Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[6K Man]

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.

Windmills and Mines can be built on Ice/Tundra/Desert Hills.

Tundra next to water also allows Cottages. I have also noticed that you can't Farm Tundra that's away from water but adjacent to a Farm, regardless of whether you have Civil Service.

The trick with Tundra is to not chop forested Tundra flatland that has no access to fresh water. If you have unforested flatland Tundra, just hope a forest grows on it. There's nothing you can do about flatland Desert or Ice, absent the presence of a river.

 

[Roland Johansen]

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!

You're welcome.

The short posts are not that bad, but it looks a bit like someone who telephones you with 10 second messages 8 times in a row. Especially in this thread, it can be a bit disturbing for the flow of the thread. If someone had asked a question just before your questions, then it might have gotten lost and unanswered.

Padma, the friendly neighbourhood moderator just merged your post, so it looks better now.

Note that 6K Man added some uses of the less favourable terrain that I had forgotten to mention.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Here's one that's really perplexing me: how does one actually make good use the Apostolic Palace? I've built the wonder in several games long ago, but never got any options to vote for anything (apart from the "Leader of the Apostolic Palace" thing), mainly due to the map layout (islands). Finally I've encountered one game in which the map layout (Terra) is such that vote options do come up - however, there never seems to be anything useful to vote for. The only options that ever seem come up are to stop trading with a particular civ, or to make peace between particular civs. But I don't want to stop trading with anyone (I like my commerce from Open Borders), and most of the wars I either start myself, or they are between the AI's, so I don't want to stop those either.

I was hoping to be able to use the Apostolic Palace to force some of my religious buddies into wars with other AI's, but upon reading up on the Apostolic Palace in the civilopedia, it seems that you can't do that if the AI in question is a "full member". But the only way to stop them being a full member is for them to choose to defy a resolution - and the only resolutions they can defy are the "stop trading" or "make peace" ones, which I don't want to propose in the first place! It seems a rather vicious cycle which ends up in the fact that I can't actually use the Apostolic Palace for anything at all useful.

Has anyone else had much success in making the Apostolic Palace work for them?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Here's one that's really perplexing me: how does one actually make good use the Apostolic Palace? I've built the wonder in several games long ago, but never got any options to vote for anything (apart from the "Leader of the Apostolic Palace" thing), mainly due to the map layout (islands). Finally I've encountered one game in which the map layout (Terra) is such that vote options do come up - however, there never seems to be anything useful to vote for. The only options that ever seem come up are to stop trading with a particular civ, or to make peace between particular civs. But I don't want to stop trading with anyone (I like my commerce from Open Borders), and most of the wars I either start myself, or they are between the AI's, so I don't want to stop those either.

I was hoping to be able to use the Apostolic Palace to force some of my religious buddies into wars with other AI's, but upon reading up on the Apostolic Palace in the civilopedia, it seems that you can't do that if the AI in question is a "full member". But the only way to stop them being a full member is for them to choose to defy a resolution - and the only resolutions they can defy are the "stop trading" or "make peace" ones, which I don't want to propose in the first place! It seems a rather vicious cycle which ends up in the fact that I can't actually use the Apostolic Palace for anything at all useful.

Has anyone else had much success in making the Apostolic Palace work for them?

Building the wonder will of course assure that you have the religion of the wonder and that you thus can get the very nice production bonuses on temples and monasteries. I can imagine that when you're playing an aggressive AI game at a very challenging level, then it could be very nice to be able to stop wars against you at inopportune moments. Of course, that might not happen that often, but only once during a game would already be valuable in such a game.

If one single civilisation would grow to become extremely strong but you had control of the religion, then you might be able to stop all trading with this civilisation which could be worth it even if you were trading with this civilisation. Or you might stop this already strong civilisation from crushing another civilisation.

