Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Maniac]

.

Aha! So for the best AI, play at Deity and set AI_handicap at Chieftain!

 

[Alo]

i am playing my first game of civ4 and the rate at which i am researching is really bothering me. i m playing at normal speed on warlord level.........the year is 1876 and i have just researched rocketry. Isn't this really slow? coz in civ3 i could launch the spaceship in the late 1700s at monarch level. ideally by what year should one reach a tech like rocketry?

 

[Roland Johansen]

obsoleted building question:
the official manual metioned that when a Great Wonder obsoleted, all it's benefit removed except culture.
Is there any exception on Great Wonder or common building?
I find that after monastery obsoleted, the benefit "can build monastic" is still availiable. and I do't know how to detect whether 10% sci output remain.

Yes, the monastery still allows you to build missionaries after it's obsolete. The science bonus however disappears. You can see this by mousing over the science entry in the city. It will give you a buildup of the science produced in the city and the bonuses applied to it. Most building in the city give a 25% or 50% bonus and monasteries give a 10% bonus, so it should be easy to see if the monastery still works.

Aha! So for the best AI, play at Deity and set AI_handicap at Chieftain!

Certainly not. You must have misunderstood me.

If you play at deity level then the AI gets to play at noble level with the bonuses of the AIxxx modifiers of deity level. These AIxxx modifiers make life a lot easier for the AI at deity level than at chieftain level.

An example:

This line comes from the deity handicap:

iAIUnitCostPercent>60</iAIUnitCostPercent

It means that the AI pays 60% of the unit upkeep cost that a human at noble level would have. The AI thus pays less for its units than a human at noble level.

This line comes from the settler handicap:

iAIUnitCostPercent>100</iAIUnitCostPercent

It means that the AI pays 100% of the unit upkeep cost that a human at noble level would have. The AI thus pays the same as a human at noble level.

Note that a human playing at deity level also pays a lot more for its units than a human at noble level. So at deity level, the AI pays less and the human pays more than at noble level.

 

[bad-aries]

I have chosen One City Challenge option in a custom game. Looks like other Civ are building cities. Is the Once City Challenge applies only to my Civ?

thanks.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have chosen One City Challenge option in a custom game. Looks like other Civ are building cities. Is the Once City Challenge applies only to my Civ?

thanks.

Yes.

If you linger a moment with your mouse over the option, then it says 'the human player can never control more than one city'.

 

[Maniac]

Certainly not. You must have misunderstood me.

Huh? Then what do I need to do to make the AI play at Settler difficulty but get the AI modifiers of Deity? Set Standard_Handicap to Settler? Then what is AI_handicap for if it automatically takes the AI modifiers of your diff level??

 

[a4phantom]

I notice that now :/ They got slaughtered in the last war I had... I mainly went for highest strength which didn't impress me :/ So should I go for Riflemen or grenadiers in this era?

You should build riflemen and give them City Defender to defend your cities. You should already have macemen with lots of City Raider promos, and them upgrade them to riflemen (riflemen cannot be given the City Raider promo, nor can cavalry nor I think grenadiers). Upgrading them to grenadier would probably work even better, although I've never gotten as far as grenadiers before winning. This will give you an unusual advantage, although one you have to use carefully because one your city raiding gunpowder units die they cannot be replaced. Without doing this I think the gunpowder era (riflemen until the arrival of tanks) is severely tipped to the defender, which is of course historically accurate. And theoretically having a few cavalry unit in your cities should defeat both grenadiers and cannons (cannons can get City Raider, but have only a base strength of 12).

As I write this I start to feel guilty. I use this strategy in every game, does it sound like an exploit?

 

[a4phantom]

Melhisedek, if you haven't observed this yet, Roland's answers are astute, insightful and almost always perfectly correct. This one is no exception.

No argument there. I think RJ's pretty well set up for a diplomatic victory here.

As you now realize, "going for the highest strength" isn't always the best move. Check out the Grenadier, with a base strength of 12 compared to 15 for the cavalry. But note that it enjoys a 50% advantage over gunpowder units.

I've never used grens but I think the pedia says they get +50% <i> only when attacking riflemen </i>. I think this is probably the most situation-specific bonus in the game besides maybe the stupid jaguar's jungle defense thing. So if your opponent is attacking with grens, you're better off with musketmen than rifles! Redcoats beat attacking grenadiers though.

