Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Sisiutil]

I asked this question a while ago but didn't get as complete a response as I would have liked (my explanation was a little confusing). So here goes again:

I'm trying to build the Three Gorges Dam. I've researched Plastics and my cities adjacent to rivers all have factories. However, some but not all of these cities are capable of building the Dam. Why is this? Is there another prerequisite?

This does sound a little strange. You may want to post a saved game file so we can have a closer look.

 

[a4phantom]

You can airlift units from one city of yours with an airport to another city of yours. You can only airlift one unit per turn from a city with an airport. The number of units per turn that can be airlifted to a city depends on whether or not it has an airport. If it has then the number is unlimited, if it hasn't then only one unit per turn can be airlifted to that city.

I don't know why you mention the helicopter. It has nothing to do with airlifting units.

I think he's confused by a function in Civ3.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I asked this question a while ago but didn't get as complete a response as I would have liked (my explanation was a little confusing). So here goes again:

I'm trying to build the Three Gorges Dam. I've researched Plastics and my cities adjacent to rivers all have factories. However, some but not all of these cities are capable of building the Dam. Why is this? Is there another prerequisite?

I recently deleted all my old save games so couldn't check for sure myself, but the city square actually must be touching the river to be able to build TGD, touching a corner of a river bend may not count, and having a river in "the fat cross" but said river being one tile away from city centre definitely doesn't count, neither does a lake.

Don't know if this helps, hope it does

 

[garciamedavar]

Remember that the civs to which you are connected may already have the required tech (Sailing, IIRC). And they may have Open Borders agreements with civs between you on the coast.

So, my cities may be connected through terrain I have never explored and which I cannot see, right?
Do you need Open Borders to be able to use other civ's trade routes?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Question... what are the exact limits on the kind of troops that barbarians can get? I know they can never get past Riflemen and Cavalry (or at least I think so), but there also seem to be some units which they are denied. For instance, I don't believe I have ever seen a barbarian Spearman, nor a barbarian Caravel. Does someone have a nice list of what units the barbarians can get?

 

[jefforjo]

A quick question about We love the "King" Day. There is very little doucmentation or articles about that particular event for Civ4.

What are the criteria before a city celebrate a WLTKD, since Civ4 has no "happy" citizens.

And what are the benefits of a WLTKD day in Civ4? I don't see any articles on that either

 

[cider]

is there any way to load more than one mod at once ? I would like to combine the "flavor units" mod with "giant earth map", for example.

 

[Roland Johansen]

a. What is to Center the World Map?

b. It's really strange. My cities get connected to the trade network without any road. It seems that cities on coastal plots get connected even if I don't have the neccesary technology or even if the only explored way to my other coastal cities is blocked by enemy territory.
Any clue?

Look at the file I have posted, why is Avignon connected?

Avignon is connected through the coastal area to Rouen which is connected through roads (and rivers) with your capital Paris. You have sea trading since the sailing technology; mouse over this technology in the tech tree to observe that. You need to see the coastal area that connects the cities (Avignon and Rouen) as you clearly can in this case. For the foreign trade routes you have to be able to see a route to the foreign civilization (until their borders) and you need to have open borders. You don't need to see the specific city with whom you're trading. All of these conditions are met for the Indian, German and Incan civilizations with whom you have foreign trade routes. You are trading over the seas with these 3 civilizations.

A quick question about We love the "King" Day. There is very little doucmentation or articles about that particular event for Civ4.

What are the criteria before a city celebrate a WLTKD, since Civ4 has no "happy" citizens.

And what are the benefits of a WLTKD day in Civ4? I don't see any articles on that either

The city needs to be healthy and content to be eligible for a WLTKD. If a city is celebrating a WLTKD, then it won't have to pay for its city maintenance during the celebrations. There is a random element involved in the WLTKD's as not every city that meets the requirements will get a WLTKD. It's actually pretty rare and thus the effects of the WLTKD's in civ4 are pretty minor.

is there any way to load more than one mod at once ? I would like to combine the "flavor units" mod with "giant earth map", for example.

The mods will have to be integrated manually. If the mods both change different files of the game, then it's as easy as combining the files of both mods into one mod. If that is not the case, then the various changes that were made to the files will have to be integrated making it a job for someone who knows how to mod civ4. It's not necessarily extremely difficult (if the modders clearly indicated which parts of the files were changed), but you do need to know what you're doing.

There are some tutorials written about how to mod civ 4 in the Creation and customization subforum. Watch for the sticky threads on top of this forum.

