Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[kleen]

I have a few short questions saved up...

1. How does chain irrigation work?

2. Why are some leaders (notably Montezuma) sometimes already annoyed when I meet them, if we do not have different religions or any of the usual negative opinion modifiers?

3. I'd assumed that hammers and food contribute equally to worker/settler production, but I've recently noticed that's not the case. How much better are hammers, as compared to food?

4. Is there a way to make a template for starting multiplayer games? I hate having to type in the names, pick the civs etc. every time.

 

[Silu]

Playing BTS with the default no flip of captured cities to the original Civ, I just had a Roman revolt in Rome. Previously, I had captured it from the Roman empire, shortly before Julius capitulated to me and became my vassal. Is the no flip rule void for vassals or does the no flip rule allow revolts but not flips?

Bolded for truth Note though that if a third party captures it and you recapture it, then it can flip over back to the Romans.

Does the Apostolic Palace ever select a new resident? I built it and lost to Mehmed, but now that the other candidate would be Frederick, I think I could win. I was wondering if it would ever give me the chance, though.

Yes, a new resident is selected after a set amount of turns. This corresponds to about 4 votings IIRC. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong )

1. How does chain irrigation work?

After Civil Service, your non-resource farms don't need to be next to a river or fresh water lake, they can be next to an irrigated farm (or flatland city) as well. So you can "chain" farms to places that previously had no access to fresh water and hence couldn't be farmed. Note that farm resources (like Corn) can always be farmed even if there's no irrigation, but irrigation still gives a boost in the yield.

In other words, all irrigated farms and flatland city tiles act as fresh water for farming purposes after Civil Service.

2. Why are some leaders (notably Montezuma) sometimes already annoyed when I meet them, if we do not have different religions or any of the usual negative opinion modifiers?

Some leaders have a hidden -1 penalty of "default hate" set in their personality. Monte is one of the bastards There are many hidden diplomacy modifiers not shown in the standard UI.

3. I'd assumed that hammers and food contribute equally to worker/settler production, but I've recently noticed that's not the case. How much better are hammers, as compared to food?

They are (in the early game) equal for non-EXP/non-IMP leaders. EXP leaders multiply hammers by 1.25 when building Workers and IMP leaders by 1.5 when building Settlers. On top of these normal production modifiers (Forge, Factory etc) apply for the hammers but not the food. Food never gets any modifiers. Note that both chopping and whipping count as all hammers so those traits are good for that sort of thing

4. Is there a way to make a template for starting multiplayer games? I hate having to type in the names, pick the civs etc. every time.

My solution was to make mouse macros for this setup phase. It's a "dirty" way to do it, but it sure works Google is your friend in searching these (I think in Windows I use something called GhostMouse 2.0 for mouse macros).

 

[Darth Fred]

After Civil Service, your non-resource farms don't need to be next to a river or fresh water lake, they can be next to an irrigated farm (or flatland city) as well. So you can "chain" farms to places that previously had no access to fresh water and hence couldn't be farmed. Note that farm resources (like Corn) can always be farmed even if there's no irrigation, but irrigation still gives a boost in the yield.

In other words, all irrigated farms and flatland city tiles act as fresh water for farming purposes after Civil Service.

A quick additional note, this also works "diagonally" (From the corn of one tile to the corner of another) in addition to side to side.

Sorry to interrupt.

F

 

[Baldyr]

3. I'd assumed that hammers and food contribute equally to worker/settler production, but I've recently noticed that's not the case. How much better are hammers, as compared to food?

Note that its the surplus that would otherwise be stored in the Food Bar that is used to build Workers and Settlers. So a city would typically have more to put in than , but there will of course be exceptions.

 

[Roland Johansen]

2. Why are some leaders (notably Montezuma) sometimes already annoyed when I meet them, if we do not have different religions or any of the usual negative opinion modifiers?

Some leaders have a hidden -1 penalty of "default hate" set in their personality. Monte is one of the bastards There are many hidden diplomacy modifiers not shown in the standard UI.

There is even a random diplomacy modifier between 2 civilisations which is different each game. So you might meet Montezuma in 2 subsequent games with no visible diplomacy modifiers and one game he's cautious and the other annoyed. This is just a starting small modifier but it makes diplomatic relations a little different between 2 civilisations every game.