Thus, ignoring all other bonuses, promotions or advantages, a cavalry goes against a rifleman at 15:14 strength while a grenadier goes against a rifleman at 12:7. (I'm away from my game computer so the numbers may not be perfect, but you get the idea)

I think the cavalry-rifleman battle is 15:17.5, don't rifles get +25% vs mounties? Note that the mighty Cossack still beats a rifleman, 18:17.5.

Has anyone tried to conquer cities with Cossacks (with strength and pinch promos)?

 

[a4phantom]

hello friendly civfanatics,

i have a problem, which is that i'm largely clueless as to what to research after the initial stages, in which i research based on my resources.

now i do realise that this could be a rather huge question, so i'll make it a bit simple: what are some of the cues that are reliable when choosing what to research, in short or long term?

Judging from how early the AIs switch to slavery I believe they all beeline for bronze working. I try to research what I need to make use of the available resources, as you said. If I'm not planning on early conquests (which I've become addicted to), I try to grab an early religion, so polytheism/hinduism (the AIs that start out with mysticism seem to all race for meditation/buddism). Bronze working reveals copper and allows forest chopping, and animal husbandry shows where the horses are. Getting to iron early is helpful because then you can be sure to situate a city by a deposit. Obviously the wheel (roads) is necessary to utilize any resource for your empire, and for trade. I like to research alphabet so that I discover it just as I'm gutting my first victim, so that I can demand whatever techs I've missed in return for sparing his last weak cities. Does your civ have an early UU you want to make use of? Aim for the techs that reveal the resources you'll need for it. In my view Oracle is the only early wonder you must build yourself (rather than taking it from someone), so getting priesthood not too late is helpful. If you're financial, get pottery right away for hamlets and build them on rivers.

also, any tips on juggling specialists? again i'm clueless how i should balance them out. so far i've been too afraid/lazy to deploy them.

I'm not good at this myself. I try to remember to dedicate an engineer after building forges (which I get by building Oracle => early metal casting, though most people will tell you to take Code of Laws as your free tech) because I want to produce Great Engineers to rush Wonders. That's pretty much the extent of specialists for me, because I usually feel I can get more by working the land. However, when your city is at even happiness:unhappiness taking a pop point off a food producing square and making a specialist of him can prevent unwanted growth. Or you could put that pop point on a square that produces shields or coins but little food.

yes, i am a big time newbie, i won't deny that. in fact, i'll concur 100%.

Almost everyone is or was. I hope it's not held against us.

 

[The Tyrant]

I've never used grens but I think the pedia says they get +50% <i> only when attacking riflemen </i>. I think this is probably the most situation-specific bonus in the game besides maybe the stupid jaguar's jungle defense thing. So if your opponent is attacking with grens, you're better off with musketmen than rifles! Redcoats beat attacking grenadiers though.

In a SP game, grenadiers are great. Since the AI prioritizes rifling, they will build lots of riflemen. Hehe... a 12-strength grenadier suddenly becomes 18-strength before promotions. If you upgrade City Raider macemen to grenadiers you basically look at the AI cities and say "What defense? I don't see any defense."

 

[Benashy7]

Hi, I'm new to Civ4 , in fact Cililisation games in general.
I have just stareted as America and my first city is overcrowded, I was just wondering how to cure this problem. Any advice would be great.

Thanks

Ben

 

[Lord Parkin]

You should build riflemen and give them City Defender to defend your cities. You should already have macemen with lots of City Raider promos, and them upgrade them to riflemen (riflemen cannot be given the City Raider promo, nor can cavalry nor I think grenadiers). Upgrading them to grenadier would probably work even better, although I've never gotten as far as grenadiers before winning. This will give you an unusual advantage, although one you have to use carefully because one your city raiding gunpowder units die they cannot be replaced. Without doing this I think the gunpowder era (riflemen until the arrival of tanks) is severely tipped to the defender, which is of course historically accurate. And theoretically having a few cavalry unit in your cities should defeat both grenadiers and cannons (cannons can get City Raider, but have only a base strength of 12).

As I write this I start to feel guilty. I use this strategy in every game, does it sound like an exploit?

No, I don't think it's an exploit, although it certainly does allow a big advantage (Rifles/Grenadiers with +75% city attack sure are powerful... and if you're careful with them, you can end up with +75% mechs at the end of the game!). Think of it more as an "investment paying off" for the time spent in getting those early units (Swords/Maces) up to 10 XP (and beyond).

