Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[RulerOfDaPeople]

1. Yes.

2. Don't move the culture slider at all. Adopt Caste System, make the tiles around your three cultural cities produce as much food as possible, and run artist specialists out your yin-yang. All the while keeping up in tech and power.

Thanks for your reply. That sounds like great advice. But how do you get around Emancipation when the other civs are switching to it?

Also, is it always best to make one of your Holy Cities into one of your cultural victory cities? I ask because I kind of got a bad spot with no production on one so I was just wondering what effect a Holy City really has in a culteral game.

Oh yea, one last thing... what do the veterans here prefer in a culteral victory game: the Culture Bomb, or to make the great artist a super specialist?

 

[JujuLautre]

But how do you get around Emancipation when the other civs are switching to it?

Either you win before, or you up the culture slider; in any case, you want to win by culture, right?

 

[AbuHab]

I'm seeing a discrepancy between the information given to me by the mouse-over tooltips in the city build menu and the actual game effects of certain buildings, and I was wondering if somebody could tell me why.

Specifically, I'm looking for buildings to increase culture in an outlying city. When I mouse over my build options in the city screen, the tooltips for some buildings (e.g., libraries, temples, and monasteries) fail to show that the buildings increase culture. However, I know these buildings do increase culture, because I have already built them in some of my interior cities and the city screens show that those buildings are each generating some culture every turn.

I'm new to Civ IV and I don't have all the building stats memorized, so I rely heavily on the tooltips. It kind of sucks when they appear to be inaccurate.

In case it's relevant, I'm playing Augustus (Romans) on Noble level.

 

[MrCynical]

There's a bug introduced by the most recent official patch to BtS (3.13) that removes the culture and espionage values from the tooltips. Bhruic's unofficial patch fixes this, among many other things.

 

[Sisiutil]

Hey, just a quick one.

When you go to the Victory Conditions screen, you can see the diagram of the spaceship. So far so good. And then when you roll over a part, a blueprint (unreadable) of that part appears on the right. But I have noticed that when you click on the various parts of the ship, it moves as though it were a clickable button.

And then nothing happens.

Is this a bug, or should it show me something? Or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance.

I assume you're either playing with original Civ IV (no expansions) or Warlords. There's no bug; the SS screen is next to useless. That side of things is much improved in BtS.

Thanks for your reply. That sounds like great advice. But how do you get around Emancipation when the other civs are switching to it?

Also, is it always best to make one of your Holy Cities into one of your cultural victory cities? I ask because I kind of got a bad spot with no production on one so I was just wondering what effect a Holy City really has in a culteral game.

Oh yea, one last thing... what do the veterans here prefer in a culteral victory game: the Culture Bomb, or to make the great artist a super specialist?

1. The culture slider is one option, though you're actually trying to avoid using it as much as possible. Other options include acquiring as many happy resources as possible. This includes the entertainment resources (movies, singles, musicals)--you want to build those wonders in your cultural cities anyway (they each boost culture by 50%). Also, avoid war and the war weariness it creates. Adopt civics that increase happiness--environmentalism is an option if you kept some forests, and Free Religion is dandy if you have several religions you can spread. Representation may be preferable to US for this reason. And, of course, build happiness-increasing buildings.
2. Usually but not necessarily. You get +5 for the holy city itself and another +4 for the shrine. Nice but not crucial. Evaluate your cities carefully. If another one is a better option than the holy city (especially if it can run more artist specialists), use it instead.
3. In a culture game, the culture bomb beats settling hands-down. You can't beat that several-thousand-point culture boost. Usually your 3rd legendary city will lag far behind the other two, so it will benefit immensely from a handful of culture bombs. I prefer to settle GAs if I'm in a culture war over certain tiles; I find they're more effective in those cases than a culture bomb, whose effects tend to be temporary.

 

[Crowqueen]

Just a quickie - what is the legendary-culture city target? I can get 50,000+ in three and yet still not win a cultural victory.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

It varies for game speed (so 50,000 for Normal, 75,000 for Epic, etc.).

 

[Sisiutil]

Just a quickie - what is the legendary-culture city target? I can get 50,000+ in three and yet still not win a cultural victory.

What's your game speed? The Legendary ceiling is different at each speed. IIRC, it's 75,000 at Epic speed, for example.

 

[Crowqueen]

Ah, I see. I run marathon games.

 

[Endure]

Quick question.

When not going for a cultural victory, is there ever any reason to have your cultural slider above 0%? The extra culture generated from it would increase your final score wouldn't it? Any other reason?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Quick question.

When not going for a cultural victory, is there ever any reason to have your cultural slider above 0%? The extra culture generated from it would increase your final score wouldn't it? Any other reason?

It's useful when dealing with unhappiness issues. Buildings like colosseums and especially theaters gain happiness for each percent of the culture slider used (+1 per each 20% and 10%, respectively), so it's a good antidote to war weariness.

