Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[CharlieM]

1) Generally speaking, what is the best (easiest to win on!) map for a player who likes to space his cities a bit wide (going to the best resources/coasts, prioritized over a particular pattern like CxxC or CxxxC) and likes to settle cities early more than building an army early to go to war? (An expanionist!) I am still working at winning on Noble. (Thanks, but I'm not looking for "you should go to war early" advice... I'm looking for advice about what map suits my playstyle and limited skills in this game)

2) I refuse to Automate Workers, because I want to learn the mechanics of how to make a city grow. Do good players sit down and plan out each space in their new cities the moment they found them (based on a chosen City Specialization)... which spaces they will work first, and exactly what they will build there? By mid-game, I tend to get a bit lost with all the choices.
(I "get" the basics, needing Two Food per Pop, counting Food in BFC to figure out how many Farms to build....)

 

[Samson]

1) Generally speaking, what is the best (easiest to win on!) map for a player who likes to space his cities a bit wide (going to the best resources/coasts, prioritized over a particular pattern like CxxC or CxxxC) and likes to settle cities early more than building an army early to go to war? (An expanionist!) I am still working at winning on Noble. (Thanks, but I'm not looking for "you should go to war early" advice... I'm looking for advice about what map suits my playstyle and limited skills in this game)

There is one setting I like that you may enjoy. In custom game you chose custom continents (I think, I am not in front of my computer ATM) and set the number of players and the number of continents to be 6. That makes it very likely everyone will be on their own continent.

2) I refuse to Automate Workers, because I want to learn the mechanics of how to make a city grow. Do good players sit down and plan out each space in their new cities the moment they found them (based on a chosen City Specialization)... which spaces they will work first, and exactly what they will build there? By mid-game, I tend to get a bit lost with all the choices.
(I "get" the basics, needing Two Food per Pop, counting Food in BFC to figure out how many Farms to build....)

I cannot answer for 'good' players, but I tend to prioratize worker actions on a tern by turn basis. Usually happiness reasorces, then food bonuses for smaller cities, then other food, then production bonuses etc.

 

[Cusanus]

Do good players sit down and plan out each space in their new cities the moment they found them (based on a chosen City Specialization)... which spaces they will work first, and exactly what they will build there? By mid-game, I tend to get a bit lost with all the choices.

No, they do that before founding the city.

But not in detail.
[More like: "I want this city to produce units, so I'll farm the greenlands, mine the hills and ignore the plains until I can put some good workshops there later in the game. The city needs a granary, a forge, barracks and nothing else for a long time. First I'll improve the one food ressource the city has, then build a few farms, then the mines."
Or, one more example: "Lots of food! This will be my GPFarm. I'll improve the three food ressources first, then build mines on the three hills that the city's BFC has to build a monument first (because it needs one border pop and I'm not creative), then a granary, a library and the National Epic. After that, the city won't build anything else, so I'll spam farms on every green tile, let the city grow to happy cap, then revolt to Caste System and run as many specialists as I can afford."
Something along these lines. ]

 

[CharlieM]

No, they do that before founding the city.

But not in detail.
[More like: "I want this city to produce units, so I'll farm the greenlands, mine the hills and ignore the plains until I can put some good workshops there later in the game. The city needs a granary, a forge, barracks and nothing else for a long time. First I'll improve the one food ressource the city has, then build a few farms, then the mines."
Or, one more example: "Lots of food! This will be my GPFarm. I'll improve the three food ressources first, then build mines on the three hills that the city's BFC has to build a monument first (because it needs one border pop and I'm not creative), then a granary, a library and the National Epic. After that, the city won't build anything else, so I'll spam farms on every green tile, let the city grow to happy cap, then revolt to Caste System and run as many specialists as I can afford."
Something along these lines. ]

Sweet! Thanks. What I have not been able to find is a Video, Guide or Thread that really details things like this. I find general advice and/or walkthroughs that Assume A Lot of Prior Knowledge, but what would be really helpful to newbs/near newbs is Very Specific Walkthroughs .... "I see this land here, now let's see, I need a Production City because of X. So I will found here because of X and not here because of X. And I will make this a Production city by building x, working X spaces now becuase of x and not working x spaces now because of x but working them when I get x because of X." Very hard to put all this together.

