Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[DanaLea]

You only get the output of a tile if a citizen in some city is working the tile. The city that is working the tile will get the output of the tile. The cottage line of improvements (cottage -> hamlet -> village -> town) will only grow to advanced stages when they are being worked in some city.

so there is no benefit to building a cottage outside the bfc, true it wont grow, but you don't even get the initial +1 either?

Outside the bfc, you only need roads to resources and to connect cities/civs, and the associated improvement for the resource? Cottages, windmills, workshops, plain mines, plain farms, etc, are only good inside the bfc?

-dana

 

[Silv Something]

so there is no benefit to building a cottage outside the bfc, true it wont grow, but you don't even get the initial +1 either?

That's right.

Outside the bfc, you only need roads to resources and to connect cities/civs, and the associated improvement for the resource? Cottages, windmills, workshops, plain mines, plain farms, etc, are only good inside the bfc?

-dana

That's also right.

Am I right in saying that cites with joined borders are "connected"?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Am I right in saying that cites with joined borders are "connected"?

You were right in the other stuff of your post but not in this. Connected normally means connected for trade (trade routes and resources) and that can be established by roads, rivers, coastal tiles and ocean tiles. Some of these methods of connection however need enabling technologies as indicated in the tech tree.

 

[DoubleCheck]

Outside the bfc, you only need roads to resources and to connect cities/civs, and the associated improvement for the resource? Cottages, windmills, workshops, plain mines, plain farms, etc, are only good inside the bfc?

-dana

The only exception would be farms after civil service and before biology. With Civil Service farms can spread irrigation, so it may be in your best interest to chain irrigation to a city with no or few fresh water sources. After biology, farms don't need irrigation.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

After biology, farms don't need irrigation.

That's true, but they will have one less food output without water. For example, a non-irrigated grassland farm will give you 3, an irrigated one will give you 4.

 

[Tamed]

Awesome guys thanks very helpful info, only two more things.

Why no matter how good I do, like even if I'm rolling over people with fighter jets and stealth units and nuking the bejesus out of everything with 15+ amazing cities do I always finish with a Civ Score of 3-6k? I've seen some hall of fame games with like 100,000+ civ score? I'm sick of being Dan Qualye.

Also, how do you avoid the douchebag effect? I play with 5 good friends, we all sit down together to play, but we all like war. Is there a way to fight without ruining someone's game? It seems like if you aren't in the lead 5 turns into the game, you may as well quit. Hence we call it the douchebag effect. The first person to hurt another person ruins their game and runs away with the score. :\

 

[Silv Something]

If you are "rolling over people with fighter jets and stealth units and nuking the bejesus out of everything with 15+ amazing cities" then you are probably in the lower difficulty levels. The scoreboard takes levels into account. Also, you get more points at the end if you finish early. Ever tried a tiny pangea with only 1 other Civ whom you declare on immediately and kill them at before 1000 BC, even on chieftan? You get a lot of points.

Welcome to the forums!

 

[Roland Johansen]

Awesome guys thanks very helpful info, only two more things.

Why no matter how good I do, like even if I'm rolling over people with fighter jets and stealth units and nuking the bejesus out of everything with 15+ amazing cities do I always finish with a Civ Score of 3-6k? I've seen some hall of fame games with like 100,000+ civ score? I'm sick of being Dan Qualye.

The scoring method of the game is not very good (in my not so humble opinion ). It values the date at which you win extremely highly while other elements are relatively unimportant. So if you play the game on a duel sized map and conquer the single opponent with a rush attack in 2000 BC, then you'll get a monster score. But I don't view that as a real accomplishment in terms of your ability to master this game.

If I were you, I would just ignore the score and just be proud of how you mastered a map.

Also, how do you avoid the douchebag effect? I play with 5 good friends, we all sit down together to play, but we all like war. Is there a way to fight without ruining someone's game? It seems like if you aren't in the lead 5 turns into the game, you may as well quit. Hence we call it the douchebag effect. The first person to hurt another person ruins their game and runs away with the score. :\

I guess that the first strike in a competitive strategy game will often be extremely important. It's just that civ is normally a lengthy game and thus a first strike can change it into a lengthy torture.

If you play on larger maps, then you won't meet each other early and losing a single city in a large empire isn't a big deal.

If you play on separate islands, then you can't attack each other early and thus the moment when the battles occur is delayed. People can also defend their islands better against invasion.

The multiple islands map is probably a better idea because large maps also take more time which often isn't everyone's cup of tea.

 

[Tamed]

True, an island game would be awesome!

