Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions
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DrewBledsoe
Veteran QB
What is the "TOT" in the Domestic Advisor (F1)?
Total Culture in that city.
KMadCandy
giggling permanoob
i think you mean you never did have it, and then this wouldn't apply in your case. but it is possible to trade away all of your own supply of a resource, and then you'd have to have someone trade it to you. so if you did have it and don't have it now, check your active trades to make sure you didn't trade it all away and forget.
ok, iron i must get anyhow i can. i still have to work the odds in battle. in the early game archers just dont cut it as offensive units, copper helps, of course, axemen are great! i can deny the iron to my enemy with pillage, but if i hang around, throwing archers at thier cities, will my borders(if im close enuff,) grow into theirs? somehow i dont think so. i love my science, especially when my religeon is state, but evryone else seems tougher than me when it comes to the fight.
thanx for the avatar!
thanx for the avatar!
OK, I am not certain what you are asking, but I shall try and help.
In general, if you have copper you do not NEED iron. Swordmen are marginally better than axemen for attacking cities, but are very vunerable to axemen. For me it is much more important to get catapults. If you have a couple of them you can bombard the defence bonus to nothing then take the city much easier. If there are a load of units in the city then suisicde one agasinst it and up to 6 units will be damaged, normally meaning you will take much lower casualties.
For any one battle the computer can tell you the odds. either hold alt down and mouse over the enemy unit while yours is selected, or press G (goto) and hold the mouse over the unit.
Agreed. I will usually make it one of my very early game (like 2nd or 3rd cities) prioriteis to get 1 of the startegic reasorces. If you get stuck without any I recomend the beline to catapults (and then ivory becomes a very powerfull strategic reasorce).
NO!!!! If you throw archers at the city but do not take it (probably not even kill their units) you will achive nothing of use and massivly build up your war weariness. As a rule you should not attack a city at all if you have not got a good chance of taking it (liek at least 50%, hopefully > 80%, I ussually will have enough units spare to have next to no chance of not taking it). If you have to attack with archers, wait untill you have a big stack (3 to each defender if their city defence bonus is not over 20%). The only way your army can effect cultural borders is by taking their cities.
In the end of the day science will make the difference, but agasinst the AI a humans biggest advantage is in the war, the AI is just rubbish at it. If everyone else is more advanced than you you just need to be cleverer, which is not hard against the AI. Some general hints that may or may not help;
Concentrate your force. He may have more units in his whole emipire than you, but if you have more at the point at which you fight, you will be the one killing all the damaged units and so will win the day.
Pick your fights. If he has loads of units in the city you had planned to attack (and you do not think you will be able to take it), give up, pillage and head to another city.
Get catapults. If you have enough catapults you can kill any stack or city.
HTH, and ask more questions if this does not help.
thank you samson, you answered all my queries. if its catapults they want then its catapults they get. i completely forgot about their colateral damage! and if copper is the go, i wont NEED iron till its time to build modern ships. veni vidi catapulti!
Glad it was helpful. BTW the only ship you need iron for is the ironclad, and that is pretty rubbish and unly really usefull for defence if you are getting really hammered, and that is not common against the AI. What you need iron for is knights, as they have the highest strength of any unit for a long time. You can live without them though. You need iron for crossbowmen as well, but they are even easier to live without.
The other thing is to get the 50% productino bonus with ironworks. This is normally very late in the game though (just before the apollo project usually).
ZombieWail
Chieftain
Thanks for the answers. I meant the % number shown above my city name in the map view.
ok, so now i'm back to these forums. hoohay!
anyway, i need some help. after playing civ4 for quite some time, i realised i completely suck in mid-later game strategies. On the other hand, i rock until i get to the renaiscense (sp?). the reason for that is that i suck at micromanagement, and at a certain point in the game, managing all those stacks of military, workers and cities are capable of making anyone nuts.
i know this is a really broad question, but what are your hints on this? how do you work out this problems? are there any interesting keyboard shortcuts that might be useful to me?
btw: for me, mid-game spams from the point you can get the first gunpowder units to the point you get airplanes. and airplanes are the one thing i can't manage AT ALL...
anyway, i need some help. after playing civ4 for quite some time, i realised i completely suck in mid-later game strategies. On the other hand, i rock until i get to the renaiscense (sp?). the reason for that is that i suck at micromanagement, and at a certain point in the game, managing all those stacks of military, workers and cities are capable of making anyone nuts.
i know this is a really broad question, but what are your hints on this? how do you work out this problems? are there any interesting keyboard shortcuts that might be useful to me?
btw: for me, mid-game spams from the point you can get the first gunpowder units to the point you get airplanes. and airplanes are the one thing i can't manage AT ALL...
