Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Sisiutil]

So I'm not really a Civ-newbie, just a Civ4-newbie. After playing Civ3 for a while after Civ4's release, I'm transitioning to Civ4...I have Warlords 2.13.

Anyway, my question: is it better to use a Great General's bonus of 20 XP on just one unit, to create a "super-unit" with lots of promotions, or distributed across a few units? Thanks in advance.

I've never distributed a Warlord's 20 XPs across several units. It sounds like a waste to me.

Like Mesousa, said, a Medic III unit is a very good use of a Great General. In fact, that's my first use of a GG. I usually try to get a Chariot up to 6 XPs and Medic I so I can also give the unit Medic II, Medic III, and the Morale promotion for extra mobility. That way it can stay behind in a captured city to heal units and then catch up with the stack quickly (and with minimal exposure to the enemy). Medic III units heal something besides unit damage: war weariness. By being able to move the stack sooner, you can bring the war to a close much faster.

Aside from that, I don't tend to attach GGs to units very often. My 2nd and 3rd GGs get settled in the Heroic Epic city as Military Instructors. This means I get the same benefits there as from West Point, without having to divert hammers from units for several turns to build it (and if I'm warring early, without having to wait for Military Tradition). The 4th GG will usually build a Military Academy in my second military city, which is where I also build West Point.

Having 2 cities churning out units at an accelerated rate with 7 XPs (or more, thanks to Stables for mounted and Drydocks for naval) is terrific. It often means my other cities can focus on civilian builds, and that I don't have to change civics to get hyper-promoted units.

If I'm still earning GGs after that (which usually requires an Imperialistic leader and/or a lot of warring), well, they're gravy. Sometimes I settle them so my military cities are rolling level 4 units out of the gate after I build the Pentagon. Sometimes I'll attach them to my best city-busting units, in which case they get the Leadership promotion, which can, in turn, lead to more GGs!

 

[Roland Johansen]

Since this is the quick question thread, I have a quick question.

In my current game my cities have alot of unhealthiness. The main reason in the city screen is population, buildings, bonuses and power. Why do I get the penalty for power. This applies to all of the cities. Most cities don't have power plants since i support them with the three gorges damn. I thought the damn energi was clean.

Someone please enlighten me.

KK

Unhealthiness from power is a change in Beyond the Sword. You'll get 2 unhealthiness from any source of power and 2 additional unhealthiness from coal power plants.

This is how it is supposed to work, but some bugs were reported in the bug forum where this unhealthiness was not applied in certain circumstances.

 

[ggganz]

Since this is the quick question thread, I have a quick question.

In my current game my cities have alot of unhealthiness. The main reason in the city screen is population, buildings, bonuses and power. Why do I get the penalty for power. This applies to all of the cities. Most cities don't have power plants since i support them with the three gorges damn. I thought the damn energi was clean.

Someone please enlighten me.

KK

And don't spell "dam" like "damn", please.

 

[karlkrlarsson]

Embarassing. Freudian slip I guess.

KK

 

[cabert]

I'm posting newbie questions

I now have BtS, I have built the apostolic palace and gandhi was elected (? pope?) over me. Should have spread the religion before finishing this thing, I guess.

How often do elections occur?
I have the feeling he remained pope for more than 100 turns before I had anything to say about it.
A while later, tokugawa has reduced gandhi's cities a lot, and I have spread hinduism (THE religion) all over the place.
Finally, other elections give me the power.
How come I only had banning options, and could not decide of other resolutions????
I'm lost now. Do I have to open a screen to choose a resolution?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I'm posting newbie questions

I now have BtS, I have built the apostolic palace and gandhi was elected (? pope?) over me. Should have spread the religion before finishing this thing, I guess.

How often do elections occur?
I have the feeling he remained pope for more than 100 turns before I had anything to say about it.
A while later, tokugawa has reduced gandhi's cities a lot, and I have spread hinduism (THE religion) all over the place.
Finally, other elections give me the power.
How come I only had banning options, and could not decide of other resolutions????
I'm lost now. Do I have to open a screen to choose a resolution?

