Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Aeiouv]

What do you guys do with dated units? Upgrading them all is very expensive and I rarely have enough money to upgrade them all, and its just not worth it. But deleting them feels dirty :O

Who did what on working on the game with fraxis, 2k and the other developers? Did one team do gameplay, the other write it, or what?

I believe fraxis developed the game. 2k just published it.

 

[Sisiutil]

What do you guys do with dated units? Upgrading them all is very expensive and I rarely have enough money to upgrade them all, and its just not worth it. But deleting them feels dirty :O

Highly-promoted veterans are usually worth promoting. Other units, or those with outdated promotions (like Shock and Cover once everybody has Gunpowder, or Formation once armoured units appear), are best deleted to save on maintenance costs.

However, there are some uses for old units.

• Use them as the sole garrison units in inland (i.e. non-border, non-coastal) cities of your empire. Only one unit is needed to stave off the "we demand military protection" unhappiness.
• Use them in cities under cultural pressure to reduce or even eliminate the chances of revolt.
• Gift them to allies for use against your enemies.
• Some players use old units as cannon fodder, by I advise against this because every unit you lose in battle adds to your war weariness.

However, if none of these uses apply, don't shed a tear over deleted units. Remember that all units cost you money in maintenance, so if you don't need them, get rid of them.

 

[kcd_swede]

Highly-promoted veterans are usually worth promoting. Other units, or those with outdated promotions (like Shock and Cover once everybody has Gunpowder, or Formation once armoured units appear), are best deleted to save on maintenance costs.

However, there are some uses for old units.

• Use them as the sole garrison units in inland (i.e. non-border, non-coastal) cities of your empire. Only one unit is needed to stave off the "we demand military protection" unhappiness.
• Use them in cities under cultural pressure to reduce or even eliminate the chances of revolt.
• Gift them to allies for use against your enemies.
• Some players use old units as cannon fodder, by I advise against this because every unit you lose in battle adds to your war weariness.

However, if none of these uses apply, don't shed a tear over deleted units. Remember that all units cost you money in maintenance, so if you don't need them, get rid of them.

You could gift them to an AI you plan to attack, then kill them all with your newer more modern units and gain all that XP for you new units.

Or if you just want to give them a poison pill (overload unit maintenance)... but depends what level you are playing whether this would have any effect on their economy at all.

Edit to point out: This is a joke. Don't try it. As Sisiutil points out, AI will upgrade these units for almost no cost and then you'd really be in trouble. (I didn't know it adds to your war weariness to kill AI units, though). Sorry, this probably is not the right thread to be joking around like this. Don't gift your obsolete units to an AI unless you have a permanent alliance with that AI (and most of the time not even then).

 

[Roland Johansen]

What do you guys do with dated units? Upgrading them all is very expensive and I rarely have enough money to upgrade them all, and its just not worth it. But deleting them feels dirty :O

I upgrade them all as I view it as a way to convert gold into hammers before the availability of the universal suffrage civic and at a better rate than the one offered by the universal suffrage civic. Many players don't do this because of the high cost. But if you have to rebuild all of the units, you'll have a high cost in hammers which is just a little less visible because it is spread over many individual choices to build another unit.

However, I typically don't upgrade them all right away. I wait with it until my commerce economy is working well and I have a few gold multipliers in some good commerce cities. So I typically have some units from different ages in my cities until my economy is working well.

 

[Sleeping King]

I've been watching some gameplay videos on Youtube and one of the guys had something on his screen that I can't figure out how to do.

Next to his research beaker slider it shows how much he is putting out. Like it says
20% +- (33 Turn)

How can I show this on my game?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I've been watching some gameplay videos on Youtube and one of the guys had something on his screen that I can't figure out how to do.

Next to his research beaker slider it shows how much he is putting out. Like it says
20% +- (33 Turn)

How can I show this on my game?

It's part of the later versions of the game. Vanilla civ4 didn't have it. I believe it was introduced in BTS, maybe not even in the first version of BTS but in one of the patches.

 

[Sisiutil]

You could gift them to an AI you plan to attack, then kill them all with your newer more modern units and gain all that XP for you new units.

Or if you just want to give them a poison pill (overload unit maintenance)... but depends what level you are playing whether this would have any effect on their economy at all.

I know you meant this facetiously, but I still feel obliged to address it. Every enemy unit you kill also contributes to war weariness, so giving them more units for you to kill is definitely a bad idea. And remember the AI gets a break on unit upgrades, so there's no guarantee gifted units will remain as they were.

 

[DukeofDokken]

I'm new to Civ and pc games in general (always platform). Why can I not choose an earth map for civiv unless I go into custom scenerio?

 

[22bebo]

I'm new to Civ and pc games in general (always platform). Why can I not choose an earth map for civiv unless I go into custom scenerio?

It's just not part of the game, I believe. There are plenty of earth mods on this website, so you can look around. I know the BUG mod has some. (Search for Beyond the Sword Unaltered Gameplay, as BUG is referenced too much to find it with just that. )

I always like my empire to be coastal, but around like a bay or big lake or something. Like my capital located at the tip of a bay, a new city on one side, another on the other side, and something behind my capital, giving a circle of culture around it, as it's always my best city. And that's just an example, though I'm usually not much larger than that. What would be the issues with and empire with that format? And how do you take a screenshot? I had a funny one yesterday, but I didn't know how to take it.

