Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[GenocideBringer]

Oooppsss.... i'm sorry....

I thinked I've seen something little different in some screenshot, but surely I was wrong.....

In fact, "Probabilità di combattimento" is not a great translation...

Yeah, "Probability of Combat" sounds pretty damn weird. I've seen it happen a number of times where bad translations mislead people.


Makes me damn glad to be a native English speaker in an English speaking country

 

[mezzano]

Yes I know for that 'info centers' but I ment something like 'Sistuil's gude for beginers'. Document that contains litle more description of changes (in example, what are the benefits of vassalage, what could you do when you have vasall...).

 

[GenocideBringer]

Alright. STUFF THAT HAS BEEN CHANGED/ADDED:

-Early game balance has shifted a bit, as Chariots get a 100% bonus when on the attack against axemen. This makes the early game less of an axe spam.

-Mounted units have been boosted quite a bit. War Elephants now come with Horseback Riding and require Ivory, not horses. They are awesome

-A new building called a Stable is available that gives extra exp for mounted units. With it and a barracks, you can get two promotions off the bat without Theocracy/Vassalage

-Vassals give you a happiness bonus in your cities, although with slightly increased maintenance. Vassals must give you resources that you ask for, and will always help you in a war. Their territory is treated as your own with regards to fortifications and such. Vassals can NOT declare war on their own. Vassals are like forced allies.

-The Palace was added. I can't spell the first part of the name (starts with an A ). It is a wonder you can build with theology. Basically, it becomes like the Vatican City of your state religion. Only one palace can be built, like other wonders. It gives all buildings of your state religion +2 . Its main function is that it acts like an early game UN. The amount of influence you have in the votes depends on how much of your population has the religion in question. It is possible to win a Religious victory this way, and the other resolutions are a bit different but similar to the UN resolutions (Stop trading with X, declare war on Y). You can not be victimized by the votes, though, if you have that religion as your state religion.

-Corporations were added. They're essentially late game religions. They take resources (and multiple resources stack, so 2 rice is 2x as good as 1 rice) and produce effects depending on the corporation. Cereal Mills, for example, takes food resources and gives a bunch of extra food to whatever city it's in. Corporations can also be used to make up for absence of oil or aluminum in your territory. Corps are strange balance-wise. In the base game, they are underpowered due to inflation and make you lose huge amounts of money. With Solver's Unofficial Patch, this bug is fixed (as well as a lot of other things), and it makes them a bit overpowered. I went into the .xml files and slightly lowered the corp income.
Corps can be spread to other nations, and this gives you a lot of money (as the corps add maintenance costs to the city). Since it's not your city, you aren't paying the maintenance costs, yet reap the money from your corporate headquarters (should be your Wall Street city). However, this gives the other nation that bonus, too. Last game, Mali spread Mining Inc to my cities, boosting my production and letting me make a spaceship earlier.

-Espionage was reworked. Commerce can now be diverted to Espionage Points (or they can be gained via other ways like buildings) and then spread out across other civs. Espionage points allow your spies to complete missions in enemy territory, and makes it harder for them to do so. It's an excellent part of the game, but broken without Solver's patch.

-The Great General was added. A Great General is spawned when you get a certain number of combat experience. It can do one of three things. It can work as a military instructor in a city, adding +2 experience to units made there. It can make a military academy (With the Military Science tech), which improves production speed by 50% for military units. Lastly, it can be assigned as a Warlord. It attaches to a unit and spreads out 20 exps to all units in that tile (20 xp in total, not 20xp for all of them. The unit that it is attached to can get some nice promotions. Tactics, for example, is +30% retreat chance (imagine doing this to a Flanking 2 Horse Archer for an 80% retreat chance!). One gives +100% experience in a battle, stuff like that

-Civs now have Unique Buildings. For example, the Russian Research Institute replaces laboratories, and gives you +2 free scientists.

-New units/buildings/wonders, as you know. Not going to list all of them, but some worth noting are the Great Wall (barbs can't enter your territory), paratroopers (24 strength infantry that can paradrop 5 tiles away) and more.


If you get an expansion, get Beyond the Sword.

 

[Sisiutil]

Yes I know for that 'info centers' but I ment something like 'Sistuil's gude for beginers'. Document that contains litle more description of changes (in example, what are the benefits of vassalage, what could you do when you have vasall...).

I'll be working on an updated version of that guide this coming week that will include tips on Warlords and BtS features such as Vassalage, Espionage, and so on.

 

[Erik_3E]

I live in sweden and I am just oundering if the game is still out in the stores I mean the main game and warlords?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I live in sweden and I am just oundering if the game is still out in the stores I mean the main game and warlords?

Welcome to civfanatics!

I can still find it in Dutch stores, but I don't know about Swedish stores. It's not my custom to travel to Sweden to buy my games.

I would go for the 'Beyond the Sword' expansion pack and not the 'Warlords' expansion pack. Beyond the Sword contains everything in Warlords except the scenarios.

 

[Erik_3E]

Welcome to civfanatics!

