Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Roland Johansen]

The Satellites tech reveals the entire map on the turn when you finish researching it. After that, you have to keep updating the map as you normally would. Which, I agree, is kind of silly.

No, you can't load a nuke onto a sub because there's no need to do so. ICBMs are Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles--hence, they can fly anywhere on the map (however, none of your own units, including Spies, can be within the blast radius). You can load guided missiles onto Missile Cruisers, though. AFAIK, the new tactical nukes can't be loaded onto any ships--but then again, I haven't used them yet.

im not playing warlords or bts, those ballastics you mentions arent in reg. civ4 right?

Only ICBM's are in regular civ4.

The tactical nukes and guided missiles which were added in BTS can be loaded on Missile Cruisers and tactical submarines.

Are you telling me there is another kind of race? Who was your track coach, Santa Claus?

Galactic Civilizations II is supposed to be the true heir to Moo II, but I haven't played it yet.

I've tried it, but I don't like the economic model used in that game and the economic model used in TBS games is one of the game defining elements of the game.

 

[a4phantom]

I've tried it [Galactic Civilizations II], but I don't like the economic model used in that game and the economic model used in TBS games is one of the game defining elements of the game.

Good to know. I didn't buy it because of the cost with the expansion packs, and the fact that apparently you can't bombard a planet from orbit, which seems bizarre and I have to imagine slows the game to a crawl. In MOO2 I always leave two racial talent points left over so Evolutionary Mutation can give me Telepathy to mind control undefended planets, and I still burn a few from orbit.

 

[Fandango]

Two quick "Shakespearian" questions...

1. "To raze or not to raze?"
2. "To pillage or not to pillage?"

What are the criteria for razing (or not) a conquered city, and the same for pillaging prior to conquering??

Thanks for your help in advance.

Fandango

 

[a4phantom]

Two quick "Shakespearian" questions...

1. "To raze or not to raze?"
2. "To pillage or not to pillage?"

What are the criteria for razing (or not) a conquered city, and the same for pillaging prior to conquering??

Thanks for your help in advance.

Fandango

Razing cities hurts the enemy but doesn't directly add to your empire. Pillaging hurts the enemy and adds a small amount of gold to your treasury. If you're going to capture and hold the city, obviously you don't want to pillage the tiles your new subjects will work. Pillaging resource improvements, for example iron, puts them out of commission until it's rebuilt.


I am biased towards having fewer, higher quality cities, so I raze a lot of marginal cities with lots of desert or tundra tiles and no crucial resources that won't be swept up by the cultural borders of other cities. This gives you a diplomatic penalty (beyond the one for fighting a war) with the civ whose cities you're razing. This applies even if that civ is a third party to your war, for example if the Aztecs conquer London and you take it from the Aztecs and raze it, the English who originally built it will be furious. Another time to raze cities is if you know you can't defend them, and are trying to hurt the other civ rather than expand your own empire. For example if the Incas are on the verge of a Space or Culture Victory you'll storm through their empire to cripple their ability to meet the victory conditions, and you night not have time to consolidate and defend the cities you conquer. Or if I'm fighting against two civs on different fronts, I probably can't produce enough reinforcements to keep advancing on both fronts if I also have to defend the cities I take (plus I might get swamped with maintenance), but I need to knock out their production capabilities, so I'll raze their cities. I don't like to raze big cities if I can help it. Unfortunately when you take a city and get your only opportunity to raze it, at least prior to BtS you can't check to see if there are any Wonders there. If a city with a Wonder is razed, that Wonder is destroyed forever.

 

[DroopyTofu]

Also, you don't have an option if the city's pop. is only 1

 

[Stevepac]

Ok here are a few more questions:

I stole this one city from India as I took them out of the game. This city was starving, so I converted the ONLY spot around that could be made into something to a windmill. Now it's stagnant...how can I get more food to it so it will grow?

Why am I experiencing global warming in some cities. No nukes have been used so why is this happening?

Some cottage upgrades say "Citizens gotta work to upgrade this thingy" how do I make the citizens work there?

My city is too populated, how do I free up room?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Ok here are a few more questions:

I stole this one city from India as I took them out of the game. This city was starving, so I converted the ONLY spot around that could be made into something to a windmill. Now it's stagnant...how can I get more food to it so it will grow?

