Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Zilar]

Hi, I've got a question concerning continents.
On this screenshot you can see around a quarter of the whole map I'm just playing on. I've chosen hemispheres with random number of continents.

As you can choose between 2 and 6, I thought that random wouldn't make more than 6 continents. And If you look at the minimap I would have taken that as 4 continents, but that seems to be wrong.

When I for a tests sake choose to make some cities independent colonies I can choose the two northern cities together, and the two isles in the east seperatly. I don't know where the green circled Isles belong to, but that makes aleady at least 5 continents on this part of the map.

So where am I wrong? How is "Continent" defined in Civ4? Is there a possibility to know if an island belongs to a continent before I build a city there and try to colonize it?

Thanks for your help,
Zilar

 

[ggganz]

If you can walk to it, it's part of the same continent. The exception is peaks because you can't walk on them. If the only reason you can't walk somewhere is because of peaks, it's still on the same continent.

Technically, there are 23 continents in that picture, not going below everything that was circled.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

how does espionage work? what does it do?

Check out this thread. That might help you some.

 

[Abegweit]

Actually, the word continent is ambiguous in civ. From the perspective of creating colonies, gganz is right. Any landmass is a continent.

The perspective of the map-generator is different and there it means large landmass. And, yes, the word large is ambiguous too.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What's the deal with slave revolts? If you choose not to "crack down" on them, what's the percentage chance that the revolt will continue in the next turn? Is there a limit to the number of turns that a slave revolt will continue? I'm just wondering because I haven't encountered slave revolts before, and am playing on a marathon game at the moment with a slow-growing city, where population points are obviously very valuable, so I don't want to sacrifice them for no necessary reason.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

What's the deal with slave revolts? If you choose not to "crack down" on them, what's the percentage chance that the revolt will continue in the next turn? Is there a limit to the number of turns that a slave revolt will continue? I'm just wondering because I haven't encountered slave revolts before, and am playing on a marathon game at the moment with a slow-growing city, where population points are obviously very valuable, so I don't want to sacrifice them for no necessary reason.

Not sure of the % chance of them continuing,and there seems to be no limit to no. of turns they can last for, but I had one that lasted 10 consecutive turns yesterday (marathon) The air was decidedly blue by the 6th turn of consec revolt. By the 10th my foot was poised to do damage, not a fun event.....

 

[Gwynnja]

ok I don't know if this is the right place for this question but here goes anyhow: I recently started using the HOF mod, and it seems that I can no longer access the "create colony" option within the domestic adviser screen. is it somewhere else? I just conquered two cities on an island, their former owner capitulated, and now I would like to turn them into another vassal. They've come out of revolt, I don't see how I can colonize them.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

Anybody know how to install a downloaded leaderhead to one of the existing civs? I couldn't find anything telling me how in C&C.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Not sure of the % chance of them continuing,and there seems to be no limit to no. of turns they can last for, but I had one that lasted 10 consecutive turns yesterday (marathon) The air was decidedly blue by the 6th turn of consec revolt. By the 10th my foot was poised to do damage, not a fun event.....

I called it quits after waiting 3 turns and just took the population point loss. It was my capital city in revolt, which was producing the majority of the gold in my empire... without it I was in the negative GPT at 0% science, so I kind of had to give in with the pop point loss.

 

[PieceOfMind]

ok I don't know if this is the right place for this question but here goes anyhow: I recently started using the HOF mod, and it seems that I can no longer access the "create colony" option within the domestic adviser screen. is it somewhere else? I just conquered two cities on an island, their former owner capitulated, and now I would like to turn them into another vassal. They've come out of revolt, I don't see how I can colonize them.

Gwynnja, if I'm not mistaken I believe you need 3 cities on the landmass before you can create a colony.

 

[Zilar]

If you can walk to it, it's part of the same continent. The exception is peaks because you can't walk on them. If the only reason you can't walk somewhere is because of peaks, it's still on the same continent.

Technically, there are 23 continents in that picture, not going below everything that was circled.

Actually, the word continent is ambiguous in civ. From the perspective of creating colonies, gganz is right. Any landmass is a continent.

The perspective of the map-generator is different and there it means large landmass. And, yes, the word large is ambiguous too.

Thank you to both of you. I can't say I like the answers, but that's definitly not your fault.

 

[Gwynnja]

Gwynnja, if I'm not mistaken I believe you need 3 cities on the landmass before you can create a colony.