 

[Crowqueen]

Your borders pop out more quickly and if you have close borders with someone else they start ceding cities. This can help with Domination victories because you get them through peaceful means and can erode large chunks of territory if you have a cultural head start on them.

I only really increase it if I have enough gold coming in. It varies when I will put it up to 10%, but often it is only once I start going over +100/turn without needing to have a golden age that I do it because it can seriously eat into your reserves.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Ah, I see. I run marathon games.

It's 150.000 at marathon speed. Most things differ with a factor of 3 between marathon and normal speed.

Your borders pop out more quickly and if you have close borders with someone else they start ceding cities. This can help with Domination victories because you get them through peaceful means and can erode large chunks of territory if you have a cultural head start on them.

I only really increase it if I have enough gold coming in. It varies when I will put it up to 10%, but often it is only once I start going over +100/turn without needing to have a golden age that I do it because it can seriously eat into your reserves.

I wouldn't use the culture slider to try and shift borders. The culture slider transfers a part of the commerce produced in a city to culture. That means that huge commerce cities like your capital likely is will start producing huge amounts of culture. But your capital is likely at the centre of your empire and thus its culture production won't shift borders. Small border cities will likely not produce a large amount of commerce and thus the culture slider won't create a large amount of culture in these cities.

In essence, the culture slider creates culture all over the empire and will create the most culture in the centre areas of your empire which are the most developed while the border areas need the culture to shift borders. It's very inefficient.

If you want to shift culture borders, then you should try to produce the culture there where it is needed, at the border of your empire. Artist specialists, various buildings and the build culture option are fairly good at producing culture locally. In BTS, some corporations can produce huge amounts of culture in the cities where they are spread.

 

[RulerOfDaPeople]

There's a bug introduced by the most recent official patch to BtS (3.13) that removes the culture and espionage values from the tooltips. Bhruic's unofficial patch fixes this, among many other things.

I have Bhruic's patch (both of them) installed on top of the 3.13 and that bug still is there. I'm glad he asked this question because I was about to ask it myself. Despite it not being shown on the tooltips, all the normal buildings do still produce culture as usual right?

Either you win before, or you up the culture slider; in any case, you want to win by culture, right?

Yes sir, Absolutely!

Thanks guys! It won't be too much longer and I think I'll know enough about the game to be an answerer rather than a questioniere in this thread.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have Bhruic's patch (both of them) installed on top of the 3.13 and that bug still is there. I'm glad he asked this question because I was about to ask it myself. Despite it not being shown on the tooltips, all the normal buildings do still produce culture as usual right?

The culture is being produced even if the building tooltip doesn't show it. However, with Bhruics patch, this bug should be fixed so Bhruics patch isn't installed correctly on your computer. You have already said that you've installed it after the official 3.13 patch which is correct. Another mistake that is sometimes made is that the patch file is placed in the wrong directory. The file should replace the BTS version of the file CvGameCoreDLL.dll. This file also exists in the main civ IV Assets directory and the Warlords Assets directory. But the file inside the BTS Assets directory is the one that needs to be replaced. Otherwise, you're still running official 3.13 BTS and none of the changes of Bhruic have been applied (and you've messed up your basic/vanilla civ4 installation).

 

[AbuHab]

When I disband a unit within a city, do I get anything in exchange, as I did in Civ III (e.g., some hammers or gold)?

Building the Three Gorges Dam doesn't make my existing coal plants disappear. But are they still producing green (unhealthy) faces? Are they still being included in the formula for city maintenance costs (assuming they were included in the formula to begin with)?

Is there any way to sell or otherwise destroy buildings, as in Civ III? If so, how?

If I conquer a city, or I receive a city in a culture flip, and I choose to raze the city, are there any diplomatic consequences?

Of all the different kinds of temples in my cities, only Buddhist temples give me extra hammers. Any idea why? My state religion is not Buddhism. I'm thinking it may have something to do with the fact that Buddhism is the state religion of the civilization that controls the Apostolic Palace, but I don't see anything in the description of the Apostolic Palace that speaks to that issue.

Forest Preserves seem to really suck. If I remember correctly, they only give +1 commerce (or +2 under Environmentalism), and they increase the infinitesimally small chance of a forest spreading, but it's still an infinitesimally small chance. Am I missing something? Unless my city has the National Park wonder, why would I ever want to waste a tile building a forest preserve?

Unlike Civ III, there are a number of terrain types that appear to be utterly worthless in Civ IV, e.g., peaks, deserts, ice, and, for the most part, tundra. Am I correct that there is nothing that can be done to improve the hammer, food, or commerce yields of these terrain types?

