Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Raisin Bran]

@Raisin - thank you for the answer (are you speaking french ?)

Yes I do speak french ..... Im a french Canadian living in Quebec.

sorry for non-topicness

 

[a4phantom]

@A4Phantom - I know it's very rare but have you experienced it on your own

Aurevoir

Yes, in a brand new reactor in a happy healthy city. I was irritated. In Civ3 the city had to be in unrest for the reactor to be dangerous, that made a lot more sense to me. So I never use nuclear reactors anymore.

RJ, thanks as always. Does having multiple SAMs or destroyers affect the odds of an interception? And it doesn't seem unfair to me that interceptions rarely shoot down undamaged planes, since bombing cannot kill anything even ships.

 

[a4phantom]

What's a fun civ to play if you're looking for a nonconquest game?

 

[Sisiutil]

What's a fun civ to play if you're looking for a nonconquest game?

I take it you mean a game that emphasizes building over warring, not just one where you don't pursue a conquest victory (because domination isn't much different, you just raze fewer cities)?

I'd say any of the Financial leaders are good for that. Otherwise it's hard to keep up in techs without the benefit of a big empire.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What's a fun civ to play if you're looking for a nonconquest game?

Hmm, well that's a very broad question. I'll just take it on a personal level for simplicity. Personally, my favourites for "builder-type" games are either of the Indian civs (got to love those Fast Workers), Saladin, and Hannibal. But you could have a very fun "nonconquest game" with any of the leaders really, so you shouldn't stick with the same ones just for the sake of it. In my opinion, the best way to enjoy civ is to sample all of the different leaders and see if they suit your style; every person has different tastes and preferences for their strategies. Find what suits you.

 

[cabert]

1. What factors influence whether a SAM infantry intercepts an airstrike,

40% odds, 1 interception maximum per saminf per turn,
meaning that you have 40% odds vs the first airstrike, then 40% vs the second, if you didn't shoot the first, ...

and if it does what determines the damage or whether they shoot the plane down?

damage is minimum 1HP, and the rest is a random factor multiplied by a "strength factor" based on interception chance and HP/100.
So you do more damage to a plane if your healthy...
If I have this right, the combat bonus also applies.
The SDK is hard to read, with very intricated functions.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

What's a fun civ to play if you're looking for a nonconquest game?

In Vanilla Civ4 (non-Warlord), I liked combinations of Industrious, Financial and Organized for a peaceful builder.

If you want a challenge, take a warlike civ and try to be a peaceful builder.

 

[Sisiutil]

In Vanilla Civ4 (non-Warlord), I liked combinations of Industrious, Financial and Organized for a peaceful builder.

If you want a challenge, take a warlike civ and try to be a peaceful builder.

That might not be as much of a challenge as you'd think. Aggressive gives you cheap barracks, for example, and barracks are part of your power rating--so you may build more of them, have a slightly higher power rating than usual, and find more of the AI civs leave you alone.

Same goes if you have a powerful UU. I've noticed that the AI barbs and civs are somewhat reluctant to take on Praetorians, for example, especially if they have promotions and/or are well-fortified on defensive terrain. Really, I've seen barb Axemen approach a Combat I/Shock Praet on a forested hill and back off frequently.

 

[a4phantom]

In Vanilla Civ4 (non-Warlord), I liked combinations of Industrious, Financial and Organized for a peaceful builder.

If you want a challenge, take a warlike civ and try to be a peaceful builder.

Yeah, Washington was a lot of fun when he had Financial and Organized, despite the somewhat less than overpowering UU. Thanks guys, I'll try Hannibal.

 

[Berserker8778]

How do I incorporate a new (modded) civilization into a scenario map? I know I have to do it out of the game (and in notepad) but I'm still fuzy on how to go about it. Can someone help me?

 

[a4phantom]

Crimeny, I started the Chinese Unification scenario as Qin. Anyway, it's the very beginning, and we all have the same penalty (-3 for different bloodlines), but they're all Cautious-Pleased with eachother and Annoyed with me. Any thoughts? They won't give me open borders so I can't spread my bloodline. Even worse, I think Jet Li (Great Artist) or Maggie Cheung (Great Beauty) is going to assassinate me.

Note: I'm playing at Noble for the scenario.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What type of great person is "Mani"? A great prophet? (As an aside, where exactly can I find a list of great people and names for Civ4? [Warlords includes the type in the turn log anyway, so it's only for the vanilla that I get confused.])

 

[a4phantom]

What type of great person is "Mani"? A great prophet? (As an aside, where exactly can I find a list of great people and names for Civ4? [Warlords includes the type in the turn log anyway, so it's only for the vanilla that I get confused.])

Great Prophet

Wiki:
Mani (in Persian: مان&#1740 was born of Iranian (Parthian) parentage in Babylon, Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which was a part of Persian Empire about 210-276 CE. He was a religious preacher and the founder of Manichaeism, an ancient Persian gnostic religion that was once prolific but is now extinct. Neo-Manichaeism is a modern revivalist movement not directly connected to the ancient faith but is sympathetic to the teachings of Mani.

Although the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, significant portions remain preserved in Coptic manuscripts from Egypt and in later writings of fully-developed Manichaeism in China. Until the later 20th century, the life and philosophy of Mani was pieced together largely from remarks by his detractors and from late productions. Then in 1969 in Upper Egypt a Greek parchment codex of ca 400 CE, was discovered, which is now designated Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis (because it is conserved at the University of Cologne). It combines a hagiographic account of Mani's career and spiritual development with information about Mani’s religious teachings and contains fragments of his Living (or Great) Gospel and his Letter to Edessa. Mani presented himself as a saviour, the apostle of Jesus Christ’. In the 4th- century Manichaean Coptic papyri, Mani was identified with the Paraclete-Holy Ghost and he was regarded as the new Jesus.

