Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[a4phantom]

Is there a way to permanently cancel a cities production of an improvement? For example- wnen I had a number of cites producing Knights and Grenadiers became available I tried to switch from Knights to Grens. The problem was, after each Gren was finished the city went back to finishing the Knight.

Is there a way to end this?

Double click on the knight.

Yooka, If you've rushed Wonders then obviously it can be done. I'm just surprised, so thanks for clueing me in. Wonders seem generally less powerful in this generation, so maybe that's fair.

 

[puglover]

Is it considered rude to leave a multiplayer game while the game is still running? If so, then I won't play multiplayer, because I have to share the only up-to-date computer with two siblings.

 

[a4phantom]

Is there a good thread dealing with wonders?

 

[Taurendil]

Sorry to be the pestering newbie - but, can anyone tell me how to set rally points? Is the feature working/not working? I'm not even sure of the mechanics.

I had to test this to see if it is working, never used it before. It is working perfectly.
First select one or several cities. You select a city by clicking it's label. Shift-click adds more cities to your selection. Alt- or Ctrl-clicking selects all cities, or all cities on the same continent. Then with the intended cities selected, shift-right-click somewhere to set the way-point. As you would expect, any newly created units will go there.
I haven't tested this, but i suspect it doesn't work across continents, and doesn't use airports. Would be mighty cool if it did though, so someone should check.

Is there a good thread dealing with wonders?

Is there anything specific you need to know about them?

 

[Mirc]

Can someone answer my question from post #437 of this thread?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=132972&page=22

 

[Efexeye]

There should be a setup.exe file on the DVD- make sure you have the right one in the drive- some of them are mislabelled.

 

[bccfc]

Hi!

From my limited experience I am finding Domination victory the easiest way to get a high score. I have tried winning by the other ways, but I seem to get scores 3x or more higher by going for domination. I assume that high scores are possible with the other victory types, but I'm just not sure how to achieve them. Do I need 'specialised' cities? Can I use the Governor for this or must I manually adjust the cities? How can you get a high score without having to go to war?

Thank you for your time.

 

[Taurendil]

From my limited experience I am finding Domination victory the easiest way to get a high score. I have tried winning by the other ways, but I seem to get scores 3x or more higher by going for domination. I assume that high scores are possible with the other victory types, but I'm just not sure how to achieve them. How can you get a high score without having to go to war?

You can win games without any wars, but really only on the lower difficulty levels. On higher levels you will need to do some warring if only to expand a bit. If your empire is only half the size of the AI, you won't be able to keep up in techs. You'll need to be up there with the tech leaders to achieve a space race victory. Perhaps you could pull off a cultural victory with only a very small core, I haven't tried yet.

Now game score is heavily dependant on the end date of the game. Obviously the earlier you finish, the higher your score. You probably win your dominations long before the end of the tech tree. Are you playing small maps?

I'm more of a peaceful player myself, and haven't gone for an early military rush yet. To illustrate that domination isn't the high-score champion for me, let me quote my hall of fame for you. Yes, it's only 4 games, i'm a very slow player.

1. score: 30969, space race win in 1930 AD, noble difficulty, standard map, normal speed. Base score: 7788
2. score: 28750, domination win in 1953 AD, noble difficulty, standard map, normal speed. Base score: 8630
3. score: 26054, space race win in 1840 AD, noble difficulty, standard map, epic speed. Base score: 5188 (First game I played)
4. score: 7163, space race win in 2012 AD, prince difficulty, huge map, normal speed. Base score: 3795 (Earth 1000 AD scenario as the Aztec)

Comparing nr 1 and 2 gives you a good idea howmuch effect the finishing date has on your score. Even though I had a bigger empire, and thus a bigger base score in nr 2 (inevitable since it's a domination game), just finishing 23 years later (13 turns?) dropped my final score below nr 1.
Nr 3 shows you that the different game speeds aren't perfectly balanced. It's the epic speed that allowed me to finish so early (1840 AD). This was my first game, and ofcourse i'm playing better now, which leads me to believe that epic speed game scores are higher than normal speed.
You can't really compare nr 4 to the others, as it was a scenario game. It does bring up an interesting point though: scores don't mean a thing. This was my most fun game to date (even though the game needs a serious patch before i play a huge map again), and by far the lowest scoring.

Do I need 'specialised' cities?

It is a good idea to specialise. Things you might want:


* Some high-production cities. Don't build a single cottage around them. Just enough food to grow comfortably and be able to use all tiles, mine/lumbermill/workshop/watermill the rest. These cities build your military units and wonders. You might want to plan in advance which city will get Ironworks, Heroic Epic, Red Cross, or West Point. It's a good idea to have 2 of these each in 2 cities. For example Heroic epic + West point and Ironworks + Red Cross.

