Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Lennier]

If you hover the mouse over the culture bar, the chance (per turn) of a revolt will be displayed.

 

[lymond]

Question on troops' effects in a newly acquired / contested city (re: revolts):

Do more troops:

A) Help prevent revolt

B) End revolts more quickly

C) Both

D) Neither

The answer is basically A. More troops or more advanced troops reduce revolt risk. Keep in mind that revolt risk will be present as long as that city is under culture pressure from the former owner (or that civ ceases to exist). Enough units can squash the revolt risk (0%-9.99%) entirely, but the revolt element is still in the city. Revolt risk is removed once city attains 50% of your culture, which will honestly take a long time unless you had some culture in the city already. (Revolt Risk does not appear to abate as your culture increases ..say 10%,20%,30%,... imo that was mistake in design )

If your adamant in keeping a city with revolt risk then you need to place enough units to squash revolt to 0% and build some culture stuff. I takes a looong time for your culture to creep up. Other options are to kill off the offending civ, or in the case that you vassal the civ just gift back their cities.

So, in my view, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If going for a fast conquest or domination, I may just gift cites back to a vassal - makes them stronger anyway. (or Diplo victory for that matter). If going Space I generally want to own as many cities as possible, so I would probably just eliminate the civ.

In other words revolts do not "end more quickly". You either squash it or eliminate the reason for it (kill civ or gift cities to vassal)

 

[Lennier]

Just one note to add to lymond’s answer: while the former owner’s culture is usually the culture causing the revolt, a city can be under cultural pressure from another civilization. If the current owner did not conquer the city from the Civ putting cultural pressure on the city and the current owner’s culture is less than 50%, the city can go into revolt. A second revolt in such a situation leads to the city going over to the other Civ; ie, a culture flip.

 

[Orion Pax]

Thanks all, very helpful!

The answer is basically A. More troops or more advanced troops reduce revolt risk. Keep in mind that revolt risk will be present as long as that city is under culture pressure from the former owner (or that civ ceases to exist). Enough units can squash the revolt risk (0%-9.99%) entirely, but the revolt element is still in the city. Revolt risk is removed once city attains 50% of your culture, which will honestly take a long time unless you had some culture in the city already. (Revolt Risk does not appear to abate as your culture increases ..say 10%,20%,30%,... imo that was mistake in design )

If your adamant in keeping a city with revolt risk then you need to place enough units to squash revolt to 0% and build some culture stuff. I takes a looong time for your culture to creep up. Other options are to kill off the offending civ, or in the case that you vassal the civ just gift back their cities.

So, in my view, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If going for a fast conquest or domination, I may just gift cites back to a vassal - makes them stronger anyway. (or Diplo victory for that matter). If going Space I generally want to own as many cities as possible, so I would probably just eliminate the civ.

In other words revolts do not "end more quickly". You either squash it or eliminate the reason for it (kill civ or gift cities to vassal)

Great breakdown. Didn't know about the 50% threshold, nor about how risk % does NOT decrease as culture increases. Agree that is a flaw. Are you sure that is the case? Come to think of it, I could have sworn captured cities that were drenched in opposing culture revolted much more than ones nearer to my cities (but were not at 50% yet).

Also, more advanced troops reduce risk, not just more troops? Interesting. So is that a function of base power then? Or is it more by era?

But yeah on strategy, I have learned to consider the options you mention there. You have to have a plan not just to take the city, but to keep it and keep its tiles. If a vassled civ's city is bordering another civ, that other civ's culture will soak up that border city's tiles once you take it. So if that's a problem, I avoid taking those cities, unless I'm about to roll onto that civ next. If I am not, and say am going Space, as you mention, then conquest may be more limited if I feel I will have enough cities. The focus would be on good cities on or near my border. There is also the option of razing bad cities nearby that would put lots of culture pressure on the one you want to keep.

If you hover the mouse over the culture bar, the chance (per turn) of a revolt will be displayed.

I seriously had no idea about this.

 

[elitetroops]

Come to think of it, I could have sworn captured cities that were drenched in opposing culture revolted much more than ones nearer to my cities (but were not at 50% yet).

As lymond said, it has to be under cultural pressure. If the city tile isn't within the cultural borders of any AI city there should be no revolt risk.

 

[Orion Pax]

As lymond said, it has to be under cultural pressure. If the city tile isn't within the cultural borders of any AI city there should be no revolt risk.

Right. I was talking about cities that revolted less than others, not never. Or at least it seemed that way.

I could be recalling it wrong. Could have had different troop placements, but IIRC usually my habit had been to leave just 1 unit in those cities once no longer under military threat.

