Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[TheMulattoMaker]

I have an observation related to Civ game trade. Am I the only one that thinks it's strange that you can trade gold(resource) for gpt? Imagine that you could trade away beavers to the Ai in return for furs, or trade away elephants for ivory. If you or the Ai has gold(resource), how odd is it that you trade gold for gold. ---- Hey Ragnar , how about I give you gold bars, you give me gold coins.

I see your point, but I would say that "gold" the resource doesn't have anything to do with "gold" the somewhat arbitrary amount of wealth you have in your treasury. Being American, I almost always translate treasury/gpt into "dollars" just because the game makes a little more sense to me that way.

(As a matter of fact, when I was a Civ4 n00b the gold/Gold/commerce-icon-that-looks-like-gold madness took some getting used to, even though I'd been playing since Civ1 and knew all about FPC.)

 

[nfw]

This has always bugged me, why sometimes I can return a city to the previous owner and sometimes I can't. As you can see the city has 86% Persian culture.

I don't get the option when conquering Tarsus nor F1 nor contacting Darius, but was given the option for Pasargadae (conquered by Khmer, the master of the Romans)

 

[s.bernbaum]

I have an observation related to Civ game trade. Am I the only one that thinks it's strange that you can trade gold(resource) for gpt? Imagine that you could trade away beavers to the Ai in return for furs, or trade away elephants for ivory. If you or the Ai has gold(resource), how odd is it that you trade gold for gold. ---- Hey Ragnar , how about I give you gold bars, you give me gold coins.

In Real Life, you can do that now. Walk into a store that sells gold (bars, jewelry, etc). Put your money on the counter and walk out with gold.

 

[Tuscarora87]

In his 'domination' game, as Ragnar, on Archipelago map, TMIT used State property. Is it mandatory to use SP instead of FM on archipelago (goal: domination)?

What about corporations on these settings?

 

[Seraiel]

Corporations need a lot time to pay back, because they come with huge maintenance and all those Execs one needs to build in order to spread the Corporation(s) to all cities, also have a high cost. Usually, only Space Races go long enough for a Corp to overtake State Property in terms of economy, and even in Space Races, State Property can be on par or slightly below Corps.

So you don't have to go SP, but it's probably the better choice if you only aim at domination.

 

[civfanchambers]

I find that state property works best when your empire is unbalanced in regards to city locations. A good example would be if your capitol is at the edge of a peninsula with your cities spread without a centralized capitol. Either relocate your capitol or switch to state property. If you have cities on another landmass SP works good too. State property isn't necessarily intended for an archipelago map, but certainly would help. State property also works wonders if warmongering late game. You have cities on one side of the continent, you wish to conquer cities on the other side. For Dom/conquest games SP is fantastic.

 

[Tuscarora87]

Corporations need a lot time to pay back, because they come with huge maintenance and all those Execs one needs to build in order to spread the Corporation(s) to all cities, also have a high cost. Usually, only Space Races go long enough for a Corp to overtake State Property in terms of economy, and even in Space Races, State Property can be on par or slightly below Corps.

So you don't have to go SP, but it's probably the better choice if you only aim at domination.

Thanks for the answer.

I'll skip corporations this time. I don't have enough experience with them and I suddenly wanted some fun while learning, but it really seems SP is more adequate for quick spreading around the world.

P.S. Three more questions, one older then Earth :

1) Environmentalism, what is it good for? It looks good, but other civics look even better.

2) There are lot of buildings which provide engineer slots in late game (in which I'm less experienced): Industrial park, factories, assembly plants, ironworks... and some wonders help... Does anybody use "engineer strategy" efficiently? How do you generate needed GE (for Mining Inc, wonders, or whatever) while still focusing your strategy on GSs? Early with forge, pyramids, or...? Or later? Beside GPP what is use of engineers at all? Can they convert grassland cities to production powerhouses? Or? Simply, do you use / switch to them heavily and how do you use them?

