Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Silv Something]

How do I turn off huts and events in a "play now" game?

I believe you'd have to create a custom game for that.
To get rid of huts in a "play now" game, one could go into worldbuilder and delete every hut on the map, but that would be quite time consuming and you wouldn't be able to get rid of random events.

 

[Psyringe]

I had just finished building something in one of my cities and that screen "what do you want to build next" popped up. I must of hit something by accident because now there is a red circle with a line going through it after the city name (on the game play map). Now my city is building nothing and I can't get that symbol to go away. It's the same symbol that you see right after you b\uild something and right before you start something else. I went about 3 or 4 turns and I still can't get it going again. what can I do?

From your description I don't see what's preventing you from entering the city and issuing a new build order?

 

[Brian5150]

I wasn't sure how to issue a new build order. I did figure it out though - by accident.
Thanks
Brian

 

[Slythe]

Hello all. I bought this fantastic game under a week ago and I'm still just trying to take it all in. I'm sure my questions have been answered elsewhere already, but I've read several different strategy articles and many other random posts while searching and I didn't find the answers, so here goes.

1) I know that trade routes for a city are limited in number and automatically decided, but I'm curious if it's based on whichever are the most profitable, and more importantly, if they can change if newer more profitable routes are possible. More specifically, say a city has its only two trade routes with my own nearest cities, but I make contact with a large distant foreign port city that would yield greater returns, will this automatically replace one of my domestic trade routes ?

2) Aside from wonders, buildings, or techs that give a boost to a specific type of GP percentage points (like the TGP, Stonehenge, etc.), does increasing the number of specialists of a specific type in a city also increase the corresponding percentage of that specialist? I ask because I had a city that built Stonehenge, so it had 100% great prophet, but later I built a library and went into the city screen and added 1 scientist specialist but I didn't see the great scientist percentage change right away. At first I thought that maybe it had no bearing on how the percentages were decided, but later I realized that maybe I just needed to let it run for a turn first? Later on I checked back and that city had a substantial GP percentage devoted to scientist, but I hadn't built any wonders that increased great scientist points, although the city did have a scientist specialist added for quite some time that I didn't realize.

3) Do barbarians vanish from the world after a certain era or amount of time? That would make sense, though I haven't specifically read that anywhere or played long enough to see for myself.

4) I recently built the Great Wall for the first time, in my capital. When I did, I had 4 cities. My capital and its nearest neighbor were connected by a culture boundary, but the other two were very new and only had their surrounding 8 tile boundary, disconnected from anyone else. Graphically the game placed the wall around the culture boundary of the city that built it which included its nearest neighbor. As the other two cities' culture boundaries expanded to connect to my capitals', nothing changed graphically on the map. My question is, will barbarians be prevented from entering all of my cities' individual culture boundaries, or only the initial graphical representation of my capital and its nearest neighbor, or only the cities whose culture boundary is connected to the city that built TGW?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[Ansive]

1. Yes, trade routes manage themselves as to bring in the most profit, biggest coastal cities usually get the premium foreign cities. I believe you can manipulate which cities get the best routes by modifying its size. (you can sometimes get more than 50% of the commerce in a coastal city just by trade routes)

2. That's how you get the bulk of great people points, through specialists. I believe they yield 3 points per turn per specialist, while wonders about 1 or 2. The more great people you get, the more expensive they become (time).

3. Don't remember, but I think if they still have land they stick around.

4. Great wall uses your cultural borders, even if they expand, even for new cities. Don't remember if it works on other continents.

 

[s.bernbaum]

How do I turn off huts and events in a "play now" game?

You can't in a regular "Play Now" game. However, if you choose Custom Game, you an turn off the huts and events and leave everything else untouched. Then choose your map and leader (or random leader) and start the game - it will be the same as what you get from Play Now but with the huts and event off.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Hello all. I bought this fantastic game under a week ago and I'm still just trying to take it all in. I'm sure my questions have been answered elsewhere already, but I've read several different strategy articles and many other random posts while searching and I didn't find the answers, so here goes.

