Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[JujuLautre]

I suppose that the triggering condition for the slave revolt is to be in slavery, but after, that the continuation of the event has nothing to do with it. I don't think it's a bug.

 

[a4phantom]

Democracy is a dead end tech

Oh. Well, then if I could get Emancipation without it, I wouldn't research it.


Is there a random effect better than (early in the game) Tower Shields, which gives all your melee units free Cover (+25% vs archers)? What an amazing and unfair advantage for my Vultures.

 

[Gwynnja]

I suppose that the triggering condition for the slave revolt is to be in slavery, but after, that the continuation of the event has nothing to do with it. I don't think it's a bug.

I don't think slaves should revolt when i'm in caste, or serfdom, or emancipation, or tribalism. that eradicates the spiritual trait.

 

[JujuLautre]

We are talking about gameplay here, not realism. I would personnaly see the power to stop slave revolts by changing your civics as a beef of spiritual, not the other way round.

Also, even in reality, I'm not sure that slavery in the US (for example) stopped de facto just at the moment Lincoln said "No slavery anymore". That way, you can see the slave event as being a serie of protest of still-slaves even if you're not anymore in slavery.

 

[a4phantom]

I don't think slaves should revolt when i'm in caste, or serfdom, or emancipation, or tribalism. that eradicates the spiritual trait.

You think your ex-slaves are going to be thrilled to now be serfs or pariahs?

Also, even in reality, I'm not sure that slavery in the US (for example) stopped de facto just at the moment Lincoln said "No slavery anymore".

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
by Douglas A. Blackmon http://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Anoth...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214735037&sr=8-1

 

[Lord Parkin]

Is there a random effect better than (early in the game) Tower Shields, which gives all your melee units free Cover (+25% vs archers)? What an amazing and unfair advantage for my Vultures.

"Better" is somewhat subjective. I've had the event where all of my Axemen got the +25% vs Melee promotion for free, and that was a pretty big boost. (Especially since I already had an Aggressive civ - Shaka, I think.) The +25% vs Archers would seem to be even better, though (at least early in the game).

 

[a4phantom]

It was hoopty. They cut through city defenders like butter. Once I upgraded them to macemen even crossbows couldn't slow them down.

 

[dalamb]

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,

I seem to recall people complaining about Catherine backstabbing while Friendly, but I could easily be misremembering.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I seem to recall people complaining about Catherine backstabbing while Friendly, but I could easily be misremembering.

Aha! I've found the related file... it's CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml, located in Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Civilizations. The war probabilities at friendly can be found by searching inside the XML file for <NoWarAttitudeProb>. It's quite a long file though, and inconvenient to scan, but it does tell you what you want.

By scanning the file myself, I found that no leader will make a "declare war" decision when friendly with you in BTS (and I'm fairly sure that's been the same throughout Warlords and Vanilla Civ4). (Also, some leaders, depending on how peaceful they are, will also never declare war even when they are just "pleased" with you.) However, what I'm not sure about is whether if an AI makes a "declare war" decision on you when they're (say) cautious, if they'll still declare war if you then gift them technologies and switch religions (etc) so that they're now friendly. I would suspect that they might still declare war in that case, and hence it would be possible for you to have a friendly civ declaring war on you IF that civ decided to declare war on you in the past when they were NOT friendly with you. But that's just speculation on my part, I can't actually confirm that.

What I can confirm is that if you have an AI civ friendly with you for the whole game, they will never declare war (on you).

 

[JujuLautre]

the thing with Cathy is that she can be bribed to attack even a friendly leader. She wont attack at friendly by herself.

As long as you're her only friend, there should be no problem.

 

[Cruiserip]

Thanks Bro Sisiutil & Roland Johansen 's reply.
Nice to meet you all here. My new home no internet coverage atm which make me to check CIV have any updated version.
Finally I brought this around a week+.
Many days see sun rise then sleep 1-2 hours then work....ha.
The AI of this season of CIV are really Uber....
I play china of Earth 18civs.
Last night the Russia girl make brain storming so much...her troops really evil with 18 attack.

I am still finding some COMBO(Combination)'s of
1. Gov policies combo for different goals and situations.
2. Tech tree and wonder race (I almost total lost all old and middle age wonder).
Just a highlight which like reminder format would much useful.

In additions, can explain the rules of Emancipation, thanks.

 

[Sisiutil]

I am still finding some COMBO(Combination)'s of
1. Gov policies combo for different goals and situations.
2. Tech tree and wonder race (I almost total lost all old and middle age wonder).
Just a highlight which like reminder format would much useful.

In additions, can explain the rules of Emancipation, thanks.

1. One of the benefits of the new civic mechanism is the many different types of combinations and synergies available. However, some of the most frequently used civics combos are...

• Vassalage/Theocracy: Often called the "War Civics" because they grant units additional XPs. If you own the Pyramids, you can combine them with Police State early on to speed up unit production as well.
• Representation/Caste System/Mercantilism/Pacifism: Sometimes called the "Great People" or "Specialist Economy" combo. CS lets you run as many scientists, merchants, or artists as your cities can manage, Mercantilism gives you one extra specialist in each city, Rep gives you +3 per specialist, and Pacifism doubles the GP point generation in each city. A very powerful combination, especially if you built/captured the Pyramids to be able to run Rep early on.
• Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emancipation: In contrast, this is the Cottage Economy combo. US gives you +1 per town, FS increases cottage revenue, and Emancipation makes new cottages grow faster.
• Police State/Nationalism/Free Religion: This is the anti-war weariness combo. Police State reduces WW by 25%, Nationalism gives you +2 for barracks, and FR gives you +1 for each religion a city has.