Although I haven't actually ever fought with Grenadiers myself... I just realised that little curiousity. Guess it has to do with my play style - in the games I play, if I haven't already won by this stage of the game, then it's probably an exceptionally large map. In which case, it's likely that I've probably just finished carving up some AI's with the end of my Macemen, and I need to stop for a "breather" before rushing into another campaign. For some reason, that "breather" always seems to come around the time of Rifles/Grenadiers. (And even when it doesn't, I tend to use Rifles instead of Grenadiers, since I've usually got the tech edge on the AI so they don't yet have Rifles themselves.)

I'm not good at this myself. I try to remember to dedicate an engineer after building forges (which I get by building Oracle => early metal casting, though most people will tell you to take Code of Laws as your free tech) because I want to produce Great Engineers to rush Wonders. That's pretty much the extent of specialists for me, because I usually feel I can get more by working the land. However, when your city is at even happiness:unhappiness taking a pop point off a food producing square and making a specialist of him can prevent unwanted growth. Or you could put that pop point on a square that produces shields or coins but little food.

Yeah, it depends on the city really. Just as a rough "rule of thumb" I use, cities with tonnes of excess food are usually excellent for spamming specialists. Those which are hard-pressed to grow are generally better off working their tiles. The ones in-between though are difficult to decide on - really it's up to the player's own strategies.

Oh, and as for the Oracle, Theology is the best if you can manage it. (Generally this goes hand-in-hand with the rushing-Monotheism and -Alphabet strategy). But everyone's got their own strategies - this is just my own humble opinion.

hello friendly civfanatics,

i have a problem, which is that i'm largely clueless as to what to research after the initial stages, in which i research based on my resources.

now i do realise that this could be a rather huge question, so i'll make it a bit simple: what are some of the cues that are reliable when choosing what to research, in short or long term?

It really does depend on the map (sorry, I know this isn't what you wanted to hear! ). But seriously... if you're on a large or huge map (or a smaller one for that matter) with 10-18 civs, then generally Alphabet will be an exceptionally good tech to chase. On the other hand, if you're isolated or in a smallish game, Alphabet's really not so great (or even almost useless in some situations).

Generally you should probably research roughly based on your victory intentions. For example, if you want to go after Cultural, try to found as many of the future religions as possible. Military tastes? Grab Bronze/Iron Working, possibly Metal Casting, then beeline for Feudalism, Civil Service, and Machinery. Also make sure to pick up the tech(s) for your unique unit (if it's an early one). And so on.

But really, there's so many different possible strategies to the game that all work that nobody can really tell you one "right way"... because there simply isn't one. Just do whatever you want to do most. (By the way, I'd advise a bit of streamlining on occasions, although don't do it too much or you'll end up actually falling behind... and don't forget to research all those old techs yourself if you can't (or won't) trade for them.)

*********

By the way, I have a question to throw out there myself - does anyone know the rough turns (based on a Normal-length game) that the various stages of barbs start appearing? I know that it depends on who researches what a lot of the time. But, for instance, at what precise stage to the barbs upgrade from animals to Warriors? How many people need to hold Archery before they can build Archers? ...Axemen? ...Swordsmen? ...etc.

 

[The Tyrant]

Hi, I'm new to Civ4 , in fact Cililisation games in general.
I have just stareted as America and my first city is overcrowded, I was just wondering how to cure this problem. Any advice would be great.

Each difficulty level has a certain default happiness cap where if a city grows beyond that cap, the people become unhappy as a result of overcrowding. There are several ways you can correct the situation.

1) Connect happiness resources. Certain resources (the luxury resources like gems, gold, etc.) make your people happy. If you improve a happiness resource then any city connected to that resource by trade route will get a bonus point of happiness. Since this effectively increases the happiness cap, it lets your cities continue to grow without the people becoming unhappy.

2) Build happiness buildings. Certain buildings (temples, theaters, colloseums, etc.) have the ability to make your people happier. Some of them (temples) automatically give one point of happiness as soon as they are built. Others (colloseum) allow you to increase the amount of happiness that city gets by adjusting the culture slider. The culture slider is like the science slider, but is not available in the early game -- it is unlocked when you research Drama.

3) The whip. If you've researched Bronze Working, you have the option of switching to the slavery civic. Slavery allows you to sacrifice population to finish building something that turn. When you pop-rush something, though, the act of whipping the population causes unhappiness (the very problem you're trying to avoid). The key is to whip more than one population point at a time. Each use of the whip causes one point of unhappiness, but after a while they will forgive you. If you have one unhappy person due to overcrowding, and pop-rush a building or unit that requires two points of population, then you'll end up with happiness and unhappiness perfectly balanced -- no unhappy people. In the case of using the whip to correct unhappiness, it is best if you pop-rush a happiness building. You get the benefit of reducing the population (no more overcrowding) and the extra happiness from the building.

