Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Mojotales]

You need to install original/vanilla Civ IV, then BtS. There's a Civ IV Complete that gives you all 3 versions plus Colonization.

Boy, I think I ended up buying them all individually, not knowing they were sequential >.<

Maybe the easiest way is if I could get the best way to retrieve the Version Number and compare, since I suspect I have goofed up big time. My memory is I added various things on, just not sure if I indeed installed Colonization. Could someone give me an idea of where to look for the version number installed on my game and be able to tell from what it says what I have?

Appreciate ongoing help! I know this sounds dumb, but I won't be home till much later when I can start digging through the boxes where ever they ended up. Thought an onscreen bit of help at some point for version number might be smart.

Mojo

 

[Lord Parkin]

1) I need a brief rundown of specializing cities.

What buildings do I build/tiles do I work/improvements do I make for each type of specialist city? What are the common specializations?

Very briefly (as this is a very large topic):

The production city: Generally the rarest and hardest to find. You'll want a spot with plenty of hills (usually inland and not coastal), but it'll also need several decent food resources (at least 2-3 is optimal) in order to support the population to work all the mines. Keep it basic with the buildings - just a Granary, Forge, Barracks and anything else urgently required (e.g. a Monument for border pop). Aside from this, ignore all research/commerce buildings and concentrate entirely on building military units. Ideally this should become your Heroic Epic / West Point or Iron Works city. Alternatively you could go in the opposite direction if you're more peace orientated, and make this your "wonder central" city.

The research city: The "default" city spot, usually easy to find. Best founded next to a large number of grassland river tiles (or even better, flood plains - though these sites are usually rare). Should have at least 1-2 decent food resources to allow it to grow while working its river cottages, and enough production to produce necessary buildings (i.e. not entirely flatland). Building priorities should be anything that increases research (or commerce) output, such as Libraries and Monasteries. You'll want Oxford University in one of these cities.

The gold city: Can follow a similar plan to the research city, with plenty of river cottages, but simply emphasizing economic buildings (Markets, Grocers, etc) instead of research buildings. The more specialized and unique version of the gold city involves a holy city and religious shrine and/or a corporation HQ or two. The city that has your religious shrine and/or corporation HQ should definitely build economic buildings ASAP, and should also be the city to build Wall Street.

The great person city: Sometimes hard to find, and on some maps an ideal location simply won't exist. You'll want to look for a very large amount of food resources clumped together (ideally 3-4 or more), perhaps with a couple of hills to allow some decent production if whipping too much causes major trouble with unhappiness. Often coastal locations with a lot of seafood are ideal, since working the non-seafood coastal tiles would yield relatively little return compared to the specialists you could hire instead. (I think it's often a shame to have a great person farm inland, due to all the good land tiles that are wasted by not being worked.) As for buildings, you want everything that allows you extra specialist slots - Libraries for Scientists, Markets for Merchants, etc. These can be whipped if necessary, due to the fast growth this city will experience. Later you will want to build the National Epic here, and possibly the Globe Theatre. Moai Statues could also be a good pick if the city has a very large number of coastal tiles.

There are other variations of course, but those are the key ones I recall off the top of my head. For more details, here are two articles I found on a quick search: City Specialization: Where I do it and Guide to City Specialization and Land Improvements. They'll explain things in much more detail.

2) If a civilization asks me to stop dealing with another civilization, if I were to oblige, would the other civilization(s) know why I cancelled our deals?

They'd know you cancelled because someone else asked you (they wouldn't care who). The fallout from this would be that the team you cancelled deals with would refuse to trade with you for a number of turns (chosen at random, depending on the leader), as well as thinking more negatively of you (i.e. you get negative diplomatic points from the person you cancelled deals with).

Usually it's not advisable to cancel deals unless you really want to keep a particular AI happy (perhaps they're a very strong neighbour, and you don't want to refuse any of their requests). Also be careful not to cancel deals with anyone who you want to like you.

 

[kmad]

Very briefly (as this is a very large topic):

The production city: Generally the rarest and hardest to find. You'll want a spot with plenty of hills (usually inland and not coastal), but it'll also need several decent food resources (at least 2-3 is optimal) in order to support the population to work all the mines. Keep it basic with the buildings - just a Granary, Forge, Barracks and anything else urgently required (e.g. a Monument for border pop). Aside from this, ignore all research/commerce buildings and concentrate entirely on building military units. Ideally this should become your Heroic Epic / West Point or Iron Works city. Alternatively you could go in the opposite direction if you're more peace orientated, and make this your "wonder central" city.

