Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[krikav]

<3 @AcaMetis

 

[TruePurple]

Reading the espionage guide, it tells you how much culture transfer you might expect, from Spread Culture, but not really what it means/does.

From what I read it seems Spread Culture is only useful for conquering the city latter but not losing as much, and reducing espoinage cost. But then it specifically says that Spread Culture helps with culture victories. But how does that work? So you spread your culture into another nations city, so what? How does that help you win with culture? It doesn't increase the culture in your own city, but in the other city.

 

[lymond]

Reading the espionage guide, it tells you how much culture transfer you might expect, from Spread Culture, but not really what it means/does.

From what I read it seems Spread Culture is only useful for conquering the city latter but not losing as much, and reducing espoinage cost. But then it specifically says that Spread Culture helps with culture victories. But how does that work? So you spread your culture into another nations city, so what? How does that help you win with culture? It doesn't increase the culture in your own city, but in the other city.

Spread culture mission increases your culture in another city a little bit. I think you can only do this in nearby enemy cities that already at least have some over your culture present. This mechanic is really not of any use in normal games.

Espionage Culture Victory is a fairly recent thing that folks discovered a few years ago. You can actually get relatively much faster culture victories by using the spread culture mission. This is a somewhat complicated strategy that I won't go into here. I can't find a reference for you, as I think you would have to look at someone's game. I think someone has explained in detail somewhere before, but I'm not sure there is a thread or article specifically dedicated to it. You can check the HOF for games though. Requires a much more intense focus on Espionage generation while also understanding the culture victory game itself.

Focusing on espionage though really does not help you learn the game.

 

[TruePurple]

Just, how does putting your culture in another city help with a cultural victory at all? I'm not asking you to explain how you get victory of it, just how does it contribute to it any? The point of my inquiry is to learn what it means to spread culture to another city, not get a victory from it.

So normally spread culture only makes espionage cheaper and helps with conquering without losing structures?

Where can I go to learn how to add BuG or Buffy mods to LInux installation through Wine other than the dedicated threads to that here?

 

[krikav]

You spread alot of culture into that city, then you take it when it is legendary.

 

[lymond]

Just, how does putting your culture in another city help with a cultural victory at all? I'm not asking you to explain how you get victory of it, just how does it contribute to it any? The point of my inquiry is to learn what it means to spread culture to another city, not get a victory from it.

It literally means spreading almost 50K worth of culture in a city or cities. It requires a tremendous amount and systematic investment into espionage and, ofc, building a ton of spies. I'm not an expert at it but have done it a couple of time. Usually you would settle these cities yourself - so they will have some of your culture initially - and then gift the city(ies) to an AI. You will do the spread in 1 turn (some guys can calculate out roughly what you need to do this plus factoring in failed missions), then declare war and captured the city.

In other words, ECV is not something you just casually do in a game. It requires very specific actions over the course of the game. It's a very niche VC that was only recently accepted by the HOF, and really I think mainly folks only really do it for the HOF.

So normally spread culture only makes espionage cheaper and helps with conquering without losing structures?

I don't really know anything about this at all. Did you read this somewhere or something? I honestly don't ever use spread culture missions. It really serves no purpose in my mind, and investment in this stuff is not optimal.

Where can I go to learn how to add BuG or Buffy mods to LInux installation through Wine other than the dedicated threads to that here?

All I can suggest is the Tech forum. Thought I saw something on that over there somewhere. I don't really know. The one guy I know you used Linux and mods was Pangaea, who, honestly, left the forum after that:

Spoiler :

bit of a todo early last year in Strategy & Tips, if you remember

I think Pangaea may have used a Win emulator or whatever it is called

edit:

I found this post in a sticky thread over in the Tech forum..thought you may find it useful:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...25-on-ubuntu-9-04.327508/page-8#post-15010897

 

[earthy]

Do defensive pacts or peace vassals override the 10 turn peace treaty you get from begging?

 

[earthy]

how do you set a waypoint for every city instead of just one at a time?

 

[sampsa]

I think ctrl+click on city will select all cities. Or alt+click. Maybe one of them selects all cities on landmass?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Alt selects all, Ctrl selects all on the same landmass.

A waypoint can not be a selected city, so you may need to Shift-Click to de-select your desired tile first.