2. Early and mid-game wonders are challenging. You have a very small empire, hammers are hard to come by, and climbing up the tech tree is a challenge. You should only pursue a very small number of these early wonders. Having that focus will, in and of itself, help, because you can then streamline your efforts.

Part of your pursuit should be based upon the map. Do you have a wonder-accelerating resource such as stone or marble available? If so, wonders accelerated by that resource become more attainable (while in contrast, those sped by resources you don't have become less attractive). Also, will the wonder have good synergy with the map? If you're inland on a large continent, then neither the Colossus nor the Great Lighthouse are going to do you much good. In addition, the map may put you on a path to certain wonders. If you have a lot of marginal tundra near you--classic barb-spawning country--then you might want to try to build the Great Wall.
Finally, wonders are nice, but not essential. I've run a specialist economy without the Pyramids, I've won the Liberalism race without the Great Library, and I've gained a tech lead without the Oracle. So don't fret too much if you don't build the chosen wonder--you can still win the game without it.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Aha! I've found the related file... it's CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml, located in Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Civilizations. The war probabilities at friendly can be found by searching inside the XML file for <NoWarAttitudeProb>. It's quite a long file though, and inconvenient to scan, but it does tell you what you want.

By scanning the file myself, I found that no leader will make a "declare war" decision when friendly with you in BTS (and I'm fairly sure that's been the same throughout Warlords and Vanilla Civ4). (Also, some leaders, depending on how peaceful they are, will also never declare war even when they are just "pleased" with you.) However, what I'm not sure about is whether if an AI makes a "declare war" decision on you when they're (say) cautious, if they'll still declare war if you then gift them technologies and switch religions (etc) so that they're now friendly. I would suspect that they might still declare war in that case, and hence it would be possible for you to have a friendly civ declaring war on you IF that civ decided to declare war on you in the past when they were NOT friendly with you. But that's just speculation on my part, I can't actually confirm that.

What I can confirm is that if you have an AI civ friendly with you for the whole game, they will never declare war (on you).

the thing with Cathy is that she can be bribed to attack even a friendly leader. She wont attack at friendly by herself.

As long as you're her only friend, there should be no problem.

I always play rand pers, so its impossible to tell who's who, and in a game last week, I had a "brand new to me" occurance. Stalin, with whom I had a Defensive Pact (Friendly of course to me), was on a seperate continent. I didn't have silver, and there was 2 silver deposits, unsettled in the Arctic Tundra to the south of his continent.
So I sent a party over and built a city, and the very next turn he dow on me .......Friendly And a Def Pact, to war in one turn...I'm pretty certain he wasn't bribed, it just seemed like an act of opportunity (it actually felt just like Rome Total War, having an alliance, suddenly having land borders and then )

So in certain circumstances, you can get odd results.......

 

[KeroCerberus]

Is there a way to start with the Ice Age start time (20000 BC), but with a different map?

 

[JujuLautre]

I always play rand pers, so its impossible to tell who's who, and in a game last week, I had a "brand new to me" occurance. Stalin, with whom I had a Defensive Pact (Friendly of course to me), was on a seperate continent. I didn't have silver, and there was 2 silver deposits, unsettled in the Arctic Tundra to the south of his continent.
So I sent a party over and built a city, and the very next turn he dow on me .......Friendly And a Def Pact, to war in one turn...I'm pretty certain he wasn't bribed, it just seemed like an act of opportunity (it actually felt just like Rome Total War, having an alliance, suddenly having land borders and then )

This can happen. Apostolic Palace, Decision of DOW made at pleased, random event, vassals.... lots of possible explanations.

 

[unclethrill]

From my observations, the leader is determined by which single city has the most culture which is even less reliable than summing the top three cities. I am not certain of my guess, though.

I do not recall ever losing to an AI via culture victory, and believe me, I have lost a lot of games. I don't think the AI tries for culture victories. Again, that's an opinion and I may be wrong.

I just lost a cultural game to Lincoln on the same turn that Darius launched his space ship.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

This can happen. Apostolic Palace, Decision of DOW made at pleased, random event, vassals.... lots of possible explanations.

Well not AP (I had it), not vassals (he had none), if decision made at pleased, then it was a Looooong time back( AND he'd made a DEF pact with his intended victim since his decision)....

maybe random event, but I can't think of one that causes this that applied...

My logical reasoning, he had the ultra, ultra crazy s.o.b pesonality, decided when we met 400yrs back that he was going to attack me. He was isolated (didn't have Astronomy), therefore he was slavering for a fight, and when I landed, he attacked the only person he physically could.....

Still a loony move as I was 2.5-1 in the power graph (and that was just acquired Infantry vs his knights)...oh well.....

 

[Wenla]

I think that one of the units in that city can get a promotion.

You (and kaos429) are of course right, there was an unit in the city just waiting for promotion. Still I don't understand why just this one unit was not autopromoted.

Wenla

 

[Crowqueen]

You (and kaos429) are of course right, there was an unit in the city just waiting for promotion. Still I don't understand why just this one unit was not autopromoted.

Wenla

It can happen. AI can overlook or do nonsensical things with units (I had a dragoon go back and forth ad infinitum in Civ II the other day because it couldn't find a path to where I'd told it to go to. There should be less of that in more modern games but still there are always blips.

Take autopromote off, even so. Much of what the AI does for you you can do much better yourself. Promoting units can be used for rapid healing, for instance, or you may decide you need better strength against Archers rather than Gunpowder units or Melee units, so you should take control yourself, as with Workers. I tried it for a while but it didn't work so well as when I was choosing the promotions myself.

 

[Stevepac]

Ok this is what happened. My disk for civ4 broke in half(stupid story). So I went out and bought the gold edition. I installed everything. I didn't get any new icon on my screen for warlord or anything in my programs. When I put in disk 1 it starts up Warlords and their is no way to start reg. civ. WTH do I do?