Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[ggganz]

And that's it? No registry keys or hidden files in the Uninstall or Installed folders in C:/?

How do I use siege units in this game. I can't use them to attack a city or unit.

What's wrong with your seige units? They should attack a unit normally provided that unit is not below the maximum damage number of the attacking seige weapon (only in BtS.) You can also bombard a city if it is right next to it and then you press B or click the bombard button at the bottom. Why doesn't it work?

 

[taulph88]

What's wrong with your seige units? They should attack a unit normally provided that unit is not below the maximum damage number of the attacking seige weapon (only in BtS.) You can also bombard a city if it is right next to it and then you press B or click the bombard button at the bottom. Why doesn't it work?

Yeah, never mind, I was confusing myself with Civ3. Glad to see the siege units do both attack and bombard. Cause in Civ3 you couldn't do anything with siege units except bombard.

 

[daz34]

well speaking of seige units i would like some input on the last multiplayer game i had (lost). I had no horse resource and a city on another guys island and was under seige. he put a stack of cannons on a hill next to the city and I knew he had calvary and riflemen right behind. I had five cannon, a bunch of musketmen, macemen and longbowmen iwas trying to upgrade. i was close to railroad (and MGs) but I didn't make it by one turn. i tried taking out the cannon with my cannon and a few macemen but was getting slaughtered so stopped. what would you do?

 

[MrCynical]

How does this game handle gender and race?

Wasn't sure where else to post this so I went for the most populated board as I'm going to buy this today...

Never played a civilization before, thought I'd pick it up from what I read so far but I had a few questions about it. One is about gender.

Throughout history women's rights/place in society has been a big part of the world and its development. I was wondering how civilization 4 addresses this.

Are citizens/units separated by gender at all? If so, how are they treated. Can you determine what proportion of what gender is sent to say, the military? Can age limits be set in place for this? Can you assign citizens rights based on gender/age?

Hoping someone can shed some light on this. ^_^

Also, how does the game handle race? Does it address this or no?

Rather a curious set of questions. Is this for an essay or something?

Gender is not of relevance in Civ 4. There are female leaders, but the gender of a leader has no impact on the game. There is no organising citizens by gender/age - these things would be well "under the radar" in terms of Civ gameplay anyway. Military units appear to be male with one or two exceptions, or are indeterminate (e.g tanks, mechanized infantry).

As to race, in the sense of skin colour and similar, there is nothing in the game. I think BtS introduced some slight variations to the unit appearance for different civs, but there is no gameplay impact. Distinctions between the religions have been scrupiously avoided to avoid offence (to the extent that they are little more then Aism, Bism, Cism etc).

 

[Michael Alan]

Shorter game length.

What two or three settings can be made pre-game that are best to make it a 1 or 2 hour game rather than a 10 or 20 hour game. The long match ruins my health and interest because I can't seem to stop for breaks.

 

[ori]

small (duel or tiny) map size and quick speed are the most important factors to decrease game length - then of course a quick conquest victory can be much faster than a time victory

 

[Roland Johansen]

well speaking of seige units i would like some input on the last multiplayer game i had (lost). I had no horse resource and a city on another guys island and was under seige. he put a stack of cannons on a hill next to the city and I knew he had calvary and riflemen right behind. I had five cannon, a bunch of musketmen, macemen and longbowmen iwas trying to upgrade. i was close to railroad (and MGs) but I didn't make it by one turn. i tried taking out the cannon with my cannon and a few macemen but was getting slaughtered so stopped. what would you do?

First of all, welcome to civfanatics!

In the various civilisation games, a lot of planning has to be performed. A lot of decisions that you make have long-term consequences. A lot of mistakes that have been made earlier in the game cannot be fixed within 1 or 2 turns. So if someone is about to conquer one of your cities, then sometimes you cannot stop him/her anymore. You probably should have made different decisions earlier on in the game.

If you want to invade someone elses island, then you need sufficient troops of sufficiently high level and preferably with a technology lead. Of course, if your opponent is a good player, then you won't get that technology lead and his/her units will also be of high level. Mixed forces are of course important too.

