Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[cabert]

Has anyone ever seen that actually happen? That's gotta be hilarious (unless it's your own vassal). I would be willing to lose to see someone else's vassal win, and I suppose it could happen since reasonably intact AIs do become vassals to other AIs.

Thanks to everyone who said Music.

what I saw was my vassal MM building apollo and researching space techs.
I asked him to switch research to ?? military tradition or something else, can't remember, but out of the space path.
Then i attacked his neighbour, to ensure he has enough on his hands
I'm not willing to lose to one of my vassals

 

[feldmarshall]

how do I sacrifice population to finish wonder? I am using slavery but I can see "sacrifice population" nowhere in my city screen

 

[ori]

Do you mean that vassals can win the game seperately from their masters if they complete the spaceship first, or is it a 'combined' victory?

they win you loose

 

[cabert]

how do I sacrifice population to finish wonder? I am using slavery but I can see "sacrifice population" nowhere in my city screen

there are arrows under the draft button, one is for $rushing, one is for pop rushing.
Hover the mouse on the pop rushing button and see why you can't pop rush.
(If you're under the slavery civic, it's probably because you don't have enough pop to rush the wonder)

 

[a4phantom]

Yeah, rushing wonders takes a huge amount of population because 1. obviously wonders take a lot of production and 2. there's a penalty for rushing wonders. So even if the wonder is half done, it might cost 15 populations, which you can't sacrifice unless the city is size 30. I miss the old announcements of who was building wonders and when they were approaching completion.

Does the same rush penalty apply to nat'l wonders?

 

[cabert]

Yeah, rushing wonders takes a huge amount of population because 1. obviously wonders take a lot of production and 2. there's a penalty for rushing wonders. So even if the wonder is half done, it might cost 15 populations, which you can't sacrifice unless the city is size 30. I miss the old announcements of who was building wonders and when they were approaching completion.

Does the same rush penalty apply to nat'l wonders?

there is half the penalty for national wonders, so I very often pop rush globe theater (after abusing HR for having it half built)

 

[Roland Johansen]

siege units are immune to colateral damage (warlords XP)

Does anybody know why this was done? I've found it exceptionally annoying in many instances that enemy siege units are invincible to collateral damage from mine.

I think it was done so that siege units could counterbombard at full strength.

Not all changes are good ones. Some occur because a loud minority complains about something while not really thinking about it that well.

In this case, I find it hard to give objective arguments that would support it either way.

Semi-Newbie thoughts on cottages and specialists:
1. If you run a specialist economy in the early game, it's probably hard to switch because you don't have mature towns late game.
2. If you run a pure cottage economy (as I do) you don't produce a lot of Great People . I suppose you can still load up on specialists in your Nat'l Epic city, although you probably won't be running Mercantilism.
3. Financial civs gain a lot from cottage economies and (as far as I know) nothing from specialist economies.

1) If you run a pure specialist economy with the caste system civic, then you'll have very few developed cottages. A mixed economy will have some developed cottages.

2) For the cottage economy, a great person farm is very important. Pick a potential high food area and develop it into a city that can maintain a high number of specialists. You need a number of specialist enabling buildings so slavery is a good civic to get those buildings from the high food city. A few wonders in this city would be nice but not necessary. If the city has some hills, then you could maybe get a few wonders in the city by using the mined hills. Mercantalism is quite useless to improve a great person farm. A great person farm will when well developed use at least 10 specialists enhanced by the national epic. The one specialist from mercantalism isn't going to make a big difference.

A civilization building specialists in every one of its cities won't get many more specialists than a civilization with almost no specialists in its cities and 1 Great Person Farm. The reason is that the cities with a few specialists and without the national epic will never finish a great person because the number of Great Person Points needed for the Great Person keeps increasing as the Great Person Farm builds Great Persons. The Great Person is a goal that requires ever more resources and is never completed before the game ends.

3) That's true.

there is half the penalty for national wonders, so I very often pop rush globe theater (after abusing HR for having it half built)

That's not completely true. Some Small Wonders have a 50% increased rushing cost, some a 100% increased rushing cost. Some Great Wonders have a 100% increased rushing cost, some 200%, some 300%. It depends on the Small Wonder and the Great Wonder. The modifier can be found in CIV4BuildingInfos.xml and is called iHurryCostModifier.