I guess city development is my weakness, because I have won as every civ on Deity in Civ Rev (city development very easy) and I have yet to win on Noble in Civ (city development takes advanced studies at a four-year college).

 

[papakapp]

I, lastly, think that you could get some help with these issues by using some mod. I don't use these myself (for whatever reason) but they really sound super! Read some previous posts in this thread for more info on these.

I'll try that, ty

...any clue how far back?

 

[3drawegroeg]

How many turns before beaker/hammer decay begin? Can I temporarily switch to reasearching a technology for 1 turn to avoid beaker decay before switching back to a different one?

 

[lshockley]

@Sisiutil and Baldyr, thanks for the replies!

Re:Trade Routes for Land-Locked Cities:
In a recent game, my capital was landlocked, but had 5 flood plain tiles with towns, and was my top base commerce city (specializing in Science). I noticed it still had only measly domestic trade routes pre-airports, but forgot to check after. So I don't think commerce value was an issue, and I had open borders with 2 other fully trade-networked civs. If I figure this one out, I will report back.

Re: Theocracy Part 1 / Domestic Religion Spread
Sisiutil, your explanation makes perfect sense. Thank you!

Re: Theocracy Part 2 / My Argument For a Bug Report
However, I think it's a bug! Going with the Theocracy definition - no spread of non-state religion - I shouldn't have been able to spread Taoism to any of my cities that had Hinduism, my state religion. Regardless of whether the religion was founded domestically or abroad, if it isn't my deliberately chosen state religion (of which there can only be one), it shouldn't be able to be spread by missionaries. I suppose if a new city (not yet Hindu) were to "contract" Taoism via trade, than so be it.

The reason for my argument in favor (of a bug) is because it creates an opportunity cost for running Theocracy, which is powerful civic. You give up your ability to gain additional gold (via shrine), culture (via temples), and beakers (via monasteries) from multiple religions. In return you gain military experience, which also makes theoretical sense - prioritizing military prowess over gold, culture, and science.

What do you think?

 

[lshockley]

Gaah! i want my newly built units to "auto-fortify", is there a command or mod that can help me, it drives me KraZy! especially on large multiplayermaps.

Hi there, you can create a script in Python to do this for you. However, I would suggest you come up with some parameters, or all units (incl missionaries, workers, settlers, spies, etc.) will auto-fortify. Head on over to the Creation and Customization room and politely ask the modders to help. Sorry, I haven't touched Python in a couple years, and have lost my touch,

 

[Sisiutil]

Re: Theocracy Part 2 / My Argument For a Bug Report
However, I think it's a bug! Going with the Theocracy definition - no spread of non-state religion - I shouldn't have been able to spread Taoism to any of my cities that had Hinduism, my state religion. Regardless of whether the religion was founded domestically or abroad, if it isn't my deliberately chosen state religion (of which there can only be one), it shouldn't be able to be spread by missionaries. I suppose if a new city (not yet Hindu) were to "contract" Taoism via trade, than so be it.

The reason for my argument in favor (of a bug) is because it creates an opportunity cost for running Theocracy, which is powerful civic. You give up your ability to gain additional gold (via shrine), culture (via temples), and beakers (via monasteries) from multiple religions. In return you gain military experience, which also makes theoretical sense - prioritizing military prowess over gold, culture, and science.

What do you think?

There's already an opportunity cost in that you significantly reduce the chances of a foreign religion spreading to your cities (through missionaries or trade routes) if it hasn't already. So you lose out on the diplomatic benefits of being able to switch to a different religion, along with not being able to build that religion's temples and monasteries. And later in the game, with Free Religion, you could wind up lacking the monasteries needed to create missionaries for the one extra .

 

[Alexmase]

Im trying to create a small mod, using notepad to edit XML. im trying to edit a new civ, but i cant save any changes. after i tell it to save a popup will come up saying "access is denied". is their some setting i need to turn off or some tool i need to download? Can anyone help me or show me where to go to get help for this?

Thanks for any help.

 

[22bebo]

Im trying to create a small mod, using notepad to edit XML. im trying to edit a new civ, but i cant save any changes. after i tell it to save a popup will come up saying "access is denied". is their some setting i need to turn off or some tool i need to download? Can anyone help me or show me where to go to get help for this?

Thanks for any help.