The research city: The "default" city spot, usually easy to find. Best founded next to a large number of grassland river tiles (or even better, flood plains - though these sites are usually rare). Should have at least 1-2 decent food resources to allow it to grow while working its river cottages, and enough production to produce necessary buildings (i.e. not entirely flatland). Building priorities should be anything that increases research (or commerce) output, such as Libraries and Monasteries. You'll want Oxford University in one of these cities.

The gold city: Can follow a similar plan to the research city, with plenty of river cottages, but simply emphasizing economic buildings (Markets, Grocers, etc) instead of research buildings. The more specialized and unique version of the gold city involves a holy city and religious shrine and/or a corporation HQ or two. The city that has your religious shrine and/or corporation HQ should definitely build economic buildings ASAP, and should also be the city to build Wall Street.

The great person city: Sometimes hard to find, and on some maps an ideal location simply won't exist. You'll want to look for a very large amount of food resources clumped together (ideally 3-4 or more), perhaps with a couple of hills to allow some decent production if whipping too much causes major trouble with unhappiness. Often coastal locations with a lot of seafood are ideal, since working the non-seafood coastal tiles would yield relatively little return compared to the specialists you could hire instead. (I think it's often a shame to have a great person farm inland, due to all the good land tiles that are wasted by not being worked.) As for buildings, you want everything that allows you extra specialist slots - Libraries for Scientists, Markets for Merchants, etc. These can be whipped if necessary, due to the fast growth this city will experience. Later you will want to build the National Epic here, and possibly the Globe Theatre. Moai Statues could also be a good pick if the city has a very large number of coastal tiles.

There are other variations of course, but those are the key ones I recall off the top of my head. For more details, here are two articles I found on a quick search: City Specialization: Where I do it and Guide to City Specialization and Land Improvements. They'll explain things in much more detail.


They'd know you cancelled because someone else asked you (they wouldn't care who). The fallout from this would be that the team you cancelled deals with would refuse to trade with you for a number of turns (chosen at random, depending on the leader), as well as thinking more negatively of you (i.e. you get negative diplomatic points from the person you cancelled deals with).

Usually it's not advisable to cancel deals unless you really want to keep a particular AI happy (perhaps they're a very strong neighbour, and you don't want to refuse any of their requests). Also be careful not to cancel deals with anyone who you want to like you.

Thank you! I'll be glad to type out a leaflet if you ever need help with fantasy hockey.

 

[Mojotales]

Boy, I think I ended up buying them all individually, not knowing they were sequential >.<

Maybe the easiest way is if I could get the best way to retrieve the Version Number and compare, since I suspect I have goofed up big time. My memory is I added various things on, just not sure if I indeed installed Colonization. Could someone give me an idea of where to look for the version number installed on my game and be able to tell from what it says what I have?

Appreciate ongoing help! I know this sounds dumb, but I won't be home till much later when I can start digging through the boxes where ever they ended up. Thought an onscreen bit of help at some point for version number might be smart.

Mojo

Forget about my question, the one quoted above about versions, I remembered I'd glimpsed what I thought was the answer back a ways in the forum, and I dug it up. Apologize.

Mojo

 

[HUSch]

Who knows the answer?
The question is about the ranking in F9-table.
In a game of 6 players I get the following values in Mfg goods:
Who can say the other values. The average is 5, so the sum is 21-25
the first is 8, the last 3, so the other 3 players have 10-14
the 3. place with 7 shows there is a second player with 7 or 8
the 5. place with 4 shows there is only 1 player (the last) with 3, all other must have more at least 4. So I get for the unknowned players at least 7, 4, 4; the sum is 15. Where is my mistake?

 

[r_rolo1]

Your mistake is probably connected to the fact that you are assuming there is no more than 25 global rival MFG ... 26/5 to 29/5 will be rounded to 5 in the average as well ( civ roundings are normally down, keep that in mind , so most likely your assumption that they had 21-25 is wrong and should be corrected to having 25-29 ) . 8,7,4,4,3 with 26 global rival MFG is probably your awnser ( not in the mood to check if there are any other possibilities )

 

[CivIVMonger]

At what time should you start getting 1.5 workers per city? You obviously can't do that from the start. So, ASAP, maybe? Or right after you are done REXing...

 

[Roland Johansen]

At what time should you start getting 1.5 workers per city? You obviously can't do that from the start. So, ASAP, maybe? Or right after you are done REXing...

Worker first is probably the most popular starting move among the people posting in the strategy and tactics thread. Sometimes a workboat first can be a better move. It depends on the terrain.