I can still find it in Dutch stores, but I don't know about Swedish stores. It's not my custom to travel to Sweden to buy my games.

I would go for the 'Beyond the Sword' expansion pack and not the 'Warlords' expansion pack. Beyond the Sword contains everything in Warlords except the scenarios.

Thanx
I dident now that becous I have watched the homepages for al of the 3 games and I havent sean any thing about that.

 

[demolished_man]

Hiya

First let me just say what a brilliant site and forum this is - a real lifesaver for a semi-newbie like me. Thanks for putting so much effort in.

I call myself a semi-newbie as I played Civ2 quite a lot in the past, but after a break of several years have got into Civ4, so some of the concepts are familiar. However, there are a few things I'm not sure of:

1. When a you upgrade a promoted unit does it keep its promotions?

2. How can you stop aggressive neighbours from declaring war? I have played 3 games recently where by 1AD I have 7 or 8 decent cities, lead by about 100 points, have a couple of strong units in each city and blam! here come the French again. Should you patrol your borders or have forts built there?

3. I'm not sure about this cultural take over business - is there a historical example of a city suddenly turning from, say, Egyptian to Spanish just because a nearby city had lots of theatres and galleries?

4. Does the PC cheat when defending cities? I have attacked a city defended by 2 archers in one turn, then next turn find it packed with 5 longbowmen, 3 axemen and an elephant.

5. Is it better to pillage land around your enemy and raze their cities, or take them over to expand your empire? Is it a choice between an easier fight with no prize or a hard fight with no prize?

6. Has anyone ever achieved a cultural victory? It seems that ploughing so much into culture would leave you open for invasion.

7. The basics of the game seem to be: expand your empire by spreading cities or conquest. Does this mean that most of the traits are fun to play with but expansive or aggressive nations will always do best?

8. Do units attch themselves to cities like in Civ2? And do units cost food and production to keep them in the field?

Well, I think that's about enough from me - once again, thanks for any help in advance.

TDM

 

[MrCynical]

1. When a you upgrade a promoted unit does it keep its promotions?

Yes, though it's experience points will be reduced to 10 if they are above that. It retains existing promotions and level though.

2. How can you stop aggressive neighbours from declaring war? I have played 3 games recently where by 1AD I have 7 or 8 decent cities, lead by about 100 points, have a couple of strong units in each city and blam! here come the French again. Should you patrol your borders or have forts built there?

Sometimes wars can't be avoided, but an effective military is a good deterrant. A strong enough military will leave wars in your favour. Patrolling borders is largely a waste of time, as are forts. A few stacks of units in your border cities will do the job just as well.

3. I'm not sure about this cultural take over business - is there a historical example of a city suddenly turning from, say, Egyptian to Spanish just because a nearby city had lots of theatres and galleries?

Probably not, but that's how the game works (and it's rare to flip anything other than junk cities at most levels).

4. Does the PC cheat when defending cities? I have attacked a city defended by 2 archers in one turn, then next turn find it packed with 5 longbowmen, 3 axemen and an elephant.

Nope. It can however upgrade units, whip or buy units, or (as is probably the case here) rush in a stack from a neighbouring city.

5. Is it better to pillage land around your enemy and raze their cities, or take them over to expand your empire? Is it a choice between an easier fight with no prize or a hard fight with no prize?

Pillaging land you're going to capture eventually is largely shooting yourself in the foot. Pillaging is only for if you can't manage to take the cities at all (at least for the forseeable future). Razing large tracts of cities is generally in advisable as well.

6. Has anyone ever achieved a cultural victory? It seems that ploughing so much into culture would leave you open for invasion.

It's been done on plenty of occasions. As with any victory, you need defense, and you only have to pile up the culture in three cities. The rest of your empire can build a more than adequate military.

7. The basics of the game seem to be: expand your empire by spreading cities or conquest. Does this mean that most of the traits are fun to play with but expansive or aggressive nations will always do best?

While broadly speaking it's true that you have to expand one way or another, neither or those traits is exceptionally strong (Expansive is actually a strong candidate for worst trait, and is somewhat of a misnomer as it is not particularly useful to aid expansion).

8. Do units attch themselves to cities like in Civ2? And do units cost food and production to keep them in the field?

No, and no. Unit maintenance is done empire wide and units have no link to a specific city. They all costs gold rather than food or production to maintain.

 

[biohazard]

if i place a city ontop of a resource, either it be visible or i discover it at a later time, do i get to reap the benifits of that resource like copper or stone, or do i have to destroy the city some how and build a mine around it.... thnx

 

[Samson]

if i place a city ontop of a resource, either it be visible or i discover it at a later time, do i get to reap the benifits of that resource like copper or stone, or do i have to destroy the city some how and build a mine around it.... thnx

You get the benifts of the reasorce to the empire once you get the technology to access the reasorce, ie. with copper you can build axemen. You do not get to bonus hammers / food / commerce that comes with that reasorce unless the unimproved reasorce would increase the hammers from the tile beyonf that of the city square, 2f 1 h 1c. Eg. an iron on a flat grassland tile will make no difference, an iron on a grassland hill will increase the hammers from the city square from 1 to 2.