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
This could really be its own thread in the Strategy forum; there are no quick solutions for what you're running into.
One obvious option is to fight most of your wars earlier in the game, then settle back and work towards one of the "non-military" victories such as cultural, diplomatic, or space. That will avoid having to do anything more with your military than build and shuffle around defensive units, unless the AI turns belligerent, and you should be able to manage that with careful diplomacy.
wandersfar
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2007
- Messages
- 3
Does "Future Tech" ever end? Or does it go on forever?
Use the easy upload system. It allows files upto 10 MB's. It's the red thingy next to the spoiler tag. See the picture below.
thanks!
here goes the game were I have oil and but cant get any!
any guess?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/113289/JuliusCesar_AD-1875.Civ4SavedGame
you're selling your oil to FdR for gems you don't even need.
BrantleyL1
Warlord
I'm confused... (So, what else is new??) Yarayara could see Oil on the map, but could not "access" it. I guess I'm missing what that means. I was assuming that it meant that he could not build an oil well. If I remember correctly, there are certain units that require OIL in order to build. So was that what you couldn't do??
Which leads me to a couple of questions....
(1) When trading resources, will the game allow you to trade away everything you have of a given item? So, if you have one and only one wheat field, you can trade it away and YOUR CIV does not have it?? That kind of changes the complexion of what you might want to trade...
(2) Later in the game, when checking on the status of trades with some other CIV, sometimes it says (for example) "Gems (1 of 0)" - how can that be??
(3) Is it a good idea to cancel trades when your civ develops that resource? Say you're trading for fish and you later reach the coast and develop your own fishing boats... Is it a good idea to cancel that trade - or are the consequences of that not worth it?
Which leads me to a couple of questions....
(1) When trading resources, will the game allow you to trade away everything you have of a given item? So, if you have one and only one wheat field, you can trade it away and YOUR CIV does not have it?? That kind of changes the complexion of what you might want to trade...
(2) Later in the game, when checking on the status of trades with some other CIV, sometimes it says (for example) "Gems (1 of 0)" - how can that be??
(3) Is it a good idea to cancel trades when your civ develops that resource? Say you're trading for fish and you later reach the coast and develop your own fishing boats... Is it a good idea to cancel that trade - or are the consequences of that not worth it?
BlueSoxSWJ
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2006
- Messages
- 92
Yes. You can trade away your last one of a resource.
Along the same lines, on current trade screens, the game subtracts one from the number of that resource the civ has, to reflect the number of "extra" copies they have to trade away. If a civ is trading all of one type away, it'll say 1 of 0.
Yes, cancel - you're supplying the AI with a free resource. If you cancel deals one at a time via the "what are the current deals we have?" screen, you don't get a diplo penalty for it.
BrantleyL1
Warlord
Having been completely wiped out at the prince level and struggling to survive at Noble, I think I'm going to fall back to Warlord and perhaps designate myself as a permanant noob (at least if KMadCandy doesn't mind...) 
My early games as chieftan worked out farily well. I was able to win regularly, without knowing a THING about what I was doing. Moved on to warlord and was generally able to at least eek out a win (even if at the "Dan Qualye" level). I did have a couple of ones where I completely dominated. However, I had no idea of what I was doing or why whatever I did was working. Then, I started reading stuff here. And I think I am trying to bite off more than I can chew. SE, CE, various slingshots, whipping, chopping, etc....
So, here's my plan. Fall back to warlord. Get good at something without trying so much stuff at the same time.
Since axemen are VERY useful in the early game, I'm thinking that I'm going to (oh, the horror of it) REBUILD if there is not bronze somewhere near my starting position.