Why am I experiencing global warming in some cities. No nukes have been used so why is this happening?

Some cottage upgrades say "Citizens gotta work to upgrade this thingy" how do I make the citizens work there?

My city is too populated, how do I free up room?

1) The only tile improvements that can increase the food output of a tile are farms and windmills. If you just captured a city, then usually it will starve somewhat due to the war weariness and other unhappiness factors which cause only a fraction of the citizens to actually work in the city. Also, nearby culture from other civilizations can cover a lot of tiles which makes this terrain impossible to use with your citizens. If this is not the case and there are no more farms or windmills to be build, then it could very well be a badly placed city in an area with very low food output and no way to improve it. In that case, the only way to get more food there is to use the food yielding corporations from the expansion pack Beyond the Sword.

2) Global warming is caused by exploded nuclear weapons AND by exploded nuclear plants. If some nuclear plant in one of your opponents cities melted down, then you're unlikely to know about this, but it will still cause global warming.

3) When you're inside the city, the various white circles show which tiles are being worked by your citizens. You can only work a number of tiles equal to the city population minus the number of specialists that you have assigned (the center tile is being worked for free). Cottages slowly grow to a more productive size when they are being worked by a citizen.
At normal speed, the growth process is as follows. They start as a cottage, then after being worked for 10 turns, they will grow to a hamlet, a further 20 turns of being worked will let them grow to a village and after another 40 turns of being worked they will grow to their finale stage: a town. It is very important to get cottages to grow as this will dramatically increase their output of commerce. Check the civilopedia to see the various values of commerce output of the different stages of the cottage improvement.

4) You can't free up room. The 'too crowded' remark is the standard unhappiness modifier. A size 2 city has 2 unhappy citizens due to being 'too crowded', a size 20 city has 20 unhappy citizens due to being 'too crowded'. The only thing you can do is increase the happiness of your citizens due to other factors. As long as the happiness value is higher than the unhappiness value, there is no problem and every citizen will work.

Here you can read an article about how to create happy citizens:
Ways into happiness.

BTW, welcome to civfanatics!

 

[wannabewarlord]

A quickie: Vassalage tells me I get +2 Exp to all Units plus 9 (or was it 7?) FREE UNITS. My questions is where or how do I get these units? I don't seem to be able to get them. Do I understand something wrongly?

cheers
-wannabewarlord

 

[Lord Parkin]

A quickie: Vassalage tells me I get +2 Exp to all Units plus 9 (or was it 7?) FREE UNITS. My questions is where or how do I get these units? I don't seem to be able to get them. Do I understand something wrongly?

cheers
-wannabewarlord

This is just a badly worded description in the civics screen. What it means is that you do not have to pay the maintenance costs for a certain amount of units. You do not get supplied with any extra, "free" troops as the wording might seem to suggest.

The "free" refers to gold costs, not receiving units.

 

[wannabewarlord]

@Lord Parkin: Ah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up. I usually never use vassalage, since I mainly play peaceful games. But lately I am trying my luck at warmongering and there I think it comes in handy.

cheers
-wannabewarlord

 

[Wenla]

Please elaborate. I've never played it or seen it played, although I was thinking of downloading it.

IMHO (again), GC lacks possibilities of several diffrent kind of strategial solutions. Once you find out the winning strategy (quite soon), it gets boring. You can't try different kind of winning strategies, because there are not.

Wenla

 

[a4phantom]

4) You can't free up room.

It's not impossible.

If you're into that sort of thing.

IMHO (again), GC lacks possibilities of several diffrent kind of strategial solutions. Once you find out the winning strategy (quite soon), it gets boring. You can't try different kind of winning strategies, because there are not.

Thanks! Then I'll just wait for my replacement cd drive to find its way to Korea.

 

[JTMacc99]

Quick question: It has been so long since I've played vanilla that I can't explain the difference between it and BTS with regard to spies and espionage. I seem to remember that there wasn't any slider, and there weren't any Great Spies, but what I don't remember is whether or not there was a Scotland Yard.

So, was there a Scotland Yard in vanilla Civ IV, and if so, how did you build it and what did it do?

