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Is that different than a Worker assigned while studying the game/land? What I am doing now is when i have a Worker, I check out the surrounding tiles within my controlled area and when I see something -- like an square that says no mode or something like that -- I have the worker build a road out to it. Or I see a tile and read what it does and put a farm or a cottage on it.

So, is the worker I "grow" in the city and send out the same as the citizen I can work a tile with that you talk about?

Bluesman

It's not the same as using a worker to develop land. If you see land with, for example, 1 slice of bread and 1 hammer, you won't be reaping that bread and hammer unless you assign a citizen to be on that tile (that's what the white circle represents.) What the worker can do is to improve the land so the citizen you have there can get more from it. So if you build a farm on that tile, instead of that white circle just brining in 1 bread and 1 hammer it can bring in 2 bread and 1 hammer.
 
It's not the same as using a worker to develop land. If you see land with, for example, 1 slice of bread and 1 hammer, you won't be reaping that bread and hammer unless you assign a citizen to be on that tile (that's what the white circle represents.) What the worker can do is to improve the land so the citizen you have there can get more from it. So if you build a farm on that tile, instead of that white circle just brining in 1 bread and 1 hammer it can bring in 2 bread and 1 hammer.

I'd like to expand on your excellent answer a bit.

This question arises often and I even was confused by it myself when I started playing. I think the problem is fundamentally a confusing terminology. This helped me a lot:

Worker: A unit that you can build and then control from the map screen. His job is to build improvements on tiles.

Citizen: City population white cirlces (population 3 city has 3 citizens) accessed inside city screen. These can be placed as white circles to "work" a tile inside the city, gaining the food/production/commerce of that tile for the city; or they can be assigned as specialists if you have the enabling buildings/civics to do so (the generic "specilist" is confusingly called a "citizen specilist", as opposed to a science specialist or merchant specialist etc, and earns 1 hammer, far less than even a bad unimproved city tile would).

Improved resources: Your entire civlization gets the benefits ("access to") of a resource if it has the required improvement AND is connected via roads(wheel)/rivers/coast(saling)/ocean(astronomy). These benefits are +1 happiness for luxuries, +1 health for food, access to be able to build units required for horses/elephants/metals - so-called strategic resources. A tile containing a resource that is improved will also improve the tile yield for that tile. Only the city with that tile in its workable radius (with a citizen -white circle- working that tile) will receive this "bonus" of improved tile yield.

You do NOT need to have a citizen "working" a resource tile to get the civlization-wide benefit of the resource (+1 happy/+1 healthy/+ access to strategic resource).

Its all pretty basic once you get the hang of it... but the way its described in the help menu and by many experts is not so easy for someone new to the game -- there is so much to learn and it all starts sounding the same.
 
I'm running Windows XP on my Mac just to play Civ IV, and I'm really not familiar with Windows. How do I check what version of the game I'm running? I'm wondering if I need to update to 3.19...

Sorry, I just want to ask this one more time.
I'm using Civ IV Complete out of the box, so I assume it's probably not version 3.19 since that came out fairly recently, but I don't know how to check whether it is or not.
 
I think that "whip" means he's working under a Slavery thing where he can speed up from time to time. I have seen an offer when I am working on something that I could speed it up by x amount if I did such and such. I don't quite understand. Anybody able to point me in the right direction?
Yes, the "Slavery thing" is what he meant. There's an article about it (probably more than one!). The best message about results come from the BUG mod, which typically says (probably got the order wrong): "City can whip Thing for N population with H :hammers: overflow and G :gold: and U :mad: for T turns." When you click the "whip" button on the city screen (the leftmost upward-pointing arrow), you lose N population (never more than half), each of which turns into a fixed number of hammers. After applying as many hammers as needed to finish Thing (the current unit, building, or wonder), there will be H that overflow into producing the next item in the queue. There's a limit to how much overflow is allowed; the rest turns to G gold, but there's also a limit on how much gold you get. Whipping gives you U extra "unhappy faces" in the city, which go away after T turns.
 
I'd like to expand on your excellent answer a bit.

Wow, this one hit me out of the blue, thanks. To give an example:

cityworkers.jpg
In this situation, of the nine tiles in the city, the lower right tile is getting the benefit of both the City Worker as well as the Road. The top right gets the road which helps things count but no City Worker for the bonus? The top left one isn't contributing at all because no road and no CW? The one just to the left of the city itself has a CW but no road.

Moral: make sure you have your worker build a road to get resources flowing into the city and also get a City Worker on it as soon as one is available to add in the bonus.