I guess the wonder is less useful in a game where you're cruising to victory and are already somewhat in control, where you pick and choose which civilisations are going to be conquered by you and which may live a while longer. I mainly like it for its production bonuses and the rare but fun options that allow you to influence others. If the wonder were a lot more powerful, it could become game defining. Sadly, I haven't been able to control the apostolic palace in my last few games, so I can't tell some cool stories about it.

 

[Endure]

A couple quick newbie question...

1) In civ 2, whenever a building and/or wonder you had was made obsolete by the discovering of a new technology (either by you or the AI) you were immediately informed that your wonder (maybe buildings too can't remember) were now obsolete.

I don't see this happening in civ4... so does another civ discovering a technology first render my buildings/wonder obsolete? Or is it only after I discover the technology that my buildings/wonders become obsolete? Is there some way to turn on a warning so I know when buildings have become obsolete? And I assume you don't...but do you still pay maintenace for obsolete buildings?

2) Currently playing on a continents map (4 fairly big ones in the game) and civ's I don't have open border agreements with keep coming within my coastal area uninvited. When I try to enter theirs, the game tells me I have to sign an open borders agreement first or declare war. Why can't I keep their boats out of my waters?

3) When at war, I know there's a time period when you cannot declare peace (I thought I had read it was 10 turns) and so it makes sense that the AI refuses to talk. Sometimes though, the AI refuses to talk for what seems and endless amount of turns (far greater then anything close to 10) and even when I beat him up (destroy his stacks, take a city or 3) he still won't talk to me. Meanwhile I just want to end the war because the war weariness is starting to hurt. Anyway to make them talk to you? At times, even though I'm clearly winning, I'd give them some gold/resouce/etc just to get out of the war but they won't even talk.

Thanks!

 

[ggganz]

1)

2) You can enter borders without an Open Borders agreement with Caravels.

3) Probably, this means that he won't give you peace no matter what you give him.

 

[Endure]

2) You can enter borders without an Open Borders agreement with Caravels.

Oh. I didn't realize that.

Is there any way to keep them out short of going to war? Or if you want them out do you need to declare war and take them out?

 

[ggganz]

Yeah, or build Privateers and smush 'em!

(Oh, I forgot, Privateers can enter borders too because nobody knows whose they are. Also with Great Merchants.)

 

[Endure]

Yeah, or build Privateers and smush 'em!

(Oh, I forgot, Privateers can enter borders too because nobody knows whose they are. Also with Great Merchants.)

I don't think I've noticed the privateers before as an option to build? I'm currently playing vanilla warlords.

I'll have warlords soon but can't get BTS (I play on a mac )

Are privateers in warlords?

 

[ggganz]

Yes it's BTS I'm sorry for you.

 

[AbuHab]

If I'm a few turns from completing a Wonder when another Civ completes that Wonder, what happens to all the hammers I've invested in the Wonder? Do they just vanish, or can I apply them to a different Wonder?

 

[Endure]

You get a percentage of the hammers (not sure what %) turned into gold.

You can't switch the hammers into production of another building or wonder though.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Building the wonder will of course assure that you have the religion of the wonder and that you thus can get the very nice production bonuses on temples and monasteries. I can imagine that when you're playing an aggressive AI game at a very challenging level, then it could be very nice to be able to stop wars against you at inopportune moments. Of course, that might not happen that often, but only once during a game would already be valuable in such a game.

If one single civilisation would grow to become extremely strong but you had control of the religion, then you might be able to stop all trading with this civilisation which could be worth it even if you were trading with this civilisation. Or you might stop this already strong civilisation from crushing another civilisation.

I guess the wonder is less useful in a game where you're cruising to victory and are already somewhat in control, where you pick and choose which civilisations are going to be conquered by you and which may live a while longer. I mainly like it for its production bonuses and the rare but fun options that allow you to influence others. If the wonder were a lot more powerful, it could become game defining. Sadly, I haven't been able to control the apostolic palace in my last few games, so I can't tell some cool stories about it.