In your specific situation, you were attacked by units of a higher level of technological development. Whether the situation could have been salvaged is not clear without actually looking at the game. Attacking the cannons is of course better than waiting for your opponent to attack you with their collateral damage effect especially since the cannons were split of from the rest of your opponents troops which I would consider a mistake on his/her part. But since cannons don't suffer from collateral damage, your cannons probably aren't the best units to use. On the other hand, your other units were even weaker so they weren't that great either. Cavalry or cuirassiers would have worked well but you couldn't create those. If you had an advantage in numbers, then you could maybe have killed the cannons and then moved back into your city defending it with longbowmen. If his cannons were city raider cannons or barrage cannons, then combat upgraded cannons would have beaten them with good odds. Without the siege units, your opponent would have had a hard time taking the city and the extra turns that he/she would have needed to create new cannons could have given you enough time to upgrade your defences. If this was a Beyond the Sword game, then your opponent maybe would have used a spy instead of cannons to remove the defensive bonus of your city.

I don't know the political situation in the rest of the world, but maybe you could have gotten help from other civilisations in the form of technological or military support.

 

[Kernal]

Is there a way to turn off the "Recommended" display for city builds and technologies? I find them hard to just ignore but want to play my own game, not get bombarded with advice from the AI all the time. I found out how to remove the recommendations for unit movements. I'm on vanilla.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Is there a way to turn off the "Recommended" display for city builds and technologies? I find them hard to just ignore but want to play my own game, not get bombarded with advice from the AI all the time. I found out how to remove the recommendations for unit movements. I'm on vanilla.

I don't think that is possible, but I have always ignored it from the first game that I played. It's quite useless advice as the AI will never know in what way you want to improve a city or in what way you want to steer the development of your civilisation (technologies). It's a pity that it can't be turned off.

 

[taulph88]

1. I don't understand the concept of collateral damage. How does that work? It's not when the enemy attacks you, right?

2. How do I customize the game so it doesn't learn the most advanced techs at...say 1700 AD? (Keep the game from flying through the tech tree)

3. What is the lightning bolt on a city?

 

[Michael Alan]

I don't think that is possible, but I have always ignored it from the first game that I played. It's quite useless advice as the AI will never know in what way you want to improve a city or in what way you want to steer the development of your civilisation (technologies). It's a pity that it can't be turned off.

Ive always used it as a tool but now you got me thinking maybe it is actually preventing me from learning how to play the game because it keeps you from thinking about what to do next. hmmm

 

[Roland Johansen]

1. I don't understand the concept of collateral damage. How does that work? It's not when the enemy attacks you, right?

2. How do I customize the game so it doesn't learn the most advanced techs at...say 1700 AD? (Keep the game from flying through the tech tree)

3. What is the lightning bolt on a city?

1. Various siege units, bomber units and battleships/missile cruisers do collateral damage when they attack another stack of units (not when bombing the defences of a city). This extra collateral damage is applied whether the siege units or battleship/missile cruiser wins the battle or not. Bombers have to get past the interceptors (ground based or fighters) to do their normal bombing damage and collateral bombing damage.

Collateral damage is applied to several units in the stack of units that is being attacked (5 to 8 units maximum depending on the type of siege unit that is being used and the number of units in the enemy stack). These units get an amount of damage which is half the amount of damage which is applied during a round of normal combat which means that it is usually close to 10 hitpoints of damage or about 10% damage (as units start with 100 hitpoints). Because wounded units are significantly weaker than full strength units, this means that these units can now be more easily beaten by other units. Attacking with units that do collateral damage can be especially useful in cases where the enemy stack of units has a significant advantage compared to your units as you can weaken several units at once and thus improve your chances of victory in the next battles. So when the enemy is hiding in a city or using defensive terrain bonuses or using a stack of mixed units, then you should be advised to weaken the enemy with siege units first.

2. The speed at which technologies are developed is very dependent on various starting game settings. A game on a pangea type map usually will have a faster tech rate because all of the civilisations have contact and can trade technologies and the foreign trade routes increase commerce output for everyone. A game at a high difficulty level will also experience a faster rate of technological development because the AI civilisations enjoy certain bonuses. And of course a game without technology trading will experience a slower rate of technological development.