Last time we played, there was an AI all the way out on a small island that we couldn't find. We searched (5 of us) for HOURS to find them, and then finally once a navy was a possibility, hahaha. Poor AI was so secluded.

Our last Civ group game ran for almost 16 hours. Pretty cool! @_@

Thanks so much guys, I try to be good at this game, but I am still pretty new.

Edit: And Expansive AIs are completely annoying! ARRGHHH! =P

 

[Lord Parkin]

In a team game (me+AI) is there any way to get a control over a tile? Victoria(team mate) settled a city which overlaps my BFC and a mine flipped to her. I got 98% culture on the tile and would like to have it back...

The only way is to get her to give the city to you, which she may not if she's an AI.

Generally I find team games to be a lot more fun when playing with human players. That way you can discuss your city positions together, and avoid annoying situations like the one you encountered.

True, an island game would be awesome!

Last time we played, there was an AI all the way out on a small island that we couldn't find. We searched (5 of us) for HOURS to find them, and then finally once a navy was a possibility, hahaha. Poor AI was so secluded.

Our last Civ group game ran for almost 16 hours. Pretty cool! @_@

Thanks so much guys, I try to be good at this game, but I am still pretty new.

Edit: And Expansive AIs are completely annoying! ARRGHHH! =P

Glad you're having fun with your friends!

I don't understand why you single out Expansive civs as being particularly annoying though. They may have slightly larger cities due to extra health, and build Workers a bit faster... how does this make them so completely annoying? (Personally I find traits like Protective to be more annoying, due to the extra resistance my invading troops encounter. )

 

[KingMorgan]

Expansive is good.

 

[Tamed]

I mean it's annoying in the sense that they spam settlers all over the place and dominate huge land masses very quickly. It's usually easy to siege their cities, but then it makes mine angry with me.

 

[DoubleCheck]

I mean it's annoying in the sense that they spam settlers all over the place and dominate huge land masses very quickly. It's usually easy to siege their cities, but then it makes mine angry with me.

Imperialistic gets the settler bonus, expansive gets the worker bonus. Maybe they were expansive/imperialistic?

 

[Tamed]

I think I meant it more in the sense that the expansive AIs have a code in them that makes them more likely to make a settler than even the imperialistic setting.

Like Mehmet.. he takes every single inch of land he can, even building in between your boarders.

 

[CivIVMonger]

I think I meant it more in the sense that the expansive AIs have a code in them that makes them more likely to make a settler than even the imperialistic setting.

Like Mehmet.. he takes every single inch of land he can, even building in between your boarders.

That's more of a Joao II thing to do. He is expansive AND imperialistic leader. With that, he builds alot of units too. He is one tough competetor.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

How does capitulation work? Does having a vassal influence the decision of a civ to capitulate or not? If so, how?

 

[Yonez]

Two things I'm not sure about:

1) How do you enable resource trading with someone you've just discovered on a new continent? Do I need to set foot on their land? In one of their cities? Do they need certain techs? I'm desperate for more resources in my current game so I need to get some asap.

2) Assuming that a civilisation has complete land coverage of their area so that no barbs will spawn, if I go rampaging through their land, taking all the cities, will barbarians start to spawn in the areas that go foggy when I take a city?

 

[Silu]

Two things I'm not sure about:

1) How do you enable resource trading with someone you've just discovered on a new continent? Do I need to set foot on their land? In one of their cities? Do they need certain techs? I'm desperate for more resources in my current game so I need to get some asap.

2) Assuming that a civilisation has complete land coverage of their area so that no barbs will spawn, if I go rampaging through their land, taking all the cities, will barbarians start to spawn in the areas that go foggy when I take a city?

1) Across ocean tiles you need Astronomy, otherwise you just need regular trade route connections (coast/river with Sailing, roads with Wheel).

2) Yes, barbarians can spawn even in the late game if big foggy areas suddenly appear. Remember that barb units cannot spawn within 2 tiles of any unit, even if the tile is in the fog.

 

[ITguy]

New to this site, always been intrigued by the Civ games. I am thinking of switching from GalCiv2 to Civ4. I dont actually own it yet but figured I would ask...

My question is this...

Is there a way to lock technology at a certain era? I.e., if I wanted to lock tech around WWII era, could I do that? Gunpowder era etc? I just thought it would be nice to say play a game to a certain technology, and have it locked there for all civs.

 

[Hsinchu]

I know it works the other way around, meaning you play FROM a certain technology level (Eras) but I don't know about the TO.

If it doesn't come with the stock game, I'm sure the mod community or some of the better WorldBuilder buffs would be able to oblige you in creating those tech caps.