Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[bestbrian]

Aw c'mon, you can't tell me that you don't know that Financial is winning every "most favorite trait" poll in this forum, for years. Examples are here, here and here, you can probably find lots more if you dig a bit deeper in the forum search. I think I even remember one poll where Financial was excluded because the poll author expected it to win anyway and therefore "pollute" the ranking of the other traits.

The fact that some high-end players believe that it's overrated doesn't change the fact that it is (as Turquoiside states) the most popular trait on these forums, pretty much from day one. It's a also a very versatile trait that runs well with many strategies, and (imho) is indeed one of the best traits up to Emperor difficulty, for single player games. It loses its appeal at the highest difficulty levels, where the AI gets insane bonuses, and having a bit more trade doesn't provide much of a benefit to the player - but at these levels, Civ becomes a very different game altogether, and most forum members can't or won't enjoy to play those. In multiplayer, it's obviously less poweful as well because it doesn't provide any direct bonus to the military, which is the focus of multiplayer gaming. But for the games that most Civ players play - single player games up to Emperor level -, Financial is indeed one of the most powerful traits.

I concur. Very well said. A one commerce bonus may not seem like much, but early to midgame, if you have the right tiles (a start with heavy seafood, for example), it can lead to the start of a significant snowballing tech lead pre-Pottery, and being first to BW opens up a lot of options.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

Does the "AI" change the CivilizationIV.ini file?

I have the .ini file without intro movies but sometimes that line goes back to default (with intro movies)... any clues on how\why it happens? It's probably related with loading and unloading MOD's... any ideas on this?

 

[Ansive]

Ever tried making it read only? (it works with some programs)

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

No, I never tried. But will give it a go if it happens again.

 

[Lord Parkin]

In multiplayer, it's obviously less poweful as well because it doesn't provide any direct bonus to the military, which is the focus of multiplayer gaming.

Depends on the type of multiplayer game. In a highly competitive 1 vs 1 duel environment where the outcome is more likely to be decided in the first 100 turns, Financial is less useful than other alternatives (such as Aggressive, Creative, Industrious, and Expansive). In larger scale multiplayer games that are likely to run for 200-300 turns, Financial is extremely powerful. Especially if tech trading is off (as is typical in many multiplayer games), but even if it's on it's still very good to have.

In the many large-scale competitive Pitboss games I've played in over the years, I've seen the same thing again and again: if the Financial leaders aren't banned by a house rule, then they're almost always picked preferentially over the other leaders. Really the only cases where they aren't is where someone is deliberately trying to handicap themselves or just have a bit of fun.

So yeah, Financial is definitely the preference in multiplayer too (aside from in cramped and/or quick matches).

I concur. Very well said. A one commerce bonus may not seem like much, but early to midgame, if you have the right tiles (a start with heavy seafood, for example), it can lead to the start of a significant snowballing tech lead pre-Pottery, and being first to BW opens up a lot of options.

Actually the primary benefit of Financial is for cottages, especially riverside cottages. In my experience, seafood tiles will play only a minor role in Financial's benefit in most games - though they are of course still useful.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The Apostolic Palace obsoletes once the owner gets Mass Media. Is it gone permanently after that; what if someone without mass media captures it?

 

[Danelius90]

Does the "AI" change the CivilizationIV.ini file?

I have the .ini file without intro movies but sometimes that line goes back to default (with intro movies)... any clues on how\why it happens? It's probably related with loading and unloading MOD's... any ideas on this?

I think I've had occurrences like this possibly because the ingame option is ticked but the ini file said something different. I think my situation was the game was ticked as full screen, but the ini file said windowed mode but Civ opened in fullscreen anyway. Not sure why that would happen, but in your case it may help to turn off movies. Unless you want ingame movies.

 

[strijder20]

The Apostolic Palace obsoletes once the owner gets Mass Media. Is it gone permanently after that; what if someone without mass media captures it?

No idea.
I found out this, though:
When you have Mass Media and the owner of the AP does not, you still get the hammers from religious buildings.
When the owner of AP has Mass Media and you do not, you do NOT get the hammers from religious buildings anymore.

 

[AFS]

I not a very high level player, but I am OK. My understanding is that it is rarely a good idea to use the Stop Growth button, but not never. You can usually make use of the population somehow, with clever use of the whip or by building settlers or workers. Sometimes the rate for growth is too much, and a size 10 city with 4 angry faces will cost more maintenance than a size 6 city, so there is a down side of letting them grow.

Either make 'em happy, whip them, reassign them to other productive tiles (with less food), or use specialists (0 food). You rarely need to use the stagnation button.

In my opinion, it depends upon your appetite for micro-management. In general, turning on stagnation requires less MM. Both Samson's and Ansive's takes are more optimal, no question, but not every player has an appetite for pursuing optimal play through intense MM. (The BUG mod helps in this regard by making optimal whipping points more transparent, along with the ability to set reminders to whip, change tile/specialist assignements, etc.)

That being said, there is one MM task you must remember to perform, and that's turning stagnation off when the city can once again grow without adverse effects. I think this may be the biggest argument against using the feature; if you're turning it on to avoid having to check and adjust the status of every city on every turn, you'll most likely forget to turn it off and find your cities stagnating when they have room to grow.

Thanks for the replies.

