Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[henrebotha]

Whether or not the tile is in Jerusalem's BFC doesn't matter - at the end of the day, the tile belongs to Saladin as it falls within his borders. You can't work it; he can. To get the tile back, start pumping out the culture.

Nice to see other South Africans around these parts - I was beginning to think I was alone.

 

[Heliac]

Tx for the reply, HB, but that was not my question...
I am well aware of the fact that I can't work his tile...

I want to know why the AI would do this. I do not see any tactical advantage in it. If anything, he is nicely preparing the square for me to flip later

 

[Silu]

how come spreading culture is sometimes not an option for spies? i have enough points but it has no value in the espionage screen and is unavailable as a mission

You need to have some culture in the target city to begin with - meaning you need to reach the city with regular culture influence before you can start to reinforce it with spies.

Lo All!

Could anyone tell me why on earth Saladin would be farming the tile within my city's BFC (Jerusalem) - albeit inside his cultural borders - I see no point... does he get higher culture there maybe, so that it's more difficult for me to culture-flip the tile? Or is this a bug?

AIs simply farm any eligible non-BFC unforested tile inside their borders if their workers don't have anything better to do. It's to ensure chain irrigation even through a random event or pillaging or two. They don't pay heed to if it's "really" in your BFC or in flip danger.

 

[Heliac]

Aaaah, right... tx Silu, that makes sense...

 

[Baldyr]

If anything, he is nicely preparing the square for me to flip later

I know the AI really isn't planning ahead or anything, but you could see it like Saladin is prepping the tiles around his future city...

 

[hawk559]

I read in the Civilopedia and the BTS rulebook thing that I can make colonies, the problem is, "How do I actually make the physical colonies? What buttons do I press?"
This might sound really stupid but I cant figure it out after over 2 years of Civ4.

 

[Sisiutil]

I read in the Civilopedia and the BTS rulebook thing that I can make colonies, the problem is, "How do I actually make the physical colonies? What buttons do I press?"
This might sound really stupid but I cant figure it out after over 2 years of Civ4.

Press F1 to open your city advisor. Select one of the cities you want to liberate and click on the fist icon at lower right. You will be prompted to liberate all the cities on the same landmass as the selected city.

The cities have to be on a wholly separate landmass from the continent where your capital is located in order to become a colony, and there must be at least 2 cities on that landmass.

 

[henrebotha]

@hawk559: Press F1. In the bottom right corner, you'll see a button for granting independence.

 

[Arakhor]

Or you can press Alt-F1 (the shortcut).

 

[hawk559]

Another post, after getting windows 7 Im reinstalling civ 4 (And the expansions) so do I need to install Warlords to get the warlord content or can I skip to BTS?

 

[Silv Something]

PieceOfMind's FORTS in BtS... Everything there is to know.

 

[Sisiutil]

Another post, after getting windows 7 Im reinstalling civ 4 (And the expansions) so do I need to install Warlords to get the warlord content or can I skip to BTS?

BtS includes everything from Warlords except the scenarios. When I reinstalled Civ on my new computer last year I skipped Warlords.

 

[Tadzio]

So, um. Which leaders will go to war with you after you've forced them to capitulate?

I was playing a warmongering game on Noble difficulty today (something I've gotten much better at now that I know about build-Queues and rally points, lol) and I killed the Egypitians (to my east) early. A few turns later I declared on the Sumerians to my south. After taking 4 of Sumeria's cities I noticed my research slider was at 40%, so I contacted him and got him to capitulate, along with giving me all his techs and resources. Anyway, after that I started building my economy, but I still had an army twice the size of anyone else, and since Sumaria had my southern flank protected, I moved my army to the Northeast where Arabia was looking nice and juicy. I figured I could spend my army taking a few Arabian cities while the rest of my cities built up their economies. Anyway, after I declared on Arabia, Sumeria stopped trading with me. At which point I told him to give me the resources back or it'd mean war. Every other time I've done this to a vassal-- including a vassal I'd never gone to war with-- They were happy to give me everything they had. This time was different. Sumeria took the war option. At this point I'm fighting a battle on two fronts, but I just discovered Rifling, so I switch all my cities back into army production, and in a few turns I took two more Sumerian cities. At which point, Sumeria Vassals to China, which is the only civ in the game that comes close to my power level... Not to mention I'd been carefully making China my friend. Anyway China happens to be right behind Sumeria so I'm immediately swarmed by every mounted unit China has.....

RAWRG.

I guess that's more info than you need, but gawd! I've had civs I was about to wipe out vassal to strong civs in the past, but I've never had a vassal DoW on me and then vassal my best ally and trading partner. I simply must know which CiVs are capable of this sort of duplicity, and under what conditions they'll do it!

Thanks!

 

[Sisiutil]

I think this is based as much upon diplomacy as it is on the leaders' programmed personalities.

You probably had several negative diplomatic modifiers with Gilgamesh: "You declared war on us" for certain, and if you razed any of his cities, you would have earned demerits for that too. Each demand for a resource earns you a -1 for "You made an arrogant demand".

If the vassal is large enough and has enough of an army, an if they're ticked at you, you shouldn't be surprised if they choose the war option. The fact that there's another powerful civ right next door to whom they can voluntarily capitulate just made the whole situation more dangerous for you.

You should have either wiped out Sumeria completely OR you should have done everything you could to make them cuddly once they become your vassal. Make them share your state religion for starters, trade for resources instead of demanding them, liberate a relatively useless and costly city back to them, give them the better side of trade deals, give them a gift of tech or gold if they ask for it, etc.

 

[Tadzio]

Ah, I didn't realize it was commonplace. Past vassals always got to "friendly" really fast and none of my ridiculous demands ever changed that. Just goes to show how inexperienced I am.

I ended up hunkering down, begging for peace when China would talk to me again and then taking over Arabia's land. After that I just sat and concentrated on my tech and economy and eventually won a space race victory. I figure I'm fortunate it's only Noble difficulty, as I imagine a set-back like that would ruin a game for players on higher difficulties.... heck, I'm pretty sure that a couple of games ago I woulda lost it on Noble, sooo, guess I'm getting better.

Thanks for the quick response!

 

[fourx]

How can I find and/or cycle through all of my military units?

 

[Lord Parkin]

How can I find and/or cycle through all of my military units?

Pressing the "W" key will cycle through all of your active units, though not specifically the military ones and not the fortified ones. Not sure if this is what you want or not.

Alternatively you can use the military advisor screen ("F5"), click your own leader (or any other, if you're interested), then click a specific unit or category to highlight them on the map. The you can easily find them on the map. A little cumbersome perhaps, but it works.

 

[fourx]

Hmm, not quite as simple I was hoping for, but thanks!

 

[Lord Parkin]

Hmm, not quite as simple I was hoping for, but thanks!

There might also be a hotkey that I'm unaware of... if so someone should hopefully pipe up about it soon. But to my knowledge there's no way to do exactly what you're wanting to do.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hmm, not quite as simple I was hoping for, but thanks!

If you click the F button or the wake/fortify unit button, then you'll wake a unit which is fortified. If you do this while holding the ALT button, you'll wake all units of that type. Of course, some might have already used their turn.

You can repeat this for every type of unit that you wish to activate. Your empire likely only contains a few unit types.

I however wonder why you'd want to do this. I've never wanted to do this in my games. I typically fortify units when I don't want to be bothered by them anymore.