Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Lord Parkin]

I'd really appreciate it if someone could give some brief instructions on how to change the game's autosave frequency. I think I've read it somewhere before but can't remember where. It gets a bit tiresome having to replay up to 5 whole turns when the computer crashes near the end of a long game - it can be an hour or more of lost playtime, so I'd like to figure out how to set it to make autosaves every turn (and maybe save the last 10 or so rather than 5). Thanks.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I did not know that settlers were that expensive to begin with (150). I don't remember them being that way in the original Civ IV and I did absolutely no editing whatsoever in my games. If they are that much, then why did I get several times when they were 63 and why does it constantly change every time I load up the game again? That is what is mystifying me, not that it is high, but that it is changing.

It depends on the game speed. Settlers cost 150 hammers on Epic speed; 67 hammers on Quick speed; 100 hammers on Normal speed; and 300 hammers on Marathon speed (200 hammers pre-BTS).

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I'd really appreciate it if someone could give some brief instructions on how to change the game's autosave frequency. I think I've read it somewhere before but can't remember where. It gets a bit tiresome having to replay up to 5 whole turns when the computer crashes near the end of a long game - it can be an hour or more of lost playtime, so I'd like to figure out how to set it to make autosaves every turn (and maybe save the last 10 or so rather than 5). Thanks.

Really simple...Whichever version of CIVIV your playing will include a CivilizationIV.ini file in its directory. Find it and alter this line

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves. 0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = 4

To whatever you want the number of turns to be between autosaves. Then save the file and you're done.....


EDIT:- Sorry to make things clearer (and to answer both parts if I actually read your post properly), then find the same file and change these 2 numbers (my bold)

; The maximum number of autosaves kept in the directory before being deleted.
MaxAutoSaves = 5

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves. 0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = 4

Change the 5 to a 10 and the 4 to a 1 .

Now save the file and you're done

 

[Lord Parkin]

Cool. Where do I find the ini file if I'm just playing the regular, unmodded Civ4 game though? All of the ini files that I can locate seem to be to do with mods. Do I first have to make a mod to change the ini file for the savegame frequency? Or am I missing something?

Sorry if I'm missing the obvious here.

 

[ggganz]

My Documents\My Games\nameofgame

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Cool. Where do I find the ini file if I'm just playing the regular, unmodded Civ4 game though? All of the ini files that I can locate seem to be to do with mods. Do I first have to make a mod to change the ini file for the savegame frequency? Or am I missing something?

Sorry if I'm missing the obvious here.

Yep as Ggganz said above....

Looks like you have windows XP, so just click my documents from start menu, then double click "my games" file icon, then double click the "Civ Iv" folder icon. The .ini should be on the next screen. Double click to open it, and scroll about half way down to find the relevant lines.Change and exit, saving changes on exit.

 

[Way_Traveler]

The University of Sankore: Does its +2 beaker per state religion building mean only my religious building, or the whole world's? Same for Versailles, Notre Dame, etc. Thanks in advance!

 

[DrewBledsoe]

The University of Sankore: Does its +2 beaker per state religion building mean only my religious building, or the whole world's? Same for Versailles, Notre Dame, etc. Thanks in advance!

Sankore, just your own religious buildings of your State Relgion, no-one elses.

Versailles just acts as a 3rd Palace to you, and you only.

Notre Dame, just extra happiness to your own cities on the continent it resides.

 

[Roland Johansen]

My Documents\My Games\nameofgame

Alternatively, you can follow the quick link called _Civ4Config from the directory where you installed the game. There is a quick link called _Civ4Config in the main civilization 4 folder, one in the Warlords subfolder and one in the Beyond the Sword subfolder. These link to the relevant configuration files.

 

[ggganz]

Yes. But for anyone using Vista (which he's not) those shortcuts won't work. So I gave the way that will ALWAYS work.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Yes. But for anyone using Vista (which he's not) those shortcuts won't work. So I gave the way that will ALWAYS work.

Don't these links exist for anyone using Vista? I didn't know that. Pretty weird.

 

[ggganz]

The shortcuts in the folder link to %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\My Documents\My Games\nameofgame. But in Vista the folder is actually located in %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH\Documents\My Games\nameofgame.

 

[Illusion13]

How long does it take for the "The whole world hates you" unhappiness to go away after you defy an Apolistic Palace resolution?

 

[Trivas]

It depends on the game speed. Settlers cost 150 hammers on Epic speed; 67 hammers on Quick speed; 100 hammers on Normal speed; and 300 hammers on Marathon speed (200 hammers pre-BTS).

I am on quick speed and it costs anywhere from 322 to 303 depending on what it wants every time I load it back up. Looks kind of funky to me, especially with the variety. I wonder if my game got the speeds switched up when I added the patch. I will look further into it, but for the game I have going, at least it seems the comp is getting used to it and are expanding. I was afraid they would not.

 

[Lord Parkin]

My Documents\My Games\nameofgame

Thanks for the help, got it sorted.