 

[Silu]

There is even a random diplomacy modifier between 2 civilisations which is different each game. So you might meet Montezuma in 2 subsequent games with no visible diplomacy modifiers and one game he's cautious and the other annoyed. This is just a starting small modifier but it makes diplomatic relations a little different between 2 civilisations every game.

Only peaceweight-based diplomacy modifiers are randomized, and this only affects AI-AI relations since the peaceweight-based attitude modifier towards the human is always 0 below Noble and -1 on Noble and above regardless of personality and randomization. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, that's known to happen once or twice in a decade

So it's correct that between most Civs there's a random element in their diplomacy randomized at the start of the game, but this doesn't affect AI-human relations, only AI-AI.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Only peaceweight-based diplomacy modifiers are randomized, and this only affects AI-AI relations since the peaceweight-based attitude modifier towards the human is always 0 below Noble and -1 on Noble and above regardless of personality and randomization. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, that's known to happen once or twice in a decade

So it's correct that between most Civs there's a random element in their diplomacy randomized at the start of the game, but this doesn't affect AI-human relations, only AI-AI.

I had heard about the random modifier but didn't know it only affected AI-AI relations.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Is there a map type that enables much less plains tiles without having to edit the map?

 

[jUmpSt0p]

what is more valuable?

4 OR 4

like, for example, if I have the choice between a Harbor and a Grocer (and assuming my only goal is economic expansion and I don't need the ), which one should I build?


*have a feeling this might be a complicated answer!

 

[DrakenKin]

what is more valuable?

4 OR 4

like, for example, if I have the choice between a Harbor and a Grocer (and assuming my only goal is economic expansion and I don't need the ), which one should I build?


*have a feeling this might be a complicated answer!

I think it depends on the city you build it in.

If for example it is your capital (with bureauracy and an academy/research focus) you will want the commerce so you can convert it to research and maximize its benefits using all the bonuses and multipliers.

If it is in one of your smaller cities, you might want the gold. If you do get commerce on the smaller city, it will go through your research slider % and since it has low research compared to your bigger cities the yield will be much inferior. Better get the the pure gold to support the economy, so you can get the slider higher and get more overall research. (Small cities but also commerce cities that have markets and banks.)

 

[Baldyr]

I think it depends on the city you build it in.

Yeah, exactly. In a specialized city those 4 would pass through all the modifiers and could end up being something like 10 .

But if your goal is to get more ("economic expansion") you should go for a Grocer instead of a Harbor. Chances are that your tax rate is anything between 10% and 40% and additional 4 from Coast tiles would only be worth 0.4-1.6 . You could, however, build both.

 

[jUmpSt0p]

do Spies have a maintenance cost?

 

[DrakenKin]

do Spies have a maintenance cost?

Yes they do, just like any other unit.

 

[Cusanus]

Recently, I've been playing around a little testing different mods.

Now I thought I had gone back to plain Civ IV BTS with nothing but BAT.
[The game also claims to be BAT when started.]

In my most recent game, it took me untill the modern era to realize something was weird: there's still lots of stuff included like Ironclad Cruisers, 4 or so different kinds of Tanks (Early Tanks, Battle Tanks, Tank Destroyers), lots of strange aircrafts.

So, quick question: is all this just part of BAT? Or, if not: what mod am I still playing? And why?

[From googeling, I'd guess it's Wolfshanze's modpack. But I never even installed that one...]

 

[bestbrian]

Recently, I've been playing around a little testing different mods.

Now I thought I had gone back to plain Civ IV BTS with nothing but BAT.
[The game also claims to be BAT when started.]

In my most recent game, it took me untill the modern era to realize something was weird: there's still lots of stuff included like Ironclad Cruisers, 4 or so different kinds of Tanks (Early Tanks, Battle Tanks, Tank Destroyers), lots of strange aircrafts.

So, quick question: is all this just part of BAT? Or, if not: what mod am I still playing? And why?

[From googeling, I'd guess it's Wolfshanze's modpack. But I never even installed that one...]

Yep, sounds like Wolfshanze, which is also part of the base for many other mods like Legends of Revolution, MergedMod, WolfRev, and others. Did you install any mods that include Wolf's as a base?

 

[buffalo6542]

I was wondering if it is possible to disable the game ending event that if you shoot off to many nukes, the world's crust cracks and the game ends. Is it possible to disable it and how?

