Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

I admit, thats what he was thinking, lol
 
Roland, thanks for the reply. I agree with most of the stuff you said. I think its odd that there was such a large gap in the wars with the Khmer that we had actually started trading resources and technology again. I only declared twice in the games length.

I had knocked him down to two cities, and I was actually looking to stop the war much earlier than that. What bugs me is that they are completely unwilling to talk! It would be one thing if they refused to make peace, but Id be happy to atleast be able to throw an offer on the table. As it was, I was in a decent position to fight off Shaka and Khmer man was no threat at all by the point. Id imagine if I was in Khmer man's position, and my people were on the brink of annihilation (sp?), Id be looking at peace talks - or even becoming a vassal state? Oh well.

I think Im going to start avoiding early wars as I havent been too successful with them since the patch.
 
Roland, thanks for the reply. I agree with most of the stuff you said. I think its odd that there was such a large gap in the wars with the Khmer that we had actually started trading resources and technology again. I only declared twice in the games length.

I'm not sure if the length of peace is taken into account by the game. There is a limit to the complexity of the diplomacy AI. It's one of the harder areas to program.

I had knocked him down to two cities, and I was actually looking to stop the war much earlier than that. What bugs me is that they are completely unwilling to talk! It would be one thing if they refused to make peace, but Id be happy to atleast be able to throw an offer on the table. As it was, I was in a decent position to fight off Shaka and Khmer man was no threat at all by the point. Id imagine if I was in Khmer man's position, and my people were on the brink of annihilation (sp?), Id be looking at peace talks - or even becoming a vassal state? Oh well.

There are more players who think like you and don't like the 'not willing to talk' or 'redded out options'. I must say that I don't quite understand. If the AI is not going to accept any option, then talking about it seems quite pointless. If you think it is weird that they don't accept any option, then I would say that they have a good reason to be angry as you're killing their citizens and soldiers, capturing their cities (or maybe even destroying them) and disrupting their whole country. They really hate you, so talking is not the first thing on their minds artificial as they might be. ;)
There is also a gameplay reason. In civ3, you could wage war for 5 turns, capture a few cities and get peace again and you could do this repeatedly. This made war relatively costless in terms of war weariness and it was very beneficial to the human player who could blitz the AI so that it looked to the AI as if it was losing the war, while the human player expended all his strength in the first 5 turns of the war and then got peace from the 'intimidated' AI. I think some stubbornness in the AI may make wars more challenging and ultimately also more realistic as the repeated 5 turn blitz wars aren't that realistic.

A human might react differently when in the Khmer leaders position. Many players would probably quit the game. When players were in a multiplayer game where quitting was not accepted behaviour, then I guess that many of the human players would become a bit vengeful :mad: and wouldn't care about their own position in the game and would just be determined to make sure that you'd lose the game. Yes, I don't think you'd want the AI to be programmed to mimic human behaviour. Humans can get quite irritating when you touch the wrong buttons. ;)

I think Im going to start avoiding early wars as I havent been too successful with them since the patch.

It might be interesting to you to learn a bit about how war weariness works. It seems to be your biggest problem in the war against the Khmer/Zulu.

When you fight on tiles that are in majority your culture, then you won't get any war weariness at all, whether you win or lose (people don't get angry at their leader for defending the home land or something like that).
When you fight on tiles that are in majority foreign culture, then you will get war weariness, more for losing than for winning and quite a lot for capturing or losing a city (bloody business capturing cities, I guess).

Knowing this, you can plan your strategy around minimising war weariness. You can read a detailed article about war weariness in the War Academy.
 
I read the thread you created. You need to go to My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 (or the name of the expansion pack you want to use them in)\customassets\units and then put them in the folder of the unit you want to use them for. Create the folder with the name of the unit if it does not already exist, no spaces (example, MechanizedInfantry).

thanks man
 
Roland, thanks again for your reply. I guess I see your point on the refusing to talk; why waste the time trying out all kinds of offers if they aren't going to accept any of them. Your multiplayer example makes a lot of sense as well.

As far as WW goes, I was pretty sure how it worked (as far as it only building up while fighting in the enemies territory) so I guess if WW is growing, and I cant make peace with the enemy yet, I should just pull out of their territory and play it defensively until they are willing to talk? Id have to deal with some WW but atleast it wouldnt reach ridiculous numbers, if Im understanding correctly.
 
Hey, how would I merge mods into the original of the game?
Like for example, I have a canada mod and the Settler's mod.
I want it to be so that I can have elements from both mods put into a normal game of Civ so then I won't have to load a mod or deal with the frustration of only having one. Anybody know?
 
Roland, thanks again for your reply. I guess I see your point on the refusing to talk; why waste the time trying out all kinds of offers if they aren't going to accept any of them. Your multiplayer example makes a lot of sense as well.