I am on quick speed and it costs anywhere from 322 to 303 depending on what it wants every time I load it back up. Looks kind of funky to me, especially with the variety. I wonder if my game got the speeds switched up when I added the patch. I will look further into it, but for the game I have going, at least it seems the comp is getting used to it and are expanding. I was afraid they would not.

That sounds very weird. Are you sure that you are talking about hammers? And that you are not counting overflow? Perhaps you could provide a screenshot or a savegame so that we can see what you are talking about and understand your situation better.

 

[Trivas]

I am talking about hammers/production and not overflow. I am not going by production time, but by the exact cost. I have gotten 322, 316, 303 (a popular one), and now, it decided to go for 300.

LOL, when I was loading the game to make screen shots, the hint was about pressing print screen and that it would save the screenshot in the folder. I have never gotten that hint before until today. Mighty coincidence.

There is the value of the settler, then I took a screenshot of the stats showing that it was in Quick mode, not marathon. It is not bothering me much now since it does make expanding more difficult and the computer seems to have gotten a hang of it and has expanded nicely, but it is curious.

Oh, in that one shot, you can see that the caravel (I believe) is still buyable. I don't know why, I have all the techs discovered, Iron, Oil, Coal, Copper, and Aluminum, yet it just won't go away like the rest of the things despite my not touching anything. Yet another annoyance, but not a big one.

 

[wkndwrrr]

Which leader would you say is the best for a (relatively) peaceful expansionist who prefers to spend most of his time teching up and building wonders? The whole aggressive-expansion thing always seems to end up with me being repulsed and way behind in score.

 

[yutui]

Sorry if this has been asked, but what stops the AI from settling in the beginning of the game?
My last game was the first time I have played a game which the AI didn't instantly settle. I was playing a Duel Map as Joao on Warlord level and 4 turns into the game I received a conquest victory. The post-game info showed my opposition didn't settle a city. If barbarian animals were around, surely the AI would settle the settler. So does anyone know what causes them to not settle other than really bad land? (and there wasn't really any bad land I could see)

 

[Lord Parkin]

I am talking about hammers/production and not overflow. I am not going by production time, but by the exact cost. I have gotten 322, 316, 303 (a popular one), and now, it decided to go for 300.

LOL, when I was loading the game to make screen shots, the hint was about pressing print screen and that it would save the screenshot in the folder. I have never gotten that hint before until today. Mighty coincidence.

There is the value of the settler, then I took a screenshot of the stats showing that it was in Quick mode, not marathon. It is not bothering me much now since it does make expanding more difficult and the computer seems to have gotten a hang of it and has expanded nicely, but it is curious.

Oh, in that one shot, you can see that the caravel (I believe) is still buyable. I don't know why, I have all the techs discovered, Iron, Oil, Coal, Copper, and Aluminum, yet it just won't go away like the rest of the things despite my not touching anything. Yet another annoyance, but not a big one.

Hmm, that does indeed seem odd about the Settler's cost. Perhaps it has something to do with the Future Starting Era.

Can you provide a screenshot of when the Settler does not cost 300 hammers (ie 303, 316, 322 etc as you say)? It is possible that you might be misreading the production bar.

The thing about the Caravel still being available does seem odd. Perhaps it was an intentional design feature of the game. (After all, Caravels do have the unique ability to explore territory without Open Borders.)

By the way, if you're starting in the Future Era, how are you able to research techs other than the Future Techs? I haven't played on a Future Era start since before BTS, so maybe something has changed. Which game version (including patch version) are you using?

Which leader would you say is the best for a (relatively) peaceful expansionist who prefers to spend most of his time teching up and building wonders? The whole aggressive-expansion thing always seems to end up with me being repulsed and way behind in score.

No one leader is necessarily "best" for a given strategy, but it is true that some may be better suited than others. In your case, I would recommend a leader like Huayna Capac, who is Financial (faster research) and Industrious (faster wonders). However, a lot of how well this leader will suit you will depend on the geography of the map and your ability to adapt to it.

Sorry if this has been asked, but what stops the AI from settling in the beginning of the game?
My last game was the first time I have played a game which the AI didn't instantly settle. I was playing a Duel Map as Joao on Warlord level and 4 turns into the game I received a conquest victory. The post-game info showed my opposition didn't settle a city. If barbarian animals were around, surely the AI would settle the settler. So does anyone know what causes them to not settle other than really bad land? (and there wasn't really any bad land I could see)

As far as I know, the AI always settles straight away when it can, so this seems odd. Unless there were barbarians placed on the map near the AI Settler (this will not happen in an unmodified game), or the AI was placed on unsettleable terrain (again, to my knowledge this should be impossible in an unmodified game), I cannot see any reason why this would occur. Perhaps you could provide a screenshot or savegame for us to be able to examine this more closely?

 

[Illusion13]

>.< how long does defying Apolistic Palace unhappiness last? Did I get ignored? >.<