Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

Yes, I can almost guarantee you would enjoy MOO2 more than MOO3. There's pretty much unanimous agreement on that point. The graphics, and as RJ said the AI, are hopelessly dated, but it's a fun game and good for nostalgia. It's almost like mine sweeper, without the rush. I know I'm going to win and pretty much how from the very beginning, so it's not exciting but it is relaxing. I install it and play it through a couple times every few years.


I'm just glad it survived the jump to XP, some other great old games did not.
 
MOO3 is actually the only one of the series that I have played - perhaps that's why I was put off. Maybe I should try one of the other ones and see if I like it better. :)

Anyway, I'm digressing a bit...

Yes, I can almost guarantee you would enjoy MOO2 more than MOO3. There's pretty much unanimous agreement on that point. The graphics, and as RJ said the AI, are hopelessly dated, but it's a fun game and good for nostalgia. It's almost like mine sweeper, without the rush. I know I'm going to win and pretty much how from the very beginning, so it's not exciting but it is relaxing. I install it and play it through a couple times every few years.


I'm just glad it survived the jump to XP, some other great old games did not.

Agreed. It's a good game with quite some depth in it, maybe slightly less than civ4. When you play your first dozen games, the designing of good quality ships and the designing of the race that you play can be lots of fun as you don't yet know what works and what doesn't. It has good replay value, especially because you can design your race and thus play with radically different bonuses.

It is a game from 1996, so the graphics are dated. But they aren't really awful, just functional without a lot of eye candy. But to me, that's not so important in these types of games.
 
Agreed. It's a good game with quite some depth in it, maybe slightly less than civ4. When you play your first dozen games, the designing of good quality ships and the designing of the race that you play can be lots of fun as you don't yet know what works and what doesn't. It has good replay value, especially because you can design your race and thus play with radically different bonuses.

It is a game from 1996, so the graphics are dated. But they aren't really awful, just functional without a lot of eye candy. But to me, that's not so important in these types of games.

Naturally I meant hopelessly dated in the nicest, most affectionate way.

It's like watching a movie I know by heart but still enjoy, although maybe I should say a play instead since the plot and cast do change subtly from game to game.

I just wish Master of Magic and Fantasy General worked on WinXP.
 
I just wish Master of Magic and Fantasy General worked on WinXP.

I don't know Fantasy General, but I have Master of Magic running on my Windows XP machine. It does take a emulator and it takes a bit of work, but if you know something about computers then it's not too hard.
 
I was wondering about how often building mines on hills that otherwise have no iron/copper/gold/silver/gems reveal these "hidden" resources. Here's the scenario: I'm playing a isolated OCC and the only Iron is too far outside my cultural boundary too claim, even by the time I get to legendary. If I go around putting up mines on all the hills, is there any hope for finding Iron?
 
I was wondering about how often building mines on hills that otherwise have no iron/copper/gold/silver/gems reveal these "hidden" resources. Here's the scenario: I'm playing a isolated OCC and the only Iron is too far outside my cultural boundary too claim, even by the time I get to legendary. If I go around putting up mines on all the hills, is there any hope for finding Iron?

The chance is 1 in 10000 per mine that is being worked per resource that can be seen by you per turn. So, yes, there is hope, but I wouldn't count on it. It's far more likely that you won't ever find a resource on any of those mines.

If you play at marathon speed and have lots of cities working lots of mines, then during all of the turns of a game you might find a few resources. But seldom it will be exactly the resource that you're waiting for.
 
The chance is 1 in 10000 per mine that is being worked per resource that can be seen by you per turn. So, yes, there is hope, but I wouldn't count on it. It's far more likely that you won't ever find a resource on any of those mines.

If you play at marathon speed and have lots of cities working lots of mines, then during all of the turns of a game you might find a few resources. But seldom it will be exactly the resource that you're waiting for.

Ok thanks. I didn't realize I had to work them for a resource to appear, I was off building mines on every hill out there hoping to get iron. :lol: Oh well, maybe I'll find aluminum or at least coal.
 
I got one:

It's late in the game. I'm the biggest civ on the planet, but not big enough for a domination win (yet ;)). Let's say Mansa is my vassal and Huayna is my biggest competitor.

Let's suppose that Mansa researches Mass Media and then builds the UN. I'm automatically a Sec-Gen candidate because of population, but who's the other candidate, Mansa or Huayna? It's normally supposed to be the civ who builds the UN, but is that the case if the builder is a vassal? And if Mansa is the 2nd candidate, does he wind up voting for me (against himself) because he's my vassal?
 