Nope the motions can only be picked from a list. The list is created at random, with some attention to the current world situation. E.g. One of the AP religions are at war with another, then you might get the option to have everyone join the AP religion country (crusade) or more often than not, just have everyone else voted to cease hostilities. Often the war will be over before any motion can be proposed. Elections for "Pope" are held again every whenthecomputerfeelslike it.

 

[cabert]

Nope the motions can only be picked from a list. The list is created at random, with some attention to the current world situation. E.g. One of the AP religions are at war with another, then you might get the option to have everyone join the AP religion country (crusade) or more often than not, just have everyone else voted to cease hostilities. Often the war will be over before any motion can be proposed. Elections for "Pope" are held again every whenthecomputerfeelslike it.

That's no good news.
How do you get a dilpo win early then?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

That's no good news.
How do you get a dilpo win early then?

You need the AP religion to be present in a least one city of EVERY (not just the ones you know of early on) civ in the game. Then you have to hope the option to hold such a motion comes up (hasn't yet for me), then you have to hope everyone else doesn't vote for someone else.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

This is actually about the forum ( But it is quick). How do I set a custom avatar/title.

Thanks

 

[scienide09]

You have to be registered for 30 days and have made 30 posts.

Then click on My Account (near the top of the page under the CFC banner), and use the user control panel on the left hand side of the usercp page.

 

[glosrob]

I have been playing Civ since the first one came out (all those years ago) but with Civ 4 I seem to be faring much worse than I did when play Civ I, II or III.

Reading what some people here have put as strategies I get the impression that it isnt necessarily a good idea to try to build every improvement in every city and that 'specialising' cities is also important (one for research, one for GP, one for Unit spamming etc)?

Any thoughts?

 

[BrantleyL1]

This is a question about unhappiness caued by "We long to return to the mother country."

Quick background: Monty (one of MY favorites) is south of me and mostly VERY poor city sites (tundra and the like). I was planning on declaring on him soon, but not 100% ready. He declares on me. (That's NOT surprising.) Just before that, one of his cities flips to me. After some strugle, I take out a fairly significant city (and keep it) and two minor ones (one auto razed and I razed the other). As I am taking out the 2nd, Peter (to my east) declares on me. I offer peace to Monty, asking for another city of his - which has a decent location - he accepts.

So, the question.... I know the city I took will have that unhapiness until I kill off Monty. Will the city I got in trade for peace have it?? (I am not at home and was thinking about this at lunch.)

Do cities that flip to you ever have that??

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have been playing Civ since the first one came out (all those years ago) but with Civ 4 I seem to be faring much worse than I did when play Civ I, II or III.

Reading what some people here have put as strategies I get the impression that it isnt necessarily a good idea to try to build every improvement in every city and that 'specialising' cities is also important (one for research, one for GP, one for Unit spamming etc)?

Any thoughts?

Some posters will exaggerate the specializing advantages a bit, but there is a point to it sometimes. It is a good idea to add Wall Street to a city with a Shrine to multiply the income of the Shrine. It's a good idea to add Oxford University to a city with a huge commerce income so that the science produced by that city is multiplied by the Oxford bonus. It's a good idea to add the National Epic to a city which is producing many great person points. It's a good idea to add the Heroic Epic to a city with a large production so that you can produce units in that city very fast. Some of these small wonders also combine well with each other. For instance, Heroic Epic to produce units fast and West Point to give these units extra experience.

You also don't have to build every single building in every city. Some buildings are more useful than others. For instance, walls and castles are considered not that useful by many. You might want to build them in a really threatened city or build a castle in a city for the trade routes if the trade route would add a lot of commerce and you have stone to quicken the construction speed. But normally, these buildings are not that great.
Just in general, don't build a building in a city when it won't help you a lot. For instance, a courthouse won't help a lot in your capital, but will help you more in a distant city. This doesn't mean that you should never build a courthouse in your capital, it will still help there. But it is not your first priority.
A library isn't very useful in a city that is only producing 3 science, a forge is not very useful in a city that is only producing 3 hammers, etc.

