Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[JujuLautre]

In vanilla/warlords, you can see the cities owning a religion if you posess the holy city of that religion AND run it as your state religion.

In BTS, this is not possible anymore. You need espionnage for that task. But there are discounts for that task if you are in the same situation and your the city's owner is not of that religion.

 

[Comrade Alex]

I hate espionage personally, funding it seems like a massive waste of money.
I prefer to just pump it all into science.

 

[a4phantom]

How do Great Spies and Great Spy Points work? Is it its own track, like Great General Points, or does it share the Great Artist / Great Engineer / etc., pool.

 

[Roland Johansen]

How do Great Spies and Great Spy Points work? Is it its own track, like Great General Points, or does it share the Great Artist / Great Engineer / etc., pool.

They are part of the Great Artist / Great Engineer / etc. pool.

Great Spies can infiltrate to get a huge amount of espionage points against a single civilisation which can be useful at the start of the game to steal technologies. They can also be used to create a Scotland Yard which gives a +100% espionage point generation in that city. This can be useful in a city that is focussing on espionage point generation. The Great Spy can also be settled like other Great Persons. I don't know the exact output of this type of Great Person and don't have access to the game right now. Maybe +12 EP/turn or something like that. I know it was quite a lot.

 

[a4phantom]

They are part of the Great Artist / Great Engineer / etc. pool.

Great Spies can infiltrate to get a huge amount of espionage points against a single civilisation which can be useful at the start of the game to steal technologies. They can also be used to create a Scotland Yard which gives a +100% espionage point generation in that city. This can be useful in a city that is focussing on espionage point generation. The Great Spy can also be settled like other Great Persons. I don't know the exact output of this type of Great Person and don't have access to the game right now. Maybe +12 EP/turn or something like that. I know it was quite a lot.

I'll probably settle them, so I don't have to invest slider % in EP.

 

[Breezy]

i need some help and i was wondering if some one can give me step by step directions on what to do after i download a map

 

[JujuLautre]

you're way too imprecise here; what did you download and where ?

 

[dalamb]

I hate espionage personally, funding it seems like a massive waste of money.
I prefer to just pump it all into science.

You begin to see its potential value when an invisible enemy spy poisons your water supply giving you +lots of unhealth in that city. I wish I could turn it off until I got better at the rest of the game, but there are plenty of people who seem to be happy with it.

 

[MrCynical]

Do corporations ever spontaneously establish themselves in cities (franchise!) or do they only spread through execs?

Unlike religions, corporations never spread spontaneously, only through executives.

 

[Crowqueen]

You begin to see its potential value when an invisible enemy spy poisons your water supply giving you +lots of unhealth in that city. I wish I could turn it off until I got better at the rest of the game, but there are plenty of people who seem to be happy with it.

I leave it alone all game and never have a problem with it. But I play on Warlord level, so this might only be a factor at lower levels.

Basically, make good use of your Great Spies and also maintain e.g. buildings that boost your espionage points and you should be OK without having to make too many spies.

 

[dalamb]

Is there a copy of the Civilopedia available online where I can check items without having to fire up the game?

 

[JujuLautre]

There is something similar in the BTS forum, the reference sheet; but they are for BTS, not for vanilla or warlords.

Otherwise, there are lots of ressources on this website in the Civilization IV menu, on top

 

[frenett]

Can anyone recommend a good graphics card for my 4 year old Shuttle computer which will allow me to play Civ4 on it? It has a 2 Ghz P4 with 1G of ram. It is a small frame format so heat is a consideration. I'm hoping for a good quality card for around $100 or so. Is that reasonable?

 

[Kyle92]

Can anyone recommend a good graphics card for my 4 year old Shuttle computer which will allow me to play Civ4 on it? It has a 2 Ghz P4 with 1G of ram. It is a small frame format so heat is a consideration. I'm hoping for a good quality card for around $100 or so. Is that reasonable?

I got a good card wich lets me run civ 4 well for £30 at a computer fair its a
256MB card that meets all requirements you can get it in both AGP and PCI its a nividia georce 6200A-256DZ or so it says on the box, but it might be more expensive in a shop or online, hope this helps.

 

[Kyle92]

i also have a question of my own, is there a way to make other civs more interested in colonisation? all of my games on terra maps so far have me the lone builder in the new word.

 

[JujuLautre]

Perhaps because you're getting Optics/astro way before the AI does; it does not "know" that you're on a terra map, unlike you.

 

[Roland Johansen]

i also have a question of my own, is there a way to make other civs more interested in colonisation? all of my games on terra maps so far have me the lone builder in the new word.

I haven't played the terra map yet, but I've seen the AI (in Civ4 BTS) colonize islands and small empty continents on normal maps before I was able to do it. Mostly this happened when the AI was more advanced or the island was closer to them than to me. But they were really colonizing quite quickly even while I was trying to get there before them.

This was BTS 3.13 with Bhruics patch, aggressive AI, immortal difficulty level and AI civilisations that weren't at war with other civilisations. AI civilisations that were at war barely spent any resources on colonizing efforts.

I think the crucial parameters for the AI are:

1) being advanced enough to colonise areas.
2) knowing that there are areas that can be colonised.
3) not being at war.
4) BTS 3.13 where the AI is a bit more capable than in previous versions.

 

[a4phantom]

Can anyone recommend a good graphics card for my 4 year old Shuttle computer which will allow me to play Civ4 on it? It has a 2 Ghz P4 with 1G of ram. It is a small frame format so heat is a consideration. I'm hoping for a good quality card for around $100 or so. Is that reasonable?

I'd expect any discrete memory graphics card currently being sold to do the job pretty well. I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 from November 2005 with a 128 MB graphics card, and Civ4 ran well, although it ran better once I upgraded the RAM from 512MB to 2GB, but your 1GB should be plenty with a discrete graphics card.

 

[chasewa]

Does a resource have to be within a city's workable range in order for you to have access to it? Can it just be within your cultural borders?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Yeah, you can build the required improvement on any resource inside your cultural borders to get access to it...