Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[fuch1141]

You can go right here (click the "Upload" link on the bar above your post). Upload it, and it'll give you a link you can post on the forums.

Welcome to CFC!

Thank you! It helps a lot!

 

[ChinaBlue]

Hi! Currently I'm in the process of learning how to play Civ4 (and it is true, gone are the nights where one is supposed te be sleeping!!). Started out 3 wks ago, never touched earlier versions. Have been reading more on this forum than actually playing the game yet.
Fyi-my first game ever I've won space victory chieftain level (vanilla161). Have been playing HoMM for years so I know the concept of tbs well. I also own the Warlords exp.

My question now is, what do you experienced players recommend me to do; continue to learn the game with vanilla or warlords?
Shall I continue with vanilla and when "mastering" the game switch to warlords so I'm able to notice and appreciate the changes more?
Maybe vanilla has a more forgiving AI for newbies?
Or start with warlords so i don't have to unlearn or relearn certain aspects?
And enjoy the improved AI right from the start (and smoother gameplay overall)? Or is warlords 208 AI not to be recommended for a beginner?
(the main reason I've ditched HommV is it's broken AI so I am looking for something (A LOT) better but being constantly beaten by "it" is not my idea of fun either )
Also from now on, I'll insist on playing warlord diff. or beyond.

Please share your thoughts..

 

[Roland Johansen]

Incidentally, what do you think about the State Property civic as a whole, compared to the others in its category? I hadn't actually used it until my most recent game (preferring Free Market), but having so many colonies in the new world, the distance maintenance was actually costing me more than the extra trade routes from Free Market, so I switched. The extra food for Forges and Watermills seems to be a huge addition of icing to the cake, though. I think I might try out State Property in more of my future games, now. (Those that manage to reach that era, anyway. )

I usually prefer state property.

The distance upkeep can be considerable for the big cities that are far away from your centers of government. It can reach values of 5-8 with courthouses in distant big cities (on high difficulty level games). This cost is also multiplied by the inflation percentage (which is directly related to the turn number of the game). So with an inflation percentage of 50%, 5-8 distance upkeep costs become 7.5-12 upkeep costs. But if you place you centers of government in smart spots on the map, then the costs will usually not be that high. Note that moving your capital is rather cheap late in the game, definately worth considering if you do not use state property. Because the capital can easily be moved and the forbidden palace cannot, you should place the forbidden palace in a spot that will be good on the long term and not overvalue the present location of the palace.

The state property civic removes all city distance upkeep. Lets say you have a huge empire and it is on average 3-4 per city (with courthouse reduction), increased to 4.5-6 by a 50% inflation percentage.

The free market civic adds another trade route in every one of your cities. As your cities already have a large number of trade routes at that time, this probably will be a domestic trade route and not a foreign trade route (foreign trade routes are 2.5 times as profitable as domestic ones). You can get 1 foreign trade route for every foreign city with which you have open borders. With the free market civic, you will probably have 4 trade routes per city (not considering airports, assuming you have the extra trade route from the corporation tech which directly follows the invention of the free market civic). So you need foreign trading cities which number is greater than 3 times the number of your cities to get additional foreign trade routes from the fourth trade route. For me, that is often not that likely that late in the game.
So the additional trade routes are probably domestic trade routes which means 2 or 3 additional commerce in your biggest cities (actually foreign trade routes will shift from your minor cities to your biggest cities, making this slightly more beneficial). The 2-3 additional commerce is doubled by buildings in the city (market, grocer, bank, library, observatory, laboratory, university), meaning 4-6 additional gold/science in your cities.

So both options are pretty close in this comparison. If the numbers shift a little than one will get the upper hand. It depends on whether you get additional foreign trade routes and on the distance upkeep of your cities (which is related to the position of your capitals). For small nations with many friends with open borders, the free market civic will provide a better economic boost. For big nations with not so many friends with open borders, state property will provide a similar economic boost.

The state property boost to the two production improvements can be very nice and thus tilt the scales to the state property civic. It depends a bit on how much you like these improvements. They can provide very nice production cities. Pure cottage spammers will not be that interested in this bonus of the state property civic.

Oh, and are you sure the Watermill is "better than any other improvement", as you said? Were you not the one advocating that towns are far more valuable than anything else, since gold rushing is more powerful than hammer building? Still, I guess that the extra food might just push Watermills over the top.

Yes, I've said that the combination of the cottages (towns) and universal suffrage and free market is virtually unbeatable. Your memory is too good.

But, I can defend both of my statements by saying that the watermill is a special improvement that cannot be build in many spots, so the cottage is still the best general improvement...
Also, the watermill is only really good in the late game after replaceable parts, electricity and state property boosts.