Middle-Persian and Syriac are thought to be Mani's native languages. He wrote his seven holy books in Syriac (the main language spoken in the Near East before the Arab-Islamic conquest). Some historians claim he was of Persian (Iranian) parentage. Mani's father, Fatik or Pattig, was from Hamadan and his mother, Maryam, was of the family of the Kamsaragan, who claimed kinship with the Parthian royal house. However, the names of his father and mother are both Syriac. Mani first encountered religion in his early youth while living with a Jewish ascetic group known as the Elkasites. In his mid-twenties, he came to believe that salvation is possible through education, self-denial, vegetarianism, fasting, and chastity. He later claimed to be the Paraclete promised in the New Testament, the Last Prophet or Seal of the Prophets, finalizing a succession of men guided by God, which included figures such as Seth, Noah, Abraham, Shem, Nikotheos, Enoch, Zoroaster, Hermes, Plato, Buddha, and Jesus. During his lifetime, Mani’s earliest missionaries were active in Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine and Syria and in Egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_(prophet)

 

[Roland Johansen]

How do I incorporate a new (modded) civilization into a scenario map? I know I have to do it out of the game (and in notepad) but I'm still fuzy on how to go about it. Can someone help me?

The people that can help you with these types of problems reside in the Creation and Customization subforum. There are probably a lot of xml-files that need to be changed to add a new civilization to a map. A civilization has a lot of characteristics from unique units to diplomacy modifiers and building preferences. All have to be set and that is not that easy. Good luck.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

How do I incorporate a new (modded) civilization into a scenario map? I know I have to do it out of the game (and in notepad) but I'm still fuzy on how to go about it. Can someone help me?

More specifically, you might want to check out this tutorial, as well as this one. They are very detailed and have some good step-by-step instructions.

 

[Dagnabit]

Noobie Admin question: I am having trouble properly quoting only a part of a msg and have not figured out mechanics of how to multi-post different parts of several msgs in one response. Can someone direct me to any info on "How to efficiently use quoting in my threads.

 

[pixiejmcc]

The xml-files are stored in the folder ...\Civilization 4\Assets\XML
They can be opened, read (and edited) with any simple text editor. The problem is that there are a lot of these files and it is not that easy to find the right information. The best way for me is to do a search (Windows search function) in the whole XML directory for a certain word in each of the files. The information about nukes, I found by looking for the word nuke in each of the files. This resulted in about 25 hits (files) and I took a guess which file would have the sought after data and got lucky (the file names can help you in your guess, AudioDefines.xml is not very likely to contain the right data).

This is a much delayed reply, but it took me a long time to muster up the motivation to delve into the xml. When I look in these folders they are empty. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Noobie Admin question: I am having trouble properly quoting only a part of a msg and have not figured out mechanics of how to multi-post different parts of several msgs in one response. Can someone direct me to any info on "How to efficiently use quoting in my threads.

If you're quoting only one thing, then it's easy. Just click the red quote button just below the post that you want to quote. Delete any section between the quote markings that you don't want to quote.

If you want to make multiple quotes in one post, then you'll have to use the quote button above the window in which you're typing. It looks like a balloon like the ones that are used in comic books. If you move the mouse button over it, then it says 'Wrap

tags around the selected text'. Select a piece of text and then press that button and you'll have put quote tags around that piece of text. If you want to add the name of the one who you're quoting, then you'll have to add =name (where name is the name of the one you're quoting) directly after the first QUOTE.

You can see the syntax of quoting someone by using the red quote button like I explained in the first part of this post. This is how it looks:

[QUOTE=Roland Johansen] This is how it looks like in your text window before you hit Submit Reply. [/QUOTE]

This is a much delayed reply, but it took me a long time to muster up the motivation to delve into the xml. When I look in these folders they are empty. What am I doing wrong?

That's weird. They can't truely be empty because otherwise the game wouldn't be working. Are you really looking in the right folders? You shouldn't look in the folder ...\My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4\CustomAssets\xml but in the directory where you installed the game ...\Civilization 4\Assets\XML

I hope this helps.

 

[Dagnabit]

Thanks Roland, that answers part of my question. What does the multiquote button do. I can not seem to get it to add any text from anywhere into a response I am writing to multiple posts. Intuitively I would think it should select multiple msgs and place them in my quick reply box for editing ,quoting,etc. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Zophos]

If you're quoting only one thing, then it's easy. Just click the red quote button just below the post that you want to quote. Delete any section between the quote markings that you don't want to quote.

If you want to make multiple quotes in one post, then you'll have to use the quote button above the window in which you're typing. It looks like a balloon like the ones that are used in comic books. If you move the mouse button over it, then it says 'Wrap [Quote] tags around the selected text'. Select a piece of text and then press that button and you'll have put quote tags around that piece of text. If you want to add the name of the one who you're quoting, then you'll have to add =name (where name is the name of the one you're quoting) directly after the first QUOTE.

Thanks Roland, that answers part of my question. What does the multiquote button do. I can not seem to get it to add any text from anywhere into a response I am writing to multiple posts. Intuitively I would think it should select multiple msgs and place them in my quick reply box for editing ,quoting,etc. What am I doing wrong?

To use the multi-quote (a fairly new feature), do the following:

1. Press the 'multi' button on message A (e.g. Roland's above). The 'multi' button will turn a different shade of red.
2. Press the 'quote' button on message B (Dagnabit's)
3. The editor will appear with BOTH messages quoted. Edit and add your own comments.

Step 1 can be repeated multiple times to quote more than two messages.