Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[TaskForce]

Hi Everyone!

I've been reading up on the strategies. I see that, after one has adopted the Slavery civic, one can use slaves to speed production. --How exactly does one do this?

Great game, too bad I'm no good at it.

Thanks.

 

[CCRunner]

go into the city screen and next to the build screen at the bottom there is a group of buttons. One of the buttons at the top says something like hurry production and gives a population cost. That's the one you want.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hi Everyone!

I've been reading up on the strategies. I see that, after one has adopted the Slavery civic, one can use slaves to speed production. --How exactly does one do this?

Great game, too bad I'm no good at it.

Thanks.

You'll get better at it after playing it a few dozen times.

If you enter the city screen, then there are several buttons close to the governor buttons which are used for rushing things. One is draft, one is gold rushing and one is slavery rushing (popularly called pop rushing on this forum because it costs population to use this type of rushing).

When using the pop rush option, a number of citizens in the city will instantly disappear and the present construction will be finished. You'll get 30 hammers per population point towards the current construction (at normal speed, different amounts of hammers at different game speeds). The city will have one additional unhappy citizen for 10 turns (different duration at different game speeds). But because the city has shrunk due to the pop rushing, this is usually not a problem.
Note that you get 1 unhappy citizen for 10 turns per instance where you use poprushing. You don't get 1 unhappy citizen per citizen sacrificed in pop rushing. Thus it is often better to poprush 2 (or more) citizens at once. Especially because this will allow the unhappiness to disappear while the city grows back to its original size.

Pop rushing is only available when the present construction can be finished while sacrificing a number of citizens lower or equal to half the city population. Pop rushing a construction which has zero hammers invested in it makes pop rushing less efficient (only 20 hammers per citizen) and you also get less hammers per citizen when rushing national or world wonders (number of hammers per citizen depends on the wonder).

Pop rushing is more efficient in cities with a granary because this building allows the city to regrow the citizens faster.

Pop rushing is useful in a number of situations:
- the city is unhappy. Pop rushing several citizens at once can shrink the city so that it will suffer less due to city size unhappiness.
- the city needs an extra defender now
- the city has a low hammer output but due to farms you have increased the food output which makes the city grow quickly. Slavery allows you to transfer this extra food into hammers by using the poprush ability

There are other moments where some players will use the pop rush ability and some say slavery is the best civic. But most players will at least agree that using pop rushing in the above mentioned instances is a good idea.

In my personal opinion, slavery is an efficient means of getting hammers in smaller cities (up to size 10) which don't have many hills. It's also useful for getting basic infrastructure (granary, culture building) in early game cities. Later in the game, other means of getting hammers without hills (workshops + caste system + guilds) become more efficient. Many heated debates have taken place on this forum to argue about the efficiency of slavery versus workshops. Most agree that at or before the city reaches size 10, 3-hammer workshops on grassland become more efficient than using slavery. But the true answer depends very much on the exact tile distribution of the city. Play around with the civic for a while and decide for yourself how efficient it is.

 

[TaskForce]

Thanks CCRunner!

Thanks Roland!

 

[Copywriter]

Thanks for the response. I was mainly interested in the culture going away, because I'm playing vanilla warlord level and attempting my first culture victory. It's very, very hard to fight the urge to start popping out military units and crush people.

QUESTION:

I built two cities close to each other and there are 2 squares that overlap in the BFC. Do both of the cities get the resources? So, if a +3 food farm is on each, it gives +3 per square to each city.

Just wondering. They aren't big enough yet to select the square, so I don't know.

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks for the response. I was mainly interested in the culture going away, because I'm playing vanilla warlord level and attempting my first culture victory. It's very, very hard to fight the urge to start popping out military units and crush people.

QUESTION:

I built two cities close to each other and there are 2 squares that overlap in the BFC. Do both of the cities get the resources? So, if a +3 food farm is on each, it gives +3 per square to each city.

Just wondering. They aren't big enough yet to select the square, so I don't know.

A tile can only be worked by one citizen from one city at a time, so no.

 

[Copywriter]

A tile can only be worked by one citizen from one city at a time, so no.

Whoops.

Oh well, live and learn. Actually, I had no choice. The civ to the south was going to plant there for the resource. I did it to close the gap between cities and take the iron. Plus, I canceled open borders and trapped the civ in the south (I ran a line of border via a couple of cities way to the south of me, but right on his north border line).

He either has to declare war or suck it up and wait for boats.

I'm trying my hardest to put aside my conquest/domination habits and get a cultural win. Must....not....destroy....

 

[frankcor]

You can still destroy, Copywriter. Or at least assimilate his cities by crushing them with your culture. Apply sufficient culture and his cities will flop to your ownership.

 

[Sisiutil]

You can still destroy, Copywriter. Or at least assimilate his cities by crushing them with your culture. Apply sufficient culture and his cities will flop to your ownership.

Cities don't flop; they flip.