3) How to help those one-tile-city-islands (if you are not Dutch or Egyptian)? Do you leave them without hammers? Do you build Moai statues ? Whip Forge? Temple? Build Angkor Wat? Use citizen?

 

[Tuscarora87]

I find that state property works best when your empire is unbalanced in regards to city locations. A good example would be if your capitol is at the edge of a peninsula with your cities spread without a centralized capitol. Either relocate your capitol or switch to state property. If you have cities on another landmass SP works good too. State property isn't necessarily intended for an archipelago map, but certainly would help. State property also works wonders if warmongering late game. You have cities on one side of the continent, you wish to conquer cities on the other side. For Dom/conquest games SP is fantastic.

Thank you for your answer, too. Those capitals at the edge of peninsulas appear more then often.

 

[civfanchambers]

Thanks for the answer.

I'll skip corporations this time. I don't have enough experience with them and I suddenly wanted some fun while learning, but it really seems SP is more adequate for quick spreading around the world.

P.S. Three more questions, one older then Earth :

1) Environmentalism, what is it good for? It looks good, but other civics look even better.

2) There are lot of buildings which provide engineer slots in late game (in which I'm less experienced): Industrial park, factories, assembly plants, ironworks... and some wonders help... Does anybody use "engineer strategy" efficiently? How do you generate needed GE (for Mining Inc, wonders, or whatever) while still focusing your strategy on GSs? Early with forge, pyramids, or...? Or later? Beside GPP what is use of engineers at all? Can they convert grassland cities to production powerhouses? Or? Simply, do you use / switch to them heavily and how do you use them?

3) How to help those one-tile-city-islands (if you are not Dutch or Egyptian)? Do you leave them without hammers? Do you build Moai statues ? Whip Forge? Temple? Build Angkor Wat? Use citizen?

I'm sure other higher level players could answer your three questions, but I'll give it a try. As for environmentalism I have never used it. For me Free market or state property is much better. For your second question about engineers, if I get an early engineer I will try to keep it around to possibly use for a corporation. I never bother with boosting engineers with buildings, don't need them by the time they become available. For your third question, I leave one tile islands alone unsettled unless I need them to secure my offshore borders or to get the last few territory points for a Dom victory.

 

[Seraiel]

Thanks for the answer.

I'll skip corporations this time. I don't have enough experience with them and I suddenly wanted some fun while learning, but it really seems SP is more adequate for quick spreading around the world.

P.S. Three more questions, one older then Earth :

1) Environmentalism, what is it good for? It looks good, but other civics look even better.

Enviromentalism is crap for most games. There are some rare scenarios though, where it's good, like OOC Spacerace i. e..

2) There are lot of buildings which provide engineer slots in late game (in which I'm less experienced): Industrial park, factories, assembly plants, ironworks... and some wonders help... Does anybody use "engineer strategy" efficiently? How do you generate needed GE (for Mining Inc, wonders, or whatever) while still focusing your strategy on GSs? Early with forge, pyramids, or...? Or later? Beside GPP what is use of engineers at all? Can they convert grassland cities to production powerhouses? Or? Simply, do you use / switch to them heavily and how do you use them?

Forge + if possible, the Mids and / or the Hanging Gardens. You can create a GS in one city and create a GE in another one. You can also create GSs in multiple cities and let the Mids / HGs city focus on creating 1 GE.

Other tactic would be to start a Golden Age, switch to Caste + Pacifism and run lot's of Engineer + X mixes in a lot of cities, so that one get's 1 GE from those 10% chances of all, let's say 5-10 created GPs.

Tactic 1 is of course safer, but tactic 2 is stronger if it works.

3) How to help those one-tile-city-islands (if you are not Dutch or Egyptian)? Do you leave them without hammers? Do you build Moai statues ? Whip Forge? Temple? Build Angkor Wat? Use citizen?

The whip or Mining Inc.

