Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Roland Johansen]

I'm starting a new game at lunch. What's the best leader for that one world type that leaves a whole continent free for the taking until the age of sail? (I only have Warlords.)

(I'm assuming that you're talking about the Terra map setting.)

Portugal with its leader. They have the carrack, a caravel replacement that can transport settlers and military units across the ocean. It might be considered abusive of the map settings to pick this leader. It's a clearly overpowered leader on this map type.

 

[Scrybe]

(I'm assuming that you're talking about the Terra map setting.)

Portugal with its leader.

Uh... must be a BTS leader. I only have Warlords... so no Portugal.

 

[Scrybe]

It seems like the Creative Trait would be a must during the big land grab, right? Is there an alternate way to grab land quickly?

 

[Sisiutil]

Uh... must be a BTS leader. I only have Warlords... so no Portugal.

Elizabeth might be good. She starts with Fishing, giving you a slight leg up on the nautical techs. She's Financial so that helps with research overall, as does Philosophical for a good GP farm or two for popping techs. If you can time it so you get Redcoats soon after starting to settle the other continent, you'll have an excellent unit for defending your new cities and capturing others from the barbs. And doesn't it seem appropriate that England should claim and settle the new world? Provided, of course, there's no inconvenient little revolution over there like last time...

 

[Sisiutil]

It seems like the Creative Trait would be a must during the big land grab, right? Is there an alternate way to grab land quickly?

Obelisks/Monuments also work, as does Stonehenge. Religion is also helpful. Creative is nice because you can forgo the hammers required for the above and focus on other builds. But it's not essential, and Creative becomes a rather weak trait by mid-game.

 

[Shadow Lord]

I have a problem. I have just found out about this site, and I have downloaded a couple modpacks, but none of them seem to work. When I go to Advanced>Load a Mod and I select it the game begins to restart, but when it is loading a window comes up saying "Civ 4 has encountered a problem and needs to close." It askes me to send an error report, but that hasn't helped. Any suggestions? By the way I don' own any expansion packs and I am pretty careful to look for the mods that don't require an expansion pack.

 

[ori]

Welcome to Civfanatics
this thread is too fast moving to be any good for Tech Support - so please do the following: open a new thread in the Civ4 Tech Support subforum of this site detailing the problem. Including the error report (click on show report and post the content of the upper part of that which includes ModName AppVersion and some other strings).

 

[Mknn]

Is there any way to bind a unit to a worker? I want my unit to travel with the worker as they build a road, providing protection against the all too numerous barbarian hordes.

 

[ggganz]

Is there any way to bind a unit to a worker? I want my unit to travel with the worker as they build a road, providing protection against the all too numerous barbarian hordes.

When they're in the same tile, select one then hold down shift and press the button of the other one (above the list of orders).

 

[Lord Parkin]

You could also do that, but then it would be pretty random when it would happen as you would not know if some AI might beeline that technology. And if it happens late in the game, then archers are no threat whatsoever. I actually don't think the technology prerequisite for the uprising events was such a good idea. It's probably better to use a starting date for the event or something like that.

Actually, with Monotheism you would know (since you get the popup of Judaism being founded in a distant land). But both of the options presented seem like good ways of getting around the problem. Thanks.

 

[Mknn]

When they're in the same tile, select one then hold down shift and press the button of the other one (above the list of orders).

Yes, this doesn't really work for what I want to do: I want the worker to keep on working, and the unit to fortify. Then, when the worker moves to the next tile, the unit should move with it and re-fortify. Doing this seems to just fortify both units.

 

[Mknn]

I am not automating any workers for the first time. In doing this, I realize I don't really understand the mechanics of early city growth. I wasn't able to find a related post, so am asking here for some specific guidance on this. I'm looking for things like

* If a food resource is in the city's cross, what has to be present for the city to access it? Do I need just a pasture, or a pasture and a road?
* What is the impact of forest on the tile below before I can chop forests?
* How do you figure out whether to cottage or farm in the very early game?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I am not automating any workers for the first time. In doing this, I realize I don't really understand the mechanics of early city growth. I wasn't able to find a related post, so am asking here for some specific guidance on this. I'm looking for things like

* If a food resource is in the city's cross, what has to be present for the city to access it? Do I need just a pasture, or a pasture and a road?
* What is the impact of forest on the tile below before I can chop forests?
* How do you figure out whether to cottage or farm in the very early game?