I guess that's true, I'd forgotten about the production bonuses. They are actually coming in fairly handy - a free 4 hammers per turn in every city with a Monastery and Temple. (Actually, Monasteries and Temples become somewhat super-buildings if one controls the Sistine Chapel, Spiral Minaret and University of Sankore as well as the Apostolic Palace, as in my current game.)

So I suppose the wonder doesn't actually need to be more powerful. I guess I was just disappointed that I couldn't force the AI to do my bidding for me for free. The game I'm playing is a Hotseat marathon in teams, playing two civs by myself against eight AI teams of two. It's monarch difficulty but I'm having no trouble whatsoever... team games seem to be significantly easier when everyone is on one landmass. Guess I'll up the difficulty next game.

(Speaking of which, on an unrelated matter, that reminds me that I should get back to our teams PBEM... I only just got back to Civ4 this weekend and was having some fun with BTS, but I'll play soon!)

A couple quick newbie question...

1) In civ 2, whenever a building and/or wonder you had was made obsolete by the discovering of a new technology (either by you or the AI) you were immediately informed that your wonder (maybe buildings too can't remember) were now obsolete.

I don't see this happening in civ4... so does another civ discovering a technology first render my buildings/wonder obsolete? Or is it only after I discover the technology that my buildings/wonders become obsolete? Is there some way to turn on a warning so I know when buildings have become obsolete? And I assume you don't...but do you still pay maintenace for obsolete buildings?

You should get information on which buildings become obsolete in the technology screen, and in the technology pop-up when you're both choosing a technology, and after you discover a technology. So I don't know how you can be missing this.

There's no maintenance at all for any buildings in Civ4, you now pay maintenance depending on your city sizes, city numbers and city distances from one another.

 

[Lord Parkin]

You get a percentage of the hammers (not sure what %) turned into gold.

You can't switch the hammers into production of another building or wonder though.

It's 100% of the hammers converted to gold. This actually makes losing wonder races quite profitable, especially if you have a wonder-speeding resource (eg Marble or Stone).

 

[Endure]

You should get information on which buildings become obsolete in the technology screen, and in the technology pop-up when you're both choosing a technology, and after you discover a technology. So I don't know how you can be missing this.

I know this.

But that doesn't answer the first part of my question as to when do the buildings/wonders become obsolete?

Do they become obsolete as soon as someone discovers the required tech (like an AI I might not even have made contact with)? Or do they only become obsolete when I discover the required tech?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I know this.

But that doesn't answer the first part of my question as to when do the buildings/wonders become obsolete?

Do they become obsolete as soon as someone discovers the required tech (like an AI I might not even have made contact with)? Or do they only become obsolete when I discover the required tech?

Ah, right, sorry - I misunderstood you.

They become obsolete only when you discover the required tech.

 

[Endure]

Ah, right, sorry - I misunderstood you.

They become obsolete only when you discover the required tech.

Okay thank you very much.

Whenever I manage to build stonehedge I try to put off discovering calender for awhile but I was never sure if it was a wasted effort or not

In civ 2 (didn't play civ3) as soon as another civ discovered the required tech my wonder would become obsolete, so thats why I was wondering.

Thanks again for clearing it up.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay thank you very much.

Whenever I manage to build stonehedge I try to put off discovering calender for awhile but I was never sure if it was a wasted effort or not

In civ 2 (didn't play civ3) as soon as another civ discovered the required tech my wonder would become obsolete, so thats why I was wondering.

Thanks again for clearing it up.

In BTS, Stonehenge obsoletes at Astronomy, which gives you a much more decent time frame to use the wonder in.

 

[AbuHab]

Is there a fixed conversion rate for pop-rushing (e.g., 1 population point per x number of hammers), or does it vary?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

For the normal game speed, 1 population point yields 30 hammers; for epic, 45 hammers. For more on pop-rushing via whipping, see this article.