Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Roland Johansen]

Yeah, Gandhi just started talking to me about 10 turns later. That was a long time... perhaps unreasonably so. (Most other deals - eg Open Borders, resources - don't last longer on Marathon than Normal speed, so why should the "refuse to talk" scale so viciously?)

Thanks Charlie_B for your detailed answer too.

It's actually fairly logical that diplomatic consequences scale with game speed. Otherwise the consequences would be relatively insignificant. However, the 'refusing to talk' period is already very long on normal speed when you cancel a trade deal, so after scaling it is also very long on marathon speed. And a very long period on marathon speed can seem an eternity.

Trade deals don't need to scale in length based on game speed. If trade deals only lasted 3 turns on normal speed or if they lasted 20 turns on normal speed, then they'd still be balanced. As long as the deal is balanced, the time period doesn't matter that much.

Bro, you inspired me. tks.
So, if the small city is too far away from captial. that could be a burden....
Do you have some tips for manage a big land mass ?
just set more auto build on the inland city ?
I have the basic Civ 4 atm

Small cities far from the capital need more time to develop and become profitable. Such a city would profit more from a courthouse and the amount of commerce it needs to produce from the land is more before it reaches the break even point.

Automation actually means that you don't manage your cities. You literally give the management of your cities out of your hands. And the AI is usually less capable at managing your cities. When you've played the game more, you'll develop some standards that make it easier and quicker to make decisions.

There are some multitasking options in civ4.
You can save building queues inside a city by pressing CTRL + number. When you later press that number in another city, then you get that same building queue.
Building queues are created by holding shift while selecting buildings (and units). With CTRL, you can place items at the start of the queue.
You can also select multiple cities (select cities while holding shift) or all cities (alt + select one city) and then click a building or unit. It will then be added at the end of the building queue in each of those cities.
You can set waypoints (for units) by selecting a city and shift-clicking a tile.

But all of these are insignificant compared to experience to handle situations and standards that you develop while playing. I personally don't use many of the above multitasking options while I've been playing for a long time. But I must admit that I'm a bit of a control freak and I don't want to add a building to each city building queue without first checking whether each of those cities really needs that building.

i want to play multiplayer online civ4 beyond the sword..but downloading the patch straight from the game is taking too long! i was tod i could get it from here! Can some direct me pease?

The start of this thread has some links to mirrors where you can download the patch.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Let me just say, Lord Parkin, that there are some intense resource clusters on that map, especially with things like gold, gems, and silk! It's a very cool map too, almost like one thin long continent (a few one tile gaps).

Yep, I like it a lot as well. I used the Tectonics map script (Huge, 70% water), which was included in the 3.17 patch. It seems to be quite a good script, as I've already tried out quite a few map generations and most of them were very interesting.

In case you're interested in playing this particular map for yourself (or anyone else is), I still have the original autosave file from the start of my game, so I'll attach that here.

 

[a4phantom]

If you have the S. Paya, can you pretty much ignore religious techs after polytheism and priesthood?

 

[JujuLautre]

you won't be able to build 3 wonders as well as founding religions and research nationalism without the need of philosophy, but yes, otherwise, you can ignore them.

As well as lots of other techs in fact.

 

[a4phantom]

you won't be able to build 3 wonders as well as founding religions and research nationalism without the need of philosophy, but yes, otherwise, you can ignore them.

As well as lots of other techs in fact.

Monotheism, Theology, and Divine Right (which I never research anyway) . . . What else? I'm more of a religion snatcher than founder anyway unless I start with Mysticism.

 

[JujuLautre]

what else that you can skip?

Animal husbandry, horseback riding, agriculture, communism, fascism, music, military tradition, military science, theater I think...

Just open a game, open the science advisor, and click first on civil service, then shift-click on future tech, you will see all what you can skip

 

[a4phantom]

what else that you can skip?

