Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[TheMulattoMaker]

Random Personalities do not have anything to do with traits. Traits are immuable to leader.

I think Personalities includes things like how likely they are to go to war, how much a different religion matters to them, whether they DoW at Pleased, and that sort of thing.

Random personalities gives leaders who are currently in the game. All it means is that when you meet Mansa, he might have the personalty of Izzy or Monty or whoever. He will continue to be Spi/Fin with Skirms as his UU.

Ah, OK. Thanks everybody.

EDIT: There goes my dream of playing the Super Epic One-City Challenge of Awesomeness. Or are traits easily altered in XML?

 

[Qactus]

Does giving away your world map to the AI have any influence on the likelihood of being attacked?

 

[UnforcedError]

Does giving away your world map to the AI have any influence on the likelihood of being attacked?

Not really. The only reason you should hang onto your map is to get the circumnavigation bonus. After you got that (or if you play on a flat map) go on and make profit from selling your map to whoever you want. (Don't do the same in MP )

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Not really. The only reason you should hang onto your map is to get the circumnavigation bonus. After you got that (or if you play on a flat map) go on and make profit from selling your map to whoever you want. (Don't do the same in MP )

The AIs aren't smart enough to beat you to settling the island you just discovered?

 

[UnforcedError]

The AIs aren't smart enough to beat you to settling the island you just discovered?

Sadly, no. They aren't even smart enough to notice that you have no metal.

 

[Abegweit]

They will settle the island though. Of course if they are actually able to reach it, then your map isn't worth much since they will be busy exploring on their own.

 

[UnforcedError]

They will settle the island though. Of course if they are actually able to reach it, then your map isn't worth much since they will be busy exploring on their own.

Sure, but they will not settle it because you give them your map. They won't make any real effort to get there before you.

 

[Abegweit]

Sure, but they will not settle it because you give them your map. They won't make any real effort to get there before you.

I think you are talking something different from TMM and me. The point we're making is that they won't settle it if they don't know where it is.

 

[Ghpstage]

EDIT: There goes my dream of playing the Super Epic One-City Challenge of Awesomeness. Or are traits easily altered in XML?

If you mean changing what traits a leader has then yes, its very easy. If you go into the CIV4LeaderHeadsInfos.xml file you will find code like this under each leader

<Traits>
<Trait>
<TraitType>TRAIT_PHILOSOPHICAL</TraitType>
<bTrait>1</bTrait>
</Trait>
<Trait>
<TraitType>TRAIT_AGGRESSIVE</TraitType>
<bTrait>1</bTrait>
</Trait>
</Traits>

Changing them just involves changing the text here (make sure its the right leader!), and while I have never tried it, you should be able to add extra traits for a leader by copying this bit

<Trait>
<TraitType>TRAIT_PHILOSOPHICAL</TraitType>
<bTrait>1</bTrait>
</Trait>

adding it somewhere reasonable and again changing the PHILOSOPHICAL bit.
I doubt you woud benefit from having the same trait named twice however (someone did ask about that somewhere recently).

 

[UnforcedError]

I think you are talking something different from TMM and me. The point we're making is that they won't settle it if they don't know where it is.

Yes, but that doesn't really answer the original question. I guess the OP wanted to know whether you'd grant the same advantage to the AI by giving them your map as you would to a human player in MP (which is a lot). And no, absolutely not. The AI won't study your weaknesses and won't realize that it has to race you for certain city spots. Besides, you can make a fortune out of map trades. No reason not to do it other than the circumnavigation bonus.

 

[Manco Capac]

Ah, OK. Thanks everybody.

EDIT: There goes my dream of playing the Super Epic One-City Challenge of Awesomeness. Or are traits easily altered in XML?

To resume:

RandPerso is leader files swapped between leaders.
You can create the combo IND/PHI.
Get CIV4LeaderheadInfos.xml in your assets folder.
Find the lines for traits and customize.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Okeedokee, I find myself in two different conversations to respond to.

Sure, but they will not settle it because you give them your map. They won't make any real effort to get there before you.

That's basically what I was asking about. I generally won't sell my map to an AI if I know about a landmass that they don't, because I figured they'd make an effort to get there first. Since they apparently won't (derpy AI ) I'll be selling maps much more often. If the +1MP bonus is the only thing worth keeping maps for, I've been missing out on a lot of the AI's money.

this space intentionally left blank

Ghpstage and Tachywaxon, thanks. I've been meaning to play a OCC as IND/PHI with a ridiculously-WB'd food start just to see how many Great People I can get one city to crank out in a game.