Thanks!

 

[Giovanni Caboto]

Quick question: It has been so long since I've played vanilla that I can't explain the difference between it and BTS with regard to spies and espionage. I seem to remember that there wasn't any slider, and there weren't any Great Spies, but what I don't remember is whether or not there was a Scotland Yard.

So, was there a Scotland Yard in vanilla Civ IV, and if so, how did you build it and what did it do?

Thanks!

In vanilla the National Wonder Scotland Yard is a pre-requisite to produce spies. The wonder requires Communism as tech. SY also produces 1 GPP point with more likelihood to get a Great Scientist.

 

[marcos1611]

how do you connect to trade networks, so you can get the 3 arrows making a triangule next to your user name. i jave set my workers to build trade networks but still not get that? do i need a special trading unit or something?
ta

 

[Roland Johansen]

how do you connect to trade networks, so you can get the 3 arrows making a triangule next to your user name. i jave set my workers to build trade networks but still not get that? do i need a special trading unit or something?
ta

First of all: welcome to civfanatics!

Your question is one for which many probably don't know the exact answer.

The trading symbol next to other civilisation leaders names is related to being connected to their trade network and actually having discovered this connection.

To be able to trade resources with another civilisation and getting the trade symbol next to their name, you need:

1) A connection to their capitol using roads, railroads, rivers and coastal tiles inside the culture area of your civilisation, rivers and coastal tiles outside the culture area of your civilisation (after the sailing technology in BTS and always available in previous version of the game), using ocean tiles (after astronomy) and finally through the air with airports.

2) You need to have actually discovered this connection. It is not enough for the connection to exist. Your civilisation or the other civilisation needs to see the connection. It doesn't matter if it is in the fog of war, but it must be discovered at some point in the game.

3) The connection must of course not be obstructed by something. So a barbarian city that formed on a crucial river connection in the path after you have discovered this path could obstruct the connection. And you won't see the formation of such a city if it is in the fog of war.

To get foreign trade routes in your cities (which are far more profitable than the domestic ones), another prerequisite must be met.

1) The connection must be discovered by your civilisation. It doesn't matter whether the other civilisation has discovered the connection r not.

2) An open borders treaty (for which you or the other civilisation needs to have discovered writing).

In the early game, coastal areas and rivers are often the first ways to get a connection with a foreign civilisation. So getting a workboat or a galley on a scouting trip is one of the best ways to get a trading connection with other civilisations. The foreign trade routes are a nice early way to stimulate your economy and the ability to trade for foreign resources is important if you lack some of these resources yourself.

 

[Fandango]

To be able to trade resources with another civilisation and getting the trade symbol next to their name, you need:

2) You need to have actually discovered this connection. It is not enough for the connection to exist. Your civilisation or the other civilisation needs to see the connection. It doesn't matter if it is in the fog of war, but it must be discovered at some point in the game.

---I am not sure what is meant by "discovered the connection" or "see the connection"---probably a stupid question, but I don't get it.

 

[dalamb]

At any time there is a set of squares you have "discovered", by viewing them with one of your units, or by having your cultural borders expand into areas your units haven't seen, or by trading maps with other civilizations, or by getting a map from a tribal village. You don't lose "discovery" once the square is covered by the "fog of war" -- FOW only means you don't have a unit that can see the square right at the moment.

A trade route has to pass entirely through these "discovered" squares.

 

[Charlie_B]

Hi guys

Been playing Civ for ages but surprisingly I've no idea what the answer to this question is:

What tech(s?) trigger the start of the renaissance era? I'm playing BTS if that makes a difference.

 

[Stevepac]

So please someone explain this:

I am America, facing Alexander, Cesear and Saladin. Two continents, one is completely mine and the other split between the three. I am into future tech 43 and the others have a destroyer here and there, but more frigates. They have the first kind of fighters, while I have jets and stealths. I assualted a city and brought its defense down to 0%, then watched as 10 of my 27 bombers get destroyed trying to attack and another 10 damaged. On top of that 4 of my 9 transports(gunships, tanks, mech infra.) have all their units destroyed. So how the hell does this game see a massive assault led by a way better civ, getting completely routed by the lesser civ?