Animal husbandry, horseback riding, agriculture, communism, fascism, music, military tradition, military science, theater I think...

Just open a game, open the science advisor, and click first on civil service, then shift-click on future tech, you will see all what you can skip

Oh, I meant without penalty (in the sense that with the Wonder that enables religion civics I don't need Theology or Monotheism). I'm always late to the scene with horseback riding, but I think it'd hurt quite a bit to skip animal husbandry!

 

[Lord Parkin]

If you have the S. Paya, can you pretty much ignore religious techs after polytheism and priesthood?

Well, you could, but it'd be to your detriment. The Apostolic Palace is quite a powerful wonder, as is the Spiral Minaret and Versailles (when used correctly). I think the S. Paya is more about getting the civics early than skipping technologies in future. Think about it this way - when you get the Pyramids, do you avoid researching Constitution and Democracy? Most likely certainly not!

 

[a4phantom]

Well, you could, but it'd be to your detriment. The Apostolic Palace is quite a powerful wonder, as is the Spiral Minaret and Versailles (when used correctly). I think the S. Paya is more about getting the civics early than skipping technologies in future. Think about it this way - when you get the Pyramids, do you avoid researching Constitution and Democracy? Most likely certainly not!

This is true, but Constitution and Democracy aren't dead end techs. I very rarely manage to beat the AI to any of those three wonders, although I love conquering Versailles (always conveniently placed far from my capital!) and the Minaret. I'm new to BtS so Apostolic Palace is new to me, but again it's pretty hard to get with my emphasis on military techs.

Of course you're right about the intention of the S. Paya, but that doesn't mean there aren't alternative uses to make of it.

 

[Zenon_pt]

a while back I searched for this for germany and found a very similar thing on the take2 site for england and germany
it is possible that the portuguese distribution is not done by a take2 subsidiary but someone else - you'd have to contact those guys, or just ask the american support - they should easily know
in fact take2 only has sites for usa, gb, germany, france, holland, itally, belgium and spain...

thanks Ori! But if cust relation were >= then a new game (price), will going to buy a new one. (ganda galinhada deste inglês... ui...) Sorry about my bad english...

 

[a4phantom]

Can Vassals conduct espionage operations against their masters? I'm sharing a medium sized continent with Hannibal of the Koreans, and I whipped him in a war so now he's a third rate power, but he keeps blowing up my towns. (He had a Great Spy pop recently). If I declare war again and vassalize him, will he still be biting at my ankles, while under my protection?

And can Great Spies be caught on their way to infiltrate? Does it matter which city they infiltrate?

 

[Zenon_pt]

Of course. I began to notice when my only neighbour (and vassal) on the continent began to attack me with spies. And of course I could not attack him for being vassal ...

 

[a4phantom]

Of course. I began to notice when my only neighbour (and vassal) on the continent began to attack me with spies. And of course I could not attack him for being vassal ...

What's that you say? Holy war of utter extermination? But . . . that seems so Civ4 Vanilla!
Well, you're the Zenon. Thine will be done.

 

[Zenon_pt]

I know. But in my case, the most serious I have had with a vassal was water poisoned and technology stolen. But nothing about destroing. This is more when I'm at war. It can be any quest about espionage that could happen.

 

[a4phantom]

I know. But in my case, the most serious I have had with a vassal was water poisoned and technology stolen. But nothing about destroing. This is more when I'm at war. It can be any quest about espionage that could happen.

He's still sore about our war. I can't imagine the next war's going to improve his attitude. Gonna have to wipe him out.

 

[Sisiutil]

Bro, you inspired me. tks.
So, if the small city is too far away from captial. that could be a burden....
Do you have some tips for manage a big land mass ?
just set more auto build on the inland city ?
I have the basic Civ 4 atm

No, no, no, no, no... thank you.

Roland already made some excellent suggestions, especially around automation, which I also recommend avoiding.

On the subject of a large land mass, then.