When I did not know what I was doing, I kind of indiscriminately built cottages and farms. It seemed to work out OK, but now I know there is a way to do it better, but I still don't think I know how to really use cottages vs farms. So, I'm going to give this a shot... If I have a location with a lot of fertile (non-flood plain) territory, I'm going to build LOTS of farms. Once I've got surplus food, Start switching to specialists.
If the area is less fertile (maybe settle in a spot away from a river), build a lot of cottages. And start working on Great People there.
How do these cities get fed? Lets say you settle in the middle of a plain - so you can't build any farms, since there is no access to water...
Any thoughts will be appreciated. Please remember, I'm a perma-noob. Some of this complex stuff is just not making sense. I think I need it laid out step-by-step - like the tutorial did.
Thanks a lot for all the help, thoughts and ideas!!
My early games as chieftan worked out farily well. I was able to win regularly, without knowing a THING about what I was doing. Moved on to warlord and was generally able to at least eek out a win (even if at the "Dan Qualye" level). I did have a couple of ones where I completely dominated. However, I had no idea of what I was doing or why whatever I did was working. Then, I started reading stuff here. And I think I am trying to bite off more than I can chew. SE, CE, various slingshots, whipping, chopping, etc....
So, here's my plan. Fall back to warlord. Get good at something without trying so much stuff at the same time.
Since axemen are VERY useful in the early game, I'm thinking that I'm going to (oh, the horror of it) REBUILD if there is not bronze somewhere near my starting position.
When I did not know what I was doing, I kind of indiscriminately built cottages and farms. It seemed to work out OK, but now I know there is a way to do it better, but I still don't think I know how to really use cottages vs farms. So, I'm going to give this a shot... If I have a location with a lot of fertile (non-flood plain) territory, I'm going to build LOTS of farms. Once I've got surplus food, Start switching to specialists.
If the area is less fertile (maybe settle in a spot away from a river), build a lot of cottages. And start working on Great People there.
How do these cities get fed? Lets say you settle in the middle of a plain - so you can't build any farms, since there is no access to water...
Any thoughts will be appreciated. Please remember, I'm a perma-noob. Some of this complex stuff is just not making sense. I think I need it laid out step-by-step - like the tutorial did.
Thanks a lot for all the help, thoughts and ideas!!
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Sounds like a good plan. I would suggest focusing on one area to improve in each game, such as city specialization in one game, great person generation in the next, and so on.
Well, it's your game and you can play it however you like. Certainly feel free to restart the first couple of games for this reason until you feel more confident. After that, however, consider sticking with it to learn. In the absence of copper, you can always (a) bee-line to Animal Husbandry for horses and Chariots; (b) research Archery for cheap, early defense; (c) get more ambitious and research Iron Working (which is what I do when I play as Rome: research BW, then the Wheel, then IW).
That's one way to do it, but not the only way. The AI likes to put cottages on 1 food/1 hammer tiles such as plains and grassland hills, with farms on grassland and floodplains. I prefer to do it the other way around, with cottages on grasslands and floodplains and the farms on plains tiles (though obviously some grasslands and floodplains have to be farmed for food and/or chain irrigation). That way each citizen working a cottage tile is fed by the 2 food the tile provides. Floodplains and riverside grassland tiles are great for cottages since they provide +1 gold out of the gate.
Hmm, well, you usually can't do both in the same city. Cottages require you to put citizens to work on those tiles, whereas GP generation requires you to take citizens off tiles in order to be specialists. The best place for a GP farm is a location with a lot of excess food.
Remember you can irrigate not only tiles adjacent to rivers, but also those next to oases and lakes--any source of fresh water.
Try to include at least one food resource in every city's fat cross. Food resources are pretty common, so this is relatively easy to do.
Make Civil Service a priority. CS is possibly the most important tech in the game after Bronze Working. Besides enabling the powerful Bureaucracy civic and Macemen (once you have Machinery too), CS enables chain irrigation, allowing you to have irrigation flow from one farmed tile to another. Remember that cities also connect irrigated tiles (provided the city is not on a hill).
Finally, have a look at my beginner's guide (link in my sig) and Sulla's Civ IV walkthrough to get a good grounding in basic strategy and tactics. And have fun!
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