 

[r_rolo1]

I was wondering if it is possible to disable the game ending event that if you shoot off to many nukes, the world's crust cracks and the game ends. Is it possible to disable it and how?

That is pretty easy: don't play the Next War mod That event only happens in that mod and , in more recent versions of that mod, only in the official scenario for that mod.

 

[Roland Johansen]

what is more valuable?

4 OR 4

like, for example, if I have the choice between a Harbor and a Grocer (and assuming my only goal is economic expansion and I don't need the ), which one should I build?


*have a feeling this might be a complicated answer!

Of course, there's no right or wrong here.

In most cities, I find the health gain from the grocer more valuable than the commerce gain of the grocer, so ignoring it is already a weird situation.

Most players have a research economy which depends largely on converting commerce into science at a high research percentage. This means that only a small section is spend on gold and only that little bit of gold gets an increase of 25% when you build a grocer.

So if a city which generates 40 commerce in an empire that has a gold slider setting of 20% builds a grocer, the grocer increases the gold output by 25% of 20% of 40 = 2 gold. Not that great for an expensive building like the grocer.

The harbor is much cheaper to build. It's output depends on the trade routes present in the city. Hover them to see the base commerce output of those and see what a 50% increase would do. If the city has several foreign trade routes, it's likely that the increase in commerce will be larger than the increase in gold by the grocer. A harbor gets relatively more attractive to build once cities get more trade routes.

The grocer is a great building to build in cities specialised in gold production like a Holy city with a huge shrine output or corporation output. It's a must have in such cities.

I was wondering if it is possible to disable the game ending event that if you shoot off to many nukes, the world's crust cracks and the game ends. Is it possible to disable it and how?

That's a feature of the Next War mod and not the main game. Surely it can be disabled by modding this mod, but I don't know how.

 

[kleen]

Thanks for all the great answers! One more thing about chain irrigation: can I only farm tiles that are adjacent to a farmed tile with fresh water or can I farm many tiles around the city, provided that they are connected to each other (with only one of them adjacent to a farmed tile with fresh water)?

I'm actually fighting my first modern war. When I have several bombers in a city sometimes a few of them can bombard the enemy city units, but a few others cannot (they can bombard the city defenses, though). Why is this?

And if I capture a city, do the twenty galleons Montezuma kept there get destroyed?

I built the United Nations and got elected, but never got to propose a single thing, although there have been several proposals, including the proposal of a diplomatic victory for me. I recall being able to choose proposals from a list in other games. Is this normal?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Thanks for all the great answers! One more thing about chain irrigation: can I only farm tiles that are adjacent to a farmed tile with fresh water or can I farm many tiles around the city, provided that they are connected to each other (with only one of them adjacent to a farmed tile with fresh water)?

Yes, you can farm as many tiles around the city (and the surrounding land) as you want, as long as they are all connected up to some source of fresh water from at least one point. Just be careful not to (e.g.) build a cottage over one of the key farms later in the game, because if you break the chain then all of the connected farms will suddenly get -1 food until you hook it up again. (And yes, I've accidentally made this silly move before, when my cities have grown enough and I'm starting to build cottages and other improvements over farms. )

I'm actually fighting my first modern war. When I have several bombers in a city sometimes a few of them can bombard the enemy city units, but a few others cannot (they can bombard the city defenses, though). Why is this?

You can only bombard units down to a certain fraction of their hit points, which is dependent on the unit; for Bombers I think it's a max of 60% damage, but I'd have to check that. In any event, once you have bombarded all the units on a tile up to the max damage, you will be unable to bomb the units any more. (Just like your Catapults will not be able to attack a city if all of the defenders are below a certain amount of health.)

And if I capture a city, do the twenty galleons Montezuma kept there get destroyed?

Yep. A bit unrealistic maybe, but I guess you could think of it as "burning them in the docks".

I built the United Nations and got elected, but never got to propose a single thing, although there have been several proposals, including the proposal of a diplomatic victory for me. I recall being able to choose proposals from a list in other games. Is this normal?

You might not have been elected Secretary-General (you have to get enough votes for this every 4 elections to maintain the position)... or you might have exceeded the population requirements to be able to choose a diplomatic victory option. I'm not too sure.