Some quick-and-dirty comparisons between improvements in the late game.
Watermill (with state property, late game): +1 food, +2 hammers, +2 commerce.
Town (with universal suffrage and free speech, late game): + 1 hammers, + 7 commerce.
workshop (with state property, late game), mine, lumbermill: +3 hammers
windmill: +1 food, +1 hammers, +2 commerce.
farm: +2 food

This leads to the following combinations.

3 watermills produce: +3 food, +6 hammers, +6 commerce.
2 mines + 1 farm produce: +2 food, +6 hammers.

Watermills will never beat towns in the commerce departement. But if you use some of your towns income to rush build some stuff, then you can compare the output of watermills and cottages for building stuff. If the bonus on gold in a city is equal to the bonus on hammers, then the conversion factor between gold and hammers is 3 to 1.

3 watermills produce: +3 food, +6 hammers, +6 commerce = (with gold rushing) +3 food, +8 hammers.
2 towns + 1 farm produce: +2 food, +2 hammers, +14 commerce = (with gold rushing) +2 food, +6,7 hammers

If the food produced by watermills cannot be used to work other tiles that provide less food, but will be used to feed specialist, then you can still compare the improvements:

2 watermills produce: +2 food, +4 hammers, +4 commerce = (with engineer) +6 hammers, +4 commerce = (with gold rushing) 7,3 hammers

2 mines produce: +6 hammers

2 towns produce: +2 hammers, +14 commerce = (with gold rushing) 6,7 hammers

It's a bit of a quick-and-dirty comparison, but it does give you a feeling for the strength of watermills. The hammers from gold rushing can be used anywhere in your empire and are thus a bit more powerful because of the added flexibility.

Oh, and just because some people always like to bash windmills as useless, I'll add this:

1 farm + 1 mine: +2 food, +3 hammers
2 windmills: +2 food, +2 hammers, +4 commerce = (with gold rushing): +2 food, +3.3 hammers.

or

1 farm + 2 mines: +2 food, +6 hammers,
1 workshop + 2 windmills: +2 food, +5 hammers, +4 commerce = (with gold rushing): +2 food, +6.3 hammers.

Actually, most PBEM players I know would not do such things without submitting a log of units moved in their line of sight. (It would be a rare occurrence anyway, since there's very few situations in which you would not simply send your military directly towards their cities.)

Anyway, in the case of the teams game I was playing in, it would have been impossible for us to do such a thing - we would have required a minimum of 6 movement points to do so (3 in to view the cities, then 3 out again into the fog), and all of our ships had only 5 (Galleons and Frigates with the circumnavigation bonus).

Seems like a nice groups of people that you're playing with. For a fun game, it is important that no one tries to bend the rules of the game.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hi! Currently I'm in the process of learning how to play Civ4 (and it is true, gone are the nights where one is supposed te be sleeping!!). Started out 3 wks ago, never touched earlier versions. Have been reading more on this forum than actually playing the game yet.
Fyi-my first game ever I've won space victory chieftain level (vanilla161). Have been playing HoMM for years so I know the concept of tbs well. I also own the Warlords exp.

My question now is, what do you experienced players recommend me to do; continue to learn the game with vanilla or warlords?
Shall I continue with vanilla and when "mastering" the game switch to warlords so I'm able to notice and appreciate the changes more?
Maybe vanilla has a more forgiving AI for newbies?
Or start with warlords so i don't have to unlearn or relearn certain aspects?
And enjoy the improved AI right from the start (and smoother gameplay overall)? Or is warlords 208 AI not to be recommended for a beginner?
(the main reason I've ditched HommV is it's broken AI so I am looking for something (A LOT) better but being constantly beaten by "it" is not my idea of fun either )
Also from now on, I'll insist on playing warlord diff. or beyond.

Please share your thoughts..

While the Warlords expansion pack adds some fun stuff, it doesn't radically change the gameplay. It's not a huge expansion pack. I had actually hoped for a bit more changes to the main game. It does also add some scenarios. I hope that the next expansion pack adds more to the main game.

The warlords 2.08 patch does improve the AI. This is thanks to the work of Blake's AI mod (which was incorporated in the patch). There is also a version for the vanilla game. Blake and his team are continually improving the AI and so his mod is often in a beta stage. But now a version is about to appear that should be quite stable and a good platform for further development of the AI. You're of course never fully finished when you start improving the AI of a game. It must be said that it is a great decision from Firaxis that they allowed the players of the game access to the AI through modding.

So, you should get the expansion pack if you really like the game and want to have every fun addition to the game. If you're a casual player, you will not really notice the changes in the Warlords expansion pack. They are fun but not game changing.

