Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Gamefreak10000]

1. I don't know what you mean by ship ports. Harbors are available early on (with compass?) and increase trade and the health bonus from seafood. Drydocks speed ship construction and cause ships to be built with 4 experience, but add 1 unhealth. They're available in the industrial age. People will always complain that a city is crowded, so you need to create happiness to balance that. And blue circles are where the computer thinks your workers should improve. If you mean the white circles from teh city's menu, those are the squares your city's population is working.

what do you mean city population is working i dont understand

 

[Zophos]

excuse me how do you build ship ports , how do you make stop the people in youre cityt from conplaining thats theres no room and finnaly when youre in that menu that has that top down view of youre city what do the blue circles mean?

Let's take 'em in order:

1. Ship ports: You don't need a special building in order to build ships - any city which touches the coastline can build a ship (if you have the appropriate technology). The first ships you can build are Workboats, which require Fishing, and Galleys (plus Triremes in Warlords), which require Sailing.
   [*]Crowding: The unhappy faces labelled 'It's too crowded' will always be there - one per pop point in the city. You have to create more happy faces to balance, through religion, buildings, culture slider, etc. As long as you have more happy faces than unhappy ones, all your citizens will be available to work tiles. Which brings us to...
   [*]White circles: (I presume you're talking about the white circles in the city management screen, not the blue ones on the map) These circles show which tiles in the city radius are being 'worked'. Only worked tiles actually produce food/hammers/commerce for your city. You can work as many tiles as you have pop points in the city. Each specialist you run reduces the number of tiles you work by one (that pop point is busy 'being a Scientist' rather than 'working a mine' or something like that).

 

[ordinaryguy]

what do you mean city population is working i dont understand

ok let's start by welcoming you to CFC!!!!!!!! before answering...........

1) It means that the city's poulation is gathering food/production/commerce from its surroundings (called city radius).

2) The food is used to help the city increase its population (if there is a surplus), production used to help built units and buildings (the more the faster) and commerce is used for research (the more commerce, the faster you research).

Note that commerce is a very big topic as it can be used to get wealth (by reducing research and/or culture slider, do research or build culture (using culture slider)

These answers are found in the manual that came with the DVD so read the manual. I'm sure it will answer many of your questions. And if you still have any questions, you can ask them in this forum.

I hope this answers your question.

 

[a4phantom]

1. Is there any way to get an immediate diplomatic boost? I'm about to go to war with China, to the west, I don't want Shaka crashing down on my Eastern flank, or to deal with Shaka's vassal to my North. We're all Buddist brothers, although Shaka's late to the club. He's only 'cautious' with me, and I have a -3 modifier with everyone for my early warmongering, even though it killed Alexander and drove what's left of Mali into Shaka's arms. We have lots of trade, but is there anything I can do that will cushion the diplomatic blow? No chance of China attacking me, and I'm the most powerful nation. If I can't pacify the Zulu before attacking China, I'll have to beat them first, but that would be a lot less profitable because China has The Spiral Minaret (I have U of Sangore) and the Buddist shrine in an almost exclusively Buddist world.

2. How do I make a modified XML file to add Great People names? Say I want to add Neruda and Dylan as Great Artists. Someone pointed out where I'd put such a file (I want it to load automatically, not as a mod), but not how to make them.

 

[sanabas]

Different map types and/or sizes seem to have different domination limits, both for population and land area. Is there a table somewhere showing % for various maps?

 

[Lord Parkin]

1. Is there any way to get an immediate diplomatic boost? I'm about to go to war with China, to the west, I don't want Shaka crashing down on my Eastern flank, or to deal with Shaka's vassal to my North. We're all Buddist brothers, although Shaka's late to the club. He's only 'cautious' with me, and I have a -3 modifier with everyone for my early warmongering, even though it killed Alexander and drove what's left of Mali into Shaka's arms. We have lots of trade, but is there anything I can do that will cushion the diplomatic blow? No chance of China attacking me, and I'm the most powerful nation. If I can't pacify the Zulu before attacking China, I'll have to beat them first, but that would be a lot less profitable because China has The Spiral Minaret (I have U of Sangore) and the Buddist shrine in an almost exclusively Buddist world.

2. How do I make a modified XML file to add Great People names? Say I want to add Neruda and Dylan as Great Artists. Someone pointed out where I'd put such a file (I want it to load automatically, not as a mod), but not how to make them.

1. Tech gifts are good for immediate diplomatic modifiers. (Up to a max of +4 from "our trades have been fair and forthright".) Also, if you can convert to their favourite civic, or convert to their religion, this should grab you some immediate bonus diplomacy points, as well as more bonus points in the longer term too.

2. Not sure on that one sorry, I'm not an XML whiz myself (in fact I barely touch the thing). I just know it can be done, that's all.

 

[Gamefreak10000]

hey guys im back and asking more questions my brother was playing yesterday and sudenly he got the list of the most powerful nations and he was at the bottom what can he do to get back at the top? and what does it mean when it says i wonder left

 

[Gamefreak10000]

oh geez my citisens are incredibly unhappy how do i make them happier?

