Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Lord Parkin]

You can try turning down the graphics options to low detail of everything. That should gain you a bit of speed. But aside from that, and buying a new computer, there's really not too much you can do about speeding the game up. Civ4 does have high system demands, it's true.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Remember also that forests can give a max of 2 extra health (4 forest tiles). Above that, they do nothing, so you're not losing anything health-wise by chopping excess forests.

I don't know why you think that, but it's not true. Strange. Here's a screenshot of a city that I created in the world builder, the city has 9 forest tiles inside the fat cross and + 4 from forest:

Still, one wouldn't often choose to leave more than 4 forest tiles around a city.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Hmm, I must be remembering from an earlier version of the game then. I'm almost certain that there was a cap at 2 health for forests back with one of the versions of Civ4. Of course, it's always possible I was mistaken at the time. In any event thanks for clearing that up.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

It's academic, anyway; I can't see why you'd want to have that many forest tiles unchopped close to your city. Not on purpose, that is.

 

[ordinaryguy]

Thanks to all the good players for their patience and willingness in helping us noobs. I really appreciate it.

I have 2 questions:

1) Is there a possible way to change the frequency of autosaves from 4 to 1? I hate having to save each turn.

2) What effect does game speed have on the game? Which speed should I normally play with?

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[ChicagoCubs]

2) What effect does game speed have on the game? Which speed should I normally play with?

About game speed...

The amount of time it takes to buid/research something is proportional to the game speed. On the slower speeds, it takes longer to research/build stuff. So while you get more turns to play the game, the research/build takes longer too so it works out.

Where the slower game speeds really pay off is with troop movement. If your troops are marching a long way, they have more time to reach their destination before new research/building become available. So if it takes 20 turns for a unit to reach the enemy city, on fast game speeds that unit could be obsolete before it reaches the city (since research is fastest). On slow game speeds the unit will have time to reach it.

In my opinion, slower speeds are better for people that like warfare in the older eras (units stay viable longer). The faster speeds are better for people that like to research more quickly and play with the newer era units. In the end it comes down to each their own. I like the normal speed.

 

[woe2thyenemy]

The world size affects the game speed as such Huge is almost unplayable even with animations and options turned low.

 

[Zophos]

1) Is there a possible way to change the frequency of autosaves from 4 to 1? I hate having to save each turn.

Yes. You can set autosave prefs in the .ini file.

The file you want is normally located at C:\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CivilizationIV.ini. Look for AutoSaveInterval and set it to 1. You can also set MaxAutoSaves to whatever number of saves you want to retain before it starts throwing old ones away.

 

[Zenon_pt]

Question - I really don't know if Civ 4 have a map create program as civ 3!
If soo where? If not does the expansive pack had it???

 

[HulaLoula]

I recently downloaded RIgaMaMod's 1901 scenario and unzipped to custom Mods.The problem is I Can't find the scenario anywhere after loading the Mod.Any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks in advance.

 

[Ben E Gas]

thanks!

Just for the record, it doesnt have BIDL or FIDL in it, which were the two I was wondering about! But then it came to me in a flash what they mean, so its ok

So, what do they mean?
--------------------------------------

Question - I really don't know if Civ 4 have a map create program as civ 3!
If soo where? If not does the expansive pack had it???

It's called World Builder. You have to start a game. Then enter world builder thru the in game menu. If you don't like the map the game started with, just delete everything and start fresh. Then before exiting world builder, save the map in world builder. You can then load that map up whenever you want to play a game.
-----------------------------------------

The world size affects the game speed as such Huge is almost unplayable even with animations and options turned low.

Not true for everyone. I play on the Huge maps all the time. Graphics maxed. It is playable for me. I have no problems. I even played one of the SevoMod games with 18 civs. There was one day I did load up my game and it was very choppy and like you said, unplayable. But I stopped playing and rebooted. It was fine again. I have 2 gigs ram. Maybe that helped.

 

[Zophos]

So, what do they mean?

BIDL = Built in a Distant Land. Properly speaking, this should be BIFAL, since the actual in-game message is "built in a far-away land".

FIDL = Founded in a Distant Land. Sometimes written as FIDAL by the unconsciously dyslexic.