Oh, and Welcome to CFC!

 

[a4phantom]

Just to clarify Tyrant's excellent answer, the "It's too crowded" unhappiness can only be reduced by reducing population, otherwise it has to be balanced with positive happiness. I'm throwing that out there because a few people have asked about making the city bigger to provide more room.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Of course, civics are also a handy option for improving happiness. For instance, Hereditary Rule (from the Monarchy tech) is an exceptionally powerful civic - by continually churning out cheap Warriors or Archers, you can achieve practically limitless city growth until you start getting badly hit with the health limits of your current era. In which case, building all the +health buildings possible will get your city to an uber-size. This is the strategy I personally most recommend - GET Monarchy, and pop-spam your high-growth cities to an insanely large size and power!

 

[Roland Johansen]

Huh? Then what do I need to do to make the AI play at Settler difficulty but get the AI modifiers of Deity? Set Standard_Handicap to Settler? Then what is AI_handicap for if it automatically takes the AI modifiers of your diff level??

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I reread your first post and now notice that you were talking about the Standard_Handicap and AI_Handicap modifiers within the GlobalDefenis.xml file.

You would guess that changing the AI_Handicap to settler would set the difficulty level of the AI to settler and give it the bonuses of whatever difficulty level you selected (the AIxxx bonuses in the Civ4HandicapInfo.xml file). But you reported that only after changing the Standard_Handicap, you saw a change in the game.

I took a look at the GlobalDefines.xml file and noticed that there were a number of these modifiers:
STANDARD_HANDICAP
STANDARD_HANDICAP_QUICK
AI_HANDICAP
BARBARIAN_HANDICAP

Maybe you can do some small tests ingame or ask in the Creation and Customization subforum where the experts on modding reside:

Suggested ingame test:
The basic happiness and health bonuses are defined by the Civ4HandicapInfo. Because the AI usually plays at noble difficulty, it gets the noble difficulty health and happiness bonuses. If you chance the Standard_Handicap or the AI_Handicap, then the AI should get different happiness and health bonuses. This can be easily checked by placing a spy in the AI city using the world builder.
So that should help you find out which modifier you need.

Good luck!

 

[The Tyrant]

Of course, civics are also a handy option for improving happiness.
<snip>
GET Monarchy, and pop-spam your high-growth cities to an insanely large size and power!

OMG, how did I forget that one? I use Hereditary Rule in that exact fashion all the time. I can't believe I forgot to mention it. LOL.

By the way, I have a question to throw out there myself - does anyone know the rough turns (based on a Normal-length game) that the various stages of barbs start appearing? I know that it depends on who researches what a lot of the time. But, for instance, at what precise stage to the barbs upgrade from animals to Warriors? How many people need to hold Archery before they can build Archers? ...Axemen? ...Swordsmen? ...etc.

I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but the XML holds the answer to the basic question (delay until change to barbs). As for how many people need to have a tech, that has a three-part answer:
1) The barbs get archers after a certain point even if no one has archery. I found that out when playing a Solo vs. the Barbarians game. I was the only civ in the game and deliberately did not research archery, or any other unit-giving tech. They still came at me with warriors and archers.
2) For further advancement, IIRC the barbs can research any tech that is already known by any civ. They do have to research it, however. In my Solo vs. Barbs game I didn't research Bronze Working so I wouldn't have to deal with barb axemen. If I didn't research it, they couldn't. They don't get techs automatically except...
3) When someone enters a new era, the barbs get some (all?) of the previous era's techs and begin researching newer and better things. There may be a minimum number or percentage of civs that have to enter the new era before the barbs get the old techs. This ensures that even if the barbs don't have many cities to use for research, they won't get left too far behind in terms of outdated units.

 

[a4phantom]

How advanced do the barbs get? I believe I saw an isolated barb city with macemen once. If civs don't fill fill up the world, will barbs eventually get tanks?


Also, how does an attacking seige weapon (cat, arty, cannon) administer collateral damage (how is the amount determined, and how are the victims selected)? RJ said that it's independent of how the battle with the defending unit goes.


Finally, in OCC if you don't start near copper, iron or horses, do you just depend on archery units until gunpowder?

 

[Melhisedek]

Ok just so I'm not dreaming here, was it possible to see if enemy was military stronger than you in Civ3, even see how many units he had (IIRC you had to have embassy or something over at his place).

Now is there such a feature in Civ4 as well?

 

[Dread]

How do I use the Worldbuilder function to create/edit a map and a scenario ?