Did I get that right?​

Bluesman
 
Wow, this one hit me out of the blue, thanks. To give an example:

cityworkers.jpg
In this situation, of the nine tiles in the city, the lower right tile is getting the benefit of both the City Worker as well as the Road. The top right gets the road which helps things count but no City Worker for the bonus? The top left one isn't contributing at all because no road and no CW? The one just to the left of the city itself has a CW but no road.

Moral: make sure you have your worker build a road to get resources flowing into the city and also get a City Worker on it as soon as one is available to add in the bonus.

Did I get that right?​

Bluesman



The bottom right has a "city worker" (citizen) getting 3 hammers and 3 bread, very good yield! The improvement (pasture) on the cows is what makes this tile so good. The road does nothing to improve the tile, as far as the production received in the city. The road on the pasture gives you the +1 health bonus in this city and every city connected to it via the Capitol.

Civ4 roads are entirely different than they were in Civ3, in Civ 4:

Generally a road does nothing except (a) improve movement rates of units going through it, and (b) provide connections for collecting a resource (cow, pig, copper, sugar, etc) for your civ and (c) making trade routes between cities. You won't see a road change the commerce of any tile's contribution to the city.

The production from the top right tile is not counted in your city since there is no white circle. Period. The road does not change that. The 2 food and 1 commerce in the left center is counted in your city even without a road there. Note, there is always a "free" white circle in the city itself. Your city size is 2, you get 2 circles you can put on whatever tiles you want in your city radius (but 2 cities cannot have a white circle "working" the same tile at the same time if there is overlap). Your city is getting total 4 hammers, 7 food, and 2 commerce.

Note on the left center tile: this has a cottage improvement you built with a worker unit. It will grow into hamlet then town, then village... increasing commerce output at each stage. It will accumulate turns to growth whenever you have a white circle on it at end turn. It will never shrink back unless it is pillaged by enemies. The cottage you built top left will not grow until you put a circle on it.

Did I answer your question?
 
Much better understanding, thanks to you, but still I need a bit of clarification, please.

You said, "The production from the top right tile is not counted in your city since there is no white circle. Period. The road does not change that. The 2 food and 1 commerce in the left center is counted in your city even without a road there."

So, a road just gets people through the area faster, and it's the white circle that puts the production into the counted production pool?

Then again, as you said road "provides connections for collection a resource." So, a road (like a river) allows a trade route which gets the production from the tile into the count? I'm a little unclear, not on the white circle, but on the need for a road or no need for a road.

Bluesman
 
Is the AI intelligent enough to use land and air transports? I read in another thread that there was something preventing the computer from using these at all, and that it would only use sea transports. Was this fixed for Warlords and Beyond the Sword?
I'm planning a little mod, but if the computer can't or won't use transports then it's kind of pointless. Better to know in advance I guess.

I know of another mod that was trying to implement land transports (I thought it was a Dune 2 based mod) and those mod makers got some assistance from the creators of the BetterAI mod. Check out the discussion about that in the forum dedicated to the BetterAI mod or the Dune mod. I vaguely recall that they got it working.

Is there a way to decrease inflation?

Inflation in this game is a percentage increase to the sum of the other costs (city maintenance, civic maintenance, unit cost). The percentage is purely dependant on the game turn and cannot be changed by any in game action (except a rare late game random event which thus cannot be controlled). When 2 games of a certain difficulty level and certain game speed are compared in the same year, then the inflation percentage will be exactly the same.

You can of course create a mod that changes the inflation mechanic.

I can't seem to edit game files likes certain values in the Globaldefines.xml or maps like earth18 civs. I have certain mods I want to run and the authors say "well just adjust this or that in the XML file or the map file for it to work" but when I try to save I get a message that the file cannot be created and to "Make sure the file and path name are correct."

What do I need to do to change these files?

Normally, it's as simple as opening the file with a text editor (I don't know which one you're using), editing it and saving it. Maybe your operating system is prohibiting you from saving the file due to your rights. Vista for instance is an operating system that's pretty stubborn in that regard when you're not doing stuff as an administrator.

Sorry, I just want to ask this one more time.
I'm using Civ IV Complete out of the box, so I assume it's probably not version 3.19 since that came out fairly recently, but I don't know how to check whether it is or not.

Open the game, in the main menu go to the option 'advanced' and then 'about this build' The civ version should be right there.

Much better understanding, thanks to you, but still I need a bit of clarification, please.

You said, "The production from the top right tile is not counted in your city since there is no white circle. Period. The road does not change that. The 2 food and 1 commerce in the left center is counted in your city even without a road there."

So, a road just gets people through the area faster, and it's the white circle that puts the production into the counted production pool?

Then again, as you said road "provides connections for collection a resource." So, a road (like a river) allows a trade route which gets the production from the tile into the count? I'm a little unclear, not on the white circle, but on the need for a road or no need for a road.

