Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[mice]

"Welcome to CFC!!!!!....:

Thanks Pheonix for the welcome and the reply, very helpful..now Im back to play!

 

[Phoenix_56721]

Hi, new to Civ

I have found that upon taking a city I am left with hardly any workable tiles,
as if that cities culture is nonexistant. I am wondering if this city will gain tiles over time? I have tried to send an Artist for culture Bomb, sadly this hasn't made a big difference. Is the Great Artist a good option?

I've also noticed there aren't any buildings in these cities after i capture them. I am begining to question the benefits of actually keeping a conquered city.

-Will a city rebound and claim land overtime ?
-Do captured cities not keep any buildings?
-How could I possibly know if keeping a city will be profitable, and how could it be if its culture is near 0?
-Is the Great Artist a good option?

ty much for all your help.

Another First post Welcome to CFC...

1. Yes they do rebound after time, but if it's close to an enemy's city that has strong culture (Like their Capital) it may not gain very many workable tiles. I usually take one city then raze the next one close to it, this gives a nice buffer.

2. Wrong Edited below: No they are empty just like when you found a city, except they keep what ever religion that has spread to that city.

3. Usually I only keep cities that have good resources in its area or ones that have a strategic advantage for a future war. City cost maintenance in Civ4 so you really need to choose you're city wisely especially since can't abandon it once you choose to install a Governor.

4. A Great Artist is the fasted and best way of getting culture in a city, otherwise Leaders that have the Culture trait will really help in building culture in new cities. Also build all the culture producing buildings temple, library, monasteries and so on.

Edit: I was wrong I about building remaining in captured cities, yes some buildings do remain in the cities I just checked on one of my games to verify, not sure what I was thinking.

 

[Prince David]

Hi, new to Civ

I have found that upon taking a city I am left with hardly any workable tiles,
as if that cities culture is nonexistant. I am wondering if this city will gain tiles over time? I have tried to send an Artist for culture Bomb, sadly this hasn't made a big difference. Is the Great Artist a good option?

I've also noticed there aren't any buildings in these cities after i capture them. I am begining to question the benefits of actually keeping a conquered city.

-Will a city rebound and claim land overtime ?
-Do captured cities not keep any buildings?
-How could I possibly know if keeping a city will be profitable, and how could it be if its culture is near 0?
-Is the Great Artist a good option?

ty much for all your help.

A captured city will be in revolt for a number of turns approx equal to it's population. There is a formula that determined the length of the revolt, but this is a good rule of thumb.

A city in revolt will not produce anything - food, commerce, sience, culture - nothing, zip, nada zilch. Many of the citizens may be resisting, and it's cultural zone will only be the center tile. Once the resistance is over the city recovers and will act pretty much like any other city.

The real draw back is that any building that generates culture will not make it through the process, and many other buildings will be lost as well. In addition the city's culture is reset to zero. This means that at best you will have the central nine for workable tiles, and often less than that if the next AI city up the road is large and has decent culture. You can develop culture like any other city, but if the next city is culturaaly powerful you may never get the entire fat cross back. (Thus you must go conquer that next city, and so on.)

Culture bombs are a great way to try and reclaim the lost territory. But your city can not accumulate culture while it's in revolt. If you set off the culture bomb before the reolt is over I suspect you wasted it.

edit (forgot to answer a question): There are lots of reasons to keep conquered. Like Phoenix said, the town may control a resource that you need. The city is probably in a good location for a city in any case, and if you didn't go crazy with the pillaging it's also surrounded by developed and ready to work tiles. Moreover it'll have a decent sized population once things settle down, putting you ahead on the production and commerce versus a newly founded city in the same spot.

 

[Rag55]

Hey again, thx for the welcome, and the advice and info.

Another question I have is whether Eras mean anything in game? I never thought they did, until i have heard others refer to eras while commenting on their play strategies.
Ive noticed they are triggered by certain tech discovery.
Am I possibly overlooking something by not paying any attention to them?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Related to the above - I think only the person who initiates the trade needs the technology. If you have alphabet, you can trade techs with someone who doesn't.

Either player may have Alphabet. If you don't have Alphabet yourself, you can still initiate tech trades with opponents who do.

 

[Pook]

Long time Civ I II III player, new to Civ IV, using the 1.52 patch. When starting a new game, after the world size page where I pick the land distribution and sea level, I get a page titled "shoreline." My choices are natural, pressed, solid, and random. Anyone know what this is? Thanq for the help.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Either player may have Alphabet. If you don't have Alphabet yourself, you can still initiate tech trades with opponents who do.

Ok, good to know, thanks. So far the foreign advisor screen has been telling me that "tech trading is not allowed" with everyone, and then all of a sudden this disappears when I research alphabet. I therefor thought that I couldn't initiate trade without it. I guess whenever I looked at the screen no one else had researched it either, and the AIs tend to get alphabet around the same time.