My corporation supposedly "consumes" a resource, but I still seem to get the benefit of that resource. (E.g., Mining Inc. "consumes" my iron resource, but I can still build iron-based units.) Is this how corporations are supposed to work, or am I missing something? I'm confused, because, to me, the word "consume" implies using something up completely.

 

[Roland Johansen]

When I disband a unit within a city, do I get anything in exchange, as I did in Civ III (e.g., some hammers or gold)?

You don't have to pay its upkeep anymore...

That's all.

Building the Three Gorges Dam doesn't make my existing coal plants disappear. But are they still producing green (unhealthy) faces? Are they still being included in the formula for city maintenance costs (assuming they were included in the formula to begin with)?

The coal plants don't produce extra unhealthiness anymore. Note that in the expansion pack BTS, any form of power creates a degree of unhealthiness. Power from coal plants just creates extra unhealthiness. In earlier versions of civ4, coal power is dirty and any other form of power is health - neutral. In all versions, the Three Gorges Dam removes the extra unhealthiness created by coal plants on the continent that the Three Gorges Dam was build.

Buildings don't increase city maintenance. City maintenance is dependent on the size of the city, the number of cities in your empire and the distance of the city to the capital.

Is there any way to sell or otherwise destroy buildings, as in Civ III? If so, how?

No, that can't be done in civ4. In practice, the number of cases where you'd want to do this is very very low. There are not many good reasons to actually destroy buildings in civilisation 4.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hey, AbuHab. This is the quick answers / newbie questions thread. Not the 'I want to increase my post count' thread.

If you have several short questions, then combine them in one post.

If I conquer a city, or I receive a city in a culture flip, and I choose to raze the city, are there any diplomatic consequences?

A -1 diplomatic penalty with the original owner when you raze a city.

Of all the different kinds of temples in my cities, only Buddhist temples give me extra hammers. Any idea why? My state religion is not Buddhism. I'm thinking it may have something to do with the fact that Buddhism is the state religion of the civilization that controls the Apostolic Palace, but I don't see anything in the description of the Apostolic Palace that speaks to that issue.

You get +2 hammers from religious buildings which have the same religion as the Apostolic Palace religion.

Forest Preserves seem to really suck. If I remember correctly, they only give +1 commerce (or +2 under Environmentalism), and they increase the infinitesimally small chance of a forest spreading, but it's still an infinitesimally small chance. Am I missing something? Unless my city has the National Park wonder, why would I ever want to waste a tile building a forest preserve?

You aren't missing much, but the +2 commerce under environmentalism are added to the +1 basic commerce for a total of +3. So under environmentalism, it's +1 hammer (forest), +3 commerce, + 0.5 health (forest), +1 happiness which is decent, but still not great. Note that the health and happiness bonus is nice when the tile is within the fat cross of 2 cities as both cities will get the benefits. The improvement is mainly useful in the National park city.

Unlike Civ III, there are a number of terrain types that appear to be utterly worthless in Civ IV, e.g., peaks, deserts, ice, and, for the most part, tundra. Am I correct that there is nothing that can be done to improve the hammer, food, or commerce yields of these terrain types?

Ice river can get a watermill, but that's all. Tundra with fresh water can get a farm and with a river can get a watermill. Forested tundra can get a lumbermill or a forest preseve. You can't actively do something to improve these tiles. They are there to make city placement a bit more tactical. Not every spot is very useful.

Some random events could improve such a tile.

My corporation supposedly "consumes" a resource, but I still seem to get the benefit of that resource. (E.g., Mining Inc. "consumes" my iron resource, but I can still build iron-based units.) Is this how corporations are supposed to work, or am I missing something? I'm confused, because, to me, the word "consume" implies using something up completely.

The word consume wasn't chosen that well. The corporation uses the resource or gives benefits when the resource is available. When more resources are available, then the benefits are higher. But the resources aren't consumed, they will remain available for other uses.
Howver, ff you trade the resources away, then the corporation will have fewer resources available and the benefits will be lower.

 

[AbuHab]

Hey, AbuHab. This is the quick answers / newbie questions thread. Not the 'I want to increase my post count' thread.

Sorry, I just thought it would be easier for others to follow and better for searching if I posted each question into a separate message with a descriptive title. I didn't anticipate a consolidated response. Guess I was too anal.

And thank you for the quick answers!

Moderator Action: I merged them for you. -- Padma

 

[Lord Parkin]

You share the research, you share the effets of wonders, perhaps the line of sight (not sure)... I think one of the difference is that in team games, you get a penalty on research based on the number of civ in your team, so that you don't tech too fast.

Yes, research is shared, effects of wonders are shared (except the Taj Mahal), line of sight is shared, amongst a few other affects. Research is penalised by tech costs increasing by 50% for every additional civ in your team. Costs of Great People are also penalised slightly (the limit to your next great person goes up by 50% of the usual amount for each great person your teammate generates). There's probably a few other things I've forgotten.