Mansa or Huayna?
Mansa

It's normally supposed to be the civ who builds the UN
It is :)

but is that the case if the builder is a vassal?
Yes

does he wind up voting for me (against himself) because he's my vassal?
No. A vassal will always vote vote his master except if he can vote for himself, UN or AP.
 
I don't know Fantasy General, but I have Master of Magic running on my Windows XP machine. It does take a emulator and it takes a bit of work, but if you know something about computers then it's not too hard.

Unfortunately I know next to nothing about software.


What's the formula for the upgrade cost of units? Would I be right in assuming that it's more expensive to upgrade my longbowman to rifle and then again to infantry than to upgrade directly from longbowman to infantry?
 
Unfortunately I know next to nothing about software.

It's not too hard. You need to download a small emulation program, install it and then change a few settings of this program and that's about it. If you wish, I can PM you about the details what you need to do to run MoM again.

What's the formula for the upgrade cost of units? Would I be right in assuming that it's more expensive to upgrade my longbowman to rifle and then again to infantry than to upgrade directly from longbowman to infantry?

It's (3 * difference in hammer building cost) + 20. This makes it more expensive to upgrade a longbowman to an infantry unit than to a rifleman unit since the difference in hammers between a infantry unit and a longbowman is bigger than the difference in hammers between a rifleman unit and a longbowman.

Note that the 20 base cost is added every time you upgrade a unit. So it's more expensive to upgrade a unit in several small steps than the upgrade it all the way.

The factor 3 is the same as the factor 3 used when you rush buy hammers with gold using the universal suffrage civic. You need a big economy with gold multiplying buildings (market, grocer, bank) to make upgrading many units useful. Even then it will take several turns at 100% gold to upgrade a large army. If you don't have such a well developed economy, then it's still interesting to upgrade the units with several good promotions.
 
Thanks. I certainly don't upgrade all my units, late into the game my interior cities are guarded by axemen and chariots- for ceremonial reasons, like the pikes of the Pope's Swiss Guard, not because I'm cheap mind you. Because of things like barracks, Military Instructors, and West Point, I can often build new units that are more experienced than my obsolete city garrisoning units that haven't had many fights. However, my main strike force until tanks is composed of melee units with CR2 or CR3, and these obviously have to be upgraded from swords to maces to rifles to infantry to mech infantry, and once maces are obsolete they're irreplaceable since you can't build gunpowder units with CR. (The next time I play, I plan to depend more heavily on City Raider siege weapons). Also, tanks to modern armor, fighters to jet fighters, etc. I babysit my forces so I don't lose that many units to attrition such that I'd have a high natural replacement rate. I consider the best use of late game Great Merchants to be conducting trade missions to finance mass upgrades. I also like to put my medic promos on mounted units, and it's pretty sweet to have MASH choppers that can easily maneuver between stacks if I'm forced to divide my forces.
 
Adding to the cost of upgrading topic, I've noticed recently (I'm not sure if it was included since the newest patch of BTS or if it's been earlier) some exceptions for Great General units. Namely, Great General units always seem to (a) cost 0 gold to upgrade, regardless of how big the era jump, and (b) do not get their experience points reset to 10 if they have more than 10 before the upgrade (as is the case for all other units). I think that's an interesting addition to the Great General units, and makes them slightly more useful... although (apart from my super-medics) I'll still usually take a Great Military Instructor in my West Point/Heroic Epic city any day. In my current game, I have a city churning out 25 XP Modern Armour... only one battle and one XP away from Commando. :evil:
 
Thanks. I certainly don't upgrade all my units, late into the game my interior cities are guarded by axemen and chariots- for ceremonial reasons, like the pikes of the Pope's Swiss Guard, not because I'm cheap mind you. Because of things like barracks, Military Instructors, and West Point, I can often build new units that are more experienced than my obsolete city garrisoning units that haven't had many fights. However, my main strike force until tanks is composed of melee units with CR2 or CR3, and these obviously have to be upgraded from swords to maces to rifles to infantry to mech infantry, and once maces are obsolete they're irreplaceable since you can't build gunpowder units with CR. (The next time I play, I plan to depend more heavily on City Raider siege weapons). Also, tanks to modern armor, fighters to jet fighters, etc. I babysit my forces so I don't lose that many units to attrition such that I'd have a high natural replacement rate. I consider the best use of late game Great Merchants to be conducting trade missions to finance mass upgrades. I also like to put my medic promos on mounted units, and it's pretty sweet to have MASH choppers that can easily maneuver between stacks if I'm forced to divide my forces.

