Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Arimae70]

So anyone have an idea why I can't win the game? See the screenshot a few entries up - shouldn't this be a cultural win? (Normal speed)

 

[Samson]

So anyone have an idea why I can't win the game? See the screenshot a few entries up - shouldn't this be a cultural win? (Normal speed)

I do not. A save game may help.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

You can see the total bonuses from promotions if you mouse over the promotion icons in the unit picture in the lower left (when a unit is selected).

Drill 1 gives 1 first strike chance: 0-1 first strikes.
Drill 2 adds 1 first strike: 1-2 first strikes
Drill 3 adds 2 first strike chances: 1-4 first strikes
Drill 4 adds 2 first strikes: 3-6 first strikes

Any first strikes that a unit has of its own are just added to the first strikes from the promotions (a drill 4 modern armor had 4-7 first strikes).

Drill is a pretty poor promotion in the beginning, but if you can get to Drill 3 and 4, then it is a good promotion. It is especially good for units that are stronger than the unit that they are fighting because the first strike shots have a higher chance of hitting the opposing unit and do more damage per hit when you have a higher strength. Lots of first strikes and a high strength cause the first strike unit to almost kill the opponent before any real fighting ensues. It will take very little damage from the opposing unit and can defeat multiple units before being seriously wounded.

For this reason city defenders promoted with Drill promotions can be good. However Drill 2 is weak compared to City Garrison 2. The Drill promotions become strong only when Drill 3 and Drill 4 are added. The defensive bonuses given by a city ensure a higher strength than the attacker.

Another case where Drill can be good is when you're using tanks or modern armor against weaker units (bombed strong units or a technologically inferior opponent). Again the higher strength combined with a Drill 4 promotion can cause your units to roll through opposition without taking a lot of damage. At this point of the game, it is also possible to produce units with 3 promotions, so you can start with Drill 3 tanks/modern armor and the promotion to Drill 4 tanks/modern armor is not far away.

Here's what still confuses me about this. Aren't all first strikes - chances? What's 1-2 first strikes mean? The unit will definitely deal one first strike and possibly another? This doesn't make sense with other units. Let's take the samurai for example which has two first strikes without promotion. By these rules that implies they should get 2 first strikes all the time, which isn't the case. So if 1-2 first strikes really means you have 2 chances, why not call it 2 first strikes?

I do not. A save game may help.

Agreed. The screenshot looks pretty clear cut. I think we're ready for a saved game to investigate further.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Here's what still confuses me about this. Aren't all first strikes - chances? What's 1-2 first strikes mean? The unit will definitely deal one first strike and possibly another? This doesn't make sense with other units. Let's take the samurai for example which has two first strikes without promotion. By these rules that implies they should get 2 first strikes all the time, which isn't the case. So if 1-2 first strikes really means you have 2 chances, why not call it 2 first strikes?

In a normal combat round each side has a chance to do damage the other based on their respective strengths, the stronger unit has a higher chance to do damage. Damage is around 20 points (out of a total of 100 hitpoints for healthy units), the stronger side does more damage, the weaker less.

In a first strike round only one side can do damage. If the rolls of the dice indicate that the side without the first strike would deal damage, then this roll is ignored.

If you have 3-6 first strikes, then the number of these first strike rounds that occur is between 3 and 6. Probably something like 25% chance of 3 first strike rounds, 25 % chance of 4 first strike rounds, 25% chance of 5 first strike rounds, 25% chance of 6 first strike round. But I'm not sure of these chances and have not read anything definite about them.

 

[warmonger]

I'm trying an all war game on a very crowded continent and I'm going to get creamed.

I thought that every civs would be at war with all other civs but it seems that they are only at war with me.

What setting do I need to have everybody fighting everybody?

 

[_alphaBeta_]

I'm trying an all war game on a very crowded continent and I'm going to get creamed.

I thought that every civs would be at war with all other civs but it seems that they are only at war with me.

What setting do I need to have everybody fighting everybody?

No settings - you need to be higher on the power graph to not get attacked. The AI will see that your militarily weak and will exploit it. AIs will dogpile you or other AIs when they're being taken out by someone. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

 

[warmonger]

No settings - you need to be higher on the power graph to not get attacked. The AI will see that your militarily weak and will exploit it. AIs will dogpile you or other AIs when they're being taken out by someone. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

I'm already highest on the power graph for all individual civs but I have 8 civs at war with me. So I'm effectively about 1/8th of the power of the combined forces.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm trying an all war game on a very crowded continent and I'm going to get creamed.

I thought that every civs would be at war with all other civs but it seems that they are only at war with me.

It says so when you leave your mouse over the option for a moment (alls AI nations are at war with the human player).

In a normal game without this option (Always war), the power graph can influence the other nations into declaring war on you. However, with the always war option, it doesn't matter if you have nuclear weapons while they have stone weapons.

What setting do I need to have everybody fighting everybody?

Don't know. Maybe the always war or peace options creates two warring alliances. I don't know, I haven't tried that option ever and the description is a bit vague when you leave your mouse over the option.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

@warmonger - I misread your original post. As Roland said, the "always war" option means that all AIs are at war with you, not each other. The power graph is irrelevant in this case. I thought you managed to get 8 AIs to fight you in a standard game. My thinking was that you were probably pretty weak if that happened.