Im pretty sure you only need 2.

 

[Joe Muller]

hello everyone,

eventually my following question may seem a little stupid, but i really don't make it to run the civ4 game. after the "2k"-Logo appears faltering the civ4-screen appears with the message "your videos are not installed correctly." who knows what to do?

jm

 

[PieceOfMind]

Im pretty sure you only need 2.

Actually after seeing a few more posts I'm pretty sure you're right. Sorry I don't know the reason in that case. lol I've only ever created a colony once in all my games of BtS! so I don't have much experience with it.

Just a guess but maybe you can't do it because the culture is more the former enemy's. In other words, maybe you can only create a colony from cities which are primarily your population/culture. Therefore this would usually mean cities you founded yourself. As I said though, just a guess.

 

[Roland Johansen]

ok I don't know if this is the right place for this question but here goes anyhow: I recently started using the HOF mod, and it seems that I can no longer access the "create colony" option within the domestic adviser screen. is it somewhere else? I just conquered two cities on an island, their former owner capitulated, and now I would like to turn them into another vassal. They've come out of revolt, I don't see how I can colonize them.

You might have reached the maximum number of civilizations on the map. I believe that is 18. That includes vassals and colonies.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

hello everyone,

eventually my following question may seem a little stupid, but i really don't make it to run the civ4 game. after the "2k"-Logo appears faltering the civ4-screen appears with the message "your videos are not installed correctly." who knows what to do?

jm

Welcome to CFC!

You may want to try asking in the Technical Support forum because this question seems related to that. You'll probably want to give your computer specs, especially for the video card, and you could try using the search feature to see if anyone else had similar problems. Do you have the latest drivers for your video card?

 

[Joe Muller]

hello ginger_ale,

you're probably right, if you say it's a problem with the latest driver's version. i downloaded a newer version but while trying to install it i got the message "setup program couldn't find a driver which is compatible with the actual hardware".

 

[ocram000]

is it best to attack with the whole stack (of units) or should i be more selective and attack with one unit at a time?

i think the answer is one unit at a time but i don't see the reasoning, it is just my in intuition.

 

[Abegweit]

is it best to attack with the whole stack (of units) or should i be more selective and attack with one unit at a time?

i think the answer is one unit at a time but i don't see the reasoning, it is just my in intuition.

The AI is dumb. If you want best results, make decisions for yourself. Watch the AI when it makes stack attacks on you. Do you really want your troops acting in the same fashion?

 

[Roland Johansen]

is it best to attack with the whole stack (of units) or should i be more selective and attack with one unit at a time?

i think the answer is one unit at a time but i don't see the reasoning, it is just my in intuition.

If you know how combat works, then it is better to pick your own order of attack. Let's look at an example.

A stack of 2 crossbowmen, 2 macemen and 1 pikeman enters your lands. You have 2 catapults, 4 knights and 4 macemen within reach. Which units will you use?

The knights will face the pikeman when they attack as that is the strongest defender against them. The macemen will face the crossbowmen as those are the strongest defenders against them. The catapults will face the macemen as those are the strongest defenders against them.

However you approach this stack, you will sustain some losses. One of the more cost efficient ways to attack is by first attacking with the catapults. They will likely die, but they are cheap and do collateral damage weakening every unit in the small enemy stack and making it far easier for the other units to win without further losses.
There is only a single strong defender against the knights (1 pikeman) and there are 2 very strong defenders against the macemen (2 crossbowmen) and 2 decent defenders against your macemen (2 enemy macemen). So it's better to attack the weakened stack with the knights. You might lose a knight against the pikeman or you might not lose it as the pikeman is already weakened by collateral damage from the catapults. But you're fairly sure to win the subsequent battles against the crossbowmen and macemen with your other knights. If something remains after those knights are done, then you can mop up with your macemen.

In this case, I would attack in the order described above. It all depends on the units that you have available and the units that the enemy has available, the terrain bonuses and the promotions. If you still have unassigned experience for your units, then you can pick promotions that can help you win this battle more easily. The catapults could use a barrage damage promotion to inflict more collateral damage, the knights could use a shock promotion (anti-melee) so that they have an easier fight against the tough pikeman and the fairly tough macemen.

You can find the various strengths of the units and the bonuses that they have against eachother in the civilopedia. It might be a good idea to do so if you don't understand why some units in the above described battle are stronger against some of the other units. Have fun fighting battles.