 

[Trout]

Quick question please. Does anybody know if the trade route bonus from harbors only applies to foreign trade routes??? I am in mercantilism currently and can't tell that my trade route income is changing after building a harbor. The Civilopedia does not mention anything about it, so at this point it is a suspicion based on what I am seeing in my current game. Thanks in advance for any help with this.

 

[Pangaea]

Going by memory, the Harbour affects all trade routes, including domestic. The customs house is only for foreign ones though, so would have zero impact during Mercantilism.

 

[crullerdonut]

Quick question please. Does anybody know if the trade route bonus from harbors only applies to foreign trade routes??? I am in mercantilism currently and can't tell that my trade route income is changing after building a harbor. The Civilopedia does not mention anything about it, so at this point it is a suspicion based on what I am seeing in my current game. Thanks in advance for any help with this.

Unless this is something from BUG, you should be able to just hover over the Trade Routes to see if there is an additional +50% bonus coming from harbors. The way that Harbors are supposed to work is that they add +50% bonus to in general. Customs Houses are the ones which work only on Foreign . Contrary to some reports, in the current patch at least, Customs Houses work on all Foreign , NOT only on intercontinental foreign .

 

[Pangaea]

Have a question about AP hammers on monasteries. Almost never build these things, so don't recall. Do the AP hammers disappear with Scientific Method, or at Mass Media?

 

[crullerdonut]

Have a question about AP hammers on monasteries. Almost never build these things, so don't recall. Do the AP hammers disappear with Scientific Method, or at Mass Media?

After Scientific Method is discovered, the bonus hammers on Monasteries with the AP go away along with their +10% , but they keep their (except their bonus from the Sistine Chapel, which does indeed get obsoleted).
The bonus also can go away if you are in Defiance of the AP, after you defy a resolution. You can get back out of defiance by 1. voting "Yes" on a proposal, AND 2. having that proposal pass.

 

[lymond]

And you can still build mishes in cities with obsolete monasteries

 

[Pangaea]

After Scientific Method is discovered, the bonus hammers on Monasteries with the AP go away along with their +10% , but they keep their (except their bonus from the Sistine Chapel, which does indeed get obsoleted).
The bonus also can go away if you are in Defiance of the AP, after you defy a resolution. You can get back out of defiance by 1. voting "Yes" on a proposal, AND 2. having that proposal pass.

Thanks. Then it is as expected, and it's kinda pointless to build (many of) them like I was thinking about. Do like to get up a few, for the reason lymond mentions (when out of OR) and in the capital. But the game opens up a lot when they are a realistic build option, and other stuff always seems more important. Then, before you know it, you're bursting through the tech tree. Not enough time to pay back when both hammers and obsoletes at SciMethod. Have used to build temples instead if I want those AP hammers, which seems like a much better deal, despite temples being a little more expensive. At least they last a long time.

 

[Lennier]

In regards to tech discounts for meeting civilizations who know a tech: Do you still get the bonus (I think +10% to per civ that knows the tech you don't) if a civ that knows a tech you don't is destroyed? If you loose contact with that civ?

 

[Pangaea]

Isn't the bonus 5% or 3%? Don't think it's as high as 10%. Would think it only matters for alive civs you have met, but I don't know.

How come golden ages are comparatively penalised on epic speed, and maybe marathon too? Between normal and epic speed, practically everything takes 50% longer or is 50% more expensive. Normal speed GA are 8 turns, so I was sure it would be 12 turns on epic speed, and then 18 with MoM. Yet when I finally launched a GA, it's only 15 turns. Which must mean that you only get 10 turns of GA on epic speed (or +25% length compared with normal speed).

Not played marathon in absolute ages, but is there something similar there, that GA are much shorter than you'd think given that units are (mostly) twice the cost and everything else (more or less) is 3x as expensive/long?

 

[lymond]

I think it is 5%.

I think GAs should have been a bit longer on slower speed, but maythe thinking here was the value of 1 turn of a GA.

 

[drewisfat]

1.25 x 8 x 1.5 = 15 *hides*

Granted can't rule out this being another hideous rounding issue like quick speed chops.

 

[Pangaea]

Not even sure who you are trying to correct there, but 10 is 25% more than 8.
+50% would be 12, which is what I expected. +50% for that again, for MoM, would be 18, which again is what I expected. But for some reason they have hamstrung GA on the slower speeds.

 

[lymond]

Yep, you are right...I plugged the wrong numbers into a my brain

 

[Qactus]

@Pangaea There is an excellent article on how different things scale with game speed (including some calculations on the effectiveness of chopping, whipping, drafting etc.)

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/game-speed-and-map-size.411750/

Section on golden ages from that guide:

...Golden age durations are Q/N/E/M: 6/8/10/16 turns (This progression does not follow the time ratio) If Golden ages scaled to game speed they would last for Q/N/E/M 5.5/8/11.5/21 turns This means that Golden ages are less powerful on slower game speeds...