 

[danthechan]

what exactly is the bonus for 1st to circumnavigate? i haven't achieved it yet.
for a pretty noobish player like me is there any thread that condenses the acronyms used on the forum? i try to read threads to advance my play, but terms like rexing (and countless others) keep me from following the narrative.

 

[UnforcedError]

what exactly is the bonus for 1st to circumnavigate? i haven't achieved it yet.
for a pretty noobish player like me is there any thread that condenses the acronyms used on the forum? i try to read threads to advance my play, but terms like rexing (and countless others) keep me from following the narrative.

The circumnavigation bonus grants +1 movement to all your naval units so it's pretty good on any non-Pangea type map.

This is a link to the War Academy with plenty of useful articles for new players. You can find one for acronyms under Introductory Courses.

 

[Manco Capac]

And to add interesting points on how to trigger circumnavigation:

1) It is not necessary to have some caravel actually making the circumnavigation. Having multiple bought maps from the other players will do the same effect.
2) Circumnavigation is not necessarily a strong of unveiled tiles. The rule says you need every tile of longitude...whatever the latitude of the tiles.
3)If the circumnavigation bonus is still available, the AI is less likely to share Optics.

 

[Shady Grady]

1) It is not necessary to have some caravel actually making the circumnavigation. Having multiple bought maps from the other players will do the same effect.

Wow. I wonder how difficult this is to do.

Anyway, hi all, I'm long time CIVer going back to like 98/99 or even prior. I've settled on CIV IV and haven't even played V yet.

Now... I am pretty good, but nowhere near many of the masters of the game that post here. However lately, I have really tried to "win" by not reloading (which I would always pretend that I had a shaman that seen into the future advising me lol), or playing at levels far below what my skill should be. Taking some advice I have found here, I am actually doing quite well so far at Noble, but I have a question:

What is the general consensus about playing with no barbs? I usually always am able to strategize around them until they become less and less. I just think they look clumsy and the way they attack just irks me more than anything and detract from the beauty of the game. So I'm chugging along quite nicely as Noble (Mansa Musa to boot - I usually choose random everything except map size and time), but I am playing with no barbarians. Does the AI somehow compensate for this?

Thanks.

 

[UnforcedError]

What is the general consensus about playing with no barbs? I usually always am able to strategize around them until they become less and less. I just think they look clumsy and the way they attack just irks me more than anything and detract from the beauty of the game. So I'm chugging along quite nicely as Noble (Mansa Musa to boot - I usually choose random everything except map size and time), but I am playing with no barbarians. Does the AI somehow compensate for this?

Thanks.

First of all, welcome to the forums

I'm not really sure I understand your question correctly. The AI does not adjust to selecting 'no barbs' or 'raging barbs' if that's what you mean. It's only trained to play with normal barbs, so either of those options will actually give a huge advantage to the human player. No barbs because you will know that you don't need any sort of barb defense in the early game (the AI never declares before it can build at least two attack units), so you can focus on expansion and some early buildings, maybe wonders. Raging barbs because you will either rush the Great Wall or because you will take special precautions, while the AI might be devastated by a barb invasion.

I generally play with normal barbs. I like them, they give early XP to your units. Even on the higher levels.

 

[Sparrow3]

1) I generally start with two caravels & two explorers. One headed East & one headed West. If I encounter a large land mass, I put the explorer ashore to continue while I search for the water passage4.

2)I think playing with no barbs is boring. The same with playing with no spies. I have tried both. I generally raging barbs.

 

[Shady Grady]

Thanks for those replies!!

Now that I am playing with no Barbs.... I, uh, kinda miss them. And yes, the early experience points come in most handy down the road. But... come on.... "RAGING BARBS"? Huh? Wow! I've played raging Barbs a few times... and actually, come to think of it, unless I was really rushing thru the game, I found that it forced me to more critically examine city productions.

If I remember correctly, back in CIV III, City Unhappiness and Citizen Content (I know those aren't the right words) was much easier to manage, which is to say that City Management was much more easier than in IV.

But I digress. Maybe

In the beginning I like to build 3 or 4 explorers (as Montezuma a.k.a Shady Grady) and explore in concentric circles. Pop goody huts as much as possible and locate my nearest and closest (same thing right?) neighbors and go from there.

As for my current experiment, just barely hanging in there now that it is around the year 1450 and I am running into Washington's Rifle's. My military units, and I just began building Grenadier's, just don't seem to cut it.

So... the Barbs must remain in the future. Thanks again!

 

[Sparrow3]

if your civc is vassalage, consider promoting some of your grenadiers to combat II. They make good city defenders & later (after RR) they can be upgraded to machine gun, even better for city defense.