If you want to read more about the expansion pack, you can read everything about it here.

Oh, and here is a link to the Improved AI mod (in development).

 

[ChinaBlue]

Thanks for your reply Roland. I have the expansion installed already. My question was would it be wiser to learn the game from vanilla or go straight to warlords but never mind, warlords it is! Should it be too heavy I know what to do..
Btw I wish ubi/nival in case of heroesV would listen and open up to their paying costumers as much as firaxis, what an incredible difference!
awesome, I'm staying here

Another question, why is there no blue marble for warlords, or is there?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Thanks for your reply Roland. I have the expansion installed already. My question was would it be wiser to learn the game from vanilla or go straight to warlords but never mind, warlords it is! Should it be too heavy I know what to do..
Btw I wish ubi/nival in case of heroesV would listen and open up to their paying costumers as much as firaxis, what an incredible difference!
awesome, I'm staying here

Another question, why is there no blue marble for warlords, or is there?

I looked it up for you:

Here is the homepage of this mod (I've not used it yet). On the top of the page it says: "These programs are compatible to the Civ4 basic version and to the Civ4 expansion "Warlords". If "Warlords" is installed afterwards, the programs simply have to be started once more again."

Hope that helps you.

And I totally forgot, but welcome to Civfanatics!

 

[ChinaBlue]

Great! Thanks again for your help and for the welcome, glad to be here.

Another question, i have the feeling i'm missing smth very obvious right in my face but anyway, what tech do i need to totally zoom out and get the globe view spinning around?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Great! Thanks again for your help and for the welcome, glad to be here.

Another question, i have the feeling i'm missing smth very obvious right in my face but anyway, what tech do i need to totally zoom out and get the globe view spinning around?

The Stonehenge world wonder or the calendar technology. It can be found in their Civilopedia description ('Centers World Map'), but if you don't know where to look, you might not find it. The biggest advantage is that you know your position on the world map and thus where to go looking for other nations.

 

[ChinaBlue]

The Stonehenge world wonder or the calendar technology. It can be found in their Civilopedia description ('Centers World Map'), but if you don't know where to look, you might not find it. The biggest advantage is that you know your position on the world map and thus where to go looking for other nations.

There must be a bug in my game then! In every game (4 or 5) I've build stonehenge and only have been able to fully zoom out in just 1 of those games, that's why i asked. Even in the one I'm playing right now, stonehenge build! but no zooming out to globeview. I do see the clouds from above but under it a flat square map. I have no other graphical problems whatsoever with this game, all runs very smoothly, except this? hmm..annoying..

 

[a4phantom]

Thanks for your reply Roland. I have the expansion installed already. My question was would it be wiser to learn the game from vanilla or go straight to warlords but never mind, warlords it is! Should it be too heavy I know what to do..

Start with Warlords I say. It's not like skipping arithmatic and going straight to Calculus, or even skipping the Hobbit and diving right into the Lord of the Rings. If you can play Civ4 you can play Warlords, so why 'practice' on the incomplete game?

Another question, why is there no blue marble for warlords, or is there?

I don't know what you mean by "blue" marble, but the marble resource that speeds up construction of some wonders is alive and well, just not on every continent. Some continents have marble and some have stone, if you've got both you're lucky.

As for Lord Parkin's question on State Property, I can't do the math like RJ but I see a huge benefit to my gpt bottom line when I switch to it, and that's without many of the mechanical improvements it benefits.

 

[Welnic]

There must be a bug in my game then! In every game (4 or 5) I've build stonehenge and only have been able to fully zoom out in just 1 of those games, that's why i asked. Even in the one I'm playing right now, stonehenge build! but no zooming out to globeview. I do see the clouds from above but under it a flat square map. I have no other graphical problems whatsoever with this game, all runs very smoothly, except this? hmm..annoying..

Some of the maps are just flat square maps, they are not all a full globe.

 

[ChinaBlue]

Start with Warlords I say. It's not like skipping arithmatic and going straight to Calculus, or even skipping the Hobbit and diving right into the Lord of the Rings. If you can play Civ4 you can play Warlords, so why 'practice' on the incomplete game?

why indeed. thanks, just what i needed to hear. I'll stick with Warlords if only to hear that great intro music.

I don't know what you mean by "blue" marble, but the marble resource that speeds up construction of some wonders is alive and well, just not on every continent. Some continents have marble and some have stone, if you've got both you're lucky.

I mean the blue marble mod, new graphics based on satellite images. Roland Johansen gave me the link a few posts above.
Yes.. the stone and the marble.. sometimes these make me open the wb to locate them first..gotta stop doing that or it'll turn into a bad bad game spoiling habit.