 

[a4phantom]

It's academic, anyway; I can't see why you'd want to have that many forest tiles unchopped close to your city. Not on purpose, that is.

What if you had a lot of grasslands and food resources but no good production squares other than the forests? What if all those forests are on top of tundra? Obviously that's not an every game occurance, but there are times when I leave every forest in place for production.

The interesting thing about RJ's test to me is that his city is getting the health bonus from forests that are in his fat cross but outside his cultural boundaries. I never really thought about that.

 

[MrCynical]

What if you had a lot of grasslands and food resources but no good production squares other than the forests? What if all those forests are on top of tundra? Obviously that's not an every game occurance, but there are times when I leave every forest in place for production.

Well in the high food case you'd use slavery, which is much more efficient than working unimproved forests as a means of production. In any case this kind of site would be better as a GP farm or commerce city, so the production requirements would be minimal. In the tundra case then yes they should be retained, but only because you can't improve dry, flatland tundra.

 

[a4phantom]

Well in the high food case you'd use slavery, which is much more efficient than working unimproved forests as a means of production. In any case this kind of site would be better as a GP farm or commerce city, so the production requirements would be minimal.

I doubt you'd switch back to slavery just because it would be the best civic for one particular city. GP farm is possible but you might already have one or more. As for commerce, I was thinking late game when lumber mills are available and it's too late to get the most out of building cottages and letting them grow.

In the tundra case then yes they should be retained, but only because you can't improve dry, flatland tundra.

Well yes, only because of that

 

[MVNdude567]

I understand that in Civ4, the different leaders have different tendencies, such as Alexander being a backstabber, and Isabella putting an unusually high stake in religon. Could someone please show me a complete list of tendencies like that for all the leaders? Thanx!

 

[tomart]

I didn't have any success with Alt-s, but...

You were right about the patch - I'd been using vanilla civ4 1.000, and your advice got me to update to 1.61 - now the Alt-s works at any altitude.

Thanks again.

 

[tomart]

I saw someone use the term "GP farm," which i assume means a city that makes more and/or sooner Great Persons (by increasing Specialists, and thus GP points, right?) But I'm not clear on how/when to start 'Specializing.'

In the early and mid-game, i would think you'd want city growth over GPs (who eat but don't farm.) I thought that once my cities reach their maximum/optimal size (limited by food, health, happiness) there would naturally come a point at which excess people become Specialists and start to generate more GP points. As Civ4 encourages fewer/better cities, i've been working hard at maximizing my cities' growth potential (by "acquiring" every health/happiness bonus I can, and trading for the rest) and i'm reaching the late game with cities approaching size 20, wonderfully happy and healthy, but with precious few Specialists - MAYBE one Engineer...

It seems like the ai is creating GPs faster than i do (usually an indicator that there's some trade-off i haven't learned yet) so, I guess my question is, what's a GP farm? When do i cut into a city's growth to make parasites, I mean Specialists, or is there a type of city that is ideal for them?

Thanks again to Roland and Parkin and the other 'Specialists' who help us 'newbs'!
[And thanks to ggganz for the terminology clarification. ]

 

[ggganz]

I thought that once my cities reach their maximum/optimal size (limited by food, health, happiness) there would naturally come a point at which excess people become Specialists and start to generate more GP points.

No, because specialists use up food/health/happiness, too!

And, you're not a noob, you're a newb. A newb (also called a newbie, as indicated by the title of this thread) is simply one who is new to something. A noob is one who won't admit that they are a newb, but then get ridiculed so much that they admit they are a noob, yet strangely do not turn into a newb.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I understand that in Civ4, the different leaders have different tendencies, such as Alexander being a backstabber, and Isabella putting an unusually high stake in religon. Could someone please show me a complete list of tendencies like that for all the leaders? Thanx!

First of all, welcome to civfanatics!

There is a thread in the strategy articles subforum about the leader personalities, but you have to know that there are a lot of aspects about leaders and they all can be compared. The starter of that thread has created some excell files with all of the data concerning leaders. There's quite a lot of information and thus it might be a bit overwhelming and not exactly what you're looking for, but it's the closest thing to what you're asking that I know about.

You can find it here.