That sounds like a well planned war machine. I personally like to upgrade more of my forces. I play with the aggressive AI setting and the AI likes to build large amounts of units. In order not to look like a tasty snack to them, I will have to keep my power rating up and one of the ways to do that is by keeping my army modern.

The MASH chopper is a very easy to use and versatile healer. In BTS, you can now get 2 healing promotions, the medic I or II for +10 hps healing and the woodsman III for +15 hps healing. You can't get the woodsman III promotion on choppers so in the late game I try to get other units with both of these promotions. It takes quite a lot of experience to get such highly promoted troops but it's easier with the Red Cross small wonder.
 
I do sometimes get blindsided by Declaration of War coinciding with a large force landing on my coast next to a city with maybe two mediocre defenders because of my neglect for the home front's defense. At certain periods, like after I get Rifling or when running Feudalism or Theocracy, I undertake a modernization (by replacement, since the new units will be more experienced anyway) of the defenders of all my border cities. But my interior is very sparsely defended, by one obsolete unit per city. Thankfully Civ4 is not conducive to blitzkrieg! I try to keep things lean and mean to maximize Science, and I'm afraid that probably means building too few cities and too few units.

So do I understand this right: A unit with Woodsman I and Woodsman II can receive Woodsman III, which makes it a +15 healer like MedicIII (without the GG requirement, and I suppose without healing adjacent ((not stacked)) units?) Well I don't want my elite medics to be strong defenders.
 
So do I understand this right: A unit with Woodsman I and Woodsman II can receive Woodsman III, which makes it a +15 healer like MedicIII (without the GG requirement, and I suppose without healing adjacent units?)

Correct, a woodsman III unit is already a very good medic, even without the medic promo. Adjacent tiles will not be healed without medic II.
Also, the medic promotions stack with woodsman III as long as they are both assigned to one unit. A woodsman III + medic III unit is the best medic you can get.
Putting both a woodsman III and a different medic III unit in one stack does not help, only one of them will help healing the troops.
 
Also, the medic promotions stack with woodsman III as long as they are both assigned to one unit. A woodsman III + medic III unit is the best medic you can get.
Putting both a woodsman III and a different medic III unit in one stack does not help, only one of them will help healing the troops.

Does that mean a MedicIII + Woodsman III unit will heal 30 a turn? If not, what's the benefit of having Woodsman III <i> and </i> Medic III on the same unit?
 
I try to keep things lean and mean to maximize Science, and I'm afraid that probably means building too few cities and too few units.

Lean and mean is good. It's just that at the aggressive AI setting, the AI builds more troops and is likely to declare war on you if you seem weak. Since they build a lot of troops, you're likely to look weak if you don't keep up as well. So if I don't want a lot of war declarations against my civilisation, then I'll have to make sure that I don't look like a tasty snack. Things work differently at the normal AI settings. You will need less troops and you and the AI will research a bit quicker.

Does that mean a MedicIII + Woodsman III unit will heal 30 a turn? If not, what's the benefit of having Woodsman III <i> and </i> Medic III on the same unit?

A medic I unit heals units in the same tile an extra 10 hps per turn.
A medic II unit heals units in adjacent tiles an extra 10 hps per turn.
A medic III units heals units in the same tile and adjacent tiles an extra 15 hps per turn on top of the healing offered by the medic I and II promotion for a grand total of 25 hps per turn.

The woodsman III promotion heals units in the same tile an extra 15 hps per turn and stacks with the medic promotions as long as all of the promotions are on the same unit.

It's generally a bit hard to get a woodsman III, medic III unit and personally I think a medic I, woodsman III unit is more than enough healing. All of this healing is on top of the normal basic healing which is based on where your units are.

You can read more about this subject in the article Unit Healing. It just doesn't contain the woodsman III info yet, but that is mentioned at the end of the thread linked to the article.
 
Does culture bombing with a Great Artist still pacify newly conquered cities? Someone said it doesn't in BtS (dropping the value of a GA through the basement floor for me) but someone thought that had been reversed in a patch.
 
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