Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Long try]

I have this game w/ random personalities on. There's this guy who put a mountain of espionage on me. Like, while I have only 50 on him, he has nearly 700! Who could that original personality be?

Moderator Action: Please do not use spelling to avoid the site's autocensor. Changed your sentence without changing the meaning. Thanks, leif

 

[lymond]

I have this game w/ random personalities on. There's this guy who put a mountain of espionage on me. Like, while I have only 50 on him, he has nearly 700! Who could that original personality be?

Moderator Action: Please do not use spelling to avoid the site's autocensor. Changed your sentence without changing the meaning. Thanks, leif

This article in the strategy & tips forum provides info on each leaders personalities, including espionage spending:

Know Your Enemy


As far as I know, Sitting Bull has the highest inclination toward espionage spending.

 

[Long try]

Thanks, I'll look into it. Now: do cities act as farms when it comes to irrigation spreading post Civil Serv?

 

[AcaMetis]

Cities do, Forts don't.

 

[Fippy]

Cities don't if they are on hills, and i think desert too.

 

[Civ for Worldbuilding]

I saw people playing hotseat games with 8, 10 civs, and playing as every civ trying to imagine their perspective on the events. I'm trying in the Earth map (18 civs) that is shipped with the game, and disabling every victory condition, on a Marathon match, and with two less civilizations. What I'm wondering is how far (in-game date) I could play the game without having issues such as long loading times or even save corrupting, and if I do a single player match with the same options, and a custom civ, and maybe the Dynamic Traits mod, how far could I go. The machine which runs Civ IV BtS has an Intel Core i5 3330 and 8GB RAM, Geforce GT 730, Debian 12.

 

[Long try]

What are bonuses for immortal AI? I want to set up an advanced starting point game, where they receive that amount, plus a worker's worth, in points.

 

[Fippy]

Agri + hunting + archery (+ their 2 Civ techs)
3 archers + 2 scouts + 1 worker

 

[Long try]

May I assume that the corresponding Starting Points for techs are their beaker costs, for units are their hammers? If I play epic speed, should there be modifiers for those SP?

 

[Long try]

Another question. Moscow is going to expand culturally in a few turns & cut off the possible land route. If I research Sailing, will my cities be connected? If yes, do I have to road some coastal tiles (i.e. the gold & wheat ones) for that to happen?

Does Sailing enable trading via all possible coastal tiles of a whole continent? For instance, I know X & me share the same landmass, though the coastal route is still unexplored. Can we trade?
Example 2: I'm connected to Y through land route, and Y connected to X through water route (though I don't know that, not explored yet). Only I have Sailing. Can I trade with X?
Overall, I'm still confused about how the game determine trade routes. Many times I see the 'connected' icon next to a civ, but when I open border, no foreign trade happens. It's early game, so civics like Mercantilism isn't available yet.

 

[AcaMetis]

If I research Sailing, will my cities be connected?

No. Hanoi does not have a coastal connection.

If yes, do I have to road some coastal tiles (i.e. the gold & wheat ones) for that to happen?

No. What you need to do in order to connect your trade network to the coast is to build either a city or fort on the coast, and connect it to your trade network. Coastal cities/forts can access the water for trade routes, landlocked cities/forts cannot unless they are next to a river that leads into the coast.

Does Sailing enable trading via all possible coastal tiles of a whole continent? For instance, I know X & me share the same landmass, though the coastal route is still unexplored. Can we trade?

Sailing permits your trade network to expand over rivers and coastal tiles that are explored and not covered by a hostile culture - barbarians or any rival civ you are at war with. Note that you do not need open borders to trade through a rival civ, you need open borders to trade with a rival civ and explore their territory. In addition you don't need Sailing to trade across rivers or coastal tiles that are within your cultural borders.

Example 2: I'm connected to Y through land route, and Y connected to X through water route (though I don't know that, not explored yet). Only I have Sailing. Can I trade with X?

No - you need to have a safe route explored in order to send traders across it. If you don't know where places are or how to get to them, your traders will not be able to trade there.

Overall, I'm still confused about how the game determine trade routes. Many times I see the 'connected' icon next to a civ, but when I open border, no foreign trade happens. It's early game, so civics like Mercantilism isn't available yet.

Being connected means that you, the AI or both have established a connection between your respective trade networks. That connection can be one way, I.E. the AI has scouted out a coastal route that you haven't uncovered, and so the AI is able to reach and trade with your cities, but your traders don't know how to reach the AI's cities. This will give you the connected icon next to the civ, since you are connected and able to trade resources, but in order to get trade routes with the AI's cities you must uncover your own route to those cities. Otherwise opening borders only allows the AI to trade with you.