 

[a4phantom]

Mercantalism is quite useless to improve a great person farm. A great person farm will when well developed use at least 10 specialists enhanced by the national epic. The one specialist from mercantalism isn't going to make a big difference.

I meant Caste System.

what I saw was my vassal MM building apollo and researching space techs.
I asked him to switch research to ?? military tradition or something else, can't remember, but out of the space path.
Then i attacked his neighbour, to ensure he has enough on his hands
I'm not willing to lose to one of my vassals

I didn't know you could control a vassal's research.

 

[feldmarshall]

how do you blockade a city? it says naval units can, but i dont know how
if food determines the pop growth of a city, why do we need happiness and health?
if you trade resources with AI, which city will be affected by the traded resources?

 

[Sisiutil]

how do you blockade a city? it says naval units can, but i dont know how
if food determines the pop growth of a city, why do we need happiness and health?
if you trade resources with AI, which city will be affected by the traded resources?

I don't know where you read that you can blockade a city with naval units, but you can't. You can prevent coast and ocean tiles directly adjacent to the naval unit from being worked, but that's about it. Trade routes can't be cut off by naval units.

Happiness and health are additional factors added in primarily for game balance, to prevent unrestrained growth throughout the game. You can let a city become unhappy or unhealthy, but its productivity will be adversely affected to some extent.

All cities in your civilization benefit from a resource that you either own or obtain through trade. For example, gems add one happy citizen in each city (two in every city that has a forge). Obtain gems through trade and the happiness level in all your cities increases by one, by two if there's a forge.

 

[a4phantom]

He's probably remembering or heard that you could in Civ3.

 

[feldmarshall]

I don't know where you read that you can blockade a city with naval units, but you can't. You can prevent coast and ocean tiles directly adjacent to the naval unit from being worked, but that's about it. Trade routes can't be cut off by naval units.

when i first trained naval unit it says "congratulation you have trained your first naval unit. naval units can blockade enemy city blah2..." or something like that

 

[Sisiutil]

when i first trained naval unit it says "congratulation you have trained your first naval unit. naval units can blockade enemy city blah2..." or something like that

Maybe it said "bombard", not "blockade"? Civ4 naval units can indeed do that to reduce a coastal city's defensive bonus.

 

[Jenarie]

I think I remember reading blockade somewhere as well although I'm not positive. Maybe another example of a typo in game?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I've seen abbreviations for different kinds of economies used on the boards. I could figure out that CE means cottage economy where most of your commerce is produced by cottages/towns, and SE indicates that your economy is powered by specialists. But what does FE mean? Are there other stereotypes how to build up an economy?

This is true, so if I can make a plea:- to all giving assistance, please try not to use game abbreviations, CE, SE, FE, CS Slingshot and so on in this thread, unless the abbreviation is explained earlier in the same post, as it IS supposed to be a "newbie help / quick questions" thread

 

[ChinaBlue]

As far as i can tell the simplest way to know how many per turn i'm producing is to open domestic advisor and do the math myself.
Is that true or am i missing smth?

 

[ori]

As far as i can tell the simplest way to know how many per turn i'm producing is to open domestic advisor and do the math myself.
Is that true or am i missing smth?

open the financial advisor (F2) and don't do the math

 

[ChinaBlue]

open the financial advisor (F2) and don't do the math

Ah yes ...thank you.

Now that i'm on a roll;
I have 4 Hindu temples build, still there's no option to build Hindu Mandir?
What am i missing here?

 

[a4phantom]

Ah yes ...thank you.

Now that i'm on a roll;
I have 4 Hindu temples build, still there's no option to build Hindu Mandir?
What am i missing here?

Music? Or if you're on a Huge world, you might need five temples/ Mandir, I'm not sure.

 

[ChinaBlue]

Music? Or if you're on a Huge world, you might need five temples/ Mandir, I'm not sure.

And music it is..my ignorance level today is shocking,
i've checked the civilopedia several times but totally overlooked the music requirement
Thanks for the enlightenment a4phantom and btw, if you don't mind me asking..how are you doing?(iirc earlier in this thread you've mentioned recovering from surgery)