 

[elmurcis]

Last game had two strange situations near to end of it. Both related with Permanent Alliance stuff. So was big and game went great but didn't want to go to late game (Space Race) so.... decided to make PA and get to domination limit. But I thought that player (if is #1) can't make PA with best AI (that is #2)? Maybe was wrong here. That would be fine.
But 2nd stuff happened during next few turns while getting final settlers in position to finish game - somehow got 4 "ultra science" turns. I was making like 1,2-1,3k beakers/turn, my ally (China-Mao) was changing civics (anarchy) but we got 1T 1/2 Medicine; 1T Corporation; 1T Electricity (that was 33K alone on Huge map with PA more expensive techs) and 1/2 of Assembly Line. Next two turns were back to normal research (before end) but that almost 60K free research boost was very strange.
Could it be that "No vassal states" and "Permanent Alliance" same time made this strange stuff after both empire merge or it was just some bug in game?

 

[ArchGhost]

Do defensive pacts or peace vassals override the 10 turn peace treaty you get from begging?

Peace Vassaling does NOT override treaties. Begging from a rival to prevent your target from vassaling to them and forcing the master to DoW you in the process is a common way to prevent surprises or leave your target no options, so they have to capitulate to you.

Defensive Pacts absolutely DO override peace treaties, no matter how long they have left or how many are active. DoW any of the parties involved in defensive pacts and they ALL DoW you back. You can think of it in the same way a Permanent Alliance for the diplomatic purposes of choosing who to attack.

how do you set a waypoint for every city instead of just one at a time?

Select all cities with:
Ctrl + left click (all cities on continent)
Alt + left click (all cities anywhere in world)
Shift + Left Click to add/remove cities from selection one at a time

Note that cities are group selected in chronological order by founding date (so selecting all shows you the Capitol's queue) and that if you deselect one with current priority it brings up the queue of the next one in founding order.

Hold shift and right click to set waypoint.
To clear waypoints, select any amount of cities and Shift + Right click any city center. All selected city's waypoints will be cleared.

If you want to have all cities rally to a specific city center, select all cities you want to rally there, deselect the destination city with Shift+Left click, then use Shift + Right click on the destination city center. Be sure to clear the destination city's rally point if it had one.

Cities that cannot have a valid waypoint on a tile (such as inland cities on a different continent, or coastal cities waypointed to an inland tile on a differing continent) have their waypoints cleared instead.

 

[earthy]

thanks, i've been trying it out and that helps so much

another question for you fine folk. I was under the impression that only Monty would consider two wars at once(i.e. he's in a war and then declares on a second target). Today Catherine did this to me. She was in a war, I was not, she was at pleased, and then out of nowhere she DOW and sniped a city. Is she known for this or did I perhaps experience a bug or freak occurence?

 

[AcaMetis]

I believe the "won't DoW when already at war, except Monty" isn't a hard rule. It's just that being DoWed/right before DoWing someone the AI will (re-)evaluate their situation, and only Monty is insane enough to start plotting a war even when he's already in a war. Any other AI, assuming a relatively sane situation, won't consider throwing themselves into a two-front war. Catherine, in this case, must have been in such an overwhelmingly superior position (at least in her mind) that she went through and DoWed you anyway. AIs can definitely be opportunistic and snipe cities, it's just that they very rarely choose to do so while already fighting a war.

Incidentally, I should maybe add that Catherine, like Monty, also has a special thing about her in terms of her DoWing: If she's Friendly she will accept a war bribe against anyone, even other people she's Friendly with. She's the only AI in the game who will be bribed against someone at Friendly in any situation, but AIs shouldn't be bribed to war against you unless you're already in a war, so that shouldn't be the issue in this case.

 

[ArchGhost]

I believe the "won't DoW when already at war, except Monty" isn't a hard rule. It's just that being DoWed/right before DoWing someone the AI will (re-)evaluate their situation, and only Monty is insane enough to start plotting a war even when he's already in a war. Any other AI, assuming a relatively sane situation, won't consider throwing themselves into a two-front war. Catherine, in this case, must have been in such an overwhelmingly superior position (at least in her mind) that she went through and DoWed you anyway. AIs can definitely be opportunistic and snipe cities, it's just that they very rarely choose to do so while already fighting a war.

Incidentally, I should maybe add that Catherine, like Monty, also has a special thing about her in terms of her DoWing: If she's Friendly she will accept a war bribe against anyone, even other people she's Friendly with. She's the only AI in the game who will be bribed against someone at Friendly in any situation, but AIs shouldn't be bribed to war against you unless you're already in a war, so that shouldn't be the issue in this case.