I myself usually have a higher worker per city ratio at the start of the game as at the middle or end of the game. At the start of the game, the number and size of the cities grows quickly and I need a sizeable number of workers to make sure that every worked tile is an improved tile. So in a typical game my worker per city ratio will grow above 1 and close to 1.5 at the start of the game but drop below 1 later in the game. But these values aren't the goal, never using unimproved tiles while not constructing too many workers is the goal.

Once you realise that improved tiles are more than twice as efficient as unimproved tiles, you will steer your game strategy to never using unimproved tiles and going for workers early.

 

[Lord Parkin]

At what time should you start getting 1.5 workers per city? You obviously can't do that from the start. So, ASAP, maybe? Or right after you are done REXing...

Depends on the game really. If it's an isolated start and I have unlimited time to expand, I'll tend to build more Workers than Settlers early on - especially if I'm planning on grabbing a lot of wonders, in which case I'll sometimes even build a second Worker before a Settler. If it's a tight start and it's necessary to race for land, then I'll usually end up going Worker-Settler-Worker and then proceed to chop out Settlers as fast as possible - the Workers for those new cities can be built later (or they can be the first build of the new cities, which isn't entirely a bad thing).

Hope that helps somewhat. Of course, every situation is different, and you have to judge for yourself the value of grabbing that nice extra city site but spending more time with very weak infrastructure, vs getting your empire up and running with infrastructure but potentially losing the city site.

EDIT: I see Roland beat me to it.

 

[CivIVMonger]

I don't know why, but I cannot do well in this game... I have tried everything, tip to tip and advice to advice. And I actually applied it too! But I absolutely suck. I have been trying to beat monarch since June! It has been nearly five months with little improvement. I love this game and do not want to give up, but every attempt to improve just ends up the same way... Losing... I am doing what I should be. I am not neglecting any part of my empire, I practice good micro as of now, play smart and am usually a good techer. But I always get surpassed at about 1700AD or so and completely blown into dust by the modern era. I don't see what I am doing wrong? I read and apply everthing I see on here. (seperate games of course.) I just always seem to fail... I have tried everything. The real stink of it is, if I don't want to quit than I have to keep playing, but playing is only failing anymore. I know you can't read minds and tell me what my problem is. I would have to specify something. All I am trying to do is address the fact that I need help... Could someone help me find out what I am doing wrong? I have put in hundreds and hundreds of hours into this game, and I don't want it to go to waste... Thank you in advance. Civmonger

 

[Lord Parkin]

I don't know why, but I cannot do well in this game... I have tried everything, tip to tip and advice to advice. And I actually applied it too! But I absolutely suck. I have been trying to beat monarch since June! It has been nearly five months with little improvement. I love this game and do not want to give up, but every attempt to improve just ends up the same way... Losing... I am doing what I should be. I am not neglecting any part of my empire, I practice good micro as of now, play smart and am usually a good techer. But I always get surpassed at about 1700AD or so and completely blown into dust by the modern era. I don't see what I am doing wrong? I read and apply everthing I see on here. (seperate games of course.) I just always seem to fail... I have tried everything. The real stink of it is, if I don't want to quit than I have to keep playing, but playing is only failing anymore. I know you can't read minds and tell me what my problem is. I would have to specify something. All I am trying to do is address the fact that I need help... Could someone help me find out what I am doing wrong? I have put in hundreds and hundreds of hours into this game, and I don't want it to go to waste... Thank you in advance. Civmonger

Don't worry, you're not the only person to be in this situation. It's not hopeless though!

I highly recommend playing out a game as usual, except make a couple of saves along the way (say at 1000 BC, 1 AD, 1000 AD and just before the end). Start a new thread asking for advice, and upload the saves to that thread. This way, people will actually be able to look in detail at snapshots of your game, and give you specific advice on exactly what things you are doing right and wrong. In my experience this is always a quick and surefire way to discover your mistakes and improve your game, with minimal effort.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Don't worry, you're not the only person to be in this situation. It's not hopeless though!

I highly recommend playing out a game as usual, except make a couple of saves along the way (say at 1000 BC, 1 AD, 1000 AD and just before the end). Start a new thread asking for advice, and upload the saves to that thread. This way, people will actually be able to look in detail at snapshots of your game, and give you specific advice on exactly what things you are doing right and wrong. In my experience this is always a quick and surefire way to discover your mistakes and improve your game, with minimal effort.

Thank you. This is very helpful.

