Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[s.bernbaum]

I think I have accidentally over-written my main Civ4 BTS "Mod" files with the ones for BUG. This is based on 1) when I start a game through the default "New Game" option I get the bug mod, so the extra options and pop-ups 2) no mods will work.

Anyone any ideas how to fix this?

As Ghpstage and God-Emperor have said, you may have installed BUG in CustomAssets. However, if you like having BUG when not running a mod, you don't have to delete anything. There are two ways to keep BUG in CustomAssets and still run mods.

1) Rename the CustomAssets folder to something else, whenever you want to run a mod. Anything will do. For example you could just add a number to the end of the name. Then when you want to run BTS without a mod but with BUG, change the name back to CustomAssets. BTW, when you rename CustomAssets to anything else, the game will create an empty CustomAssets folder when it starts up. So, delete that one when you change the name of your real CustomAssets back.

2) If the mod that you want to run has an .ini file, add this line to the .ini file:
NoCustomAssets = 1
(The .ini file will be the name of the mod with the .ini suffix. If you can't see the suffixes of your files, turn on the "show file types" system option (or turn off the "don't show file types" depending on how it is worded))

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Methinks it's a good start for a good novel.

Awawa.

Can always use a good read.

 

[oldnooob]

when I make changes in worldbuilder the era becomes " locked" at future era which results in listening to the future soundtrack throughout the whole game. Nothing else seems to be affected except the sound track and the era shown in the top left hand corner of the map screen.
Is there any way that I can adjust this?
Note: The C2C worldbuilder allows the era to be adjusted in the worldbuilder/player dropdown menu. But I can find nothing like that in the BTS worldbuilder

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I think you need to edit the Worldbuilder file with Notepad for that.

 

[oldnooob]

Hmmm, Could you please be a little more descriptive? Such as the location of such a file. After all, I am just a noob not a programmer.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Hmmm, Could you please be a little more descriptive? Such as the location of such a file. After all, I am just a noob not a programmer.

Go into "My Documents" then "My Games". Should be very easy from there.

 

[oldnooob]

I see nothing relating to worldbuilder there. Thanks anyway.

 

[Ghpstage]

I see nothing relating to worldbuilder there. Thanks anyway.

You have to make a wb save, you can only do this when in wb, its one of the globe symbols among the tools in the top right.
And saving will allow you to pick a home for the file which should be easy to find then.

I haven't ever done this myself so I don't have first hand experience of doing it. But, I do have a good idea how its done.
Open up your WB save using Notepad/Wordpad. Use cntrl+f and search for the name of the leader whos era you messed up, find the line about the current era (it will be startingera if thats the only tag) for that leader and change it to whatever it should be.

Make a copy of the original file before you play around in there as just small, seemingly trivial error will probably prevent ther game from running

If your still having problems then hopefully someone can help if you upload the save.

 

[elitetroops]

Yes, save it in worldbuilder and locate it in My documents\My Games\BTS\Saves\Worldbuilder. Open the file in notepad and look for the leader with a bad starting era, find the StartingEra line and replace it with StartingEra=ERA_ANCIENT (or some other era that you wish). The WB save is very clear when you open it in note pad. Most of the things in there are very easy to understand and there's not much you can do to mess it up really.

 

[Mouthwash]

How do I find the EP costs of stealing more expensive techs? The espionage screen only displays the costs of the cheapest one, and this formula is incomprehensible to my math-addled brain.

(I'm actually a fairly experienced player, I just never bothered to use espionage).

 

[oldnooob]

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Ghpstage]

How do I find the EP costs of stealing more expensive techs? The espionage screen only displays the costs of the cheapest one, and this formula is incomprehensible to my math-addled brain.

(I'm actually a fairly experienced player, I just never bothered to use espionage).

I couldn't follow the explanation entirely either, its hard to follow with XML values you need to research yourself, zeroes left in and no simplification of anything.


I have seen in the past people simlifying calculations from espionage costs by using ratios of known costs. I'll use that idea here to eliminate some of the general formula stuff, and calculate the modifier value directly from 2 readily available values removing the time consuming part.

