Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Imperator Knoedel]

Personally I always like to have at least two dedicated military cities by the endgame, one with West Point + Heroic Epic and another with Red Cross. Ideally both would be coastal but not too coastal, that is having a rather small number of sea tiles so they can also build ships but otherwise lots of productive land to actually get stuff done in a reasonable amount of time. Both should have a military academy and at least one settled Great General. Beyond that I attach them to units or if I capture an AI city with lots of settled GGs I will build a military academy there for yet another military city.

 

[Temae]

Hello there, I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but please redirect me if you think it can or should be answered somewhere else.

For the purpose of a forum game in which other forumites control our civ and I function as the GM, I would like to periodically change to our neighboring civ and do the moves for the AI in order to make it a little more challenging for the players. It's a singleplayer save, and we have already come quite a bit, so I don't want to start a new game.

That is, I want to find a cheat or something that allows me to somehow make the moves for both the player's civ and one of the AI civs in the same turn, so that I can make the moves for the players and for their opponent. Is this possible? I asked elsewhere, and got the answer that there might be some key combination or hotkey, but they didn't know what it was.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Tron comes to mind . . .

 

[ThorHammerz]

Hi, with regards to events, and quests in particular in multiplayer games with teams....

For example, the quest of the HarborMaster (build 12 harbors or some something before industrialism), will all civilizations in the team contribute (i.e. contribute towards the harbor count), and/or receive shared rewards (combat1/nav1/free gold)?

 

[Snowman084]

The whole time ive been playing the game i still dont know what the Drill 1 promotion of " +1 first strike" does for a unit. ??????

 

[dalamb]

Combat normally works in "rounds" where each side has a chance to damage the other. A "first strike" is a round when the side with the first strike can't be damaged back. If both sides have a first strike, they cancel. So if the attacker has 3 first strikes and the defender has 1, the attacker gets 2 chances to damage the defender without being hurt in exchange.

Archers start with a first strike (or maybe it's '1-2 first strikes' meaning 1 definite and a 2nd with 50% chance). So Drill 1 gives them another, as does each additional drill promotion. A Drill IV defender might be able to hold off a whole horde of attackers without being damaged itself.

 

[Looking2Mod]

Hi,

Got a quick modding question about the XML code in TraitInfos. I'm trying to add a +50% worker speed modifier to a trait, but not 100% sure how to go about doing it. I tried the lazy way of copying+pasting from the civic infos in the GameInfosSchema file, and while the game does load, the trait doesn't give workers the extra 50 percent. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

 

[ThorHammerz]

Hi,

Got a quick modding question about the XML code in TraitInfos. I'm trying to add a +50% worker speed modifier to a trait, but not 100% sure how to go about doing it. I tried the lazy way of copying+pasting from the civic infos in the GameInfosSchema file, and while the game does load, the trait doesn't give workers the extra 50 percent. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

I think you would have to modify the SDK so that the game will recognize and use the new XML variable in traitinfos. Getting it (the SDK) up and running might be a challenge in itself though, since most of the software used originally to compile it is somewhat out-of-date already.

 

[SumoPraetorian]

Hi, I hope this is the right place to ask.

Is it possible that I could modify galleons and caravels so that they move more tiles per turn? It just takes a long time on huge maps for ships to make it to another continent or circumnavigate (and it's a little nitpicking here but 150 years of sailing to circumnavigate seems pretty odd to me).

I had a look at the Civ4UnitInfos file and found the galleon part with: "<fMaxSpeed>2.25</fMaxSpeed>" but I'm not really sure if that's what I should be looking at or if there is more to it.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Welcome to CFC, SumoPraetorian!

I have no idea what <fMaxSpeed> does, but you're on the right track. Look further up in the XML for each unit (about 60 lines up on my computer, I imagine it's the same on yours) and you should see the <iMoves> tags, this appears to be what sets a unit's movement points.

There's also another way to make exploration and warfare seem more realistic, time-wise: play Marathon. Basically all your units will move three times as far in the same amount of years.

 

[ThorHammerz]

There's also another way to make exploration and warfare seem more realistic, time-wise: play Marathon. Basically all your units will move three times as far in the same amount of years.

This. Although, if you want stuff to happen over a "realistic" amount of time, without the "spam-enter-until-unit/buidling-is-completed" for a long time (especially early game), I would suggest looking into XML/GameInfo/CIV4GameSpeedInfo and tweak a few of the values there.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

<iMoves> is indeed the tag responsible for a units movement.

 

[Looking2Mod]

@ThorzHammerz
Thanks. I've tried changing some of the dll code but without any real luck. What's the SDK and where do I find it?

 

[CaptainLost]

@ThorzHammerz
Thanks. I've tried changing some of the dll code but without any real luck. What's the SDK and where do I find it?

Here is an awesome tutorial on getting the SDK set up and compiling.

 

[pepoluan]

Is there a way to export the in-game Event Log as a text file?

 

[civfanchambers]

After several years and hundreds of games I've come to expect Sury of the Khmer to spam cities settle on every available tile. In my current game fractal map, there is one large continent with several civ's including myself. Two smaller continents each with a single civ. Sury is all alone with with enough room to settle 8-10 cities, yet has only 2 cities including his capitol. Is Sury's isolation to blame for his lack of expansion?

 

[Lennier]

If he's having Barb problems because he got technologically behind due to his isolation, maybe.

 

[civfanchambers]

If he's having Barb problems because he got technologically behind due to his isolation, maybe.

No barb cities, and I see no marauding barbs on Sury's landmass. Btw game year is 1550 ad, and still only 2 cities. Contact has been made, but no attempt by Sury to expand. I guess he's happy with his tiny empire.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Sury is all alone with with enough room to settle 8-10 cities, yet has only 2 cities including his capitol. Is Sury's isolation to blame for his lack of expansion?

This happens sometimes, a civ just stops founding new cities. It can really mess up your game if it allows another AI to gain too much territory. I don't know if it is a bug, or an odd strategy decision, or just the RNG selecting other builds than settlers, but it is very strange when you see it.

 

[Esperr]

How do I go to war? Honest question on noble, like with what units. I played ciV religiously and have ben trying to get into 4 for the last few months, what are the tiers for warfare? Like in ciV its cbows, then x bows, then artillery and so on and so forth but in four it seems like every unit is innefective at warfare and you need TONS of them just to take one city, even with siege.