As far as WW goes, I was pretty sure how it worked (as far as it only building up while fighting in the enemies territory) so I guess if WW is growing, and I cant make peace with the enemy yet, I should just pull out of their territory and play it defensively until they are willing to talk? Id have to deal with some WW but atleast it wouldnt reach ridiculous numbers, if Im understanding correctly.

I'm not Roland, but I'll answer you anyway. ;) Yes, that's what you would do. Everyone's WW decays every turn, but that's usually not important since you're accruing more than decaying. Pulling back into your territory will allow your WW to decay while the enemy's goes up.

Keep in mind that just because the tile is under your control, you may not be the culturally dominant one for that tile. You have to be very careful what tiles you're being attacked on.

Defenders get 2 "points" of WW regardless of the outcome. An attacker gets 1 if they win and 3 if they lose. If you're on the defensive on the wrong tiles, you're still going to get nailed by WW.
 
Roland, thanks again for your reply. I guess I see your point on the refusing to talk; why waste the time trying out all kinds of offers if they aren't going to accept any of them. Your multiplayer example makes a lot of sense as well.

As far as WW goes, I was pretty sure how it worked (as far as it only building up while fighting in the enemies territory) so I guess if WW is growing, and I cant make peace with the enemy yet, I should just pull out of their territory and play it defensively until they are willing to talk? Id have to deal with some WW but atleast it wouldnt reach ridiculous numbers, if Im understanding correctly.

I find that when a civ is for most intents and purposes beaten, but as in your case you can't really finish them of and they still refuse to talk, then send a small pillage party to their remaining lands. Just pillage everything in sight, and the great majority of the time, they will be willing to discuss peace.

You won't get much ww for a pillage "away" party, but I find a stubborn ai often breaks after a good old pillage ;)
 
Roland, thanks again for your reply. I guess I see your point on the refusing to talk; why waste the time trying out all kinds of offers if they aren't going to accept any of them. Your multiplayer example makes a lot of sense as well.

As far as WW goes, I was pretty sure how it worked (as far as it only building up while fighting in the enemies territory) so I guess if WW is growing, and I cant make peace with the enemy yet, I should just pull out of their territory and play it defensively until they are willing to talk? Id have to deal with some WW but atleast it wouldnt reach ridiculous numbers, if Im understanding correctly.

You've already received some good answers by others. It might be difficult to find a spot in conquered territory where you're already culturally dominant. So defending captured territory will often also result in war weariness.

What you could do is try to destroy the majority of the enemy units in your territory before you go on the offensive. But that is something that you'll have to decide at the start of the war.

It's also good to know that war weariness is temporarily ignored when at peace, but it may still be there and it decreases pretty slowly. So when you get into a war with someone with whom you've fought before, then it is quite possible to already start the war with some war weariness from the previous war. In BTS, you can see how much war weariness you have accumulated against an opponent even when at peace. It is shown in the score board in the bottom right corner of the screen when you hold the mouse over the name of an opposing civilisation.

Hey, how would I merge mods into the original of the game?
Like for example, I have a canada mod and the Settler's mod.
I want it to be so that I can have elements from both mods put into a normal game of Civ so then I won't have to load a mod or deal with the frustration of only having one. Anybody know?

Sometimes merging mods is pretty easy, sometimes it can get very hard. If the mods use different files, which don't affect each other, then just adding the files of both mods into one single mod should work. When the mods contain the same files then these files need to be merged manually. That might be hard and you'd have to know what you're doing. There are some modding tutorials in the Creation and Customization subforum created by modders who know what they're doing and trying to share their knowledge.

Second about loading mods easily: I like to make shortcuts for a mod so that the mod is automatically loaded when I click the shortcut. So I will have 2 shortcuts, one for the normal game and one for the mod.

To make a shortcut for the mod, you can make a copy of the normal shortcut for the main game and then edit the properties of this shortcut file. In the Shortcut tab, you change the target line so that the mod is loaded. For instance, if you have a mod called 'GreatMod' in BTS, then this would be a viable target line:
"...\Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" mod= Mods\GreatMod

The dots ... signify the other specifics where you've installed Civilization 4 BTS. I don't know where you've installed it. The mod= Mods\GreatMod is the part that needs to be added to the normal target line.

I find that when a civ is for most intents and purposes beaten, but as in your case you can't really finish them of and they still refuse to talk, then send a small pillage party to their remaining lands. Just pillage everything in sight, and the great majority of the time, they will be willing to discuss peace.

You won't get much ww for a pillage "away" party, but I find a stubborn ai often breaks after a good old pillage ;)

Interesting. I wonder if they offer peace because of the pillaging or because of the proximity of enemy units to their cities.

I've read lots of theories about how to 'convince' the AI to talk about peace, but I've never seen someone dive into the code to find out. It would be interesting to know exactly how it worked.

As it is now, I just try to avoid getting large amounts of war weariness so that I won't need peace very much. But war weariness is pretty impossible to avoid when you want to conquer someone.
 