 

[foxtrotoso]

Can you have multiple installations of Civ4 and if so, how do you do it?

I'm eager to play the Warhammer Fantasy mod, but it requires version 3.17 and I'd rather not uninstall my current installation of 3.19

 

[Darth Fred]

Yes... but I think I've also encountered this .tga file nonsense also. It is very weird, but when I first started using the PrntScrn button to take screen shots, they would be saved as .tga files, NOT as .jpg; what I did was use Irfanview (free downloadable picture-handling program) to convert it from a TGA to a JPEG so that I cuold upload it here.

However, due to the magic that somebody cooked into this witches brew computer of mine, ever since those first files were converted from tga to jpg, my PrntScrn button now saves the files as .jpg files!

I have no clue how or why this changed. But I can confirm that you could get .tga images, and nothing Windows has can handle them. Try Irfanview, very easy to open them as .tga and save them as any other image file type. Tedious, but if you have the right voodoo like I do, you'll only have to do it on your first batch of images.

I got it. Lord Parkin was right. I was making it to difficlut. Operator error. Thank you both. If I find anything worthwhile, I'll post a screen shot of it.

Now... I can read about trade routes...
F

 

[Darth Fred]

Don't worry, you're not the only person to be in this situation. It's not hopeless though!

I highly recommend playing out a game as usual, except make a couple of saves along the way (say at 1000 BC, 1 AD, 1000 AD and just before the end). Start a new thread asking for advice, and upload the saves to that thread. This way, people will actually be able to look in detail at snapshots of your game, and give you specific advice on exactly what things you are doing right and wrong. In my experience this is always a quick and surefire way to discover your mistakes and improve your game, with minimal effort.

I'm not quite to this point yet, but this is good to know.
F

 

[Tamed]

2 more here:

What is turn speed and how does it work? (Marathon etc?)

Are there any MUST have mods for a group of 4 friends who play multiplayer together? Something that doesn't alter the game, we want to play the "epic" game but love extensions to it, like NextWar.

Quoting myself

 

[Silu]

2 more here:

What is turn speed and how does it work? (Marathon etc?)

Are there any MUST have mods for a group of 4 friends who play multiplayer together? Something that doesn't alter the game, we want to play the "epic" game but love extensions to it, like NextWar.

Turn speed determines the number of turns it takes from 4000BC to 2050AD. In BtS:

Quick: 330
Normal: 500
Epic: 750
Marathon: 1500

On slower speeds stuff like building units and teching techs is slower (per turn) so they are the same in respect to game years. Most notable exception is unit building on Marathon, units take only 2x more on Marathon (compared to Normal) despite you getting 3x more turns.

No "must have" MP mods that I'm aware of... Mods in MP are a pain because everyone needs the exact same mod version and there's usually a million of them out.

 

[TheViPer]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean... can you post a screenshot?

From the sounds of things you've managed to zoom right out on the map. I can't remember the shortcut to zoom in again off the top of my head (although there is one), but you can zoom in again by either (a) scrolling the mouse wheel, or (b) clicking the "world / magnifying glass" button at the bottom-right of the screen above the minimap.

Hope that helps.

How it shows now:

How I want to be shown:

 

[kcd_swede]

I don't know why, but I cannot do well in this game... I have tried everything, tip to tip and advice to advice. And I actually applied it too! But I absolutely suck. I have been trying to beat monarch since June!

I feel the same way. But all it means is that you and I play at difficulty levels that challenge us, rather than kick the spit out of the lower level AI.

I also found the move from Prince ->Monarch the hardest one to make. Once you learn the empire management skills that let you win comfortably on Monarch, you won't find Emperor much of a stretch. Immortal will even be in reach if you get a sweet set-up. Deity is... well... nobody wins all the time there, so I don't feel bad that I haven't mastered it yet.

Its not micromanagement that gets you to Monarch proficiency, its planning. Plan what type of victory you will aim for, and forget about the stuff you don't need for that. Plan your cities, what types you need. PLan your tech path to be most effective for your getting your empire's needs just in time for when you need them, and with your VC in mind. Know what civics are advantageous and under what conditions.

There are many good articles on making the Monarch jump in the strategy section, to aid your planning. (I found that doing the same stuff "better" just led to same results; it wasn't until I learned what I was neglecting that I made the jump).

And by all means, ask for help in situations you are uncertain what is best course of action.

 

[Silu]

How it shows now:

<snip>
How I want to be shown:
<snip>

Reduce the "Field of View" (a BUG Mod feature) from the upper right corner of the standard UI (not from the city screen).