Any help on these old questions?

What does the power statistic measure on the stats screen? Sometimes you'll get messages about the most powerful civs in the world. Is this measuring military power i.e. number of units and how advanced they are? Are there other factors?

When you mouse over the civs in the score list (bottom right corner of screen) what do all of the stats mean? For every breakdown of where you score is coming from there's two numbers in parenthesis next to it - what does this mean? What is score by winning this turn? etc...

Added:

Long time Civ I II III player, new to Civ IV, using the 1.52 patch. When starting a new game, after the world size page where I pick the land distribution and sea level, I get a page titled "shoreline." My choices are natural, pressed, solid, and random. Anyone know what this is? Thanq for the help.

This usually shows up for the pangrea map. I have no idea what it does, and haven't noticed its effect when generating maps. Hopefully someone else knows.

 

[oagersnap]

This usually shows up for the pangrea map. I have no idea what it does, and haven't noticed its effect when generating maps. Hopefully someone else knows.

I think it means that if it's solid, there are no islands at all, if it's pressed, there are a few, and if it's natural, there are a decent amount.

 

[Snerk]

Hi, i was wondering...
What decides wich trade route(s) your city has? And what decides how much money you'll make from them, exept civics and buildings.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Hi, i was wondering...
What decides wich trade route(s) your city has? And what decides how much money you'll make from them, exept civics and buildings.

Trade routes are chosen automatically to be the most profitable for the city. Your cities can trade with one another and earn 1 commerce. If they trade with a foreign civ they get 2 commerce. In order to trade with a foreign civ you must have open borders. Notice the distinction here. You can trade resources and techs without open borders, but not trade routes.

Through the use of civics, wonders and certain standard buildings, you can increase both the amount of trade routes per city and the commerce generated by them.

I'm not sure if distance plays a role. I don't think it does in the early game anyway (1 for domestic, 2 for foreign). In the late game I think I've seen foreign trade routes with different amounts which implies some are more valuable than others. Perhaps at some point it does matter.

 

[Snerk]

thanks you, However do you have to be connected by road coast or oasen to establish trade route with a certian city?

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Stupid question time -- do monasteries still accumulate culture after you discover Scientific Method? In other words, does Scientific Method only get rid of the 10% science bonus, or does it also get rid of the 2 culture points?

 

[Samson]

Stupid question time -- do monasteries still accumulate culture after you discover Scientific Method? In other words, does Scientific Method only get rid of the 10% science bonus, or does it also get rid of the 2 culture points?

I THINK you only lose the ability to build them with Sci. Meth., they still give you all the bonuses (culture, science and building missonarys). So build as many as you can before you get the tech (but do not hold up on the tech, biology is far more important).

 

[_alphaBeta_]

thanks you, However do you have to be connected by road coast or oasen to establish trade route with a certian city?

Yes you do. Connection is usually simple once you have the ability to trade via coast. All you have to do is make sure there are a continuous stream of coast tiles adjacent to one another. You must explore the full coast i.e. if one coast block is blacked out because you haven't explored it yet, the connection is not complete. I think it is a combination of what you and the other civ have explored, although this is still unclear to me. I say combination because half the time I have connections to a civ that I haven't even found any of their cities, much less explored the coast near them. Coastal connections can be strange since I've had trading between two cities of mine connected by a coast, but before I researched sailing.

 

[Hrdina]

When a building becomes obsolete they ONLY thing left is the culture bonus. EVERYTHING else is gone, including the ability to train missionaries in this case. Once scientific method is researched you're only building missionaries by using the organized religion civic regardless of how many monasteries you have built.

You also lose the ability to build that building in future cities (or anywhere for that matter) for the rest of the game.

I don't think the first paragraph is true. Once you've researched Scientific Method, you can still build Missionaries in cities with Monastaries, but (as you've written) you cannot build new Monastaries.

 

[Pook]

I think it means that if it's solid, there are no islands at all, if it's pressed, there are a few, and if it's natural, there are a decent amount.

Thanx for the help. I wasn't able to find anything in Civilopedia or the manual.

 

[Prince David]

thanks you, However do you have to be connected by road coast or oasen to establish trade route with a certian city?

Also, you can only trade across ocean tiles if you have the technology that allows you to cross ocean tiles. (Which I believe is optics which enables the caravel unit.)

 

[MrCynical]

While the caravel can cross ocean tiles, you aren't able to trade across oceans until the invention of astronomy.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Also, you can only trade across ocean tiles if you have the technology that allows you to cross ocean tiles. (Which I believe is optics which enables the caravel unit.)

No, you need Astronomy for ocean trade.

 

[milhouse88]

Culture bombs are a great way to try and reclaim the lost territory. But your city can not accumulate culture while it's in revolt. If you set off the culture bomb before the reolt is over I suspect you wasted it.

I'm new to CIV but it's been my experience that the culture bomb/great artist actually ends the revolt.