1) I know that trade routes for a city are limited in number and automatically decided, but I'm curious if it's based on whichever are the most profitable, and more importantly, if they can change if newer more profitable routes are possible. More specifically, say a city has its only two trade routes with my own nearest cities, but I make contact with a large distant foreign port city that would yield greater returns, will this automatically replace one of my domestic trade routes ?

2) Aside from wonders, buildings, or techs that give a boost to a specific type of GP percentage points (like the TGP, Stonehenge, etc.), does increasing the number of specialists of a specific type in a city also increase the corresponding percentage of that specialist? I ask because I had a city that built Stonehenge, so it had 100% great prophet, but later I built a library and went into the city screen and added 1 scientist specialist but I didn't see the great scientist percentage change right away. At first I thought that maybe it had no bearing on how the percentages were decided, but later I realized that maybe I just needed to let it run for a turn first? Later on I checked back and that city had a substantial GP percentage devoted to scientist, but I hadn't built any wonders that increased great scientist points, although the city did have a scientist specialist added for quite some time that I didn't realize.

3) Do barbarians vanish from the world after a certain era or amount of time? That would make sense, though I haven't specifically read that anywhere or played long enough to see for myself.

4) I recently built the Great Wall for the first time, in my capital. When I did, I had 4 cities. My capital and its nearest neighbor were connected by a culture boundary, but the other two were very new and only had their surrounding 8 tile boundary, disconnected from anyone else. Graphically the game placed the wall around the culture boundary of the city that built it which included its nearest neighbor. As the other two cities' culture boundaries expanded to connect to my capitals', nothing changed graphically on the map. My question is, will barbarians be prevented from entering all of my cities' individual culture boundaries, or only the initial graphical representation of my capital and its nearest neighbor, or only the cities whose culture boundary is connected to the city that built TGW?

Thanks for any replies.

Ansive covered #1 and #2 well.

3) Barbarians do not vanish. If they already exist they will continue to do so. It there is still land that is not visible to any civ later in the game, it will still spawn barbarians. I have repeatedly visited isolated single tile islands with no sea food, so no civ ever claims them throughout a game to pick up a few XP for new ships, well into the industrial era. As long as a fair amount of time has passed since my last visit during which I destroyed all the barbarian galleys there, I always find a barbarian galley or two there. Similarly, when visiting sizable previously undiscovered islands late in the game, there are always barbarians there, often with their own city.

4) The Great Wall protects all of your cultural territory, including territory and cities founded after building it. The graphic of the wall is just for looks, it does not define the limits of protected land.

 

[Slythe]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm on the right track, as the answers were what I suspected (except for #3).

 

[Brian5150]

Just for the heck of it, I loaded up the game I am playing without putting in the civ iv game disk and it let me play. I know nothing about computers, but I thought you had to have the disk in to play. will the game play different or what's going on?

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Just for the heck of it, I loaded up the game I am playing without putting in the civ iv game disk and it let me play. I know nothing about computers, but I thought you had to have the disk in to play. will the game play different or what's going on?

I'm not sure when it changed, but it's my understanding that Vanilla, Warlords and early BtS required the CD. As of 3.19 (and I think a couple older patches) you don't need it to play. That was a pleasant surpise when I lost my CD in a move.

 

[Lord Parkin]

4) The Great Wall protects all of your cultural territory, including territory and cities founded after building it. The graphic of the wall is just for looks, it does not define the limits of protected land.

This is correct, although it's important to clarify that the Great Wall does not protect any cultural territory over water - i.e. barbarian Galleys can still enter your borders and pillage your seafood. This makes some sense logically (a wall on land shouldn't stop ships), but it can get confusing because the wall stops barbarian land units even where the wall isn't shown to be built.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm not sure when it changed, but it's my understanding that Vanilla, Warlords and early BtS required the CD. As of 3.19 (and I think a couple older patches) you don't need it to play. That was a pleasant surpise when I lost my CD in a move.

I'm pretty sure it was only the last patch (3.19) where the need for the disk was removed. So as long as you have installed Civ4 BTS and have patched it to the latest patch (3.19), you won't need to use your disk thereafter.