 

[frankcor]

hey guys im back and asking more questions my brother was playing yesterday and sudenly he got the list of the most powerful nations and he was at the bottom what can he do to get back at the top? and what does it mean when it says i wonder left

Tell your brother to build more military units. "Power" is measure of the number and quality of your units.

I'm not certain where you're seeing this message so the answer is a bit vague: you can only build 2 National Wonders per city so you may have already built one in that city. Also, only one of each World Wonder can be built anywhere in the world so the message may mean that wonder hasn't been built yet.

oh geez my citisens are incredibly unhappy how do i make them happier?

There are many ways to do that, among which are researching Hereditery Rule (military units in a city bring happiness), expand your empire to include more happiness resources (gold, gems, silk, dye, etc.), or build buildings in your cities that bring happiness (temples, theaters, coloseums, etc.).

Have fun!

 

[Gamefreak10000]

thanks guys youre areal help

 

[a4phantom]

I think having your national religion present in a city is also worth +1 happiness. And aside from the sweet sweet hereditary rule +1 bonus for each unit in a city, under any civic you may get -1 happiness for having no units in a city because they demand protection. It can be an old chariot or archer, they just want to see soldiers in the streets. Also, if you can enslave other nations, having a vassal gives you +1 happiness in all cities, although it pisses off other countries.

 

[Gamefreak10000]

hi its me again a few more questions do you have to contect everything with roads to deliver reasources and what's the point of food and health

 

[a4phantom]

The Chinese are theoretically willing to declare against the Zulu (option is white not red), but when I ask what it will cost me they say it's not possible, although I have tech they don't. Will they be more willing to go to war with the Zs if I declare first?

hi its me again a few more questions do you have to contect everything with roads to deliver reasources and what's the point of food and health

Food grows and sustains population. Each population point of a city consumes 2 food. So every point of food that city collects over two gets put in the pantry, and when the pantry's full the city grows one size. Sickness consumes food, so if you have a size six city it'll eat 12 points of food, and if there are three more sickness points (green Mr. Yuck faces) than health points (red cross circles), the city will consume 15 food. So health prevents your cities from wasting food, so they can keep growing.

Resources have to be connected with roads, rivers, coastline (after sailing?) and ocean (after astronomy?)

 

[boesveld]

I'm really sorry to bother you folks, but I'm having a problem playing a mod. I've downloaded Eusebius World Religion V41b and installed it in C-Program Files-Firaxis-Civ IV-Warlord-Mod - and unzipped the files. It shows up under Advanced on the Play screen under Mods, - there it is every time! I went in and cleared the cache, and although I can click it and a game loads, it most certainly isn't the mod I selected, but a regular game.

I suspect that there is something in the ini. file that I need to add or adjust, but I don't know what it is. I'm not afraid of the ini file - I modified it when I first got the game a short time ago on my much older and slower computer. With my new one, the games have been reinstalled, I've re-downloaded the mod, unzipped, cleared cache, mod appears but still not playable.

Can anyone tell me what it is I still need to do to play this mod? And any others I might download in the future?

Thanks.
Ron

 

[ggganz]

Ask the modders. They will know exactly what the files are so they can tell you.

 

[a4phantom]

Haha! I declared war on the English, the Zulus' old enemies, who I have no borders with (it's an inland map so no sea access either). I then got the Zulus to attack the English, boosting our relationship and tying up the Zulu army. Then I declared on the Chinese and began the slow slog towards glorious Beijing. Pretty soon the Egyptians vassalized China and came to their defense, so it was a long slow war, and with three enemies WW nearly killed me, my cities dropped population massively. Good thing I had a large army to start with because reinforcement would have been impossible.

 

[Roland Johansen]

1. Is there any way to get an immediate diplomatic boost? I'm about to go to war with China, to the west, I don't want Shaka crashing down on my Eastern flank, or to deal with Shaka's vassal to my North. We're all Buddist brothers, although Shaka's late to the club. He's only 'cautious' with me, and I have a -3 modifier with everyone for my early warmongering, even though it killed Alexander and drove what's left of Mali into Shaka's arms. We have lots of trade, but is there anything I can do that will cushion the diplomatic blow? No chance of China attacking me, and I'm the most powerful nation. If I can't pacify the Zulu before attacking China, I'll have to beat them first, but that would be a lot less profitable because China has The Spiral Minaret (I have U of Sangore) and the Buddist shrine in an almost exclusively Buddist world.

2. How do I make a modified XML file to add Great People names? Say I want to add Neruda and Dylan as Great Artists. Someone pointed out where I'd put such a file (I want it to load automatically, not as a mod), but not how to make them.

1) I completely agree with Lord Parkin but I would like to add that good relations are not a guarantee that you're not going to be attacked. Especially if you're talking about Montezuma. It would be best to have Montezuma attack someone else. So if you have fairly ok relations with Montezuma and Montezuma has a hated AI opponent (when does he not), then it should be possible to have him attack that opponent (for a fair bribing sum). As long as Montezuma is at war with that AI, he will surely not attack you. The added advantage is that Montezuma will weaken himself and the opponent (if you picked a strong opponent for Montezuma) and thus Montezuma can be your next easy target for conquest.

