Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

If someone refers to the map they play as "techtonics randomized actual earth", what do they mean? I can find techtonics and have the landmass be 70% (earth like), but the map never looks like earth

In the pull down menu that has the "70% water (earth like)" scroll down to the bottom. There will be two options for "Randomized Actual Earth" and "Randomized Actual Earth (Old World Start)".

What I have found with these maps is that the continents have their general shape, but not the exact shape/coastline. For example, the "Europe" area will have water on three sides and the "Africa" area will be just south of it. The "Europe" area will not necessarily have the Great Britan or the Scandavian peninsula. In the close-up view, it may not look like the continents, but the general shape will be there on the world view or mini-map.
 
If someone refers to the map they play as "techtonics randomized actual earth", what do they mean? I can find techtonics and have the landmass be 70% (earth like), but the map never looks like earth

In the pull down menu that has the "70% water (earth like)" scroll down to the bottom. There will be two options for "Randomized Actual Earth" and "Randomized Actual Earth (Old World Start)".

What I have found with these maps is that the continents have their general shape, but not the exact shape/coastline. For example, the "Europe" area will have water on three sides and the "Africa" area will be just south of it. The "Europe" area will not necessarily have the Great Britan or the Scandavian peninsula. In the close-up view, it may not look like the continents, but the general shape will be there on the world view or mini-map.

In my version of the mapscript, the two lower options are just called "Terra" and "Terra (Old World Start)". I think this is where the confusion arises.

Great mapscripts by the way!
 
Okay, I may need to be held back a grade here, but confirm a suspicion for me...

On the subjects of fat crosses and building improvements...

I saw a screen cap somewhere of a dotmapping example where someone had the arms of their city's fat crosses overlapping (so, same lattitude w/ 3 tiles between them). Am I mistaken, or can a tile not be worked by citizens of two seperate cities making this something to avoid if possible. Only time I could see this not being as much of an issue is if the shared tiles were unworkable (desert for example).

Also... other than Roads and Forts, is it safe to assume that the only time you'd want to improve a tile outside one of your city's fat crosses would be if you were building infrastructure for a city you plan to establish in the area. Unless that is the case, doing so just wastes time your worker might better spend elsewhere. (As an example, your cultural boundary has expanded several tiles beyond any of your city's fat cross and you plan to place your next city on the edge of or just beyond your cultural border... it might make sense to have a farm or mine in place before the settler gets there and founds the city).
 
Okay, I may need to be held back a grade here, but confirm a suspicion for me...

On the subjects of fat crosses and building improvements...

I saw a screen cap somewhere of a dotmapping example where someone had the arms of their city's fat crosses overlapping (so, same lattitude w/ 3 tiles between them). Am I mistaken, or can a tile not be worked by citizens of two seperate cities making this something to avoid if possible. Only time I could see this not being as much of an issue is if the shared tiles were unworkable (desert for example).

Only one city can use a tile although the tile can be switched between both cities by clicking on it in city view.

In most cases, it's true that you don't want to have a huge overlap of tiles between your cities as it means that the city will never be able to use a decent number of tiles reducing the value of the city compared to the cost of creating, maintaining and improving the city. But some overlap is not a problem if it serves another goal.
For instance, in an area of 50 tiles, I could never place 3 cities without overlap as I'd need a minimum of 3*21=63 tiles for that. But on the other hand, I could never use all tiles with just 2 cities as 2 cities can use a maximum of 2*21=42 tiles. In this case, I'm pretty sure that I'd rather use 3 cities to be able to use all 50 tiles instead of wasting the 8 tiles. It would still mean an average of 16 to 17 tiles per city. On the map, you'd see something like 13 tiles over overlap between the three cities.
I'd probably first place 2 cities in the 50 tile area to claim the area and later in the game add a third to fully utilise the area and find a good way to split the tiles between the three cities.

It's also good to realise that a city will only reach its full size of 21 tiles pretty late in the game. Before that time, you're wasting a lot of tiles if no city is using those tiles and they're just lying there within the fat cross of one of your cities.

Sometimes when 2 cities have a food resource that they both can use, then you can switch between which city uses it. In that way, you can choose which cities grows quickly which can be useful. It's a micromanagement trick.

Also... other than Roads and Forts, is it safe to assume that the only time you'd want to improve a tile outside one of your city's fat crosses would be if you were building infrastructure for a city you plan to establish in the area. Unless that is the case, doing so just wastes time your worker might better spend elsewhere. (As an example, your cultural boundary has expanded several tiles beyond any of your city's fat cross and you plan to place your next city on the edge of or just beyond your cultural border... it might make sense to have a farm or mine in place before the settler gets there and founds the city).