@ Welnic: reassuring answer and quite logical too, come to think of it.
But I almost destroyed my mousewheel, zoom out ZOOOM OUT ymf!!

 

[Sisiutil]

why indeed. thanks, just what i needed to hear. I'll stick with Warlords if only to hear that great intro music.

No need. There's a mod that will put it (and the spinning globe) back. Or you could just replace the sound file.

 

[[AR]Nestor]

I am confused by what exactly happens when a tech obsoletes a luxury resource.

In a recent game I had 2 Ivory, was trading 1 for whale. I researched combustion, which obsoletes whale and forgot to stop trading. Later in the game I was checking what resources I had, and I could not find my Ivory, but I still had whale in my towns (and was giving happiness).

So, what exactly does " Obsoletes whale" mean? The whale does not improve the tile? The Whale resource no longer gives happiness? Should it still show up as listed after becoming obsolete?

Was there a bug in the game that obsoletes my Ivory since I was trading Ivory for whale? I have vanilla 1.61 no warlords. Oh, Industrialism took away my Ivory, OK. So why could I still get the happiness bonus from whale after combustion? Does this mean that you should trade off the soon to be obsolete resource before finishing research? Does this mean that you should trade for soon to be obsolete resources before teching them out? I guess I am not certain I was still trading the Ivory for whale, was not paying very close attention. I just know I had whale giving happiness after combustion, and I had been trading for whale before combustion.

 

[a4phantom]

why indeed. thanks, just what i needed to hear. I'll stick with Warlords if only to hear that great intro music.

Funny, that's the only reason I'd stick with Vanilla

 

[Sisiutil]

I am confused by what exactly happens when a tech obsoletes a luxury resource.

In a recent game I had 2 Ivory, was trading 1 for whale. I researched combustion, which obsoletes whale and forgot to stop trading. Later in the game I was checking what resources I had, and I could not find my Ivory, but I still had whale in my towns (and was giving happiness).

So, what exactly does " Obsoletes whale" mean? The whale does not improve the tile? The Whale resource no longer gives happiness? Should it still show up as listed after becoming obsolete?

Was there a bug in the game that obsoletes my Ivory since I was trading Ivory for whale? I have vanilla 1.61 no warlords. Oh, Industrialism took away my Ivory, OK. So why could I still get the happiness bonus from whale after combustion? Does this mean that you should trade off the soon to be obsolete resource before finishing research? Does this mean that you should trade for soon to be obsolete resources before teching them out? I guess I am not certain I was still trading the Ivory for whale, was not paying very close attention. I just know I had whale giving happiness after combustion, and I had been trading for whale before combustion.

Researching a tech that obsoletes a resource makes it obsolete for you. This means that if you have ivory, fur, or whales within your cultural borders, you can still work the tile for its improved benefits, but you no longer receive the civ-wide bonuses for having that resource. However, if another civ has not yet researched the same tech which obsoletes the resource, you could receive the resource (and thereby its civ-wide benefits) via resource trading.

Now in your specific example, if this other civ had researched neither of the techs that obsolete whales or ivory, that trade may remain in place until they do finish researching one tech or the other.

 

[ChinaBlue]

No need. There's a mod that will put it (and the spinning globe) back. Or you could just replace the sound file.

Thanks but no need. I meant to say i really do prefer the warlords tune. Not only that but the baba yetu gets on my nerves real soon , unlike most civfanatics, I've noticed...;-)

 

[Welnic]

Researching a tech that obsoletes a resource makes it obsolete for you. This means that if you have ivory, fur, or whales within your cultural borders, you can still work the tile for its improved benefits, but you no longer receive the civ-wide bonuses for having that resource. However, if another civ has not yet researched the same tech which obsoletes the resource, you could receive the resource (and thereby its civ-wide benefits) via resource trading.

Now in your specific example, if this other civ had researched neither of the techs that obsolete whales or ivory, that trade may remain in place until they do finish researching one tech or the other.

I was going to answer this question, then realized I recognized the nickname, so I just went into his office next door.

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks but no need. I meant to say i really do prefer the warlords tune. Not only that but the baba yetu gets on my nerves real soon , unlike most civfanatics, I've noticed...;-)

Yes, most of us love it, but those few who hate it do so with a passion.

 

[a4phantom]

Ha, I'm considering rigging my computer to play it at startup.

Ok, here's my latest game, stopped at 300 AD. If anyone cares to critique my opening moves, I'd appreciate it. I did more peaceful expansion than usual, because Geography blessed me with a lot of empty space to my north and west. This game has moved well beyond the save I uploaded, but any advice will be applied to future games. Take your time, I'll be out of commission for a few days. Thanks in advance!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/41928/Me_AD-0300.CivWarlordsSave