2) I've never added great people in the game before, but I've done some simple xml-changes and thus know a little bit about it. I looked in the xml-files and there seem to be 2 files that need editing (if I looked correctly...):

CIV4GameTextInfos_GreatPeople.xml in ...\Civilization 4\Assets\XML\Text and CIV4UnitInfos.xml in ...\Civilization 4\Assets\XML\Units and in ...\Civilization 4\Warlords\Assets\XML\Units

You have to make changes to the file CIV4UnitInfos.xml in both warlords and vanilla civ4 if you want the great person added in both the original game and the expansion pack.

In the file CIV4UnitInfos.xml is a list with names of great artists, great scientists, etc. The list seems to be ordered on time of existance of these great people, so you'll have to fit the great person somewhere in the list where he/she belongs. The list is probably used to create the great people in the right historical order (no ancient age newton or modern homer)

The file CIV4GameTextInfos_GreatPeople.xml should have the same names added (use the same structure in that file as for the other great people in the file) and the names are ordered in the same way as in the file CIV4UnitInfos.xml.

If you just change the files and save them, then the game will just play with your modifications but you'll have lost the original files and game patches might behave weird (or you'll have to save the original files somewhere and replace the modded files with the original files before patching). It's better to create a mod. Creating a mod is not that difficult.

In order to create a mod for the expansion pack warlords for instance:
Go to the directory ...\Civilization 4\Warlords\Mods
Create a folder named GPmod (or something more original).
Inside the folder the modded files need to be added following the same directory structure as the original game. So you'll need to add some folders and copy the file CIV4GameTextInfos_GreatPeople.xml in a folder ...\Civilization 4\Warlords\Mods\Assets\XML\Text and you'll need to copy the file CIV4UnitInfos.xml in ...\Civilization 4\Warlords\Mods\Assets\XML\Units
When these original files were copied in the right place, the modifications can be made.

Now, it's nice if the game automatically loads your mod. In order to achieve this you'll have to make a small change in the ini-file.
Go to ...\Civilization 4\Warlords and double click _Civ4Config.

Go to the line


; Specify a Mod folder (Mods\Mesopotamia), '0' for none
Mod = 0

and change the 0 into Mods\GPmod

If you're already using some mod, then you can change the above mentioned files in the mod folder of that mod.

I'm really sorry to bother you folks, but I'm having a problem playing a mod. I've downloaded Eusebius World Religion V41b and installed it in C-Program Files-Firaxis-Civ IV-Warlord-Mod - and unzipped the files. It shows up under Advanced on the Play screen under Mods, - there it is every time! I went in and cleared the cache, and although I can click it and a game loads, it most certainly isn't the mod I selected, but a regular game.

I suspect that there is something in the ini. file that I need to add or adjust, but I don't know what it is. I'm not afraid of the ini file - I modified it when I first got the game a short time ago on my much older and slower computer. With my new one, the games have been reinstalled, I've re-downloaded the mod, unzipped, cleared cache, mod appears but still not playable.

Can anyone tell me what it is I still need to do to play this mod? And any others I might download in the future?

Thanks.
Ron

As this is the quick answers / 'newbie' questions thread, you shouldn't hesitate to answer a question here. However, your question is rather hard to answer as many things could have gone wrong.

I see that you have already asked the question in the mod thread. I'll bet that the mod creator will give you an answer soon. But until then, I want to make sure that you've really loaded the mod as that is not really clear from the above description.

Inside the game, you click advanced -> load a mod and then pick the mod and click the ok button in the lower right corner. Then the game should restart and load the mod. Often the name of the mod will then be displayed in the upper right corner of the title screen and when you click advanced -> about this build, then the bottom line of the info screen should show the mod that you're using.

Does this function correctly for you?

You can also order the game to always start using a certain mod. This cuts back on the loading time of the mod because the game doesn't need to restart to use the mod.

In order to achieve this you'll have to make a small change in the ini-file.
Go to ...\Civilization 4\Warlords and double click _Civ4Config.

Go to the line


; Specify a Mod folder (Mods\Mesopotamia), '0' for none
Mod = 0

and change the 0 into Mods\[folder in which you installed the mod]

(I don't know the name of the folder in which this mod is installed as I haven't installed this mod myself, you'll have to find that out for yourself. Don't place [] around the name as I did above.)

By the way, welcome to civfanatics!

 

[Deetwo]

I just got Civ 4 after playing lots of Civ 3, and have just started playing. One big difference- why does the terrain remain black after being explored? My roads go over the black terrain, but I can't see what the ground looks like unless I back way off into the stratosphere. Is that the way it is supposed to be?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I just got Civ 4 after playing lots of Civ 3, and have just started playing. One big difference- why does the terrain remain black after being explored? My roads go over the black terrain, but I can't see what the ground looks like unless I back way off into the stratosphere. Is that the way it is supposed to be?

Welcome to civfanatics!

It sounds as if you haven't installed the latest patch for the game. The game has an internal update system (click advanced -> check for updates).

The latest patch can also be found on this site, here.

 

[ggganz]

Yeah, that's a pretty common problem. Patch should help.