Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Prince David]

@Toller Pretzl and a4phantom

I believe you will get +1 commerce for building on the silver, but since that's less than the +3 (?) you get from mining it you do loose out on that extra income. As long as you know mining you should get the happiness bonus.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I believe you will get +1 commerce for building on the silver, but since that's less than the +3 (?) you get from mining it you do loose out on that extra income.

You aren't really losing income, in the long term, because cottages are just as good at producing income (after they grow) as silver mines. E.g., suppose you build your city on a grassland/hill/silver for 2/1/2, and then you use one citizen to work a plains/flat/town for 1/1/4 (after cottage growth). Conversely, if you put the city on the plains/flat, it would be worth 2/1/1, and then the grassland/hill/silver with a mine would be worth 1/2/4. Total is 3/2/6 the first way and 3/3/5 the second way. Which is better depends on exactly how long it takes your cottage to grow, and what civics and technologies you have.

 

[ferenginar]

Is there any additional benefits for following your leader's favourite civic?

 

[a4phantom]

Is there any additional benefits for following your leader's favourite civic?

Nope, they're just there to give the AI civs their historical flavor. You're free to be yourself.

 

[oagersnap]

Is there any additional benefits for following your leader's favourite civic?

Not directly, but they will normally use that civic, and if you use 3-5 civics that the AI uses too, they will be happier with you.

 

[Frostyboy]

Does the Kremlin work on Slavery (-50% population cost)???

 

[LeSphinx]

Frostyboy I don't think the Kremlin works with slavery in order to hurry production by sacrifying population...
But I'll have to check

 

[Will_518]

1) how is production contributing to settler calculated? Is it excess Food + Production? Does that mean I can build a settler with entirely food? (ie 1P from city + 9F means 10turns/settler)?

2) So when I overflow from a settler, does the food get counted as Production? E.g. overflow of 1P + 3F, means the 3 F will get converted to P, to gimme 4P for my next build, or does it go back to the Food column?

 

[DaviddesJ]

1) how is production contributing to settler calculated? Is it excess Food + Production? Does that mean I can build a settler with entirely food? (ie 1P from city + 9F means 10turns/settler)?

2) So when I overflow from a settler, does the food get counted as Production? E.g. overflow of 1P + 3F, means the 3 F will get converted to P, to gimme 4P for my next build, or does it go back to the Food column?

1. Yes.
2. All of the overflow is treated as production.

 

[Frostyboy]

What about Hurrying (Slavery)

How many hammers equals one population?

If less hammers are needed for the population loss, will the extra hammers go to overflow?

 

[DaviddesJ]

What about Hurrying (Slavery)

How many hammers equals one population?

If less hammers are needed for the population loss, will the extra hammers go to overflow?

Roughly it's 30 hammers per population, with adjustments for production bonuses and game speed. You do get to keep the overflow but there appear to be some bugs. There's a long thread here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145687

 

[Moonsinger]

Sorry, if this has been asked before, but how can I reset/clear the HOF? (not the HOF at CivFanatics but the HOF for Civ4 on my home computer)

 

[leadfoot]

I get the feeling that this question is probably really stupid and/or has already been answered (though I've searched to no avail), but:

Is there a decent way of figuring combat odds when considering multiple units? I have a general understanding of how combat is done (as explained here), but say that City X is defended by a few longbowmen with a given defensive bonus, and I want a rough estimate of how many macemen it'll take to defeat them and take the city.

Or in other words, if I know a city's defenses, how can I get a decent idea of how many of a certain unit I'll need to defeat them? Being the total newb that I am, thus far I've done a rather bad job of estimating this.

 

[Efexeye]

I get the feeling that this question is probably really stupid and/or has already been answered (though I've searched to no avail), but:

Is there a decent way of figuring combat odds when considering multiple units? I have a general understanding of how combat is done (as explained here), but say that City X is defended by a few longbowmen with a given defensive bonus, and I want a rough estimate of how many macemen it'll take to defeat them and take the city.

Or in other words, if I know a city's defenses, how can I get a decent idea of how many of a certain unit I'll need to defeat them? Being the total newb that I am, thus far I've done a rather bad job of estimating this.

If you select the stack you want to attack with, then mouse over the opposing units (or city) and press Alt, the game will calculate combat odds and show you your relative chance of winning.

Also, if you click on the flag to the left of a unit, you can see what +/- modifiers it is getting due to promotions, terrain, etc.

Hope that helps!

 

[_alphaBeta_]

When you have every unit of a stack selected and order an attack, it sends the unit with the highest probability of winning, right? Is there anyway to see what unit is generating the combat odds (i.e. what unit will be sent when you attack). It would be nice to know this ahead of time.

 

[Efexeye]

When you have every unit of a stack selected and order an attack, it sends the unit with the highest probability of winning, right? Is there anyway to see what unit is generating the combat odds (i.e. what unit will be sent when you attack). It would be nice to know this ahead of time.

The odds aren't based on one unit. The odds are your stack vs. their stack.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

The odds aren't based on one unit. The odds are your stack vs. their stack.

But only one unit from each stack does battle at a time, right? I thought you were looking at the probability of the their stack's strongest unit against yours.

I thought I remember reading in the manual that the game decides which unit will fight when you order an entire stack to fight something.

 

[leadfoot]

If you select the stack you want to attack with, then mouse over the opposing units (or city) and press Alt, the game will calculate combat odds and show you your relative chance of winning.

Ah. That's where I was getting confused. I thought that the calculated odds only considered one of my units, not the entire stack. Thanks!

 

[a4phantom]

Generally though you want to overdo it when attacking a city. Most of my losses have come from sending too few units and counting on their superiority to defeat a mass of weaker units. Winning with a few 'wasted' units to spare is much preferable to losing because you had one or two too few. Besides, the way cultural borders work in Civ4 you can expect an immediate counterattack.

 

[leadfoot]

After running a test, it looks like what I'd originally thought is true: the calculated odds are for single units only, not for the entire stack.

To test it, I stood a single maceman next to an enemy city defended by two archers, a spearman, and a longbowman. My odds were 23.2%. Then I brought in two more macemen (identical to the first -- all of them had a City Raider promotion). I made sure to select them all, and the odds were still at 23.2%.

That said, does anyone know of a way to calculate an entire stack's odds of beating a city's defenses?