Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Samson]

So Cs slingshot = Civil Service slingshot. Can someone explain how to do a Cs slingshot?

The normal way is to reaserch to preasthood, start building the oricale, then reaserch to code of laws before it is finished and choose CS as the free tech (the highest value tech for a long time).
Another way is to get Code of laws with the oricale, and get a great profit (sp), with the oricale GPP and a preist specialist or 2 (from building temples). If you do not reaserch masonary the GP will reaserch most of CS for you.

Also, If I go ahead in the tech tree and click and advanced tech, does my research then move toward this tech i automatically in the most efficient way .. ?

It chooses the way that requires the least amount of beakers. This may or may not be the most "efficent" way. I never do it.

 

[mice]

Thanks Samson, and .... can someone explain "triangle diplomacy".

 

[MitchCJ]

Hopefully I didn't miss the obvious, but how many hammers does slavery provide and does the value change over time or is it constant?

Thank you.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Thanks Samson, and .... can someone explain "triangle diplomacy".

Triangle displomacy is a handy way to avoid annoying all the AIs while making (and keeping) friends. It can be confusing at first when AIs are asking for help or demanding things. New players blindly accept or reject depending on their mood. It makes more sense to have a master plan in the back of your mind when all these things happen.

Essentially you want to befriend two other civs that are also friends. There's the triangle. This avoids the demands for stopping trade with your worst enemy. It's extremely difficult to be friends with two civs that aren't. Refusing to stop trading with either will lower your diplomatic modifier for both of them and they will both wind up hating you.

Don't trade anything (including open borders; excluding techs) with anyone outside the triangle. Of course the triangle can get bigger for some games, but you need to keep an eye on it. If your two friends start falling apart, lose one of them and befriend a friend of the other.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hopefully I didn't miss the obvious, but how many hammers does slavery provide and does the value change over time or is it constant?

Thank you.

With slavery you can 'pop-rush' buildings and units. This means that you change population points in your city into production. You can use a maximum of half the population of a city for this process. Each citizen is worth 30 base hammers at normal speed and 45 base hammers at epic speed (other values probably 20 and 90 at quick and marathon speeds, but I don't play at those speeds).

These hammers are influenced by any and all production bonusses in the city (forge, organized bonus for buildings, aluminium bonus for space ship parts, stone bonus for the pyramids).

You cannot partially rush a building/unit. There's an extra cost of 50% when there has not been done any building on the unit/building. Don't rush anything something from scratch.

Example: You're building a granery as an expansive leader at epic speed setting. The granery was finished for 2/135 hammers. The city is size 5, so you can pop - rush a maximum of 2 citizens. A forge is already in the city.
Each citizen that is used for rushing will give you 45 (base at epic speed) * (1 + 0.25 (forge) + 1 (expansive leader bonus for granery) = 101 hammers (rounded down).
So with 2 citizens, you will finish the building and have a nice overflow of hammers in the next project. Note that the base hammers that flow into the next project will get the production bonus from that building/unit and not the bonus from the granery. There are no dirty tricks that can be used here.

 

[frankcor]

Excellent treatise, Roland!

One point I will add: don't population rush for 1 population point only; always go for a minimum of 2 points. That way, the unhappiness that comes with rushing will have faded away before your population returns to it's current state. This is assuming, of course, that you are at the happiness limit of the city.

The worst case scenario is population rushing for only 1 population point and then your city grows in the next turn, exceeding the newly reduced happiness limit. Your people will be rioting by then.

 

[MitchCJ]

Thank you very much!! Great info.

 

[amickiew]

Hi guys, after a small break from Civ4, I'm wondering if the 1.61 patch brought any resolution to:

• Patrolling jets don't resume patrol animations after loading a saved game.
• No option to destroy improvements in one's own cities (native or captured)

I don't see it in the patch message, of course it wouldn't be the first time a patch message was incomplete.

I also once tried a mod that was supposed to give the option to destroy improvements but it never did get it to work.

Thanks in advance!

 

[FERGIE]

On Civ IV when you explore new territories and build ciities, it is all black around the cities. On the Civ III when you discovered new territories, the black would disapear, when you traded maps, more would be reveiled to you. Can someone tell me if this is the way it is suppossed to be, or do I have a problem?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hi guys, after a small break from Civ4, I'm wondering if the 1.61 patch brought any resolution to:

• Patrolling jets don't resume patrol animations after loading a saved game.
• No option to destroy improvements in one's own cities (native or captured)

I don't see it in the patch message, of course it wouldn't be the first time a patch message was incomplete.

I also once tried a mod that was supposed to give the option to destroy improvements but it never did get it to work.

Thanks in advance!

There was a mod that fixed the patrol animations and the maker of the mod mentioned that the mod was not needed anymore because it was fixed in 1.61. I don't think that you can destroy buildings in 1.61. Which buildings would you like to destroy?

I've heard of a mod that could do this too. You could ask the maker of this mod what to do to make it work.

On Civ IV when you explore new territories and build ciities, it is all black around the cities. On the Civ III when you discovered new territories, the black would disapear, when you traded maps, more would be reveiled to you. Can someone tell me if this is the way it is suppossed to be, or do I have a problem?