 

[Copywriter]

I just got a roman city. I noticed that its borders shrunk (funky 1 square left, 2 right, 1 up, 3 down or something).

Then there was a revolt. The romans moved 2 military units to the city. Few turns or so later, it flipped and I got 1 of the 3 units (other 2 were at 1/2 health). That was pretty cool since it helped me cut the romans off from the north.

So far I'm not experience any difficulty on the warlord level (vanilla). A few more games and I might try one level up. Nice to see the challenge going up though. In the game I'm doing now, the Incas have some sort of disorder. He trades with me, then cancels the deals, then comes back and trades and so on. He's pissing me off and I think I'm going to crush him for it.

Oh yeah, I founded 3 religions. Should I be sending missionaries for all three to each city of the other civs or is it better to just pick 1?

 

[DroopyTofu]

It depends on whether or not you have the Great Prophets to cash in on the spread of the religions. Unless you have Free Religion, cities can only get the culture and happiness bonuses from one religion, but Shrines can cash in nicely. I've had games where i was running 100% research until 1900's and still be gaining money, because of a city w/ a shrine for a widely spread religion. I've had cities w/ shrines get almost 300 gold per turn at 90%-100% science. Of course it had a shrine, market, grocer, bank, Temple of Artimis and lots of trade routes, the Colossus, Wall Street, and a corporationlol, but the shrine was giving me almost 100 gold per turn.

Long story short
Multiple religions + shrines = lots and lots of!!

 

[Sisiutil]

Oh yeah, I founded 3 religions. Should I be sending missionaries for all three to each city of the other civs or is it better to just pick 1?

The answer, of course-as always--is "it depends".

The biggest thing this depends on is which victory you're aiming for. If you're going for cultural, then yes, spread those religions! Then you can build temples and, when you have enough of them, build each religion's equivalent of a cathedral (+50% culture) in your 3 legendary-to-be cities.

However, if you're pursuing conquest or domination, you really only need 1 religion, your state religion, in all cities. This will allow you to benefit from running Theocracy (+2 XPs). Also, if you're pursuing that type of victory, you should be building military units, not wimpy missionaries.

Another factor is civics, specifically, free religion. Under FR, each religion in a city gives you +1 culture and +1 . If you have cities where happiness is a factor under FR, the cheapest way to increase their happy cap is to spread more religions to them.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot about shrine income! Right you are, DroopyTofu.

 

[Copywriter]

Okay thanks.

I've been playing this game for a culture victory as I've never tried it before. Weird thing though. I'm in 1927 and own my continent (2 civs wiped out, 4 left). I've got 2 cities at 40k and 2 more at about 22k.

However, I've got commerce all over and lit up tech like a Christmas tree (I'm done basically).

I've got about 10 destroyers, 10 bombers, 30 motorized infantry tanks, 15ish artillery units, infantry and other crap. And I've got 1 itchy trigger finger.

I'm way ahead of all the civs and know I could easily transport to the other 2 continents and roll right though them (after going into war mode).

Oh well, I'll stick out this cultural stuff. I have enjoyed building all the wonders and stuff. And my entire continent (the largest in the game--full north to south) is 100% railroads now. I've got about 30+ workers just sitting around zzzzzz.

Tried environmentalism for the 1st time too.

Oh, are there any guides for using special people? I always lightbulb when it leads to a new tech within 1 turn or instantly (and use the music people for +4k in a new city). But, I was wondering if there was a specific strategy.

 

[a4phantom]

Long story short
Multiple religions + shrines = lots and lots of!!

That's why I love starting out next to Isabela. Madrid will almost always have Judaism and either Hinduism or Buddhism. When I spot the Spanish Empire I know where I'll build Wall Street over 5000 years later.

 

[a4phantom]

When you have a city build research, culture or wealth, what bonuses and modifiers apply?

Hehehe I remember Civ1, building walls and selling them for scrap over and over.

 

[budweiser]

Assuming I had philosophy, is there a way to bulb nationalism? What kind of GP would it take?

 

[Sisiutil]

Assuming I had philosophy, is there a way to bulb nationalism? What kind of GP would it take?

Without looking it up, IIRC, a Great Artist will bulb part of Nationalism.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

You can look it up in this article. Apparently, quite a few great people can lightbulb part of Nationalism.

 

[Copywriter]

What are the ways to build up + points on relationships besides religion and time?

For instance, I had a civ that was -1 to me, but he really hated a civ I wanted attacked. I tried trading, but it seemed to not work much at all. Could I have gifted say 8 techs to him and got a bonus? Is there a guide for this?

Thanks

 

[CCRunner]

There is a +4 possible for fair trade relations that would've almost definitely appeared after gifting techs to him. There's also a +1 for sharing technological discoveries but that irregularly appears in my experience and takes a ton of techs. You get points for sharing a leaders favorite civic, which obviously depends on the leader. Open borders bring a small amount of diplo points too. That's all I can think of right now.