I think you'll want this mod that changes it so that all civs are at war with one another, AIs and humans alike. I haven't tried this mod, just passing along what it says.

 

[frankcor]

So anyone have an idea why I can't win the game? See the screenshot a few entries up - shouldn't this be a cultural win? (Normal speed)

This isn't the answer you were looking for, but this sure looks like you got screwed. It's impossible to imagine what happened here but you should have won. Perhaps it's a corrupted save file? Or you upgraded to 1.61 after starting the game? I can only shrug. Dang, there's no :shrug: icon.

 

[Arimae70]

Here's that saved game 1 turn before the 3rd city hits 50k culture. And it's happened in other games. Thanks for all your responses

 

[Harrier]

Here's that saved game 1 turn before the 3rd city hits 50k culture. And it's happened in other games. Thanks for all your responses

What size map are you playing on. I tried loading your game but cancelled it after about 5 minutes as the load graph showed only about 10%.

Usually on standard maps, late game I can load in under a minute. You must either have a corrupt game or a huge map size.

Edit: My first download was corrupted,. I downloaded a second time and got the save to load.

Also did not get the Cultural victory.

However when I exited from Civ4, I got an unrecoverable system error.

So I guess that some how your save file has become corrupted.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I at least don't understand what went wrong. I can't get the cultural victory either. Maybe something is wrong with your game and that has corrupted the save file in such a way that I can't get a cultural victory with your save file either. I really don't know what went wrong here.

Sorry that I can't help you any further.

Edit (after seeing Harriers post): It loaded fine for me in a short time (under 20 secs). It's a standard size continents map, late game (after 2000AD).

 

[Lord Parkin]

Arimae70 - is this an unmodded game? And are you certain it's on Normal speed?

 

[a4phantom]

Am I the only one who has trouble loading the game? Maybe half of my attempts to load the game never get past the first little screen to the part where it shows the blue progress bar. This has been a problem from the beginning and still is with 1.61. When I get ahold of my disk 1 I'm going to try reinstalling, but I just wondered if this was a common problem. I know the game shipped full of bugs but I'd like to think everything major was patched.

 

[The Tyrant]

Am I the only one who has trouble loading the game? Maybe half of my attempts to load the game never get past the first little screen to the part where it shows the blue progress bar. This has been a problem from the beginning and still is with 1.61. When I get ahold of my disk 1 I'm going to try reinstalling, but I just wondered if this was a common problem. I know the game shipped full of bugs but I'd like to think everything major was patched.

Does your computer meet the recommended specs? Are all of your drivers updated? Do you have a standard configuration? Have you killed all applications running in the background?

 

[a4phantom]

Does your computer meet the recommended specs? Are all of your drivers updated? Do you have a standard configuration? Have you killed all applications running in the background?

New laptop, exceeds all recs (and runs perfectly once it gets past the "loading/cargando" page), drivers updated, nothing running in background.

 

[The Tyrant]

I occasionally get the message telling me to insert the proper disk, but it is rare and almost always occurs after I've been running Civ, shut down for a while and came back to it without rebooting the computer.

The times that it doesn't load properly -- are these upon first booting up your computer or are they after having run an application (Civ IV or other)? Or does it matter? In other words, do you have that problem only after the computer's memory has been used (could be a problem with memory usage or cache)?

How much active RAM do you have available for Civ (as opposed to how much RAM the computer has installed)? If you're running XP you could have a lot less RAM available than you think. On Windows systems, before starting the game press CTRL-ALT-DELETE to bring up the task manager, then check CPU usage. This will show you how much RAM is available.

 

[cabert]

Here's the screenshot of victory conditions. Am I missing something? I can't understand why there is no cultural victory.

i see only 3 possibilities
- just end the turn, may be enough
- not normal speed? at epic you need 75k, at marathon, you need 150k
- you (or another) already won before that, and just pressed 'one more turn'

 

[Lord Parkin]

Am I the only one who has trouble loading the game? Maybe half of my attempts to load the game never get past the first little screen to the part where it shows the blue progress bar. This has been a problem from the beginning and still is with 1.61. When I get ahold of my disk 1 I'm going to try reinstalling, but I just wondered if this was a common problem. I know the game shipped full of bugs but I'd like to think everything major was patched.

Hmm, curious, the progress bar's always been green for me... maybe there's different versions of the game for different countries. Or maybe I'm colourblind.

Anyway, addressing the actual error - what size are the savegames you're trying to load? My guess is they're fairly large, correct? If so, do you have trouble running Civ4 games towards the endgame, or the midgame on larger maps? If that's the case it could be just a spec-related issue. (I know that the "recommended specs" are, IMHO, vastly underestimated... with those kind of specs you'll just barely be able to run the game, and certainly won't be able to tackle the huge maps in the space age. I think the guys who did the system requirements thing were more than a little optimistic. )

I occasionally get the message telling me to insert the proper disk, but it is rare and almost always occurs after I've been running Civ, shut down for a while and came back to it without rebooting the computer.

I also occasionally get this message. It occurs when I haven't got the disc in.