1) It depends what you mean by "access". If you just want the city to be able to work the tile with its citizens and get the maximum yield (eg food), then simply building the pasture will be enough. If you want to get access to the other benefits of the resource though (health, for instance), then you will need a road to the tile, unless it is on a river which is connected to your city. (This is because rivers function as roads with respect to trade routes.)

2) Forests increase the base production yield of all tiles by +1 hammer above their normal yield. Chopping a forest will lose you this +1 hammer per turn, but will gain you an immediate bonus of hammers (usually 20 or 30 on a Normal game speed and in a city's fat cross, depending on whether or not you have Mathematics). Chopping a forest also allows other, often better improvements to be built (like cottages and farms).

3) It depends on how much food your city is bringing in before you build the cottage or farm. There are no strict rules, and everyone has their own preferences, but personally I will usually not farm if the city will be bringing in about 4-5 or more food per turn each turn for the near future. Farms are useful in cities that are only bringing in about 2-3 (or less) food per turn. However, in the early game you should really emphasize settling new cities near good food resources (such as Corn and Fish), so it is very likely that you should have more than enough food without building farms. This on top of the fact that the earlier that cottages are built, the more benefit they will bring in to your civ. Thus, from a personal view, I will often build cottages almost exclusively in the early game, and only start building farms later on once cities are slowing down in their growth.

Hope that helps.

 

[6K Man]

Obelisks/Monuments also work, as does Stonehenge. Religion is also helpful. Creative is nice because you can forgo the hammers required for the above and focus on other builds. But it's not essential, and Creative becomes a rather weak trait by mid-game.

Huayna Capac and his Terrace UB are practically a free Creative.

I used to play Creative leaders a lot, until I realized how easy Stonehenge was to get.

 

[Scrybe]

Is there a thread somewhere that has a list of abbreviations that are commonly used on this forum? I'm trying to learn new stratagies, but I can't decode half of the lingo used here. Some are obvious: GP = Great Person, some I'm unsure about: GPP = Gold Per ? and some I just can't figure out: What's a GM?

 

[ggganz]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=156511

 

[[AR]Nestor]

Yes, this doesn't really work for what I want to do: I want the worker to keep on working, and the unit to fortify. Then, when the worker moves to the next tile, the unit should move with it and re-fortify. Doing this seems to just fortify both units.

Well sort of. You can give multiple commands to the stack (hold down shift and click in order the worker actions). The military unit will sit there along with the worker. not sure if they get fortify bonus, but you are not asked to deal with the military unit.
What I normally do is get a stack of workers and a military unit and hit Alt + R, and click where I want them to road to. Then the workers will road to that square and the warrior will follow.

The downside to that is that you can loose some worker turns. If the warrior uses all his movement to move to the next square, then your workers dont work that turn. I don't care for that level of micro management, so I often ignore it (unless time is critical).

 

[Lord Parkin]

Well sort of. You can give multiple commands to the stack (hold down shift and click in order the worker actions). The military unit will sit there along with the worker. not sure if they get fortify bonus, but you are not asked to deal with the military unit.

I'm fairly certain that you always get the fortify bonus if a unit is not moving for a turn. This is regardless if you tell it to "fortify", "heal", or even just "skip".

 

[Mknn]

What does it mean when examining a city it has 0 on the food bar, then something like 5 + 6 on the production bar?

and

If two Civs settle in place on turn 1, both start with Mysticism, and both research Meditation, who gets to found the religion?

 

[ggganz]

Means that you're building a Settler or a Worker. Excess food is turned into hammers when building these.