I had a similar issue. It would just keep saying that I the directory could not be found or was incorrect or something like that, but when I followed it, I ended up exactly where I was supposed to be. I think it might have been a one-time event, as it hasn't ever happened before, but I haven't modded since it happened, so . . . And yes, I'm running Vista, if that matters.

 

[DMOC]

Kind of a general question ... but what are the advantages of keeping 1 stack together as opposed to splitting them (for both multiplayer and singleplayer)?

 

[Sisiutil]

Kind of a general question ... but what are the advantages of keeping 1 stack together as opposed to splitting them (for both multiplayer and singleplayer)?

By stacking the units together you can combine defensive units with Combat, City Garrison, Guerrilla, and Woodsman promotions (along with counter-specific promotions like Shock, Formation, Pinch, and Ambush) with units that have more offensive promotions (like City Raider, Barrage, and Accuracy). This will help protect the offensive units from counter-attacks. In addition, even if the stack is subject to multiple counter-attacks, the unaffected healthy units take over defending from the injured ones.

With smaller stacks, it's simply easier to pick off each stack; by the time you move all your stacks to your target, you'll probably have lost several units or even whole stacks.

 

[Baldyr]

How many turns before beaker/hammer decay begin? Can I temporarily switch to reasearching a technology for 1 turn to avoid beaker decay before switching back to a different one?

Take a look at the GlobalDefines.xml file for settings. You may also change them by editing the file...

 

[Baldyr]

Im trying to create a small mod, using notepad to edit XML. im trying to edit a new civ, but i cant save any changes. after i tell it to save a popup will come up saying "access is denied". is their some setting i need to turn off or some tool i need to download? Can anyone help me or show me where to go to get help for this?

Thanks for any help.

I would think that you need to have the right set of settings in your operating system. It sounds to me as if your computer is trying to maintain the integrity of your game. Try saving the files into another folder altogether. (There is a Mod folder in My Games, located in My Documents.)

I still run XP myself and haven't got a clue about Vista or W7. Why am I not upgrading? Because I want CivIV to work without any hiccups, duh!

 

[papakapp]

if you turn off the space victory condition, does the ai still waste time making spaceship parts? if so, is there a mod that changes that so they don't even try for the space race if space race is turned off?

also, I was playing a game long after I lost it (maybe 100 turns or so) and then out of the blue my best friend on the map attacked me. The dialogue said "I'm bored" Is that part of the game or is there a mod that did that? I was using the future wars mod that comes bundled with BTS, no others.

 

[Sisiutil]

if you turn off the space victory condition, does the ai still waste time making spaceship parts? if so, is there a mod that changes that so they don't even try for the space race if space race is turned off?

If you turn off space race victory, no civ in the game can build SS parts. So no, the AI will not try to win by space race because it can't--and neither can you.

 

[Silu]

Im trying to create a small mod, using notepad to edit XML. im trying to edit a new civ, but i cant save any changes. after i tell it to save a popup will come up saying "access is denied". is their some setting i need to turn off or some tool i need to download? Can anyone help me or show me where to go to get help for this?

Thanks for any help.

I had a similar issue. It would just keep saying that I the directory could not be found or was incorrect or something like that, but when I followed it, I ended up exactly where I was supposed to be. I think it might have been a one-time event, as it hasn't ever happened before, but I haven't modded since it happened, so . . . And yes, I'm running Vista, if that matters.

Edit as Administrator / give yourself all read/write privileges.

 

[22bebo]

Edit as Administrator / give yourself all read/write privileges.

I'm the only person on my computer, and I'm set to be the administrator.

Also, what are the little numbers, usually something like 0.7, in the BUG mod that are between the and the symbols. They change between white and red periodically. And what are the numbers to the right of the demographics smileys? In the BUG mod.

 

[Silu]

I'm the only person on my computer, and I'm set to be the administrator.

Also, what are the little numbers, usually something like 0.7, in the BUG mod that are between the and the symbols. They change between white and red periodically. And what are the numbers to the right of the demographics smileys? In the BUG mod.

The first is the power ratio between you and that Civ, namely your power / their power. So less than 1 means they have more power than you and vice versa (note for Mr. Johansen's sake, you can change this to their power / your power from the BUG options if you'd like). If their power far exceeds yours this number is red, though that's very common especially on the higher difficulties.

The latter is simply the number of cities that Civ has.