot be defended against but only have a four tile range. Bombers and fighters have to deal with defenders, the same as when they attack units or city defenses.

Spies and ground units like you mention. Warships can destroy seafood and ocean oil rig improvements. If your culture border expands to include a neighbor's tile and you can't use the improvement, you can destroy it with a worker by building something useless there. I have now and then built a fort where my neighbor had a town, when I did not plan to DoW on the neighbor ever and the town was not inside any of my BFCs, just to be sure it did him no good if the border shifted back to him.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

I had the same issue.
Look at you have selected an unusable voice capture device thread, especially at post 13.
I did that and is solved now.

I tried and it worked! Thanks

 

[0069twiggy]

Hey guys. I bought Civ 4 a while ago but never really started playing until now. I had a few basic questions. First, I am having trouble making money and I often have to reduce my science level below 100%. Is that normal?

Also, I was wondering how much micro management I had to do. If I let the AI automate specialists, will it do a good job? And what about what squares each city should use, can the AI manage that or should I be looking at it?

Finally, how often, if ever, should I tell the AI to focus a city on a specific thing like commerce or food ect. ?

Thanks!

 

[Sisiutil]

Hey guys. I bought Civ 4 a while ago but never really started playing until now. I had a few basic questions. First, I am having trouble making money and I often have to reduce my science level below 100%. Is that normal?

Yes. Usually once you found your 2nd city, if not before, you will have to drop the slider below 100%. A good rule of thumb for a beginner is to expand (i.e. found cities) until you must drop the slider to 60% to still be in the black, then stop expanding. Do not found or capture any more cities until the slider can rise to 70% or higher.

Also, I was wondering how much micro management I had to do. If I let the AI automate specialists, will it do a good job? And what about what squares each city should use, can the AI manage that or should I be looking at it?

This game is very much about micromanagement. No, the AI does a terrible job of managing things. How can you expect to defeat the AI if you let it run things for you?

A key concept for you to look into is the idea of city specialization--something the AI is pretty much incapable of doing. Specializing cities helps you determine and prioritize builds, tile improvements, and worked tiles within each city. There are very good articles in the War Academy on this topic.

Finally, how often, if ever, should I tell the AI to focus a city on a specific thing like commerce or food ect. ?

Not often, as you may have gathered from my answer above, though the AI tends to be a little better at this than at many other things. You're still better off managing things yourself.

 

[Psyringe]

I am having trouble making money and I often have to reduce my science level below 100%. Is that normal?

Having the science slider at 100% is an ideal (and is only obtainable with having holy cities), don't focus too much on it. Make sure that you have enough commerce (e.g. by building cottages). The science slider then determines how much of this commerce will go into your treasury and how much goes into research. If you set the science slider to 100%, then you won't be making _any_ money from commerce and (unless you have another source of money, like religion) of course will run into financial problems.

If your cities produce 80 commerce and you have the science slider at 50%, then you'll get 40 research per turn. If your city produce 30 commerce and you have the slider 100%, you'll only get 30 research per turn. Hence, don't get too focused on the slider, having a good commerce base is much more important. Usually, if you break even financially while still researching at least as fast as your rivals, you're well set.

Also, I was wondering how much micro management I had to do. If I let the AI automate specialists, will it do a good job? And what about what squares each city should use, can the AI manage that or should I be looking at it?

The AI does a somewhat shoddy job at that in vanilla Civ4, a decent job in Beyond the Sword, and a pretty good job if you use mods like "Better AI". Nevertheless, an experienced player will always be better than any AI. However, automating stuff will never make you play worse than the AI rivals. So if you enjoy micro-management, you can do it (and will find ways to manage cities much better than the AI would) - but if you don't enjoy it, you can safely automate things, it won't ruin your empire.

Finally, how often, if ever, should I tell the AI to focus a city on a specific thing like commerce or food ect. ?

City specialization is very important. Whether you do it manually or by setting an AI focus depends on your playstyle, but in general, the ability to specialize cities for military production, science, or gold, is a key skill for playing Civ4.

And welcome to Civ4 btw.

 

[Darth Fred]

I've never actually used the draft before, so I'm posting this in the hopes I can get some advice from people who have.