 

[civman45]

As far as I know, the only way to add new civilizations is to edit the WB save file with a text editor.

Thanks for answering. How is this done, editing the WB save file with a text editor that is?

 

[dalamb]

Thanks for answering. How is this done, editing the WB save file with a text editor that is?

There is a lot to learn... The format of the save file is described in a big tutorial thread, but that's probably far too much for you to read right now. You should probably try posting a query in the Creation and Customization Forum, but maybe you should send me a private message so we can properly formulate what question you should post.

 

[DukeofDokken]

It's just not part of the game, I believe. There are plenty of earth mods on this website, so you can look around. I know the BUG mod has some. (Search for Beyond the Sword Unaltered Gameplay, as BUG is referenced too much to find it with just that. )

I always like my empire to be coastal, but around like a bay or big lake or something. Like my capital located at the tip of a bay, a new city on one side, another on the other side, and something behind my capital, giving a circle of culture around it, as it's always my best city. And that's just an example, though I'm usually not much larger than that. What would be the issues with and empire with that format? And how do you take a screenshot? I had a funny one yesterday, but I didn't know how to take it.

Thanks. I'm still getting used to the whole mod thing and how that all works.

 

[3drawegroeg]

If I've built the Shwedagon Paya but there is no religion present in any cities, have I basically just opened up free religion early? Will any of the other civics work as intended if I don't have any religion?

 

[bestbrian]

If I've built the Shwedagon Paya but there is no religion present in any cities, have I basically just opened up free religion early? Will any of the other civics work as intended if I don't have any religion?

Considering that the religious civics require you to have a state religion, yeah, I'd say that the only benefit would be early FR.

 

[Silu]

If I've built the Shwedagon Paya but there is no religion present in any cities, have I basically just opened up free religion early? Will any of the other civics work as intended if I don't have any religion?

Theocracy will still prevent religion spread to you (if you'd like to prevent the AP religion spread to nix someone's plans of AP religion win), and Pacifism will still possibly be the lowest civic maintenance of the bunch with No Upkeep (of course it can be the highest as well if you have tons of units and a small empire ). Not too big effects though and usually not worth the revolt unless spiritual.

 

[Sian]

Theocracy will still prevent religion spread to you (if you'd like to prevent the AP religion spread to nix someone's plans of AP religion win), and Pacifism will still possibly be the lowest civic maintenance of the bunch with No Upkeep (of course it can be the highest as well if you have tons of units and a small empire ). Not too big effects though and usually not worth the revolt unless spiritual.

Partly untrue

it stops active Religion spread (Missionaries), but it doesn't stop passive spread.

 

[Silu]

Partly untrue

it stops active Religion spread (Missionaries), but it doesn't stop passive spread.

Pretty sure what you say is "Mostly untrue"...

it stops autospread, but not spread from random events.

 

[Baldyr]

I am wondering if it is possible to add new civilizations during a game using World Builder?

It might be possible if you start a game with these "extra" civilizations to begin with, but delete their starting units (and capitols) on the first turn. Then, later on, you might be able to give these civilizations units and/or cities in World Builder, thus "creating" them.

If you simply wish that additional civilizations will spawn during a game (w/o the use of the WB), you should probably look into the Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations mod(s). Note that there is a variant where you play on a random map, also.

 

[Baldyr]

What do you guys do with dated units? Upgrading them all is very expensive and I rarely have enough money to upgrade them all, and its just not worth it. But deleting them feels dirty :O

Since I can't stand being wasteful, I also like to upgrade my obsolete units. But, that can in fact also be wasteful, since its so expensive! So I guess it all depends on how much money you have - and what kind of production you're capable of. I always wanna have a decent treasure anyways, so I usually end up upgrading units once I need them (in action). But, if I have too many units it hurts my income. Thats why I'm gonna consider disbanding units from now on.

 

[Baldyr]

I always like my empire to be coastal, but around like a bay or big lake or something. Like my capital located at the tip of a bay, a new city on one side, another on the other side, and something behind my capital, giving a circle of culture around it, as it's always my best city. And that's just an example, though I'm usually not much larger than that. What would be the issues with and empire with that format?

I can't see any "issues" with that setup. It seems like your capitol would be protected from all sides and that the high culture of your capitol in turn will spill over on the surrounding cities, making them culturally more resilient. (With high enough culture in such a capitol the other cities might not even need any buildings specifically oriented to generating culture. All the wonders and whatnot in your capitol will be sufficient for them to work the surrounding tiles and to keep rival borders in check.)

Also, building Globe Theater in the capitol will make a garrison superfluous - as long as your borders are secure all around. This means that your defense can be more effective, as the actual units will be located on the perimeters instead of in the innermost city. (The other cities might have issues with unhappiness also, which could be easily solved with Hereditary Rule.) You could, however, keep an offensive force for counter attacks in your capitol, so that it can easily strike out at any point of aggression.

And how do you take a screenshot? I had a funny one yesterday, but I didn't know how to take it.

Hit the Print Screen button (located to the left of Scroll Lock and above Insert on my keyboard). The image itself will end up in your My Games folder (in My Documents) under CivIV/BTS/whatever.