The modifiers in a specific city are equal for all missions. So we can use the ratio of Actual Cost / Base Cost of another espionage mission to quickly find the modifier, then we can just multiply the BaseCost of the tech stealing mission by that to find the actual cost. So the short equation is

Tech Steal Cost = 'Tech Cost' * 1.5 * Counterespionage Mission Cost / CounterEspionage Base Cost

Where,

• The 'Tech Cost' is the cost of a tech as seen if you mouse over the tech in the tech advisor screen.
• The Couterespionage mission cost can be found either by opening the mission menu with a spy in the city or from the espionage screen by clicking on the target city, though the latter won't include the stationary spy discount.
• CounterEspionage Base Cost is part of the list found when you mouse over an espionage mission with a spy in a city

I picked counterespionage because its both trivially cheap (you can't see the cost of missions you can't afford!), and it has a very simple base cost of 100 on normal speed, 67 on quick, 150 on epic and 300 on marathon making it easy to calculate the modifier value from the espionage screen.

Tested for normal speed, should work on any other settings as is.

 

[Tristan_C]

I might be in position to capture the Pyramids in one of my games, and my question is: can you remain in a civic even after losing access to it?

They are on the other side of the planet, so I plan to gift the city after switching into rep. That's the rule in my war games after all; the mids are always built on the opposite side of the planet. But Monty told me to dow this AI, and I'm going to do what he says because we're at friendly in this game.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

I might be in position to capture the Pyramids in one of my games, and my question is: can you remain in a civic even after losing access to it?

No, you are switched back to Despotism unless another one is unlocked. In one of my HOF games, I culture-flipped the Pyramids (a waste of 3 culture bombs) and Gandhi went from Universal Suffrage back to Hed Rule.

 

[Tristan_C]

No, you are switched back to Despotism unless another one is unlocked. In one of my HOF games, I culture-flipped the Pyramids (a waste of 3 culture bombs) and Gandhi went from Universal Suffrage back to Hed Rule.

Alright, thanks a lot for the answer. That'll simplify the decision.

 

[strijder20]

I deleted Civ4 a while ago to make place on my computer but now want to reinstall it. However, the disk seems to think Civ4 is still installed on my PC and only displays 'Play' instead of 'Install'. How to solve this?
EDIT: Managed to solve it by manually opening Setup.

 

[Matty R]

Why are Plains Cows in the starting city's BFC considered bad? Is it because they offer one less than Grassland Cows?

I've been reading about some of the starts that people get and what causes them to re-roll, and I don't understand why someone with Grassland Riverside tiles and another food resource would re-roll the map simply because a Plains Cow appears in the BFC of the starting city.

I see similar things with Dry food resources.

This is coming from a recently-promoted Prince player though, so maybe it's a Deity thing. I doubt I'll ever understand the will of the gods.

 

[Ghpstage]

Why are Plains Cows in the starting city's BFC considered bad? Is it because they offer one less than Grassland Cows?

I've been reading about some of the starts that people get and what causes them to re-roll, and I don't understand why someone with Grassland Riverside tiles and another food resource would re-roll the map simply because a Plains Cow appears in the BFC of the starting city.

I see similar things with Dry food resources.

This is coming from a recently-promoted Prince player though, so maybe it's a Deity thing. I doubt I'll ever understand the will of the gods.

Plains cow isn't considered bad, as a 6 yield tile it is an excellent thing to have. The problem is that it is considered by the game normaliser to be a 'food' resource, and its anything but. But it which allows you to get starts where the only food is a plains cow, which is doomed to being very slow.
I haven't seen anyone shout down plains cows where theres more food available.

Dry rice in the starting BFC is always a poor roll as its the weakest legitimate food resource (4), if it shows up as the only food then its a poor start.

 

[rah]

Yes, I generally like more food then a plains cow and a dye.

 

[Matty R]

Ahh. It makes sense now. I've seen so much negativity about Plains Cows over the years but never really seen an issue with it. I didn't realise it could take the place of another food resource.

Thanks for clearing it up.