Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[ori]

Thanks guys. Just to show off my mathematical ineptitude:

Say I have a city producing 30 hammers (shields dammit!) a turn, and it's building something that costs 12. After one turn, I cash rush it.

Turn one: 30/120 hammers produced
Turn two: 90 hammers bought
Turn three: Production finished, 30 hammers go to something else
Turn four: Production would have finished naturally, 30 hammers go to something else

Are you losing a turn's worth of hammers in there, the hammers that you would have produced the turn you pay?

Nope you don't it is like this:
Turn 1: 30/120
Start Turn 2: Buy building: 120/120
End Turn 2: Still building so 150/120
Turn 3: Finish build and start new one with the 30 left from previous build - the carryover is limited to the cost of the build, i.e. 240/120 will lead to a carryover of 120 and 2400/120 will still lead to a carryover of 120. The lost are lost in Vanilla, I read somewhere that in Warlords they are converted to but am not sure about this...

 

[OscarWildebeest]

I know that (beyond a certain level and dependent on civic) military units cost you gold in upkeep. Are workers included in this calculation? I have a massive army in my current game, and loads of workers who have finished their improvements and are patiently waiting for me to discover Railroad. I just want to know if they're costing me money, too.

 

[a4phantom]

I know that (beyond a certain level and dependent on civic) military units cost you gold in upkeep. Are workers included in this calculation? I have a massive army in my current game, and loads of workers who have finished their improvements and are patiently waiting for me to discover Railroad. I just want to know if they're costing me money, too.

yes they count for maintainance but getting those RRs up in a couple turns will be worth it. I'm about to discover RR and I don't have nearly enough workers on hand, I just conquered Russia and was expecting a lot more slaves but I only got 1 or 2, come to think of it I don't think I've captured many since Warlords came out. I see them working the land near the border before I invade, but when I conquer the last city there's only a couple hiding out there. Has anyone else noticed that? Do they throw themselves off a cliff like at Masada or Okinawa to avoid capture?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I know that (beyond a certain level and dependent on civic) military units cost you gold in upkeep. Are workers included in this calculation? I have a massive army in my current game, and loads of workers who have finished their improvements and are patiently waiting for me to discover Railroad. I just want to know if they're costing me money, too.

I agree with a4phantom, building railroads fast is worth it (at least as long as the railroads are not taking 200 turns to research).

Also when you conquer a section of land, then you'll need some workers to change some improvements or rebuild some improvements that were destroyed in the war.

If you want to know more about unit upkeep, then read this War Academy article: Unit Maintenance Explained

 

[a4phantom]

I agree with a4phantom

Would anyone care to recommend a favorite mod for my next game? No limitations except its gotta work with warlords.

 

[Sisiutil]

Would anyone care to recommend a favorite mod for my next game? No limitations except its gotta work with warlords.

Since you're in Minnesota, you're practically Canadian anyway , so you could try out the Canada mod.

 

[Mesousa]

So 'Permanent War or Peace' effectively just means 'Permanent Peace'?

I guess I could go into World Builder right at the start of the game and set all civs to be at war with each other, but that seems a bit awkward.

 

[ori]

So 'Permanent War or Peace' effectively just means 'Permanent Peace'?

No, it just means there is a roll of dice whenever the human player meets an AI the first time - there is a 50% chance it will declare war until the end of time, else there will be eternal peace between the two of you...

 

[a4phantom]

No, it just means there is a roll of dice whenever the human player meets an AI the first time - there is a 50% chance it will declare war until the end of time, else there will be eternal peace between the two of you...

Just like Jr High. That must be difficult though, since you tend to discover civs in bunches. I wonder why they got rid of contact trading from Civ3? Not that I mind, I never got the hang of it, but people had some very elaborate strategies.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I wish contact trading was actually still available, it can sometimes be a little bit annoying when you've traded for world maps and know of all the civs that know the civs you don't know, and know the locations of all the civs that you don't know, but still can't contact them without manually moving a unit over there.

Permanent War or Peace sounds like it might make for an interesting game. Do the AI make the same rolls towards each other? And do any AI tend more towards war than peace, or vice versa, or are they all at 50/50?

Can anybody give me a few basic tips for a quick cultural victory? These are the things I've already gathered:
- Choose a Philosophical leader. (Elizabeth and Gandhi are apparently best.)
- Identify the three cities from near the start of the game, and build as many cultural buildings in them as possible.
- Build as many Cathedral-level culture multiplier buildings as possible in the three main cities, and Hermitage in the least cultured city.
- Make a Great Artist farm, save the Great Artists up until you know which city/cities you need to use them in near the end of the game, then add them to the cities necessary to give you the cultural victory.
- Grabbing Music first is handy, Drama is also important (Theatres).
- Research to at least Liberalism and Democracy (for their civics).
- After that switch to a maxed-out culture slider.
- Await victory.

Is there anything else anyone can add to that 'quick overview'?

 

[azzaman333]

I use my first few GA's as super-specailsts, but I'm not sure if that's better or worse than culture bombing.