If a resource is inside your culture, improved with its special resource enabling improvement (or a fort in BTS) and connected to your cities, then you get the special benefits of that resource.
 
What happens if your spy gets rid of production when an enemy city is building Wealth, Research, or Culture? Does it differ with patches/expansion packs?
:confused:

I doubt that your spy would have an option to sabotage if the city is only building wealth, research or culture. But I have never tried. Sounds like you would need to test it in WB to find out.
 
Hi!
I´ve just played Civ 4 for a few hours but I´m having trouble with the combat system,even at Chieftain I´m getting my ass kicked and I try to utilize the upgradesystem for my units to different terrain and units but I´m getting chewed up out there. I noticed they have made considerable changes in the combat since Civ 3. But I really could use some basic tactics to avoid being crushed
 
Hi!
I´ve just played Civ 4 for a few hours but I´m having trouble with the combat system,even at Chieftain I´m getting my ass kicked and I try to utilize the upgradesystem for my units to different terrain and units but I´m getting chewed up out there. I noticed they have made considerable changes in the combat since Civ 3. But I really could use some basic tactics to avoid being crushed

When you go to attack a unit by holding down the right mouse button and hovering over a unit, it will show you the percentage odds of your unit's survival. If those odds are low (say less than 50%) your unit will most likely die. As you are already doing, try to get the various combat modifiers in your favour. Try to use units that have a high base strength to start with. Archers with a strength of 3 are quite weak at attackers but good defenders because they get so many defense modifiers.

If you are attacking a stack of units (more than 2 or 3 on a tile), try using a catapult or one of the other siege units like trebuchets or cannons. These units deal collateral damage, and using a few of these siege units first will give your next attackers much better odds to win.
 
Also, when attacking a city past the ancient era, there may be HUGE modifiers for cultural defenses, which are the little percentage by the castle icon above the city name. They can get very high, such as 85%, a normal amount. This means the units in the city will have their strength increased by 85% in this example.
 
I have managed to build some of the parts needed for the spaceship, but for some reason I am no longer seeing any of the parts as being something that any of my cities can build. I double-checked and I do still have aluminum so I don't know why I'm not seeing any of the parts as a choice to have one of my cities build. Is there something else I'm missing? The only tech I have left is the very last one -- Future Tech? I'm really, really new at this game, so I can't remember if the last tech is called that or not. Plus, I've played until after 4:00 a.m. tonight and can't think straight anymore.

If there's something I have to build in a city before I'll see the option to build spaceship parts again, I would appreciate knowing what that is. Thanks for any help you guys can give to me. :)
 
I can't remember if it was vanilla, warlords, or BtS, but there is a mod that carries Civ4 into a future that has cities in the ocean and maybe aquaculture? I thought it was nextwar, but no.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!!!

m79
 
Not exactly a newbie question, but...

I've heard people say they make a lot of money by selling obsolete techs, but whenever I've thought to try, the AIs only have small numbers of hundreds of gold. (I usually play noble/epic or normal/standard size maps). Under what circumstances are AIs rich enough to make this work? Does it rely on having particular opponents, e.g. maybe a financial civ?
 
Not exactly a newbie question, but...

I've heard people say they make a lot of money by selling obsolete techs, but whenever I've thought to try, the AIs only have small numbers of hundreds of gold. (I usually play noble/epic or normal/standard size maps). Under what circumstances are AIs rich enough to make this work? Does it rely on having particular opponents, e.g. maybe a financial civ?
The AI will usually, at best, only have several hundred gold on hand to buy old techs, but if you can sell enough of them to enough leaders, that gold will add up. You may need to check their coffers every turn to get the best deal.

Watch for when a world wonder gets built. Remember that any civ building the wonder but failing to complete it gets gold in compensation. So on the following turn, some AI leaders may suddenly have a pile of gold for purchasing old techs.
 
Probably a pretty common question, but I couldn't find the answer here. How do you simply rename corporations in BtS? I don't care about the art, simply the name of it while I am playing and in the Civopedia.
 
Are you sure you haven't already built the relevant parts, or queued enough parts in your various cities that the option is greyed out?

It was just me, I must have been over-tired. When I went to play the next day I saw that it said I only needed two more parts and after checking to see what my cities were building, I already had two working on them. Ended up winning a cultural victory before they were completed though, lol!

(Was actually a little disappointed as I had been going after the space race victory, but oh well, a win's a win, right?)
 
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