 

[a4phantom]

I volunteered at a Pumpkin event in Boston and was given literally crates of pumpin pie. I don't have fridge or freezer space for it all, is pumpkin pie something that will go bad quickly if not kept cold?

 

[Lord Parkin]

That's kind of a random question for the Civ4 General Discussions...

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about pumpkin pie, so can't help you out...

 

[a4phantom]

Quick though wasn't it? If you've ever possessed a city, you can NEVER raise it? I foolishly occupied rather than razing a Carthaginian city that's just kind of in the way. I gifted it to the Spanish because they're weak and have no culture in that city to put pressure on the nearby former Carthagian cities I do want. But eventually the time will come to beat the remaining snot out of the Spanish (as always, Isabela was my first victim, although oddly she'd only founded Buddism which my entire continent now professes - usually my continent has every religion but one), so will I ever be able to raze that city?

 

[Vooon]

I'm having some trouble with the graphics which I don't quite understand. I can see everything but the trees, resources and stuff I build outside the cities - like mines, farms, cottages etc.

I've got a laptop with a 1,7Ghz cpu, 512 ram, ATI mobility radeon 6600 64mb ram. Latest drivers. It should meet the min. reqs.

 

[R.B.]

What are those maps that say {may not be exact, but it's pretty close to it} 'fantasy map'?

 

[Peter the Great]

Hello

can anybody tell me if there is a way to buy units in civ4?

Thanks

 

[Zophos]

What are those maps that say {may not be exact, but it's pretty close to it} 'fantasy map'?

It's a different map-generation script. It will generate unrealistic worlds that differ from the normal cIV maps (jungles at the poles, bananas in the desert, etc.). Check out this link for descriptions of all the standard map-generation scripts and settings.

can anybody tell me if there is a way to buy units in civ4?

There are several ways to rush the production of units. All figures are for Normal speed:

1. Run the Slavery civic (available at Bronzeworking), and sacrifice population. Exchange rate is 1 pop -> 30 hammers. Also causes 1 unhappiness for 10 turns.
2. Run the Nationalism civic (available at Nationhood) and draft units. You can draft in 3 cities/turn, and you get the best available melee or gunpowder unit (basically, foot-soldiers) with half the normal XP. Costs 1 pop (2 for riflemen or better) and 3 unhappiness for 10 turns.
3. Run the Universal Suffrage civic (available at Democracy) and buy hammers for cash. Costs 3 gold/hammer.

Number three is probably what you're thinking of - you buy the remaining production on the unit for cash. Also works for buildings.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Quick though wasn't it? If you've ever possessed a city, you can NEVER raise it? I foolishly occupied rather than razing a Carthaginian city that's just kind of in the way. I gifted it to the Spanish because they're weak and have no culture in that city to put pressure on the nearby former Carthagian cities I do want. But eventually the time will come to beat the remaining snot out of the Spanish (as always, Isabela was my first victim, although oddly she'd only founded Buddism which my entire continent now professes - usually my continent has every religion but one), so will I ever be able to raze that city?

Not sure, but I think upon recapture you should usually get the option to raze or keep the city. Haven't encountered this situation myself yet, so sorry I can't help more.

I'm having some trouble with the graphics which I don't quite understand. I can see everything but the trees, resources and stuff I build outside the cities - like mines, farms, cottages etc.

I've got a laptop with a 1,7Ghz cpu, 512 ram, ATI mobility radeon 6600 64mb ram. Latest drivers. It should meet the min. reqs.

I'm not sure about this sorry, though I've heard a few people talk about it before. Hopefully someone with more experience of the problem will be around shortly.

What are those maps that say {may not be exact, but it's pretty close to it} 'fantasy map'?

Generate a few and see for yourself - that's the best way. But as a brief overview, they've got both X and Y wrapping (that is, they're "Toroidal"), and the terrain placement is crazily random (you'll get ice and desert and tundra and jungle all mixed up). Generally there's a high land percentage, with only a few lakes. I also recommend you see this article.

Hello

can anybody tell me if there is a way to buy units in civ4?

Thanks

Yes, there is. You must be using the Universal Suffrage civic (becomes available with the democracy tech). Then, when building units, you can go into the city screen and click the "gold-rush" button on the city screen. (Move the mouse over the little icons near the bottom of the screen to get the descriptions of what the icons do and you'll find it.) It will cost you a fair bit (especially if you haven't yet invested any hammers in the unit), but it is possible.