 

[Long try]

Thank you, cleared a lot of things. To make sure I learned the stuff:

What you need to do in order to connect your trade network to the coast is to build either a city or fort on the coast, and connect it to your trade network.

I've explored the whole of Russia (north). Even though there are no good spots on the east coast, I could found a city on the west coast (just outside the left edge of the previous pic), connect it, and Saigon & other cities on the right will get on the network, even if I don't open border with Russia. Right?

In addition you don't need Sailing to trade across rivers or coastal tiles that are within your cultural borders.

In the past I thought just roading the tiles b/w 2 rivers would give me routes. Now I understand that I must connect the 2 cities on those rivers, and then the whole empire will benefit.

If you don't know where places are or how to get to them, your traders will not be able to trade there.

So a short lesson would be: trade routes always need line of sight. If I haven't seen a possible route with my own eyes, or know a city's name, then there's no possible trading. Correct?

 

[AcaMetis]

I've explored the whole of Russia (north). Even though there are no good spots on the east coast, I could found a city on the west coast (just outside the left edge of the previous pic), connect it, and Saigon & other cities on the right will get on the network, even if I don't open border with Russia. Right?

Assuming there is a coastal connection above Russia that you've scouted out and isn't under hostile culture, yes, that should work.

So a short lesson would be: trade routes always need line of sight. If I haven't seen a possible route with my own eyes, or know a city's name, then there's no possible trading. Correct?

I actually forget off-hand if you need to uncover cities on your map in order to trade with them, it might be enough to just connect to another civ's trade network. But I'm having a hard time imagining how your traders are able to get to a city and profitably trade goods there when your empire as a whole has no idea where that city even is .

 

[JiM_cz]

Is the value of my war weariness displayed somewhere in the game, please?

 

[AcaMetis]

IIRC it is listed below a leader's diplomatic modifiers, either on the diplomacy screen or the diplomatic overview if you check the relevant relation.

 

[Lennier]

At least with BUG, you can hover over the civilization’s name on the main screen to see it. Not sure if it’s there w/o BUG.

 

[s.bernbaum]

At least with BUG, you can hover over the civilization’s name on the main screen to see it. Not sure if it’s there w/o BUG.

You can also see it for each city by hovering over the happiness/unhappiness, to the right of the city name, in the city screen.

 

[JiM_cz]

Thanks guys for your responses, I had a look at the recommended locations but it seems like you misunderstood me — or more probably I wasn’t clear enough. I’m looking for the war weariness value of my own civ and not after I declare war but BEFORE. Let’s imagine a situation (I believe quite realistic) where you finish a war and shortly after you’re thinking of starting another one (either against the same target or a different one). I think it would be pretty useful to know what weariness (unhappiness) I can expect BEFORE I actually start the war itself. Does the game display it somewhere?

 

[Long try]

Is it possible for barbs to spawn from a single tile of explored but unfogbusted land? All other tiles adjacent to it are within my civ's line of sight. My suspicion is that, since civ4/bts treats a map in clusters of 2/4 tiles, a single fogged tile isn't enough for barbs to appear.

 

[AcaMetis]

Thanks guys for your responses, I had a look at the recommended locations but it seems like you misunderstood me — or more probably I wasn’t clear enough. I’m looking for the war weariness value of my own civ and not after I declare war but BEFORE. Let’s imagine a situation (I believe quite realistic) where you finish a war and shortly after you’re thinking of starting another one (either against the same target or a different one). I think it would be pretty useful to know what weariness (unhappiness) I can expect BEFORE I actually start the war itself. Does the game display it somewhere?

As far as I'm aware war weariness is rival specific, I.E. if you go to war with Stalin and later sign peace you'll have war weariness with Stalin that'll come back if you end up in a war with him soon after. But if you sign peace and declare war on I.E. Lincoln the war weariness you've build up with Stalin won't apply (or will, but less so? Not sure). Hence why war weariness is something that is listed per rival, to my knowledge there is no war weariness stat that applies to a given civ's rivals globally.

Is it possible for barbs to spawn from a single tile of explored but unfogbusted land? All other tiles adjacent to it are within my civ's line of sight. My suspicion is that, since civ4/bts treats a map in clusters of 2/4 tiles, a single fogged tile isn't enough for barbs to appear.

I can't confirm, but I want to say that yes, barbs can spawn from single tiles that are not uncovered or within two tiles of another unit.