First off, prioritize Code of Laws so you can build courthouses. The further a city is from your capital, the higher a priority a courthouse is. If you plan on acquiring a large empire, you may want to play as a leader with the Organized trait, because they can build courthouses more cheaply. (Julius Caesar is the obvious choice here.)

Don't wait too long before building the Forbidden Palace. In some games I've delayed it so long that Communism and State Property were just around the corner, making it unnecessary. So pick a spot for it fairly early on, even if it's not that far from the capital and there's a better spot you're planning on conquering. The conquering will probably take longer than you thought. Get the thing built so you can accrue its maintenance-reducing benefits for most of the game.

Also, don't be afraid to move the capital to a better spot that's more central, especially if you started off in a position that's way off on the end of a peninsula away from the rest of your cities. The best place for it is probably your best commerce/cottage city, so you can fully leverage the Bureaucracy civic.

If you keep expanding your empire, you may want to consider pursuing Divine Right and building Versailles somewhere. Just remember, you don't want to build the FP and Versailles right next door to one another, or near the capital. The AI loves doing that.

Make sure every city you found/capture is worthwhile. Early in the game, I favour cities that have at least one decent commerce tile (especially gold, gems, or silver). Besides the additional those resources contribute, these cities will initially be able to cover their maintenance costs by working those tiles. A little later, once you have Code of Laws and can run the Caste System civic, food becomes even more of a consideration than it was before; the city can, you see, run merchant specialists to help cover its costs. There will be some cities you found just to fill in a spot and claim an additional resource--but save these for later, when you can afford them.

In the late game, if you have a large empire, there's just no getting away from the value of researching Communism and switching to State Property. The boost to your economy--often allowing you to raise the science slider by 10% or 20%--is huge. And the extra food from workshops and watermills is pretty nice too.

And finally, on levels below Monarch, you're probably going to run a cottage economy, so remember to spam those little commerce-generating suckers wherever you can.

 

[Copywriter]

What relationship score causes the AI to war with you or is there no set amount?

I'm running two games at the same time right now to experiment and in one game a civ is -1 toward me. Just wondering. Can you be attacked by a civ all of a sudden that was friendly or pleased toward you?

I love some of the AI trade "requests." I just got one from Louis. He will give me horseback riding if I give him mathematics and 500 gold. And this is how the screen opened up and not some "what will make this work" thing. Too bad for him. I put his head on a pole for that. No use keeping a civ around that can't be reasonable.

Think I learned my lesson about building a city too far away early in the game. There was a spot way south that had 4 mines of marble and silver all in a row with 2 other mines about 2 growth out and some hills. I just had to take it before it was too late. I lost that town twice along with a series of workers and it took, oh, 80000 days to get people there. The barbarians just kept coming. However, after regaining it for the 3rd time, I held on and eventually grew out of my 1 gold total bank.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What relationship score causes the AI to war with you or is there no set amount?

I'm running two games at the same time right now to experiment and in one game a civ is -1 toward me. Just wondering. Can you be attacked by a civ all of a sudden that was friendly or pleased toward you?

I think there's always a chance of war unless an AI is "friendly" with you, and even then I'm not sure if they will never declare war when friendly, at least on the latest (3.17) patch. I know that previously it was the case that most AI's (perhaps all) would never declare war when at "friendly" status, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. So I'd also be very interested if someone could answer this or point me which file to look in to find this out. (It's particularly relevant in my current game, since one of the most powerful civilizations (on Emperor difficulty) is preparing for war, and I need to know if it's possible for him to declare war on me (who he's friendly with), so that I can prepare for war (or not) appropriately.)

 

[JujuLautre]

This is true, but Constitution and Democracy aren't dead end techs.

Democracy is a dead end tech

 

[Gwynnja]

Is this a bug? I'm Gandhi and I get the slave revolt so I switch civics, but the revolt continues? WTH? I've had this happen a few times.