Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[viper_1986_1986]

This isn't really a gameplay question but me and my dad have just gotten back into civ 4 over LAN. The main problem we have is that if one of us is taking a longer time to finish a turn that the other, we (mainly me) get impatient and switch to another window, like an internet browser. What happens though, is that if I switch to firefox, he gets a message saying "Waiting for jlc102127, Player x". I was wondering if there was a way to be able to switch to another window without stopping the other players from not being able to finish their turns. thanks in advance.

Same problem for me and my brother....

Running the game in window mode is the solution! Just look in the game options.

I do this cause i have duel view, in window mode i just slide my mouse from one screen to the other.

Also another tip to keep the game moving fast, provided you dislike simu moves like i do. I found that using this as a setup for the game options speeds up the gameplay ALOT...

Advisor popups - annoying and pointless

sid tips - you know how to use "explorer" right?

wait at end of turn - i keep it on JUST in case i bump the wrong key.

minimize popups - THIS is the key! So NORMALLY when your city has 1 turn left for a worker and you hit spacebar the worker pops out and you sit there waiting for the next player to go. Then when its your turn your game pops you around asking you what to build and stuff.
With this option on little icons show up in the TOP RIGHT of the screen showing what got done being built, or what research got done. So AFTER you end your turn you can manually go through and tell what to built next and stuff. So when its YOUR turn you dont have 99 popups asking you what to build.
You basiclly do this on someone elses turn... and its not taking anything out of order.
Even with this option off you can do this manually but their is no little reminder icon.

Show firendly/ememy moves - i disable cause i can pay attion, and i use that little icon that keeps a big arrow all the units heads.

Quick moves/combat - ALWAYS keep off, you dont need to see a fight.

Stack attack - speeds things up ALOT but ONLY if you have HUGE odds in your favor would i turn it on. It makes your "stack" attack his "stack" in 1 sec. So if you got 50% odds the first fight, the next fight you most likely will have LESS odds and it will fight it, all the way down till you have no living units...

No unit cyling - keep it off, you should remember which units you are moving and it will save you 10mins of going "skip turn... skip turn... fortify, skip turn..."

 

[viper_1986_1986]

From what I've been reading on the forum, it is more wise to say "yes" to city automation and "no" to production automation? Is this true?
Early on I micro manage all of my cities, but as the game goes on, this obviously becomes a bit more difficult because of expansion. I haven't really ever let my governors take over, but I'm wondering if this is something I should just give into. I'm afraid to let them..."if you want something done right, do it yourself" comes to mind.
I guess what I'm looking for, is a more in depth view of how automation works and whether or not to use my "emphasize" buttons. When and where do I emphasize hammers, bread, commerce, research, gold, and great person, OR if at all?
Oh, and I read where someone was talking about "forcing specialists"...how do I do that.
Thanks for your help!

Somewhat of a newbie

The governor is VERY smart in civ4 as far as working land titles.
If you are at your happy/health cap the gov will STOP growth to a degree.
Or if you want him to stop it sooner you can click the little AVOID GROWTH button.

If your want your city to grow FASTER and take a while to build the barrack you can click the FOOD icon and he will work food titles more than anything.
You can even create hybrids like do HAMMERS and COMMERCE. So he will go after food the least.
You would use this all the time?
In your city that has TONS of grassland and you built TONS of cottages either turn on the com key or research key.
If the city has 4 hills around it with mines go ahead and make it be your production city by hitting that hammers key.


I just found this out not to long ago but you can "force" a city speclist. But clicking the + on a sci person the gov will stay on but allow the sci person to be working.
If you have the great persons button ON and you click on "force sci" then BOOM he will move all your speclist over to sci and not have a weird mix.

Its pretty cool.

To learn all of this just find some BIG city with 10-20 people and just turn the gov on on and start pressing buttons and look at the cities stats, see how much sci it makes? gold? hammers? food?
It can make a HUGE change...

At the start, i do micro too, but generally i dont change anything, the auto start is pretty good....
Now unit and building production i NEVER use... very not cool...

 

[henrebotha]

What happens to free promotions in terms of units upgrading? If I upgrade a Chariot to a Numidian Cavalry, does it get Flanking I? If a Charismatic leader upgrades a Maceman to a Rifleman, does it get CGI and Drill I? What about quests/events that give units of a certain type a free promotion - are these promotions granted if a unit is upgraded to become the relevant type of unit? (I've only seen a couple quests/events like this, like the "sharp axes" event and the War Chariots quest, but I'm sure there are others that are more relevant to this question, perhaps like the "stronger cannon" event.)

 

[Silu]

What happens to free promotions in terms of units upgrading? If I upgrade a Chariot to a Numidian Cavalry, does it get Flanking I? If a Charismatic leader upgrades a Maceman to a Rifleman, does it get CGI and Drill I? What about quests/events that give units of a certain type a free promotion - are these promotions granted if a unit is upgraded to become the relevant type of unit? (I've only seen a couple quests/events like this, like the "sharp axes" event and the War Chariots quest, but I'm sure there are others that are more relevant to this question, perhaps like the "stronger cannon" event.)