 

[Roland Johansen]

if i place a city ontop of a resource, either it be visible or i discover it at a later time, do i get to reap the benifits of that resource like copper or stone, or do i have to destroy the city some how and build a mine around it.... thnx

You will get the resource benefits. So if you build a city on top of copper, then you will be able to build axemen and you will get a production bonus for building the colossus and the resource will count for the mining corporation benefits. It is connected to any city that is connected to the city build on top of the resource.

However, you won't get the high tile output that you usually get when you build the special resource enabling tile improvement on the resource. There are some rules which determine the output of a centre city tile and the centre city tile can have a slightly higher output than 2 food, 1 hammer, 1 commerce, but the output will usually be relatively low compared to the output of the improved resource tile.

It is usually an especially bad idea to settle on top of a food resource.

 

[wkndwrrr]

(Sorry that this is a bit ranty)




I really need some advice on moving up to Noble difficulty; I've lost seven or eight noble games in a row now! No matter what I seem to do, the AI utterly destroys when it comes to military strength, size, score, great people, the tech race, and wonders. I know that technically the AI has no advantage over the player in noble, but it seems like all the AI players' scores go up exponentially, while mine progresses linearly. These are some screenshots from my most recent, and so far most succesful games on Noble (I still lost):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=160161&stc=1&d=1189645203

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=160162 &stc=1&d=1189645203

(I'm Washington)

Admittedly, I was able to take out Isabella and Tokugawa, but notice how their scores starting rocketing up (particularly Izzy's) before they got knocked down. And Qin...Well, lets just say that China decided it was fed up with having neighbors, and that is why I lost. And in this match, I was even focusing on military for the entire game, yet was still steamrolled.

It seems like the only thing I can do to stop the enemy is to invade them, as I invariably fall way behind in the event of peace. In another game as Mao, I focused solely on teching, had all peaceful neighbors, and yet had less than half the score of the top dog. Heck, in that game, my score started to DECREASE for no apparent reason. I'm always at the bottom of the tech race with no unique techs, with my opponents having four or so more than me, too.

Is city specialization an important enough of a factor to affect this? I tend to mainly have jack-of-all-trade cites, but few other people seem to.

How much should one expand before the AD, city-wise? I usually build two or three cities, then try and and attack my opponent around 1000-100 BC.

Speaking of which, if one is going to rush their opponent, when should it happen?

I try everything I can to snag wonders, I chop-rush them, use slavery, etc., but I rarely get many; about a third as many as in warlord difficulty. Same with Great People. What is the secret to this?

Should I practice more on Noble (maybe just in a duel or three civ map) or on warlord difficulty (maybe on a high civ-number map)?

What should be the priority techs? I usually either try and found a religion, or beeline for BW. Then, I go through all the worker techs, (usually minus water-based techs) then move through the early abstract techs, (code of laws, mathematics) then then the remaining -working techs (ironworking, masonry). Archery and Horsebackriding are rather low priority. Is this a conterproductive way the advance?

Whew...I did that in the internet equivalent of one breath.

 

[JujuLautre]

actually, I must say I think it's not the good place for this. You can get many advices, when this thread is just about small questions

I advise you to search first on the strategy forum, and then, if you still have questions, to post something there.

 

[Erik_3E]

I havent bouth civ IV yet and I am oundering if you have 2 play whith victory ore can you play whith out it?

 

[BrantleyL1]

I havent bouth civ IV yet and I am oundering if you have 2 play whith victory ore can you play whith out it?

If you are not playing to victory, why are you playing?? There are many here who play peaceful games, trying to avoid war and working to a diplomatic victory... But that's victory none the less....

Also, perhaps just surviving to 2050 would be a victory of sorts - even if you are in last place.

 

[Erik_3E]

If you are not playing to victory, why are you playing?? There are many here who play peaceful games, trying to avoid war and working to a diplomatic victory... But that's victory none the less....

Also, perhaps just surviving to 2050 would be a victory of sorts - even if you are in last place.

okey so you cant play for ever?

 

[_alphaBeta_]

okey so you cant play for ever?

You can shut off the time victory, so the game will progress until one of the other victory conditions happens. Or you can leave it on conquest-only which means the game will go on until you destroy every other civilization in the game.

Keep in mind that once you progress past 2050 (the time victory threshold) inflation starts to get really out of control, so you'll have issues maintaining your army and infrastructure forever and ever.

 

[Erik_3E]

You can shut off the time victory, so the game will progress until one of the other victory conditions happens. Or you can leave it on conquest-only which means the game will go on until you destroy every other civilization in the game.

Keep in mind that once you progress past 2050 (the time victory threshold) inflation starts to get really out of control, so you'll have issues maintaining your army and infrastructure forever and ever.

Is the other civs going 2 atack al of the time orre do they play like normal?

 

[Zenon_pt]

Question:
How can I see the city list of a civ in Civ 4?