I have 2 simple questions:
1. I consider buying BTS but I only have vanilla. Does BTS include everything that is in Warlords, or do I have to have both W and BTS to play the full civ4 experience?
2. When building the UN, I don't know who has the most population and thus I don't know who will compete with me for the diplo victory, so sometimes one of my allies I worked hard for him to love me turns out to be my competetor. My question is- can I find out who has the most population and if I can how?
 
1. BTS has all the contents of warlords except the scenarios. You don't need warlord's to play BTS.

2. if you're not the 1st in population, check into the f8 screen. Otherwise, the f9 graph can give you a good indication, without being sure.
 
I have one turn to go until a Time Victory in BTS. Can I turn off the Time Victory option anyway?

I think there's a way to do it editing some save game files. I personally do not know how. Even if you do win, you'll be given the option to continue playing after someone has won the game.
 
thanks. I will probably let it be because that isn't too simple. Any Victory is cool anyway.

Can I alter Victory conditions pre-game?

If you like to read:
The Holy Roman Charlemagne was a total warmonger, declared war on me twice while I never did on him. I isolated from him though, refused his demands for tribute which is how he began relations, so after that I did no trades and I spied on him and sent privateers after his stuff. I was surprised His holiness had such a short temper and asked for tribute. And learned something about my religious heritage. (I'm Catholic). He almost had me by sea. We did a BTS dual game on a tiny map, we each had an island. I was Abe Lincoln. Warlords level, normal speed. Quite a thrill.
 
Diff. question. Recently I had a game where I somehow generated 8 Great
Spies. Great, you say! Five came from one city and three from another. So
I decided to build Scotland Yard. But each time my only option other than
espionage was to build another Scotland Yard. So I built six of them in total
and spied with the rest. Any other time, I usually don't get one Great Spy.
My question really is, how many Scotland Yards can you build, and what
special conditions can spawn so many Great Spies?? Incidently, I lost that
game when Mansa achieved three legendary cities. But boy, my law enforce-
was ace!!!
 
thanks. I will probably let it be because that isn't too simple. Any Victory is cool anyway.

Can I alter Victory conditions pre-game?

If you use the custom game startup, then you can change a lot of settings pre-game. One of them is the time victory.

If you like to read:
I used to not like time victory but I like it more now, it's just a combo victory which is actually a good way to win. To spread out your efforts on variuos tactics.The Holy Roman Charlemagne was a total warmonger, decalred war on me twice while I never did on him. I isolated from him though, refused his demands for tribute which is how he began relations, so after that I did no trades and I spied on him and sent privateers after his stuff. I was surprised his holiness had such a short temper. Anyone who asks for tribute needs to be shut down. And learned something about my religious heritage. (I'm Catholic). He almost had me by sea. We did a dual game on a tiny map. I was Abe Lincoln. Warlords level, normal speed.

AI-AI diplomacy is based on religions and civics, open borders deals and trade deals. For the rest, the AI knows a bit how the AI 'thinks' because it is a pre-programmed reaction.

Human-AI diplomacy works a bit different because each human plays the game differently and the AI has to find out how the human feels about its civilisation. So there will be numerous requests from various AI's. Open borders requests, trading requests, several demands or freebie requests, demands to take action against other AI's. This forces you to chose between the various opposing AI civilisations. If you don't choose, they will all dislike you.

Diff. question. Recently I had a game where I somehow generated 8 Great
Spies. Great, you say! Five came from one city and three from another. So
I decided to build Scotland Yard. But each time my only option other than
espionage was to build another Scotland Yard. So I built six of them in total
and spied with the rest. Any other time, I usually don't get one Great Spy.
My question really is, how many Scotland Yards can you build, and what
special conditions can spawn so many Great Spies?? Incidently, I lost that
game when Mansa achieved three legendary cities. But boy, my law enforce-
was ace!!!

With that many great spies, you could have created an espionage economy, an economy where you're not creating as many research points as possible, but you're creating as many espionage points as possible and using them to steal technologies. You maximise the espionage slider instead of the research slider.

The number of scotland yards that you can build is only limited by the number of cities that you own, one per city.
If one of the wonders in a city is creating great spy points or if you have enabled a spy specialist in a city, then there is a chance of generating a great spy.
The chance of creating various great persons is explained in the following article:
Great People Points explained

Note that the chance to generate a certain great person has changed in BTS compared to what is mentioned in the article. It's now based on the total amount of great person points generated in a city of a certain type, not a per turn thing.
 
Note that the chance to generate a certain great person has changed in BTS compared to what is mentioned in the article. It's now based on the total amount of great person points generated in a city of a certain type, not a per turn thing.

So you mean to say they've changed to the more intuitive method for calculating the GP probabilities? That's good to know; the old system seemed a bit obscure.

In other words running a spy specialist (+3GPP) and owning the pyramids (+2GPP) for the entire period of generating one GP would yield probabilities 60 / 40...
 
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