* Some high-commerce cities. Again, just enough food to use as many tiles as your happiness will allow. A lot of cottages on the other tiles, but not only cottages. You don't want to be stuck with 7 hammers / turn, taking ages to build all the science and money buildings. The best of these cities should ofcourse be the site of the Oxford University. Wall Street is usually best placed in a holy city (with shrine) if you have one.

* If you happen upon a great food spot (several food resources, and/or a bunch of flood plains), you should be tempted to build a great person factory. You might want to focus it on production first for a bit, get the National Epic and perhaps the Globe Theatre. You'll want some cheap buildings that allow specialists (temples, theatre, forge, library, ...). Then use only the big food tiles, switching as many citizens to specialists as it can manage. If you like you can use the Caste System civic, which allows unlimited specialists, eleminating the need for all those small buildings.
I wouldn't advise going for more than 1 great person factory. If you do, you are missing out on a potentially great production or commerce site.

* I find that those 3 stereotypes I listed work best for continental cities. Coastal settlements are often a lot more limited in their options. They'll always have decent commerce (sea squares + harbor; great trade routes), but are forced to use most other tiles for basic food and production needs.

Can I use the Governor for this or must I manually adjust the cities?

I'd love to tell you the Governor works perfectly, but sadly, i find it doesn't . What I do is switch off the governor, and check every city when it grows. Early in the game I often want a bit more food than the standard pick. In the late game the new citizen will often be auto-assigned as a specialist, while I usually want to use all the tiles first. Checking every city that grows is a bit of a chore though. You have to check at the end of the turn who is going to grow in 1, and remember for the next turn. This gets tough when 7 or more of your cities grow at once. I would give a limb to see growing cities in the log.

 

[Jebu]

I just started playing Civ 4 three days ago and really enjoy it, even though it has cut way down on my sleeping hours.

My cities always get unhappy faces because they are overcrowed. I have searched the manual and these boards and can't seem to figure out what causes crowding or what to do about it. If anyone could give me a hint or two it would be greatly appreciated

 

[a4phantom]

This is probably a dumb question but does taking a capital still eliminate the spaceship? Although I am by far the most powerful civ, I'm behind in the Space Race due to getting bogged down in some wars. I just took the Malinese capital because they are the space race leaders, and the victory conditions screen still says they have 5 ss casings. Do I have to take the cities in which each piece is built or something?

 

[Efexeye]

Jebu, welcome.

Check this thread out for advice with overcrowding.

 

[Renata]

Overcrowding is the default unhappiness due to population. Above a certain point determined by the difficulty level, every new citizen added will be unhappy unless you do something to change that. Look for happy faces associated with city improvements, civs, and such.

 

[Bain]

many people in a small place cause too-crowded unhappiness.

 

[Dralmar]

I've got a question. Is there any way to add items to the BOTTOM of the build queue, or do they always end up at the top of the list? I've looked into the manual, and it says shift+click, but that still only adds to the top of the list. (the top being the next immediate thing to be built, the bottom being the last, of course).

This is really my only gripe gameplaywise...

Hold the shift key and pick your builds. They will line up behind the first one.

 

[bccfc]

What is the ranking after Augustus Caesar? What score do you need to achieve it?

 

[Dralmar]

hey guys, is there an "Accelerate Production" option before the game starts anymore? Its really annoying me that it takes 30 turns for a settler to be built, thanks.

When you set up the game if you choose Epic it takes longer to research and do things. Not sure if this changes the time to build buildings or units though

 

[Taurendil]

What is the ranking after Augustus Caesar? What score do you need to achieve it?

Augustus Caesar is the top ranking. As I mentioned before, you shouldn't focus on the scoring too much. You can be a newbie and get an Augustus score on settler difficulty, or you could pull off the greatest deity victory in history and get Dan Quale.

"hey guys, is there an "Accelerate Production" option before the game starts anymore? Its really annoying me that it takes 30 turns for a settler to be built, thanks."

When you set up the game if you choose Epic it takes longer to research and do things. Not sure if this changes the time to build buildings or units though

Quick game speed is much like Civ III's accelerated production. Only this time research is faster as well, and cities grow faster. Epic game speed is the opposite; cities grow slower, buildings take longer to complete, and techs are harder to research.
Note that settlers should take longer than they did in Civ III. Both settlers and workers cost a lot more production then they used to.

 

[Yooka]

Augustus Caesar is the top ranking. As I mentioned before, you shouldn't focus on the scoring too much. You can be a newbie and get an Augustus score on settler difficulty, or you could pull off the greatest deity victory in history and get Dan Quale.

Right. It's basically just a way for the game to add insult to injury when you lose.

 

[Mrdie]

I screwed my Civ IV up a bit (Screwed with the game info files, etc etc) and I am wondering how I can uninstall the game. I can't uninstall it anywhere I looked. O.o

 

[Mirc]

Just a stupid question: Where's the editor in Civ4?