If you want to play at the same settings and still want to enjoy a slower speed of technological development, then you could mod the game. The cost of the various technologies is stored in the file CIV4TechInfos.xml. A general cost modifier is stored in the file CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml and in the file CIV4HandicapInfo.xml (note that the AI always uses the noble level modifiers and you'll use the modifier linked to the difficulty level that you're using).
Note that by modding these costs a lot, you could potentially make the AI less efficient in competing with the human player.

3. It's an indicator that shows that this city is supplied with power (which increased the production bonus of factories from 25% to 75%).

Ive always used it as a tool but now you got me thinking maybe it is actually preventing me from learning how to play the game because it keeps you from thinking about what to do next. hmmm

The AI doesn't know your plans and the AI controlling AI civilisations actually doesn't really plan things. You as a human being can do better than that.
You might plan to create a city which will produce a lot of units for you. You improved the terrain around this city to get a high production and you added military instructors that increase experience for units produced in that city. Still, the AI might suggest to build an observatory there which will not do a lot for your empire wide science output (because the city has a low commerce output) but will keep you from building units in this city. The AI just thinks 'Observatory will increase science output by 3 (example value). That's good.'
You might think that you need to get the currency technology quickly so that you can improve your economy (extra trade routes and markets) and expand your empire further without going bankrupt but the AI suggests that you invent horseback riding even though you don't have the horse resource.

The AI uses certain algorithms which guide its choices, but these algorithms are just based on the situation in that turn and aren't nearly as sophisticated as the planning of an average human player.

 

[The D Man]

Can anyone get me a picture of the earth map in civ iv? If possible without cultures and/or other stuff?

 

[Michael Alan]

You might think that you need to get the currency technology quickly so that you can improve your economy (extra trade routes and markets) and expand your empire further without going bankrupt but the AI suggests that you invent horseback riding even though you don't have the horse resource.

The AI uses certain algorithms which guide its choices, but these algorithms are just based on the situation in that turn and aren't nearly as sophisticated as the planning of an average human player.

Im gonna ignore the AI suggestions. Gonna copy your note too, to remind me.

Last night I began a new conditions game, never tried before, conquest only and tiny maps. But the two other civs asked for open borders and peace which i did not expect them to ask for since it's conquest win only. So now Im all fat and cranking out gunpowder units when they dont have that tech yet. Im planning to bowl their nice smiling AI faces down LOL. Sort of wierd how the AI acts in the diplomacy screens.

Im up against the Hatshepsut the Eqytptian Queen, she has the most military units and the smallest turf. And Huayna Capac who has the most land and is also the wealthiest but with fewer military units. Funny knowing their leadership dispositions are opposite their outputs. I suppose the terrain and resources dictated that maybe. No pacts are made as far as I can tell. Im Napoleaon. I have equal access to both land areas. Was thinking do I take my stack of gernaiders into wipe out Hatshepsut, small area, but more units OR into Huayna Capac, big and wealthy, less units. OR do I need to be prepared to fight a war on two fronts possibly?

Conquest strategy is all new to me.

 

[fcc56]

There's almost no point in improving tiles that are outside the fat cross of every city of yours. None of your cities are using the tile, so it's quite pointless. You can see inside the city screen how production, commerce and everything else is accumulated from the tiles that the city uses and the specialist that have been employed. So the tiles outside the fat cross are of no influence.

Exception 1: Sometimes, there are special resources outside the fat cross of all of your cities. When these resources are inside your cultural borders and have a (road/river/sea) connection to your empire and have the appropriate improvement, then your civilization will still have access to that resource.

I'd like to follow up on this reply from some time back. I'm not a new player, but I think I don't completely understand how resource improvements work.

I have worked from the assumption that resource tiles need to be worked with their special improvement for the resource to be available to my civ, even when the tiles are outside any city's radius. If I want wine, I need to build a winery.

My question arises because with the base game and Warlords, I have usually set a few workers to automatically build a trade network once I have railroads, so I don't need to manually assign a worker to every tile that needs the railroad improvement (this is with the game options set so that automated workers don't build over existing improvements). I don't use worker automation for any other purpose.