Bluesman

You should maybe play the tutorial or read the documentation a bit. Another idea is just open a city and select a white circle and click it switching it off and looking at the effect on food, hammers and commerce in the city. Then switch another tile on and again watch the results. You should start to get an understanding at what's going on. How the output of the tiles with white circles affect the output of the city. It's fairly simple once you get it as the full city output is just the sum of the output of the white circles (and the specialists but that's another story).

The white circles are often called citizens by people on this forum, but sometimes they're also called workers which is fairly confusing as there is also a terrain improving unit called a worker. So I'll call the white circles citizens for now.

As said before, you get one free citizen in the centre tile of the city and several extra ones equal to the size of your city. You can place them on various tiles and this changes how much :food:, :hammers: and :commerce: the city produces.

The special worker unit which can be constructed and moved on the main map can create tile improvements on the map and those tile improvements will often increase the output of the citizens in the city working on those tiles (white circles).

One of the improvements is a road which can be combined with any other tile improvement. A road doesn't increase the output of the citizens in the city. However, there are some other benefits to roads:
-roads can connect cities and those cities then get extra commerce through trade routes which can be seen when you enter such a city
-roads allow units to move further each turn
-roads allow you to connect special resources to your cities.

Some tiles have special resources. These tiles also have a higher base output and can get a special tile improvement which increases their output dramatically when the worker builds it. Furthermore these resources do more than just generate :food:, :hammers: and :commerce:. They also have special benefits. Cows for instance makes your city more healthy by increasing the :health: value of the city. Gold for instance makes your city more happy by increasing the :) value of the city. And iron for instance allows you to build swordsmen.

BUT, these special benefits only occur when the resources are connected to the city and that's why you need to create roads to these resources.

To get the special benefit, the tile requires its unique tile improvement and a connection to the city. The benefit is available in any city connected to the resource. Multiple resources don't give additional benefits. And that's when we get to discuss trading with other civilisations which is another story. ;)
 
How do you feel about the aggressive trait?


A combat I unit wins in a better than 2 to 1 ratio against the same unpromoted unit. Being a little stronger is very valuable and it's easy to be a little stronger with one extra promotion. So the trait allows you to win a larger fraction of the battles against an enemy who's equal in technology. I usually play at a difficulty level where I'm challenged so I typically fight against opponents with an equal level of technology so it's useful in those battles.

I prefer the traits that improve my economy as I love rapid expansion on huge maps and you can expand further before you go (almost) bankrupt with economic traits. After I've gained a (few) great generals, I can usually get the better promoted units independent of the traits I started with.

I actually always play with random leaders so I don't control the traits that I start with, but I do have my preferred traits.
 
A combat I unit wins in a better than 2 to 1 ratio against the same unpromoted unit. Being a little stronger is very valuable and it's easy to be a little stronger with one extra promotion. So the trait allows you to win a larger fraction of the battles against an enemy who's equal in technology. I usually play at a difficulty level where I'm challenged so I typically fight against opponents with an equal level of technology so it's useful in those battles.

I prefer the traits that improve my economy as I love rapid expansion on huge maps and you can expand further before you go (almost) bankrupt with economic traits. After I've gained a (few) great generals, I can usually get the better promoted units independent of the traits I started with.

I actually always play with random leaders so I don't control the traits that I start with, but I do have my preferred traits.

Thanks.
 
Is there a good section in here somewhere with information about building the space ship?
F

Come to think of it, I believe every victory condition (other than Time, of course) has a strat article in the War Academy, but I don't recall there being one for Space. Space doesn't seem to get alot of respect. :lol:
 
What corporation is best for making a city that has a huge population, Sushi or Cereal ?
Depends on the map, but usually Sushi is better by far unless you have few to no coastal cities (e.g. due to it being a Pangaea). Otherwise, always go for Sushi without hesitation. ;)
 
Hi,

I got two questions related to map modifications. Should I ask them here or where at the customization part of the board?
 
Hi,

I got two questions related to map modifications. Should I ask them here or where at the customization part of the board?

If its a basic question, you'll probably get an answer here quicker. If its too detailed, someone will probably direct you there.
 
Alright so there is this earth map, an old version of an earth map of a mod (40civs) by Liambane, and I would like to get it working for the 35 civ mod made by Lt Bob. Despite adding the missing leaders to the folder of the target mod, I still can not get it to work. What should I do?

Thanks

P.S: I would like to also do this for the Thoma's War mod.. does anyone know if it supports 18+ civs and if not how to get it to be playable with more civs??

Map: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FACP941G
Liambane's mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248049
Lt Bob's mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234779
Thoma's War mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=281603
 
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