 

[garciamedavar]

Avignon is connected through the coastal area to Rouen which is connected through roads (and rivers) with your capital Paris. You have sea trading since the sailing technology; mouse over this technology in the tech tree to observe that. You need to see the coastal area that connects the cities (Avignon and Rouen) as you clearly can in this case. For the foreign trade routes you have to be able to see a route to the foreign civilization (until their borders) and you need to have open borders. You don't need to see the specific city with whom you're trading. All of these conditions are met for the Indian, German and Incan civilizations with whom you have foreign trade routes. You are trading over the seas with these 3 civilizations.

Thanks for helping me.
I see that those cities are connected by coast, but I thought that having the barbarians blocking the coast line made the connection impossible.
I'm a little bit confused.

Another question... I discovered that somehow german people are living in my capital, which has never been conquered by them.
Can they peacefully enter into my cities? How? Open borders? Do they ever become of my own nationality with time?

 

[Cruelsader]

Are there any additional expansion packs (besides Warlords) to be released? If yes, when is the planned release date? Thank you for the answers!

P.S. My connection speed is so awfully slow that it takes forever to search for answers.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Quick though wasn't it? If you've ever possessed a city, you can NEVER raise it? I foolishly occupied rather than razing a Carthaginian city that's just kind of in the way. I gifted it to the Spanish because they're weak and have no culture in that city to put pressure on the nearby former Carthagian cities I do want. But eventually the time will come to beat the remaining snot out of the Spanish (as always, Isabela was my first victim, although oddly she'd only founded Buddism which my entire continent now professes - usually my continent has every religion but one), so will I ever be able to raze that city?

I believe that you get the option to raze only once. The next time, you will automatically capture it. Or it could be linked to the major cultural influence in the city. I'm not sure as I play with city razing off. But I know that there are instances where you can't raze a city (have read about it).

I'm having some trouble with the graphics which I don't quite understand. I can see everything but the trees, resources and stuff I build outside the cities - like mines, farms, cottages etc.

I've got a laptop with a 1,7Ghz cpu, 512 ram, ATI mobility radeon 6600 64mb ram. Latest drivers. It should meet the min. reqs.

First of all, install the patch (if you haven't done so already). The various patches fixed some graphic bugs in the game. The latest patch for vanilla Civilization IV is patch 1.61. Your graphical bug sounds familiar as I've read about it a few times when Civ 4 was just out and the game hadn't been patched yet.

If that doesn't help you, then visit the technical support forum for more help.

Note that while your computer is probably good enough for the game's minimal requirements, you shouldn't expect a good performance on the biggest maps. The main problem there would be the memory requirements of these big maps. Just play the smaller maps (upto medium size I guess) and you'll be fine.

Thanks for helping me.
I see that those cities are connected by coast, but I thought that having the barbarians blocking the coast line made the connection impossible.
I'm a little bit confused.

Another question... I discovered that somehow german people are living in my capital, which has never been conquered by them.
Can they peacefully enter into my cities? How? Open borders? Do they ever become of my own nationality with time?

There were all kinds of blocking elements in civilization 3, but I don't think that they apply in civilization 4. At least, I haven't seen any.

There are no German people or French people in this game (there were in civ3). There is only cultural influence. So I guess that you mean that the cultural influence bar isn't saying 100% French.
Each city has a cultural area of influence and produces cultural influence points in that area. The civilization with the most cultural influence points in the tile controls the tile. Probably a nearby German city has been producing culture in the center tile of your capital Paris and thus a small part of the culture in Paris is German.

The cultural area of influence expands after a certain amount of culture is reached (10, 100, 500, 5000, 50000 at normal speed) and then the borders expand if there is no other competing culture available. Even if the borders do not expand, still there is some culture production in the tiles within range. That is why most border tiles aren't 100% French or 100% German, but a mix of both. The first area of cultural influence (below 10 culture) is at distance 1 from the city, then distance 2, distance 3, etc.

Distance is measured in such a way that each horizontal and vertical tile has a length of 1 and each diagonal one has a length of 1.5. Add up the lengths and round down and you'll know the distance between two points.

Are there any additional expansion packs (besides Warlords) to be released? If yes, when is the planned release date? Thank you for the answers!

P.S. My connection speed is so awfully slow that it takes forever to search for answers.

At present, nothing is known about another expansion pack. But I would expect another one within a year just because civilization 3 also got two expansion packs and civilization 4 has been more successful than civilization 3.

 

[Harald500]

I did ask this question on an Emancipation-thread, but i think the thread was left to die...

I do have a problem I hope some of you could help me sort out!? Emancipation - how much unhappiness does it inflict, and how do I work out in wich degree it will hit my different cities, and more importently my opponents?