 

[Brian5150]

I'm pretty sure it was only the last patch (3.19) where the need for the disk was removed. So as long as you have installed Civ4 BTS and have patched it to the latest patch (3.19), you won't need to use your disk thereafter.

Sorry, but what does it mean to "patch" something? Like I said, I'm not too good with computers

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Sorry, but what does it mean to "patch" something? Like I said, I'm not too good with computers

I'm no computer guru either, but here's the layman's version. A patch is some sort of fix or add-on that program developers release after a program is on the market. ("Patch" like sewing patches on ragged clothes, I assume.) In the case of BtS there were several, the last two being 3.17 and 3.19. After the game was released, the designers presumably lurked around CFC for a few weeks waiting to see what problems or glitches there were. They programmed a fix-it, released it as "Patch # Whatever", and made it available to download if you have the game. 3.19 was the last one they made (quite a while ago), so BtS 3.19 is the most up-to-date version of Civ4.

 

[rogue131]

Why does it seem like the AI has a "armageddon size" army in ten turns, when it takes nearly ten turns on marathon to build a friggin horse archer?

 

[kcd_swede]

Why does it seem like the AI has a "armageddon size" army in ten turns, when it takes nearly ten turns on marathon to build a friggin horse archer?

If you are playing at higher difficulty level than Noble, the AI get production bonuses (increasing with increasing difficulty). It is often also possible to build two older units for every advanced unit, in terms of production capacity. They also pay very little or almost nothing to upgrade units. Drafting and using slavery to rush units are also to be expected, and/or Universal Sufferage buying of units (which they also get at discount at higher levels). In addition, inside their own territory, they usually have roads and can move much faster than you can... and they will.

You should check the power graphs often, and the diplo screen showing what techs they have. You may not see a lot of units, but the power graph lets you know if they are out of site. Even better, scout your opponent well to determine where the armageddom stack is before you declare war. If you see one massing on your border, expect them to declare war (also check that if they refuse to be bribed to war because "we have enough on our hands right now" even though they aren't in another war, it means they are planning one.

 

[Brian5150]

Thanks for the answer about the patch. For not being a "computer guru", that was a pretty good answer (and I understood it!!)
Question about trade: When I trade something (like gems for furs) does that mean I don't have the use of the item I traded anymore? If I need to make citizens happy, would it be good to get the gems back?

 

[kcd_swede]

Thanks for the answer about the patch. For not being a "computer guru", that was a pretty good answer (and I understood it!!)
Question about trade: When I trade something (like gems for furs) does that mean I don't have the use of the item I traded anymore? If I need to make citizens happy, would it be good to get the gems back?

Yes, that is right. You give up the gems and all its benefits. But you only need 1 gems to have all the happiness you can get from gems, so if it is a duplicate resource you are trading away, it doesn't cost you anything.

 

[Ansive]

Some more tidbits..

For the happiness, health, unit availability and wonder production bonuses you only need 1 resource. You may trade all extra resources without losing anything.

A few factors might be worth considering.
If you have 2 gems for example, and one of the mines get pillaged you lose your happiness bonus (the active trade stands). If the second one also gets pillaged the trade is off and you get a negative diplomacy modifier.
You can sometimes trade your single resources for something else you might really need (iron, copper), you lose those bonuses while the trade stands.

Sometimes giving away some extras might keep some angry neighbors sated.

You may also demand your vassals single resources. (and risk a rebellion)

Trades can be cancelled without any ill diplomatic effects after a set number of turns (10-20, can't remember)

 

[Hortulanus]

Question about trade: When I trade something (like gems for furs) does that mean I don't have the use of the item I traded anymore? If I need to make citizens happy, would it be good to get the gems back?

Note that both gems and furs give happiness. If you cancel the trade, you'll gain happiness from the gems, but lose it from furs. However, gems give an additional happiness in cities with forges; furs an additional happiness in cities with markets. Which resource is better for you depends on how your cities are developed.

Finally the trade gives you a diplomatic benefit. You can get up to a +2 diplomatic modifier for "We appreciate the years you have provided us with resources". I'll sometimes swap equivalent resources, for example, clams for crabs, just to get the diplomatic benefit, even though the trade makes no sense otherwise.