I've seen that complaint before. It was a graphical bug, but I thought it was resolved in one of the patches (I never suffered from it myself). Did you install the patches?(currently at version 1.61 and it is downloadable from the main news page of this site).

Also install the newest graphic drivers for your videocard. Old drivers can also give problems.

 

[amickiew]

There was a mod that fixed the patrol animations and the maker of the mod mentioned that the mod was not needed anymore because it was fixed in 1.61. I don't think that you can destroy buildings in 1.61. Which buildings would you like to destroy?

Good news on the animations

As for buildings, I'm not a civ expert by any means, but there have been times when I thought it would be helpful to destroy some buildings. One case might be for high pollution causing buildings when I'm having trouble with the environment, or can't afford the upgrades to clean them up. Another case might be when I've taken a city I know I'm not going to be able to hold, I've considered destroying all the improvements just to make life difficult when the previous owner retakes it.

I'm sure I've been struck with other reasons, though they're not exactly springing to mind at the moment.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Good news on the animations

As for buildings, I'm not a civ expert by any means, but there have been times when I thought it would be helpful to destroy some buildings. One case might be for high pollution causing buildings when I'm having trouble with the environment, or can't afford the upgrades to clean them up. Another case might be when I've taken a city I know I'm not going to be able to hold, I've considered destroying all the improvements just to make life difficult when the previous owner retakes it.

I'm sure I've been struck with other reasons, though they're not exactly springing to mind at the moment.

I could see that it would be useful for a scorched earth tactic. I think that the guys at Firaxis thought that without any upkeep, there would not be any reason to want to destroy buildings. I would try that mod you talked about in your first post again and maybe ask the maker of it some advice on getting it to work. It might be a simple installation error or something like that.

You seem to suggest that environmental issues are (partially) caused by building pollution (from coal plants and the like). That is not true in civ 4. Global warming (the only environmental issue in the game) is caused by using nuclear weapons or by nuclear powerplants that suffer a meltdown.
Local health problems could of course be solved by tearing down a coal plant, but I would not call that an environmental issue. Still, it could be what you meant to say.

One last advice: check if a mod is updated for civ4 version 1.61 before you try to install it. If you install a mod for version 1.52 (or lower) on a civ4 1.61 installation, then it could cause problems.

 

[Harrier]

With slavery you can 'pop-rush' buildings and units. This means that you change population points in your city into production.

There's an extra cost of 50% when there has not been done any building on the unit/building. Don't rush anything something from scratch.

The exception to this rule of thumb - is when you gain control of a city, (out of resistance) you have previously captured.

It the tiles you have cultural control over, give you less food than the actual population - pop rush buildings/units until you get past the Starvation point. You can keep pop rushing buildings/units in the city in the same turn. If you dont you will lose a pop. each turn due to starvation.

 

[TylertheGreat28]

If you eliminate a Civilization with several technologies you don't possess, do you acquire them upon your elimination of them? Or is it a better technique to sign a peace treaty and grab maybe half the techs they have?

 

[Secret]

Now, I'm not sure if this really belongs here, but:

I've been hearing about techs and civilizations (mainly thus far from Pax Romana http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88714)that I know don't exist in my game. It might be a mod, but everyone seems to know what's being talked about, so... A couple of the techs involved are Chivalry and Invention, and a couple of the civs are the Zulu and the Iroquios.

Also, what's the Game of the Month?

 

[Harrier]

If you eliminate a Civilization with several technologies you don't possess, do you acquire them upon your elimination of them? Or is it a better technique to sign a peace treaty and grab maybe half the techs they have?

No, you do not aquire them via elimination.

You may sometimes get one from a peace treaty but at least in my experience rarely. It may be related to how strong you are compared to them. (If stronger - no dice, if weaker maybe!!)

 

[Harrier]

Now, I'm not sure if this really belongs here, but:

I've been hearing about techs and civilizations (mainly thus far from Pax Romana http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88714)that I know don't exist in my game. It might be a mod, but everyone seems to know what's being talked about, so... A couple of the techs involved are Chivalry and Invention, and a couple of the civs are the Zulu and the Iroquios.

Also, what's the Game of the Month?

Look at the date of the first post.

May 21st. 2004.

That is Civ3 - not Civ4.

.............................

This site holds a GOTM - guess what every month.

It is a set start map, you can download and play SG and your results if posted are compared with other players.

Go to the HOME page of this site for details of the current one.

 

[Roland Johansen]

If you eliminate a Civilization with several technologies you don't possess, do you acquire them upon your elimination of them? Or is it a better technique to sign a peace treaty and grab maybe half the techs they have?

As Harrier correctly said, you don't get them from eliminating them. You might get some technologies from a peace treaty. This depends on how well you were doing in the war. If you were on the verge of eliminating them, then you did quite well and can get something out of a peace treaty.

However late game technologies are worth a lot. The AI values a technology as the amount of beakers needed to research it. And that amount may be too much even if you will wipe them of the face of the earth if they don't give you the technology. In the early game, technologies are cheap and you might get a few from a peace treaty.

 

[jmurr1]

How can I declare war on a nation that I have an open borders agreement with?

Thanks.

 

[frankcor]

I usually skip all conversation with the target AI and simply hold down the Alt key and click on the leader's name in the scoring table. If you have open borders with them, the agreement will be canceled and all your units within their borders will be moved to just outside their borders.