One advantage I can think of off the top of my head is that I need some troops and this would help. I'm guessing people won't take to kindly to it though so that would be a disadvantage of course.

As I said though, I've never used it before so I'd like to get a couple pointers from those of you that have (I'm running a Theocracy if that makes a difference).

Thanks.
F

 

[Sisiutil]

I've never actually used the draft before, so I'm posting this in the hopes I can get some advice from people who have.

One advantage I can think of off the top of my head is that I need some troops and this would help. I'm guessing people won't take to kindly to it though so that would be a disadvantage of course.

As I said though, I've never used it before so I'd like to get a couple pointers from those of you that have (I'm running a Theocracy if that makes a difference).

Thanks.
F

They key to using Nationalism/Drafting effectively is to pick a high-food city (preferably not your GP farm, though) and build the Globe Theatre there. This removes all unhappiness from the city. Once that's done, you can draft away to your heart's content in that city. The food surplus should replace the lost citizens quickly, and the Globe means that the local citizenry, sated with the fine theatrical entertainment, never complain about becoming cannon fodder. (I suspect that Civ IV's Globe keeps staging Henry V over and over again to stir them all up into a jingoistic frenzy...)

 

[bcool]

I've never actually used the draft before, so I'm posting this in the hopes I can get some advice from people who have.

One advantage I can think of off the top of my head is that I need some troops and this would help. I'm guessing people won't take to kindly to it though so that would be a disadvantage of course.

As I said though, I've never used it before so I'd like to get a couple pointers from those of you that have (I'm running a Theocracy if that makes a difference).

Thanks.
F

Drafting requires a city have at least 6 pop and it reduces the city by at least 1 pop and gives you 3 unhappiness for 10? turns (depending on game speed). Also you can only draft in a city that has at least 10% of your culture (so you can't capture an AI city and immediately reduce it to down to 5 pop drafting ever turn). You have to run several artists in the city to build up your culture first.

Depending on your military techs you get a different unit...
You get a macemen for 1 pop (civil service)
You get a musket for 1 pop (gunpowder)
You get a rifleman for 1 pop (riflery)
you get an infantry for 2 pop (assembly line)
you get a mechanized infantry for 3 pop

You can only draft in 3? cities per turn (map size dependent though)

The drafted units only get 1/2 experience regular units built in that city would get so with a barracks and theocracy drafted units would only have 2 xp.

The most efficient drafting is to draft rifleman since they only cost 1 pop to draft. One strategy to destroy the AI is to beeline riflery and nationalism and wipe the board with a massive almost instant rifleman army.

Of course an almost instant macemen or musket army supported by a decent artillery unit also works.

Drafting is especially effective as a defensive strategy as well. If someone declares on you Drafting can very quickly build up a massive defensive force. You can draft cities aggressively here since, not drafting might mean you would lose the city anyways.

With a nice food rich city you can build the Globe Theater and draft a ton of units without worrying about the happiness penalties. But even without the Globe theater city you can spread the drafting out over your empire and get a big army with only a temporary happiness penalty (that could be eliminated by raising the cultural slider if you really needed it)

 

[mrjacksplat]

If I place say watermills not in the main area, I guess you call that the fat cross? To be more specific say I have six rows north to south and six rows east to west. And I place a watermill or any improvement on the furthest outside perimeter/edge EVEN THOUGH IM NOT WORKING IT, will I still reap it's benefit?

 

[Ghpstage]

If I place say watermills not in the main area, I guess you call that the fat cross? To be more specific say I have six rows north to south and six rows east to west. And I place a watermill or any improvement on the furthest outside perimeter/edge EVEN THOUGH IM NOT WORKING IT, will I still reap it's benefit?

No. Improvements that are not being worked contribute nothing, and an improvement thats not in a cities BFC cannot contribute.

There are exceptions.
Resource improvements (mines on gold) still connect resources to your network if a valid route exists (roads etc) and the resource is in your territory, farms spread irrigation, and then theres the various things that forts do, but their purposes aren't city oriented in any way to begin with.

 

[Sisiutil]

If I place say watermills not in the main area, I guess you call that the fat cross? To be more specific say I have six rows north to south and six rows east to west. And I place a watermill or any improvement on the furthest outside perimeter/edge EVEN THOUGH IM NOT WORKING IT, will I still reap it's benefit?