Promotions never vanish, so upgrading NCs to Cavalry will retain the Flanking I. Ditto for upgrading Chariots that have the Flanking thanks to completing the quest.

Upgrading to something that would get free promotions on birth does not give you them, only if you build that unit. So upping Chariots to NCs doesn't give free Flanking, neither does upgrading Maces to Rifles as PRO (I assume you ment PRO instead of CHA ), and neither does upgrading Warriors to Swords if you have the Sword quest (CR reward picked) completed.

Since you mentioned CHA, there's a fun factoid about that and promotions/XP. If you are CHA, and gift a 5XP unit to a non-CHA ally, it will magically rise to 6XP. Similarly the XP is lowered if a non-CHA gifts units to a CHA ally. This can almost be useful; you can ask a CHA ally to gift you an unit and get it to 10XP easier to unlock Heroic Epic.

 

[henrebotha]

Okay, thanks. I assume though that free promotions are given even if a unit is drafted? (I'm playing as Churchill for the first time and I'm looking forward to abusing the draft. )

 

[Silu]

Okay, thanks. I assume though that free promotions are given even if a unit is drafted? (I'm playing as Churchill for the first time and I'm looking forward to abusing the draft. )

Yeah, AFAIK in all other ways an unit is "born" as well (flipped city, spawned colony, hut, quest reward etc), but drafting for sure. This makes Churchill and Toku insane for drafting indeed

 

[Yxklyx]

A stack with a Cannon (12/1) and Musketman (9/1) is attacked (no defense or attack bonuses involved). The Cannon will always defend?

 

[Baldyr]

A stack with a Cannon (12/1) and Musketman (9/1) is attacked (no defense or attack bonuses involved). The Cannon will always defend?

I'm guessing, yes, except against mounted units of the era (with attack bonus against Cannon). And if the mounted unit survives the attack (with Musketman defending), the Cannon get some damage from a "flank attack".

 

[Kierkegaard]

I must be a complete idiot, but I never figured this out.

How do u draw on the map for like pointing out that there is a good spot for building a city etc?

I've better bug ai as mod.

 

[r_rolo1]

A stack with a Cannon (12/1) and Musketman (9/1) is attacked (no defense or attack bonuses involved). The Cannon will always defend?

Well, that issue is a little complicated .... but 99% of the times the strongest unit will defend. The other 1% goes to situations where the weakest unit has a high number of first strikes, that are ( IMHO ) overratted regarding the defensive abilities by the "best defender" code . DanF5771 posted a good example here ( read also Piece of Mind post a little behind that one ).

A foot note: in BtS caravels will always defend before galleons, no matter how damaged they are. This is by design ( otherwise galleons would be as good as being alone before you could put some frigates to cover them )

 

[Sisiutil]

I must be a complete idiot, but I never figured this out.

How do u draw on the map for like pointing out that there is a good spot for building a city etc?

I've better bug ai as mod.

There are two ways to do this. Alt+S will allow you to fasten a "sticky note" to a tile. With the BUG mod, you can also use Alt+X to activate the dot map overlay to "draw" fat crosses on the map (Ctrl+X toggles the display of the overlay.)

 

[Kierkegaard]

Thx that was I ment!

 

[The Turk]

Hi, I've been playing BTS and civilization 4 in general for quite a number of years, but I've never gotten around to figuring out how the "draft" thing works, sometimes you see it in mods, but for the vanilla version you can "draft" units using a certain civic, so I was wondering how exactly it works. Thanks for your help

 

[Yxklyx]

The governor is VERY smart in civ4 as far as working land titles.
If you are at your happy/health cap the gov will STOP growth to a degree.
Or if you want him to stop it sooner you can click the little AVOID GROWTH button.

If your want your city to grow FASTER and take a while to build the barrack you can click the FOOD icon and he will work food titles more than anything.
You can even create hybrids like do HAMMERS and COMMERCE. So he will go after food the least.
You would use this all the time?
In your city that has TONS of grassland and you built TONS of cottages either turn on the com key or research key.
If the city has 4 hills around it with mines go ahead and make it be your production city by hitting that hammers key.


I just found this out not to long ago but you can "force" a city speclist. But clicking the + on a sci person the gov will stay on but allow the sci person to be working.
If you have the great persons button ON and you click on "force sci" then BOOM he will move all your speclist over to sci and not have a weird mix.

Its pretty cool.

To learn all of this just find some BIG city with 10-20 people and just turn the gov on on and start pressing buttons and look at the cities stats, see how much sci it makes? gold? hammers? food?
It can make a HUGE change...

At the start, i do micro too, but generally i dont change anything, the auto start is pretty good....
Now unit and building production i NEVER use... very not cool...

It's very good but could use some improvement. For instance, when I want to maximize science or wealth - just clicking on the science or wealth button won't always work the way you think it will. I can usually get more science by creating more science specialists.