Still, many buildings are useful in every city. When a city becomes large, you'll often need a market for extra happiness and a grocer for extra health.

Some people like to specialize every city, create cities specialised in commerce and adding libraries and universities but not forges and factories and create cities specialised in production and add forges and barracks for unit production. I personally don't find that so useful and I'm not a beginning player. The problem with this is that you also need some production to get the science buildings and the happiness and health buildings to get a big commerce metropolis. So I very seldom go for pure commerce cities without any hammer output.

There are other differences between civ4 and previous version of civ.

-Far more terrain improvements. You need to learn when to use which one. Cottages are considered powerful by many, but most cities also need other terrain improvements.
-Early expansion hurts your research. You can't expand indefinitely without improving your economy because cities have a city maintenance.
-Cities don't grow when building workers and settlers and thus you can't develop them into great commerce cities to support your expanding empire while buildings these 2 units.
-Siege units are required to take cities. They're useful for removing the defensive bonus and for attacking with collateral damage to many defenders in the tile.

These 4 hurt beginning civ4 players who aren't aware of these differences compared to previous version of civ.

 

[Roland Johansen]

This is a question about unhappiness caued by "We long to return to the mother country."

Quick background: Monty (one of MY favorites) is south of me and mostly VERY poor city sites (tundra and the like). I was planning on declaring on him soon, but not 100% ready. He declares on me. (That's NOT surprising.) Just before that, one of his cities flips to me. After some strugle, I take out a fairly significant city (and keep it) and two minor ones (one auto razed and I razed the other). As I am taking out the 2nd, Peter (to my east) declares on me. I offer peace to Monty, asking for another city of his - which has a decent location - he accepts.

So, the question.... I know the city I took will have that unhapiness until I kill off Monty. Will the city I got in trade for peace have it?? (I am not at home and was thinking about this at lunch.)

Do cities that flip to you ever have that??

Yes, they will all have it. It is related to the foreign culture that is present in the center city tile. If you get more and more culture in the center city tile, the percentage of people in your city that complain about the "We long to return to the mother country" will go down.

 

[glosrob]

Thanks alot for your reply!

I think I am probably too quick to build improvements over units. I'll take on board your points though, it all helps

 

[Sleepy_Sentry]

Does anyone know if and when Civ 5 will be released?

 

[ori]

Does anyone know if and when Civ 5 will be released?

Welcome to CFC

Seeing that they just released Beyond the Sword and that they will be working on the console version of civ for the next year I don't think Civ5 is imminent (more likely a couple years of...). Nothing official of course

Spoiler on the other hand :

now that take2 has once again run into trouble with grand theft auto they might actually think about forcing a new Civ version into the market soon but I don't hope so - let's have some fun with BtS for now

 

[Steve3000]

I just had a thought that blew my mind. OK not really but here goes. Obviously this wouldn't happen normally but it is certainly possible. What would happen if you waited till you had eliminated all your opponents and filled the entire globe with your culture and then built the great wall? Where would it draw the wall? Would it draw the wall in the north and south poles where you cant expand, would it just not draw the wall or would the game crash? Riddle me that.

No need to thank me for not starting a new thread.

 

[NecroAngel]

Alright, so... can you view 'proper' replays that show another player... playing? Or is it just those ones that shows text like "1000 BC: Judaism has spread to blah blah"?

Secondly, can anyone tell me what most people's 'build order' is if they're a warmonger starting with, say, Genghis Khan? Like. What would they do exactly in the first 10-20 turns? What would they usually build/research, in order?

Thanks.

 

[ggganz]

Alright, so... can you view 'proper' replays that show another player... playing? Or is it just those ones that shows text like "1000 BC: Judaism has spread to blah blah"?

You mean other than taking a video of the screen the whole time the game is being played?