Now, with BtS, the 3.13 patch, and Bhruic's unofficial patch, workers set to create a trade network build forts on improved resource tiles that are not in any city's radius, destroying wineries, plantations, mines, etc. Very annoying!

So the question is, is this normal and correct? If so, should I care? It is my understanding that once these existing improvements are destroyed, the resource is no longer available to me for trade or corporation use. Is this correct?

 

[Michael Alan]

Now, with BtS, the 3.13 patch, and Bhruic's unofficial patch, workers set to create a trade network build forts on improved resource tiles that are not in any city's radius, destroying wineries, plantations, mines, etc. Very annoying!

So the question is, is this normal and correct? If so, should I care? It is my understanding that once these existing improvements are destroyed, the resource is no longer available to me for trade or corporation use. Is this correct?

I use automated workers for building trade routes. You click the button with the white square with color squigglys that is suppose to represent a map. Using that, I never saw a worker build a fort or change any improvements. BUT when I click the one that looks like a small brown circle, to make automated "build improvements", then it does alter things. I saw farm improvments turn into watermills and I got no money from the loss of the farm.

Now if you are 100% sure you only clicked on the "build trade network" icon and you had winerys destroyed by automated workers, that would be news to me. Knowing the trade routes and improvements never compete for space in the game, the way they can in real life, that result doesn't even make basic common sense when considering the name of the button you clicked. I do not use the Bhruic's unofficial patch, or any unofficial mods, only the Firaxis patches, including 3.13.

Should you care? - probably (if you want to win

My guess is that resource is gone unless you go into the autosaves or personal saves and back this all up. Recently I built a settlement on a silk resource because it was the only spot I could block growth of a competing civ and get my only sea side city. The silk was useless after that as far as I can tell. I cannot build the plantation for it. The shooting upward stalks look pretty decorating my city though. It's like a "we love our despot day" all the time *wink*

Link to a gallery screen shot of a worker selected screen >>
http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1055&c=23

Im a newbie too so I'd like to hear other replies too.

Mike

 

[Mesousa]

Now, with BtS, the 3.13 patch, and Bhruic's unofficial patch, workers set to create a trade network build forts on improved resource tiles that are not in any city's radius, destroying wineries, plantations, mines, etc. Very annoying!

So the question is, is this normal and correct? If so, should I care? It is my understanding that once these existing improvements are destroyed, the resource is no longer available to me for trade or corporation use. Is this correct?

It's normal and correct. Building trade network includes connecting resources, and building a fort on a resource makes it available just like a mine, farm, winery, or whatever the approbiate improvement is, would. Since the resources we're talking about are not in a city radius, there's no drawback besides the slighly longer build time of the fort, and the tile becomes easier to defend should you get invaded.

 

[Michael Alan]

It's normal and correct. Building trade network includes connecting resources, and building a fort on a resource makes it available just like a mine, farm, winery, or whatever the approbiate improvement is, would. Since the resources we're talking about are not in a city radius, there's no drawback besides the slighly longer build time of the fort, and the tile becomes easier to defend should you get invaded.

Fort buliding takes time and money and is not a route. Transportation (trade) network building can only be rails and roads. A fort doesn't add to a network.
This is straight from the civ 4 manual:

Automated Build Improvements: The worker will
move about your civilization, building any improvements
the computer thinks would be the most useful.
Automated Build Trade Network: The worker will
build roads/railroads between all of your cities and
resources.
Automated Improve Nearest City: The worker
will build improvements for the nearest city only.

 

[Mesousa]

Building only a road/railroad on the resource would be pretty pointless though. The manual isn't accurate on a lot of things.

 

[CharlieM]

Typical scenario ... I make a Stack of Death (I think that's the term we use around here), and I go marching in to attack an enemy city. I have spied on the city, and I know what they've got defending it. Great, do my calculations and send the troops I need to win.

Except ... the enemy civ will always send troops like mad from surrouding areas, flying in to defend the city. I swear, even if I surround it, I see them fly right by me. And the next turn, there are two or three of the strongest troops possible, that weren't there before. And now the numbers are not so favorable, and my whole strategy is out the window.

Any defense to this general scenario? Just send more troops than you think you need?