 

[ori]

The permanent war, permanent peace and permanent war and peace options are strictly directed towards the human players, i.e. their diplomatic decisions towards each other is not directly affected by this (the AIs which are always at war with you will accumulate the shared war bonus though, so that for all purposes they will form one diplomatic block. It is a dice roll for every AI you meet for itself, so that you can meet 3 in a row and they still decide for themselves. It is 50% regardless of which leader... (you might have eternal war with Gandhi and eternal Peace with Montezuma )

 

[Lord Parkin]

I use my first few GA's as super-specailsts, but I'm not sure if that's better or worse than culture bombing.

Well, it's easy to calculate. Great Artist specialists give 12 culture per turn; that's 1200 culture per 100 turns. Of course, it's also affected by modifiers, so for instance with Free Speech you'll get 24 culture per turn, and so on. However, by that stage of the game you probably don't have enough turns left to get more culture from the specialist than you would from the culture bomb. I'd agree that it can occasionally be more beneficial to use a specialist in the very early game, in terms of culture points generated, but in almost every other way the culture bomb is better. An early culture bomb might flip a newly founded foreign city to your control, whereas using the specialist will allow the foreign city's culture to build up to a point where it can withstand several culture bombs. As always, the earlier the better with anything in Civ.

 

[PhilippK]

What exactly happens to buildings and wonders when they get obsolete? Is it as if they'd never been built (except of course for the culture/gold/whatever that accumulated in the times they were still functional)?

 

[ori]

What exactly happens to buildings and wonders when they get obsolete? Is it as if they'd never been built (except of course for the culture/gold/whatever that accumulated in the times they were still functional)?

Welcome to CFC

Wonders have two kinds of effects: Culture and Great People Points generated by the wonder vs. The effect described in the Civilopedia. The first does not become obsolete, the second may, e.g.
Stonehenge is obsoleted by the Calender tech. This means that the Obelisks/Monuments it puts into every city after it is build are removed by the Calender tech. The Culture and GPP produced by Stonehenge are still produced in the City it was build in...

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Also when you conquer a section of land, then you'll need some workers to change some improvements or rebuild some improvements that were destroyed in the war.

If you want to know more about unit upkeep, then read this War Academy article: Unit Maintenance Explained

My workers have just finished improving the land I've just conquered...

Thanks for the link, which is useful. The numbers always make my head spin, though, so I'm going to save that level of micro-management for when I hit the higher difficulty levels (I'm still only playing on Warlord level).

 

[a4phantom]

I wish contact trading was actually still available, it can sometimes be a little bit annoying when you've traded for world maps and know of all the civs that know the civs you don't know, and know the locations of all the civs that you don't know, but still can't contact them without manually moving a unit over there.

Permanent War or Peace sounds like it might make for an interesting game. Do the AI make the same rolls towards each other? And do any AI tend more towards war than peace, or vice versa, or are they all at 50/50?

Can anybody give me a few basic tips for a quick cultural victory? These are the things I've already gathered:
- Choose a Philosophical leader. (Elizabeth and Gandhi are apparently best.)
- Identify the three cities from near the start of the game, and build as many cultural buildings in them as possible.
- Build as many Cathedral-level culture multiplier buildings as possible in the three main cities, and Hermitage in the least cultured city.
- Make a Great Artist farm, save the Great Artists up until you know which city/cities you need to use them in near the end of the game, then add them to the cities necessary to give you the cultural victory.
- Grabbing Music first is handy, Drama is also important (Theatres).
- Research to at least Liberalism and Democracy (for their civics).
- After that switch to a maxed-out culture slider.
- Await victory.

Is there anything else anyone can add to that 'quick overview'?

This is speculation not something I've tried, but I'd try to make sure I have at least 9 cities, and spread every religion to each of them, to get a cathedral of each faith in each of the culture cities.

 

[frankcor]

Your three Legendary Cities should be great hammer producers because you'll want to build every culture-producing building in each one. I'm talking 3 Heroic-Epic quality cities. Which means, optimally, you need 4 of them because you'll still need to build Heroic Epic in a city dedicated to military builds, not culture.

 

[Jenarie]

The only wins I've had to date are cultural. I join the first few great artists.

It says 12 but it isn't... I usually have 3-4 religions so I have 3-4 cathedrals in my city. 4 cathedrals is +200% culture so now your 12/turn is 36/turn. Whichever city is behind (which is likely the one I'd be joining them to) also has the hermitage which is 100% culture so now 12/turn is 48/turn. At 48/turn it doesn't look as obvious that culture bomb is better especially when you'll eventually have the civic that makes that 60/turn.

Obviously late game it is better to bomb but for the first half joining is still a good option. I probably win later then needed because I rarely have a great person farm pumping out artists - I tend to actually win it with culture buildings which isn't hard if you get enough religions early. Don't forget every culture building you build early will double in culture value - usually by the time your civ is in the civic that gets you +100% culture.

Now if I could only learn to kill stuff I wouldn't be a newbie anymore.

 

[a4phantom]

There are two ways to kill stuff:
1. Have better stuff
2. Have more stuff

Go forth and peace no more!