 

[Rotten_Termato5]

For some reason I can't get the Missile Cruiser to hold missiles. I tried using Tactical Nukes and Guided Missiles, but it just won't work. I know it is probably easier then I'm making it, so please shine your godly civilization light on me.

 

[God-Emperor]

For some reason I can't get the Missile Cruiser to hold missiles. I tried using Tactical Nukes and Guided Missiles, but it just won't work. I know it is probably easier then I'm making it, so please shine your godly civilization light on me.

You can only load missiles onto ships if they are in the same city. Move your missiles to a coastal city. Move your into the same city. When selected, the missiles should now have a button to let you load them onto the ship. Same with the tac nukes.

(In Final Frontier Plus, or regular FF, you can move missiles to ships anywhere. It's a setting in the CIV4SpecialUnitInfos.xml file. Of course, "ships" in this case means starships.)

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I was under the impression that corps are better than State Property on Archipelago because you barely have any land for Watermills and Workshops and without Slavery or Universal Suffrage don't have another way of bringing production to all those tiny islands.

 

[Seraiel]

I was under the impression that corps are better than State Property on Archipelago because you barely have any land for Watermills and Workshops and without Slavery or Universal Suffrage don't have another way of bringing production to all those tiny islands.

Why would one be without Slavery? Especially when playing for Domination?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Why would one be without Slavery? Especially when playing for Domination?

Unhappiness because everyone else is running Emancipation? Of course if you get the Kremlin that's another story entirely, but imo lategame Slavery is much better with Sushi, especially on Archipelago. If I go State Property and have a ways to deal with the Emancipation unhappiness Caste System looks much more attractive.

 

[Seraiel]

Unhappiness because everyone else is running Emancipation? Of course if you get the Kremlin that's another story entirely, but imo lategame Slavery is much better with Sushi, especially on Archipelago. If I go State Property and have a ways to deal with the Emancipation unhappiness Caste System looks much more attractive.

Emancipation unhappiness doesn't matter as long as one keeps the cities small. Only large cities suffer from severe emancipation unhappiness, a usual size 6 city should have no or 1 from Emancipation.

Kremlin has nothing to do with State Property or Sushi, Kremlin is then good, when one uses the whip often, so most games, because there simply is nothing that can compare to Slavery. Just look how you get into complications only because you want to run Caste. There is no downside to Slavery in a domination game, just whip all cities as hard as possible to get those units as fast as possible.

With Sushi you're doing the same as with Caste, you delay your victory, because you have to build Execs. Just imagine all those would be units, how many cities could you conquer that you can again whip into the ground for more units?

This is like a lawine caused from a snowball, you build 15 units, those units get you 5 cities, you whip those cities again for 20 units, with the 30+ units you now have you get another 10 cities that you whip again for units a.s.o.

 

[Jathug]

Afternoon all

I have a vassal which I want to destroy (they are irritating and have oil and I don't). I've tried declaring war but the AI says no - how can I declare war on my vassal.

 

[Seraiel]

Afternoon all

I have a vassal which I want to destroy (they are irritating and have oil and I don't). I've tried declaring war but the AI says no - how can I declare war on my vassal.

You can't declare war on your vassal, but you can demand the oil or also everything from him. The first time he's afaik programmed to accept no matter what, but from the 2nd time onwards, there's a chance that your vassal will refuse, break free and declare war on you.

 

[Lennier]

Can cannon do damage - bombard units and how (except direct atack)? Like in civ III.

Sine no one has answered this yet:

Seige (including cannons) does not work like Civ III. They can bombard cities' cultural defenses, but don't destroy buildings in the process. When they attack a unit (directly), they will do collateral damage to other units in the defending stack.

 

[Pangaea]

You can't declare war on your vassal, but you can demand the oil or also everything from him. The first time he's afaik programmed to accept no matter what, but from the 2nd time onwards, there's a chance that your vassal will refuse, break free and declare war on you.

Does this only work with resources, and possibly GPT? Cause I tried to demand a tech my vassal rudely didn't want to trade, and he refused the demand.