You get no benefit from watermills outside a city's fat cross, so it's a waste of worker cycles to build them there.

You can benefit from some tile improvements outside the fat cross:

• A fort or improvement to claim a resource
• A farm to provide chain irrigation
• A fort to function as a canal across an isthmus
• A road or railroad to speed unit movement

But generally, improvements on non-resource tiles outside of any city's fat cross are, as I said, a waste of worker turns.

 

[Giantdeathrobot]

Hello, I need help. I recently downloaded the Buffy MOD so I can submit my games. I am running Vista so it took a long process of trial and error to actually get the damn thing to work. I also Have downloaded the Map Finder V1.9. I can not get the damn thing to work. I am playing in the Mod and trying to use the map finder and am getting the message: "Map Finder Save Path is Invalid: C:/ Program files/ Civ4_Map_Finder/ saves". I've been tinkering with it but can not get it to work. Doing research on the site suggests I should be able to see map finder options from within the Buffy Mod options menu. However I cannot see the HOF# tabs. Someone please help. I am a long time silent troll of this site and am looking to take a more active part in the community. Someone please help.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Besides what Ghpstage and Sisiutil said, there is one more reason to build an improvement inside your culture boundaries but outside the BFC. If you plan to settle a city later that will have the tile in question inside its BFC, then it is worth doing if there is nothing for the worker to do that will have a more immediate benefit.

 

[kcd_swede]

Hello, I need help. I recently downloaded the Buffy MOD so I can submit my games. I am running Vista so it took a long process of trial and error to actually get the damn thing to work. I also Have downloaded the Map Finder V1.9. I can not get the damn thing to work. I am playing in the Mod and trying to use the map finder and am getting the message: "Map Finder Save Path is Invalid: C:/ Program files/ Civ4_Map_Finder/ saves". I've been tinkering with it but can not get it to work. Doing research on the site suggests I should be able to see map finder options from within the Buffy Mod options menu. However I cannot see the HOF# tabs. Someone please help. I am a long time silent troll of this site and am looking to take a more active part in the community. Someone please help.

Just start up BtS, start a Game and press CTRL-ALT-O to get to the BUFFY interface. Click the Maps Tab and change the Civ4_Map_Finder Viewer application Path (C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\Civ4_Map_Finder\) and Civ4_Map_Finder Viewer Saves Path (C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\Civ4_Map_Finder\Saves) and current Rules file. For me, I just point the two Paths to the Civ4_Map_Finder location and the Save folder under that. The Rules file is the only thing I regularly change based on what kind of Game Starting Position I'm looking for.

For more about installing/using mapfinder, you should probably ask your questions here instead:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=280910

 

[Giantdeathrobot]

I'm not sure why but the Save path was "C:\Program Files\Civ4_Map_Finder\Saves" by default. Switched the save path and all is good. KCD_SWEDE Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[IabiMyshkin]

Hello, I have a question about creating your own scenario. I tried to find the answer amongst the forums but couldn't, help would be much appreciated.

Basically i'm trying to create my own simple scenario. Now I am not a modder and have never done much of this kind of thing before. I am keeping it very simple and mostly just using world builder with the 'Rise of Mankind- New Dawn mod'. So i'm setting up a scenario based after nuclear apocalypse. Not too worried about it being watertight and perfect. So i'm using a gigantic Earth map and using world builder to create the setting. Now obviously i'm able to name the cities what I like and everything but is there a way if changing the names of the civs and leaders?

I'm basing the parts in the USA on the world from the Fallout games, hence wanting to change civ names. I'm assuming this will be a little more difficult than messing around in world builder... ? Thanks

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm not sure why but the Save path was "C:\Program Files\Civ4_Map_Finder\Saves" by default. Switched the save path and all is good. KCD_SWEDE Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm glad to be of assistance. I don't use mapfinder much anymore since the last couple times I was not careful enough with the saved starts... submitting the wrong one or adulterating it by multiple openings of it. It's great if you're careful enough with the saves, though.

 

[MCan]

Will I loose a happy face when monuments are obsolete? I think not, but want to be sure.

 

[Ghpstage]

Will I loose a happy face when monuments are obsolete? I think not, but want to be sure.

Yes, you do lose it.