I guess I'll still use the button only if there is no other option (like in the early game). I'll use whiping and specialist more

 

[nfw]

I seem to recall one game I conquered the AP city (which was also the UN city), and I got hammers ( I didn't have mass media), can't remember if any votes came up though.

 

[PaperChase]

How may I choose the number of opponents before starting a game?

If you mean from single player offline then just select custom game from startup menu. Then unselect the AIs from there.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Can't find the figures for how many hammers a great engineer provides for hurry production of wonders. Anyone know?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Can't find the figures for how many hammers a great engineer provides for hurry production of wonders. Anyone know?

On normal speed, I'm pretty sure it's 500 + 20*population of the city he's in. So for a size 12 city, a Great Engineer would give 740 hammers on normal speed. That was the case last time I checked, anyway.

Note that this means that depending on the situation, you may be better off rushing a wonder in a larger city than a smaller one - if the hammer discrepancy means the difference between completing the wonder in 1 turn vs only getting partway there.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Cheers.

If anyone in the La Nina PBEM is reading this, I'm totally not planning to rush the Taj Mahal after heavily whipping the Mausoleum of Demis Roussos

 

[krikav]

The good thing with financial is the extra commerce, this is awesome and can't be denied.

The bad thing is that you get severely limited in your choices.
If you have floodplains, you are pretty much forced to put cottages there asap, running specialists becomes less of a option.

 

[Archon_Wing]

No idea.
I found out this, though:
When you have Mass Media and the owner of the AP does not, you still get the hammers from religious buildings.
When the owner of AP has Mass Media and you do not, you do NOT get the hammers from religious buildings anymore.

I know that. Mass Media only obsoletes if it's the owner, and also why I avoid it if I self built the AP.

My only worry is that when the AP isn't in my interest and they've already gotten MM. I could just raze the city, but any AI city that has wonders usually tends to be decent.

 

[Michkov]

How is the total amount of hammers per turn calculated. For one city, with modifiers etc

 

[Ansive]

Tiles + Specialists + Buildings = base number of hammers

Then apply the total modifier, 25% forge, 25% factory, 50% power, 10% state property (these work for anything you build)

To that modifier also add up other bonuses according what you're building
- buildings 25% bonus from organized religion
- units 50% bonus from military academy
- water units 50% bonus from dry dock
- some wonders, bonus from religious trait
- all wonders 50% from industrious
- some wonders, 50-100% bonus from resources

For example...

Building the Pyramids with 2 grassland hill mines and a grassland iron mine, one engineer, forge, organized religion, industrious and stone, would yield...

3 + 3 + 4 tiles + 2 engineer = 12 hammers
25% forge + 25% OR + 50% industrious + 100% stone = 200%

Total hammers per turn 12 + 200% * 12 = 36

 

[Skallagrimson]

I concur. Very well said. A one commerce bonus may not seem like much, but early to midgame, if you have the right tiles (a start with heavy seafood, for example), it can lead to the start of a significant snowballing tech lead pre-Pottery, and being first to BW opens up a lot of options.

FIN incrases commerce, and commerce in turn is robbed out from under you via maintenance. Early game, maintenance stands in the way of really leveraging the FIN trait, which means either stay small (and militarily weak) or toss your trait advantage out the window.

Land is power; land is grabbed by expansion; expansion is better funded through ORG (since it reduces that which in turn reduces your commerce).

As the game progresses, ORG continues to supply the same bonus, while proportionally FIN reduces its benefit (as a fraction of a cottage/hamlet/village/town's core commerce yield).

So early game FIN is nerfed by maintenance; then mid and late game it's nerfed by ...itself.

 

[Sisiutil]

FIN incrases commerce, and commerce in turn is robbed out from under you via maintenance. Early game, maintenance stands in the way of really leveraging the FIN trait, which means either stay small (and militarily weak) or toss your trait advantage out the window.

Land is power; land is grabbed by expansion; expansion is better funded through ORG (since it reduces that which in turn reduces your commerce).

As the game progresses, ORG continues to supply the same bonus, while proportionally FIN reduces its benefit (as a fraction of a cottage/hamlet/village/town's core commerce yield).

So early game FIN is nerfed by maintenance; then mid and late game it's nerfed by ...itself.

Sorry, but this is a common misconception about the Organized trait.

Organized does NOT reduce city maintenance costs, as you seem to be implying. Not one iota. It DOES reduce civics costs, but early in the game you're running the starting civics which are low cost/no cost anyway. Granted, Organized makes courthouses faster and easier to build, but those don't come along until Code of Laws, which is no longer the "early game".

As for city maintenance, it affects every trait equally. Financial has an advantage in the early game because by working the right tiles it gets a leg up on easing the cost of maintenance right away.

For me, the main disadvantages of Financial are (1) no accelerated buildings (a downside it shares only with the Charismatic trait--thus, Hannibal gets screwed over in this regard); and (2) it relies heavily on tile improvements (cottages) that take a long time to come into full fruition and are extremely vulnerable to pillaging.

Financial tends to of the most benefit in the early game if you luck out in terms of your start and have several tiles around that lend themselves to its benefit (i.e. high commerce tiles like gold, gems, etc; several riverside tiles; and lots of coastal and/or lake tiles). It helps if you start with fishing, too.