 

[Sisiutil]

Hi, I've been playing BTS and civilization 4 in general for quite a number of years, but I've never gotten around to figuring out how the "draft" thing works, sometimes you see it in mods, but for the vanilla version you can "draft" units using a certain civic, so I was wondering how exactly it works. Thanks for your help

Drafting is available only when you run the Nationalism civic. You sacrifice one population and in return you get one of your best gunpowder units (Musketmen, Rifles, Infantry, etc., IIRC; it's possible to draft Macemen, I think, if you have Nationalism before Gunpowder, but I've never gone that route).

The unit receives 1/2 the XPs it normally would, rounded down. So if, for example, you draft in a city with a barracks and a settled Great General, your drafted unit will have 2 XPs, not 5.

You also get three unhappy citizens in the draft city for the default number of unhappy turns for your game speed (10 at standard, 15 at Epic, 30 at Marathon).

A common tactic used by many players is to build the Globe Theatre in a high-food city and draft units from there on just about every turn. Thanks to the GT you will never have unhappy citizens in that city and with high food you can replace the drafted population quickly.

 

[Culture Bomb]

Am I correct in assuming that if I have the Free Religion civic, then University of Sankore and Spiral Minaret provide no benefit as I do not have a state religion?

 

[Roland Johansen]

There are two ways to do this. Alt+S will allow you to fasten a "sticky note" to a tile. With the BUG mod, you can also use Alt+X to activate the dot map overlay to "draw" fat crosses on the map (Ctrl+X toggles the display of the overlay.)

Thx that was I ment!

Without the Bug Mod, you can also zoom out the map until the clouds appear. Then you can use the strategy layer (above the minimap) which allows you to draw on the map. The Bug Mod options to dotmap the map is a lot easier, but it's not part of the main unmodded game.

Drafting is available only when you run the Nationalism civic. You sacrifice one population and in return you get one of your best gunpowder units (Musketmen, Rifles, Infantry, etc., IIRC; it's possible to draft Macemen, I think, if you have Nationalism before Gunpowder, but I've never gone that route).

I'm pretty sure you know this, but other people in this thread may not: the later drafted units cost more than one population point. Infantry cost 2 and mechanized infantry 3.

 

[StarEye]

At which point would you say is the latest to decide which victory you want to go for? I know, planning ahead is best, but sometimes it doesn't quite work out the way you expected it to (like when you get more aggressive neighbours than you hoped). Is there a certain point-of-no-return in the game?

I realize there might be too many factors to give an exact answer, but some of you have probably built up some sort of routine (and feel) that you follow loosely (maybe even subconsciously).

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm pretty sure you know this, but other people in this thread may not: the later drafted units cost more than one population point. Infantry cost 2 and mechanized infantry 3.

I always forget about that because I almost never draft anything but rifles. Once I have Assembly Line and build factories in my mature production cities, I really don't have much need for drafting.

At which point would you say is the latest to decide which victory you want to go for? I know, planning ahead is best, but sometimes it doesn't quite work out the way you expected it to (like when you get more aggressive neighbours than you hoped). Is there a certain point-of-no-return in the game?

I realize there might be too many factors to give an exact answer, but some of you have probably built up some sort of routine (and feel) that you follow loosely (maybe even subconsciously).

Some victories you can achieve even after starting on them relatively late. Winning via the space race is probably the best way to win after failing to plan for it since you can't get started on it until late in the game anyway. It can be accomplished by ramping up and focusing your research, then switching to a production focus once you have most of the required techs (for example, switch from Representation to Universal Suffrage for the extra hammers from towns). The AI pursues space victories rather haphazardly, so you can often get away with starting in on the spaceship late if you maintain a focused approach.

Some players like waiting until the modern era before unleashing their armed forces (tanks especially) for a late domination or conquest win. I myself am a bigger fan of Marines than of tanks; if you have a largely water-based map (Archipelago/Snaky Continents--one of may favourites), then a large amphibious force can conquer territory with astonishing speed. I prefer to start earlier (and if I'm playing as Rome, I start my pursuit of a D/C victory from turn 1), but again, a focused approach can pay off.

Getting started late on either diplomatic or cultural wins can be tricky, but possible. Ideally, you would have been mulling the possibility from way back and did certain things to enhance your chances, even if you were pursuing other goals. For example, for a culture win, ideally you would have researched Music first (for the free GA) and/or built the Sistine Chapel; you can then pump up the culture slider and/or run reams of artist specialists (leveraging Caste System). For diplomacy, you would have built up a good-sized, game-long diplomatic block whose high regard you can now exploit. If you were careless about your foreign relations earlier in the game, though, that could now come back to haunt you. However, there have been a few games where I've grown tired of pursuing the numbers for a domination win, and instead I've simply used my large voting base to snag a diplomatic victory.

And, of course, you could always go for a time victory; just keep an eye on any AI leader honing on another victory condition, and send in the troops. Raze his capital, raze his top cultural city, raze the AP or UN and you'll be home free.

 

[EsaKo]

Am I correct in assuming that if I have the Free Religion civic, then University of Sankore and Spiral Minaret provide no benefit as I do not have a state religion?

In part, yes. Their main benefit is removed, but other boni like culture and great people points stay.