AIs don't normally accept bribes when mobilized for war (plotting or already in a war). Even Cathy, the only AI who accepts war bribes against a target she is Friendly with. Not impossible, but unlikely to be an issue. If there is a specific rule to Monty I'm not aware of what it is, but he is the most aggressive AI in terms of base plot chance (2% a turn). And I think he shares that distinction with Ragnar.

The scenarios for an AI to declare another war when already in one are rare:
-AI plots war over a refused demand, executes DoW later
-AI instantly DoWs over refused demand
-AI dogpiles weak target
-AI is forced into additional war through vassal or alliance mechanics, or the AP holy war
-(obscure) AI was targeting a barb city that you took right before it could. It will attack the city and DoW you in the process. Lain has one of these on video, I think.

By far the most common and likely scenario is a refused demand. AIs handle the retaliatory war actions differently than normal and can either plot them while at war (basically waiting for units to reach your border before DoW), or even hang on to a grudge from a demand in peaceful times and then they get into a war in the interim (likely if some else DoWs them while they plot over demand on you, they don't always drop the grudge-plotting!). You also can't discern whether an AI is plotting over a demand or not if they were already in war mode when it happened, so it can be quite surprising. AIs have two different values - one for the instant DoW for being rebuked, and one for for plotting a sneak attack over a rebuke. Incidentally, Cathy has a value higher than Monty's for plotting a sneak attack if you refuse her.

AIs can also instantly DoW over refused demands, I don't know the details about it other than they don't plot and assemble stacks for it, they just instantly go for it as if they were bribed in. In all cases where it happened to me I bordered the AI and it was stronger than me at the time. Looking in the iVals there are several AIs who apparently can't do this at all (value of 0) which includes Catherine.

AIs will also do the dogpile thing to freely declare wars even when in one already. This requires a certain threshold of power (basically the target must be quite weak in power rating, maybe land controlled as well). This is unlikely to happen unless you are really having a bad game already and generally requires at least one opponent at war with you already.

AIs will get into wars when accepting suzerainty over a vassal already in a war. It behaves much like a bribe (in that it can be blocked by peace treaties with the potential master before it happens). They can accept these arrangements while already in war in some circumstances (shared war against an opponent, they will team up, or if they are strong enough to dogpile the target already). While this doesn't appear to be the case for your example with Cathy @earthy, it is a potential way a big AI can get into multiple wars at once and it is sufficiently powerful to not be afraid of other players.

A common thread in all methods besides the refused demand thing is that the AI checks power comparisons before determining whether it will commit to a war or not. If it's not afraid of you (threshold is 2x their power rating or something to be immune to normal plotting?) it considers you a valid target, and if you are weak enough (at the dogpile war threshold) it will always consider war with you if it can (attitude) and the opportunity arises. I would assume it also looks at power comparisons for wars over being rebuked demands as well (so it won't DoW you if you are sufficiently powerful unless you play with Aggressive AI on), but I'm not really sure.

 

[rah]

Isn't a demand already based on you being weaker in the first place?

 

[earthy]

Thanks for all the info! It seems like it must have been a sneak attack resulting from a refused demand. I was playing earth18 and it was impossible to keep up with all of the demands. Out of curiosity, does declining "we demand you stop trading with ____" count as a refused demand? I tend to refuse those a lot because they screw up trades, but I've always thought the AI won't plot over that alone.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Could someone point me to a strategy guide for using failgold? I understand the basic mechanic: when you're building a wonder, and can't build it any more, the game turns the shields that you've accumulated into gold. That makes sense for world wonders, where an AI might beat you to them, but some posts here seem to indicate that it can be used for national wonders also. How does that work?

 

[UnforcedError]

Could someone point me to a strategy guide for using failgold? I understand the basic mechanic: when you're building a wonder, and can't build it any more, the game turns the shields that you've accumulated into gold. That makes sense for world wonders, where an AI might beat you to them, but some posts here seem to indicate that it can be used for national wonders also. How does that work?

You can build the same national wonder in multiple cities (but it can only be queued in a single production queue) before finally completing it in the city you want it in. With production multipliers (+100% resource and / or IND) it can be more effective than building wealth.

 

[AcaMetis]

Partially build a National Wonder in one (or more) city/cities, than finish it in the last city/the city you actually want it in. The partially completed one(s) will have it's invested converted into , since you can only have one of any given national wonder. The one exception to this is the Palace, since you can always build it in another city to move your capitol.